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… is setting a standard for government-hosted cloud services. Its combination of OpenStack (managing virtualised machines) and CEPH (handling storage) is attracting more and more central government services. The open source solutions are proving enormously scalable, while keeping costs low.

EC study: open source an important enabler for public sector collaboration

Open source software provides an easy and affordable way to improve existing public services. According to the EC report …

]]> http://techrights.org/2016/12/24/llvm-3-9-1-released/feed/ 0 Links 22/9/2016: Linux Professional Institute Redesign, Red Hat Upgraded http://techrights.org/2016/09/22/red-hat-upgraded-2/ http://techrights.org/2016/09/22/red-hat-upgraded-2/#comments Thu, 22 Sep 2016 20:55:21 +0000 http://techrights.org/?p=95553

GNOME bluefish

Contents

GNU/Linux

Free Software/Open Source

  • Dronecode’s Craig Elder speaks about open-source software for drones

    Earlier this month it was revealed that ArduPilot, an open-source autopilot solution, would no longer be associated with the Linux Foundation’s Dronecode Project, an open-source drone platform. This came as a surprise to many considering that the idea of Dronecode came from the minds of ArduPilot.

    “Dronecode was established around ArduPilot,” said Craig Elder, former technical community manager for Dronecode who leads software teams in ArduPilot. “What we tried to do with Dronecode was to do a better job at engaging the companies who are using ArduPilot.”

    The reasoning behind this move is that ArduPilot is based on the open-source GPL license. According to Chris Anderson, chairman of Dronecode, the GPL license is great for the open-source development community, but toxic for companies.

  • Google open-sources Show and Tell, a model for producing image captions

    Google today is announcing that it has open-sourced Show and Tell, a model for automatically generating captions for images.

    Google first published a paper on the model in 2014 and released an update in 2015 to document a newer and more accurate version of the model. Google has improved the technology even more since then, and that’s what’s becoming available today on GitHub under an open-source Apache license, as part of Google’s TensorFlow deep learning framework.

  • Lenovo N21 Chromebook Now Has Mainline Coreboot Support

    The Lenovo N21 Chromebook is now supported by mainline Coreboot. But then again that’s not a huge surprise considering Google’s focus on Chromebook/Chromebox support in Coreboot.

  • Events

  • Web Browsers

    • Mozilla

      • Mozilla Says Goodbye to Firefox Hello in Firefox 49

        In October 2014, as part of the Firefox 34 beta release, Mozilla introduced its Firefox Hello communications technology enabling users to make calls directly from the browser. On Sept. 20, 2016, Mozilla formally removed support for Firefox Hello as part of the new Firefox 49 release.

        The Mozilla Bugzilla entry for the removal of Firefox Hello provides little insight as to why the communications feature is being pulled from the open-source browser. As it turns out, the Firefox Hello removal is related to shifting priorities at Mozilla.

  • SaaS/Back End

    • Cloudera Tests Impala Against Competitive Analytics Engines

      In the cloud and on the Big Data scene, there is a pronounced need for advanced data analytics and database-driven insigts. Apache Impala has emerged as an important tool providing these solutions, and Cloudera is out with some notable test results for Impala. Cloudera, focused on Apache Hadoop, released benchmark results that show that its analytic database solution, powered by Apache Impala (incubating), delivers very fast capabilities for cloud-native workloads but does so at better cost performance compared to alternatives.

    • Learn how to deploy OpenStack for free

      The course is designed for those who want a high-level overview of OpenStack to gauge whether their organization needs OpenStack solutions or not. The course also helps users in getting started with a small scale OpenStack test environment so they can test and experiment with it.

    • Support Is Now the Differentiator in the OpenStack Race

      When it comes to OpenStack cloud computing distributions, now offered by a variety of vendors, we are at a tipping point. As businesses and organizations demand flexible solutions for deploying cloud solutions based on OpenStack, competition is fierce. With so many vendors competing in this arena, market consolidation was bound to arrive, and it is here. What will the key differentiator be going forward? That would be support.

      Just last month, Red Hat announced its latest platform: OpenStack Platform 9. One day later, VMware introduced VMware Integrated OpenStack 3. Both distributions are based on the OpenStack Mitaka release. From Mirantis to Canonical, Hewlett-Packard and others, there are now several OpenStack distribution providers competing with each other, and updates arrive at a rapid-fire pace.

  • Funding

    • Almost Fully Funded – Pledge now!

      The Pepper and Carrot motion comic is almost funded. The pledge from Ethic Cinema put it on good road (as it seemed it would fail). Ethic Cinema is non profit organization that wants to make open source art (as they call it Libre Art). Purism’s creative director, François Téchené, is member and co-founder of Ethic Cinema. Lets push final bits so we can get this free as in freedom artwork.

      Notice that Pepper and Carrot is a webcomic (also available as book) free as in freedom artwork done by David Revoy who also supports this campaign. Also the support is done by Krita community on their landing page.

  • FSF/FSFE/GNU/SFLC

    • An Early Port Of GCC To AMD’s GCN Architecture

      While still in its early stages, there’s a port in the works of the GNU Compiler Collection for AMD’s GCN (Graphics Core Next) instruction set architecture.

      Longtime SUSE toolchain expert Jan Hubicka started a port of GCC to AMD GCN a few weeks back. Hubicka has been experimenting with porting GCC to GCN for running on recent generations of GPUs. He noted in an email to Phoronix that it’s still a bit early to report on, but the slides are now uploaded for any interested readers.

    • The State Of GNU’s GDB Debugger In 2016

      At the GNU Tools Cauldron that took place earlier this month in Hebden Bridge, UK was the annual status update of the GDB debugger.

      Red Hat developer Pedro Alves talked about the state of the GNU Debugger with some recently-accomplished changes plus other work on the horizon for this widely-used GNU program.

  • Project Releases

  • Public Services/Government

    • Hybrid approach to federal open source

      The White House’s recent Federal Source Code Policy is its latest push in an ongoing effort to modernize and innovate government technology. It takes a focused aim at overhauling and democratizing federal software procurement and application by calling upon department and agency heads to consider the wider value of open source software (OSS), including releasing 20 percent of new custom-developed code as OSS. Noting that the federal government annually dispenses a whopping $6 billion on more than 42,000 software transactions, this guidance strongly encourages the exploration of solutions that better support cost efficiency, reduce vendor lock-in and encourage re-use across agencies.

    • Key article on China and Open Source Software, thoughts for Europe

      05 The fastest way for Europe to achieve all these goals is to create an Open Source (Technologies) Agency in partnership with China and India and I would go so far as to also suggest Iran, Russia, and Turkey as well as Malaysia and Indonesia. We divide the world at our peril. My memorandum to Vice President Biden is still available online for exploitation by anyone. The Americans refuse to take open source seriously because vendors own the US Congress and the US White House and they will pay to the death of all of us for the right to continue looting public treasuries instead of providing integrated open source solutions helpful to humanity. There are 9 major open source categories, 27 critical sub-categories — I have listed them at the P2P Foundation Category:Open Source Everything, but there is no government anywhere that a) understands this or b) is addressing open source as a universal ecology. That is the next big leap, in my generally humble opinion.

  • Licensing/Legal

    • Help Send Conservancy to Embedded Linux Conference Europe

      Last month, Conservancy made a public commitment to attend Linux-related events to get feedback from developers about our work generally, and Conservancy’s GPL Compliance Program for Linux Developers specifically. As always, even before that, we were regularly submitting talks to nearly any event with Linux in its name. As a small charity, we always request travel funding from the organizers, who are often quite gracious. As I mentioned in my blog posts about LCA 2016 and GUADEC 2016, the organizers covered my travel funding there, and recently both Karen and I both received travel funding to speak at LCA 2017 and DebConf 2016, as well as many other events this year.

    • Copyleft, attribution, and data: other considerations

      When looking at solutions, it is important to understand that the practical concerns I blogged about aren’t just theoretical — they matter in practice too. For example, Peter Desmet has done a great job showing how overreaching licenses make bullfrog maps (and other data combinations) illegal. Alex Barth of OpenStreetMap has also discussed how ODbL creates problems for OSM users (though he got some Wikipedia-related facts wrong). And I’ve spoken to very well-intentioned organizations (including thoughtful, impactful non-profits) scared off from OSM for similar reasons.

  • Openness/Sharing/Collaboration

    • Open Data

      • Telenav releases OpenStreetView, an automotive-integrated open source platform designed to accelerate the advancement of OpenStreetMap

        Telenav®, Inc. (NASDAQ:TNAV), a leader in connected car and location-based services today announced the availability of OpenStreetView (OSV), a free open source platform designed to accelerate the advancement of OpenStreetMap® (OSM). The platform includes free iOS and Android apps with optional auto OBD-II integration and web tools to equip drivers and the nearly three million global OSM editors.

      • Open Budget: updated data reveal volatile practices

        “The data confirm a broader trend documented by IBP on volatility in government budget transparency practices. Improvements in budget transparency are often followed by regressions in subsequent years”, OGP added. But on the positive side, “the data show that more governments are publishing Citizens’ Budgets —simplified summaries of technical budget reports issued in languages and through media that are widely accessible.”

      • Amsterdam, Murcia and Zurich to test CPaas project

        The project aims to provide an open platform (City Platform-as-a-service – CPaas) that combines Open Government data with big data and the Internet of Things technologies to address challenges of the modern urban environment. The three European cities were chosen because of their proven experience in Open Data, the project website says.

  • Standards/Consortia

    • Industrial IoT Group Releases Security Framework

      The Industrial Internet Consortium (IIC) , which was founded by AT&T, Cisco, GE, IBM, and Intel, released a common framework for security that it hopes will help industrial Internet of Things (IoT) deployments better address security problems.

      Security is critical to industrial IoT because attacks could have dire consequences, such as impacting human lives or the environment, said Hamed Soroush, senior research security engineer with Real-Time Innovations and the co-chair of the IIC security working group.

Leftovers

  • Health/Nutrition

    • Virginia Governor Photographed With Willie Nelson’s Pot — But Arrests Thousands for Possession

      The governor stopped by Nelson’s bus while thanking several performers at Farm Aid 2016, an annual festival meant to benefit family farmers. His spokesman, Brian Coy, told the Richmond Times-Dispatch that McAuliffe was not aware of the marijuana. McAuliffe, who opposes marijuana legalization, visited Nelson for 10 minutes or less and “had no idea” what else was on the bus, Coy said.

      “He was not and still is not aware of whatever was on the table or anywhere around him and wouldn’t know marijuana or related paraphernalia if it walked up and shook his hand,” Coy said. “He’s cool, but he’s not that cool.”

    • If It Needs a Sign, It’s Probably Bad Design

      Despite having pen in its name, the EpiPen isn’t really designed like a pen at all. A pen usually has a cap that covers the pen tip. But the cap of the EpiPen is on the opposite end as the needle tip. Joyce Lee, a pediatrician and University of Michigan professor who also studies patient-centered design, points out that this broken metaphor causes confusion over which end is which – and has led to people accidentally pushing their fingers into the needle. Between 1994 and 2007 there were over 15,000 unintentional injections from EpiPens, including many cases of trained healthcare professionals who accidentally gave themselves a dose of epinephrine in the thumb or finger while trying to deliver the life-saving medicine to someone else.

    • U.S. Coast Guard investigates strong oil smell in waters off Vallejo as residents report trouble breathing

      The U.S. Coast Guard is investigating reports of an oil sheen and strong smell near Vallejo that prompted firefighters to recommend residents shelter in place after some complained they had trouble breathing.

      A Coast Guard helicopter planned to conduct a search Wednesday morning to try to locate the sheen near Vallejo and Mare Island. Coast Guard boats and a helicopter crew did not find the sheen on Tuesday.

      The ferry Intintoli first reported a strong smell of oil at about 8 p.m. Later, other ferry vessels and crew members from Coast Guard Station Vallejo reported seeing a sheen on the water.

      Coast Guard officials said it’s unclear if the sheen is related to the strong odor that prompted the Vallejo Fire Department to advise its residents to stay indoors, close their windows and turn off any air conditioning.

      Pacific Gas & Electric said a team was working with public safety officials in Vallejo to determine the origins of the odor.

      Residents reported difficulty breathing because of the strong odor, with many flocking to Kaiser Permanente Vallejo Medical Center to seek medical assistance, KPIX-TV reported.

    • How ZIP Codes Nearly Masked the Lead Problem in Flint

      My job was to examine blood lead data from our local Hurley Children’s Hospital in Flint for spatial patterns, or neighborhood-level clusters of elevated levels, so we could quash the doubts of state officials and confirm our concerns. Unbeknownst to me, this research project would ultimately help blow the lid off the water crisis, vindicating months of activism and outcry by dedicated Flint residents.

      As I ran the addresses through a precise parcel-level geocoding process and visually inspected individual blood lead levels, I was immediately struck by the disparity in the spatial pattern. It was obvious Flint children had become far more likely than out-county children to experience elevated blood lead when compared to two years prior.

    • Overusing Antibiotics Could Cost the World Trillions of Dollars

      It has become increasingly clear that we’re overusing antibiotics, and now it’s costing us big money.

      Here in New York, the United Nations is ready to take on what has become a global threat. The UN General Assembly High-level Meeting on Antimicrobial Resistance that’s set to happen today has a singular message to policymakers: get antimicrobial resistance under control for the sake of the human and economic health.

      According to a World Bank report titled “Drug-resistant Infections: A Threat to Our Economic Future,” drug-resistant infections are causing economic damage up to 3.5 percent of the global gross domestic product (GDP). Middle and low- income countries could lose up to 5 percent of their GDP. In total, the global economic loss could cost nearly $100 trillion by 2050.

      The report emphasized that if antimicrobial resistance continues to spread, several of the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are at risk of failure. These goals include missions to end hunger, improve nutrition and food security, promote sustainable agriculture, and reduce inequality within and among nations.

  • Security

    • Security advisories for Wednesday
    • Why we should just simply call ourselves Hackers

      Developers, Programmers, Engineers, Code Artists, Coders, Codesmiths, Code Warriors, Craftsmen … these are currently the labels we use to explain our profession. One can get an idea of how this can appear confusing to the outsider.

      Computers can enrich our lives, give focus, amplify our adventures, gauge our science and grow our business. Right now computing is being embedded into everything and it is now more than ever that we need to redefine our role and show. some. fucking. solidarity.

      Rather than confusing pre-existing labels and shoe-horning them to our profession, which makes use of synthetic intelligence more than any, I propose that we call ourselves Hackers instead of the myriad other ways.

    • Germany surveys cyber-attacks

      Germany’s Federal Office for Information Security (BSI) has launched a survey to obtain information about actual cyber-attacks on business and government, to assess potential risks, and to determine protective measures. The study should result in new ICT security recommendations.

    • Matthew Garrett Explains How to Increase Security at Boot Time [Ed: Microsoft apologist Matthew Garrett is promoting UEFI again, even after the Lenovo debacle]

      Security of the boot chain is a vital component of any other security solution, said Matthew Garrett of CoreOS in his presentation at Linux Security Summit. If someone is able to tamper with your boot chain then any other security functionality can be subverted. And, if someone can interfere with your kernel, any amount of self-protection the kernel might have doesn’t really matter.

      “The boot loader is in a kind of intermediate position,” Garrett said. It can modify the kernel before it passes control to it, and then there’s no way the kernel can verify itself once it’s running. In the Linux ecosystem, he continued, the primary protection in the desktop and server space is UEFI secure boot, which is a firmware feature whereby the firmware verifies a signature on the bootloader before it executes it. The bootloader in turn verifies a signature on the next step of the boot process, and so on.

    • Is open source security software too much of a risk for enterprises? [Ed: inverses the truth; proprietary software has secret back doors that cannot be found and patched]

      Although free, there are many institutions that are reluctant to use open source software, for obvious reasons. Using open source software that is not controlled by the enterprise — in production environments and in mission-critical applications — introduces risks that could be detrimental to the basic tenants of cybersecurity, such as confidentiality, integrity and availability. This includes open source security software like the tools Netflix uses.

  • Defence/Aggression

    • Tolstoy On Iraq

      As Tolstoy explains it, the French thought they were in a ritual duel with rapiers between two honorable combatants. Suddenly the Russian side realizes its danger, picks up a cudgel and beats its rival senseless. Tolstoy says that Napoleon complained to the Russian Emperor Alexander I and General Kutusov that the war is carried on “…contrary to all the rules – as if there were any rules for killing people.”

      [...]

      The publisher of my version explains that a new edition was warranted especially by Hitler’s invasion of Russia. We might see it as a good time to understand a lesson ourselves. The US Army and its allies destroyed the Iraqi Army, but the people were not defeated. The US Army won many battles with the army of North Viet Nam and conflicts with guerrillas in Viet Nam, but the people were not defeated. And the debacle in Afghanistan is even harder to understand in light of that country’s history.

    • The Assassination of Orlando Letelier and the Politics of Silence

      Forty years ago last night, agents working for the Chilean secret service attached plastic explosives to the bottom of Orlando Letelier’s Chevrolet as it sat in the driveway of his family’s home in Bethesda, Maryland, just outside Washington, D.C.

      A few blocks away across Massachusetts Avenue my family’s Pinto sat in our driveway unmolested. Our whole neighborhood, including my mother and father and sister and me, slept through everything.

      Forty years ago this morning, the Chilean agents followed Letelier as he drove himself into Washington, down Massachusetts to the think tank where he worked. The bomb went off as Letelier went around Sheridan Circle, ripping off most of the lower half of his body. He died shortly afterward, as did Ronni Moffitt, a 25-year-old American who’d been in the car with him. A second passenger, Moffitt’s husband Michael, survived.

      Letelier’s murder was ordered by the Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet, who’d overthrown the country’s democratically elected president Salvador Allende three years before in a military coup. Letelier, who had been Allende’s defense minister, was arrested during the coup and tortured for a year until Pinochet bowed to international pressure and released him. But in Washington, Letelier became the leading international voice of the opposition to Pinochet, who decided he had to be eliminated.

      There are still many unanswered questions about this time. Exactly how complicit was the U.S. in the overthrow of the Chilean government? Why did the CIA ignore a cable telling it that Chile’s agents were heading to the U.S.? Why did Henry Kissinger, then Secretary of State, cancel a warning to Chile not to kill its overseas opponents just five days before Letelier was murdered?

    • After We Help the Saudis Commit More War Crimes We’re Going to Mars!

      But we had to help the Saudis kill Yemeni civilians, Lindsey argued, because Iran humiliated American sailors who entered Iranian waters, purportedly because of navigation errors.

      That argument — one which expressed no interest in the well-being of Yemenis but instead pitched this as a battle for hegemony in the Middle East — held the day. By a vote of 71-27, the Senate voted to table the resolution.

    • 27 U.S. Senators Rebel Against Arming Saudi Arabia

      A Senate resolution opposing a $1.15 billion arms transfer to Saudi Arabia garnered support from 27 senators on Wednesday, a sign of growing unease about the increasing number of civilians being killed with U.S. weapons in Yemen. A procedural vote to table the resolution passed 71-27.

      The Obama administration announced the transfer last month, the same day the Saudi Arabian coalition bombed a potato chip factory in the besieged Yemeni capital. In the following week, the Saudi-led forces would go on to bomb a children’s school, the home of the school’s principal, a Doctors Without Borders hospital, and the bridge used to carry humanitarian aid into the capital.

      Saudi Arabia began bombing Yemen in March 2015, four months after Houthi rebels from Northern Yemen overran the capitol, Sana’a, and deposed the Saudi-backed ruler, Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi.

      In addition to providing Saudi Arabia with intelligence and flying refueling missions for its air force, the United States has enabled the bombing campaign by supplying $20 billion in weapons over the past 18 months. In total, President Obama has sold more than $115 billion in weapons to the Saudi kingdom – more than any other president.

      After the White House failed to respond to a letter from 60 congressman requesting the transfer be delayed, Sens. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., and Rand Paul, R-Ky., introduced a resolution condemning the arms sale. Paul and Murphy said they had planned to pursue binding legislation if their resolution was successful.

      “It’s time for the United States to press ‘pause’ on our arms sales to Saudi Arabia,” Murphy said. “Let’s ask ourselves whether we are comfortable with the United States getting slowly, predictably, and all too quietly dragged into yet another war in the Middle East.”

    • How Video Games Are Influencing War Propaganda in Syria

      Since the country’s uprising began in 2011, Syrian civil society activists have created a huge range of media documenting their own experience of the conflict. Professional documentary filmmaking in Syria has undergone a renaissance of sorts, with films like Bassel Shehadeh’s “Streets of Freedom” and the award-winning 2013 documentary “Return to Homs” portraying the effect of years of war on the Syrian people.

      Dauber says sophisticated political films like the one produced by Ahrar al-Sham are an attempt to promote a particular narrative of events in Syria, as well as to recruit others to their cause. Like all war propaganda, it is questionable how closely this polished image reflects reality. Amateur footage from the Syrian war, typically produced by citizen journalists with cellphones, portrays a reality that is harsher, uglier, and more morally conflicted than the tidy narratives of militant groups and states.

      But even as they gloss over the realities of war, politically driven films like “Rage Wind” reflect a generational change in the way that conflicts are depicted.

    • Why US Had to Kill the Syrian Ceasefire

      There are several sound reasons for concluding that the US-led air strike on the Syrian army base near Deir Ezzor last weekend was a deliberate act of murderous sabotage. One compelling reason is that the Pentagon and CIA knew they had to act in order to kill the ceasefire plan worked out by US Secretary of State John Kerry and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov.

      The compulsion to wreck the already shaky truce was due to the unbearable exposure that the ceasefire plan was shedding on American systematic involvement in the terrorist proxy war on Syria.

      Not only that, but the tentative ceasefire was also exposing the elements within the US government responsible for driving the war effort. US Defense Secretary Ashton Carter – the head of the Pentagon – reportedly fought tooth and nail with Obama’s top diplomat John Kerry while the latter was trying to finalize the ceasefire plan with Russia’s Lavrov on the previous weekend of September 9 in Geneva.

    • Syria declares end of ceasefire, US seeks clarification from Russia

      The initial seven days of the nationwide ceasefire in Syria have run their course, the Syrian Army has declared. However, it failed to add whether the truce will be reinstated in the near future. In response the US has called on Russia to clarify the statement made by the Syrians.

      The Syrian Army’s statement blames “terrorist groups” for jeopardizing the cessation of hostilities, Reuters reports.

    • America’s Worldwide Impunity

      After several years of arming and supporting Syrian rebel groups that often collaborated with Al Qaeda’s Nusra terror affiliate, the United States launched an illegal invasion of Syria two years ago with airstrikes supposedly aimed at Al Qaeda’s Islamic State spin-off, but on Saturday that air war killed scores of Syrian soldiers and aided an Islamic State victory.

      Yet, the major American news outlets treat this extraordinary set of circumstances as barely newsworthy, operating with an imperial hubris that holds any U.S. invasion or subversion of another country as simply, ho-hum, the way things are supposed to work.

    • Syrian Rebels Unite With al-Nusra Front, Prepare for Offensive – Russian MoD

      The only parties adhering to the truce are Moscow and the Syrian government forces, while the United States and opposition groups it controls have not fulfilled a single obligation according to the Russia-US agreement, the General Staff said.

      “The United States and so-called moderate opposition groups under its control have not fulfilled a single commitment taken on under the Geneva agreements. Above all, the moderate opposition has not been separated from al-Nusra Front [also known as Jabhat Fatah al Sham],” Lt. Gen. Sergei Rudskoy said at a briefing.

      Syrian rebels have taken advantage of the ceasefire observed by the Syrian army and currently are preparing to advance in the Aleppo and Hama provinces, the Russian reconciliation center said.

    • Deconstructing Samantha Power’s Big Lies on US Warplanes Massacring Syrian Forces

      She’s Obama’s neocon UN envoy, a despicable character, complicit in his high crimes by outrageously supporting them.

      Edward Herman once called her a member of “the cruise missile left.” She glorifies US-sponsored genocides outrageously called humanitarian interventions, ignoring or shamelessly justifying Washington’s sordid record of repeated supreme crimes against peace.

      She disgraces the office she holds, part of Obama’s permanent war criminal cabal. Her notion of responsibility to protect is mass slaughter and destruction to advance America’s imperium.

    • In Russia, some men want to watch the world burn

      Greenpeace activist Mikhail Kreindlin after he was attacked in Krasnodar region. Photo courtesy of Greenpeace Russia.Mikhail Kreindlin, the head of Greenpeace’s protected areas programme, returned to Moscow with relief. Two weeks ago, Kreindlin was in the southern region of Krasnodar, home to the Kuban river, to fight wildfires. But the trip left Kreindlin with a broken nose, a badly cut eyebrow and possible concussion.

      Russia’s volunteer firefighters have never had to face this kind of “patriotic vigilance” before. The problem is, vigilante justice seems to be a cover for corrupt officials.

    • How US Hardliners Help Iran’s Hardliners

      U.S. neocons keep pounding the propaganda drum about Iran in line with Israel’s regional desires but not helpful to American interests or even to the cause of moderating Iran’s behavior…

    • Fight Between Saudis and 9/11 Families Escalates in Washington

      On Monday, a constellation of lobbyists for Saudi Arabia, which has spent more than $5 million this past year to buy influence in Washington, called a crisis meeting to try to stop legislation allowing the families of victims of the Sept. 11 attacks to sue the Saudi government for any role in the plot.

      On Tuesday, the 9/11 families, represented in their multibillion-dollar lawsuits by lawyers including Jack Quinn, a former White House counsel with deep relationships in Washington, demonstrated outside the White House to pressure President Obama not to veto the legislation, as he has vowed to do.

      On Wednesday, these two powerful forces, one operating in the shadows and the other more in the open, converged on Capitol Hill in the culmination of one of the biggest and most emotional lobbying fights of the year. The battle is a reflection of the enduring dominance in Washington of the 9/11 families and the diminishing clout here of Saudi Arabia, which once advanced its agenda unencumbered in the West Wing and corridors of Congress.

    • Third World War has never been so close

      As we have already said many times, the main aspect of this political season is not elections, but war. But if elections do have importance somewhere, then this is in the US where, once again, they are closely connected to war. Two days ago, on Saturday, September 17th, the likelihood of this war was breathtakingly high. As we know, American troops, who no one ever invited to Syria, bombed the positions of the Syrian army at Deir ez-Zor. As a result of the bombing, 60 Syrian soldiers were killed.

      This strike was extremely important for ISIS militants, whom the US is informally advising and arming while supposedly fighting them. This crossed the line. Bombing Syrian soldiers is one thing, but this means declaring war not only against Syria, but also Russia, which is fighting in Syria on Assad’s side. And this means that we have reached a climax.

      Sure, the US leadership immediately reported that the airstrike was a mistake and warned the Russian leadership not to express any emotions. But Americans can only be lying, as modern technology allows satellite objects to be seen from a desktop. Theoretically, American bombers could not have simply confused such a strike. And what’s most important: if they had told you that they were preparing to bomb you, and you said nothing, then does that mean you agree?

    • Simple Ignorance vs. Politically Slanted Ignorance

      The principal reason Mr. Johnson was on the show was that he is running for president of the United States on the Libertarian Party ticket. And, of course, the president of the U.S. is the world’s most powerful leader and his or her awareness level is expected to reflect that.

      Therefore, those running for president are assumed to know everything about what is going on in the world as well as in their own country. This is of course impossible, though there is always a short list of issues that are center-stage.

    • “Indifferent to Yemen’s Misery,” Senate Approves Massive Saudi Arms Deal

      The bipartisan resolution to block the weapons sale failed 71-27, with two senators not voting.

      During the floor debate, many of those in favor of the weapons sale echoed Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.), who declared: “This is a sale that benefits us.” Although even Corker admitted Saudi Arabia is not a “perfect ally” and that many civilians had been killed in Yemen, he argued that the massive sale of new weapons should be approved because it will benefit the U.S. economically. Corker further claimed that arming the Saudi regime serves U.S. geopolitical interests by pushing back against the Iranians, who support the anti-Saudi Houthi factions in Yemen.

      Voting in favor of the arms deal were right-wing senators such as Corker and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) alongside several centrist Democrats, such as Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.).

    • We’re Winning the War Against ISIS! Maybe? On Social Media?

      Despite the reality that propaganda in wartime is as old as dirt, America collectively is freaking out because a lot of ISIS’ takes place on social media. The elderly and feeble who run our government do not understand The Online gizmos and thus are terrified of them and declare they must be turned off with a big switch somewhere.

      The young who serve them and understand little outside their own online bubbly life, all want to get ahead and so are eager to “engage” in online warfare with ISIS as if it was all just a cooler version of Pokemon Go.

      So it was without meaning or surprise that the Obama Administration announced that Twitter traffic to pro-ISIS accounts has fallen 45 percent in the past two years.

    • For $178 million, the U.S. could pay for one fighter plane – or 3,358 years of college

      Does free college threaten our all-volunteer military? That is what Benjamin Luxenberg, on the military blog War on the Rocks says. But the real question goes beyond Luxenberg’s practical query, striking deep into who we are and what we will be as a nation.

      Unlike nearly every other developed country, which offer free or low cost higher education (Germany, Sweden and others are completely free; Korea’s flagship Seoul National University runs about $12,000 a year, around the same as Oxford), in America you need money to go to college. Harvard charges $63,000 a year for tuition, room, board and fees, a quarter of a million dollars for a degree. Even a good state school will charge $22,000 for in-state tuition, room and board.

      Right now there are only a handful of paths to higher education in America: have well-to-do parents; be low-income and smart to qualify for financial aid, take on crippling debt, or…

      Join the military.

      The Post-9/11 GI Bill provides up to $20,000 per year for tuition, along with an adjustable living stipend. At Harvard that stipend is $2,800 a month. Universities participating in the Yellow Ribbon Program make additional funds available without affecting the GI Bill entitlement. There are also the military academies, such as West Point, and the Reserve Officers’ Training Corps, commonly known as ROTC, which provide full or near-full college scholarships to future military officers.

      Overall, 75 percent of those who enlisted or who sought an officer’s commission said they did so to obtain educational benefits. And in that vein, Luxenberg raises the question of whether the lower cost college education presidential nominee Hillary Clinton proposes is a threat to America’s all-volunteer military. If college was cheaper, would they still enlist?

  • Transparency/Investigative Reporting

    • EFF Fights to End Court Case Against MuckRock

      After successfully defending MuckRock’s First Amendment right to host public records on its website earlier this summer, EFF filed documents in court on Monday seeking to end the last lawsuit brought against it in Seattle.

      The lawsuit was one of three filed by companies against MuckRock, one of its users, and the city of Seattle after the user filed a public records request in April seeking information about the city’s smart utility meter program, including documentation of the technology’s security.

      The lawsuits were all aimed at preventing disclosure of records the companies claimed contained trade secrets. In one of the cases, a company obtained a court order requiring MuckRock to de-publish two documents from its website that the city had previously released. A court quickly reversed that clear violation of MuckRock’s First Amendment rights and MuckRock put the public records back online.

      After the dust settled, companies in two of the lawsuits agreed to dismiss MuckRock. This occurred after EFF explained that the website is an online platform that hosts its users public records requests and any documents they receive. As such, MuckRock did not actually request the records subject to the lawsuits and merely facilitated and hosted the request by its user.

      MuckRock thus has no particular interest in the lawsuits because the underlying dispute is about whether certain documents contained trade secrets that must be redacted or withheld under Washington state’s public records law.

      The company in the third case, however, has refused to dismiss MuckRock. This is particularly curious because MuckRock currently does not host any documents from the company, Elster Solutions, LLC, that are subject to the public records request.

  • Environment/Energy/Wildlife/Nature

    • Green: at what price?

      On the shores of Lake Victoria in southern Uganda, a parcel of land is pitting a Norwegian timber company against more than 10,000 villagers.

    • AFL-CIO’s Lust for Oil Pipeline Jobs

      Despite the existential risk from global warming, short-term self-interest often wins out, whether opposition to the cost of building mass transit or readiness to put oil-industry jobs over the danger from fossil fuels, as Norman Solomon explains.

  • Finance

    • ‘You Know That It’s Not a Few Rotten Apples’ – CounterSpin interview with William Black on Wells Fargo fraud

      Janine Jackson: Wells Fargo employees illegally opened some 2 million accounts in the name of customers who didn’t authorize them, but were still charged with fees. Employees say the bank set aggressive goals for “cross-selling” its products, goals on which bonuses and jobs depend. But CEO John Stumpf tells the Wall Street Journal, “There was no incentive to do bad things.” Well, they say the fraud was concentrated in one division, and more than 5,000 employees have been fired. But the $185 million fine from regulators is still less than the $200 million worth of stock Stumpf holds, and only a little more than the retirement package given the executive in charge of the division identified as the epicenter of abuse. So how does that incentive system work again?

    • Former EU Official Among Politicians Named in New Leak of Offshore Files from The Bahamas

      A cache of leaked documents provides names of politicians and others linked to more than 175,000 Bahamian companies registered between 1990 and 2016

      For years, Neelie Kroes traveled Europe as one of the continent’s senior officials, warning big corporations that they couldn’t “run away” from the European Union’s rules. The Dutch politician sympathized with average citizens who worried they’d been left to pay the bills “as infringers cream off the extra profits.”

      As the EU’s commissioner for competition policy from 2004 until 2010, she was Europe’s top corporate enforcer and made Forbes magazine’s annual list of the “World’s 100 Most Powerful Women” five times.

      What Kroes never told audiences – and didn’t tell European Commission officials in mandatory disclosures – was that she had been listed as a director of an offshore company in the Bahamas, the Caribbean tax haven whose secrecy and tax structures have attracted multinational companies and criminals alike.

      Kroes was listed as director of a Bahamian company from 2000 to 2009, according to documents reviewed by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists.

    • TiSA leaks set alarm bells ringing

      Despite the rumours and assertions by several Member States that Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) is dead, the fight for safeguarding citizens’ rights and freedoms via so-called “trade agreements” is far from over. Now it is time to address the threat from the Trade in Services Agreement (TiSA). Just days after Wikileaks made public some key negotiating documents concerning TiSA, Greenpeace Netherlands has released another batch of crucial and worrying documents.

    • Revelations on Neelie Kroes: Outstanding negative example of corrupting trust in politics

      A new investigation of the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) reveals that former EU Commissioner Neelie Kroes has breached the EU Commission’s Code of Conduct by withholding information about her participation in an offshore company in the Bahamas. A whistleblower shared the intransparent company register of the Bahamas with ICIJ. Kroes served as EU Commissioner for Competition from 2004 to 2010 and as EU Commissioner for the Digital Agenda from 2010 to 2014.

    • Sir Alan Duncan: Boris Johnson didn’t want Brexit win

      Boris Johnson only campaigned to leave the EU to set himself up as the next Conservative leader, Sir Alan Duncan said the day before June’s referendum.

      Sir Alan said he believed the now foreign secretary, who is his current boss, wanted to lose narrowly and be the “heir apparent” to David Cameron.

  • AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics

    • There’s One Other Reason Gary Johnson and Jill Stein Should Be Invited to the Debates
    • INTERVIEW WITH JILL STEIN, GREEN PARTY PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE

      In 2012, Dr. Stein became the most successful female presidential candidate in history…

    • Bush Just Made a MASSIVE Announcement About Donald Trump – BREAKING NEWS

      Former President George H.W. Bush, an American patriot and World War II veteran, has just made a shocking announcement about the 2016 Presidential election.

      Bush will vote against his own party, and cast a ballot for Hillary Clinton in the November election.

      Even with a FBI criminal scandal and countless criminal acts, Bush is willing to vote for her anyway. This is probably because of things Trump said in the primary.

    • Justice Kennedy, Author of Citizens United, Shrugs Off Question About His Deeply Flawed Premise

      Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy, the author of the 2010 Citizens United decision that unraveled almost a century of campaign finance law, doesn’t seem to care that the central premise of his historic decision has quickly unraveled.

      I spoke briefly to Kennedy during his visit to the U.S. Courthouse in Sacramento, before his security detail escorted me out of the room.

      In the Citizens United decision, Kennedy claimed that lifting all campaign finance limits on independent groups — now known largely as SuperPACs — would not have a corrupting effect upon candidates. “By definition,” Kennedy wrote confidently, “an independent expenditure is political speech presented to the electorate that is not coordinated with a candidate.”

    • Sorry, the Boundary Commission is not Gerrymandering

      There is no point in declaring yourself of independent mind if you proceed to try to ingratiate yourself with any particular group of people or defined set of political opinions. Occasionally I express opinions which are not palatable to many of my readers, and I am afraid this is one of those times. But the plain fact is, that the boundary review of Westminster constituencies is neither deliberate gerrymandering nor unfairly favourable to the Tories.

      The starting point for any sensible discussion must be that the first past the post system will virtually never produce any kind of fair representation, especially in a multi-party system. I detest UKIP, but a system which gave them just 0.15% of the seats for 9.5% of the vote is not equitable. Between the two “main” parties, FPTP in modern times had always advantaged Labour, as boundary changes lagged behind declining populations in old industrial areas. But the 2015 trouncing of Labour by the SNP changed this and it took more votes to elect each Labour MP than each Tory. But in a sense this is all pointless – FPTP is not meant to be fair. Its theoretical advantage is in ensuring the proper representation of individual constituencies.

    • Security Top Priority as Hofstra Presidential Debate Nears

      Law enforcement is planning to drop a safety net around Hofstra University for next week’s presidential debate, which Nassau County police’s top cop called the most “significant security event” the county has hosted in decades.

      During a press conference at Hofstra University Wednesday, Acting Police Commissioner Thomas Krumpter said at least a half-dozen law enforcement agencies have allocated manpower and other resources for the event. In total, more than a 1,000 cops are expected to flood the debate area.

    • Judge: child porn evidence obtained via FBI’s Tor hack must be suppressed

      A federal judge in Iowa has ordered the suppression of child pornography evidence derived from an invalid warrant. The warrant was issued as part of a controversial government-sanctioned operation to hack Tor users. Out of nearly 200 such cases nationwide that involve the Tor-hidden child porn site known as “Playpen,” US District Judge Robert Pratt is just the third to make such a ruling.

      “Any search conducted pursuant to such warrant is the equivalent of a warrantless search,” Judge Pratt wrote Monday in his 19-page order in United States v. Croghan.

      While the charges against Beau Croghan have not been dropped yet, the ruling significantly hinders the government’s case.

      Earlier this year, federal judges in Massachusetts and Oklahoma made similar rulings and similarly tossed the relevant evidence. Thirteen other judges, meanwhile, have found that while the warrants to search the defendants’ computers via the hacking tool were invalid, they did not take the extra step of ordering suppression of the evidence. The corresponding judges in the remainder of the cases have yet to rule on the warrant question.

    • Evidence FBI Gathered While Running Porn Site Thrown Out Again

      For the third time, a federal judge has ruled that a mass hack by the FBI – which ensnared thousands of computers based on only one warrant – was illegal.

      Like the previous ones, the decision was based on a jurisdictional technicality: Rule 41 of criminal procedure holds that magistrate judges can only authorize searches inside their jurisdiction – meaning a judge in one district cannot authorize a search in a different geographical location.

      The hack in question was part of an investigation into a child pornography website called Playpen. Playpen was hosted on the dark web, meaning that users could only access it through a service that concealed their IP address, making it impossible for the FBI to tell who was accessing the site and downloading child pornography.

      In 2014, the FBI received a tip from a foreign intelligence agency that Playpen’s server was operating out of Lenoir, N.C. The FBI seized the server, but instead of shutting the website down, continued running it — placing a copy of the site on government-run servers in Virginia.

    • What Happens When Visa Applicants Forget Their Old Social Media IDs?

      After being pushed into it by Congress, Customs and Border Protection has been going through the rule-making process on asking visa applicants for their social media IDs. The idea is root out people like Tashfeen Malik, the wife in the San Bernardino attack couple, who spoke in radicalized terms on private messaging areas of Facebook before she came to the country.

      At first, the idea was just to ask for applicants to turn over social media sites voluntarily. But given the pressure CBP already uses, even with US citizens, it’s easy to see how that “voluntary” request can be made to seem obligatory in the pressure of a border encounter.

    • Is Hillary Clinton Turning into Jeb Bush?

      One of last winter’s cruelest spectacles was the harpooning of Jeb Bush’s candidacy by upstart wiseacre Donald Trump. Like a neatly dressed schoolboy vowing to eat his mashed potatoes in peace, only to find himself plunged into them face-first, Jeb consistently fell prey to Trumpian assaults on his dignity—he was boring, and “low energy,” and last in the polls.

      Such indecorousness proved nearly impossible for anyone to combat. Should the victim try to stay aloof, the way Jeb did? That just made you look like a stiff. Should you try to match Trump on his own terms, the way Marco Rubio did? That just made you look silly. Should you just scorch the terrain, the way Ted Cruz did? Your opponent might just take things one step further and start insulting your wife. Only primary voters had the power to punish such a lowering of standards, but many of them were in no such mood this year. Their spite was directed toward a pompous and clueless establishment, with Jeb as its quintessential face and Trump as the overdue pie.

    • Don’t Waste Your Vote on the Corporate Agenda—Vote for Jill Stein and the Greens

      Clinton’s billionaire backers, who wined and dined her throughout August, want her to promise as little as possible to ordinary people for fear of a mass movement developing under her administration. They know that working people, and young people especially, are fired up in a way that we haven’t seen in decades. E-mails recently leaked from Nancy Pelosi’s office contain explicit instructions not to agree to any specific demands from Black Lives Matter.

      The Democratic Party has a special talent for enabling the right. President Obama was first elected in 2008 on a wave of opposition to eight years of George W. Bush’s wars and tax cuts for the rich. But he and the Democrats continued the bailout of Wall Street and stood by as millions lost their homes—and the leadership of the labor movement and most progressive organizations gave him a pass. This created space for the Tea Party to exploit the legitimate anger of large sections of the working and middle class. It wasn’t until 2011 that Occupy Wall Street gave a genuine left-wing expression to the widespread outrage at corporate politics.

    • John Boehner Cashes Out, Joins Corporate Lobbying Firm That Represents China

      John Boehner, the retired speaker of the House, is monetizing his decades of political relationships and cashing out to serve some of the most powerful special interests in the world.

      Boehner is joining Squire Patton Boggs, a lobbying firm that peddles its considerable influence on behalf of a number of foreign nations, including most notably the People’s Republic of China. Serving Beijing is somewhat appropriate: Boehner has long been a supporter of unfettered trade, helping to lead the effort to grant Most Favored Nation status to China. Squire Patton Boggs also represents a long list of corporate clients, including AT&T, Amazon.com, Goldman Sachs & Co., Royal Dutch Shell, and the Managed Funds Association, a trade group for the largest hedge funds in the country.

      Boehner is signing onto Squire Patton Boggs “as a strategic advisor to clients in the U.S. and abroad, and will focus on global business development.”

      The news comes just a week after the announcement that Boehner will be joining the board of Reynolds American, the tobacco company responsible for brands such as Camel and Newport cigarettes. The tobacco board seat will likely earn Boehner over $400,000 a year in stock and cash. The Squire Patton Boggs salary has not been disclosed, but lawmakers of Boehner’s stature have easily obtained salaries at similar gigs in the seven-figure range.

      Boehner is reportedly declining to register as a lobbyist for his new job at a lobbying firm, but that label makes little difference these days. Thousands of professionals engaged in government affairs positions work to influence policy on behalf of well-heeled special interests every day without registering under the Lobbying Disclosure Act. The law governing lobby registration is virtually unenforced.

  • Censorship/Free Speech

    • Digital Homicide Sues Steam Reviewers, Steam Drops It Like It’s Hot

      In recent days, megalith digital games platform Steam found itself making headlines with a tweak to its game reviews system. At issue was Steam’s prioritizing reviews from customers who bought a game on Steam over anyone else. Asked for an explanation for the move, Valve suggested that some game developers were attempting to game the reviews system by exchanging download codes for positive reviews. While this explanation omitted the prevalence of crowdsource funding of games, such as Kickstarter funding, Valve at least was putting on a public face of trying to treat its gaming customers well.

      And now we have the second such story of Valve looking out for its gaming customers, as the platform has chosen to entirely drop a game developer known for its anti-consumer behavior off of the Steam store. You may recall that Digital Homicide is a game developer that has been featured on these pages before, having decided that the best way to deal with some mildly scathing reviews of its games was to sue the reviewer for ten million dollars, alleging emotional, reputational and financial distress. It seems that lawsuit wasn’t a one-off, as Digital Homicide has now apparently filed suit against a whole bank of Steam users (at least 100), who reviewed Digital Homicide games, to the tune of $18 million, with a court recently granting a subpoena requesting that Steam turn over identification data for those users.

    • Author talks about banned books, censorship

      The Western Kentucky University graduate spoke about censorship and banned books to about 115 people Tuesday at Southcentral Kentucky Community and Technical College. The event was part of the college’s activities for Banned Book Week, which is Sunday through Oct. 1.

      Harper talked about some of the books that have been banned, including “Matilda,” “I Am Jazz,” “The Holy Bible” and “Two Boys Kissing.”

    • Street artists use anonymity to accentuate the message

      In the latest issue of Index on Censorship magazine, The Unnamed: Does anonymity need to be defended?, Index’s contributing editor for Turkey, Kaya Genç, explores anonymous artists in Turkey. In the piece the artists discuss how vital anonymity is in allowing them to complete their more controversial work. The Index on Censorship youth advisory board have taken inspiration from this piece for their latest task, in which they investigate anonymous art around the world.

    • Censorship is becoming more common

      Lately it seems issues relating to censorship come up with surprising frequency. While one might be tempted to say that people are trying to control our thoughts “more than ever before”, that simply is not true – censorship and attempting to control how other people think has been prevalent for centuries.

      But the problem with censorship today is that it seems to be becoming increasingly mainstream and coming from people on all sides of different issues.

      For starters, we have the Colin Kaepernick issue in regards to his protest of the national anthem and the American flag. His demonstrations have engulfed the media and people’s attention over the past weeks over this hot-button issue. While the validity and appropriateness of his protest can be debated, he has the complete freedom of speech to act how he pleases – his protest does not harm anyone nor is it particularly disruptive. No one, aside from his employers, possibly, has the right to try to tell him that he should think differently or behave differently in his benign protest.

    • Digital rights organizaton wants to map internet censorship affecting Latin American journalists

      Researcher Olga Khrustaleva is looking for journalists and activists across Latin America to share their experiences with Internet censorship.

      Her goal: to map types of Internet censorship in the region and to find out how journalists and activists are changing their behavior as a result.

    • Canadian company helped Bahrain censor the internet

      Canadian technology company Netsweeper helped the Bahraini government in their bid to censor the internet against content they deem inappropriate, according to a new report by the Citizen Lab at the University of Toronto’s Munk School of Global Affairs.

    • Canadian company helped Bahrain censor the internet
    • Not just Yemen: Canadian cyberarms dealer Netsweeper also helped censor the net in Bahrain
    • Bahrain using Canadian software to stifle dissent: report
    • Guelph firm ‘Netsweeper’ accused of helping facilitate online censorship for Bahrain
    • The Canadian Government Has Funded a Notorious Censorship Company for a Decade
    • Netsweeper, tech used to censor dissent, funded by NRC in 2012
    • U of T’s Citizen Lab implicates Canadian company in Bahrain Internet censorship
    • Waterloo company accused of helping Bahrain censor online content
    • Arab Nominees for Israeli Film Awards Accuse Local Academy of Censorship

      Four Palestinian citizens of Israel nominated for the country’s top film award are accusing the Israel Academy of Film and Television of censorship.

      In a letter sent to all academy members on Monday, the four accused the academy of barring a performance by Tamer Nafar and Yossi Tzabari from tomorrow’s Ophir Awards ceremony because it was slated to include a poem by Mahmoud Darwish, regarded as the Palestinian national poet.

      However, in a letter of response, academy chairman Mosh Danon denied the censorship charge. He said organizers of the ceremony only asked Nafar to show them the performance in advance “so we could suit it to the general tone of the ceremony from a musical and staging standpoint.” When that didn’t happen, they “decided, with great regret, to dispense” with the performance, including Darwish’s poem.

    • Turkey Overwhelmingly Leads World In Twitter Censorship

      Turkey is rapidly ramping up its efforts to censor Twitter, according to the site’s new transparency report.

      The biannual report, which was released Wednesday and covers the first half of 2016, shows that the United States continues to lead the world in requests for information about users. During this period, U.S. law enforcement issued such requests for 8,009 accounts, far more than anywhere else in the world. However, in a separate metric, which tracks government requests to block specific Twitter users, the U.S. issued 150 requests for Twitter user data in the first half of 2016, a slight increase from the 107 requests in the six months before. But in aggregate, other countries almost doubled their attempts to get Twitter to take down users’ tweets and accounts.

      By and large, those attempts have been unsuccessful. In the last half of 2015, the world tried to censor 11,092 Twitter accounts, though only 423 of those attempts were successful. In the following six months, the number of attempts skyrocketed to 20,571, though the number of censored accounts actually dropped to 240.

    • ‘Safe space’ now a tool of liberal censorship

      IF YOU thought the term “safe space” had something to do with crèches or playgrounds you would be wrong. It applies to universities and places of public debate, places traditionally the preserve of adults who are particularly well able to look after themselves. The term is a new construct which means it is socially unacceptable to attack or ridicule peoples’ cherished views and convictions or say anything that might potentially be imputed to reflect negatively on any demographic. The end of debate? Well, clearly not. Not for some at any rate.

      Media sphere was never more awash with opinions and theories which, of their very nature, evoke disagreement or agreement in varying measures. So, qualification is needed. People who promote the safe place concept want protection for themselves and their own views, not necessarily and, at times under no circumstances, for those who oppose them. It is the usual tyranny of the consensus, however it may be formed. Being enlightened and progressive, onside with the current zeitgeist as well as, of course, on the side of history, was always a privileged place to be. It used to the the Church that censored: It is now the new secular guardians of “liberties” who suppress voices of dissent.

      It the realms of twitterdom and other media platforms, fair and informed comments, respectfully made, are less common than offensive, bellicose ones. They chase each other down chat threads petering out often in a completely unrelated discussion. However, nothing worth its salt comes cheaply and freedom of speech and expression, within the bounds of libel and defamation laws, is surely bought cheaply if the price is merely the verbal equivalent of tomatoes and rotten eggs.

    • Donald Trump’s warning about impending ‘online censorship’ is dead wrong
    • Surprise, Donald Trump Has No Idea How Internet Censorship Works

      Back in December, Donald Trump suggested fighting terrorism online by “closing the internet in some way,” openly mocking potential First Amendment concerns. Since then, the alleged computer user seems to have changed his mind, joining Ted Cruz’s bizarre crusade for an American takeover of the internet’s address book in the name of freedom of speech.

      [...]

      In the end, Trump and Cruz’s ICANN campaign appears to be little more than political theater making use of a digital disguise.

    • Donald Trump Doubles Down On Ted Cruz’s Blatantly Confused And Backwards Argument Over Internet Governance
    • Facebook’s Nudity Ban Affects All Kinds of Users

      Facebook’s recent censorship of the iconic AP photograph of nine year-old Kim Phúc fleeing naked from a napalm bombing, has once again brought the issue of commercial content moderation to the fore. Although Facebook has since apologized for taking the photo down from the page of Norwegian publication Aftenposten, the social media giant continues to defend the policy that allowed the takedown to happen in the first place.

      The policy in question is a near-blanket ban on nudity. Although the company has carved out some exceptions to the policy—for example, for “photographs of paintings, sculptures, and other art that depicts nude figures”—and admits that their policies can “sometimes be more blunt than we would like and restrict content shared for legitimate purposes,” in practice the ban on nudity has a widespread effect on the ability of its users to exercise their freedom of expression on the platform.

      In a statement, Reporters Without Borders called on Facebook to “add respect for the journalistic values of photos to these rules.” But it’s not just journalists who are affected by Facebook’s nudity ban. While it may seem particularly egregious when the policy is applied to journalistic content, its effect on ordinary users—from Aboriginal rights activists to breastfeeding moms to Danish parliamentarians who like to photograph mermaid statues—is no less damaging to the principles of free expression. If we argue that Facebook should make exceptions for journalism, then we are ultimately placing Facebook in the troubling position of deciding who is or isn’t a legitimate journalist, across the entire world.

    • YouTube announces crowdsourced censorship
    • Read: Amol Palekar’s essay on censorship makes a blistering case for the freedom of expression
    • ‘I Just Got Really Mad’: The Norwegian Editor Tackling Facebook on Censorship
    • Editor Calls Out Facebook For Decision To Block Iconic Vietnam War Photo
    • Comments about OARS and CSM age ratings

      I’ve had quite a few comments from people stating that using age rating classification values based on American culture is wrong. So far I’ve been using the Common Sense Media research (and various other psychology textbooks) to essentially clean-room implement a content-rating to appropriate age algorithm.

  • Privacy/Surveillance

    • Why Is DOD Paying Dataminr $13M for Data It Claims to Believe Twitter Won’t Deliver?

      Last week I did a post on John McCain’s promise, given in a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing, to “expose” Twitter for refusing to share you Tweets in bulk with intelligence agencies. Later in the hearing, Jeanne Shaheen returned to the issue of Twitter’s refusal to let Dataminr share data in bulk with the Intelligence Community. She asked Under Secretary for Intelligence Marcell Lettre what the committee needs to get more cooperation. Lettre responded by suggesting one-on-one conversations between Executive Branch officials and the private sector tends to work. Shaheen interrupted to ask whether such an approach had worked with Twitter. Lettre responded by stating, “the the best of my knowledge, Twitter’s position hasn’t changed on its level of cooperation with the US intelligence community.”

      That’s interesting, because on August 26, 2016, DOD announced its intent to sole-source a $13.1 million one-year contract with Dataminr to provide alerting capability based off Twitter’s Firehose.

    • National Software Reference Library: An important digital tool for forensic investigators

      The story starts with Stephen M. Cabrinety, the Stanford University Libraries, and NIST’s National Software Reference Library (NSRL). Cabrinety collected more than 50,000 pieces of commercial software and nearly 300 functioning microcomputer systems—some dating back to the mid-1980s.

      [...]

      Something not often thought about is how a digital forensic scientist working on a criminal case knows if a particular software application having thousands of lines of code has been altered to hide an incriminating piece of evidence. Using NSRL tools, investigators can quickly know if the code has been doctored by comparing the hash from the suspect code against the RDS hash of the original and pristine code—saving time and effort.

    • BaycloudSystems Joins EFF’s Do Not Track Coalition

      Baycloud Systems has become the latest company to join the EFF’s Do Not Track (DNT) coalition, which opposes the tracking of users without their consent. Baycloud designs systems to help companies and users monitor and manage tracking cookies. Based in the UK, it provides thousands of sites across Europe with tools for compliance with European Union (EU) data protection laws.

      In contrast to the U.S., with its scant legislative privacy protection and weak self-regulatory system, EU data protection law requires companies that collect user data to provide a legal basis for using it–the most important aspect of which is user consent. And this requirement has real teeth: the new General Data Protection Regulations mean that companies will soon face serious fines of up to 2 or 4 percent (depending on the violation) of worldwide turnover.

      EU rules also require user consent before a site sets cookies, and public disclosure of information as to their purpose (such as feature functionality or behavioral profiling). Although the cookie rules have been applied unevenly and have not stopped tracking, the principle requiring user consent is sound.

    • Join the Movement for Community Control Over Police Surveillance

      From cell-site simulators in New York to facial recognition devices in San Diego, law enforcement surveillance technologies are spreading across the country like an infectious disease. It’s almost epidemiological: one police department will adopt a new, invasive tool, and then the next and the next, often with little or no opportunity for the citizens to weigh in on what’s needed or appropriate for their communities. Sometimes even elected officials and judges have no idea how technologies are being used by the police under their supervision.

      2016 is the year we start to turn it around. In California, we helped pass legislation to require transparency and public hearings on technologies such as cell-site simulators and automated license plate readers before they can be adopted by cities and counties. Specifically, earlier this year, the County of Santa Clara passed a groundbreaking ordinance limiting how and when law enforcement can adopt new surveillance technologies.

    • Let There Be Light: Cities Across America Are Pushing Back Against Secret Surveillance by Police

      Big Brother is watching local communities, some more than others.

      Think about how it feels when you are driving down a road, look in your rearview mirror, and notice a police car driving directly behind you. You tense up. You slow down. You try not to drift too much in your lane as you drive. One false move and those red flashing lights will switch on. Only after the police car drives past can you finally relax and exhale. As internationally renowned security technologist Bruce Schneier observed in his book “Data and Goliath,” this is what surveillance feels like. But for many Americans who live in communities that are disproportionately targeted by police surveillance technologies, that feeling never goes away.

    • Oliver Stone talks “Snowden”: NSA leaker is more than a whistleblower; he’s a “lie exposer”

      “I know you’re not going to believe this, but I see myself as a storyteller,” said Oliver Stone. The director of “JFK,” “Platoon” and the new political thriller “Snowden” added that he tries to tell stories that others ignore. “There are too many things that are taboo in the American public,” he lamented.

      The Academy Award-winning director spoke last week at a small Manhattan event about “Snowden,” his new movie starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt as National Security Agency whistleblower Edward Snowden.

      While being interviewed by journalist Amy Goodman, Stone described the difficult process of producing the film, which was released last week to much acclaim. He also applauded whistleblowers for exposing government lies and providing the public with the truth.

      “We never made this an activist film,” Stone said, explaining that “Snowden” was not meant to be part of a larger campaign to win a presidential pardon for Snowden, who has been living in Russia as a stateless refugee for the last several years. A new coalition of rights groups, led by the American Civil Liberties Union, is pressuring President Barack Obama to pardon Snowden before he leaves office. The heads of Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch published an op-ed in The New York Times last week defending the whistleblower’s many contributions to the American public.

    • Cisco Reveals Major Security Exploits to its Customers
    • Over 840000 Cisco Devices Are Exposed To NSA Exploit Cyberweapon
    • More than 840000 Cisco devices are vulnerable to NSA-related exploit
    • How GCHQ stopped thousands of scam tax refund emails [Ed: I thought they exist “because terrorism”…]
    • Google Allo: Why people such as Edward Snowden are advising against using the app

      The launch of the new chat app – which Google had hoped would focus on its use of artificial intelligence and the huge amounts of information it stores – has in fact revolved around the threat to privacy and safety that it represents. It culminated with a warning from Edward Snowden that nobody should use the app.

      It was just the latest reminder that our messaging apps might not be as private as they seem. And that is very private indeed – unlike social networks and other semi-public spaces, messages are perhaps the most sacred and private spaces on the entire internet.

    • No matter what, don’t use Google’s new Allo messenger app, says Edward Snowden

      The search giant’s new WhatsApp competitor combines messaging with a digital assistant to allow you to chat like never before—but those who care about their privacy and mass surveillance should steer clear of the app, Edward Snowden said in a series of tweets.

    • Don’t Use Allo

      The buzziest thing Google announced at its I/O conference Wednesday was Allo, a chatbot-enabled smartphone messaging app that looks to take on iMessage, Facebook Messenger, and the Facebook-owned WhatsApp.

      Early sentiment about Allo is overwhelmingly positive: It looks beautiful, lets you doodle on images before you send them, comes with stickers as well as emojis, and it’s the first Google product to offer end-to-end encryption, which is certainly a good thing.

    • Whatever you do, do not use Google Allo: Snowden

      However, the efficiency of time-saving typing may end up costing customers their already compromised privacy.

      When Google first announced the introduction of Allo earlier this year they, too, had planned end-to-end-encryption in “Incognito Mode” and assured they would only store messages transiently, rather than indefinitely.

      However, it now appears that Google won’t be doing that after all. Wednesday’s announcement revealed Google plans to store all conversations that aren’t specifically started in “incognito mode” by default.

  • Civil Rights/Policing

    • Not Content With Silencing Human Critics, Russia Has Now Arrested A Robot

      You might be forgiven if you were under the impression that the Russian government is a bit behind the times when it comes to modern technology and its never ending desire to stifle every last bit of dissent possible. Between the bouts its had with internet censorship and some strange claims about how binge-watching streaming services are a form of United States mind-control, it would be quite easy to be left with the notion that this is all for comedy. Alas, blunders and conspiracy theories aside, much of this technological blundering is mere cover for the very real iron grip the Russians place upon free speech, with all manner of examples in technology used as excuses to silence its critics.

      And now it’s no longer just human beings that need fear the Russian government, it seems. Just this past week, a robot was arrested at a political rally. And, yes, I really do mean a robot, and, yes, I really do mean arrested.

    • Here Are Eight Policies That Can Prevent Police Killings

      With 788 people killed by police this year alone, death at the hands of law enforcement has become so routine in this country that it risks becoming expected and predictable, as if it were inevitable. Every time a new video emerges, anger soars, as do calls to end police violence. Then invariably, within days or sometimes mere hours, police somewhere else kill again.

      This week was no exception. Last night, the now familiar scene of angry protests met with tear gas unfolded again, this time in Charlotte, North Carolina, after a police officer shot and killed Keith L. Scott, a 43-year-old black father who had been sitting in his car waiting to pick up a child from school. Police said on Wednesday that Scott was holding a gun, which they said they later recovered, and that he ignored orders to drop it. Scott’s family said he had been holding a book, and his daughter speculated that police would plant evidence on the scene. The officer who killed Scott was not wearing a body camera.

      Debate over such details, too, has become common, and increasingly supplemented by video evidence that has rarely made a difference in bringing about greater accountability. Just hours before Scott was killed, police in Tulsa, Oklahoma, released footage showing another black man, Terence Crutcher, being shot to death by a police officer while he walked away, unarmed, and with his hands up. A week earlier, Tyre King, a 13-year-old with a BB gun who was reportedly running away from police, was killed by a Columbus, Ohio, police officer who had killed someone else in 2012.

      But as commonplace as they have become, police killings are neither inevitable nor even that hard to prevent, and a new report released today suggests that curbing police violence is really not rocket science when departments and local officials are committed to doing it.

    • Peak Kinnock

      Brendan Cox left Save the Children due to allegations from several women that he sexually harassed female staff and volunteers. Justin Forsyth left at the same time amid allegations he had not effectively acted to have his friend Cox investigated. This has not stopped Forsyth from now popping up as Deputy Chief Executive of UNICEF. Misery for some is a goldmine for others.

    • Kids Like Esme Shouldn’t be Behind Bars

      These kids asked for asylum. The U.S. government locked them up. They need a fair hearing.

      Nine-year-old Esme (a pseudonym) came to the United States with her mother and two siblings seeking asylum from violence in Central America. But rather than finding a safe haven, U.S. officials picked up Esme and her family and put them in immigration detention. The family has been locked up in Pennsylvania for the better part of a year, which means her baby brother’s been behind bars for nearly half his life.

      Instead of shopping for school supplies and wondering about what’s in her lunch box, Esme is thinking about things no kid should have to consider. She worries about guards waking her up at night, whether the prison food will make her sick, and whether her family will ever be free and safe.

    • Poverty Is Not a Crime, so Why Are People Being Trapped in Immigration Detention for Being Poor?

      Immigrants shouldn’t be locked up just because they can’t afford bail.

      You shouldn’t be imprisoned for being poor. But that’s what’s happening to thousands of immigrants across the country who are unable to afford to pay a bond to be released from immigration detention. People accused of immigration violations — who have no criminal record whatsoever — can be assigned exorbitantly high bail that leaves them trapped in detention for years.

      Today, members of Congress introduced legislation to prevent immigration detainees from being overcharged for bail. The Immigration Courts Bail Reform Act, co-sponsored by Reps. Jose Serrano (D-N.Y.), Luis Gutierrez (D-Ill.), Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.), John Conyers (D-Mich.), and 25 other lawmakers, is critical to ensure that no immigrant — whether a legal resident, asylum seeker, or undocumented person — is imprisoned solely because he or she can’t afford to get out.

      Bail is not supposed to keep a defendant in jail — but to allow the defendant to leave. The American Bar Association says that judges should use bail to “ensure that defendants will appear for trial and all pretrial hearings for which they must be present.”

    • Americans Should Examine Our Treatment of People Seeking Asylum — Not Just on a Boat in the Mediterranean, but at Our Border

      The U.S. imagines itself as protector of the dispossessed, but that portrait doesn’t reflect reality.

      Around the world, more than 65 million people are currently displaced by conflict, amounting to the worst worldwide refugee crisis since World War II. This week, heads of state are gathering at the United Nations headquarters in New York “with the aim of bringing countries together behind a more humane and coordinated approach” to the global refugee and migration crisis. President Obama is hosting his own meeting with world leaders to increase funding for U.N. programs and international organizations serving refugees and expanding the number of refugee resettlement places worldwide.

      But as the United States urges other countries to take more action in response to the global refugee crisis, we should examine our own treatment of those who come to our borders seeking asylum and protection. Even as the U.S., the most powerful country in the world, seeks to establish leadership on refugees, we continue to block Central American asylum seekers from coming to us and punish those who arrive.

      President Obama fought to admit 10,000 Syrian refugees this year — still a drop in the bucket of almost 5 million registered with the U.N. — and defended his plan against nativist attacks. Thirty state governors attempted to halt refugee resettlement of Syrians in their state, citing security concerns; federal courts blocked the most serious attempts in Texas, Indiana, and Alabama. Almost 50 anti-refugee bills in 19 states have been introduced in state legislatures, most of which attempt to block resettlement altogether. President Obama has stayed true to his commitment, and the administration recently announced plans to increase overall refugee admissions by 30 percent.

    • Dashcam shows mentally-ill man shot 14 times as he flees Sacramento police

      Video and audio recordings were released by Sacramento Police Chief Sam Somers on Tuesday after mounting pressure from the mayor, members of the city council and Mann’s family, who called for more information surrounding the July 11 shooting.

    • ‘Disturbing’ helicopter footage shows Tulsa police kill unarmed man

      Video footage released Monday showed Tulsa police shooting an unarmed man to death on Friday night after he approached his SUV with his arms raised.

      In footage filmed from a police helicopter, Terence Crutcher, 40, can be seen slowly walking from the edge of a street north of Tulsa toward his vehicle, which authorities said had been reported abandoned at 7:36 p.m. (8:36 p.m. ET) and left running in the middle of the road.

    • What’s It Like To Try And Be Normal After A Career As A Spy

      I joined the CIA out of a sense of wanting to serve my country, and the notion that the U.S. government was going to pay me to live and work overseas was a tantalizing bonus. I come from a family where public service was part of our DNA: My father was an Air Force officer who served in World War II. My brother was a Marine, wounded in Vietnam. As I developed my expertise in nuclear counterproliferation — making sure bad guys, from terrorists to leaders of rogue states, did not acquire a nuclear capability — I was incredibly proud of my ability to contribute to this critical national security interest. My CIA colleagues were smart, dedicated, funny and creative. Yes, there was sometimes stifling bureaucracy, boredom, colleagues who never should have been there, and later, deeply disturbing stories of the CIA’s involvement in torture. Still, I got to do work I thought was incredibly important and, many times, had fun doing it.

      When I suddenly found myself “a civilian,” it dawned on me that so many of the skills I learned and carried out in the CIA — many of which had become second nature — were no longer of use or necessary. I didn’t constantly have to check my rear-view mirror to see if I had picked up covert surveillance. (For a while there, the only people following me were reporters and photographers.) I didn’t have to memorize safe codes or be sure to clear my desk at the end of every work day. I didn’t have to worry that a disguise wig would slip off or look ridiculous. I didn’t have to go through my mental Rolodex when I met a new person to be sure I got my name right. I was simply Valerie Plame: wife, mother of twins and former spy.

    • The Playpen Story: Some Fourth Amendment Basics and Law Enforcement Hacking

      First, the government’s malware “seized” the user’s computer. More specifically, the execution of the government’s code on a user’s device “meaningful[ly] interfered” with the intended operation of the software: it turned a user’s computer into a tool for law enforcement surveillance. By hacking into the user’s device, the government exercised “dominion and control” over the device. And that type of interference and control over a device constitutes a “seizure” for Fourth Amendment purposes.

      Next, the government’s code “searched” the device to locate certain specific information from the computer: the MAC address, the operating system running on the computer, and other identifying information. In this instance, where the search occurred is central to the Fourth Amendment analysis: here, the search was carried out on a user’s personal computer, likely located inside their home. Given the wealth of sensitive information on a computer and the historical constitutional protections normally afforded peoples’ homes, a personal computer located within the home represents the fundamental core of the Fourth Amendment’s protections.

    • Muslim migrant boat captain faces murder charges for pushing Christians overboard

      A Cameroonian immigrant has been put on trial in Spain for the murder of six fellow occupants of a flimsy migrant boat because of their Christian religious beliefs.

      Survivors of the hellish 2014 crossing from Morocco to the southern shore of Spain described how the accused, the Muslim captain of the inflatable craft identified as Alain N. B., blamed Christian passengers for the onset of a storm and forced six men off the boat to a certain death.

      According to some of the 29 survivors from the more than 50 sub-Saharan migrants who boarded the boat near Nador, northern Morocco, the accused “blamed the rough seas which were rocking the boat on the prayers led by a Catholic pastor on board”.

    • Syrian refugee ‘threw three children out of first-floor window because his wife wanted more freedom’ in Germany

      A Syrian asylum seeker is on trial for allegedly throwing his three children out of a first floor window in Germany because his wife wanted greater freedom.

      The 36-year-old man has been accused of attempted murder after his two daughters, aged one and seven, and five-year-old son were injured at refugee accommodation near Bonn.

      Police arrived at the scene in February to find the two elder children suffering broken bones and skull fractures, with the baby girl left with bruising and a liver contusion after landing on her brother.

      According to an indictment seen by Germany’s DPA news agency, the suspect admitted the crime and said it stemmed from anger with his wife.

    • Syrian man ‘threw children out of window because his wife demanded same rights as Germans’

      A SYRIAN asylum seeker who is accused of hurling his three children from window after fighting with his wife when she demanded the “same freedom” as German women will go on on trial on attempted murder charges.

    • Muslim man who KICKED woman in the head for wearing shorts says ‘Islamic law demanded it’

      Aysegul Terzi was assaulted on a bus in Istanbul after the man claimed Islamic law demanded he attack the young woman.

      In shocking footage the 23-year-old girl is seen being brutally kicked in the face by Abdullah Cakiroglu.

      The thug was incredibly freed by prosecutors when he said he was following Islamic law by assaulting the woman and it was decided to classify the incident as an assault that did not justify custody.

    • Should Hacking a Tor User to Get an IP Address Require a Warrant?

      On Monday, a judge chucked out all evidence obtained by a piece of FBI malware in a child porn case, becoming the third court to suppress evidence related to the FBI’s investigation of dark web site Playpen.

      But US District Court Judge Robert W Pratt also threw a punch in an ongoing legal debate with implications that stretch beyond any single case.

      In recent months, judges, defense lawyers, and the government have fought over whether obtaining a Tor user’s real IP address, perhaps through hacking, counts as a search under the Fourth Amendment. The debate has serious consequences for whether law enforcement requires a warrant to break into a suspect’s computer, even if it’s only to learn the target’s IP address.

      Pratt argued that when the FBI hacked suspected Playpen users and grabbed their IP addresses, that constituted a search.

      “If a defendant writes his IP address on a piece of paper and places it in a drawer in his home, there would be no question that law enforcement would need a warrant to access that piece of paper—even accepting that the defendant had no reasonable expectation of privacy in the IP address itself,” Pratt writes in his order.

    • Keith Lamont Scott Identified as Disabled Black Man Shot Dead by NC Police While Reading in Car

      A disabled black man has died at the hospital after being shot by a Charlotte-Mecklenburg, N.C., police officer Tuesday afternoon on Old Concord Road in University City, a subdivision of Charlotte.

      Police said that they were searching for someone who had outstanding warrants when they saw a man with what they believed to be a gun leave a vehicle.

      According to police reports, the man, who has not been named, returned to his vehicle. Police claim that when they approached the man, he “posed an imminent deadly threat to the officers,” according to the New York Times, and one of them opened fire. An eyewitness reportedly told the victim’s daughter that a Taser was used on her father, and then he was shot at least three times.

      [...]

      As previously reported by The Root, a jury deadlocked in the trial of former Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Officer Randall Kerrick, 27, who was charged with voluntary manslaughter in the 2013 shooting death of 24-year-old former Florida A&M football player Jonathan Ferrell.

      On the night of Sept. 14, 2013, Ferrell, who was unarmed, was seeking help after a car accident when he knocked on the door of a nearby home. Instead of helping him, the homeowner slammed the door in Ferrell’s face and called 911 to report that someone was forcibly breaking into her home.

      Kerrick was one of several officers who responded. Kerrick shot at Ferrell 12 times—with 10 bullets piercing his body—and at least eight of those shots were fired while Ferrell was crawling on the ground.

    • Fight for the Future Releases Formal Charge Sheet And Other Documents Ahead of Chelsea Manning Disciplinary Board

      Chelsea Manning faces an administrative disciplinary board tomorrow that may punish her for charges directly related to her July suicide attempt. This board is happening even though it was the government’s own mistreatment of Chelsea that drove her to attempt to take her own life earlier this year.

      The process of preparing for the board has been very emotional and traumatizing for Chelsea. It requires her to continually relive the painful experience over and over again. Chelsea must prepare her defense completely on her own, and will appear in front of the three person panel alone. She is not permitted to consult with or have an attorney or other advocate present during the hearing. The hearing itself could last for hours and there will be no transcript or account of the proceedings available to the public beyond what Chelsea herself is able to convey.

    • Chelsea Manning Facing Indefinite Solitary Confinement For Attempting Suicide, Possessing A Book On Hackers

      As you may have heard, Chelsea Manning, who leaked a ton of State Department cables to Wikileaks and is now in jail for decades, attempted suicide earlier this year. And the Army’s response is to threaten her with indefinite solitary confinement to punish her for the attempt. Really. Of course, Manning has been held in solitary confinement in the past — under conditions that the UN itself declared to be torture. And just last year, Manning was also threatened with indefinite solitary confinement for “disrespecting” corrections officers and for having a toothbrush and certain books and magazines that she wasn’t supposed to have.

      What about this time? Well, Fight for the Future has posted the details including the charge sheet and it’s ridiculous. She’s charged with “resisting” when the “force cell team” went to her cell to respond to her suicide attempt. “Resisting” in this case being that she was unconcious. Really.

    • Video Shows Terence Crutcher Was Not Reaching Into Car When Shot, Lawyer Says

      Crump accused a police department spokesperson, Officer Jeanne Mackenzie, of spreading “misinformation that he caused his own death” when she told reporters on Friday night that Crutcher had prompted the shooting by refusing to raise his hands and reaching into his vehicle.

      [...]

      Finding that initial police account hard to believe, Crutcher’s family had demanded the release of unedited police footage of the incident. The department complied with that request on Monday.

      David Riggs, a former state attorney general who chairs the Oklahoma Access to Justice Commission, also addressed a report that the police had found the hallucinogenic drug phencyclidine, or PCP, inside Crutcher’s car after the shooting. Riggs said that the shooting was not justified even if Crutcher was intoxicated. “Not everybody who’s under the influence of something is a threat to other people,” Riggs said.

      Crump also noted, as many others did on social networks, that the killing of Crutcher stood in stark contrast to the capture of Ahmad Khan Rahami, the suspect in the New York and New Jersey bombings, after a shoot-out with police officers there.

  • Internet Policy/Net Neutrality

    • Europe will get free roaming after all as EC cans 90-day cap plans

      THE EUROPEAN COMMISSION (EC) has outlined new plans to govern how much data, text and phone services travellers can use when roaming costs are abolished across the continent.

      The EC had previously suggested a 90-day cap on roaming in any one year and no more than 30 consecutive days’ use. However, this was withdrawn after a backlash, with people arguing that such caps went against the purpose of the proposals.

    • AT&T Will Zero Rate its Upcoming Streaming TV Service, Doesn’t Think FCC Will Act

      We’ve long noted how the FCC’s decision to avoid prohibiting zero rating (exempting your own or a paid partner’s content from usage caps) opened the door to letting incumbent ISPs trample net neutrality — if they’re just creative enough about it. And that’s precisely what has happened, with Comcast and Verizon now exempting their own content from usage caps, while T-Mobile and Sprint explore throttling all video, games and music unless users pay a $20 to $25 leave me the hell alone fee.

      The FCC’s total inaction on this front has also emboldened AT&T, which recently began exempting its own DirecTV streaming video app from the company’s usage caps while still penalizing customers that use competitors like Netflix, Hulu or Amazon. But as we warned then — AT&T isn’t done.

  • DRM

    • HP Retrofits Ink Cartridge DRM on Printer

      You’ve owned your printer for a year or more, and have happily used off-brand ink cartridges during that time. Suddenly the manufacturer says you can’t do that anymore, and suddenly orders the printer you own to not accept the ink cartridges of your choosing.

      Have you tried using you HP printer recently? If not, if you use certain models and keep your expenses down by using third party ink cartridges, you might find you have a “damaged” cartridge that needs replacing before the printer will operate. Open up a new cartridge that you’ve been keeping on hand and if it’s branded Office Max, Office Depot or anything other than “genuine HP,” it’ll be “damaged” too.

  • Intellectual Monopolies

    • Shared Experiences Of Indigenous Peoples In The WIPO Negotiating Process

      Members of indigenous communities this week shared their experiences in negotiating for their rights at the World Intellectual Property Organization and gave their advice on negotiations for potential treaties on genetic resources, traditional knowledge and folklore.

      A panel was held at the outset of this week’s WIPO Intergovernmental Committee on Intellectual Property and Genetic Resources, Traditional Knowledge and Folklore (IGC), entitled “IGC Draft Articles on the Protection of Traditional Knowledge: Indigenous Peoples’ and Local Communities’ Perspectives.”

    • Nagoya Protocol Gains Members, Implications Spread Ripples

      The UN Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) announced early this month that five new countries ratified its protocol on access and benefit sharing of genetic resources, bringing membership to 85 countries.

      The Nagoya Protocol on Access to Genetic Resources and the Fair and Equitable Sharing of Benefits Arising from their Utilization now counts 85 members. The CBD in a press release [pdf] called for 15 new ratifications to reach the goal of 100 ratifications before the second meeting of the Parties to the protocol, on 14-17 December in Cancun, Mexico.

    • Copyrights

      • Law Professor Mark Lemley: Hollywood Is Simply Wrong About FCC’s Set Top Box Plan
      • Don’t let copyright box us in

        The Federal Communications Commission is currently considering rules that would free cable and satellite television subscribers from the tyranny of the set-top box. Doing so would surely make the world a better place.

        The cable set-top box is an anachronism. No one carries a physically separate phone, modem, calculator, address book, street directory, and camera today when they can have one flexible device loaded with apps. Abolishing the monopoly of the set top box by allowing apps on existing devices to run programming will introduce this same flexibility to the devices we use to watch cable and satellite TV.

        The world has changed. Young people are “cutting the cord.” People everywhere consume their media on a wide variety of devices. The FCC is right to bring the cable and satellite industries along with that change. Indeed, in the long-term cable and satellite companies too will benefit from ending their exclusive reliance on the set-top box. The last two decades have proven beyond much doubt that while people are willing to pay for content, they are not willing to put up with artificial constraints on when and where they watch it. And if they can’t get their content easily and lawfully, too many turn to getting it easily but unlawfully.

        App based TV will make it easier for all of us to pay for our media delivered when we want it, how we want it.

      • Stop Piracy? Legal Alternatives Beat Legal Threats, Research Shows

        Threatening file-sharers with high fines or even prison sentences is not the best way to stop piracy. New research published by UK researchers shows that perceived risk has no effect on people’s file-sharing habits. Instead, the entertainment industries should focus on improving the legal options, so these can compete with file-sharing.

      • Yet Another Report Says More Innovation, Rather Than More Enforcement, Reduces Piracy

        It’s not like many of us haven’t been saying this for years: but fighting piracy through greater copyright enforcement doesn’t work. It’s never worked and it’s unlikely to ever work. A year ago, we released our big report, The Carrot or the Stick? that explored at a macro level what appeared to lead to reduced levels of piracy — enforcement or legal alternatives — and found overwhelming evidence that enforcement had little long-term impact (and a small short-term impact), but that enabling legal alternatives had a massive impact in reducing piracy. This should sound obvious, but it was important to look at the actual data, which backed it up.

        Now, there’s a new and different study that further supports this idea. Researchers at the University of East Anglia, Lancaster University and Newcastle University have a new report saying that promoting legal alternatives is much more effective in stopping piracy than the threat of legal consequences.

      • Former Refugee Who Took Skittles Photograph Donald Trump Jr. Used In A Stupid Meme Threatens Copyright Lawsuit

        FWIW, this is an old and a dumb and meaningless meme. It’s not always Skittles, though. Last year failed Presidential contender Mike Huckabee used the same concept, but with Peanuts — and John Oliver mocked him for it, noting that “peanuts themselves have killed far more people than terrorist refugees.” Another version involved M&Ms, and it was used by a variety of groups — including a feminist “Yes All Women” campaign. Some are arguing that the switch from M&Ms to Skittles is even more racist, because it’s based on the fact that when Trayvon Martin was shot dead by George Zimmerman, Martin had a pack of Skittles in his pocket. And, of course, the Intercept argues that this meme goes all the way back to a top Nazi propagandist making sure that the meme is sufficiently Godwined.

        But… of course, most of that has little to do with what we normally cover around these parts. But what we do often cover is copyright related issues — so it’s interesting to find out that the image used in that Skittles graphic that Trump Jr. posted was copied from Flickr, where it pretty clearly has an “all rights reserved” copyright notice on it. Oh, and the guy who took the photo, David Kittos, happens to be a former refugee himself, who is not at all pleased that his image is being used in this manner.

]]> http://techrights.org/2016/09/22/red-hat-upgraded-2/feed/ 0 Links 31/7/2016: GNOME Maps Datafeed Back, Xen Vulnerability http://techrights.org/2016/07/31/gnome-maps-datafeed-back/ http://techrights.org/2016/07/31/gnome-maps-datafeed-back/#comments Sun, 31 Jul 2016 14:24:12 +0000 http://techrights.org/?p=94692

GNOME bluefish

Contents

GNU/Linux

Free Software/Open Source

  • ReactOS 0.4.2 Nears With Many Features

    The first release candidate to the upcoming ReactOS 0.4.2 release is now available, the project aiming to be an open-source re-implementation of Microsoft Windows.

  • Events

    • Software Freedom Kosova Conference SFK’16 Call for Speakers

      SKF | Software Freedom Kosova is an annual international conference in Kosovo organized to promote free/libre open source software, free culture and open knowledge, now in its 7th edition. It is organized by FLOSSK, a non governmental, not for profit organization, dedicated to promote software freedom and related philosophies.

Leftovers

  • Health/Nutrition

    • Could Equal Pay, Paid Family Leave, and Pregnancy Protections Be the Issues That Bridge the Political Divide?

      The momentum to pass these critical protections for women in the states should serve as both a warning and an inspiration to Congress. Americans – both Democrats and Republicans – care about equal rights for women. So let’s hope the next Congress will pass federal laws mandating equal pay, paid family leave, and pregnancy protections.

    • Olympic Chefs Pledge to Salvage Unused Food and Feed the Hungry With It

      Some of the big-name chefs cooking for the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro are also activists for the hungry. Knowing full well there will be tremendous food waste at that massive event, the chefs plan to salvage as much as they can. With it, every night of the games, they will feed the hungry.

      Each day, the food preparation staff for the Olympics will have to feed an incredible 60,000 meals to 18,000 athletes, coaches and other personnel. To do that, they need a specially built kitchen that will be as big as a football field. A whopping 460,000 lbs of food will be delivered every day. Meals will be prepared and served as Brazilian, Asian, Halal, Kosher, International and Pasta/Pizza buffets.

    • Dangerous Liaisons: ChemChina’s Bid for Syngenta

      We all love to hate Monsanto. We also know that Monsanto isn’t the only poison-maker trying to pass itself off as a “farmer-friendly producer of food to feed the world.”

      Monsanto belongs to an exclusive club of dominant pesticide makers. That club, which includes Dow, Dupont, Bayer, Syngenta and BASF, is about to get a lot smaller. And a lot more dangerous.

      Bayer has been trying for months to buy Monsanto. Dow and Dupont are in talks to merge. And Switzerland-based Syngenta may soon be owned by ChemChina.

      It’s bad enough that less than a dozen multinational corporations (including Monsanto, Dupont, Bayer and Syngenta) control nearly 70 percent of the global seed market. If these mergers and buyouts go through, that number will shrink even further.

    • Schuette: Workers hid discovery of lead in blood

      Criminal charges leveled Friday against six current and former state employees center around allegations they altered or concealed alarming reports showing high levels of toxic lead in Flint’s water and the bloodstreams of the city’s children.

      Attorney General Bill Schuette’s prosecutors contend much of the cover-up occurred on or around the same day in late July last year.

      At the Department of Health and Human Services, prosecutors allege employees Nancy Peeler and Robert Scott “buried” an epidemiologist’s July 28, 2015, report showing a significant year-over-year spike in blood lead levels in Flint children.

  • Security

    • Xen patches critical guest privilege escalation bug

      A freshly uncovered bug in the Xen virtualisation hypervisor could potentially allow guests to escalate their privileges until they have full control of the hosts they’re running on.

      The Xen hypervisor is used by cloud giants Amazon Web Services, IBM and Rackspace.

      Inadequate security checks of how virtual machines access memory means a malicous, paravirtualised guest administrator can raise their system privileges to that of the host on unpatched installations, Xen said.

    • Xen Vulnerability Allows Hackers To Escape Qubes OS VM And Own the Host
    • The Security of Our Election Systems [Too much of Microsoft]

      The FBI is investigating. WikiLeaks promises there is more data to come. The political nature of this cyberattack means that Democrats and Republicans are trying to spin this as much as possible. Even so, we have to accept that someone is attacking our nation’s computer systems in an apparent attempt to influence a presidential election. This kind of cyberattack targets the very core of our democratic process. And it points to the possibility of an even worse problem in November ­ that our election systems and our voting machines could be vulnerable to a similar attack.

    • Data program accessed in cyber-attack on Democrats, says Clinton campaign [iophk: "Windows still"]

      A data program used by the campaign of the Democratic presidential candidate, Hillary Clinton, was “accessed” as a part of hack on the Democratic National Committee (DNC) that intelligence officials believe was carried out by Russia’s intelligence services, Clinton’s campaign said on Friday.

    • A Famed Hacker Is Grading Thousands of Programs — and May Revolutionize Software in the Process

      “There are applications out there that really do demonstrate good [security] hygiene … and the vast majority are somewhere else on the continuum from moderate to atrocious,” Peiter Zatko says. “But the nice thing is that now you can actually see where the software package lives on that continuum.”

      Joshua Corman, founder of I Am the Cavalry, a group aimed at improving the security of software in critical devices like cars and medical devices, and head of the Cyber Statecraft Initiative for the Atlantic Council, says the public is in sore need of data that can help people assess the security of software products.

      “Markets do well when an informed buyer can make an informed risk decision, and right now there is incredibly scant transparency in the buyer’s realm,” he says.

  • Defence/Aggression

    • The Ghosts of Direct Action

      In early 2009 I was walking away from a compound a platoon from the Second Ranger Battalion had just assaulted when a staff sergeant I knew held up something in the dark. I couldn’t tell exactly what it was. It was small and he was bragging about it. I tried to make it out but was soon distracted. It wasn’t until I got back to Forward Operating Base Salerno and saw his pictures that I realized that he had been showing me a square piece of flesh that he had cut out of a dead woman’s neck.

      Mutilating the corpse of a female noncombatant was just the final act in a horror show that night put on by this young Ranger. He had killed several people. One was a military-aged male, the rest were women; one looked to be about thirteen.

      Why did they die? Sadly, all too often when people die in Afghanistan that question is a lot harder to answer than it should be. There are as many truths about that mission as there were people on it. But, they didn’t have to die. It could have been avoided. And the war crime that occurred after the deaths gives you an idea of the mentality of the shooter.

    • Trading Places: Swapping the Roles of Police and Military Is Bad for the Republic

      The Dallas police chief defended using the robot-delivered bomb by saying that he would have done anything to avoid more police deaths. That is understandable reasoning but flawed, because although lives of professional law enforcement personnel are very important, the use of such indiscriminate battlefield weapons may unreasonably endanger the lives of the innocent citizens the police are sworn to protect.

      Under the rules of war, militaries are permitted to kill civilians or destroy their property, even if such collateral damage is deemed likely before an attack, if the target is militarily critical. That reasoning is unacceptable for police departments, given their primary mission of protecting the public. The militarization of police with SWAT teams, armored vehicles, etc. is threatening enough to citizens’ liberty without the unnecessary use of military-grade explosives to endanger the civilians whose welfare they are supposed to be safeguarding.

    • New Documentary Pierces the Psychology of Modern Suicide Bombers

      In a scene from Norwegian journalist Paul Refsdal’s new documentary Dugma: The Button, Abu Qaswara, a would-be suicide bomber, describes the sense of exhilaration he felt during an aborted suicide attack against a Syrian army checkpoint. “These were the happiest [moments] I’ve had in 32 years. If anyone had felt exactly what I felt at that moment, Muslims would want to go through the same feeling and non-Muslims would convert just to experience it,” he enthuses to the camera, visibly elated by his attempted self-immolation.

      Abu Qaswara’s attack failed after his vehicle was blocked by obstacles on the road placed by the Syrian military. But speaking shortly after he returned from his mission, it was clear that his brush with death had filled him with euphoria. “It was a feeling more than you can imagine,” he says. “Something I cannot describe, it cannot be described.”

      [...]

      Only the few Syrians who appear in the film speak at length about their grievances over the crimes of the Syrian government. In contrast, the foreign volunteers appear largely driven by personal motivations. Liberating the local people from oppression appears at best a secondary concern. Perishing in the conflict and reaping the existential rewards of such an end takes precedence. Both Abu Qaswara and Abu Basir gave up comfortable lives to come to Syria, knowing that certain death would be the outcome of that decision. But rather than deterring them, the prospect of a rewarding death was a primary factor motivating their decision to fight.

    • “Eat, Pray, Starve”: Greg Grandin on Tim Kaine, Hillary Clinton & the U.S. Role in Honduras

      On Wednesday night, Hillary Clinton’s running mate, Virginia Senator Tim Kaine, delivered a prime-time speech in which he spoke about the nine months he spent with Jesuit missionaries in Honduras in 1980. To talk more about the significance of Tim Kaine’s time in Honduras, we speak with Greg Grandin, professor of Latin American history at New York University. His most recent article for The Nation is headlined “Eat, Pray, Starve: What Tim Kaine Didn’t Learn During His Time in Honduras.”

    • Munich shopping centre and train station evacuated after ‘bomb threat’

      A shopping centre and train station in Munich wereevacuated after police received a ‘bomb threat’ this afternoon.

      The Pasing Arcaden shopping centre and Pasing railway station were both cleared and the area sealed off by police.

      Police are understood to have received an anonymous phone call warning a bomb has been placed in the area and officers are now on the scene.

      The area was evacuated at around 5.30pm local time (4.30pm UK time) and train services were also stopped from passing through the station.

      Police searched the area and later confirmed nothing suspicious was found and there was no threat to the public.

    • Turkey coup attempt: Government cancels 50,000 passports as global concern grows over crackdown

      The Turkish government has cancelled the passports of around 50,000 people to prevent them leaving the country as a crackdown continues following a failed coup.

      Efkan Ala, the interior minister, said more than 18,000 have so far been detained over the attempt to oust President Tayyip Erdogan, while thousands of government staff are under investigation.

      The purges have provoked alarm in the international community, presenting a major stumbling block for Turkey’s campaign to join the European Union.

    • Evolution of Capitalism, Escalation of Imperialism

      The new imperialism differs from the old, classical imperialism in at least four major ways.

      First, contrary to the old pattern of colonial/imperial conquests and plunders, which often proved quite lucrative to the imperium, war and military operations under the new imperialism are not even cost efficient on purely economic grounds, that is, on grounds of national interests. While immoral, external military operations of past empires often proved profitable and, therefore, justifiable on national economic grounds. Military actions abroad usually brought economic benefits not only to the imperial ruling classes and war profiteers, but also (through “trickle-down” effects) to their citizens. Thus, for example, imperialism paid significant dividends to Britain, France, the Dutch, and other European powers of the seventeenth, eighteenth, nineteenth, and early twentieth centuries. As the imperial economic gains helped develop their economies, they also helped improve the living conditions of their working people and elevate the standards of living of their citizens.

      This pattern of economic gains flowing from imperial military operations, however, seems to have somewhat changed in the context of the recent U.S. imperial wars of choice. Moralities aside, U.S. military expeditions and operations of late are not justifiable even on economic grounds. Indeed, escalating U.S. military adventures and aggressions have become ever more wasteful, cost-inefficient, and burdensome to the overwhelming majority of its citizens.

    • The Iraq War: a Story of Deceit

      On July 28, 2002, the British Prime Minister Tony Blair wrote a memorandum to American President George W. Bush about Iraq. “I will be with you, whatever,” Blair wrote with teenager’s diction. It was a pledge that Blair would keep through the year and into the illegal war against Iraq that the Bush administration prosecuted in 2003. Not only did this war break Iraq—a country weakened by the sanctions regime and its earlier wars—but it also severely threatened the legitimacy of the West in the eyes of the world. It took six years for an inquiry to be opened in Britain.

      Finally, after much delay, the Chilcot Report—all of 2.6 million words—has been released. It tells a great story of deceit. There is no Chilcot inquiry in the United States, where perhaps it is most needed. Both of the major political parties, the Republicans and the Democrats, are damaged by their unity on this war. Bush led the way, but Democratic front-runner for the presidency, Hillary Clinton, voted for the war in Congress. Controversy over the lead-up to the war remains in the U.S., but none of the major political parties would like a Chilcot inquiry in the U.S.

      In the U.S., the debate over Iraq has been placed on mute. Hillary Clinton’s vote for the war means that Democrats do not want to make this an issue in the presidential election. Donald Trump, the Republican candidate, had supported the war in 2003. He now says he opposes it. But his entire party bears culpability for the war. In a primary debate, Trump attacked Bush for the war. It was an unusual moment. Bush’s brother Jeb Bush was on the stage then. He defended his brother, and also stood up for his party. Trump has since been silent on the Iraq war.

    • “No More War”: Protesters Disrupt Ex-CIA Director Leon Panetta’s DNC Speech

      Protests on the floor of the convention continued on Wednesday. They reached a peak when former CIA Director Leon Panetta took the stage. While Panetta was criticizing Donald Trump’s appeal to the Russians to hack Hillary Clinton’s emails, many delegates started chanting “No more war!” We hear Panetta’s remarks and speak to a Bernie Sanders delegate who took part in the protest.

    • Lessons in Activism: Middle School Students Advocate for Syrian Refugees

      For the campaign around Syrian refugees, students learned about the complexities of history, the realities of ISIS and why Syrians are fleeing their country. An effective activism curriculum doesn’t deny these types of realities. Rather, it helps students find ways to defy reality with actions and in the process, learn that even the smallest acts matter. Students learned that the US announced plans to resettle at least 10,000 Syrian refugees in the next fiscal year, but that this isn’t enough. After the Paris attacks last November, the House of Representatives immediately passed a bill that could severely limit the acceptance of people fleeing from Syria and Iraq. Students discussed the consequences of that legislation in activism class as they depicted and critiqued the SAFE Act bill. “We’d like the representative to oppose the SAFE Act, which lengthens the process for refugees to apply for asylum. We’d also like you to oppose the Refugee Program Integrity Restoration Act (HR 4731), which gives the government the power to defund certain refugee resettlement agencies,” wrote Carolina, 13, in one of the talking points she prepared for the class’s lobbying trip to D.C. “We’d also like people in Congress to speak out against Islamophobia and bigotry against Muslims and refugees … they already have a tough life fleeing terrorism and oppressive government,” said Vidar, who is 14 years old.

  • Environment/Energy/Wildlife/Nature

    • ALEC in Indianapolis: ExxonMobil and the #WebOfDenial

      This month, nineteen U.S. Senators called attention to the Web of Denial, a network of front groups that oppose any productive action to combat climate change. Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) led the charge, building upon his weekly “Time To Wake Up” speech series on global warming, flagging the front groups that peddle climate doubt for their clients in the oil, gas and coal industries.

      One of the top groups obstructing any form of progress is the American Legislative Exchange Council, or ALEC. ALEC convened its annual meeting in Indianapolis this week, where it hooks state politicians up with lobbyists from Koch Industries (and its many nonprofit tentacles), Peabody Energy, tobacco companies, pharmaceutical companies and other industries looking to put pro-business policies in the hands of state politicians.

    • Executing Children Won’t Save the Tiger or the Rhino

      On Monday July 18, a seven-year-old boy was shot in the legs in Kaziranga National Park in northeastern India, by park guards. Under the park’s long-established anti-poaching policy, guards are trained to shoot intruders on sight, and given total legal immunity for doing so. At least sixty-two people have been executed there in just nine years.

  • Finance

    • America’s Stateless People: How Immigration Gaps Create Poverty

      They came to America in the 1970s and 1980s as child refugees, members of the Hmong minority in Laos fleeing that country’s new communist government and persecution for helping the CIA in its covert war in Southeast Asia.

      America held the promise of safety and a piece of the American dream.

      Many of them chased that dream in California’s Central Valley, slowly, sometimes painfully, building lives in a new country where their language and culture were virtually unknown. Largely from poor rural farming families, they often struggled to adjust to a dramatically different society, with few relevant skills and limited support.

    • How Much Do Shady Financial Practices Cost You, Exactly?

      Average U.S. household loses over $100,000 to destructive activities of bankers and financiers

    • How to pay no taxes at all! (if you’re Apple, Google or Facebook)

      In only 7 minutes, Australian comedy show The Undercurrent explains exactly how companies like Apple, Google and Facebook use offshore registration, transfer payments, debt loading and tax havens to get a lower tax rate than nurses, starving their host countries like Australia of so much money that they’re cutting schools, medicare, public broadcasting, climate change and indigenous services.

    • Ireland jails three top bankers over 2008 banking meltdown

      Three senior Irish bankers were jailed on Friday for up to three-and-a-half years for conspiring to defraud investors in the most prominent prosecution arising from the 2008 banking crisis that crippled the country’s economy.

      The trio will be among the first senior bankers globally to be jailed for their role in the collapse of a bank during the crisis.

      The lack of convictions until now has angered Irish taxpayers, who had to stump up 64 billion euros – almost 40 percent of annual economic output – after a property collapse forced the biggest state bank rescue in the euro zone.

      The crash thrust Ireland into a three-year sovereign bailout in 2010 and the finance ministry said last month that it could take another 15 years to recover the funds pumped into the banks still operating.

      Former Irish Life and Permanent Chief Executive Denis Casey was sentenced to two years and nine months following the 74-day criminal trial, Ireland’s longest ever.

      Willie McAteer, former finance director at the failed Anglo Irish Bank, and John Bowe, its ex-head of capital markets, were given sentences of 42 months and 24 months respectively.

    • Theresa May confirms Crown dependencies will take part in Brexit talks

      Theresa May has written to Britain’s Crown dependencies to assure them they will play a part in negotiations to leave the EU.

    • ‘These Agreements Depend on Secrecy in Order to Pass’ – CounterSpin interviews with Lori Wallach, Peter Maybarduk and Karen Hansen-Kuhn on trade pacts and corporate globalization

      This week on CounterSpin: Few ideas are as hard-wired into corporate media as the notion that so-called “free trade” agreements of the sort we have are, despite concerns, best for everyone—and, anyway, inevitable. Given that the deals are not primarily about trade, and that what freedom they entail applies to corporations and not people, you could say media’s use of the term “free trade” implies a bias—against clarity, if nothing else.

    • Hillary Clinton Talks Tough on Shadow Banking, But Blackstone Is Celebrating at the DNC

      Blackstone, the giant Wall Street private equity firm, will hold an invitation-only reception before the final night of the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia. The event, at the swanky Barnes Foundation art museum, includes the usual perks for attendees: free food, drink, and complimentary shuttle buses to the final night of the convention.

      What’s unusual is that the host is precisely the kind of “shadow banker” that Hillary Clinton has singled out as needing more regulation in her rhetoric about getting tough on Wall Street.

      But Blackstone President and Chief Operating Officer Hamilton “Tony” James doesn’t seem the least bit intimidated.

      James has been a stalwart supporter of Barack Obama, holding fundraisers for him at his home, even while other Wall Street titans criticized him — in fact the co-founder of James’s own company, Blackstone CEO Stephen Schwarzman, once likened Obama’s push to increase taxes on private-equity firms to a “war,” saying: “It’s like when Hitler invaded Poland in 1939.”

      Last December, James hosted a high-dollar fundraiser for Hillary Clinton that featured Warren Buffett. He’s made six-figure donations to the Center for American Progress, known as Clinton’s White House in exile, and sits on CAP’s Board of Trustees. And he has made no secret of wanting to hold a high-level position in a future Democratic administration, perhaps even Treasury Secretary.

    • No New Charter Schools – NAACP Draws Line in the Sand

      The resolution goes on to oppose tax breaks to support charter schools and calls for new legislation to increase charter school transparency. Moreover, charters should not be allowed to kick students out for disciplinary reasons.

      This goes against the well-funded narrative of charter schools as vehicles to ensure civil rights.

      The pro-charter story has been told by deep pocketed investors such as the Koch Brothers and the Walton Family Foundation. But the idea that a separate parallel school system would somehow benefit black and brown children goes against history and common sense.

      The Supreme Court, after all, ruled separate but equal to be Unconstitutional in Brown vs. Board of Education. Yet somehow these wealthy “philanthropists” know better.

      People of color know that when your children are separated from the white and rich kids, they often don’t get the same resources, funding and proper education. You want your children to be integrated not segregated. You want them to be where the rich white kids are. That way it’s harder for them to be excluded from the excellent education being provided to their lighter skinned and more economically advantaged peers.

  • AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics

    • Jill’s Line

      Dr. Jill Stein’s popularity surge during the Democratic National Convention led to rumors that she opposes vaccines, but that isn’t the case.

    • Open Letter to Bernie Sanders from Former Campaign Staffers

      Last summer you said you would not run as a third party candidate if you did not win the Democratic nomination. You said, “the reason for that is I do not want to be responsible for electing some right-wing Republican to be president of the United States.” This was before the unexpected and unprecedented success of your grassroots campaign where you won 22 states and almost half of the delegates in a primary process that was stacked against you every step of the way.

      We take you as a man of your word and we certainly don’t want Trump to be president either. A Trump presidency would be a terrible step backwards for working people, people of color, immigrants, students, retirees, the LGBTQ community, the environment, and the entire world, which is why more than ever we need you to reconsider the situation and make a third party run.

      Polls show that Hillary Clinton, the official Democratic nominee, is an incredibly weak candidate in the general election. Even after spending $57 million in ads (vs. $4 million by Trump) she is trailing slightly, and Trump is actually leading in several important swing states. Frankly, Hillary Clinton does not have the credibility to take on the dangerous appeal of Donald Trump.

      For a variety of reasons, many justified and some not, people don’t trust her. We are now faced with two of the most disliked presidential candidates in the history of the country. Unfortunately, too many people are disillusioned with politics and the lack of inspiring viable candidates will only hurt voter turnout. If there was ever an opportunity to break the corporate two party duopoly, this is it. So, we respectfully ask you to consider Jill Stein’s offer of a united Green Party ticket.

      A Sanders/Stein campaign would be more popular than Hillary Clinton and more successful against Trump. If polling shows you in the lead before the election, we trust that Secretary Clinton would do the right thing and not be a spoiler.

    • Why Trump Supporters Think He’ll Win

      “You people in the Acela corridor aren’t getting it. Again. You think Donald Trump is screwing up because he keeps saying things that you find offensive or off-the-wall. But he’s not talking to you. You’re not his audience, you never were, and you never will be. He’s playing this game in a different way from anybody you’ve ever seen. And he’s winning too, in a different way from anybody you’ve ever seen.

      “Our convention worked. Donald—I’m not on the payroll, I can call him that—Donald energized his voters: people who are afraid of crime and worried about the mass immigration that’s transforming their country and displacing them. We talk a lot about polls, but you ignore the polls that don’t show what you expect to see.

      “Here’s what’s going to happen. We’re going to run up vote totals like you’ve never seen in places you’ve never been. Not just coal country, either. No, we don’t have what you’d call a proper campaign. What do we need it for? Campaigns spend most of their money on TV ads that do nothing except entertain you on YouTube on your lunch hour—oh, and pay huge commissions to the consultants who make them. It’s all a waste and rip-off. If our message is exciting, our voters will get to the polls on their own. And you have to admit: Our message is exciting!

    • Will Hillary Clinton get a convention bounce in the polls? If not, she’s in deep trouble.

      Last week, halfway through the Republican convention in Cleveland, I wrote that the GOP gathering was so shambolic that it might not give Donald Trump the “bounce” he needed.

      I was right about the convention, but wrong about the bounce.

      Trump undeniably got one. In the average of national polls compiled by RealClearPolitics, Trump was three points behind Hillary Clinton before Cleveland; now he’s one point ahead.

      The USC Dornsife/Los Angeles Times poll showed a similar swing with a more striking result: Trump seven points ahead.

      What does that mean for Hillary Clinton, whose convention in Philadelphia was smoother and snazzier? It means she’s virtually certain to get a bounce too.

    • Hillary’s Convention Con

      This immense gap has been the Clinton duo’s con job on America for many years. Sugarcoating phrases, populist flattery, getting the election over with and jumping back into the fold of the plutocracy is their customary M.O.

      An anti-Hillary campaign button sums it up. Imagine a nice picture of Hillary with the words “More Wall Street” above her head and the words “More War” below her head.

      Alert voters could see it coming at the Convention: the militarism for Hillary the Hawk on day four in Philadelphia and the arrival of the corporate fat cats. Or, as the New York Times headlined: “Top Donors Leave Sidelines, Checkbooks in Hand.”

      The best thing Hillary Clinton has going for her is the self-destructive, unstable, unorganized, fact and truth-starved, egomaniacal, cheating, plutocratic, Donald Trump (See my column “How Unpatriotic Is Donald Trump?”).

      That’s where our nation’s two-party political leadership is today. When will the vast left/right majority rise to take over and reverse the eviscerating policies and practices of this political duopoly?

    • She Stoops to Conquer: Notes From the Democratic Convention

      + First things first. I want to apologize to the Sandernistas for any impolite things I may have written about you in the past 10 months. I especially want to apologize to those of you who rose up after your leader abandoned you, after Bernie wiped out your votes and muted your voices, after he turned you over to the DNC’s thuggish floor managers and security guards, after he sat passively as your brave chants of “No More Drones” were drowned out by the fascist war-cry of “USA! USA!!” I want to apologize for doubting your resolve. I want to apologize without qualification. You didn’t cry when Bernie betrayed you. Not for long. You marched right back into the Wells Fargo Center intent on spoiling the party. You didn’t sour on your ideals. You refused to be domesticated. You pissed on their carpet. You shouted down their war criminals. You made this squalid affair fun for a few precious hours. And that ain’t bad. Somewhere Abbie Hoffman is cracking a smile (though perhaps not at the spectacle of Meryl Streep ripping off his wardrobe during her bewildering performance, an act so incoherent it made one long for the Absurdist theater of Clint Eastwood and his empty chair routine.)

    • Long Live the Queen of Chaos

      Bernie Sanders’ program proposals and Mrs. Clinton’s theorized move Left will be but distant memories.

    • Two (Three, Four?) Data Points on DNC Hack: Why Does Wikileaks Need an Insurance File?

      This detail is important because it says Julian Assange is setting the agenda (and possibly, the decision to fully dox DNC donors) for the Wikileaks release, and that agenda does not perfectly coincide with Guccifer’s (which is presumed to be a cut-out for GRU).

      As I’ve noted, Wikileaks has its own beef with Hillary Clinton, independent of whom Vladimir Putin might prefer as President or any other possible motive for Russia to do this hack.

      Now consider this bizarre feature of several high level leak based stories on the hack: the claim of uncertainty about how the files got from the hackers to Wikileaks. This claim, from NYT, seems bizarrely stupid, as Guccifer and Wikileaks have both said the former gave the latter the files.

      [...]

      But then there’s this detail. On June 17, Wikileaks released an insurance file — a file that will be automatically decrypted if Wikileaks is somehow impeded from releasing the rest of the files. It has been assumed that the contents of that file are just the emails that were already released, but that is almost certainly not the case. After all, Wikileaks has already released further documents (some thoroughly uninteresting voice mails that nevertheless further impinge on the privacy of DNC staffers).

    • Meet Some Sanders Delegates Who Plan To Turn Anger Into Positive Action

      Luz Sosa came to the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia as a disappointed Bernie Sanders delegate. But she is leaving fired up to take on big political fights in her home town of Milwaukee.

      “This election was never about Bernie Sanders. These elections were about issues the American people care about,” such as “families struggling to put food on the table,” said Sosa, who is Latino outreach organizer for Citizen Action Wisconsin and an economics professor at Milwaukee Area Technical College.

      “Bernie Sanders has been the voice of the movement, but the movement has always been there,” she said, and her advise to her fellow Bernie Sanders supporters “is to get involved in the organizations that are already working on the issues that Bernie had mentioned before.”

      Sosa on Wednesday was among a group of convention delegates, most of whom representing Sanders, who gathered at a reception sponsored by People’s Action and its Pennsylvania affiliate, Keystone Progress.

    • Hillary Clinton Will Be Good for Business, Predicts Chamber of Commerce Lobbyist

      When Jennifer Pierotti Lim strode up to the podium on the final day of the Democratic National Convention, she was identified as the co-founder of Republican Women for Hillary, a group of conservative activists supporting Hillary Clinton.

      Lim focused her brief comments on Donald Trump’s history of sexist comments, telling the audience that “Trump’s loathsome comments about women and our appearances are too many to list and too crass to repeat.”

      But what was even more significant is her day job as a top lobbyist for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce; she’s the Chamber’s director of health policy.

      It was the latest indication that the U.S. big-business community may be preparing to back Hillary Clinton, which would be a truly tectonic shift.

    • In the Hillary Clinton Era, Democrats Welcome Lobbying Money Back Into the Convention

      By quietly dropping a ban on direct donations from registered federal lobbyists and political action committees, the Democratic National Committee in February reopened the floodgates for corruption that Barack Obama had put in place in 2008.

      Secret donors with major public-policy agendas were welcomed back in from the cold and showered with access and appreciation at the Democratic convention in Philadelphia.

      Major donors were offered “Family and Friends” packages, including suites at the Ritz-Carlton, backstage passes, and even seats in the Clinton family box. Corporate lobbyists like Heather Podesta celebrated the change, telling Time: “My money is now good.”

      What was going on inside the convention hall was also reflected outside, at costly events sponsored by the fossil fuel industry, technology companies, for-profit colleges, pharmaceutical companies, and railway companies, to name a few.

    • Both Parties Are Playing the Mexico Card

      While it has been cast mainly as the villain, the unexpected spotlight has sent politicians and activists on both sides of the border seeking to get their message out. If they’ve learned anything from the Trump playbook in the past months, it’s that negative attention is still free publicity.

    • Revealed: AARP Is Funding ALEC

      AARP, the non-profit seniors organization that exists to promote the financial security, pensions and healthcare of those over 50, is secretly funding the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), an organization whose bills have acted against the interests of ordinary Americans, including retirees and their families.

      The Center for Media and Democracy has learned that AARP has recently joined ALEC, and that it is a named sponsor of the ALEC annual meeting taking place in Indianapolis, Indiana from July 27-29, 2016.

    • Patriot Games, From Watergate to Email Hacks

      There has been a break-in at the Democratic National Committee. Documents were stolen with the apparent intention of manipulating the results of a presidential election.

    • Kshama Sawant vs. Rebecca Traister on Clinton, Democratic Party & Possibility of a Female President

      As Secretary of State Hillary Clinton makes history by becoming the first woman to accept a major-party presidential nomination, we speak with Rebecca Traister, writer-at-large for New York Magazine who has covered Clinton for a decade. Her most recent article is headlined “Hillary Is Poised to Make the ‘Impossible Possible’—for Herself and for Women in America.” We are also joined by Kshama Sawant, a Socialist city councilmember in Seattle who helped win a $15/hour minimum wage for all workers in Seattle.

    • Trump Gets His Talking Points From White Supremacist Twitter Accounts

      Donald Trump’s call on Russia to hack and release Hillary Clinton’s deleted emails was one of the stranger moments in what’s been one of the stranger campaigns in US history.

      It was a sign that Trump is either stupid or trying to join the Ronald Reagan/Richard Nixon club of Republicans who have betrayed their country to get elected president.

      But as bizarre as it was, Trump’s “Russian request” wasn’t the most interesting part of his press conference yesterday in Tampa, Florida — that came when he accused Vladimir Putin of calling President Obama “the N-Word.”

    • Assange: ‘We have more material related to the Hillary Clinton campaign’

      WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange is boasting about how his group’s release of hacked Democratic National Committee emails is affecting the US presidential election — and says it has unreleased information about Hillary Clinton’s campaign.

      “We have more material related to the Hillary Clinton campaign,” Assange told CNN’s Anderson Cooper on “Anderson 360″ Friday night. “That is correct to say that.”

      Assange has been coy about how WikiLeaks came into possession of internal Democratic party cyber information. The FBI and Justice Department are investigating a computer hack of Democratic nominee Clinton’s presidential campaign in addition to its examination of intrusions of other Democratic Party organizations, two law enforcement officials told CNN.

    • Convention Dissent: There’s Less Than Meets the Eye

      Cast your memory back exactly eight years, to the opening night of the Democratic Convention in Denver: Aug. 25, 2008. The story that night was the threat of the “PUMA” which either stood for “People United Means Action” or Party Unity My Ass.” According to Adam Nathaniel Peck writing in The New Republic, “PUMAs appeared dozens of times on cable news to defend Clinton and to promise mischief at the nominating convention and in the general election. Their anger epitomized a wider unrest that has been mostly forgotten as Obama went on to win two general elections”.

    • Fury as Trump mocks Muslim soldier’s mother Ghazala Khan

      Republican presidential hopeful Donald Trump has attracted outrage by mocking a dead US Muslim soldier’s mother.

      Ghazala Khan stood silently next to her husband as he attacked Mr Trump in an emotional speech to the Democratic National Convention on Thursday.

      Mr Trump suggested she may not have been allowed to speak.

      Republicans and Democrats said the Republican candidate’s comments were no way to talk of a hero’s mother. Mrs Khan said she was upset by his remarks.

      Last week her husband Khizr Khan told Democrats Mr Trump had sacrificed “nothing and no-one” for his country.

    • Waving the Constitution at Those Who Ignore It

      Khan was confronting Trump about his campaign in which he had noted that “Trump consistently smears the character of Muslims. He disrespects other minorities, women, judges, even his own party leadership. He vows to build walls and ban us from this country.” (Quotes come from this copy of Khan’s transcript.) Khan then continued, presumably in reference to banning Muslims from the US: “Donald Trump, you are asking Americans to trust you with our future. Let me ask you: Have you even read the U.S. Constitution? I will gladly lend you my copy.”

    • Trump – Lowlife Scum Sociopath

      Trump is evil scum without human emotions, like a venomous snake. He is not worthy of any respect, certainly not the office of POTUS. Like a venomous snake, people should avoid Trump and stay very far away.

    • Parade of Speakers at DNC Paint Trump as Unfit for Presidency in Every Way, from Billionaire Bloomberg to an ex-CIA Director

      A parade of speakers at the Democratic Convention painted a devastating picture of Donald Trump as the most unqualified, inexperienced and unpredictable nominee in anyone’s memory, urging Americans—including independents—to vote for Clinton or face dire consequences.

    • Intelligence Chief Suffers Intelligence Failure Over His Own Team’s Willingness to Brief Donald Trump

      The country’s top intelligence official, James Clapper, insisted on Thursday that there has been no hesitation within the intelligence community when it comes to giving classified briefings to the presidential candidates, including Donald Trump.

      “Is there any hesitation in the intel community to brief either of these candidates?” CNN’s Jim Sciutto asked the director of National Intelligence at the Aspen Security Forum, eliciting laughter from the audience.

      “No there isn’t,” Clapper said, going on to describe the briefing as a nonpartisan tradition. “We’ve got a team all prepared,” he said.

      But several news reports over the past several months have indicated there was dissension in the ranks when it comes to telling Trump secrets — culminating in a Washington Post story Thursday night that quoted a senior intelligence official saying, “I would refuse.”

      All of which raises the question: How good can Clapper be at ferreting out secrets from foreign adversaries if he doesn’t even know what his own staff is thinking?

      Then again, he could just have been lying. He’s done it before.

    • [Links corrected] “The Two-Party System Is the Worst Case Scenario” — An Interview With the Green Party’s Jill Stein
    • The banality of Golden Dawn

      Golden Dawn remains Greece’s third most popular party. Since 2012, the party has succeeded in maintaining the solidarity and groupness of its voters intact during a series of electoral contests (local, national, and European).

      Nevertheless, Golden Dawn’s leadership is currently standing trial on criminal accusations and this has complicated the operation of the party. The questions addressed here are: How significant is Golden Dawn as a political actor and what does this imply about Greece’s stateness? Does Golden Dawn still manage to attract voters on the basis of its opposition to immigration and how?

    • Michael Eric Dyson vs. Eddie Glaude on Race, Hillary Clinton and the Legacy of Obama’s Presidency

      On Wednesday night, President Obama addressed the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia and implored the nation to vote for Hillary Clinton. As Obama seeks to pass the torch to his secretary of state, we host a debate on Hillary Clinton, her rival Donald Trump and President Obama’s legacy between Princeton University professor Eddie Glaude and Georgetown University professor Michael Eric Dyson. Glaude’s most recent book is “Democracy in Black: How Race Still Enslaves the American Soul,” and he recently wrote an article for Time magazine headlined “My Democratic Problem with Voting for Hillary Clinton.” Dyson is the author of “The Black Presidency: Barack Obama and the Politics of Race in America” and wrote a cover article for the New Republic titled, “Yes She Can: Why Hillary Clinton Will Do More for Black People Than Obama.”

  • Censorship/Free Speech

    • Battling Censorship in Lesotho and South Africa

      A newspaper editor is recovering from surgery after being nearly assassinated in Lesotho for an article he published about a high profile army commander. Meanwhile in South Africa, journalists claim victory in their censorship row with the state broadcaster, the SABC.

      The truth is mightier than the guns of darkness, a top rights group has hit out in condemning an assassination attempt on the editor of the Lesotho Times and Sunday Express.

      Lloyd Mutungamiri was attacked by two unknown gunmen on 9 July, in apparent retaliation for his article about an alleged exit package for the country’s army commander, Lieutenant General Tlali Kamoli.

    • Proposed bill on Contempt of Court will further entrench self-censorship in Singapore

      On 30 July, Community Action Network was invited to speak at an event “Protecting our judiciary and free speech” at the Singapore Management University. This is an excerpt of the speech.

      In the last 5 years, the government has clamped down on freedom of expression in ways which we have not seen since pre-GE (General Elections) 2011. This is no doubt due to the government’s perceived threats of the influence of social media. In the cases where it has relied on case law to deal with contempt of court, it has been arbitrary in how it decided what it was, and what scandalising the judiciary meant. This proposed Bill in our view, codifies this arbitrariness even though it claims it seeks to clarify it.

    • Critics Fear Crackdown on Palestinian Free Speech as Israel Takes Aim at Facebook

      Erdan called Facebook a “monster” because it has become the platform of choice for Palestinians to denounce Israeli rule and broadcast their intention to attack Israelis. Muhammad Tarayra, the 17-year-old Palestinian behind the June 30 knife attack in the settlement of Kiryat Arba, had written on Facebook that “death is a right and I demand my right.” He expressed anger that Israeli soldiers had killed his cousin after he tried to run over them, according to Israeli news reports.

      Now, Israeli officials are seeking to pressure Facebook to take down posts similar to Tarayra’s. On July 13, Erdan and Ayelet Shaked, Israel’s justice minister, submitted a bill to the Israeli Knesset that would empower courts to compel Facebook to remove content deemed violent. And amid Israel’s legislative push against Facebook — including a separate measure that would see Facebook fined if it did not remove content inciting people to terrorism — an Israeli law firm has also filed suit against the social media company in a U.S. court.

      The moves amount to a multi-pronged campaign aimed at Facebook, which has been increasingly drawn into the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Israeli ministers have cast Facebook in the role of terror supporter and now want to force the company to police Palestinian speech they say leads to violence.

      But Israeli laws against incitement have also been used to arrest Palestinians whose Facebook posts criticize Israeli rule but do not explicitly support violence. Palestinians say that Facebook does not fuel militant attacks against Israel and that it is Israel’s decadeslong occupation and discriminatory policies against Palestinians that lead to violence.

    • Pakistan decides to contact Facebook over Kashmir posts’ censorship
    • Pakistan to contact Facebook over Kashmir posts’ censorship
    • The Facebook-Kashmir Blocks: Technical Errors, Editorial Mistakes and Invisible Censorship Galore
    • The campaign that ‘shot’ Mark Zuckerberg in the face
    • Abandoning Nuance, Facebook Is Deeming Posts On Kashmir ‘Terror Content’

  • Privacy/Surveillance

    • I Con the Record Rolls Out Its 3-Page Intel Collection Efficacy Process

      Screen Shot 2016-07-30 at 2.50.04 PMLast year, PCLOB suggested that the intelligence community formalize its process to assess the efficacy of intelligence collection. While it made the recommendation as part of its 702 report, the recommendation itself came against the background of Congress and the IC having decided that the phone dragnet wasn’t really worth the cost and privacy exposure.

    • Federal Judge Rips Uber Apart Over Dirt-Digging Investigation

      In December of last year, Yale environmental researcher Spencer Meyer filed suit against Uber, alleging price fixing by Uber’s drivers and founder in violation of federal antitrust law. Hardly the first person to accuse Uber of corporate malfeasance, Meyer nonetheless became the target of private investigators, working for a security company hired by Uber, who attempted to dig up derogatory information — an act the district judge hearing the case, Jed Rakoff, has now, in a 31-page order, called “blatantly fraudulent and arguably criminal.”

      Emails turned over by Uber on the judge’s instructions and summarized in the order show that on the day Meyer filed suit, Uber counsel Salle Yoo contacted the company’s chief security officer, asking, “Could we find out a little more about this plaintiff?”

      Uber investigations chief Mat Henley then selected a New York-based private investigative firm called Ergo, also known as Global Precision Research, and began working with one of its executives, Todd Egeland, Henley said in a sworn deposition. Egeland’s online bios state openly that he is a 28-year veteran of the CIA with experience in counterintelligence and cyberthreats.

      From the very start, the Uber-Ergo deal was set up to avoid potential scrutiny: Court-obtained documents reveal that both parties used Wickr, a self-deleting messaging app, and encrypted email “to avoid potential discovery issues,” although, as seen in the email message below, from Henley to two Ergo executives, including Egeland, some of the material was eventually discovered.

    • Brazil Freezes $11 Million in Facebook Assets Over WhatsApp Data Dispute

      A court in northwestern Brazil has frozen more than $11 million worth of assets belonging to Facebook, a public prosecutor said Wednesday, following the social media giant’s failure to provide the court with data on users of its messaging service Whatsapp.

      The $11.7 million in funds was frozen after Facebook declined to provide data on Whatsapp users under criminal investigation, prosecutor Alexandre Jabur told Reuters. The funds relate to fines imposed for failing to comply with the Brazilian court order.

    • ‘Deeply Troubling’: Ex-Ambassador, Intel Officials Blast Trump Russia Comments
    • Pressure Grows on Obama to Name DNC Hackers [Ed: the ‘experts’ are Microsoft-connected]

      But six U.S. officials and security experts have told The Daily Beast that the evidence linking Russia to the hack appears conclusive. Obama himself stepped closer to pinning the hacks on Russia when he told NBC News that “experts have attributed this to the Russians” and that it was “possible” the leak was designed to help the Trump campaign.

    • NSA Whistleblowers Doubt DNC’s Claim of Russian Role in Damaging E-mail Leaks

      Anyone listening to the mainstream media is convinced that Russian hackers released the thousands of Democratic National Committee (DNC) e-mails made public by WikiLeaks. Even Donald Trump mused about the possibility of Putin’s people being behind the breach.

      Those a little more familiar with the workings of the federal government and issues of cybersecurity wonder if the “The Russians did it!” isn’t a ruse concocted by a coterie of collaborators closer to home.

      Edward Snowden, the NSA whistleblower currently in exile in Russia, claimed that the NSA could solve the mystery because it assuredly knows who hacked the DNC, and he tweeted on July 25 that “Evidence that could publicly attribute responsibility for the DNC hack certainly exists at #NSA, but DNI [Director of National Intelligence] traditionally objects to sharing.”

    • Hack infects Russian government computers

      Hackers struck the Russian government this weekend, reports said.

      Following data breaches on the Hillary Clinton campaign and Democratic Party servers that sources blamed on the regime of Vladimir Putin, a computer virus infected the networks of at least 20 Russian governmental organizations, officials with the country’s intelligence service told the BBC Saturday.

      Russia’s Federal Security Service did not say who they believe penetrated Russian networks but revealed the hack was “planned and made professionally” and also targeted defense companies and infrastructure, the report said.

      Meanwhile, the US National Security Agency’s elite hacking unit is likely tracking Russian-government cyber-spies to determine if they are responsible for the breach at the Democratic National Committee, ABC News reported.

      Federal intelligence officials said the NSA is able to “hack back” suspected organizations after an attack.

      The Obama administration has not publicly attributed the cyber attacks to Russia, which has denied involvement.

    • The NSA Is Likely ‘Hacking Back’ Russia’s Cyber Squads [Ed: Trying to make it seem reactionary… puff piece]

      U.S. government hackers at the National Security Agency are likely targeting Russian government-linked hacking teams to see once and for all if they’re responsible for the massive breach at the Democratic National Committee, according to three former senior intelligence officials. It’s a job that the current head of the NSA’s elite hacking unit said they’ve been called on to do many times before.

  • Civil Rights/Policing

    • 911 Tapes Released in Charles Kinsey Shooting, Pokes Massive Hole in Police Narrative of What Happened

      Last week, online video surfaced of an African-American therapist lying on the ground with his hands in the air moments before he was shot by a North Miami police officer.

      Charles Kinsey, 62, was stretched out beside his autistic patient Arnaldo Rios-Soto, who had wandered away from a local group home, before he was shot in the leg by police. Authorities defended the shooting, which was prompted by a 911 call from a neighbor claiming Rios-Soto had a gun and was attempting to kill himself. Recordings of the harrowing 911 call have since been released, revealing key details missing from the original police narrative.

      In the recording, an unidentified woman can be heard telling the dispatcher that the man with the “gun” looked mentally-ill and that the object he was holding might not be a gun at all.

      “There’s this guy in the middle of the road, and he has what appears to be a gun,” the woman said in a 911 tape released late Thursday by Miami-Dade police. “He has it to his head, and there’s a guy there trying to talk him out of it.”

      “I don’t know if it’s a gun,” she continued. “But he has something the shape of a gun, so just be careful. “But he’s sitting in the middle of the road.”

      The caller also described the men in detail, telling the dispatcher “He’s a Spanish guy, young kid. Spanish guy with gray shorts and gray pants. The guy that’s trying to talk him out of it is green shirt and black shorts. But I think the Spanish guy looks like a mentally ill person.”

      A short time later, SWAT officer Jonathan Aledda fired a single shot at Kinsey, hitting him in the leg. Rios Soto, 26, sat cross-legged next to his caretaker and continued to fumble with what turned out to be a toy truck. Video of the shooting quickly went viral and sparked national outrage over yet another Black man shot at the hands of police. Luckliy, Kinsey survived.

    • Chelsea Manning Faces Charges for Trying to Take Her Own Life

      These new charges, which Army employees verbally informed Chelsea were related to the July 5th incident, include, “resisting the force cell move team;” “prohibited property;” and “conduct which threatens.” If convicted, Chelsea could face punishment including indefinite solitary confinement, reclassification into maximum security, and an additional nine years in medium custody. They may negate any chances of parole.

    • In America, the UN Finds the Rights to Peaceful Assembly and Association Are Being Eroded, and Race Plays a Big Factor

      The U.N.’s special rapporteur on the rights to freedom of peaceful assembly and of association completed a 17-day mission to the United States this week, and he drew some concerning conclusions about the state of those rights in this country.

      Maini Kiai covered an impressive 10 cities in 17 days. He observed protests at the political conventions in Cleveland and Philadelphia and visited cities rocked by the police killings of Black men, like Baton Rouge, Baltimore, and Ferguson.

    • The NYPD Is Already a Small Army—Now It Is Hyping Terror Threats to Militarize Even More

      The NYPD is already the largest and most well-resourced police force in the United States, with more than 34,000 officers on its payroll and a budget that hovers over $5 billion annually.

      But now, the New York Police Commissioner Bill Bratton and Mayor Bill de Blasio are invoking the specter of ISIS-style terror and the supposed “war on cops” to spend at least another $7.5 million on military-style gear.

    • What Are the DNC Hack(s) Rated on Obama’s New Cyber-Orange Alert System?

      The question is still more problematic if you try to grade the OPM hack, which has to be far closer to a Level 4 (because of the risk it placed clearance holders under). But do you also lump it in with, say, the hack of Anthem, which is understood to be related?

      I will ask the White House tomorrow if it has ranked the DNC hack(s). But for now, where do you think it would rate?

    • Target of Contested National Security Letter Was a Muslim the FBI Wanted to Turn Informant

      The target of a federal investigation that set off a more than decadelong battle over secret subpoenas called national security letters was a Muslim prison reform advocate the FBI wanted to become an informant.

      Nick Merrill, who fought to make the information public, revealed that information for the first time at a hacker conference in New York City.

      Merrill was the head of an internet hosting company when the controversy began. He had launched a small New York-based internet service provider called Calyx Internet Access in the 1990s, and he also consulted on digital security.

      In 2004, the FBI sent him a national security letter demanding extensive records on one of his customers.

      National security letters are secret subpoenas the FBI can send to internet and technology companies to demand various types of records about their customers’ online behaviors without ever getting a court order. In Merrill’s case, that request was particularly broad — for browsing records, email address information, billing information, and more.

    • Who Would Trayvon Have Been? Becoming a Black Man in the United States

      I don’t remember what I was doing when George Zimmerman killed Trayvon Martin. I’m sure I was watching the All-Star game, as I had done since I was a kid even younger than Trayvon. I may have even made a snack run to 7-11. I almost certainly was tweeting, or at the very least reading Twitter. I may have been on deadline and convincing myself that watching the game wasn’t procrastinating but all a part of my writing process. I was probably stressing about money. I probably wasn’t thinking about dead black boys.

      I’ve had the opportunity to do a number of things Trayvon will never have the chance to, and the guilt of that weighs heavily on me. Everything Trayvon did that supposedly justified his death — wear hoodies, walk to the store at night, buy Skittles, have tattoos, smoke weed, be suspended from school — I did. I could have been Trayvon. So many of us black boys trying to become black men in America could have been. Knowing that made his death that much harder to stomach.

    • Police Incitement Against Black Lives Matter Is Putting Protesters in Danger

      From the floor of the Republican National Convention to the online pages of the Blue Lives Matter Facebook community, it is now commonplace for public officials, police and first responders to openly declare war on Black Lives Matter — the civil rights movement of our times.

      In some cases, this climate has given way to overt intimidation, with the captain of the Columbia, South Carolina fire department fired earlier this month for threatening to run over Black Lives Matter protesters, followed by the termination of three other first responders for related offenses. According to the count of Sarah Kaplan, reporting for The Washington Post, those South Carolina officials “are among at least a dozen public employees who have lashed out against protesters on social media and been punished for it.” Yet, many more appear to have faced no consequences at all.

    • Buddhist temples attacked in Sumatra

      Indonesian authorities detained seven people in northern Sumatra island on Saturday on suspicion of attacking several Buddhist temples the previous night, officials said.

      A spokeswoman for North Sumatra provincial police said the seven had led a mob that damaged at least three temples and other property in the town of Tanjung Balai, near Indonesia’s fourth-biggest city, Medan. No one was injured.

      Indonesia is a Muslim-majority nation but has a sizable ethnic Chinese minority, many of whom are Buddhist. The country has a history of anti-Chinese violence, most recently in the late 1990s amid the political and economic crisis that brought down Suharto.

      But police officials denied Friday’s attack was aimed at the Chinese community.

    • Make Love Not Porn founder Cindy Gallop: Emma Watson was wrong to call for feminist alternatives to porn

      “Like women in many other endeavours; journalism, publishing, advertising, film-making, television, there are a whole other hosts of feminists and women making amazing work, plugging away who never get showcased in mainstream media, who can’t get people to come to their sites and pay them money for what they’re doing. So when Emma Watson goes, ‘there should be this and there should be this’, no wonder those women feel very, very upset. I completely empathise.”

      Gallop has even tried to get in touch with a contact at the UN (where Watson is a GoodWill Ambassador for women) to meet the Harry Potter actress.

    • Father ‘who kept British daughter in cage in Saudi Arabia for four years’ loses legal bid to gag media

      An academic at the centre of family court litigation after being accused of imprisoning his 21-year-old daughter at their home in Saudi Arabia has failed in a bid to limit reporting of the case.

      Amina Al-Jeffery – who grew up in Swansea and has dual British and Saudi Arabian nationality – says her father, Mohammed Al-Jeffery, locks her up because she “kissed a guy”.

      Lawyers representing Miss Al-Jeffery have taken legal action in London in a bid to protect her.

      They have asked Mr Justice Holman to look at ways of coming to her aid.

    • Security Territory And Population Part 3: Security As The Basis For Governing

      Security is connected to liberalism as a form of government. This last difference helps us see the nature of liberalism as a political ideal. It promises more freedom of action, more freedom of response to realty.

    • Black Agenda Report’s Glen Ford on Why the Clintons Won Over Black America

      Despite her dogged support of her husband’s bills on welfare “reform” and mass incarceration—policies that devastated black America—and her past reference to urban black youths as “superpredators,” black Americans favored Hillary Clinton generously in the 2016 Democratic primary.

    • What We Wear: Another Way to “Vote”

      For more than two decades, more and more Americans have become aware of the exploitation and violence associated with much of the globalized garment industry producing more than 95 percent of our clothes. A series of media exposures, including the 1996 revelation that TV host Kathy Lee Gifford had endorsed a clothing line produced by Honduran children in sweatshop conditions, spurred a growing consciousness of labor abuses in many countries.

    • Despite Clinton Endorsement, Bernie Lays Foundation to Carry On “Revolution”

      Sanders has started a “social welfare” 501(c)(4) advocacy organization, to support progressive groups seeking to coach and vet those who want to run for office. He touted the group, called “Our Revolution,” in an email sent to supporters earlier this week.

  • Internet Policy/Net Neutrality

    • Google Enchances Its Security By Enabling HSTS Encryption For Google.com

      Google had revealed its latest intentions to enhance encryption level of its domains. The same will be done by enabling HSTS encryption across various products preventing users from being redirected to unsafe links wrapped in the secure shell of HTTPS protocol.

    • If Theresa May wants to improve productivity, she needs to start with our broadband

      We hear a lot of talk from politicians about the urgency of improving the UK’s poor productivity. Upgrading digital connections is plainly a vital element of delivering that. How can we encourage more people to set up businesses if they cannot get reliable and fast broadband?

    • Big Telecom Wants a DC Circuit Net Neutrality Review. Here’s Why That’s Unlikely

      The nation’s largest cable and telecom industry trade groups on Friday asked a federal court for a rare “en banc” review of last month’s decision upholding US rules protecting net neutrality, the principle that all content on the internet should be equally accessible to consumers.

      The industry petitions come six weeks after a three-judge panel of the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia issued a landmark ruling affirming Federal Communications Commission rules barring cable and phone companies from favoring certain internet services over others.

      Friday’s petitions, which request a hearing by the full DC Circuit Court of Appeals, were filed by USTelecom, the National Cable and Telecommunications Association, the American Cable Association, and wireless trade group CTIA, which collectively represent the nation’s largest cable and phone companies.

  • Intellectual Monopolies

    • Copyrights

      • Top 10 Free Movie Download Websites That Are Completely Legal

        You’ll be surprised to find The Internet Archive sitting at the top of our free movie download websites. It like a goldmine for the fans of movies, music, and books. From The Internet Archive, you can download hundreds of movies for free in the form of torrents.

]]> http://techrights.org/2016/07/31/gnome-maps-datafeed-back/feed/ 0 Links 14/7/2016: New Open SDN Platform, GNOME Board of Directors, Tor Board of Directors http://techrights.org/2016/07/14/gnome-board-of-directors/ http://techrights.org/2016/07/14/gnome-board-of-directors/#comments Thu, 14 Jul 2016 18:52:54 +0000 http://techrights.org/?p=94378

GNOME bluefish

Contents

GNU/Linux

  • Best Universal Package Manager for Linux?

    In fact, considering that Flatpak, Fedora and Red Hat’s candidate for a universal package manager, was rushed out a few days after Snappy was announced, it appears that the issue is not necessity so much as a corporate rivalry that is being played out in the Linux community — the last place that it belongs.

    Still, accepting the claims about universal package managers at face value, which one would benefit Linux the most? Some choice must surely be made, or the main result of trying to implement a universal package manager, as many point out, would be to replace the longtime rivalry between Debian and RPM packages with yet another conflict between competing standards, which would remove one of the main rationalizations for raising the issue.

  • You & Linux, Small Business Distros, FreeDOS

    The Linux Voice asked readers today, “How did you discover Linux?” Many of the comments are from those who started in the mid 1990′s or earlier. ComputerWorld featured an interview with Jim Hall who’s been spearheading the project to keep FreeDOS alive and TechRadar recommended the best distributions for small business. Elsewhere, the next Slackware will use UTF-8 by default and Dedoimedo said, “Linux is slowly killing itself.”

  • Linux User? The US Government May Classify You an Extremist

    Do you use decentralized, open source software? The US government considers you an extremist.

    According to leaked documents related to the XKeyscore spying program, the National Security Agency (NSA) flags as an “extremist” anyone who uses Tor or Tails Linux, or who subscribes to Linux Journal.

  • Desktop

    • Linux 2017 – The Road to Hell

      The Year of Linux is the year that you look at your distribution, compare to the year before, and you have that sense of stability, the knowledge that no matter what you do, you can rely on your operating system. Which is definitely not the case today. If anything, the issues are worsening and multiplying. You don’t need a degree in math to see the problem.

      I find the lack of consistency to be the public enemy no. 1 in the open-source world. In the long run, it will be the one deciding factor that will determine the success of Linux. Sure, applications, but if the operating system is not transparent, people will not choose it. They will seek simpler, possibly less glamorous, but ultimately more stable solutions, because no one wants to install a patch and dread what will happen after a reboot. It’s very PTSD. And we know Linux can do better than that. We’ve seen it. Not that long ago. That’s all.

    • Voice of the Masses: How did you discover Linux?

      For our next podcast, we want to hear how you got into GNU/Linux. Where did your journey begin? Maybe you saw it on the coverdisc of a magazine somewhere, or a friend recommended that you try it. Perhaps your company switched to Linux which encouraged you to install it at home, or you simply became so enraged with Windows that you had to find something else.

    • Ubuntu MATE, Pithos and the Sounds of Popcorn

      My trusty old Sony Vaio laptop has been saddled up with Ubuntu MATE for a little over a month now. For the most part, it’s running just as smoothly as it ever did on Windows XP — and definitely better than it ran with the lovingly installed bloatware that came included with it shiny and new from the factory.

      Upon the suggestion of FOSS Force reader Jeff, I invested in a recent upgrade of RAM that fulfills its maximum potential of a single gigabyte. Compared to its performance in the past, it’s definitely noticeable. But compared to my main work computer with a humble (by modern standards) 4 GB RAM, it can feel a little sluggish if I try to do do something unreasonable — like having two programs open at once.

  • Server

    • Xen Project Release Strengthens Security and Pushes New Use Cases

      Xen Project technology supports more than 10 million users and is a staple in some of the largest clouds in production today, including Amazon Web Service, Tencent, and Alibaba’s Aliyun. Recently, the project announced the arrival of Xen Project Hypervisor 4.7. This new release focuses on improving code quality, security hardening and features, and support for the latest hardware. It is also the first release of the project’s fixed-term June – December release cycles. The fixed-term release cycles provide more predictability making it easier for consumers of Xen to plan ahead.

  • Kernel Space

  • Applications

  • Desktop Environments/WMs

    • K Desktop Environment/KDE SC/Qt

      • Released DigiKam 5.0 and completely ported with Qt5

        The photos are organized in albums which can be sorted chronologically, by folder layout or by custom collections.You can tag your images which can be spread out across multiple folders, and digiKam provides fast and intuitive ways to browse these tagged images. You can also add comments to your images.

    • GNOME Desktop/GTK

      • GNOME Board of Directors Announced

        This year we had 253 registered voters, 142 of which sent in valid ballots. Elections ran during the months of May and June, and the new Board was officially announced on June 18, 2016.

        The Board of Directors is a team of volunteers who are elected for a one-year term by GNOME Foundation members. The Board is an important part of the GNOME Foundation and ensures the health of the organization by working on operational and legal items that help keep the Foundation in order. It also helps to manage the relationship with the Advisory Board and promotes the overall well-being of the GNOME Project. This year’s Board has experience that spans the GNOME project including expertise in design, development, usability, and communications.

  • Distributions

    • New Releases

    • OpenSUSE/SUSE

      • GCC 6 & Mesa 12.0 Land In Tumbleweed, 42.2 Leap To Have GNOME 3.20
      • openSUSE Leap 42.2 to Ship with GNOME 3.20, KDE Plasma 5.6, Linux Kernel 4.4 LTS

        We told you last week that users of the openSUSE Tumbleweed rolling release operating system received fewer yet very important milestones of essential core components and open-source applications, and now it’s time to take a look at what’s coming to openSUSE Leap 42.2 this fall.

        While openSUSE Tumbleweed users are currently enjoying cutting-edge software releases like the LibreOffice 5.2 RC1 office suite, Mesa 3D Graphics Library 12.0.0, Linux kernel 4.6.3, the PulseAudio 9.0 sound system, python3-setuptools 24.0.2, and the latest systemd init system update, openSUSE Leap users will have a surprise later this year when the 42.2 major version is announced.

      • Systemd updates in Tumbleweed, Leap to have GNOME 3.20

        The last update provided on Tumbleweed was almost a month ago and a lot has happened since then.

        Besides the release of a an Alpha 2 for openSUSE Leap 42.2 and the five-day openSUSE Conference in Nuremberg, Tumbleweed snapshots have been rolling along with 10 snapshots since the last update, which highlighted the addition of GNU Compiler Collection 6 as the default compiler for Tumbleweed.

        The latest snapshot, 20160710, brought a major release for python3-setuptools to version 24.0.2. Systemd also added some subpackages and python3-numpy squashed some bugs.

    • Slackware Family

      • Next Slackware will use UTF-8 by default

        Besides taking security updates, Patrick already started minor changes in Slackware-Current which probably have big impact for users. The first one is enabling UTF-8 support by default in /etc/profile.d/lang.{csh,sh} script which are loaded by default and also in lilo dialog. It will not prompt you about UTF-8 anymore since it will use it by default and the kernel is already UTF-8 compliance. We will have less installation dialog in the next Slackware release :)

        The second change is mesa upgrade to 12.0.1. This is requested in LQ, but surprisingly Patrick approved it. Normally, current will not be active for some time besides security updates.

    • Red Hat Family

      • Finance

      • Fedora

        • Fedora mirror at home with improved hardware

          It was always a dream to have a fully functional Fedora mirror in the local network which I can use. I tried many times before, mostly with copying rpms from office, carrying them around in hard drive, etc. But never managed to setup a working mirror which will just work (even though setting it up was not that difficult). My house currently has 3 different network (from 3 different providers) and at any point of time 1 of them stays down

        • Fedora 24 Release Party: Bangalore, India

          Over the past few months, many of us in the Bangalore open source community have focused our efforts of writing test cases for Fedora, organizing a few sessions where one can learn about testing, and how we can do things together. All this while, it has been fun: I’ve met new people, learned things, and realized that sharing even small pieces of knowledge and experiences makes it easier for newcomers to feel welcome.

        • FAD Kuala Lumpur

          Every year again, could be said if the budget.next not would enforce the Ambasadors to meet in summer instead of the end of the calendar year to come together and working on the budget plan for the next year. So after Singapore in December the APAC ambassadors came in Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia again together. For me is the way to KL just one hour longer as to Singapore, but there is one hour time difference, so I arrived again very late.

          The first day was mostly for discussions how to cut the budget of this year so that it fits to the huge budget cut. Having 11.5k US$ budget for the whole year and paying the regional FAD out of it, means for the APAC region after the FAD and paying the media the budget is gone. The next bigger agreement was how to continue with FUDCon in APAC, if it is a good idea to switch to FUDCon APAC with an bi-annually cycle.

        • Fedora at FISL

          Today, july 12, was the first day of the seventeenth edition of FISL – International Forum Free Software, this event was my entrance door to Fedora in 2008 and in 2016 this is my seventh participation here in Porto Alegre, capital of state Rio Grande do Sul.

        • Saying Goodbye to F23 updated Respins
        • FESCo Elections: Interview with Stephen Gallagher (sgallagh)

          I’ve been a software developer working on applications and services for Linux-based systems since around the turn of the millennium. For the last eight years, I’ve been working for Red Hat in various software development roles. During that time, I’ve contributed to a number of open source projects; in particular: Fedora Server, the System Security Services Daemon, and OpenShift Origin.

        • You’re invited: FOSCo Brainstorm Meeting, 2016-07-18, 13:00 UTC

          For some time now, Fedora has discussed the idea of the Fedora Outreach Steering Committee (FOSCo), a body to coordinate all our outreach efforts. Now it’s time to make it happen!

    • Debian Family

      • Derivatives

        • Canonical/Ubuntu

          • Ubuntu 16.10 Getting Nautilus 3.20 Soon, Radiance Theme Fully Ported to GTK 3.20

            We reported two weeks ago on the upcoming availability of a major GTK+ 3.20 / GNOME Stack 3.20 update for the now-in-development Ubuntu 16.10 (Yakkety Yak) operating system.

            At that moment in time, Ubuntu developer Iain Lane told us that he managed to port the Ambiance theme to the latest GTK+ 3.20 technologies, and that he also updated some of the GNOME components Ubuntu is using, such as the Nautilus file manager, and Baobab disk usage analyzer tool, along with the GTK+ port of Mozilla Firefox 47.0 for Ubuntu 16.10.

  • Devices/Embedded

Free Software/Open Source

  • Free Tools for Driving an Open Source Project to Success

    How can you showcase the fact that your open source project follows best practices and is secure? The Core Infrastructure Initiative (CII) Badge Program is a free program that is good to know about on this front. Its Best Practices Badge is a symbol of open source secure development maturity. Projects having a CII badge showcase the project’s commitment to security, and The Linux Foundation is the steward of this program.

    Note that The Linux Foundation also has a collection of very useful free resources pertaining to open source compliance topics. For example, Publishing Source Code for FOSS Compliance: Lightweight Process and Checklists and Generic FOSS Policy can align your project’s development with best practices and policies.

  • 8 answers to management questions from an open point of view

    I recently saw the following questions on a survey about organizational management, and decided to answer them from my open organization point of view. I’d love to hear how others in the open source world would answer these questions, so leave some comments and tell us what you think!

  • IBM Forms Impactful IoT Partnership with AT&T, Focused on Open Source

    The Internet of Things (IoT) is finally ramping up in a big way, and many of the biggest tech companies are announcing partnerships. The latest two players to cozy up to each other are IBM and AT&T. They are in partnership to meld AT&T’s connectivity with IBM’s Watson and Bluemix analytics platforms. Via APIs and development environments, including a number of open source tools, the tech titans want to make life easier for developers focused on IoT.

  • How (and why) FreeDOS keeps DOS alive

    Jim Hall’s day job is chief information officer for Ramsey County in the US state of Minnesota. But outside of work, the CIO is also a contributor to a number of free software/open source projects, including FreeDOS: The project to create an open source, drop-in replacement for MS-DOS.

    FreeDOS (it was originally dubbed ‘PD-DOS’ for ‘Public Domain DOS’, but the name was changed to reflect that it’s actually released under the GNU General Public License) dates back to June 1994, meaning it is just over 22 years old — a formidable lifespan compared to many open source projects.

  • Where Open Source fits in New Zealand

    NZ Open Source Society president Dave Lane is a frequent and articulate promoter of his cause. He can also be a scathing critic of proprietary software.

    In keeping with the Open Source philosophy, his presentation from this year’s ITX conference is online.

    You can read the slides, or hit the S key to see the slides and his speaker notes.

    Lane’s presentation has a Creative Commons licence. You can copy, adapt and share the work to your heart’s content so long as you credit the author.

    It’s well worth a read if you need a crash course in Open Source. It also works as a refresher.

  • Web Browsers

    • Mozilla

      • Next month’s Firefox 48 is looking Rusty – and that’s a very good thing

        Mozilla says it will next month ship the first official Firefox build that sports code written in its more-secure-than-C Rust programming language.

        The Firefox 48 build – due out August 2 – will include components developed using Rust, Moz’s C/C++-like systems language that focuses on safety, speed and concurrency.

  • CMS

    • How Drupal can save taxpayers’ time and money

      Providing web services for the government of one of the most populous U.S. states (Georgia) is no small task, but it’s made a bit easier thanks to Drupal, open source software, and the work of Kendra Skeene and the GeorgiaGov Interactive team.

      In her lightning talk at Great Wide Open 2016, Skeene explains the role Drupal and open source software play in the Georgia’s efforts to save taxpayer time and money.

    • Serious flaw fixed in widely used WordPress plug-in

      If you’re running a WordPress website and you have the hugely popular All in One SEO Pack plug-in installed, it’s a good idea to update it as soon as possible. The latest version released Friday fixes a flaw that could be used to hijack the site’s admin account.

      The vulnerability is in the plug-in’s Bot Blocker functionality and can be exploited remotely by sending HTTP requests with specifically crafted headers to the website.

      The Bot Blocker feature is designed to detect and block spam bots based on their user agent and referer header values, according to security researcher David Vaartjes, who found and reported the issue.

  • Pseudo-Open Source (Openwashing)

  • Funding

  • FSF/FSFE/GNU/SFLC

    • GNU Health 3.0.2 patchset released !

      We provide “patchsets” to stable releases. Patchsets allow applying bug fixes and updates on production systems. Always try to keep your production system up-to-date with the latest patches.

      Patches and Patchsets maximize uptime for production systems, and keep your system updated, without the need to do a whole installation.

    • GIMP 2.8.18 Open-Source Image Editor Released with Script-Fu Improvements, More
    • GIMP 2.9.4 Released

      We have just released the second development version of GIMP in the 2.9.x series. After half a year in the works, GIMP 2.9.4 delivers a massive update: revamped look and feel, major improvements in color management, as well as production-ready MyPaint Brush tool, symmetric painting, and split preview for GEGL-based filters. Additionally, dozens of bugs have been fixed, and numerous small improvements have been applied.

      GIMP 2.9.4 is quite reliable for production work, but there are still loose ends to tie, which is why releasing stable v2.10 will take a while. Please refer to the Roadmap for the list of major pending changes.

    • Photoshop vs. GIMP: Which Photo Editor Do You Need?

      Just about every image you encounter in the world has been manipulated or processed in some way. Headline images, fine art photography, and advertisements all rely to some extent on image editing software. Many of these manipulations are so subtle that they’re nearly imperceptible: Slight cropping, adjusting contrast, and color correction are all standard procedures. Others are more drastic, like altering shapes and removing (or inserting) certain elements.

  • Openness/Sharing/Collaboration

    • Open Hardware/Modding

      • This open source CNC system integrates high-tech automation into backyard farming

        This story might more properly belong on RobotHugger, but with its open source DIY approach to small-scale food production, FarmBot is worth a look.

        The old-school gardener in me is battling my high-tech early adopter side over whether or not this robotic farming device is a step toward greater food sovereignty or toward a dystopian future where robot overlords rule backyard farms. Sure, it’s easy enough to learn to garden the old fashioned way, on your hands and knees with your hands in the soil, but considering that one of the excuses for not growing some our own food is lack of time and lack of skills and knowledge, perhaps this automated and optimized small-scale farming approach could be a feasible solution for the techie foodies who would like homegrown food without having to have a green thumb.

      • Tropical Labs Offers a Powerful Open Source Servo for Makers

        Joe Church from Tropical Labs wanted low cost, accurate servo motors for a project but was unable to find the right parts for his need. The team began to develop motors and recording their progress on hackaday.io. The motor project eventually turned into Mechaduino, and Tropical Labs is running a highly successful Kickstarter campaign to fund the first run of production motors.

      • SiFive – the open-source hardware company

        Customisation periods end with ICs becoming complex and expensive and, at that point, standardisation comes in and returns ICs to affordability.

        Or that’s the theory.

        Over the years there have been many ways to bring the cost of custom silicon down – MPW, ASIC, P-SOC, FPGAs and, latterly, ARM’s offer of free access to Cortex-M0 processor IP through DesignStart which aims to deliver test chips for $16,000.

      • Open-source Bluetooth sensor beacon offers “IoT for everyone”

        Finnish startup Ruuvi Innovations has successfully crowdfunded the first fully open-sourced Bluetooth Smart (Bluetooth 5 ready) sensor beacon. The device, RuuviTag, is claimed to be the only sensor beacon with a one kilometer open-air range and offers unlimited possibilities for makers, developers, Internet of Things (IoT) companies and educational institutions.

Leftovers

  • Health/Nutrition

    • ‘Abortion Is a Fundamental Component of a Full Spectrum of Healthcare’

      When a wire piece headlined “Supreme Court Strikes Down Texas Abortion Law, Dooms Women to Substandard Care” is bylined Operation Rescue, readers are tipped off as to how genuinely to take the piece’s stated concern that by reversing a Fifth Circuit ruling that upheld restrictions Texas placed on abortion providers, the Supreme Court “relegated women to second-class citizens when it comes to abortion by allowing abortionists to evade meeting basic safety standards that are proven to save lives.”

  • Security

    • David A. Wheeler: Working to Prevent the Next Heartbleed

      The Heartbleed bug revealed that some important open source projects were so understaffed that they were unable to properly implement best security practices. The Linux Foundation’s Core Infrastructure Initiative , formed to help open source projects have the ability to adopt these practices, uses a lot of carrot and very little stick.

    • The First iPhone Hacker Shows How Easy It Is To Hack A Computer

      Viceland is known for its extensive security-focused coverage and videos. In the latest CYBERWAR series, it’s showing us different kinds of cyber threats present in the world around us. From the same series, recently, we covered the story of an ex-NSA spy that showed us how to hack a car.

      In another spooky addition to the series, we got to see how easily the famous iPhone hacker George Hotz hacked a computer.

      George Hotz, also known as geohot, is the American hacker known for unlocking the iPhone. He developed bootrom exploit and limera1n jailbreak tool for Apple’s iOS operating system. Recently, he even built his own self-driving car in his garage.

    • Beware; Adwind RAT infecting Windows, OS X, Linux and Android Devices

      Cyber criminals always develop malware filled with unbelievable features but hardly ever you will find something that targets different operating systems simultaneously. Now, researchers have discovered a malware based on Java infecting companies in Denmark but it’s only a matter of time before it will probably hit other countries.

    • 7 Computers Fighting Against Each Other To Become “The Perfect Hacker”

      Are automated “computer hackers” better than human hackers? DARPA is answering this question in positive and looking to prove its point with the help of its Cyber Grand Challenge. The contest finale will feature seven powerful computer fighting against each other. The winner of the contest will challenge human hackers at the annual DEF CON hacking conference.

    • Security advisories for Thursday

  • Defence/Aggression

    • Are We in for Another Increase in Military Spending?

      At the present time, an increase in U.S. military spending seems as superfluous as a third leg. The United States, armed with the latest in advanced weaponry, has more military might than any other nation in world history. Moreover, it has begun a $1 trillion program to refurbish its entire nuclear weapons complex.

    • South Sudan is Not Africa

      This is not an article on South Sudan, which is just as well because the conflicts there are almost fractal in their complexity. The mini-war last weekend between the forces of President Salva Kiir and Vice-President Riek Machar, which killed more than 270 people and saw tanks, artillery and helicopter gunships used in the capital, Juba, is part of a pattern that embraces the whole country.

      [...]

      The real reason for its poverty, however, is war: the country that is now South Sudan has been at war for 42 of the past 60 years. British colonialists included it in what we now call Sudan for administrative convenience, but the dominant population in the much bigger northern part was Muslim and Arabic-speaking, while the south was mostly Christian and culturally, ethnically and linguistically African.

    • Ramstein: A Key Link in the Kill Chain

      As the U.S. military relies more and more on remote-controlled drones to kill people half a world away, one of the key links in the chain of death is in southwest Germany, the Ramstein Air Base, reports Norman Solomon for The Nation.

    • GOP Ups Ante on Clinton’s Israel Pander

      By inserting Israel-first promises in the Republican platform, GOP regulars challenge Donald Trump’s America-first policies and open a possible bidding war with Hillary Clinton over pandering to Israel, as Chuck Spinney explains.

    • Don’t Call Him “Bernie” Anymore: the Sanders Sell-Out and the Clinton Wars to Come

      The worst disservice Sanders has done to his supporters, other than to lead them on a wild goose chase for real change, is to virtually ignore his rival’s vaunted “experience.” He need not have mentioned Hillary Clinton’s Senate record, since there was nothing there; her stint as law-maker was merely intended to position her for a run for the presidency, according to the family plan. But there was a lot in her record as Secretary of State.

      As she recounts in her memoir, she wanted a heftier “surge” in Afghanistan than Obama was prepared to order. Anyone paying attention knows that the entire military mission in that broken country has been a dismal failure producing blow-back on a mind-boggling scale, even as the Taliban has become stronger, and controls more territory, than at any time since its toppling in 2001-2002.

      Hillary wanted to impose regime change on Syria in 2011, by stepping up assistance to armed groups whom (again) anyone paying attention knows are in cahoots with al-Nusra (which is to say, al-Qaeda). In an email dated Nov. 30, 2015, she states her reason: “The best way to help Israel…is to help the people of Syria overthrow the regime of Bashar Assad.”

    • In Attempt to Dodge Suit, White House Argues Funding War Makes War Legal

      A lawsuit filed earlier this year charging President Barack Obama with waging an illegal war against the Islamic State (or ISIS) was met on Tuesday with a motion from the Obama administration asking the court to dismiss it.

      In its motion to dismiss (pdf), the administration argues that congressional funding for the war amounts to congressional approval for it.

      The lawsuit (pdf) was filed in U.S. district court by Capt. Nathan Michael Smith, an intelligence official stationed in Kuwait, in May. Smith has been assigned to work for “Operation Inherent Resolve,” the administration’s name for the nebulous conflict against the terrorist group ISIS.

  • Environment/Energy/Wildlife/Nature

    • Koch Brothers’ Congressman Seeks To Block Efforts to Prevent Chemical Catastrophe

      Republican congressman Mike Pompeo of Kansas, who represents Wichita, seems to be doing the bidding of the Koch Brothers once again: He has introduced legislation to prohibit the Environmental Protection Agency from issuing or enforcing a rule to improve the safety of America’s most dangerous chemical plants. Wichita is the home of Koch Industries, which has been the most aggressive opponent of efforts to make these plants safer.

      The Obama EPA’s proposed rule, issued in March, is — in the opinion of former George W. Bush EPA head Christine Todd Whitman, experienced retired generals, the U.S. Chemical Safety Board, community and labor leaders and many others — far too weak to adequately protect the public from the serious dangers represented by hazardous chemical facilities, which Senator Barack Obama once called “stationary weapons of mass destruction spread all across the country.” But at least the rule takes some steps toward requiring chemical plant operators to address the problem. And that’s apparently too much for Pompeo to tolerate.

    • Leaked: The strategy behind Shell’s low emissions PR push

      Shell is targeting journalists, policy-makers and millennials with a new strategy to position the oil major as a leading light on the path to a ‘net-zero emissions’ future, according to a leaked document seen by Energydesk.

      The document – a project brief for PR companies – outlines Shell’s aims for the communications project, which include:

      “Help ‘open doors’ in building relationships with key stakeholders in support of business objectives”
      “Build Shell’s reputation as an innovative, competitive and forward-thinking energy company of the future”
      “Brand perception and advocacy”

      The communications campaign, which the briefing suggests should include a range of interactive online media and events, centres around a scenario outlined in a recent report entitled A Better Life with a Healthy Planet: Pathways to Net-Zero Emissions.

    • Americans Are Becoming More Worried About Climate Change. Here’s Why.

      Another major public opinion analysis confirms that Americans are growing substantially more “Alarmed” and “Concerned” about global warming, while at the same time becoming less “Doubtful” and “Dismissive.”

    • GOP Subpoenas in ExxonKnew Probe Decried as Oil-Soaked ‘Abuse of Power’

      The GOP is amping up its campaign against those seeking to hold Big Oil accountable for climate deception, with House Science, Space, and Technology Committee chairman Lamar Smith (R-Tex.) announcing Wednesday that his panel has issued subpoenas to the New York and Massachusetts attorneys general and climate groups demanding information on their ExxonKnew investigations.

    • Republicans just escalated the war over ExxonMobil and climate change

      Call it a tit for tat over subpoenas, one that escalates an ongoing spat over what the biggest U.S. oil company knew and when it knew it.

      House Science, Space and Technology Committee Chairman Lamar Smith (R-Tex.) said Wednesday his committee was issuing subpoenas to the New York and Massachusetts state attorneys general, who have issued their own subpoenas as part of probes into whether ExxonMobil misled the public and investors about what it knew about the dangers of climate change decades ago.

  • Finance

    • Article 50 and Brexit: Are Estragon and Vladimir on the move?

      Of the three appointments, the one which should worry Remainers is that of David Davis. It is a serious appointment. He was an outstanding Chair of the main Commons watchdog committee, the Public Accounts Committee, and a competent Europe minister. He is not a politician to underestimate.

      That said: there is the irony that, because of his genuine civil liberties concerns, he is currently suing the UK government at the European Court of Justice so as to enforce EU law. Not the most appropriate thing a Brexit minister should be doing, one may say.

      But what difference will the appointment make?

    • Are Obama and Clinton Counting on Republican Majorities to Pass TPP?

      Or should we ask whether the Pope is Catholic? Why else would President Barack Obama be so determined that November/December’s lame duck Congress, with Republican majorities in both House and Senate, vote on the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP)? And, why did Hillary Clinton and Debbie Wasserman-Schultz’s majority representatives on the Democratic platform committee block any opposition to a vote by the lame duck Congress? What else explains either phenomenon? Support for the TPP has always been majority Republican, despite considerable Democratic support in the Senate and Obama’s own unflagging dedication. If lame duck Republican majorities pass the TPP, Obama can claim his vicious, anti-worker trade legacy, and Hillary can take office without taking the heat. So much for Obama’s 2014 plea to get Cousin Pookie off the couch to vote for the Democrats.

      Horrible things often happen between presidential elections in November and the inauguration of new presidents in January. In 2000, in the final months of his presidency, Bill Clinton worked with Republicans to pass the Commodities Futures Modernization Act, the Wall Street deregulation bill that tanked the economy and allowed the banks to drive millions of Americans out of their homes. On his last day in office in 2001, Clinton pardoned fugitive commodities dealer and Glencore International founder Mark Rich, who had been on the FBI’s 10 Most Wanted Fugitives list for years for charges that included buying $200 million worth of oil from Iran while it was holding 53 American hostages in 1979 and selling it to Israel. In 2008, as Obama prepared to take office, Israel pounded Gaza with Operation Cast Lead between December 27th and January 18th. The bombardment ended just two days before Obama’s inauguration. Then, on Inauguration Day, when all eyes were on the U.S.A.’s first African American President, U.S. allies Rwanda and Uganda invaded the Democratic Republic of the Congo again with U.S. blessing.

      So, why not ram through the TPP when everyone’s trying to get home for the holidays? Much as Republicans hate handing Obama any kind of victory, and much as Mitch McConnell, R-KY, Richard Burr, R-NC, and Thomas Till, R-NC, dislike exemptions that would allow TPP-participating nations to issue health warnings without compensating tobacco farmers, they might see this as their last chance too.

  • AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics

    • Wikipedia Is Shockingly Biased: 5 Lessons From An Admin

      Unless you’re one of those freaks with attentive parents and a good education, Wikipedia has probably taught you more than school and family combined. It’s society’s go-to source for knowledge, from settling disputes at the bar to cranking out term papers hours before they’re due. But as Chris, a veteran Wikipedia administrator explained to us, this is a problem. That’s because …

    • Western Propaganda for a New Cold War

      Western propaganda portrays Russia as the aggressor and NATO as the victim, but the reality looks almost opposite from the ground level, Rick Sterling found on a recent fact-finding trip.

    • A Perfect Couple: Sanders and Clinton

      So much for Mr. Sanders’ ‘progressive’ platform.

      Difficult as it is to say anything positive about the Republican Party, at least its voters thought ‘outside of the box’ this year. There was no decent candidate running, so rather than choosing some tired career politician, they selected a billionaire racist, homophobic, Islamophopic misogynist. The Democrats played by their rigged rulebook, and are about to nominate the quintessential Washington insider.

      Is there a lesser evil between these two? Hardly! Each, in his or her own way, will cause untold suffering at home and abroad; do nothing to assist those who are struggling; enrich their friends and associates, and leave a trail of blood and carnage in their wake.

    • In Campaign Against Venezuela, NYT Cites Former Member of Death Squad Alliance

      Even more bizarre is the Times editorial’s reliance on Paraguay’s foreign minister, Eladio Loizaga, a diplomat left over from the decades-long dictatorship of Gen. Alfredo Stroessner. The foreign minister is accused by Latin Americans (E’a, 8/12/13) of involvement in the hit squad operations of the World Anti-Communist League and Operation Condor.

      Loizaga, whom the Times apparently interviewed and treats favorably in its editorial (“We can’t condone any action that silences dissident voices,” the editorial quotes him), was an important Latin American member of WACL, an extreme right-wing organization incorporating fascist and Nazi elements and involved in murders around the globe.

    • The Entirely Fake Owen Smith

      Note “to pitch himself”. For PR professional Smith, political stance is nothing to do with personal belief, it is to do with brand positioning. On Channel 4 News last night, an incredulous Michael Crick pointed out that the “soft left” Smith had previously given interviews supporting PFI and privatisation in the health service. He also strongly supported Blair’s city academies.

    • Progressives Have Raised Expectations, and Democrats Have Fought Desperately to Lower Them

      When Barack Obama won the presidential election in 2008, expectations were high.

      What occupied the minds of the president-elect’s advisers, however, was not how to live up to those expectations, but how to temper them.

    • WikiLeaks cable: Boris Johnson’s career ‘defies the laws of political gravity’, say US officials

      On 14 July, the world was still digesting the fact that former London mayor and pro-Brexit conservative Boris Johnson had been assigned the role of Foreign Secretary in Prime Minister Theresa May’s new cabinet.

      That means, for better or worse, Johnson is suddenly the minister responsible for the activities of MI6 and GCHQ while also having to represent the UK in its numerous dealings abroad. The reaction, as expected, was mixed.

    • Boris Johnson is in charge of GCHQ and Twitter is …concerned

      The intelligence agency, based in Cheltenham, is the responsibility of the Foreign Secretary, the job Mr Johnson was unexpectedly given yesterday by new Prime Minister Theresa May.

  • Censorship/Free Speech

  • Privacy/Surveillance

    • In Privacy Win, Federal Judge Rejects ‘Stingray’ Evidence for First Time

      For the first time, a federal judge has thrown out evidence obtained by police without a warrant using the controversial “Stingray” device that mimics cell phone towers to trick nearby devices into connecting with them, revealing private information.

      U.S. District Judge William Pauley said the defendant’s rights were violated when the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) used a Stingray to figure out his home address during a drug investigation.

    • The Pokémon Fad Shows the Unnerving Future of Augmenting Reality

      On a recent summer evening, something strange happened in Prospect Park in Brooklyn. As usual, joggers zipped along the edge of Long Meadow and dog owners did their postprandial duty. But this time they were joined by a dozen people shuffling about haphazardly, zombie eyes fixed on their glowing phone screens. This ad hoc crowd was busy catching Pokémon, the virtual creatures at the heart of the latest, out-of-nowhere smartphone craze.

    • Visiting a Website against the Owner’s Wishes Is Now a Federal Crime
    • Appeals Court: It Violates CFAA For Service To Access Facebook On Behalf Of Users, Because Facebook Sent Cease & Desist

      Another week, another CFAA (Computer Fraud & Abuse Act) ruling out of the 9th Circuit Appeals Court. This time it’s the infamous Facebook v. Power.com case that’s been going on since 2008. When we first came across the case, in early 2009, we insisted that it made no sense. Power.com was trying to set itself up as a sort of “meta” social network, or perhaps a social network management system, where users could have a dashboard for all their different social networks. Facebook didn’t like this and sued over a long list of things, including copyright and trademark infringement, unlawful competition, violation of anti-spam laws… and the CFAA. Most of the claims went nowhere, but the CFAA and anti-spam ones lived on (because Power.com had systems for sending emails to users). The copyright claims were troubling, but the CFAA claims were the ones that concerned us the most.

      Of course, it’s taken many, many years for the case to make its way through the courts, and Power.com ceased even existing about five years ago. And the latest ruling is not just a nail in the coffin, but a potentially problematic CFAA ruling. While the court tosses out the CAN SPAM arguments, it does say that Power’s actions were a CFAA violation. It’s not as bad as it could have been, because the court doesn’t say that merely violating Facebook’s terms of service violates the CFAA, but instead narrows it slightly. It says that because Facebook sent a cease and desist letter to Power, from that point on it was on notice that it was not authorized to access Facebook’s servers. It was the move to continue getting Facebook user data that sealed the CFAA claim.

    • ‘Google, FB compile more data than NSA’
    • ‘Google, FB compile more data than NSA’ [Ed: This article is not just wrong but also inane and exposes author as unaware of where NSA extracts its data from]

      WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange says Silicon Valley companies Google and Facebook now compile more information than the US’ National Security Agency.

      Speaking via a videoconference at the embassy of Ecuador in London, where he was granted asylum in 2012, Assange said the new global economic template was what he called Surveillance Capitalism.

      The Australian spoke during a Freedom of Expression seminar organised in Santiago by the Chilean College of Journalists that was celebrating its 60th anniversary.

      The cyberactivist said although the information was channelled through the two companies, the NSA still monitored the content and finally ended up “knowing everything”.

    • Agent’s Testimony Shows FBI Not All That Interested In Ensuring The Integrity Of Its Forensic Evidence

      Security researcher Jonathan Zdziarski has been picking apart the FBI’s oral testimony on the NIT it deployed in the Matish/Playpen case. The judge presiding over that case denied Matish’s suppression request for a number of reasons — including the fact that Matish’s residence in Virginia meant that Rule 41 jurisdiction rules weren’t violated by the FBI’s NIT warrant. Judge Morgan Jr. then went off script and suggested the FBI didn’t even need to obtain a warrant to deploy a hacking tool that exposed end user computer info because computers get hacked all the time.

      He equated this to police peering through broken blinds and seeing something illegal inside a house, while failing to recognize that his analogy meant the FBI could let themselves inside the house first to break the blinds, then peer in from the outside and claim “plain sight.”

      The oral arguments [PDF] — using FBI Special Agent Daniel Alfin’s testimony — were submitted in yet another case tied to the seizure of a child porn website, this one also taking place in Virginia and where the presiding judge has similarly denied the defendant’s motion to suppress. The DOJ has added the transcript of the agent’s oral testimony in the Matish prosecution as an exhibit to this case, presumably to help thwart the defendant’s motion to compel the FBI to turn over the NIT’s source code.

      Many assertions are made by Agent Alfin in support of the FBI’s claim that its hacking tool — which strips away any anonymity-protecting efforts put into place by the end user and sends this information to a remote computer — is not malware. And many of them verge on laughable. Or would be laughable, if Alfin wasn’t in the position of collecting and submitting forensic evidence.

    • Private Internet Access Leaves Russia, Following Encryption Ban And Seized Servers

      A few years ago, I got to travel to Moscow to present some of our research at an event. Having heard more than a few stories about internet access issues in Russia, before going I made sure that I had three separate VPNs lined up in case any of them were blocked. I ended up using Private Internet Access — which was already quite well-known and reliable. That’s my regular VPN, but I had been worried that maybe it wouldn’t work in Moscow. I was wrong. It worked flawlessly. But apparently that’s no longer the case. Just after Russia’s new surveillance bill passed, complete with mandates for encryption backdoors and data retention (along with a demand that all encryption be openly accessible for the government within two weeks), apparently Russian officials seized Private Internet Access’s servers in Russia, causing the company to send an email to all its subscribers, announcing what happened, what it was doing to fix things… and also that it was no longer doing business in Russia.

    • Tor Project Elects All-New Board of Directors
    • The Tor Project Elects New Board of Directors

      Today, the board of directors of the Tor Project is announcing a bold decision in keeping with its commitment to the best possible health of the organization.

      Says Tor’s Executive Director Shari Steele, “I think this was an incredibly brave and selfless thing for the board to do. They’re making a clear statement that they want the organization to become its best self.”

    • Tor Project installs new board of directors after Jacob Appelbaum controversy

      The Tor Project today announced that it has elected an entirely new board of directors, as the nonprofit privacy organization continues seeing the fallout from accusations of sexual misconduct by prominent former employee Jacob Appelbaum.

    • Tor Project, a Digital Privacy Group, Reboots With New Board

      The Tor Project, a nonprofit digital privacy group, on Wednesday replaced its board with a new slate of directors as part of a larger shake-up after allegations of sexual misconduct by a prominent employee.

    • In wake of Appelbaum fiasco, Tor Project shakes up board of directors

      New team includes Cindy Cohn, Biella Coleman, Matt Blaze, and Bruce Schneier.

  • Civil Rights/Policing

    • ACLU Sues Baton Rouge Police for Violating Rights at Alton Sterling Protests

      Baton Rouge police showed excessive force when they arrived at this weekend’s Black Lives Matter demonstration in riot gear and bearing machine guns, the lawsuit (pdf) alleges. The officers also violated protesters’ First Amendment rights when they used “physical and verbal abuse and wrongful arrests to disperse protestors who were gathered peacefully to speak out against the police killing of Alton Sterling,” the ACLU wrote.

    • The Police in Baton Rouge Don’t Like It When Protesters Exercise Their Rights, So We’re Taking Them to Court

      The ACLU of Louisiana has filed an emergency order to make Baton Rouge police respect protester’s First Amendment rights.

      Since our very founding, the American people have taken to the streets and sidewalks to make their voices heard. Unfortunately, this week it’s the residents of Baton Rouge, Louisiana, who have good reason to partake in this historical tradition. On July 5, 2016, a Black Baton Rouge resident named Alton Sterling — a man who had committed no crime — was tackled, Tasered, incapacitated, and fatally shot at point blank range by two white Baton Rouge police officers.

      The anger at Mr. Sterling’s death is immense. It is real. It is justified. And it deserves a voice.

      So in our grand American tradition, residents sought to make their voices heard, to speak truth to power about police use of force, to object to the death of Black men in police custody, and to say that Black lives matter. To do this, they spilled out onto the city’s streets and sidewalks — the very places which the Supreme Court has described as having “immemorially been held in trust for the use of the public” as the place to exercise our constitutional liberties.

      But it doesn’t appear that the law enforcement agencies in Baton Rouge care much for our Constitution, or for the liberties of its own citizens. Instead officers have shown naked hostility to the constitutional rights of the citizens they have a duty to serve. That’s why today the ACLU of Louisiana is going to court on behalf of community organizations like Black Youth Power 100 New Orleans, New Orleans Workers’ Center for Racial Justice, and Louisiana Chapter of the National Lawyers’ Guild to seek an emergency order to ensure that the police in Baton Rouge obey the Constitution. It’s not the first time an ACLU affiliate has stepped up to challenge the cops reacting to protests over police accountability — and while I hope it’s the last, it won’t be.

    • Was Hillary Clinton’s Email Hacked? The Case

      Hillary Clinton traveled to 19 foreign locations during her first three months in office, inlcuding China, South Korea, Egypt, Israel, Palestine, and a meeting in Switzerland with her Russian counterpart. During that period of time her email system was unencrypted. She transmitted data over wireless networks in those countries, networks almost certainly already monitored 24/7 by intelligence and security officials. To say her email was not collected is to say the Russian, Chinese, Israeli and other intelligence services are complete amateurs.

    • Hillary Clinton’s Email Absolution: Two Parties, One Criminal Regime

      What was your reaction when you heard FBI Director James Comey announce to the world that the Bureau would not be recommending that charges be filed against Hillary Clinton over her handling of emails while she was Secretary of State? Did you do a humorous spit take with your coffee like some modern day Danny Thomas? Were you frozen in place like Americans were on November 22, 1963? Did your jaw hit the floor with your tongue rolling out like a flabbergasted cartoon character?

      Chances are you weren’t the least bit surprised that no charges were recommended. But what does that tell you about our political system?

      That millions of Americans weren’t remotely caught off guard by the exculpation of Hillary Clinton is less a commentary about American attitudes than it is a clear indication of the all-pervasive criminality that is at the heart of America’s political ruling class. And the fact that such criminality is seen as par for the course demonstrates once again that the rule of law is more a rhetorical veneer than a juridical reality.

      But consider further what the developments of recent days tell us both about the US and, perhaps even more importantly, the perception of the US internationally. For while Washington consistently wields as weapons political abstractions such as transparency, corruption, and freedom, it is unwilling to apply to itself those same cornerstones of America’s collective self-conception. Hypocrisy is perhaps not strong enough a word.

    • ‘Trustworthy’ Trump? Plagued by Email Controversy, Clinton’s Lead Plummets

      The race between the two presidential frontrunners remains too close to call in the final stretch leading to the two major party conventions, as new polling shows that Donald Trump has overtaken Hillary Clinton in key battleground states while her national lead has shrunk to just three points.

      A McClatchy-Marist survey released Wednesday found that in a head-to-head match-up, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee is currently ahead 42 to 39, which McClatchy notes, marks the first time that support for Clinton has dropped beneath 50 percentage points.

    • FBI Agents Were Told To Sign A “Very, Very Unusual” NDA In Hillary Email Case

      The State Department restarted their investigation into Hillary Clinton’s emails following the DoJ’s unanimous recommendation that Attorney General Loretta Lynch not pursue criminal charges for Hillary’s negligence in handling classified documents. FBI insiders now believe a deal was struck when Bill Clinton met Loretta Lynch on a Phoenix airport tarmac in June. Agents have also said they were forced to sign a document that went above and beyond the typical NDA signed when performing investigations

      When news broke of the infamous tarmac Lynch-Clinton meeting we said: “Well then, if Lynch says it was a completely random encounter with Hillary Clinton’s husband on a tarmac (admit it, that happens often to most people), and nothing was discussed that pertains to official business, then that certainly must be the truth.”

    • Hillary Clinton and Personal Honesty

      When FBI Director James Comey publicly revealed his recommendation to the Department of Justice last week that former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton not be prosecuted for espionage, he unleashed a firestorm of criticism from those who believe that Clinton was judged by different standards from those used to judge others when deciding whether to bring a case to a grand jury.

    • Is What’s Good For Facebook Not So Good For Democracy?

      Why the social-media honeymoon may be over for some activists.

    • As Cases Multiply, Officials Scramble to Stop Abuse of Nursing Home Residents on Social Media

      Iowa health officials recently discovered it wasn’t against state law for a nursing home worker to share a photo on Snapchat of a resident covered in feces. They are trying to change that.

    • North Carolina Bans Public Access to Police Dash Cameras

      What good are police body cameras, or police car dash cams, if the footage they record is off limits to the public? That question might best be posed to North Carolina Governor Pat McCrory, who yesterday signed into law a bill making that footage inaccessible to the general public, including everyday citizens who were recorded in the footage and might need it to prove police misbehavior. Despite widespread outcry, including protests and submission of a petition signed by more than 3,000 people, House Bill 972 received little opposition in the Senate, where it passed by a vote of 48 to 2 before the governor gave final approval.

    • Two Years After Eric Garner’s Death, Ramsey Orta, Who Filmed Police, Is Only One Heading to Jail

      Two years ago this week, Eric Garner died in Staten Island after officers wrestled him to the ground, pinned him down and applied a fatal chokehold. The man who filmed the police killing of Eric Garner, Ramsey Orta, is now heading to jail for four years on unrelated charges—making him the only person at the scene of Garner’s killing who will serve jail time. Last week Orta took a plea deal on weapons and drug charges. He says he has been repeatedly arrested and harassed by cops since he filmed the fatal police chokehold nearly two years ago. We speak to Eric Garner’s daughter, Erica Garner, and Matt Taibbi, award-winning journalist with Rolling Stone magazine. He’s working on a book on Eric Garner’s case.

    • CIA Director Says Next President Could Order Agency to Torture And It Might Comply

      CIA Director John Brennan said Wednesday that the next president could remove the restrictions President Obama has put on the use of drones overseas – and that CIA might comply with an order to commit torture.

      In April, Brennan told NBC News that the CIA would refuse an order to resume its torture program. But on Wednesday, speaking at a Brookings Institute event, he said he was just speaking on his own behalf.

      “If a president were to order, order the agency to carry out waterboarding or something else, it’ll be up to the director of CIA and others within CIA to decide whether or not that, that direction and order is something that they can carry out in good conscience,” he said.

      He added that he was personally opposed: “As long as I’m director of CIA, irrespective of what the president says, I’m not going to be the director of CIA who gives that order. They’ll have to find another director.”

      Brennan did not acknowledge that Congress last year turned Obama’s anti-torture executive order into law, explicitly banning waterboarding and other forms of torture — and restricting the CIA in particular to interrogation methods listed in the Army Field Manual.

    • The battle of the veil

      Last month, pictures of a young girl wearing a headscarf made with a newspaper pattern spread through the Iranian social media. The girl is in fact the niece of Iran’s jailed Green Movement leader, Mir Hussein Moussavi, but that was not the reason why the picture went viral. The newspaper pattern on the scarf was the front page of the newspaper that printed the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini’s pledge in 1978 as its main headline: “Regarding the wearing of the veil, there will be no compulsion”.

    • Wisconsin Court: Warning Labels Are Needed for Scores Rating Defendants’ Risk of Future Crime

      The court’s ruling cited a recent ProPublica investigation into COMPAS, the popular software tool used to score defendants in Wisconsin and in other jurisdictions across country. Our analysis found that the software is frequently wrong, and that it is biased against black defendants who did not commit future crimes – falsely labeling them as future criminals at twice the rate as white defendants. (The software is owned by a for-profit company, Northpointe, which disputes our findings.)

    • Empathy Alone Won’t Stop Police Killings

      Of course empathy is important and we should encourage it. But the president falls short; empathy alone will never end the regular and widespread killing of black people in disproportionate numbers. It’s a racist system, not a few individual racist police that devalues black lives and leaves us dead so easily.

    • How This Became the Era of the Gunman

      The war abroad and the war at home are both fueled by a fear of encroaching chaos — and it’s hard to miss the racist subtext.

    • Man Who Doxxed Dozens Of People, Engaged In Nineteen ‘Swattings’, Nets Only One Year In Prison

      The treatment of all things “cyber” by the government is incredibly inconsistent. Give someone a password so they can deface a website for 40 minutes and it’s two years in jail. Doxx, SWAT, and cyberstalk multiple people and the best the court can do is two years minus time served. The end result is one year in prison for Mir Islam, who doxxed multiple celebrities and politicians, as well as called in fake threats that resulted in the swatting of at least nineteen people, including security researcher Brian Krebs, who uncovered Islam’s doxxing tactics.

  • Internet Policy/Net Neutrality

    • Comcast Expands Usage Caps, Still Pretending This Is A Necessary Trial Where Consumer Opinion Matters

      As we’ve noted for some time, Comcast continues to expand the company’s usage cap “trial” into more and more markets. As a clever, lumbering monopoly, Comcast executives believe if they move slowly enough — consumers won’t realize they’re the frog in the boiling pot metaphor. But as we’ve noted time and time again, Comcast usage caps are utterly indefensible price hikes on uncompetitive markets, with the potential for anti-competitive abuse (since Comcast’s exempting its own services from the cap).

      This is all dressed up as a “trial” where consumer feedback matters to prop up the flimsy narrative that Comcast is just conducting “creative price experimentation.”

      Last week, Comcast quietly notified customers that the company’s caps are expanding once again, this time into Chicago and other parts of Illinois, as well as portions of Indiana and Michigan. Comcast recently raised its cap from 300 GB to one terabyte in response to signals from the FCC that the agency might finally wake up to the problems usage caps create. And while that’s certainly an improvement, it doesn’t change the fact that usage caps on fixed-line networks are little more than an assault on captive, uncompetitive markets.

  • DRM

    • A Call to the Security Community: The W3C’s DRM Extension Must Be Investigated

      The World Wide Web Consortium has published a “Candidate Recommendation” for Encrypted Media Extensions, a pathway to DRM for streaming video.

      A large community of security researchers and public interest groups have been alarmed by the security implications of baking DRM into the HTML5 standard. That’s because DRM — unlike all the other technology that the W3C has ever standardized — enjoys unique legal protection under a tangle of international laws, like the US Digital Millennium Copyright Act, Canada’s Bill C-11, and EU laws that implement Article 6 of the EUCD.

      Under these laws, companies can threaten legal action against researchers who circumvent DRM, even if they does so for lawful purposes, like disclosing security vulnerabilities. Last summer, a who’s-who America’s most esteemed security researchers filed comments with the US Copyright Office warning the agency that they routinely discovered vulnerabilities in systems from medical implants to voting machines to cars, but were advised not to disclose those discoveries because of the risk of legal reprisals under Section 1201 of the DMCA.

      Browsers are among the most common technologies in the world, with literally billions of daily users. Any impediment to reporting vulnerabilities in these technologies has grave implications. Worse: HTML5 is designed to provide the kind of rich interaction that we see in apps, in order to challenge apps’ dominance as control systems for networked devices. That means browsers are now intended to serve as front-ends for pacemakers and cars and home security systems. Now more than ever, we can’t afford any structural impediments to identification and disclosure of browser defects.

      There is a way to reconcile the demands of browser vendors and movie studios with the security of the web: last year, we proposed an extension to the existing W3C policy on patents, which says that members are forbidden from enforcing their patent rights to shut down implementations of W3C standards. Under our proposal, this policy would also apply to legal threats under laws like the DMCA. Members would agree upon a mutually acceptable, binding covenant that forbade them from using the DMCA and its global analogs to attack security researchers who revealed defects in browsers and new entrants into the browser market.

  • Intellectual Monopolies

    • Sales Activity: MedCo, Helsinn, and the AIA

      In The Medicines Co. v. Hospira an en banc Federal Circuit confirmed the validity of MedCo’s Angiomax product-by-process patent claims over an on-sale challenge. More than one-year before filing the patent application, MedCo had hired a third-party supplier to provide three batches of the drug using an embodiment of the claimed processes. The question was whether this ‘supply contract’ constituted a commercial offer for sale sufficient to trigger the on-sale bar of Section 102(b) (pre-AIA). In the appeal, the Federal Circuit held that the supply contract was “for performing services” rather than a triggering sale. “[A] contract manufacturer’s sale to the inventor of manufacturing services where neither the title to the embodiments nor the right to market the same passes to the supplier does not constitute an invalidating sale.”

    • Octane: Malpractice Claims by Clients Forced to Pay the Other Side’s Fees?

      The first is that, for the first time, there is a “gap” (if you will) between zealous advocacy under Rule 11 (and other similar statutes) and the fee shifting statute. So, as a lawyer, I may be ethically required to do something that could result in my client paying the other side’s fees.

    • Copyrights

      • YouTube to the music industry: here’s the money

        YouTube and the music industry are frenemies of the first order, a mutually dependent couple that can’t stop bickering in public. The major record labels are currently renegotiating their contracts with the world’s largest online video platform, and so the war of words has been heating up of late. Today, Google added a fresh data point to the back and forth, announcing in a new report on piracy that its Content ID system has paid out $2 billion to copyright holders, double what it announced back in 2014.

        Content ID is actually at the heart of the music industry’s current beef with YouTube. The system asks copyright holders to upload a file, say a music video, and then tries to automatically detect any copies of that work which are uploaded by other users. The copyright owner can ask the system to automatically report, block, or monetize videos when it detects a copy, and YouTube has argued that the music labels almost always choose the last of those options.

      • Enoch Pratt leader Carla Hayden confirmed for Library of Congress

        The longtime leader of Baltimore’s public library system was confirmed by the Senate on Wednesday to head the Library of Congress despite concerns from some conservative lawmakers about her past position on a law intended to limit children’s access to pornography at schools and libraries.

        Carla D. Hayden, the CEO of the Enoch Pratt Free Library since 1993, will become the first woman and the first African-American to oversee the nation’s largest library. Hayden was nominated by President Barack Obama in February and was confirmed by the Senate on a 74-18 vote.

      • Good News: Carla Hayden Easily Approved As The New Librarian Of Congress

        Here’s some good news. After decades of ridiculously bad management, it appears that the Library of Congress has a real leader. Dr. Carla Hayden has been approved by the Senate as our new Librarian of Congress by a wide margin, 74 to 18. And that’s despite a last minute push by the ridiculous Heritage Foundation to argue that the Librarian of Congress should not be a librarian (and one with tremendous administrative experience). Heritage Foundation’s alerts can often sway Republican Senators, so the fact that only 18 still voted against her is quite something. Hayden was also able to get past ridiculous claims that she was pro-obscenity or pro-piracy based on people who just didn’t like the idea of an actually qualified person in the position.

        She’s an exceptionally qualified librarian with administrative and leadership experience. And while I’m sure I won’t agree with everything she does, it seems like a massive improvement on the previous librarian, James Billington, who famously resisted any kind of modernization efforts, and who the Government Accountability Office had to call out multiple times for his leadership failings. Billington was so bad that when he resigned, the Washington Post was able to get people to go on the record celebrating.

      • BitTorrent Launches Live Streaming BitTorrent News Channel

        The company behind the world famous file-sharing client BitTorrent is all set for the birth of their news network titled as BitTorrent News. Streamed on BitTorrent Live, the network will commence its operations at the Republican Party Convention in Cleveland, Ohio, on July 18.

]]> http://techrights.org/2016/07/14/gnome-board-of-directors/feed/ 0 Links 11/4/2016: Krita 3.0 Alpha, New Linux RC http://techrights.org/2016/04/11/krita-3-0-alpha/ http://techrights.org/2016/04/11/krita-3-0-alpha/#comments Mon, 11 Apr 2016 10:33:39 +0000 http://techrights.org/?p=91605

GNOME bluefish

Contents

GNU/Linux

Free Software/Open Source

  • GNU/kWindows

    There has been a lot of talk lately about a most unique combination: GNU—the fully free/libre operating system—and Microsoft Windows—the freedom-denying, user-controlling, surveillance system. There has also been a great deal of misinformation. I’d like to share my thoughts.

    [...]

    Free software is absolutely essential: it ensures that users, who are the most vulnerable, are in control of their computing—not software developers or corporations. Any program that denies users any one of their four freedoms is non-free (or proprietary)—that is, freedom-denying software. This means that any non-free software, no matter its features or performance, will always be inferior to free software that performs a similar task.

    Not everyone likes talking about freedom or the free software philosophy. This disagreement resulted in the “open source” development methodology, which exists to sell the benefits of free software to businesses without discussing the essential ideological considerations. Under the “open source” philosophy, if a non-free program provides better features or performance, then surely it must be “better”, because they have outperformed the “open source” development methodology; non-free software isn’t always considered to be a bad thing.

    [...]

    Secondly, when you see someone using a GNU/kWindows system, politely ask them why. Tell them that there is a better operating system out there—the GNU/Linux operating system—that not only provides those technical features, but also provides the feature of freedom! Tell them what free software is, and try to relate it to them so that they understand why it is important, and even practical.

    It’s good to see more people benefiting from GNU; but we can’t be happy when it is being sold as a means to draw users into an otherwise proprietary surveillance system, without so much as a mention of our name, or what it is that we stand for.

  • Good bye “open source”; hello “free software”

    Everyone has at least a good reason to prefer software freedom over non-free software products.

  • Rancher Labs Release Rancher 1.0, An Open Source Cross-Cloud Container Management Platform

    Rancher Labs have released version 1.0 of their open source Rancher container management platform, which allows the deployment of Docker containers via Docker Swarm, Kubernetes or Rancher Labs’ Cattle across a range of underlying infrastructure. Rancher manages the underlying compute fabric, exposing control via a web-based UI that can be secured via RBAC/ACL, and can be deployed across a combination of multiple public cloud vendors, private virtualised clouds and bare metal. The platform also includes integrated load balancing and persistent storage services.

  • Events

    • OSCAL ’16 | Open Source Conference Albania 2016

      OSCAL (Open Source Conference Albania) is the major international tech conference in Albania organized by Open Labs Hackerspace, the open source and free software community in Albania. The conference promotes software freedom, open source software, free culture and open knowledge, global movements which originally started more than 30 years ago.

      The third edition of the the annual OSCAL conference will take place once again in Tirana on 14 & 15th of May and will gather more than 400 free libre open source technology enthusiasts, developers, students, academics, governmental agencies and people who share the idea that software should be free and open for the local community and governments to develop and customize to its needs; that knowledge is a communal property and free and open to everyone.

    • Document Freedom Day 2016: Singapore

      Document Freedom Day is a day where we celebrate and raise awareness of Open Standards. It is held annually, on the last Wednesday of March. However, this year, the Ambassadors in Singapore decided to celebrate it on 24 March, 2016.

    • KubeCon part 2: 1.3 and the CNCF

      In the “State of The Union”, David Aronchik, Kubenetes Project Manager for Google, brought folks up to date with what’s happened in the Kubernetes community and what’s ahead for version 1.3 and beyond.

  • Web Browsers

    • Mozilla

      • Is your open source community optimized for contributors?

        Josh Matthews is a platform developer at Mozilla. He’s a programmer who writes Rust code and is active in the development of Firefox. His development experience has led him to enjoy mentoring new contributors in open source projects.

  • SaaS/Back End

  • Databases

    • What’s new in MySQL?

      This year at the Percona Live Data Performance Conference I’ll be talking about MySQL. MySQL is the world’s most popular open source database, enabling the cost-effective delivery of reliable, high-performance and scalable web-based and embedded database applications, including all five of the top five websites.

      My interest in databases grew while working in banking in the late nineties. Back then I implemented back-end ATM servers using HP-UX and Sybase as the development platform. I remember we had an allowed maintenance window from 2am-5am, and struggled with finishing a blocking create index operation on our main table with 30 million rows. I remember thinking “Why can’t this be done while the database is online?”

    • Open Source Leader MariaDB Rockets into Analytics Market

  • Education

    • Mining for Education

      Students are not taught word processing, they are taught Microsoft Word. They are not taught presentation skills, they are taught Microsoft Powerpoint. They are required to present their work, be it essay, slideshow, or graph, in Microsoft-owned proprietary formats, recorded onto thumb-drives formatted with a Microsoft-patented file systems. Nothing else will do.

  • Pseudo-Open Source (Openwashing)

  • FSF/FSFE/GNU/SFLC

  • Public Services/Government

    • MediPi open source telehealth kit piloted in NHS

      An open source telehealth kit built using a Raspberry Pi will be piloted with heart patients at a southern NHS trust this financial year.

      Richard Robinson, a technical integration specialist at HSCIC, developed the telehealth prototype called MediPi to prove that “telehealth is affordable at scale”.

      He said eight months ago his wife, who works for a charity helping socially isolated older people, was asked to find volunteers for a telehealth pilot.

      “She came home with the kit and it was all high-end tablets, 3G and Bluetooth enabled devices and I was really shocked by what I thought would cost,” explained Robinson.

  • Openness/Sharing/Collaboration

    • Open Hardware/Modding

      • 6 steps to calculate ROI for an open hardware project

        Free and open source software advocates have courageously blazed a trail that is now being followed by those interested in open source for physical objects. It’s called free and open source hardware (FOSH), and we’re seeing an exponential rise in the number of free designs for hardware released under opensource licenses, Creative Commons licenses,or placed in the public domain.

  • Programming/Development

    • What’s awful about being a {software engineer, tech lead, manager}?

      I’ve been building software professionally for over 10 years now. I love what I do and I hope to be an old programmer someday. But along the way, I’ve encountered many terrible things that have made me hate my job. I wish that someone had given me a roadmap of what to expect earlier in my career, so when some new and unfortunate awfulness occurred that I wouldn’t have felt so alone and frustrated.

      This post is meant to be such a guide. I have three goals.

    • FAQ: Node.js

      We still have nightmares about GeoCities too, and yes, JavaScript has historically been used for things like that. It originated at Netscape in the mid 90s as a lightweight scripting language to add interactive properties to web pages, but it has come a long way since then. Sure, many programmers look down on JavaScript, and it’s massively overused on some websites, but it also has plenty of fans.

    • A single Node of failure

      The web-development community was briefly thrown into chaos in late March when a lone Node.js developer suddenly unpublished a short but widely used package from the Node Package Manager (npm) repository. The events leading up to that developer’s withdrawal are controversial in their own right, but the chaotic effects raise even more serious questions for the Node.js and npm user communities.

      npm itself is a module repository for Node.js code, akin to the Python Package Index or similar repositories for other languages and frameworks. Users can install a package with a simple npm install foo, but the service is also widely used by Node.js developers to automatically fetch and install dependencies: projects list their dependencies in the package.json file, and they are recursively fetched from npm and installed when the package is built. Using npm in this manner is standard operating procedure, allowing complex JavaScript applications to be written on top of multiple third-party frameworks in minimal lines of code. The service, however, is run by a private company called npm, Inc., rather than by the Node.js project.

Leftovers

  • Google Is Interested In Buying Its Rival Yahoo’s Web Business — Report
  • What Donald Trump Doesn’t Understand About Negotiation

    The next president of the United States will need to be an extremely effective negotiator. Armed conflict, political deadlock, and diplomatic crises abound. The president will be called upon to resolve the war in Syria, manage complex relationships with Russia and Iran, handle hot spots such as North Korea, Libya, and Ukraine, navigate competitive tensions with China, and revive a modicum of bipartisanship in Congress. Ironically, the only presidential candidate who has been asserting his prowess as a great negotiator is someone who has precisely the wrong instincts and experience for the types of conflicts the president will face. The Donald Trump approach to negotiation would be not only ineffective but also disastrous — and there are clearly identifiable reasons for this.

  • Typing on a MacBook Could Soon Be as Awful as Typing on an iPad
  • Apple Patent Imagines a Keyboard without Keys
  • Apple patented a MacBook design that is all touchpad and no keys
  • Apple files patent for a ‘keyless’ touchpad keyboard

  • Health/Nutrition

    • Children Wrongfully put on ADHD Medication

      A recent study showed that 1 in every 4 children in preschool is taking medication for ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder). The majority of kids that age have a tough time paying attention to extended periods of time because their brain and body is nowhere close to being fully developed. Medication shouldn’t be the first option when it comes to treating kids who have ADHD or who we think have ADHD.

  • Security

  • Defence/Aggression

    • Britain’s top secret kill list: How British police backed by GCHQ fed names of drug lords to a US assassination unit, which – under cover of the war on terror – wiped out an innocent family with a missile strike

      British law enforcement and intelligence services have helped draw up an extra-judicial ‘kill list’ to assassinate the world’s most wanted terrorists and drug smugglers in foreign countries.

      The sensational claims, which raise disturbing questions about Britain’s involvement in the targeting of aircraft and drone strikes, will be revealed in a 50-page report by the Reprieve human rights charity to be published tomorrow.

      It will state that the UK has been a key, long-standing partner in America’s ‘shoot to kill’ policy in Afghanistan and Pakistan, targeting not only alleged terrorists, but also supposed drug traffickers, and earmarking them for drone and missile strikes – often on the basis of unsubstantiated ‘intelligence’ which has never been tested in court.

      Although the top secret ‘kill list’ has been in existence for years and is continually revised, Britain’s contribution has never been sanctioned by Parliament.

      The startling evidence, drawn from leaked official documents, reveals the two agencies involved are the electronic eavesdropping organisation GCHQ, and the Serious and Organised Crime Agency (SOCA), now rebranded as the National Crime Agency (NCA).

    • Top secret “28 pages” may hold clues about Saudi support for 9/11 hijackers

      Current and former members of Congress, U.S. officials, 9/11 Commissioners and the families of the attack’s victims want 28 top-secret pages of a congressional report released. Bob Graham, the former Florida governor, Democratic U.S. Senator and onetime chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, says the key section of a top secret report he helped author should be declassified to shed light on possible Saudi support for some of the 9/11 hijackers. Graham was co-chair of Congress’ bipartisan “Joint Inquiry” into intelligence failures surrounding the attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, that issued the report in 2003. Graham speaks to Steve Kroft for 60 Minutes report to be broadcast Sunday, April 10 at 7 p.m. ET/PT.

    • U.S. Bombs Were Used in Saudi-Led Attack on Market in Yemen, Rights Group Finds

      ONE OF THE deadliest airstrikes in Yemen since a Saudi Arabia-led coalition began bombing the country used munitions supplied by the United States, according to a report by Human Rights Watch.

      The March 15 attack targeted a crowded market in the village of Mastaba in northwestern Yemen, killing at least 97 civilians, including 25 children. HRW said it found remnants of a “GBU-31 satellite-guided bomb, which consists of a U.S.-supplied MK-84 2,000-pound bomb mated with a JDAM satellite guidance kit, also U.S.-supplied.” The group said it also reviewed evidence provided by British news channel ITV, which found remnants of an “MK-84 bomb paired with a Paveway laser guidance kit.”

      The report provides yet more evidence of U.S. complicity in the indiscriminate killing of civilians in Yemen. The Obama administration has been a key military backer of Saudi Arabia in its yearlong campaign against a rebel movement in Yemen known as the Houthis. In addition to billions of dollars in arms sales, the Pentagon has provided the Saudi-led coalition with logistical and intelligence support. Human Rights Watch said the U.S. role may make it “jointly responsible” for war crimes.

    • GCHQ working on joint ‘shoot to kill list’

      According to the article in the paper, one Afghan family were killed by a missile strike after they were mistaken for a member of the Taliban.

    • Covering Up Hillary’s Libyan Fiasco

      Despite Libya’s bloodshed and chaos, ex-Secretary of State Clinton still defends her key role in the 2011 “regime change,” but her reasons don’t withstand scrutiny, as Jonathan Marshall explains.

    • Tomgram: William Hartung, What a Waste, the U.S. Military

      From spending $150 million on private villas for a handful of personnel in Afghanistan to blowing $2.7 billion on an air surveillance balloon that doesn’t work, the latest revelations of waste at the Pentagon are just the most recent howlers in a long line of similar stories stretching back at least five decades. Other hot-off-the-presses examples would include the Army’s purchase of helicopter gears worth $500 each for $8,000 each and the accumulation of billions of dollars’ worth of weapons components that will never be used. And then there’s the one that would have to be everyone’s favorite Pentagon waste story: the spending of $50,000 to investigate the bomb-detecting capabilities of African elephants. (And here’s a shock: they didn’t turn out to be that great!) The elephant research, of course, represents chump change in the Pentagon’s wastage sweepstakes and in the context of its $600-billion-plus budget, but think of it as indicative of the absurd lengths the Department of Defense will go to when what’s at stake is throwing away taxpayer dollars.

  • Transparency/Investigative Reporting

  • Environment/Energy/Wildlife/Nature

    • Climate change will wipe $2.5tn off global financial assets: study

      Climate change could cut the value of the world’s financial assets by $2.5tn (£1.7tn), according to the first estimate from economic modelling.

      In the worst case scenarios, often used by regulators to check the financial health of companies and economies, the losses could soar to $24tn, or 17% of the world’s assets, and wreck the global economy.

      The research also showed the financial sense in taking action to keep climate change under the 2C danger limit agreed by the world’s nations. In this scenario, the value of financial assets would fall by $315bn less, even when the costs of cutting emissions are included.

    • What Will Happen When Genetically Engineered Salmon Escape Into the Wild?

      In late 2015, the Food and Drug Administration gave the greenlight to AquaBounty, Inc., a company poised to create, produce and market an entirely new type of salmon. By combining the genes from three different types of fish, AquaBounty has made a salmon that grows unnaturally fast, reaching adult size twice as fast as its wild relative.

      [...]

      Unfortunately, outside of Alaska, our poor management of an enormous fishing industry and important habitat has depleted fish stocks all along our coasts. Salmon species, in particular, are sensitive to environmental changes. The development and industrialization of our coast has polluted and dammed the rivers they depend on to breed. Although salmon used to be abundant on both the east and west coasts, large, healthy populations of salmon now exist mostly in Alaska.

  • Finance

    • Tory donor was trusted middleman for oil firm involved in bribes inquiry

      David Cameron’s troubles deepened on Saturday night as a Tory donor named in the Panama Papers was revealed as a trusted middleman for a company raided by the Serious Fraud Office, which is investigating what has been described as the world’s biggest bribery scandal.

      [...]

      Unaoil is at the centre of allegations that the business “systematically corrupted the global oil industry” by delivering millions in bribes on behalf of well-known multinationals to secure contracts.

      A week ago, authorities in Monaco raided the headquarters of the company, as well as the homes of some of its bosses, as part of a British-led investigation into a corruption scandal implicating businesses all over the world.

    • Still in the Dark on TTIP: Trade Agreement with the European Union Is a Black Box

      Negotiations for the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) have been concluded. Citizens now have access to the 30-chapter agreement that is several thousand pages long. The TPP has been opposed by four major presidential candidates, and faces criticism in Congress. Nevertheless, it is likely that the trade deal will get a vote sometime this year.

    • Hillary Clinton Fundraiser Hosted by All-Star Cast of Financial Regulators Who Joined Wall Street

      As Hillary Clinton questions rival Bernie Sanders over the depth of his financial reform ideas this week, a group of former government officials – once tasked with regulating Wall Street and now working in the financial industry or as Wall Street lobbyists — are participating in a fundraiser for her in the nation’s capital.

      The invitation for the April 6 fundraiser, obtained by Sunlight Foundation’s Political Party Time, describes a “conversation” with Hillary finance chair Gary Gensler and Senators Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, and Carl Levin, D-Mich.

    • Texas nurses supersizing salaries for more money at McDonald’s

      “You know, you can start off at McDonald’s at $13-$14 an hour in some cases, you could certainly find easier jobs for more money and that’s a real problem when you’re trying to keep good people in your facilities,” said Scott Kibbe with the Texas Health Care Association.

    • Bitcoin and Ethereum are Driving Factors of Open Execution Initiative

      The Bitcoin network has been supporting the Open Execution principle for quite some time now, as services owners can’t run away with people’s bitcoins, and no one else can use your coins and send them to somebody else. Moreover, no additional money can be created out of thin air.

    • No, Bill Clinton, You Can’t Blame Welfare Reform’s Failures On Republicans

      While speaking to a crowd in Philadelphia on Thursday, former president Bill Clinton was interrupted by protesters affiliated with the Black Lives Matter movement carrying signs criticizing the crime bill and welfare reform bill that he signed into law in the 1990s.

      In response, Clinton gave a misleading defense of welfare reform. “They say the welfare reform bill increased poverty,” he said of the protesters. “Then why did we have the largest drop in African-American poverty when I was president?”

    • “Empire of Things: How We Became a World of Consumers, From the Fifteenth Century to the Twenty-First”

      For as long as people have yearned for more stuff, intellectuals have chastised them for that desire. Even Plato’s “Republic” followed the “decline of a virtuous, frugal city as it was corrupted by the lust for luxurious living,” Trentmann reminds readers. But his true nemesis is more recent: John Kenneth Galbraith, author of “The Affluent Society” (1958), in which the late economist argued that modern society seeks not only to fulfill our needs but also to create new ones, propelling us to live beyond our means, go into debt and thus strengthen the power of business. Though Trentmann acknowledges that the book has been enormously influential in cementing popular notions of consumerism, he dismisses it as “not a sober empirical study but a piece of advocacy to justify greater public spending.”

    • The Pillaging of America’s State Universities

      America’s great public research universities, which produce path-breaking discoveries and train some of the country’s most talented young students, are under siege. The result may be a significant weakening of the nation’s preeminence in higher education. Dramatic cuts in public spending for state flagship universities seem to be at odds with widespread public sentiment. Americans say they strongly believe in exceptional educational systems; they want their kids to attend excellent and selective colleges and to get good, well-paying, prestigious jobs. They also support university research. After 15 years of surveys, Research! America found in 2015 that 70 percent of American adults supported government-sponsored basic scientific research like that produced by public universities, while a significant plurality (44 percent) supported paying higher taxes for medical research designed to cure diseases like cancer or Alzheimer’s. Nonetheless, many state legislators seem to be ignoring public opinion as they essentially starve some of the best universities—those that educate about two-thirds of American college students.

    • Wall Street Should Pay a Sales Tax, Too

      In case there was any doubt, the presidential election fight has confirmed that blasting Wall Street, even eight years after the financial crisis, is still a vote-getter.

      Hillary Clinton has said she’d like to jail more bankers. Donald Trump has skewered the hedge fund managers who are “getting away with murder.” And Bernie Sanders has made Wall Street accountability a centerpiece of his campaign.

      Of course, financial industry lobbyists aren’t about to take this lying down. In recent weeks, they’ve turned up the heat on lawmakers to block one particular measure that Sanders has mentioned in nearly every stump speech: taxing Wall Street speculation.

      Americans are used to paying sales taxes on basic goods and services, like a spring jacket, a gallon of gas, or a restaurant meal. But when a Wall Street trader buys millions of dollars’ worth of stocks or derivatives, there’s no tax at all.

      Sanders has introduced a bill called the Inclusive Prosperity Act, which would correct that imbalance by placing a small tax of just a fraction of a percent on all financial trades. It wouldn’t apply to ordinary consumer transactions such as ATM withdrawals or wire transfers.

    • NY Daily News Claims FDR Unfit to Be President: “No Concrete Plans, Only Platitudes”

      [The following is an imagined 1932 New York Daily News editorial board interview with Franklin Roosevelt during his presidential campaign. The Daily News comments below derive from the editorial board’s interview with Bernie Sanders on April 1, 2016. The Roosevelt statements are taken primarily from his 1933 inaugural address and his 1936 campaign speech at Madison Square Garden.]

  • AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics

    • Sanders Takes 30-Point Bite out of Clinton Lead in NY

      A poll released Friday shows that Bernie Sanders has significantly narrowed the lead Hillary Clinton once claimed in New York.

      The new Emerson College poll (pdf) shows Clinton leading Sanders among Democratic primary voters in the state by 18 points—56 percent to 38 percent. That marks a significant drop in support for the former secretary of state since the same poll was taken less than one month ago.

    • GE’s Jeffrey Immelt, Now Slamming Sanders, Once Said It Was His “Task to Outsource”

      BACK IN 2014, in an interview with the magazine Chief Executive, General Electric Co. CEO Jeffrey Immelt explained that starting in the 1980s, “most of us” — i.e. GE executives — “saw it as our task to outsource manufacturing, to move it to low-cost countries. This continued through the 1990s and into the very early 2000s.”

      Immelt’s statement of the obvious is relevant because Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders said essentially the same thing about GE this week, which triggered an angry response from Immelt.

      In a meeting on Monday with the New York Daily News editorial board, Sanders was asked to name a corporation that he believed was “destroying the fabric of our nation.” Sanders said that GE was a “good example” because it had shut down “many major plants in this country. Sending jobs to low-wage countries. … That is saying that I don’t care that the workers, here have worked for decades. … The only thing that matters is that I can make a little bit more money. That the dollar is all that is almighty.”

    • Activists Launch Fight for Media Fairness for Sanders in Tight New York Primary
    • Grassroots revolt against Hillary: Occupy activists launch “Battle of New York” to fight Clinton machine, anti-Sanders bias in belly of beast

      “The corporate media and establishment keep counting us out, but we keep winning by large margins,” the Bernie Sanders campaign tweeted triumphantly, after the Vermont senator won the Wisconsin primary by a large margin this week.

      Journalists and activists in New York — the site of what may be the most important primary in the election — have noticed. And they are organizing in response.

      Enter Operation Battle of New York.

      It is the name of a new campaign launched by the editorial groups of The Indypendent and The Occupied Wall Street Journal, left-wing citizen journalist publications that have served as important voices for American social movements for more than a decade.

      “We can expect corporate media to do everything it can to prop up Clinton and ignore or mischaracterize Sanders and the increasingly broad and diverse movement that supports him,” Operation Battle of New York writes in the description accompanying its Indiegogo campaign.

    • We’re speeding toward a climate change catastrophe — and that makes 2016 the most important election in a generation

      Before dropping out of the presidential race last month, Marco Rubio repeatedly declared that the 2016 presidential election is “the most important in a generation.” Such language is, of course, not uncommon to hear during election seasons. Politicians have been assuring the public for decades that the “next election” will be more significant than ever before, and that if the opposition party wins, the consequences will be catastrophic. As Rubio once stated in overtly apocalyptic language, “if we don’t get this election right, there may be no turning back for America.”

    • Hillary’s Inability to Grapple With Inequality Is Making Her Vulnerable to Bernie in New York

      Establishment politicians running for high office live and breathe elaborate focus group-tested lines. In time, they become those lines. But every now and then, extreme political pressures can force a few unscripted words to slip through. And when that happens, we gain a rare glimpse of the candidate’s deeper understanding of their world and our world, and the gap between the two.

      Hillary Clinton suffered such a moment on Tuesday afternoon while speaking at Medgar Evers College in Brooklyn. Before taking the podium she already knew from internal polling that Sanders was going to win handily in Wisconsin. That meant she would be a loser in six of the last seven states, and by landslides, no less. Her staff is telling her not to worry; all the math on her side. Her delegate lead is so large Sanders can’t possibly overtake her.

      But Hillary is not stupid. She saw Sanders draw 18,000 people in the Bronx, virtually all people of color, and that was before his latest Wisconsin victory. She knows that nothing is set in stone if your opponent is clobbering you in primary after primary. Political momentum is something to fear and could infect the big states like New York and California.

      On top of that, young people are giving Bernie more than 80% of their votes. Even large majorities of young black and Latino voters are flocking to Sanders. How can that be?

    • Sanders Catches Clinton

      Sanders had the support of 47 percent of Democratic or Democratic-leaning voters while Clinton had 46 percent—a narrow gap that fell within the poll’s 2.5 percent margin of error. The national survey was conducted in the days before the Vermont senator handily defeated the former secretary of state in the Wisconsin primary, and it tracks other polls in the last week that found Sanders erasing Clinton’s edge across the country. In a poll that PRRI conducted in January, Clinton had a 20-point lead.

    • US government, Soros funded Panama Papers to attack Putin – WikiLeaks

      On Wednesday, the international whistleblowing organization said on Twitter that the Panama Papers data leak was produced by the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP), “which targets Russia and [the] former USSR.” The “Putin attack” was funded by the US Agency for International Development (USAID) and American hedge fund billionaire George Soros, WikiLeaks added, saying that the US government’s funding of such an attack is a serious blow to its integrity.

    • ‘Chalking’ officially a problem as pro-Trump messages set off new storms

      If three is officially a trend, chalking is now a trendy — and highly controversial — way for Donald Trump fans to show their love.

      This week, two schools — the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga — jumped into the chalking fray, joining the headlines made in March at Emory University with pro-Trump messages scrawled on campus grounds.

      Following a now-familiar timeline, the chalked messages appeared and the storms followed. At UTC, it hit the student government.

    • Paul Krugman Is Annoying

      Krugman being Krugman, that means he’s been flooding the zone with anti-Bernie columns and blog posts.

  • Censorship/Free Speech

    • China’s “Panama” Censorship & The Implications For Encryption, Bitcoin

      The Panama Papers will have political and social fallout for months and years to come, much like the Libor scandal or the Edward Snowden leaks. A vote of no confidence for Iceland’s prime minister and Internet censorship in China are likely but the beginning.

    • Easier film censorship norms ahead?

      Is the government considering to relax the process of film certification? Also will filmmakers be able to get certification online instead of going through a long and winding process as is the case now?

    • When Pennsylvania was the censorship capital of America

      Can media affect behavior? Can a violent movie or video game provoke violence? Can visiting obscene, racist or misogynistic websites breed anti-social behavior? Should government step in to stop or regulate them?

      While the Internet now provides easy access to the darkest corners of the imagination, these concerns are not new. Even when the first films unspooled a century ago, authorities worried that the cinema would corrupt our communities. Pennsylvania became the first state to pass a law regulating motion pictures.

    • The architect of China’s Great Firewall embarrassed after needing to use VPN in front of live audience

      Fan Binxing, architect of the China’s infamous Great Firewall, was put in the embarrassing position of having to use a VPN in front of a live audience when trying to access a blocked web page.

      On April 3 Fang Binxing was giving a speech on internet safety at his alma mater, the Harbin Institute Technology. During the speech, he presented a defense for internet sovereignty and used North Korea’s own version of the system as a talking point.

    • Majome blasts censorship board

      Harare West legislator Jessie Majome says the censorship board is concerned with controlling political space, leaving information considered immoral and misappropriate finding its way into national radio and television.

    • The Naked Truth About Censorship In Uzbekistan

      Censorship was a key instrument for controlling the masses during Soviet times. These days Uzbekistan’s ageing President Islam Karimov — who served as the First Secretary of Soviet Uzbekistan’s Communist Party before independence — regularly rages against anything and everything connected to the old Union.

      Nevertheless, the system he has fashioned in the Central Asian country of 30 million remains remarkably similar to the one it emerged from in 1991.

    • Campuses are places for open minds – not where debate is closed down

      Last month, in the early hours, an act of traumatising racist violence occurred on the campus of Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia. Students woke up to find that someone had written, in chalk, the words “Trump 2016” on various pavements and walls around campus. “I think it was an act of violence,” said one student. “I legitimately feared for my life,” said another; “I thought we were having a KKK rally on campus”. Dozens of students met the university president that day to demand that he take action to repudiate Trump and to find and punish the perpetrators. Writing political statements in chalk is a common practice on American college campuses and, judging from the public reaction to the Emory event, most Americans consider the writing to be an act of normal free speech during the national collective ritual of a presidential election. So how did it come to pass that many Emory students felt victimised and traumatised by innocuous and erasable graffiti?

    • A global guide to using Shakespeare to battle power

      Hitler was a Shakespeare fan; Stalin feared Hamlet; Othello broke ground in apartheid-era South Africa; and Brazil’s current political crisis can be reflected by Julius Caesar. Across the world different Shakespearean plays have different significance and power. The latest issue of Index on Censorship magazine, a Shakespeare special to mark the 400th anniversary of his death, takes a global look at the playwright’s influence, explores how censors have dealt with his works and also how performances have been used to tackle subjects that might otherwise have been off limits. Below some of our writers talk about some of the most controversial performances and their consequences.

    • China Internet regulator says Web censorship not a trade barrier
    • China Internet Regulator Says Web Censorship Not a Trade Barrier

      China’s online censorship system protects national security and does not discriminate against foreign companies, the country’s Internet regulator said, after the United States labelled the blocking of websites by Beijing a trade barrier.

      The US Trade Representative (USTR) wrote in an annual report that over the past year China’s web censorship has worsened, presenting a significant burden to foreign firms and Internet users.

    • Blizzard Erases Gaming History By Axing a Fan-Made ‘World of Warcraft’ Server

      Last week attorneys representing Blizzard Entertainment sent a cease-and-desist letter to the administrators of Nostalrius Begins, a private “legacy” server that had been running a version of World of Warcraft as it existed between 2004 and 2005 since February 28 of 2015. As of last night a Change.org petition to Blizzard CEO and co-founder Michael Morhaime had garnered more than 55,000 signatures in protest, but the plea for survival went unanswered, and the server shuts down forever effective today.

      Blizzard, of course, is acting within its rights. Nostalrius’ existence essentially amounts to piracy (particularly since the game proper is still going strong), and such things are expressly forbidden by Blizzard’s own terms of use. In a sense, this was inevitable, and it’s frankly surprising that Blizzard let it thrive for so long without taking action.

  • Privacy/Surveillance

    • Leaked Encryption Draft Bill ‘Ignores Economic, Security, and Technical Reality’

      “This bill makes effective cybersecurity illegal.”

    • Edward Snowden Shows How To Tweet Like A Boss After Panama Papers Leak

      In a short span of time, Edward Snowden has built an impeccable reputation on Twitter.

    • Surveillance Debate Gets a Needed Dose of Racial Perspective

      ALVARO BEDOYA HAS been working on surveillance, privacy, and technology in Washington for years now. Before founding Georgetown Law’s Center on Privacy & Technology, he served as chief counsel to Sen. Al Franken, D-Minn., and the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Privacy, Technology, and the Law.

      But as surveillance became a major national issue thanks to NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden, Bedoya saw something disturbing amid the Washington wonkery: a huge gulf between the discussions of government spying, on the one hand, and aggressive policing tactics in minority communities on the other.

    • The Internet of Things has a dirty little secret

      A year ago when the Internet of Shit account was spawned, it started as a personal joke: I was hearing a lot about internet-connected smart devices, but they all sounded like terrible ideas.

      In recent times, however, we’ve seen a new slew of devices pouring onto the market with no real specific purpose, as far as anyone can tell. At first I was just making jokes about these things, but the situation is worse than I initially thought.

      [...]

      The opportunities are delicious for bloated internet companies: now a software company could know how warm your home is, what times of day are noisy, whether you have a pet, when you turn on your lights or if you listen to music while having sex.

      Smart devices are sold as a way to improve your life — and in many ways, they do to an extent — but it also means those gadgets are incredible troves of data that could eventually turn into Software-as-a-Service money makers, just like Nespresso did to coffee.

    • A cashless society as a tool for censorship and social control

      The Atlantic had the excellent idea of commissioning Sarah Jeong, one of the most astute technology commentators on the Internet (previously), to write a series of articles about the social implications of technological change: first up is an excellent, thoughtful, thorough story on the ways that the “cashless society” is being designed to force all transactions through a small number of bottlenecks that states can use to control behavior and censor unpopular political views.

      Even if you like the idea of racists and jihadis and human traffickers being limited in their crowdfunding and financial ambitions, the power to control commerce at a fine-grained level, combined with the scale at which transactions flow, means that these restrictions end up being a dragnet, not a speargun. When you fish with a dragnet, you always catch some dolphins along with your tuna.

    • College Grad Looking For a Job? The NSA Wants YOU!

      If you want an indication as to how the surveillance state is growing, take a look at college recruitment by the National Security Agency (NSA). The agency routinely recruits students with internships and scholarships around the United States but now the NSA is looking for employees in the backyard of its controversial Utah Data Center.

    • Senate encryption bill draft mandates ‘technical assistance’

      A long-awaited Senate Intelligence Committee encryption bill would force companies to provide “technical assistance” to government investigators seeking locked data, according to a discussion draft obtained by The Hill.

      The measure, from Committee Chairman Richard Burr (R-N.C.) and ranking member Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), is a response to concerns that criminals are increasingly using encrypted devices to hide from authorities.

      While law enforcement has long pressed Congress for such legislation, the tech community and privacy advocates warn that it would undermine security and endanger online privacy.

    • Fierce legal battle over data retention in Sweden

      There is a rather interesting legal battle concerning data retention going on in Sweden. Parties are the ISP Bahnhof and the government oversight authority Post- & Telestyrelsen (PTS).

      Two years ago, to the day, the European Court of Justice (ECJ) invalidated the EU data retention directive — stating that it is in violation of human rights, especially the right to privacy.

    • Facebook Opens The Floodgates to ‘Sponsored Content’

      That’s because Facebook has changed its rules around sponsored content. On Friday, the social network announced that it will now let publishers, celebrities, and brands post sponsored or branded content on their Facebook pages as long as they follow a couple of rules, including getting a verified by Facebook and using a special tag for each of these posts.

    • GCHQ wizards kept Harry Potter’s secret [Ed: grooming and whitewashing GCHQ for Sunday]
    • Defence Against the Dark Arts: British spies guarded against Harry Potter leak
    • Defense Against the Dark Arts: UK spies guarded against Harry Potter leak
    • Harry Potter and the Spooks of GCHQ: Bizarre story of how British spies battled to stop internet leak of JK Rowling book
    • How GCHQ was called in to keep Harry Potter under wraps
    • Harry Potter and the curious tale of GCHQ
    • Facebook Users Are Sharing Fewer Personal Updates and It’s a Big Problem

      If you haven’t posted anything personal on Facebook FB in awhile, you’re not alone. A damning report published by The Information on Thursday revealed that Facebook has been struggling to reverse a 21% decline in “original sharing,” or personal updates, from its 1.6 billion monthly active users.

  • Civil Rights/Policing

    • Innocent 60-year-old man free after 30 years in prison

      A man who spent more than three decades serving time for crimes he did not commit was finally released from a Virginia correctional facility.

      60-year-old Keith Allen Harward got his first taste of freedom Friday afternoon, thanking his lawyers, whom he called “heroes,” and lamented the fact that his parents could not see him walk free.

      “That’s the worst part about this, is my parents,” said Mr Harward, holding back tears as he addressed media outside the prison. “It killed them. It devastated them.” He added that he was not allowed to attend their funeral because of the sentence.

    • AP Analysis: Arab Democracies? Not So Fast, Say Some

      A new-old idea is rattling around the Middle East five years after the Arab Spring stirred democratic ambition: that restoring stability, especially if accompanied by some economic and political improvements, should be reform enough for the moment.

      This discourse appears to be taking front and center these days, most obviously in Egypt — the region’s most populous country and the one that raised the highest hopes for democracy advocates when the military in 2011 removed longtime ruler Hosni Mubarak as millions rallied against him and his Western support collapsed.

    • Canada’s Blackwater

      Last week students at L’Université du Québec à Montréal (UQAM) disrupted a board meeting after learning administrators planned to sign a $50 million, seven-year, contract with security giant GardaWorld. Protesters are angry the administration has sought to expel student leaders and ramp up security at the politically active campus as they cut programs.

    • Convicted of a Crime That Never Happened: Why Won’t Texas Exonerate Fran and Dan Keller?

      THE 1992 PROSECUTION of Fran and Dan Keller was based on a trifecta of credulousness, hysteria, and bad evidence.

      The middle-aged couple was living quietly in Austin, Texas, where they ran a small drop-in day care out of their home, when the unimaginable happened: A little girl occasionally left in the Kellers’ care made a claim of abuse at the hands of the couple. At first, the allegation was simple: Dan Keller had spanked her, the 3-year-old told her mother in the summer of 1991. But rather quickly — in part due to repeated questioning by her mother and a therapist who had treated the girl for behavioral problems before she’d ever visited the Kellers — the allegation morphed into accusations far more lurid.

    • SCOTUS Declines Opportunity to Limit Random Border Patrol Stops

      Today the Supreme Court passed up an opportunity to impose limits on a disturbing exception to the Fourth Amendment that allows random detention of motorists within 100 miles of a border—a zone that includes two-thirds of the U.S. population. Since the rationale for these stops is immigration enforcement, they are supposed to be very brief. Yet in 2010 Richard Rynearson, an Air Force officer who brought the case that the Court today declined to hear, was detained at a U.S. Border Patrol checkpoint in Uvalde County, Texas, for a total of 34 minutes, even though there was no reason to believe he was an illegal alien or a criminal.

  • Intellectual Monopolies

    • Trademarks

      • (Legal) Moonshiner and University Battle Over Rights to ‘Kentucky’

        Moonshine packs a punch in this corner of Appalachia, where making hooch is steeped in local lore. But when Colin Fultz, the grandson of a bootlegger, opened a gourmet distillery here last fall, he ran afoul of a spirit even more potent than white lightning: University of Kentucky basketball.

        With his outlaw grandfather — who spent 18 years behind bars for smuggling — very much on his mind, Mr. Fultz, a businessman and onetime coal miner, set out to carry on his family’s tradition in a legal, and thoroughly modern, way.

        He tinkered with recipes, blending peaches and blackberries into mash brewed in his garage. He hired a lawyer — “My wife got on me, said I was going to get into trouble,” he said — and renovated an old car dealership, where he now distills and sells fruit-infused whiskey, serving it in thimble-size cups from an exposed-brick tasting bar.

    • Copyrights

      • Netflix Disappears From MPAA’s ‘Legal’ Movie Search Engine

        Less than two years ago the MPAA launched its search engine WhereToWatch, offering viewers a database of alternatives to piracy. However, those who try the search engine today will notice that results for Netflix, the largest entertainment platform in the United States, are no longer listed. Is there a feud going on behind the scenes?

      • UK government warns about piracy shakedown letters

        THE UK Intellectual Property Office (IPO) has published information on what people should do if they receive one of those scary shakedown letters from firms accusing them of breaching piracy laws and owing money.

        Take them with a pinch of salt is the very short version of this, but the IPO has a bit more information.

        The organisation is alerting people to the sort of missives sent by companies like Goldeneye that have a very fishy smell and a bad reputation. The messages are sometimes described as speculative invoices.

      • BPI Buys Up ‘Pirate’ Domains To Foil Pro-Piracy Activists

        Internet pirates are a swarthy bunch that have been known to hijack anti-piracy projects to further their own aims. The BPI is aware of these kinds of efforts and has registered a whole heap of ‘pirate’ domains to avoid a similar fate befalling the UK’s Get it Right From a Genuine Site campaign.

]]> http://techrights.org/2016/04/11/krita-3-0-alpha/feed/ 0 Links 6/3/2016: KDE Sprint at CERN, Collabora Office 5.0 http://techrights.org/2016/03/06/collabora-office-5-0/ http://techrights.org/2016/03/06/collabora-office-5-0/#comments Sun, 06 Mar 2016 15:39:41 +0000 http://techrights.org/?p=90116

GNOME bluefish

Contents

GNU/Linux

Free Software/Open Source

  • ReactOS Participation in Google Summer of Code 2016
  • ReactOS: Building a Free-Licensed Windows

    From dual-booting to WINE, free software has always struggled to provide a solution for running Windows applications. However, few of these efforts have been more ambitious than ReactOS, a free-licensed implementation of Windows. The project has been at work since 2006 and, in February 2016, ReactOS finally released its first alpha version, after a decade of difficult and necessarily cautious development.

  • ReactOS Gains Btrfs File-System Support

    ReactOS, the project aiming for binary compatibility with Microsoft Windows (Server 2003), now has Btrfs file-system support.

    While there’s just a primitive Btrfs driver for Windows, ReactOS has already gained native Btrfs file-system support.

  • MAME is now Free and Open Source Software

    After 19 years, MAME is now available under an OSI-compliant and FSF-approved license! Many thanks to all of the contributors who helped this to go as smoothly as possible!

    We have spent the last 10 months trying to contact all people that contributed to MAME as developers and external contributors and get information about desired license. We had limited choice to 3 that people already had dual-license MAME code with.

  • 10 months later, MAME finishes its transition to open source

    Almost a year after the folks who maintain the Multiple Arcade Machine Emulator or (MAME) said they would make the project completely open source, they’ve declared the transition a success.

    MAME is seen by many developers to be the foremost emulator of arcade games, and while MAME source code has long been freely available for use, it hasn’t technically been open source.

  • MAME is now free as well as free of charge

    MAME, the arcade emulator originally created by Nicola Salmora 19 years ago, is now comprised entirely of free and open-source software. It’s taken a lot of wrangling, reports MAMEDev.org, due to the large number of contributors and interlinked components.

  • After 19 Years, MAME Goes Open Source

    The MAME Team has announced that after 19 years – MAME (Multiple Arcade Machine Emulator) has gone open source.

    The arcade emulator is now available under an OSI-compliant and FSF-approved license. This means the source code for the long-running emulator is readily available to fans – you’ll now be able to modify, utilize, and distribute it for a variety of purposes.

  • Machine Learning for Hackers with Debian and Ubuntu

    Data Science and Machine Learning are hot topics at the moment. Many people are considering how to extend their skills into these areas and many solutions have appeared, including full online degrees, free online courses combined with free software and for those who prefer hard copy, a staggering choice of books on the topic.

  • Machine Learning and Open Source: What You Need to Know Now

    The basic goal with most machine learning tools is to take a vast quantity of data and reduce it to manageable, actionable insights. Now, some of the biggest tech companies are putting the tools in place to let the community advance these efforts. Expect much more in this space as 2016 continues.

  • Serro unveils new open source SDN framework, AuSM

    Serro Solutions, a San Francisco-based technology services firm, has made its new SDN framework open source. Automated Service Manager, or AuSM, is aimed at connecting network tools via API. AuSM creates a single platform from which users can write unified business policies and implement them consistently across data center networks, WANs and storage systems.

  • The One thing you can do to Ensure Success in Open Source Deployments

    What is it about an Open source project that gets business excited? and more importantly, is – ROI- under the hype?

    The primary reason most enterprises focus on Open source solutions is the potential cost savings. This is followed closely by the abilityto fix or modify the technology to something specific for the business, without having to wait for enterprise software updates. Thereare more Open source middleware products, such as Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) offerings and application development frameworks, with the ability to change out an underlying, closed source vendor.

  • HFOSS: Quiz #1

    In the Humanitarian Free and Open Source Software Development (HFOSS) course at the Rochester Institute of Technology, quizzes are in the form of blog posts submitted during the class period. The room stays quiet, but it is an open IRC quiz, so many of the students collaborated with each other in #rit-foss on freenode for the quiz.

  • VoIP Supply Bolsters its PBX Appliances via Three Open-Source Models
  • NFV/SDN Reality Check: DDoS attack security for NFV- and SDN-powered networks – Episode 49
  • DDoS attack security for NFV- and SDN-powered networks
  • OPNFV Unveils Second Release of Open-Source NFV Platform

    “Brahmaputra” brings a range of new features that come from collaboration with other projects, including OpenDaylight and OpenStack.

    The industry consortium developing an open-source platform for network-functions virtualization is unveiling the second release of its software, which not only brings an array of new features and use cases but also is an indication of the growing maturity of the group.

  • Web Browsers

    • Chrome

      • Chrome 49 released to stable channel, smooth scrolling now enabled by default
      • Taint Tracking for Chromium

        For future work in the Web context, the approach presented here can be made compatible with server-side taint tracking to persist taint information beyond the lifetime of a Web page. A server-side Web application could transmit taint information for the strings it sends so that the client could mark those strings as tainted. Following that idea it should be possible to defeat other types of XSS. Other areas of work are the representation of information about the data flows in order to help developers to secure their applications. We already receive a report in the form of structured information about the blocked code generation. If that information was enriched and presented in an appealing way, application developers could use that to understand why their application is vulnerable and when it is secure. In a similar vein, witness inputs need to be generated for a malicious data flow in order to assert that code is vulnerable. If these witness inputs were generated live while browsing a Web site, a developer could more easily assess the severity and address the issues arising from DOM-based XSS.

    • Mozilla

      • Introducing the WebVR 1.0 API Proposal

        2016 is shaping up to be a banner year for Virtual Reality. Many consumer VR products will finally be available and many top software companies are ramping up to support these new devices. The new medium has also driven demand for web-enabled support from browser vendors. Growth in WebVR has centered on incredible viewing experiences and the tools used to create online VR content.

      • Mozilla Jumps On IoT Bandwagon

        Mozilla has been clarifying some of its plans to convert the Firefox OS project into four IoT based projects. At a casual glance this seems like a naive move that is doomed to failure.

  • SaaS/Big Data

  • Oracle/Java/LibreOffice

    • Collabora Office 5.0 Release
    • Bruce Byfield Interview: Designing With LibreOffice

      Our colleague Bruce has a book coming out! It’s called Designing with LibreOffice. It tackles the subject of how to make documents look good and professional, while taking advantage of all the design features LibreOffice has to offer. So I got together with Bruce and we talked about his book, LibreOffice, design, and the eternal struggle of documenting Open Source projects.

    • Collabora Office 5.0 Released As Its LibreOffice Enterprise Flavor

      The folks at Collabora have released version 5.0 of Collabora Office, their downstream distribution of LibreOffice.

      Collabora Office 5.0 pulls in features from upstream LibreOffice 5.0 as well as some backported features from LibreOffice 5.1. Collabora Office 5.0 features improvements to the Microsoft filters, UI enhancements, remote file open/save support, security fixes, and much more.

    • Losing the Art of Wiki

      The past few months I read here and there around the LibreOffice community complaints about our wiki. According to these sources, our wiki is unusable, chaotic and poorly maintained. As we have a full time team dedicated to infrastructure management I am pretty sure that last criticism is unjustified to a large extent at least, but it also dawned on me that very few people around the LibreOffice project or any other community, for that matter, hail wikis as their most important tool or platform. Obviously, we are no longer in 2007. But what’s happening here is interesting, because it seems that people may have actually forgotten about the basic reasons wikis are around.

    • How To Cite PDF & Make Bibliography with Zotero & LibreOffice
    • How to create list for LibreOffice Calc cell

  • Pseudo-/Semi-Open Source (Openwashing)

  • BSD

    • FreeBSD 10.3-RC1 Brings Security Fixes, Hyper-V Tweaks

      FreeBSD 10.3-RC1 was released today as the newest development milestone leading up to FreeBSD 10.3 that should be officially released later this month.

      FreeBSD 10.3-RC1 has a number of OpenSSL security fixes, Hyper-V driver changes, regression fixes, and other bug fixes.

    • Pre-orders for 5.9 are up!

      OpenBSD 5.9 is shaping up to be quite a big release, and pre-orders for the CD sets have just been activated.

  • Public Services/Government

    • Helsinki region utilities turn to open source

      Helsinki Region Environmental Services Authority (HSY) is turning to open source software solutions for its web applications and other online services. The first open source-based service to go live is the one for water metering. Others will follow soon, says Risto Sipilä, who works for Cybercom, an IT consultancy contracted by HSY to help build the services.

    • Basque open source sector almost doubles

      The revenue and number of IT workers employed by open source service providers in the Basque Country has nearly doubled in 2015, according to figures published by a regional trade group for the sector, ESLE. The combined 2015 revenue of the nearly 40 companies that ESLE represents is 58 million compared to 31 million the year before. The number of workers grew by 413 new staff members. Altogether, ESLE members now employ 1033 people.

  • Licensing

  • Openness/Sharing

    • Open Source on another level

      BrewDog, a UK brewery which soon celebrates its tenth anniversary, has decided to “open source” all of their 215 beer recipes. From their original and still extremely popular (and tasty) beer “PUNK IPA“, moving on to “Hops Kill Nazis“, “Doodlebug” and finally arriving at their latest “Jet Black Heart” which was first brewed last month (!)

    • Raspberry Pi 3, Linux Mint security breach, Google data processing for the Zika virus, and more
    • This Open Source Script Lets You (and Police) Search Twitter For Guns

      It’s now possible to do both of these things, thanks to a free, open-source tool designed by security researcher Justin Seitz as a part of his larger open-source intelligence project.

    • Open Access/Content

    • Open Hardware

      • First Open Source GPU Could Change Future of Computing

        Nyami is significant in the research, computing and open source communities because it marks the first time open source has been used to design a GPU, as well as the first time a research team was able to test how different hardware and software configurations affect GPU performance. The results of the experiments the researchers performed are now part of the open source community, and that work will help others follow in the original research team’s footsteps. According to Timothy Miller, a computer science assistant professor at Binghamton, as others create their own GPUs using open source, it will push computing power to the next level.

      • We are happy to share our FREE and OPEN-SOURCE microprocessor system PULPino!

        Not a toy design: PULPino is a mature design: it has been taped-out as an ASIC in UMC 65nm in January 2016. The PULPino platform is available for RTL simulation as well for FPGA mapping. It has full debug support on all targets. In addition we support extended profiling with source code annotated execution times through KCacheGrind in RTL simulations.

        And it is free, no registration, no strings attached, you can use it, change it, adapt it, add to your own chip, use it for classes, research, projects, products… We just ask you to acknowledge the source, and if possible, let us know what you like and what you like and don’t like.

      • Wiring was Arduino before Arduino

        Hernando Barragán is the grandfather of Arduino of whom you’ve never heard. And after years now of being basically silent on the issue of attribution, he’s decided to get some of his grudges off his chest and clear the air around Wiring and Arduino. It’s a long read, and at times a little bitter, but if you’ve been following the development of the Arduino vs Arduino debacle, it’s an important piece in the puzzle.

Leftovers

]]> http://techrights.org/2016/03/06/collabora-office-5-0/feed/ 0 Links 27/12/2015: Perl 6, Solus 1.0 http://techrights.org/2015/12/27/solus-1-0/ http://techrights.org/2015/12/27/solus-1-0/#comments Sun, 27 Dec 2015 13:06:45 +0000 http://techrights.org/?p=87810

GNOME bluefish

Contents

GNU/Linux

Free Software/Open Source

  • Why Don’t You Contribute to Open Source?

    In my How Much Do You Cost? post last year, I said open-source contribution is a very important factor in defining who is good and who isn’t, as far as programmers go. I was saying that if you’re not contributing to open source, and if your GitHub profile is not full of projects and commits, your “value” as a software developer is low, simply because this lack of open-source activity tells everybody that you’re not passionate about software development and are simply working for money. I keep getting angry comments about that every week. Let me answer them all here.

  • Open Source Software Went Nuclear This Year

    Open source software—software freely shared with the world at large—is an old idea. A guy named Richard Stallman started preaching the gospel in the early ’80s, though he called it free software. Linus Torvalds started work on Linux, the enormously successful open source operating system, in 1991, and today, it drives our daily lives—literally. The Android operating system that runs Google phones and the iOS operating system that runs the Apple iPhone are based on Linux. When you open a phone app like Twitter or Facebook and pull down all those tweets and status updates, you’re tapping into massive computer data centers filled with hundreds of Linux machines. Linux is the foundation of the Internet.

  • ownCloud 8.2.2, 8.1.5, 8.0.10 and 7.0.12 here with Sharing, LDAP fixes

    The latest ownCloud stability and security updates are available, bringing improvements to sharing capabilities and performance enhancements to the ownCloud 8.2 series and LDAP, sharing and many minor fixes to the earlier releases. We recommend to upgrade as soon as possible! Please note the change in upgrade behavior for the Linux packages which require system administrators to manually run the occ upgrade command. Read on for more details about this end-of-year gift from your friends at ownCloud.

  • The problem with self-driving cars: who controls the code?

    The Trolley Problem is an ethical brainteaser that’s been entertaining philosophers since it was posed by Philippa Foot in 1967:

    A runaway train will slaughter five innocents tied to its track unless you pull a lever to switch it to a siding on which one man, also innocent and unawares, is standing. Pull the lever, you save the five, but kill the one: what is the ethical course of action?

    The problem has run many variants over time, including ones in which you have to choose between a trolley killing five innocents or personally shoving a man who is fat enough to stop the train (but not to survive the impact) into its path; a variant in which the fat man is the villain who tied the innocents to the track in the first place, and so on.

  • Events

    • Nha Trang ICT 2015

      I came to Nha Trang this year to bring Fedora back there after the successful event last year. This year, the event was held in another university in Nha Trang, TCU with more participants from other universities in Nha Trang and nearby cities.

      There was a academy/science conference in the morning with some talks from open source enterprises who sponsor the whole event. The afternoon was reserved for FOSS communities and I had a session to introduce about the Fedora project to all students and lectures. There were about 200 attendees join into a big classroom.

      During the session, I talked to them about the benefit of contributing to FOSS and Fedora. I told participants what the employers need in general when they recruit new employees, especially young students. Basically, they need candidates to have critical thinking, group working, English speaking and technical skills. Students can study those skills during participating in a FOSS project like Fedora.

  • BSD

    • 2.2.6-RELEASE Now Available!

      pfSense® software version 2.2.6 is now available. This release includes a few bug fixes and security updates.

  • Openness/Sharing

    • Open Hardware

      • Little Helper: Open Source Hardware Hacker Multitool

        The open source gadget looks like an iPod (if an iPod had header pins sticking out of it). It has basic analog I/O capability, can generate PWM pulses, sniff I2C traffic, and do lots of other features. It is open source, so you can always add more capabilities if you need them.

  • Programming

    • Santa Claus in Linux Style: Top Linux Hardware and Free Linux/Programming Books & Courses Recommendations
    • PHP version 7.0.2RC1

      Release Candidate versions are available in remi-test repository for Fedora and Enterprise Linux (RHEL / CentOS) to allow more people to test them. They are available as Software Collections, for a parallel installation, perfect solution for such tests. For x86_64 only.

    • The Perl 6 release

      The December 25 entry follows with the Rakudo Perl 6 release. “This version of the compiler targets the v6.c ‘Christmas’ specification of the Perl 6 language. The Perl 6 community has been working toward this release over the last 15 years.”

    • Signs that you’re a good programmer

      The most frequently viewed page on this site is Signs you’re a bad programmer, which has also now been published on dead trees by Hacker Monthly, and I think that behoves me to write its antithesis. “Bad programmer” is also considered inflammatory by some who think I’m speaking down to them. Not so; it was personal catharsis from an author who exhibited many of those problems himself. And what I think made the article popular was the “remedies”–I didn’t want someone to get depressed when they recognized themselves, I wanted to be constructive.

      Therefore if you think you’re missing any of the qualities below, don’t be offended. I didn’t pick these up for a while, either, and many of them came from watching other programmers or reading their code.

Leftovers

  • Two men miraculously found alive 72 hours after Shenzhen landslide in China

    RESCUERS scrabbling through the aftermath of a huge three-day-old landslide discovered two people alive in the mud, as China’s cabinet announced a probe into the country’s latest industrial accident.

    Almost 72 hours after being buried alive by a tide of earth and rubble, 19-year-old Tian Zeming was pulled from the soil by emergency workers who have been battling around the clock in the search for survivors.

    Images from the scene showed dozens of firefighters and police thronging around a stretcher, apparently bearing the teenager to a waiting ambulance.

    [...]

    “The lack of safety supervision and passive attitude in taking precautions has caused the whole nation to shake with anger and shocked the world!” user Xizidan wrote in a post that was taken down by authorities, but found on the censorship tracking website Weiboscope.

  • Health/Nutrition

    • Bottled air from Canada is selling like crazy in China

      The startup has been capturing that air in “massive cans” through a clean compression process, which according to Vitality Air, “lock[s] in the pure air without any contamination.” The siphoned air is taken back to the company’s bottling facility, where “we begin filling our convenient delivery cans to the brim with excellent air.”

      Vitality Air’s pitch might read like a throwaway joke on Silicon Valley, but the company has found a market for their version of Canada Dry. People in smog-filled Chinese cities have been buying up the cans in bulk.

  • Security

    • #OLEOutlook – bypass almost every Corporate security control with a point’n’click GUI

      In this tutorial, I will show you how to embed an executable into a corporate network via email, behind the firewall(s), disguised as a Word document. There is no patch for this issue.

    • Somebody Tried to Get a Raspberry Pi Exec to Install Malware on Its Devices

      Liz Upton, the Director of Communications for the Raspberry Pi Foundation, has tweeted out a screenshot of an email where an unknown person has proposed that the Foundation install malware on all of its devices.

      In the email, a person named Linda, is proposing Mrs. Upton an agreement where their company would provide an EXE file that installs a desktop shortcut, that when clicked redirects users to a specific website. (Raspberry Pi devices can run Windows as well, not just Linux variants.)

    • Botnet of Aethra Routers Used for Brute-Forcing WordPress Sites

      Italian security researchers from VoidSec have come across a botnet structure that was using vulnerable Aethra Internet routers and modems to launch brute-force attacks on WordPress websites.

    • Steam Had A Very Rough Christmas With A Major Security Issue

      The security issue looks like it might be resolved now, but resulted in gamers being able to see other account holder’s information. Seeing other accounts included partial credit card information, addresses, and other personal information. For a while, the Steam store was completely shut down. The issue seems to stem from some caching issues due to account holders being presented with the wrong information.

    • Xen Project blunder blows own embargo with premature bug report

      The Xen Project has reported a new bug, XSA-169, that means “A malicious guest could cause repeated logging to the hypervisor console, leading to a Denial of Service attack.”

      The fix is simple – running only paravirtualised guests – but the bug is a big blunder for another reason.

  • Defence/Police/Secrecy/Aggression

    • US Has More than 200,000 Soldiers Deployed Around the World

      The United States armed forces now have more than 200,000 soldiers deployed in one hundred countries of all continents, according to Defense Department reports.
      About 9,800 remain in Afghanistan, while about 3,500 in Iraq and Syria under the pretext of fighting Islamic State (IS), most of the latest from the 82nd Airborne Division.

      The Navy maintains about 40 ships deployed, the largest of which is the USS Harry S. Truman aircraft carrier, with about 5,000 sailors and officers on board-.

      In recent days, this naval unit crossed the Suez Canal with its escorts ships to station in the Persian Gulf Gulf and from there to take part in the bombing against the IS targets in the region.

    • America’s Unending War On Terrorism Will Destroy Humanity And Planet Earth

      Ostensibly, the Arab Middle East is controlled and managed by the US intelligence network; otherwise, Arab leaders would have hard time to stay afloat. The authoritarian Arab leaders live in palaces, not with people to understand the outcomes of their political folly and ignorance. Ironically, the US-Russian air strikes and killings of the civilians in Syria and Iraq will instigate reactionary opposition and increased insurgency to topple the puppet regimes. Daveed Gartenstein-Rosss writing in Foreign Policy (“Thank you for Bombing-Obama- Why al Qaeda might be the biggest winner of America’s airstrikes on the Islamic State.”), argues that President Obama is using wrong strategy to attack ISIL: ‘But an emphasis on degrading and destroying IS while giving a pass to other jihadist groups in Syria could have serious consequences that could leave al Qaeda in the catbird seat.’ America enjoys a record of failure in strategic thinking and practices if you view the war theater in Afghanistan and Iraq and now the forged battleground is Syria.

    • Cameron, Spy Chiefs Trade Secrets With Merkel Over Daesh Terror Threat

      UK Prime Minister David Cameron and the chiefs of Britain’s three intelligence services have briefed German Chancellor Angela Merkel on the latest terror threats, including Daesh, also known as ISIL, in what analysts say is a rare move.

    • Letter: A reader’s election year thoughts

      The current crises with the ISIS/terrorist threat has political and media fear mongers salivating over the potential of going into another prolonged military conflict. Money would once again flow freely into corporations (mostly Cheney’s Halliburton) involved in supporting combat operations in addition to the weapons of war manufacturers and technology industries developing and maintaining hundreds of technology based combat support systems, most of which are not needed nor completed. In this greedy quest, there appears to be little, if any, concern for thousands of military and civilian deaths and the destruction of in-country vital infra-structure essential for post operation stabilization and reconstruction.

    • France out-Bushing George W. Bush in its terror fight

      France once led the world in lambasting George W. Bush’s “war on terror”. But as François Hollande looks to enshrine emergency powers in the constitution, the country’s leaders are suddenly sounding like the US president they once held in contempt.

    • Palace: No ISIS training camps in PH

      Malacañang on Tuesday denied reports that there is now an Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) training camp in the country.

      Presidential Communications Secretary Herminio Coloma, Jr. said National Security Adviser (NSA) Cesar Garcia has denied the report.

    • NATO: Seeking Russia’s Destruction Since 1949

      In 1990, after the fall of the Berlin Wall, U.S. president George H. W. Bush through his secretary of state James Baker promised Soviet premier Mikhail Gorbachev that in exchange for Soviet cooperation on German reunification, the Cold War era NATO alliance would not expand “one inch” eastwards towards Russia. Baker told Gorbachev: “Look, if you remove your [300,000] troops [from east Germany] and allow unification of Germany in NATO, NATO will not expand one inch to the east.”

    • Exclusive: Islamic State sanctioned organ harvesting in document taken in U.S. raid

      Islamic State has sanctioned the harvesting of human organs in a previously undisclosed ruling by the group’s Islamic scholars, raising concerns that the violent extremist group may be trafficking in body parts.

  • Environment/Energy/Wildlife

    • Hundreds evacuated after further flooding in northern England – latest updates
    • More than 100,000 flee El Niño flooding in Paraguay, Argentina, Brazil and Uruguay

      More than 100,000 people evacuated their homes in the bordering areas of Paraguay, Uruguay, Brazil and Argentina due to severe flooding in the wake of heavy summer rains brought on by El Niño, authorities said.

      The Paraguayan government declared a state of emergency in Asunción and seven regions of the country. Several people were killed by falling trees, local media reported.

    • Hanging out with the orangutan whisperer

      But the modest, grey pony-tailed founder and president of the Orangutan Project has made world-first discoveries about the orangutan, which literally translates as a “person of the forest” in Indonesian.

    • Climate Change: A Tale of Two Governors

      That brief conversation in Miami would result in Florida becoming, however briefly, a pioneer in grappling with the effects of climate change — such as flooding and freshwater drinking supplies contaminated with saltwater. After Crist was elected governor, he convened a summit, appointed a task force and helped usher in new laws intended to address a future of climate change and rising sea levels. Crist and the Florida Legislature set goals to reduce emissions back to 1990 levels.

    • UK Deploys Army to Rescue People in North Western County Hit by Floods

      British Armed Forces personnel have been deployed to the English county of Cumbria to rescue people whose homes have been flooded, UK Defense Secretary Michael Fallon said Friday.

      Earlier this month, Storm Desmond brought record amounts of rain to Cumbria, resulting in several bouts of flooding in the region.

    • UK weather: M62 20ft sinkhole causes travel chaos as north of England battered by floods

      The M62 has been closed around a 20ft sinkhole which opened up in the road as the north of England was battered by a month’s rain in a few hours.

      The massive hole opened up between junctions 20 and 19 near Rochdale, Greater Manchester shortly after midday, bringing traffic grinding to a halt.

      The westbound carriageway has been closed as engineers examine the scene.

      Meanwhile, the Met Office has issued ‘danger to life’ flood warnings and the army has been called in to evacuate residents in flood-hit parts of Lancashire and Yorkshire.

    • Live updates: Homes evacuated, pub collapses, city centre on flood alert as rivers across Manchester burst their banks

      Greater Manchester is on flood alert after torrential rain throughout the night.

      Rivers across the region have burst their banks with many roads closed.

      Part of the Waterside pub in Summerseat in Bury has collapsed

      We will bring you all the latest updates here.

    • 10,000 properties without power across Lancashire and Rochdale

      Severe flooding has caused widespread disruption throughout the morning causing loss of power to customers in Rochdale and Lancashire with 10,000 properties currently off supply.

      30,000 properties are usually supplied with electricity from the main substation in Rochdale. Engineers from Electricity North West shifted 10,000 properties from the substation an hour before the flooding hit to secure supplies.

    • Govt looking at new insurance levy over floods

      The Government is considering whether a new insurance levy should be introduced to fund flood cover for homeowners who cannot buy policies.

      Insurance companies do not offer cover to homes and businesses in areas at risk of flooding.

      The Department of Environment, the Department of Finance and the Office of Public works are working on possible solutions.

    • Flooding Causes Manchester Gas Explosion

      Listen to this account from an eyewitness who says that flooding has caused a gas explosion in Bury, Greater Manchester.

    • Pub washed away in Summerseat on River Irwell

  • Finance

    • Capitalism – Not China – Is to Blame for the Current Global Economic Decline

      Capitalism, like a speeding train, barreled into a stone wall in 2008. Shocked and dazed, its leaders have been trying to “recover.” By that, they mean to fix the mangled tracks, reposition the locomotive and cars on those tracks and resume forward motion. No basic economic change, in their view, is needed or even considered. They see no absurdity in such a “recovery plan” – just as they saw no approaching catastrophe in the years leading up to 2008.

    • Prof. Wolff comments on U.S. exports of crude oil at RT International
    • Bitcoin: What It Is And How It Works

      In 2008, a programmer issued a white paper in which he argued that we need an Internet currency not subject to the fees and permissions of third-party intermediaries. So he came up with the digital equivalent of cash online, a system that lets participants send value to anyone else with a Bitcoin address the same way they might send an email. “Like the Internet flattened global speech, Bitcoin can flatten global money,” says computer scientist Nick Szabo, who is suspected as Bitcoin’s pseudonymous creator, Satoshi Nakamoto.

  • PR/AstroTurf/Lobbying

    • Robin Kelley, Malkia Cyril, Richard Rothstein: Do Black Lives Matter to Media?

      This week on CounterSpin: From community rallies around the country to the presidential election, the Black Lives Matter movement has changed the conversation. Keeping a spotlight on state-sanctioned violence against black people, activists have opened up a debate, including in corporate media, that addresses racism and white supremacy in ways more searching and less euphemistic than we’re used to. At least, fewer pundits tell us we’re living in a “post-racial” society—that’s a start.

    • Senate Bill 571 censors factual election information

      And helping taxpayers understand how these vital public goods are going to be delivered or paid for is important too. Which is why many people across Michigan are baffled by the Michigan Legislature’s desire to prevent school districts and other public bodies from distributing factual and unbiased information about ballot proposals within 60 days of the election.

      Gov. Rick Snyder should stand for more information and transparency, not less, and veto Senate Bill 571, now before him.

      Senate Bill 571 would prohibit a public body, or person acting for a public body from using public resources for factual communications referencing local ballot questions by radio, television, mass mailing, or prerecorded telephone message for 60 days prior to an election.

    • Donald Trump: Another Terrorist from the 1 Percent

      “What most concerns the [New York] Times is that the crude politics of Trump shatters the lying rhetoric used by Democrats and Republicans alike to justify the policies of the ruling class, at home and abroad. Thus, it worries that Trump is doing “serious damage” to the country’s “reputation overseas” by “twisting its message of tolerance and welcome.” What is the “tolerance and welcome” of which the Times speaks? Is it perhaps the Obama administration’s deportation of more immigrants to Mexico and Central America than any other president? Or the construction of brutal detention facilities in the southern US to hold men, women and children seeking refuge in the US. The Times writes that Trump “has not [yet] deported anyone, nor locked up or otherwise brutalized any Muslims, immigrants or others.” The newspaper fails to add, “Obama, however, has.”

    • Sanders-Clinton Voter Database Hack: a Campaign Pro’s Perspective

      As you probably already know, Bernie Sanders’ presidential campaign was involved in some recent hijinks involving improper access to campaign data from the Hillary Clinton campaign, after a buggy software patch applied by the contractor maintaining the Democratic Party’s voter database, NGPVAN, inadvertently opened a data firewall. The Democratic National Committee (DNC) suspended the Sanders’ campaign access to Democratic voter lists (a subscription that the campaign had paid for); Sanders responded by suing the DNC; after a brief negotiation, the DNC restored the Sanders campaign access; and Sanders apologized to Clinton for the hack in Saturday night’s debate. Clinton accepted the apology, and noted that most Americans don’t care anyway.

  • Censorship

    • To tolerate or to take offence? That’s the question

      AMOS Yee’s most recent blog post has got him into trouble with the authorities again and has led to vehement responses online. However one response, by the President of the Humanist Society, has chosen not to focus on the 17-year-old himself, but on the perceived vitriol against the youth, in turn sparking two camps of responses both online and offline.

      Even though the letter Humanist Society president Paul Tobin wrote was in response to Amos Yee, his letter about the vitriolic responses towards Yee’s blog post has engaged citizens on a general discussion of intolerance towards offensive remarks online.

    • Tuesdays at Cheongster Cafe: Report Police Report

      It seems like Singaporeans have found themselves a new pastime – filing police reports. The past week alone saw two police reports filed against former Nominated MP Calvin Cheng, for incitement to violence. Add to that police reports filed against Amos Yee earlier this year, filed by National Solidarity Party, and another by Workers Party candidate Daniel Goh during GE2015 and so on, and it seems like our boys in blue have no time to nab criminals but spend their days attending to people with grievances to air.

    • Remembrance theme ranks high on Google Singapore searches

      Outspoken blogger Amos Yee, who sparked an uproar for his criticisms of Lee Kuan Yew, was high on the search list of Singaporeans who followed the controversy online.

    • Anonymous Hacks Asia Pacific Telecommunity Portal to Protest Against Censorship In Asia

      Members of the Anonymous hacker collective have defaced the Asia Pacific Telecommunity website (apt.int), gained access to the site’s admin panel (running Drupal), and also managed to get their hands on a database dump.

    • When Censorship is Really Tempting

      Needless to say competing voices and groups oppose this kind of censorship. Officially I think of censorship as acts of governments to limit or punish ideas that threaten them. On a less legalistic basis, I think we tend to use the term to refer to efforts to shut up any views by anybody that the other person or party or organization objects to. You could say, for example, that when our fellow citizens called us peace activists opposed to the Iraq War “unpatriotic” that were attempting to censor our speech. Bullying, peer pressure, threatened loss of livelihood…all are techniques for suppressing unpopular or unwanted ideas separate from any specific government action.

    • Free speech trumps censorship – be it Cecil Rhodes or Adolf Hitler

      Now they want the statue of the man the campaigners call “the Hitler of South Africa” removed. One can see why. Rhodes began enforced racial segregation in South Africa and was – avowedly – a racist, proclaiming the superiority of Anglo-Saxons. Looking back at him today, it is difficult not to regard him and much of his legacy as toxic.

    • International publishers blast censorship in Turkey

      The International Publishers Association on Dec. 22 condemned what it called “blatant political censorship” in Turkey, saying three journalists’ books had been pulled from shelves on court orders.

      “Books by Hasan Cemal, Tuğçe Tatari and Müslüm Yücel will be removed from sale merely because they were found in the possession of people arrested on suspicion of being members of various outlawed political parties,” the Geneva-based IPA said in a statement.

      The Third Criminal Court of Peace in southeastern Gaziantep province decided to remove a total of three books focusing on the Kurdish problem by journalists Hasan Cemal and Tuğçe Tatari from bookstores after being seized during an operation into a cell where suspected militants of the outlawed Patriotic Revolutionary Youth Movement (YDG-H), youth-wing of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), were detained. The court ruled for the confiscation of the books on Dec. 4, arguing they spread terrorist propaganda and praised criminal activity.

    • Turkey attacked by international publishers for ‘blatant political censorship’

      The International Publishers Association on Tuesday condemned what it called “blatant political censorship” in Turkey, saying three journalists’ books had been pulled from shelves on court orders.

      “Books by Hasan Cemal, Tugce Tatari and Muslum Yucel will be removed from sale merely because they were found in the possession of people arrested on suspicion of being members of various outlawed political parties,” the Geneva-based IPA said in a statement.

    • How Websites Will Signal When They’re Censored
    • Bradbury-Inspired 451 Error Code Warns of Online Censorship
    • Error 451 is the new HTTP code for online censorship

      The Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF), the body responsible for overseeing the internet’s technical standards, has approved HTTP 451, “an HTTP Status Code to Report Legal Obstacles”. The new status code will show viewers when a web page is being blocked for legal reasons.

    • Forget 404 Errors: HTTP Now Has a Code for Censorship

      HTTP status codes are not normally a thing that aids political dissidents, or really anything to get excited about. But the newly-made code 451, to be used when something is taken down for legal reasons, is a timely exception.

      Status codes are used when requesting and transmitting data over the internet, for example, pulling up this page. There are five classes, 100s-500s, and tens or hundreds of specific codes within those classes. You normally don’t encounter the codes unless something goes wrong—the infamous 404 error for a page not found, for example.

    • CALLING OUT CENSORSHIP BY NAME, OR AT LEAST BY NUMBER

      With those words, the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) announced new HTTP status code 451, to be used when access to a website is denied due to legal demands.

      Most users pay little attention to status codes, which are numerical indicators of how a website is responding to a browser request. If they are familiar with status codes at all, they have most likely encountered a “404 – File Not Found” or possibly an occasional “403—Forbidden.”

    • Burmese artists caught in self-censorship

      Burmese artists lived under strict laws of censorship since 1964. Through their artworks they battled for freedom and it’s only since 2012 that censorship was abolished. Since then there was an explosion of political art but artists stayed very careful in their choice of subject.

      Walking through the streets of Yangon, Myanmar’s largest city, you could feel an air of silenced excitement. The first free elections in 25 years were only a month away and artist Khin Maung Zaw took me to his home and gallery. The idyllic paintings of Buddhist monks and Burmese landscapes on the wall express the love he feels for his country but “Myanmar is a shattered country. We need to choose democracy. It’s the only way we can talk about our needs.”, says a soft-spoken Zaw. Still, he doesn’t call his work revolutionary: “my works are snapshots of the daily lives of Burmese people.”

    • Mercury News editorial: China’s Internet conference is all about censorship

      If you were planning to hold an Internet conference for the world, where would you choose to hold it?

      “Anyplace but China” would be a reasonable response. Yet last week, no less a luminary that Chinese President Xi Jinping welcomed more than 2,000 guests to the coastal city of Wuzhen, as they opened the World Internet Conference.

      That’s right. China hosted an Internet conference. Has one of world’s heaviest-handed cyber censors decided to join the digital marketplace of ideas? Hardly. Check out the guest list, including delegates from such freedom-loving places as Russia, Pakistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan.

      The purpose of this conference was not to be to open the Internet, but how better to close it. China is promoting the idea of “Internet sovereignty,” which is basically a web of fiefdoms gagged by official censors.

    • China is Finally Taking its Seat at the Big Table
    • China’s Xi calls for cooperation on Internet regulation

      President Xi Jinping has defended his government’s broad censorship of the internet, in a high-profile speech underscoring China’s increasingly emphatic attempts to justify its strict online control.

    • Is American film industry pandering to Chinese censors?

      The director of China’s state-controlled film bureau, Zhang Hongshen, has said that China is at war with Hollywood. China’s propaganda chief, Liu Qibao, believes that Chinese movies should reflect the Chinese Dream. President Xi Jinping declared that art should be patriotic and that foreign films should be sanitized.

    • So you think Thai Internet censorship is bad?

      Every hotel I stayed at in China offered free WiFi, but it was a meaningless gesture. While some of my email got through, I was not able to reply to any of it until I returned to Thailand. Likewise Facebook was blocked, though many might see that as a blessing in disguise.

    • The Delicate Dance of a Chinese Journalist

      China jails more journalists than any other country, but media students say the landscape is changing.

    • Students Call for ‘Terrifying’ Wave of Censorship

      A video shows filmmaker and satirist Ami Horowitz on the campus of Yale University asking students to sign a petition calling for a repeal of the First Amendment.

      Horowitz said he was able to quickly gather more than 50 signatures in less than an hour and believes most who signed were students.

    • Trigger Warnings on College Campuses Are Nothing but Censorship

      Two Yale University professors recently said they would no longer be teaching classes after students expressed outrage that the instructors called for open debate and dialogue in an email. Increasingly, students are making demands of university faculty to limit exposure to material that the students deem to be discomforting. One way this is being expressed is in the call for trigger warnings in course syllabi. The student government at the University of California–Santa Barbara, for example, passed a resolution requiring trigger warnings on every syllabus with no penalties for students who skip a trigger class or assignment.

    • Self-censorship makes us victims of political jihad

      Well-respected ASIO chief Duncan Lewis has advised MPs to use soothing language when publicly discussing Islam, apparently to prevent a backlash. Malcolm Turnbull’s tacit support for the advice is not merely an error of judgment, it is profoundly misconceived.

      During the past week, the government has changed the parameters of the public debate on Islamism in Australia. Along with ASIO, it has reframed the debate to propose the cause of militant Islam is, in part, our response to it.

    • Tact is tactical. Obsequiousness signals surrender
    • Self-censorship? Lok Sabha Speaker expunges her own remarks after Congress raises concern

      Congress leader Mallikarjun Kharge, who had returned to the House by this time, protested against Naidu making comments against the opposition in his absence.

    • e-Books help overcome Book Censorship in the Middle East

      The Middle East is notorious for banning books due to moral, political, religious, or commercial reasons. Iran, Kuwait, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and Syria are often heralded as the countries that tend to ban the most books.

    • Police encourage social media censorship
    • Students need education, not indoctrination

      There is, it turns out, a bright side to this otherwise depressing affair. A small group of brave and principled students, who identified themselves as ‘representatives of the Harvard undergraduate council’, made themselves heard and announced their outraged opposition to the administration’s latest experiment in thought control. A truly diverse array (just judging by last names such as Biebelberg, Ely, Gupta, Kelley, Khansarinia, Kim, Popovski and so forth) wrote ‘to express concern regarding’ the placemat dissemination. ‘Reject[ing] the premise that there is a “right” way to answer the questions posed’, the protesting students affirmed that ‘we should work to foster a climate that is conducive to frank, open discussion – especially among students who disagree’. The placemat, they complained, ‘gives the impression that the points it articulates are positions endorsed by the college and, more disturbingly, positions that the college thinks students should hold’. College, concluded the students, ‘should engage in the task of helping students to think and speak for themselves, not telling them what to think and what to say’.

    • In Hong Kong, Fears for an Art Museum

      “The problem in Hong Kong is not censorship,” said Pi Li, the Sigg senior curator at M+. “The problem in Hong Kong is self-censorship. It’s self-censorship hidden in the procedures, so it’s difficult to distinguish.”

    • Don’t Let Principals Censor the Internet

      Public schools should not have the power to punish off-campus speech.

    • The Palestinian-Israeli singer challenging everyone’s misconceptions

      Call her a traitor, call her a normalizer — Palestinian-Israeli singer Amal Murkus has heard it all. Now as she gets ready to release her brilliant new album, the avowed Marxist and feminist is speaking out against the racism of the Israeli mainstream as well as Palestinian attempts to silence her.

    • Closing down access to ‘free speech’ is not a joking matter

      The U.S. Supreme Court has a long string of decisions defending speech and speakers that many Americans would like to shut off or shut down. But within a just a few days of each other:

      • Eric Schmidt, the executive chairman of Google, said in an Op-ed piece for The New York Times that his company and others should create algorithmic “tools to help de-escalate tensions on social media – sort of like spell-checkers, but for hate and harassment.”

      • Democratic frontrunner Hillary Clinton called on Web companies to “disrupt” terror groups’ ability to use social media for recruitment and communication, to “deprive jihadists of virtual territory.”

      • GOP poll leader Donald Trump said at a South Carolina rally that “in certain areas” we should just shut down the Internet.

    • Why did Iranian TV censor interview with Zarif?

      After a highly promoted holiday interview with Iran’s popular Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif was canceled at the last minute, Iranians cried foul, accusing state television of taking sides in a partisan quarrel ahead of the elections.

    • NY Times Warns About Europe Expanding The ‘Right To Be Forgotten’

      We recently warned about how the new Data Protection Directive in the EU, while written with good intentions, unfortunately appears to both lock-in and expand the whole right to be forgotten idea in potentially dangerous ways. A big part of it is that the directive is just too vague, meaning that the RTBF may apply to all kinds of internet services, but we won’t know for certain until the lawsuits are all finally decided many years in the future. Also unclear are what sorts of safe harbors there may be and how the directive protects against abusing the right to be forgotten for out and out censorship. Unfortunately, many are simply celebrating these new rules for the fact that they do give end users some more power over their data and how it’s used.

    • Keystrokes in the West may mean a death sentence in Saudi Arabia

      From posting a message on Facebook to watching the cursor blink on a screen, many of us take online communication for granted. For most, the idea that such activities might lead to severe punishment is absurd. But, in Saudi Arabia, the West’s treasured Middle East ally, keystrokes can result in public stoning, flogging, life imprisonment, crucifixion, or beheading. Saudi Arabia appears to be existentially threatened by freedom of expression.

      On 16 December Ensaf Haida, the wife of imprisoned Saudi blogger Raif Badawi accepted, on his behalf, the 2015 Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought. Saudi authorities had sentenced the blogger to 10 years in prison with 1,000 lashes for posting comments that criticized the kingdom’s extremist Wahhabi ideology. They consider his views blasphemous.

      In January 2015, the Saudi authorities publicly gave Badawi 50 lashes. This first round of flogging resulted in such a serious deterioration in his physical health that doctors were able to halt the flogging for a while. But, a remaining 950 lashes still await Badawi.

      United Nations human rights expert David Kaye has expressed alarm at growing repression in Saudi Arabia: ‘Such attacks on freedom of expression deter critical thinking, public participation, and civic engagement, the very things that are crucial to human development and democratic culture,’ he said.

    • Rated R for Ridiculous

      MPAA ratings are more political than ever, so parents should do their own research

    • Why Did Facebook Block the Sharing of This New York Times Article About Nuclear Targets?

      When atomic weapons historian Stephen Schwartz tried to post information about 1950s U.S. nuclear targets to Facebook Wednesday, the site stopped him. “The content you’re trying to share includes a link that our security systems detected to be unsafe,” an automated error message announced. Here’s the strange thing: Schwartz—who pointed out the oddity on Twitter (where Washington Post journalist Dan Zak noticed it)—wasn’t sharing state secrets. He was posting a New York Times article.

      It’s not immediately clear why Facebook blocked the story—a fascinating and chilling historical narrative woven from publicly available information—or even whether the block was algorithmic or manual. At first, Slate colleagues told me they were able to link to it through the Facebook widget on the New York Times’ page, but attempting that method now generates a message that reads, “The server found your request confusing and isn’t sure how to proceed.” As some have noted, posting the mobile version of the article appears to work, and other articles about nuclear targets failed to generate the same issues. All this suggests that Facebook isn’t really taking issue with the article itself, so what exactly is going on here?

      [...]

      Again, whatever’s going on here clearly isn’t willful censorship. What’s troubling is the lack of transparency. The more powerful Facebook gets, the more such erratic quirks threaten to shape our everyday experience. At the very least, the company would do well to elaborate on what they mean by “unsafe.” Without providing further details, the site is effectively infantilizing its user base. Even if Facebook eventually explains what happened with the New York Times article, the initial mystery is a potent reminder of who really controls our ability to share information.

    • Thai high court upholds conviction of webmaster for postings

      Thailand’s Supreme Court on Wednesday upheld the 2012 conviction of a webmaster for not acting quickly enough to delete online comments deemed insulting to the country’s monarchy, a decision decried by rights advocates as another blow to freedom of expression.

    • British pub’s Facebook account banned over ‘offensive’ name

      Facebook has suspended a 175-year-old British pub’s social media account over its “offensive” name, saying it was derived from a black cockerel — a male chicken, the media reported.

      The manager of the Blackcock Inn in Llanfihangel Talyllyn, a small village in Wales, in November this year received a message from Facebook saying the pub’s account he created had been suspended for “racist or offensive language”, he told the Independent in an interview.

    • Twitter says it is beating the trolls

      After making it easier to report abusive tweets and increasing the size of its anti-troll team, Twitter believes it is getting ‘bad behavior’ under control. As well as bullying of acquaintances and work colleagues, Twitter has also been used to attack celebrities, the gay community, religious groups, and more, with many people feeling driven from the site. It seems that the decision to take a very hands-on approach to troll tackling is starting to pay off.

    • ICFJ’s Butler: American journalists feel the attacks on colleagues in Turkey and elsewhere

      In the past several years, Turkey has been facing increasing unlawful government oppression on civil society and aggressive assaults against the media.

      After consolidating his power, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and his Justice and Development Party (AKP) government did not hesitate to arrest critical voices and media professionals, and has even seized private property and companies. While known as a democracy — even if not a liberal one — Turkey, embracing these tyrannical tendencies of President Erdoğan, has brought the entire nation to very unsteady ground.

      Patrick Butler, vice president for programs at the International Center for Journalists (ICFJ), a Washington-based non-profit organization that works to improve the skills and standards of journalists and media around the world, says he is deeply saddened to see assaults on journalists in Turkey.

  • Privacy

  • Civil Rights

    • Digital Rights Battles in 2015: NSA Reform, Net Neutrality, CISA and Beyond

      From John Oliver quizzing Edward Snowden on whether the NSA is collecting our “dick pics” to EFF’s legal team obliterating the patent that was used to go after podcaster Adam Carolla, digital rights issues have been in the public spotlight this year. For the most part, 2015 found us winning hard-fought battles to advance our freedoms online.

    • 10 human rights cases that defined 2015

      It has been a fascinating year in which to edit this Blog. Political and social challenges – from continued government cuts to the alarming rise of Islamic State – have presented new human rights conundrums that have, as ever, slowly percolated to the doors of the country’s highest courts. And all this during the year of an astonishing General Election result and amid continually shifting sands around the future of the Human Rights Act.

      [...]

      This was a historic decision if only for the fact that it was the first time the Investigatory Powers Tribunal had ever found against the Government. It all began with the Edward Snowden leaks and revelations surrounding the US National Security Agency’s communications interception programme. Liberty and other NGOs cited breaches of Articles 8 and 10 ECHR as a result of the UK authorities’ reception, storage, use and transmission of material intercepted and shared with them by their US counterparts.

    • US revokes visa of British Muslim without explanation

      The imam, Ajmal Masroor has accused the United States of enacting the anti-Muslim policies propagated by Republican presidential hopeful, Donald Trump, who prompted global condemnation this month when he pledged to ban Muslims from entering the US.

    • Conservative Media’s Demand That Muslims Atone For Terrorism Is A Rigged Game
    • Iranian-Americans Are Once Again The Escape-Goats. Why?

      We reaffirm our commitment to the principled American ideals of equal opportunity, due process, and the transparent application of the rule of law and justice afforded to all citizens irrespective of one’s national origin, presumed religion, creed, ethnicity, or gender. I submit this note specifically to YOU to take appropriate action to ameliorate the adverse ramifications of certain aspects of HR158:

    • Congress Put Iranian-Americans and Others At Risk for Becoming Second-Class Citizens

      As a powerful Iranian-American community, we are politically passive. Many of our parents came to the US to avoid politics and politicians. But it seems our passive disposition relative to politics and lack of unity regarding politicians has hurt us and the passing of this legislation is a representative example. The legislation that passed last week by both democrats and republicans is un-American. This legislation is legally, socially, and morally wrong.

    • Yahoo now warns users if they’re targets of state-sponsored hackers

      Bob Lord, the company’s newly appointed chief information security officer, said in a blog post that it will notify users if it suspects suspect that their account may have been targeted by a state-sponsored actor.

      “We’ll provide these specific notifications so that our users can take appropriate measures to protect their accounts and devices in light of these sophisticated attacks,” said Lord.

    • Yahoo becomes the latest company to warn users of suspected state-sponsored attacks
    • Controversial China anti-terror law looks set to pass this month

      China’s controversial anti-terrorism law could be passed as soon as the end of this month, state news agency Xinhua said on Monday, legislation that has drawn concern in Western capitals for its cyber provisions.

      The draft law, which could require technology firms to install “backdoors” in products or to hand over sensitive information such as encryption keys to the government, has also been criticised by some Western business groups.

    • These are the people responsible for our out of control police…

      Matthew Harwood’s definitive article shows that America’s police have gone out of control.

    • Smiles and Nerves: Schools reopen in Ukraine’s frontline villages

      Children have been returning to schools in eastern Ukraine after the Red Cross provided materials to repair the damage and allow them to restart their studies this winter.

      Although the guns have been mostly silent since the early September in Ukraine, government troops and Russian-backed militant forces continue to report casualties in the region. Among the most vulnerable populations are children attending schools near the frontline.

    • Trump’s Muslim ban is as American as apple pie

      Genuinely appalled members of the public and press, as well as elements of the Republican establishment, desperate to stop Trump as a loose cannon not beholden either to the party or its decisive megadonors, labored mightily to make Trump’s Muslim ban blather a huge issue, the killer gaffe that would disqualify him as presidential material.

      However, efforts to neutralize Trump through public censure–“bigot” “fascist” etc.—do not appear to be getting much traction.

      I believe there’s a good reason for that.

      When confronted by discriminatory speech and actions, some make the high-minded appeal to Americans’ better nature: “this isn’t us.”

    • Western Democracy: Who’s Watching the Watchers?

      What kind of society do our so-called “Western and networked democracies” count as normal if humans are constantly objectified, monitored and profiled?

    • China’s cyber-diplomacy

      China’s World Internet Conference is last week’s news, but the event will likely reverberate for years to come, as China seeks international support for its notion of a “multilateral” approach to the governance of global cyberspace.

      The piece that follows is one of the most informative I have read so far on the so-called “Wuzhen Summit,” attended this year by President Xi Jinping. Published in The Initium, a Hong Kong start-up that has done some very good reporting on China over the past six months, the piece is written by Fang Kecheng (方可成), a former journalist at Guangzhou’s Southern Weekly newspaper.

    • The Advocates: Four Public Interest Lawyers To Know

      The Bay Area is home to several legal nonprofits focused on issue advocacy. We asked state and federal judges to identify the staff litigators they see as particularly effective advocates.

    • The Perfect Storm in Digital Law

      The final element in this perfect storm is differing cultural expectations about the role of digital laws. The United States, says the stereotype, sees Europe’s digital laws as anti-business, anti-free speech, and pro-regulation. The EU, in turn, sees the United States’ digital laws as anti-privacy, reckless, and dictated by corporate interests.

    • 2 fatally shot, 1 accidentally, by Chicago police on West Side; families demand answers

      Police responding to a call about a domestic disturbance shot and killed a 19-year-old engineering student and a 55-year-old mother of five, and authorities acknowledged late Saturday that the woman had been shot by accident.

      The families of both victims demanded answers after the deaths, which were the first fatal shootings by Chicago police officers since last month’s release of a 2014 video of Laquan McDonald’s death put a national spotlight on the city.

  • Internet/Net Neutrality

    • There’s wi-fi in the middle of the only place in the U.S. where wi-fi is ‘outlawed’

      At the beginning of this year, the Washingtonian ran an incredible piece about “electrosensitives” who had moved to “the town without wi-fi.” These people believe all the signals crowding the air to power our telecommunications-dependent society are making them sick, so they fled to Green Bank, West Virginia, which exists in the US’s only federally-mandated “radio quiet zone.”

    • Facebook’s Fraudulent Campaign on Free Basics

      Facebook is back with its game of trying to pretend that its platform is a substitute for the Internet, particularly for the poor. The originally controversial Internet.org is now back, re-branded as Free Basics, with full page ads in major papers, hoardings and a completely misleading on-line campaign using Facebook itself.

      The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India has issued a notice for public consultation on the issue. While TRAI has put on hold Facebook’s agreement with Reliance offering Free Basics for now, it has not stopped Facebook’s campaign.

    • 10 reasons that explain why you should oppose Facebook’s Free Basics campaign

      Free Basics violates a fundamental principle of the Internet.

  • DRM

    • Welcome to the Digital Dark Ages

      Historians and archivists call our times the “digital dark ages.” The name evokes the medieval period that followed the collapse of the Roman Empire, which led to a radical decline in the recorded history of the West for 1000 years. But don’t blame the Visigoths or the Vandals. The culprit is the ephemeral nature of digital recording devices. Remember all the stuff you stored on floppy discs, now lost forever? Over the last 25 years, we’ve seen big 8-inch floppies replaced by 5.25-inch medium replaced by little 3.5-inch floppies, Zip discs and CD-ROMs, external hard drives and now the Cloud — and let’s not forget memory sticks and also-rans like the DAT and Minidisc.

  • Intellectual Monopolies

    • Copyrights

      • Netgear Shows Customers How to Share Pirate Movies

        Showing users how to send large video files is a task undertaken by dozens of software and hardware manufacturers but for the folks at Netgear the issue is now a controversial one. Want to send a pirate movie to a friend after downloading it from a torrent site? Netgear apparently has an app for that.

      • New Zealand court rules that Kim Dotcom can be extradited

        Kim Dotcom, the New Zealand-based German entrepreneur behind the Mega Upload file-sharing website, can be extradited to the US along with three associates, an Auckland court has ruled.

        Dotcom and his three associates are accused by the US authorities of conspiracy to commit copyright infringement, racketeering and money laundering. However, Dotcom claims that his file-sharing website was little different from many other file-sharing websites.

      • Kim Dotcom Challenges U.S. Govt. in Christmas Address

        The past several years have been a roller-coaster ride for Internet mogul Kim Dotcom. As he continues to fight an aggressive government determined to extradite him to the United States to face serious criminal charges, this Christmas Day the Megaupload founder recaps his case here on TorrentFreak.

]]> http://techrights.org/2015/12/27/solus-1-0/feed/ 0 Links 16/12/2015: Linux Foundation Expansion, Mesa 11.1 http://techrights.org/2015/12/16/linux-foundation-expansion/ http://techrights.org/2015/12/16/linux-foundation-expansion/#comments Wed, 16 Dec 2015 20:59:50 +0000 http://techrights.org/?p=87469

GNOME bluefish

Contents

GNU/Linux

Free Software/Open Source

  • “Open-Source Windows” ReactOS 0.4 Steps Closer With A Release Candidate

    ReactOS, the open-source operating system aiming for binary compatibility with Windows programs and drivers, is finally closer to its next big release: v0.4.

    ReactOS 0.4 has been talked about for more than a year and it’s been a while since the last big update, but now it looks like ReactOS 0.4 is on finals with the first release candidate having been pushed out hours ago. If you are anxious for ReactOS 0.4, you can download RC1 right away via SourceForge.

  • Another gaze into the crystal ball..this time, open source

    Open source.

    2015 was a fairly important year for open source technology. There was no doubting that Linux had made major inroads into enterprise computing. Android and Chrome OS continued their dominance, and plenty of other open source projects were gaining serious ground.

  • 9 Open Source Internet of Things Platforms
  • 16 Open Source Hardware Tools for the Internet of Things

    A survey of the open source hardware tools that are enabling the flexible, integrated design that so naturally fits with the Internet of Things.

  • 9 Open Source Operating Systems for the Internet of Things
  • 6 Open Source Middleware Tools for the Internet of Things

    Middleware tends to be the unsung hero of technical infrastructure. Middleware doesn’t prompt great debates, like Windows vs. Apple vs. Linux OS debates of years past, and there are no TV ads for middleware. Yet middleware – the software that sits between the OS and applications – is an essential element, especially for the Internet of Things. Among other tasks, middleware often provides messaging services so different apps can connect with one another. It also helps ease the work involved with the development of apps that get services from other apps. So the six open source middleware tools on the following pages may not stir a lot of argument, but they are highly important in enabling the vast, far-flung world of the Internet of Things.

  • 5 Advantages of Using Open Source Software

    Open source software (OSS) i accessible under a software authorization that enables individuals to access the source code and customize it according to their needs, thus providing the capability to tailor the software for different jobs. The program license keeps the right of the individual to modify and customize it in any way they desire.

  • The Golden Age Of Open Source Has Arrived

    Finally — the golden age of open source has arrived.

    Companies 20 years ago built monopolies on licensed software; today, free and open–source code fertilizes economic growth. The way to win at tech is no longer to own code, but to serve customers — and service has open source at its roots.

    Like cloud storage and hardware components, coding languages hold little value by themselves anymore. The services around the code are what differentiate commodity companies from those with market value in the billions. Tesla released all of its patents to the public in 2014, jump-starting a new ecosystem of electric vehicles without threatening its own dominance.

    Facebook’s entire data-center architecture is available via Open Compute, and its Apache Cassandra, released into the wild, has become a cornerstone of many an enterprise database. And that didn’t stop the social giant from reporting $12.46 billion in revenue last year.

  • Nine Reasons for Using Open Source Software

    For years, I’ve wondered why anyone still bothers with proprietary software. Around the turn of the millennium, they might not have found an open source alternative, but today, that situation is rare enough that it comes as a surprise.

    Force of habit is a likely explanation, but often users simply don’t know what they don’t know. In fact, thanks to obsolete rumors, sometimes what users believe about open source is the exact opposite of the truth.

  • BitPay Releases New Version Of Open Source Bitcoin Wallet

    BitPay, a global bitcoin payment service provider, on Tuesday rolled out version 1.6.1 of its open source bitcoin wallet Copay.

  • Cloud Foundry launches code certification effort, IBM, HPE, Pivotal on board

    The Cloud Foundry Foundation on Wednesday launched a certification program. The certification is the first aimed at ensuring portability across platform-as-a-service offerings across multiple vendors and clouds. The Cloud Foundry Foundation is collectively owned by 55 member companies.

  • Using Blender to prepare for orthopedic surgeries

    The planning of orthopedic surgeries is a difficult process. In a lot of ways, it’s like working while wearing a blindfold; a surgeon can’t see the bone that needs to be worked on until during the actual surgery, when time is most critical. Even with X-rays and CT scans, the raw data can be difficult to interpret correctly. Fortunately, open source software can (and does!) help reduce the guesswork.

  • Web Browsers

  • SaaS/Big Data

    • Open source cloud tools offer risk, reward with AWS

      Logging AWS resources can be cumbersome, but is necessary to ensure nothing goes awry. Open source tools help aggregate and visualize AWS resource data.

    • OpenStack Security and Monitoring Solutions Spread Out

      There is news rolling in on the OpenStack front, especially for organizations interested in cloud monitoring and security. Mirantis and Palo Alto Networks, a company focused on security, have announced a joint partnership and the availability of Palo Alto Networks next-generation security as a virtual network function (VNF) within the Mirantis OpenStack distribution.

  • Databases

    • Google Revamps Cloud SQL Service with New Pricing, Higher Performance
    • Changes Coming For PostgreSQL 9.5

      The PostgreSQL 9.5 release change-log was recently updated in Git to reflect all of the latest changes for this next version of this database server due out in 2016.

      The changes in Git yesterday now provide an up-to-date look at the PostgreSQL 9.5 additions. Some of the PostgreSQL 9.5 features worth mentioning include row-level security control, addition of Block Range Indexes (BRIN), “substantial” performance improvements for sorting, “substantial” performance improvements for multi-CPU machines, and much more.

  • Oracle/Java/LibreOffice

    • ownCloud and Collabora Announce LibreOffice Online for ownCloud Server

      Today, December 15, ownCloud, Inc. and Collabora have just announced a partnership to bring a new tool for LibreOffice and ownCloud users, based on the LibreOffice Online project and the robust, open-source ownCloud Server self-hosting cloud storage solution.

    • Collabora + ownCloud Release CODE For LibreOffice Online

      CODE is a distribution of LibreOffice Online and OwnCloud Server, providing an easy way to let developers/enthusiasts run untested feature additions and updates. CODE is basically for research and development with new features and the pairing of ownCloud and LibreOffice Online. In 2016, the two companies plan to provide a commercial solution based on Collabora CloudSuite and ownCloud Server.

    • Collabora Online Developer Edition (CODE)

      Today we release an easy way to get stuck into playing with LibreOffice online alongside ownCloud – please do checkout the CODE page and have a play. The purpose of my blog here is to credit the people involved in the development so far: currently all of the core work is by Collabora – that’s something we hope that making it easier to get involved will improve.

    • LibreOffice user interface changes

      In our class, I asked students to do their own usability test as a final project, from capturing the Personas, documenting the use Scenarios, defining the Scenario Tasks, and moderating a usability test on their favorite open source software project. To get them ready for the final project, I had students moderate a “mini-project.” I selected the topic for the mini-project, based on what open source software everyone claimed some level of familiarity with.

  • Pseudo-/Semi-Open Source (Openwashing)

  • FSF/FSFE/GNU/SFLC

    • ARMv8.1 Support Added To GCC Compiler

      While the LLVM Clang compiler has been working on ARMv8.1 support since earlier this year, the developers focusing on GCC have been working on it still but the first bits have been committed to trunk this morning.

  • Public Services/Government

  • Licensing

    • Law schools lag behind on open source law

      Many organizations use at least some open source code within their programs. So it is surprising that recent graduates who work with companies using open source software are usually ill prepared (or not prepared at all) to deal with open source legal issues. However, it is not the attorneys’ fault.

      Open source legal training is not easy to find, and if available it is not cheap. In the Bay Area, some law schools support an “open movement” policy. For example, some of them create and promote their own commons, meaning that the journals’ articles are uploaded and distributed for free online. The schools’ open access policies allow attorneys to stay up-­to-­date on their education, without the stress of paying for a subscription. (See SCU commons and UC Hastings.)

    • Why I’m not using your open source project

      There’s a peculiar mix of altruism and egotism that goes into releasing an open source project. On the one hand, you might be solving a problem that others are struggling with, and sharing your solution will save them a lot of time. On the other, the near-fantastic rock star status of those who have created successful open source projects (think John Resig, Ryan Dahl, and Linus Torvalds) drives people to overshare in the hopes of also achieving such status. This has resulted in a glut of open source projects being released into the wild and their creators venturing out on marketing campaigns to attract users.

  • Openness/Sharing

    • Open Hardware

      • 5 favorite 3D printing projects of 2015
      • FAQ: OpenRISC
      • Hands-on with Simblee, connecting things to the cloud through smartphones

        Arduino-compatible chip lets makers embed cloud-connected mobile apps right in their devices.

        Earlier this year, Ars Technica got a demonstration of a technology that seeks to change how we interact with embedded computing technology—tying together Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) communications, Arduino-style microcontroller technology, and mobile Internet connectivity. The chip at the core of the technology, called Simblee, allows device developers to build and deploy their own mobile applications without having to write iOS or Android code or having to publish their applications through an app store. Eight months have passed, and Simblee Corporation’s eponymous chip is now shipping to pre-order customers and is for sale through electronics distributors.

  • Programming

    • The next generation of continuous integration

      This new approach to CI has been implemented at scale in the OpenStack project to manage the CI of all the different sub-projects. To give you an idea of the scale, every day OpenStack handles 1,000 proposed patch sets, 7,500 posted comments and votes on Gerrit, 16,000 test environments spawned, and 250 changes merged (source).

    • GCC 5.3 Optimization Level Tests From -O0 To -Ofast

      Here are some fresh tests of Fedora 23 with the GCC 5.3.1 compiler when running a series of benchmarks after the binaries were compiled each time with an assortment of optimization levels.

    • prpl Foundation Launches prpl.works to Mobilize Open Source Developers

      The prpl Foundation today revealed prpl.works, an online community by and for open source developers and users. Active for just a few weeks, the community has already reached over 40,000 developers from around the world.

Leftovers

  • Science

    • Everything You Know About Latency Is Wrong

      Okay, maybe not everything you know about latency is wrong. But now that I have your attention, we can talk about why the tools and methodologies you use to measure and reason about latency are likely horribly flawed. In fact, they’re not just flawed, they’re probably lying to your face.

  • Security

  • Environment/Energy/Wildlife

    • Watch: Seth Meyers Explains Why Fox’s Coverage Of The Paris Climate Agreement Was A Joke
    • Indonesia to name firms linked to forest fires

      Indonesia is set to name the companies responsible for illegal fires that led to this year’s transboundary haze crisis. The firms, which mainly run plantations on concession land in Sumatra and Kalimantan, will also have their business licences suspended while a decision is made on whether to initiate legal proceedings against them for breaching environmental laws.

    • Falling Oil And Gasoline Prices Bring Back Memories Of Right-Wing Media Hypocrisy

      With global crude oil prices at their lowest point in seven years, and gasoline prices approaching their lowest point of President Obama’s term of office, Media Matters remembers Fox News’ hypocritical coverage of the relationship between presidential policy initiatives and fuel and energy markets.

    • Indonesia forest fires cost twice as much as tsunami clean-up, says World Bank

      Indonesia’s economy took a $16bn hit this year from forest fires that cloaked south-east Asia in haze, more than double the sum spent on rebuilding Aceh after the 2004 tsunami, according to the World Bank.

      The fires and resulting haze are an annual occurrence caused by slash-and-burn land clearance. But the blazes in 2015 were the worst for some years, causing air quality to worsen dramatically and many to fall ill across the region.

      In a quarterly update on the Indonesian economy, the World Bank said the fires had devastated 2.6 million hectares (6.4m acres) of forest and farmland across the archipelago from June to October.

    • Fires cost Indonesia US$16b, twice the tsunami bill: World Bank

      Indonesia’s economy took a US$16-billion hit this year from forest fires that cloaked Southeast Asia in haze, more than double the sum spent on rebuilding Aceh after the 2004 tsunami, the World Bank said Tuesday (Dec 15).

      The fires and resulting haze are an annual occurrence caused by slash-and-burn land clearance. But the blazes in 2015 were the worst for some years, causing air quality to worsen dramatically and many to fall ill across the region.

      In a quarterly update on the Indonesian economy, the World Bank said the fires had devastated 2.6 million hectares (6.4 million acres) of forest and farmland across the archipelago from June to October.

      The cost to Southeast Asia’s biggest economy is estimated at 221 trillion rupiah (US$16.1 billion), equivalent to 1.9 per cent of predicted GDP this year, it said.

      In contrast, it cost US$7 billion to rebuild Indonesia’s westernmost province of Aceh after it was engulfed 11 years ago by a quake-triggered tsunami, with the loss of tens of thousands of lives, the bank said.

      “The economic impact of the fires has been immense,” said World Bank Indonesia country director Rodrigo Chaves.

    • CNN Debate Ignores Climate Change, Does Not Ask GOP Candidates About Historic Paris Agreement

      Three days before CNN hosted the fifth Republican presidential debate, leaders from every country in the world struck a historic climate change agreement in Paris to reduce fossil fuel emissions and face up to one of the greatest threats facing our country and our planet. The Paris agreement was a front page story in newspapers throughout the U.S. and around the globe. So considering that the Pentagon says climate change “could impact national security” and experts have identified a relationship between global warming and the rise of ISIS, the issue clearly belonged in the December 15 CNN debate, which co-moderator Wolf Blitzer described as a “discussion about the security of this nation.”

  • PR/AstroTurf/Lobbying

    • What Gets Asked at Debates–and Who Gets Asked It?

      The 536 questions asked in the first four Republican debates, four Republican undercard debates and two Democratic debates were divided into six categories: economic, social, international, immigration, environment and non-policy questions. If the same question was asked to multiple candidates, it was counted each time, but clarifying and follow-up questions to the same candidate were not counted.

      FAIR also studied the percentage of questions each candidate was asked. While moderators clearly took candidates’ positions in opinion polls into account when distributing questions, some seemed to get asked more—or less—based on media assumptions about who was and was not a serious contender.

    • Fox’s Sean Hannity To Sen. Rand Paul: “I’m Not So Sure If I Agree With All The Geneva Conventions”
    • Adding to CNN’s Sizeable Dossier of Misreporting on the TWA Flight 800 Crash

      With stunning regularity, CNN’s reporters and producers have, for the last twenty years, egregiously misreported on the evidence and eyewitness accounts pertaining to TWA Flight 800. More recent crashes, this time Metrojet’s demise, are regularly seized upon to craft news packages in which the TWA Flight 800 crash is mentioned at length. These mentions consist of repeating the same “official source” false narrative that CNN and other major news outlets have been promulgating for years, even though the public is now well aware that at least half a dozen key members of the official Flight 800 crash investigation have presented evidence showing that the official probable cause of the crash is untenable and that the physical evidence indicates that explosive ordnance caused Flight 800’s demise.

    • CNN’s John Avlon: “Broad Strokes” Of Marco Rubio’s ISIS “Plan Are Not That Different From Barack Obama”

  • Censorship

    • Senate Passes Bill Banning Non-Disparagement Clauses

      Despite it being transparently obvious that non-disparagement clauses hidden in fine print serve the singular purpose of deterring complaints about bad products and services, companies still deploy them with little fear of retribution. To date, only one state has actually banned the use of non-disparagement clauses: California.

      The issue appears to have finally reached the critical mass needed to propel it onto the national legislative radar. Back in May, multiple representatives started pushing for a federal ban on these clauses, prompted in part by the high-profile KlearGear debacle, in which a couple had their credit rating ruined by the online retailer in its pursuit of a BS $3,500 fee tied to its (nonexistent at the time of the negative review) non-disparagement clause.

  • Privacy

    • EFF confirms that the DEA has deleted its phone call database

      Earlier this year, it was revealed that the NSA’s massive surveillance program had a precursor: the Drug Enforcement Administration’s USTO, which monitored almost every international call American citizens made since the 1990′s. Now, the EFF has confirmed that the program was killed in 2013, and that most of the data it collected had already been purged. The non-profit was able to dig deeper into the situation, since it filed a case against the DEA earlier this year on behalf of Human Rights Watch, and a federal judge has recently ordered the agency to answer all of HRW’s questions about the program.

    • Carly Fiorina says government needs a way to ‘work around’ encryption

      Carly Fiorina wants the government to be able to “work around” encryption to aid intelligence agencies and law enforcement in thier investigations, she told Breitbart News on Monday.

      The Republican presidential candidate and former HP CEO shifted the focus of her campaign to national security two days before the last Republican debate of 2015.

      “One of the places we need help is to deal with all of these encrypted communications,” she said. “You can’t outlaw encryption. Encryption protects American consumers from identity theft, and all the rest of it. But we have to be able to work around it where necessary to give our investigators the information they need. I’d ask the private sector’s help in that.”

    • Congress Drops All Pretense: Quietly Turns CISA Into A Full On Surveillance Bill

      Remember CISA? The “Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act”? It’s getting much, much worse, with Congress and the administration looking to ram it through — in the process, dropping any pretense that it’s not a surveillance bill.

    • Teens face social media ban in EU data protection shake-up

      New data protection rules being discussed on Tuesday mean that teenagers below the age of 16 will have to get permission from parents to access social media websites and apps.

    • Change is coming: are you prepared?

      Specific to the UK, the UK Data Protection Act requires every data controller, from the largest enterprise to a sole trader, to register with the Information Commissioner’s Office (unless exempted). It ensures that organisations are not collecting or using data unduly, and that the data that is collected is protected and used only in a manner that complies with the articles within the Act.

    • NSA Propagandist John Schindler Suggests Boston Marathon Terrorist Attack Not “Major Jihadist Attack”

      NSA propagandist John Schindler has used the San Bernardino attack as an opportunity to blame Edward Snowden for the spy world’s diminished effectiveness, again.

      Perhaps the most interesting detail in his column is his claim that 80% of thwarted attacks come from an NSA SIGINT hit.

    • Fact-Checking the Debate on Encryption

      As politicians and counter-terrorism officials search for lessons from the recent attacks in Paris and San Bernardino, California, senior officials have called for limits on technology that sends encrypted messages.

      It’s a debate that has repeatedly recurred for more than a decade.In the 1990s, the Clinton Administration directed technology companies to store copies of their encryption keys with the government. That would have given the government a “backdoor” to allow law enforcement and intelligence agencies easy access to encrypted communications. That idea was dropped after sharp criticism from technologists and civil liberties advocates.

      More recently, intelligence officials in Europe and the United States have asserted that encryption hampers their ability to detect plots and trace perpetrators. But many have questioned whether it would be practical or wise to allow governments widespread power to read encrypted messages.

    • Twitter Users Hit By ‘State-Sponsored’ Hackers

      It’s the type of message no Twitter user wants to receive: their account has been targeted by “state-sponsored actors” attempting to swipe their email address and phone number.

      But that’s exactly the news that an array of Twitter users, many who do privacy- and security-related jobs, began to get on Friday. Among those targeting: programmers working on Tor, a browser that helps users maintain anonymity online. While Twitter hasn’t revealed how many users were targeted, one public list includes 35 accounts belonging to security researchers, privacy activists, and developers.

    • Christie’s PAC Scoops Up Voter Data Across New Hampshire

      For months, a political action committee supporting New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie has been scooping up data about New Hampshire voters who show up at other Republican candidates’ campaign events across the Granite State.

      While voters have been willingly turning over these data — their names, email addresses, zip codes and candidate preferences — it’s unclear whether they realized the information was benefiting Christie.

      The America Leads effort springs from a simple campaign reality: When people want to see political candidates in person, they usually need to show up early. “And then while they’re waiting, they’re on their mobile phones,” said Kurt Luidhardt, who runs digital operations for the America Leads PAC. “And a lot of them are on Facebook, looking at what their friends and other folks are saying on Facebook.”

    • Europe Finally Agrees Tough New Data Protection Rules

      Late yesterday European institutions finally agreed the text of new data protection rules (GDPR), more than three years after new regulation was proposed.
      The 28 Member States of the European Union will have two years to transpose the provisions of the GDPR into their national laws, with the regulation set to come into force from 2018.

  • Civil Rights

    • Saudi Arabia announces 34-state military alliance to fight terrorism

      Saudi Arabia has announced the formation of a 34-state Islamic military coalition to combat terrorism, according to a statement published on the state news agency, SPA.

      “The countries here mentioned have decided on the formation of a military alliance led by Saudi Arabia to fight terrorism, with a joint operations centre based in Riyadh to coordinate and support military operations,” said the statement, which was released on Tuesday.

    • All LA schools shut down over message sent from 8chan’s e-mail host, cock.li

      The “credible” threat that caused the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) to close all schools on Tuesday was sent from cock.li, the “meme” e-mail host that also provides e-mail services for 8chan, the 4chan splinter site.

      School officials in New York and Los Angeles reportedly both received threats from madbomber@cock.li but only LAUSD took it seriously. All 640,000 LAUSD students were unable to attend classes on Tuesday.

      Vincent Canfield, the founder of cock.li, posted a copy of the subpoena he received from a New York detective on his own website and included audio recordings of polite but brief conversations with two officials from the New York Police Department (NYPD) Intelligence Bureau.

    • Jack Straw Responds to Alex Salmond with Blatant Lie

      It has been a source of astonishment to me that journalists are prepared to continue to publish Straw’s denials of involvement in torture, when there is indisputable documentary proof that he is lying. I offered these documents to the Guardian years ago, but was not surprised when that Blairite rag refused to publish.

      I was however surprised by this. When Straw criticised Salmond on Monday, I immediately offered these documents to the National as proof that Straw was lying. The National too refused to publish. Firstly they said that they had to consult their lawyers about whether the government would sue them. Then they said they could not work out how to condense the information into a short article (which begs the question why it had to be short). They then said they were too busy.

  • Internet/Net Neutrality

    • Add Verizon To The Growing List Of Companies Tap Dancing Around Net Neutrality With Zero Rating

      That’s a lot of sponsoring. More simply, the technology lets you pay Verizon to get a leg up over your competitors, who may not be able to afford to pay Verizon for the same privilege. It’s an idea that’s been highly criticized for the fact that it puts smaller companies (and especially independents and nonprofits) at a distinct and immediate market disadvantage. And while some implementations of zero rating may seem better than others (like T-Mobile’s Binge On, which exempts all video from usage caps), the precedent of giving an ISP this kind of authority remains troubling to those intimate with the telecom industry’s long, long history of anti-competitive behavior.

  • DRM

    • Light Bulb DRM: Philips Locks Purchasers Out Of Third-Party Bulbs With Firmware Update

      The world of connected devices is upon us and things have never been better. Criminals can access your email account by breaking into your fridge. Your child’s toys and your television record your conversations and send them to manufacturers’ servers, where criminals are (again) able to access them. Your home thermostat goes HAL 9000 and attempts to set your house on fire. And, now, your light bulbs won’t do the one thing you expect them to do: produce light.

  • Intellectual Monopolies

]]> http://techrights.org/2015/12/16/linux-foundation-expansion/feed/ 0 Links 1/8/2015: Steam Sale, blackPanther OS 14.1 http://techrights.org/2015/08/01/blackpanther-os-14-1/ http://techrights.org/2015/08/01/blackpanther-os-14-1/#comments Sat, 01 Aug 2015 20:43:15 +0000 http://techrights.org/?p=84314

GNOME bluefish

Contents

GNU/Linux

Free Software/Open Source

  • FFmpeg’s Leader Resigns, Hopes To Make Libav Developers Come Back

    Michael Niedermayer, the leader of the FFmpeg project for the past eleven years, has made a surprise announcement today: he’s resigning as its leader.

    Niedermayer is resigning as he no longer feels he’s the best leader for FFmpeg, given the current Libav fork still persisting even after Debian dropped Libav and is returning to FFmpeg.

  • Open source Copyright Hub unveiled with ’90+ projects’ in the pipeline

    The web has grown up without letting people own and control their own stuff, but a British-backed initiative might change all that, offering a glimpse of how the internet can work in the future. Their work will all be open sourced early next year.

    Britain’s much-anticipated Copyright Hub was given ministerial blessing when it finally opened its kimono today, boasting a pipeline of over 90 projects covering commercial and free uses.

  • Events

    • Banks’ Family Values; Texas Linux Fest & More…

      All in the Family: It seems that the Banks family of Los Angeles has taken upon itself to single-handedly invite the wider world to the see and try out the benefits of FOSS and programming. We reported on Keila Banks speaking at OSCON last week, but so has Business Insider and MTV News — and now MSNBC is getting in on the act by having her on Melissa Harris-Perry’s show at 8 a.m. Saturday. Check your local listings.

  • SaaS/Big Data

  • Databases

    • Redis open source DBMS overview

      Redis runs on Linux. Although the Redis project doesn’t directly support Windows, Microsoft Open Technologies develops and maintains a Windows port targeting Win64.

      The Redis open source DBMS is available as a BSD license. The Redis community offers support through the official mailing list as well as #redis on Freenode. Commercial support is available through Pivotal, the official sponsor of Redis. Pivotal offers two levels of professional support.

    • A shout-out to SQLAlchemy

      So here’s a shout-out to Mike B. at SQLAlchemy for his quick work. (And I’m glad the effort of making a good-as-I-can bugreport paid off.)

  • Oracle/Java/LibreOffice

    • The document Foundation Released LibreOffice 4.4.5 With Bug Fixes

      The document foundation released another update LibreOffice 4.4.5 which contains 80+ bug fixes over the previous release. LibreOffice is one of the most popular Office app that is also very active. Regular releases makes it more stable and feature-rich. According to the team LibreOffice 4.4.5 replaces LibreOffice 4.3.7 as “still” version for more conservative users and enterprise deployment. Install this update in Ubuntu/Linux Mint or other derivatives to get bug fixes.

    • Surprises, claws and various articles

      Dear readers, something nice but unexpected came up recently. As you can imagine, preparations for the release of LibreOffice 5 are keeping many people busy these days. Among the things that need to be found is the choice of collaterals and various elements for communication. It could very well be that readers of this blog will have a nice surprise the day LibreOffice 5 is released!

  • BSD

    • FreeBSD 10.2-RC2 Released, Riding On Schedule Nicely

      Glen Barber announced the release of FreeBSD 10.2-RC2 today for those wanting to do some weekend BSD testing.

      FreeBSD 10.2-RC2 has changes to pkg, ntpd, nvme, a UEFI loader fix, and an assortment of other bug/regression fixes across the stack.

    • [FreeBSD-Announce] vBSDcon: September 11 – 13, 2015

      vBSDcon is a technical conference for the various BSD communities that is hosted by Verisign for users and developers of BSD-based systems. vBSDcon 2015 is being held in Reston, VA from September 11 – 13, 2015 at the Sheraton Reston hotel. vBSDcon is an ideal event for systems and network administrators, developers, and engineers with a focus on BSD-based technologies. The early bird registration rate of $75.00 is available through August 13, 2015 at vBSDcon.com.

  • Project Releases

  • Public Services/Government

    • Civil society pushing open source in Bulgaria

      The civil society organisation Obshtestvo.bg Foundation has been pressing as well as helping the Bulgarian government to incorporate open source in its legislation. Open source is now the preferred development form for eGovernment projects. The Bulgarian Council of Ministers has voted that the same requirements will be applicable to all government-funded software projects.

    • US House Opens Up to Open Source

      Providers of open source software recently found another market: the 435 members of the U.S. House of Representatives. That market easily will grow to many thousands of potential open source users when the staffs of each representative, as well as the staffs of various House committees, are added to the total.

      Three advocacy organizations — the Sunlight Foundation, the Congressional Data Coalition, and the OpenGov Foundation — last month jointly announced that certain procurement restrictions that had constrained the use of open source technology in the House had been clarified.

      Read more

  • Openness/Sharing

    • KDE Plasma Mobile, NPR’s newsroom tool, and more news

    • Open Data

      • An open source mapping primer

        You now need a way to embed a map, manipulate the map tiles, and overlay other data onto the map. Leaflet is a popular choice for doing this. It’s an open source Javascript library that lets you easily create “slippy” maps with tiled base layers, panning and zooming, and various layered features such as markers at specific geographical coordinates (i.e. latitude and longitude). It handles interactions with the map, has a fairly rich and well-documented API, and also works with a wide collection of plugin that provide additional features.

Leftovers

  • Hardware

    • Powering the Open Data Center

      Open source leadership is a big responsibility for Intel. When we take leadership positions in the open source ecosystem, it pushes us to advance the entire industry along with our company. In that mindset, Intel is investing a tremendous amount to continue expanding the boundaries of what technology can do for the data center and to ensure there is an ecosystem that facilitates the innovation required to meet enterprise demands and spur adoption.

  • Security

    • The cyber-mechanics who protect your car from hackers

      “Most manufacturers know there is a problem and they’re working on solutions, but no-one will go public with it,” explains Martin Hunt, who works in automotive penetration testing for UK telecommunications firm BT.

    • US to rethink hacker tool export rules after mass freakout in security land

      Proposed changes to the US government’s export controls on hacking tools will likely be scaled back following widespread criticism from the infosec community, a government spokesman has said.

      “A second iteration of this regulation will be promulgated,” a spokesman for the US Department of Commerce told Reuters, “and you can infer from that that the first one will be withdrawn.”

      The proposed restrictions are required by the Wassenaar Arrangement, a 41-nation pact that first came into effect in 1996 and which calls for limits on trade of “dual-use goods,” meaning items that have both civilian and military applications.

      In 2013, the list of goods governed under the Arrangement was amended to include technologies used for testing, penetrating, and exploiting vulnerabilities in computer systems and networks.

    • Remote denial of service vulnerability exposes BIND servers

      BIND operators released new versions of the DNS protocol software overnight to patch a critical vulnerability which can be exploited for use in denial-of-service cyberattacks.

      Lead investigator Michael McNally from the Internet Systems Consortium (ISC) said in a security advisory the bug, CVE-2015-5477, is a critical issue which can allow hijackers to send malicious packets to knock out email systems, websites and other online services.

    • Botnet takedowns: are they worth it?

      The number of botnets has grown rapidly over the last decade. From Gameover Zeus leveraging encrypted peer-to-peer command and control servers, to Conflicker, infecting millions of computers across the world – botnets are continuing to infiltrate many internet-based services and causing mass disruption, and it’s getting worse.

  • Defence/Police/Secrecy/Aggression

    • Palestinian infant burned to death in West Bank arson; IDF blames ‘Jewish terror’

      A one-and-a-half year-old Palestinian infant was burned to death and three of his family members were seriously wounded late Thursday night after a house was set on fire in the village of Douma, near Nablus.

      According to reports, settlers were those who set the house on fire after targeting it with firebombs and graffiti. The Israeli military called the attack “Jewish terror,” while Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other Israeli officials echoed the claim, vehemently condemning the attack.

    • CIA concludes US-led fight against IS a ‘strategic stalemate’: Report

      A year into US-led fight, Islamic State group’s membership levels remain consistent and group has spread geographically

    • USA: A clone of Israeli national security state

      Over the past decade, Israel lobby groups have founded exchange programmes with US police and homeland security agencies which have imported Israeli policing and national security practices to the US. Groups like the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs, the Anti-Defamation League and the American Jewish Committee recruit delegations of high-level American security officials to liaise with Israeli counterparts in the police, military intelligence and internal security. Hundreds of officers have participated in these trips from departments in a score or more of US cities. New York even has its own police liaison office located inside an Israeli police station.

    • US to release Israeli spy Jonathan Pollard after 30 years

      The United Sates granted parole to Israeli spy Jonathan Pollard and he will be freed in November. Pollard has been in U.S jail for almost 30 years. However, the U.S. government denied speculations that Pollard’s release is a gesture to placate Israel for softening its opposition to the Iran nuclear deal.

  • Environment/Energy/Wildlife

    • California Using Recycled Fracking Water To Irrigate Crops

      California’s governor, a recipient of generous donations from the oil and gas industry, is now responsible for putting dangerous “frack water” into the American food supply.

      As California struggles with a historic drought, some farmers in California’s agriculturally fertile Central Valley turned to a water recycling program, allowing them to irrigate their crops at a fraction of the normal cost. According to Phys.org, the recycled water costs about $33 per square foot, while freshwater could cost as much as $1,500 for the same amount.

    • Cecil the lion’s brother Jericho shot dead on SAME day Zimbabwe bans hunting

      Zimbabwe has BANNED the hunting of lions, leopards and elephants in a part of the country frequently used by hunters.

      The nation’s wildlife authorities put the ban in place following the outrage overt he death of Cecil the lion.

      Tragically, despite the ban coming in place today, it was announced that Jericho, Cecil’s brother, was shot dead by poachers.

      Bow and arrow hunts, like the one undertaken by the killer dentist Walter Palmer, have also been suspended – unless hunters are approved by the National Parks and Wildlife Authority’s director.

      Zimbabwean authorities said the hunt was illegal and are seeking the extradition of Minnesota dentist Walter Palmer.

    • Cecil the lion’s brother Jericho shot dead in Zimbabwe by illegal hunters: officials

      Cecil the lion’s brother Jericho has been shot dead in Zimbabwe by illegal hunters, officials said Saturday.

      “It is with huge disgust and sadness that we have just been informed that Jericho, Cecil’s brother has been killed at 4pm today,” the Zimbabwe Conservation Task Force said in a statement. “We are absolutely heartbroken.”

  • Finance

    • “They bury the values of democracy”

      Yanis Varoufakis spent only five months in office as the Greek finance minister. But even that was enough to drive his colleagues to distraction – and his fans into a frenzy. An encounter in Athens.

  • PR/AstroTurf/Lobbying

  • Censorship

    • Israel’s secret-keeper seeks censorship reform

      Soon-to-retire military censor envisions civil agency to provide ‘guidance’ rather than censorship to media

    • Interview: IDF’s secret-keeper seeks censorship reform

      As she prepares to retire next month, the chief military censor wants a steamlined, modern agency to provide advance ‘guidance’ rather than ‘censorship’.

    • Outgoing IDF chief censor: Israel’s preventive censorship is becoming irrelevant
    • Marc Shapiro and Jewish Censorship

      For years now Professor Marc Shapiro of the University of Scranton has revealed examples of mind control in Jewish sources. Opinions regarded as too lenient have been expurgated from books of responsa. Opinions once considered acceptable have now been proscribed in the current witchhunt against anything that might not completely condemn secular education. Records of great rabbis reading newspapers, Heaven forfend, have been removed from publications. Rabbis who held Zionist, tolerant, or modern views have had their names removed. Original approbations of great rabbis have been cut from their books so as not to misguide innocent modern readers.

      But thanks to easy access to original uncensored editions and the availability of texts online, this is now out in the open and clear for all to see (who are not blind). In his latest book, Changing the Immutable, Professor Shapiro has provided an invaluable service to the world of Torah scholarship by giving chapter and verse of so many examples of censorship and distortion.

    • Media practised self-censorship when I was PM, says Dr Mahathir

      “When I was the prime minister, there was press freedom but it is the media itself who did self-censorship, as if they didn’t want to hurt leaders’ feelings. This is the habit that we have in Malaysia,” he said at a book launch in Putrajaya today.

      He also said local mainstream media were too cautious.

      “They think what if leaders don’t like what they write,”he said.

      He added, however, that media like Harakah and The Rocket sometimes went overboard in criticising the government.

    • Censorship is killing student stand-up

      This attitude is toxic to comedy. Stand-up is nerve-racking enough; if young comics are constantly worried about being banned for speaking out of turn, how are they supposed to take the risks that allow you to grow as a performer? It’s bad enough when students’ unions ban professional comedians, for fear that their jokes will turn unthinking students into lads, Zionists or whatever the fear of the day is. But clamping down on 19-year-olds who can barely remember their lines? That’s laughable.

    • Politicians slam council chiefs for ‘censorship’ of controversial play about SNP activist

      POLITICIANS have accused West Dunbartonshire Council of censorship after it dropped a play about SNP activist Willie MacRae before telling the show’s producer he could come back if the Labour administration was given the boot in the next elections.

      After a successful run at last year’s Edinburgh Festival Fringe , Andy Paterson from Theatre Magnetico said the authority called him asking about the possibility of putting his play 3,000 Trees: The Death of Willie Macrae on at Clydebank Town Hall.

    • Facebook Censors bianet’s News about Censorship

      Social networking service Facebook censored bianet news “Facebook Censors Kaos GL for ‘nudity’”.

      On July 29, bianet made news of Facebook censorship on Kaos GL, an LGBTI organization, which allegedly ‘violated the community rules’.

      We shared the news on Facebook and then Facebook censored our news stating the original photograph of the news as we used as headline violated the community rules.

    • When it comes to censorship, WordPress has your back

      Automattic, WordPress’s parent company, has a new transparency report that shows that they’ve bounced 43% of their 2015 copyright censorship demands for being frivolous or invalid.

    • Censorship is no substitute for enforcement

      Earlier this month, Justice Minister Owen Bonnici announced that his government would be amending archaic obscenity laws to remove the threat of imprisonment for ‘vilification of religion’, while regularising pornography within certain limitations.

    • Anti-Abbott poster erected by Australian students sparks row over censorship
    • Anti-Abbott poster erected by Castlemaine Secondary College students sparks row over censorship
    • Anti-Abbott poster erected by Castlemaine Secondary College students sparks row over censorship
    • An Artist Took Topless Photos of Women at the New York Supreme Court to Protest Censorship

      In August 2013, Allen Henson, a veteran-turned-photographer, visited the Empire State Building with his girlfriend. Henson took a topless photo of her on the observation deck and never imagined what would follow.

      In 2014, the Empire State Building filed a lawsuit against Henson for over $1 million, arguing he used the premises for commercial purposes (though Henson insists it was not a photoshoot and was exclusively for personal use) and ruined the building’s “reputation as a safe and secure family-friendly tourist attraction,” reports the Huffington Post.

    • Instagram bans #goddess from site

      Photo-sharing app Instagram has banned the hashtag #goddess because “inappropriate” images were allegedly shared, media reports said.

    • The Holes In Instagram’s Censorship Of Eating Disorders

      Recently, the social media site reversed its ban on searches for #curvy after users protested it by using the hashtag #curvee. Mashable reported Instagram now plans to filter out inappropriate content using the hashtag, stating #curvy was banned earlier this month due to content which violated its community guidelines, but insisting the ban had nothing to do with the term “curvy” itself.

    • Censors Cut Fan Bingbing’s Intimate Horse Scene in ‘Lady of the Dynasty’

      In the scene, Lai’s character Tang dynasty Emperor Xuanzong tore off the clothes of Fan’s character Yang Guifei and the couple engaged in an intimate encounter. Netizens feasted on the screenshots of the movie trailer and some suggested the possibility of censoring the part for its “bad influence” on the youth.

    • How Beijing’s censorship impairs U.S.China relations

      Over the past two years, the Chinese authorities have taken new steps to block Chinese citizens’ access to information from U.S. companies and media. These actions not only limit Chinese citizens’ access to news and entertainment, but they also harm U.S. businesses, media outlets, and innovators. In effect, the Chinese Communist Party’s aggressive efforts to defend its political monopoly are costing the U.S. economy billions of dollars a year.

      These dynamics pose a challenge to smoother bilateral relations. They undermine trust, create obstacles to cooperation, and infuse business interactions with an underlying sense of unfairness. As such, they should be high on the agenda of any meeting between American and Chinese officials, be it the just concluded U.S.-China Strategic and Economic Dialogue or Xi Jinping’s upcoming U.S. visit in September.

    • How egalitarianism became a microaggression

      Now, to the ever-growing list of what’s racist we can add refusing to believe in the completely constructed and repulsive category of race in the first place. At the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), staff are being told that statements such as ‘I don’t believe in race’, ‘there is only one race, the human race’ and ‘America is a melting pot’ are no longer acceptable. In official UCLA guidelines uncovered by College Fix, all of these statements are branded ‘microaggressions’ – offhand comments or social slights which, the UCLA literature says, ‘communicate hostile, derogatory or negative messages’ to marginalised groups. That’s right: at this university, if you don’t believe in race, you’re probably a racist.

    • Non-religious groups criticise PM Lee’s remarks on “godless society”

      Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong’s remarks about how a “godless society” would bring “many other problems”, have raised the ire of some groups.

      “Overall, we think religion is a good thing,” Mr Lee said recently in an interview with TIME magazine. “I mean, if we were godless society, we would have many other problems, the communists found that out.”

      Mr Lee made those remarks when he spoke on the recent case of video-blogger Amos Yee whose online video on the late Lee Kuan Yew was also deemed to have “wounded the religious feelings of Christians.”

      “In our society, which is multiracial and multi-religious, giving offence to another religious or ethnic group, race, language or religion, is always a very serious matter. In this case, he’s a 16-year-old, so you have to deal with it appropriately because he’s (of a) young age,” Mr Lee said.

      The Prime Minister’s remarks about how a “godless society” would bring “many more problems”, however were criticised by at least two groups of non-religious groups.

      “Recent history shows that a state’s success or failure has more to do with its economic and political ideologies, governance, people and external factors beyond the state’s control than with religiosity,” said Leftwrite Center and the Humanist Society (Singapore) in a letter to TODAY.

    • PAP shows desperation by drawing electoral lines

      Our supreme leader has shown signs of weakness by targeting the likes of Roy Ngerng and Amos Yee.

    • Legal assistance for online media more critical today

      With the recent announcements of the electoral boundaries and the impending general elections looming, it is a forgone conclusion that blog activity and online discussions will spike. In tandem with growing public perception that state owned media outlets are the government’s mouthpieces, the Internet is fast becoming the forum du jour for political debates and information dissemination.

    • Asia’s ‘Unruly’ Children

      Ostensibly, 16-year-old Amos Yee was charged with “wounding the religious feelings of Christians” in a YouTube video that lambasted Lee Kuan Yew and compared him to Jesus, whom the young blogger described as ‘power hungry and malicious’. Amos was also found guilty of posting obscene material on the Internet, reference to a crude illustration of Lee and former British premier Margaret Thatcher in an acrobatic sex maneuver.

    • Canada is no friend of free speech, and as citizens get fined for criticizing police and lawyers get prosecuted

      O Canada! The land of Mounties and beavers and hockey and…hate speech tribunals? Yes, it’s no secret that Canada is no friend of free speech, and as citizens get fined for criticizing police and lawyers get prosecuted for criticizing a government agency, things are only getting worse. Join James in today’s Thought for the Day to find out more.

    • Rapid Pirate Site Blocking Mechanism Introduced By Portugal

      In concert with rightsholders and Internet service providers, Portugal has just introduced a mechanism which enables the streamlined blocking of ‘pirate’ sites. Set to go into effect during mid-August, the system will target sites with more than 500 allegedly infringing links and those whose indexes contain more than 66% infringing content.

  • Privacy

    • Groups urge Obama to oppose cyberthreat sharing bills

      The coalition of 39 digital rights and privacy groups and 29 security experts urged Obama to threaten to veto the Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act (CISA), a bill that may come to the Senate floor for a vote by early August. CISA would protect from customer lawsuits those businesses that share cyberthreat information.

      “CISA fails to protect users’ personal information,” the coalition said in a letter to Obama, sent Monday. “It allows vast amounts of personal data to be shared with the government, even that which is not necessary to identify or respond to a cybersecurity threat.”

    • Legislative Cyber Threats: CISA’s Not The Only One

      If anyone in the United States Senate had any doubts that the proposed Cyber Information Sharing Act (CISA) was universally hated by a range of civil society groups, a literal blizzard of faxes should’ve cleared up the issue by now.

    • New attack on Tor can deanonymize hidden services with surprising accuracy

      Deanonymization requires luck but nonetheless shows limits of Tor privacy.

    • Tor connection vulnerability uncloaks hidden web services

      MIT researchers have developed digital attacks which can unmask Tor services in the Deep Web with a high degree of accuracy.

    • How the way you type can shatter anonymity—even on Tor

      Security researchers have refined a long-theoretical profiling technique into a highly practical attack that poses a threat to Tor users and anyone else who wants to shield their identity online.

    • Internet of things: the greatest mass surveillance infrastructure ever?

      The word “thing”, in Old English, means a meeting or assembly. In the epic poem Beowulf, the eponymous hero declares he’ll “alone hold a thing” with the monster Grendel, who is terrorising the Danes in the great hall of Heorot. Beowulf uses “thing” euphemistically – it is a meeting that immediately descends into a fight.

      The Icelandic parliament is still called Althing (Alþingi). But over the ages, “things” have gradually evolved from meetings to matter. Today, we primarily use the term “thing” to refer to objects. Even in this sense, however, things are still core to our political and social lives.

      An appreciation that things have always been about community and politics, whether literally, or through the creation and respect of systems of private property, provides a useful backdrop to the recent book, Pax Technica: How the Internet of Things May Set Us Free or Lock Us Up, by writer and professor of communication, Philip N Howard.

    • France approves ‘Big Brother’ surveillance powers despite UN concern

      France’s highest authority on constitutional matters has approved a controversial bill that gives the state sweeping new powers to spy on citizens.

      The constitutional council made only minor tweaks to the legislation, which human rights and privacy campaigners, as well as the United Nations, have described as paving the way for “very intrusive” surveillance and state-approved eavesdropping and computer-hacking.

    • Incongruities in the News — Paul Craig Roberts

      Jonathan Pollard, a paid spy for Israel described by Michael D. Shear as “one of the country’s most notorious spies,” has been pardoned from his life sentence. It strikes me as hypocritical for the US government to sentence anyone to prison for spying when the government itself spies on everyone everywhere. All Americans including members of the House and Senate, congressional staff, military officers, foreign governments including the leaders of Washington’s closest allies, and foreign businesses are spied upon. No one is exempt from Washington’s spying.

      Washington claims that its worldwide spying does no harm. So how did the very limited spying of one person—Pollard—a civilian employee of Naval intelligence do so much harm as to warrant a life sentence? What some of us would like to see is a life sentence for NSA.

      What disturbs me about the case is that it is Pollard, who spied for a foreign country, who is released. In contrast, Manning and Snowden who spied for the American people are locked away, Manning in a federal prison and Snowden in his Russian exile. Julian Assange, who merely did his job as a journalist and made available to newspapers documents leaked to him, is confined to the Ecuadoran embassy in London.

    • EXCLUSIVE: Edward Snowden Explains Why Apple Should Continue To Fight the Government on Encryption

      As the Obama administration campaign to stop the commercialization of strong encryption heats up, National Security Agency whistleblower Edward Snowden is firing back on behalf of the companies like Apple and Google that are finding themselves under attack.

      “Technologists and companies working to protect ordinary citizens should be applauded, not sued or prosecuted,” Snowden wrote in an email through his lawyer.

    • NSA Doesn’t Want Court That Found Phone Dragnet Illegal to Actually Do Anything About It

      The National Security Agency doesn’t think it’s relevant that its dragnet of American telephone data — information on who’s calling who, when, and for how long — was ruled illegal back in May.

      An American Civil Liberties Union lawsuit is asking the Second Circuit Court of Appeals, which reached that conclusion, to immediately enjoin the program.

      But the U.S. government responded on Monday evening, saying that Congressional passage of the USA Freedom Act trumped the earlier ruling. The Freedom Act ordered an end to the program — but with a six-month wind-down period.

    • Stepping into an NSA agent’s shoes is just a download away
    • Seen: Self-censoring font redacts words monitored by the NSA
    • Former NSA Leaker Thomas Drake Now Working in Retail
    • NSA Whistleblower Describes Ongoing Anguish
    • The Original NSA Whistleblower Is Still Rebuilding His Life
    • US spies on Japan trade talks: WikiLeaks
    • WikiLeaks reveals US spied on Japan too
    • WikiLeaks files suggest US spied on Japan, Japanese companies
    • Wikileaks says US spied on Japanese government, companies
    • WikiLeaks alleges widespread U.S. spying on Japanese government, major companies
    • Wikileaks: US ‘spied on Japan government and companies’

      The US has been spying on Japanese cabinet officials, banks and companies, including the Mitsubishi conglomerate, whistleblowing website Wikileaks says.

      Documents released by Wikileaks list 35 telephone numbers targeted for interception by the US National Security Agency (NSA).

      [...]

      Wikileaks says the NSA shared the information it had gathered with Australia, Canada, the UK and New Zealand – the so-called “Five Eyes” group.

    • WikiLeaks Docs Purport To Show The U.S. Spied On Japan’s Government

      New classified documents released by WikiLeaks purport to show that the United States spied on Japan’s government, as well as on Japanese banks and companies, including Mitsubishi.

    • US has spied on Japan for years, reveals Wikileaks

      WIKILEAKS published evidence of the United States spying on its ally Japan yesterday, including a list of government and business targets.

      The whistle-blowing website published its “Target Tokyo” list of 35 of US National Security Agency (NSA) targets — the Cabinet Office, the Bank of Japan and corporate giants Mitsubishi and Mitsui among them — going back at least eight years.

    • US Will Escape Consequences After NSA Caught Spying on Japanese Officials

      The US National Security Agency spied on Japanese high-profile officials and businessmen, WikiLeaks revealed on Friday.

    • Japan’s PM Could Use NSA Spy Reports to Strengthen Secret State – Envoy

      US China Policy Foundation Co-Chair and former Ambassador to Saudi Arabia Charles Freeman Jr. claims that Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe could use the WikiLeaks revelations of US spying on his government to make security affairs far more secret.

    • US spied on Japanese govt, companies, passed intelligence to Australia, New Zealand

      Washington spied on its key ally, Japan, and passed intelligence on to Australia, New Zealand, Canada and the UK, WikiLeaks has revealed. The NSA targeted 35 high-ranking Japanese officials and top companies, and also tracked trade negotiations.

    • WikiLeaks Discloses NSA Intercepted Japan’s Secret Climate Change Plans

      The US National Security Agency (NSA) intercepted Japanese climate change plans of the administration of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe that had been intended to be kept secret from the United States, WikiLeaks revealed on Friday.

    • Leak Shows US Spying on Japan Over Climate Change — and Cherries

      One document that summarizes intercepted communications from 2007 discusses plans by the Japanese government to announce plans to halve their carbon emissions by 2050.

    • Climate and Cherry Disputes in WikiLeaks Documents Show U.S.-Japan Relations Can Be the Pits

      New U.S. spying records offer a view of the mundane diplomacy between two allied, industrialized nations. But five excerpted cables, released Friday by WikiLeaks, show relations aren’t always sunny or sweet.

    • US spied on Japanese PM Abe, Mitsubishi, and so much more

      The targets of the cyber-spying included stealing secrets on US-Japan relations, trade negotiations and climate change policy. Fruits of the spying, exposed in leaked documents published by WikiLeaks on Friday, were shared with the US’s Five Eyes spying partners.

    • Tokyo to Protest US Spying on Gov’t, Companies if Allegations Confirmed

      Tokyo will lodge a formal protest with the US government if the WikiLeaks revelations of NSA spying on Japanese officials and businesses are proved.

    • WikiLeaks: NSA spied on Abe and Japanese companies

      Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, key figures of his former administration and several of Japan’s most powerful companies have been the targets of long-term US spying operations, according to documents published on the WikiLeaks website.

    • Target Tokyo: WikiLeaks reveals NSA spied on Japanese PM Shinzō Abe and companies like Mitsubishi

      The US National Security Agency (NSA) undertook systematic mass surveillance of Japanese politicians, ministries and corporations over a number of years, according to recently published documents. The revelations come from whistleblowing organisation WikiLeaks, which released a list of 35 top secret targets in Japan on Friday morning (31 July).

    • Exclusive: US bugs Japan on trade and climate

      Japanese Prime Minister Shinzō Abe and the top levels of the Japanese government are being spied on by America, and the information shared with allies including Australia, according to secret intelligence documents published by WikiLeaks.

    • NSA was spying on Japanese PM Shinzo Abe, WikiLeaks reveals

      WikiLeaks, the whistleblowing organisation recently revealed that the US National Security Agency (NSA) was actively spying on some of Japan’s high-profile citizens, including the current Japanese Prime Minister, Shinzo Abe.

    • WikiLeaks: NSA also targeted Japan, spied on climate change policy

      Add Japan to the list of countries that the National Security Agency purportedly spied on. New documents published by WikiLeaks alleges that the NSA kept tabs on Japan’s prime minister, Shinzo Abe, his cabinet and companies like Mitsubishi since 2006. In particular, the US paid close attention to Japan’s policies around climate change. That includes details about Abe’s plan to reduce the country’s carbon emissions by half by 2050, which Japan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) was considering not telling the US about, as well as its confidential G8 summit proposals on climate change. Additionally, the US knew ahead of time that Japan intended to double down on a “sectoral approach” for managing carbon emissions, which focuses on specific carbon goals for sectors like “industry,” “residential” and “transportation.”

    • New leaks show NSA targeting Japanese ministers and energy companies

      The NSA has been keeping a close eye on Japan’s biggest businesses, according to a new publication from Wikileaks. Dubbed “Target Tokyo,” the new files show NSA selector IDs singling out a range of sensitive targets within Japan, including the country’s Minister of Economic Trade and Industry, numerous targets within the country’s finance ministry, and unspecified targets within Mistubishi’s Natural Gas division and Mitsui’s petroleum division.

      The latest release is similar to previous documents that revealed French government targets as well as the personal surveillance of German Chancellor Angela Merkel. The source of the documents is unknown, but they are not believed to have come from Edward Snowden, who has traditionally published documents through journalistic outlets like The Guardian, The Intercept, or The Washington Post.

    • Target Tokyo

      Today, Friday 31 July 2015, 9am CEST, WikiLeaks publishes “Target Tokyo”, 35 Top Secret NSA targets in Japan including the Japanese cabinet and Japanese companies such as Mitsubishi, together with intercepts relating to US-Japan relations, trade negotiations and sensitive climate change strategy.

      The list indicates that NSA spying on Japanese conglomerates, government officials, ministries and senior advisers extends back at least as far as the first administration of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, which lasted from September 2006 until September 2007. The telephone interception target list includes the switchboard for the Japanese Cabinet Office; the executive secretary to the Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga; a line described as “Government VIP Line”; numerous officials within the Japanese Central Bank, including Governor Haruhiko Kuroda; the home phone number of at least one Central Bank official; numerous numbers within the Japanese Finance Ministry; the Japanese Minister for Economy, Trade and Industry Yoichi Miyazawa; the Natural Gas Division of Mitsubishi; and the Petroleum Division of Mitsui.

    • EXCLUSIVE: Now it’s Edward Snowden the comic book – man who stole 1.7 MILLION classified documents and revealed NSA’s monitoring program is subject of ‘graphic novel’ [government propaganda, citing the agencies and/or anonymous sources, or unsourced, like the three links below]
    • NSA report shows China hacked 600+ US targets over 5 years

      NBC has released a 2014 slide from a secret NSA Threat Operations Center (NTOC) briefing—a map that shows the locations of “every single successful computer intrusion” by Chinese state-sponsored hackers over a five-year period. More than 600 US businesses and institutions were breached during that period.

    • Exclusive: Secret NSA Map Shows China Cyber Attacks on U.S. Targets
    • How NSA and GCHQ spied on the Cold War world

      American and British intelligence used a secret relationship with the founder of a Swiss encryption company to help them spy during the Cold War, newly released documents analysed by the BBC reveal.

    • NSA pays highway cops $1mn to patrol data centres
    • Local troopers maintain ‘perimeter presence’ at data center as part of contract with NSA
    • Report: Utah Cops Get $1M a Year to Park at NSA Data Center

      The massive controversial NSA data center in Bluffdale, Utah, has police presence that’s costing the agency $1 million a year. State Highway Patrol troopers provide the facility that became a center of attention following Edward Snowden’s disclosures about the agency’s mass surveillance practices with a “perimeter presence” under contract with the feds, reported a local Fox News affiliate.

      In a statement, the NSA (National Security Agency) said the move was to ensure the security of its workforce and the larger community. Public outrage following the Snowden disclosures included protests at the site, putting the secretive facility in the national spotlight.

    • No pardon for NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden, says US government

      A petition calling for American intelligence whistleblower Edward Snowden to be pardoned has been rejected by the US government – two years after it was started.

      More than 167,000 people signed the petition – calling for Mr Snowden to be “immediately issued with a full, free, and absolute pardon” – on the government’s official petitions website, We the People.

      But the US government said it would not be acting on it and instead urged Mr Snowden to return to America and be “judged by a jury of his peers”.

    • White House says Snowden should ‘come home, be judged’

      The White House rejected a call today to pardon Edward Snowden, saying the former intelligence contractor should “be judged by a jury of his peers” for leaking US government secrets. The US administration re-iterated its tough stance against the exiled fugitive, whom supporters regard as a whistleblower, in response to a petition on the White House website signed by more than 167,000 people.

      Lisa Monaco, an advisor on homeland security and counterterrorism, said Snowden’s “dangerous decision to steal and disclose classified information had severe consequences for the security of our country and the people who work day in and day out to protect it.” She said that Snowden, who has been granted asylum in Russia after he leaked documents on vast US surveillance programs to journalists, is “running away from the consequences of his actions.”

    • Quoted: White House says no pardon for Edward Snowden

      The administration response is in line with other government officials’ stated stance on Snowden, who a couple of years ago leaked documents he stole from the NSA. Although former U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder said earlier this month he thought that a deal was possible, a spokeswoman for current U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch said the administration’s position had not changed.

    • White House Says “Thanks but No Thanks” to Pardon for Snowden
    • Spies helped build Silicon Valley. Now the tables are turning

      David Cameron wants US tech sector companies to do more to fight terrorism. But they’ve grown too powerful to listen

    • Tor Project, Library Freedom Project to establish Tor exit nodes in libraries

      Tor Project and the Library Freedom Project have joined forces to establish Tor exit nodes in libraries in an effort to protect internet freedom, bolster the Tor network and show the public how Tor can be used to protect their digital free expression rights, according to a Tor Project blog post.

    • The NSA will soon stop examining millions of Americans’ calling records
    • NSA won’t get hands on bulk phone data after 29 November
    • NSA will stop looking at old phone records

      The agency says that would be “solely for data integrity purposes to verify the records produced under the new targeted production authorized by the USA FREEDOM Act”.

      The National Security Agency will purge all phone data collected during the operation of its expiring bulk surveillance program by the start of next year pending ongoing litigation, the government announced Monday. Instead, those metadata records – such as the time a call was made, to whom it was made, and the duration of the call – will held by the telephone companies, and the NSA will be required to submit specific search terms in order to request relevant data, after obtaining a warrant from the secretive Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court.

    • NSA sets date for purge of surveillance phone records

      “Analytic access” to the five years worth of records will end on 29 November, and they’ll be destroyed three months later, it said in a statement released on Monday.

    • Why the NSA is destroying its historic telephone surveillance data

      Since Edward Snowden’s revelations in 2013, the National Security Agency, or NSA, has become a by-word for uncontrolled government surveillance, an Orwellian presence collecting information without remit or restriction.

    • NSA to destroy bulk phone records collected under Patriot Act
    • Chat about Safe Harbour all you like, the NSA’s still the stumbling block

      The EU’s Justice Commissioner met her US counterparts last week in an effort to break the stalemate over data protection rights.

      Věra Jourová and US Commerce Secretary Penny Pritzker met to discuss the revision of the so-called Safe Harbour agreement, a legally enforceable but voluntary code of conduct for US businesses that process European citizens’ data.

      The bilateral deal was reached in 2000 as a way to allow data flows across the North Atlantic, even though the US does not meet the EU’s adequacy standards on data protection.

    • CISA: The Dirty Deal Between Google and the NSA That No One Is Talking About

      One of the things that civil liberties activists like to lament about is that the general public seems to care more about Google and Facebook using their personal data to target advertising than the government using it to target drone strikes.

    • Pending bill could give NSA carte blanche on personal data

      Ever heard of the Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act? Not many people have, but the bill, which is progressing through the legislative process, could give government agencies access to huge amounts of personal data held by private companies like Google and Facebook.

    • What’s Inside the Justice Department’s Secret Cybersecurity Memo?

      Wyden, the Democratic privacy hawk from Oregon, claims that a classified Justice Department legal opinion written during the early years of the George W. Bush administration is pertinent to the upper chamber’s consideration of cyberlegislation—a warning that reminds close observers of his allusions to the National Security Agency’s surveillance powers years before they were exposed publicly by Edward Snowden.

    • Wyden, Internet privacy guru, pushes back on cyber, intel bills

      Ron Wyden, happy warrior, is at it again.

      The Oregon Democrat is throwing sand in the gears of legislation designed to fight hackers and terrorists over concerns that the bills will limit users’ privacy and free speech.

      With just days left before the August recess, Sen. Wyden is helping to lead a grassroots campaign against the Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act (CISA). The bipartisan bill encourages private companies to share information with the government about cyber threats after a number of high-profile hacks of federal agencies and firms like Sony, Target and Anthem.

    • Magid: Concerns raised about cybersecurity bill

      The Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act , or CISA, encourages private companies to share information with the federal government and local law enforcement. The bill, according to its co-author, U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-San Francisco, would remove legal barriers for companies to share, receive and use cyberthreat information and cyber countermeasures “on a purely voluntary basis,” while also providing liability protection if user or customer data is shared.

    • Cyber-Surveillance Bill Set to Move to Senate Floor

      The Senate is expected to consider the Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act (CISA, S. 754) on the Senate floor soon. The bill was marked up in secret, thereby denying the public an opportunity to better understand the risks the legislation poses. This document analyzes the bill as reported by the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence on a vote of 14-1.

    • Week of Action Opposing CISA: Over 400,000 Faxes Sent At Halfway Point

      We’re halfway through our Week of Action opposing the privacy-invasive “cybersecurity” bill CISA. This is the fifth time in as many years that Congress is trying to pass an information-sharing bill. The Week of Action aims to stop a rumored vote on the bill before Congress leaves for a 5-week vacation on August 7. We’re only three days in and over 400,000 faxes have been sent to the Senate opposing CISA. Join us now in the Week of Action.

    • Stop Cyber Surveillance
    • Privacy groups use faxes to fight cyber surveillance bill

      A coalition of privacy rights advocates and civil-liberties groups opposed to the proposed Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act, or CISA, is urging American citizens to wage a fax campaign against it – on the theory that if the government wants to impose Orwellian 1984-style surveillance laws on America, maybe circa-1984 technology is the best way to point out the problems with this.

    • Court: German spy agency need not give info on NSA list

      A German federal court has ruled that the country’s spy agency is under no obligation to divulge to the media a list of names compiled from search terms provided to it by the U.S. National Security Agency.

    • Bundestag Demands Access to Surveillance Lists Involved in NSA Scandal

      The G10 Commission of the Bundestag responsible for controlling German intelligence services is going to file a lawsuit against the current German government over a recent espionage scandal with the NSA. The Commission demanded access to BND documents containing lists of objects of surveillance, chairman of the Commission Andre Hahn told Sputnik.

    • German Intelligence Supervisor to Sue Merkel Amid NSA Scandal
    • German Courts Unlikely to Rule Against Gov’t in NSA Scandal
    • Even the former head of NSA thinks crypto backdoors are stupid

      Michael Chertoff, the former head of the Department of Homeland Security and a former federal prosecutor, made some surprising remarks last week, coming out strongly against cryptographic backdoors that could be provided to the government upon request.

    • Former Heads of Homeland Security, NSA Back Encryption

      Three prominent former national-security officials endorsed the use of encryption in communications, breaking with President Barack Obama and Federal Bureau of Investigation Director James Comey in their standoff with Silicon Valley over new uses of the controversial technology.

      Former National Security Agency Director Mike McConnell, former Department of Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff and former Deputy Defense Secretary William Lynn backed encryption in an eyebrow-raising editorial published Wednesday in the Washington Post.

    • The Red Herring of Digital Backdoors and Key Escrow Encryption

      This subtle misdirection shifts the conversation away from a different sort of back door currently being leveraged on a global scale. That would be back doors that are built upon zero-day exploits. An entire industry has emerged to cater to the growing demand for zero-day bugs and the tech monoliths have quietly provided assistance. For example it’s well documented that companies like Microsoft gave the NSA early access to information on zero-day bugs in their products.

    • An Unexpected Voice Speaks Out Against Backdoored Encryption

      Chertoff said weakening encryption would increase the vulnerabilities for ordinary users, force “bad people” into using technology that would be even harder to decrypt, and could become a strategic vulnerability for the United States, especially if Russia and China demanded backdoor access.

    • Even former heads of NSA, DHS think crypto backdoors are stupid
    • Swiss cryptography firm helped NSA during Cold War

      According to an analysis of declassified documents by the BBC, Zug-based company Crypto AG helped the US National Security Agency (NSA) during the Cold War. The firm told swissinfo.ch that it was unaware of this secret collaboration until recently.

    • Law Enforcement Agencies NSA’s ‘New Customer’ for Data – Whistleblower

      NSA whistleblower William Binney claims that the most prominent users of data collected by NSA are federal and international law enforcement agencies.

    • Ex-Qwest CEO: Likely the NSA snatched emails, calls during Salt Lake Olympics

      Joseph Nacchio headed Denver-based Qwest from 1997 to 2002 and later served more than four years in prison on insider-trading convictions involving the telecom giant. He said Wednesday that he couldn’t say whether the company worked with the NSA or FBI to capture such information during the Olympics, but that the agencies could have worked with other executives to gain access without his knowledge.

    • NSA Phone Dragnet Will Be Emptied, Feds Say, If Foes Allow It

      The U.S. government says it wants to empty the National Security Agency’s databases of domestic call records that were collected in bulk, but that it can’t because surveillance foes seeking a courtroom win for privacy rights have forced their retention.

    • NSA won’t look at call metadata collected under the Patriot Act
    • Rogers: NSA, Cybercom Need Partners to Aid Cybersecurity
    • UK Police Want to Secretly Arrest Journalists Who Report on Snowden’s NSA Leaks

      Metropolitan Police claim an investigation into the possibility of prosecuting journalists for their role in publishing secrets leaked by Edward Snowden will be kept secret. The revelation that information won’t be disclosed due to a “possibility of increased threat of terrorist activity” follows the relentless demands for information from journalists at The Intercept

    • Why Some Americans hate Edward Snowden

      It is difficult to feel “exceptional” when we tolerate living in a “democracy” whose government spies on just about everything it can under the pretense of making us “safe” and “free”.

    • Exit Interview: I’m A Crypto-Specialist Working To Secure the Internet For A Billion People

      We spoke with Karsten Nohl, a Berlin-based crypto-specialist, to get a better handle on these issues. Karsten views himself as an ethical hacker who exposes the security flaws of large corporations, including GSM mobile phone carriers and credit card companies, in order to better protect the customers.

      And his research is fascinating. From developing USB “condoms,” to working to help over a billion people in India connect to the internet securely, Karsten is something of a renegade, trying to make the online world a bit safer for us all.

    • US Given Low Grades on Privacy, Surveillance from UN Committee

      Not surprisingly, the United Nations Human Rights Committee gave the United States low scores on privacy and national security surveillance. In particular, the committee concluded the US has failed to establish “meaningful judicial oversight of its surveillance operations, adequate limits on data retention and meaningful access to remedies for privacy violations.”

    • Dig out your old mobile phone and hack an air-gapped computer

      Researchers at Ben Gurion University of the Negev in Beersheba, Israel have discovered a new attack in which data, including passwords and encryption keys, could be stolen from a computer isolated from the web by using an old phone, malware, a GSM network and electromagnetic waves.

    • NSA Tries to Blame Privacy Advocates for Keeping Americans’ Telephone Records

      USA Freedom requires the NSA to stop collecting our telephone records. An open question when the law passed was what should happen to the mountain of records the NSA has already collected. Will the records be destroyed? Will the NSA keep them? Will it be able to keep using them?

      Earlier this week, the NSA announced that it was going to move the stored records out of active use in November, with a three month period when its employees check them for “data integrity” reasons. It noted, however, that it would not be destroying the records until resolution of the various court cases where the government is under a court order to preserve evidence. Three of those cases are EFF’s: Jewel v. NSA, First Unitarian Church of Los Angeles v. NSA and Smith v. Obama. The implication is that the privacy advocates are the reason that these records aren’t being destroyed.

      Not so.

      We have offered to the NSA, in multiple court filings, to enter into a plan under which they can destroy many of the records (maybe not all, but certainly most of them). The NSA just needs to admit that our clients’ telephone records were included in the mass collection and for how long. Alternatively, they could state on the record that none of our clients’ records were ever included in the NSA’s telephone records collection, something that seems inconceivable (we do know what that word means) given that Jewel v. NSA is a class action on behalf of all telephone customers of AT&T.

    • Michael Moore Reveals Stealth NSA Project ‘Where to Invade Next’ on Periscope

      One of the big surprises among the world premieres at the Toronto International Film Festival this September is Michael Moore’s first documentary in six years, “Where To Invade Next.” The usually expansive filmmaker and social media master has kept the project under wraps for a year, he declared on his first Periscope live video via Twitter. (As of Tuesday there was no IMDb listing.)

      “I’d like to say hello to my NSA friends who are watching right now,” Moore said. Clearly, he feels a certain paranoia about his subject, much as Laura Poitras did with “Citizenfour.”

  • Civil Rights

    • Why We Can’t Support Police Unions

      A labor movement that seeks to fight oppression has no room for police unions.

    • Openly gay CIA contractor faked family emergency to leave Afghanistan amid alleged LGBT discrimination by colleagues

      An openly gay CIA contractor feared that his own colleagues posed a graver threat to his safety than the enemy forces he encountered during a recent deployment in Afghanistan.

      Brett Jones ultimately faked a family emergency to escape the troubling pattern of escalating harassment he said he endured on the mission.

    • Former Navy Seal says CIA operatives turned on him because he is gay

      Brett Jones, a former Navy Seal and an openly gay member of the CIA’s paramilitary Global Response Staff (GRS), told ABC News that other staff members harassed him so much that he feared for his life.

    • WATCH: CIA Contractor Details Antigay Harassment by Colleagues in War Zone

      When former Navy SEAL and current CIA contractor Brett Jones came out as gay last year, he received widespread support from his colleagues. But his latest experience, while deployed in a war zone in Afghanistan, has been a different story.

    • Ex-US navy member alleges anti-gay bullying by CIA workers
    • High-speed police chases have killed thousands of innocent bystanders

      More than 5,000 bystanders and passengers have been killed in police car chases since 1979, and tens of thousands more were injured as officers repeatedly pursued drivers at high speeds and in hazardous conditions, often for minor infractions, a USA TODAY analysis shows.

      The bystanders and the passengers in chased cars account for nearly half of all people killed in police pursuits from 1979 through 2013, USA TODAY found. Most bystanders were killed in their own cars by a fleeing driver.

      Police across the USA chase tens of thousands of people each year — usually for traffic violations or misdemeanors — often causing drivers to speed away recklessly. Recent cases show the danger of the longstanding police practice of chasing minor offenders.

    • Feds Hand Out Funds To Be Used For ‘Traffic Safety;’ Local Agencies Buy License Plate Readers Instead

      The National Highway Transportation Safety Association (NHTSA) is supposed to be focused on one thing: safety. For crying out loud, it’s right in the middle of its cumbersome name. But the federal funding it hands out to state and local governments is being used for surveillance devices with no discernible “safety” purpose: automatic license plate readers.

    • Freedom Of The Press Foundation Sues DOJ Over Its Secret Rules For Spying On Journalists

      The wonderful Freedom of the Press Foundation is now suing the US Justice Department for refusing to reveal its rules and procedures for spying on journalists. You can read the complaint here. The key issue: what rules and oversight exist for the DOJ when it comes to spying on journalists. As you may recall, a few years ago, it came out that the DOJ had been using some fairly sneaky tricks to spy on journalists, including falsely telling a court that reporter James Rosen was a “co-conspirator” in order to get access to his emails and phone records. In response to a lot of criticism, the DOJ agreed to “revise” its rules for when it snoops on journalists.

  • Internet/Net Neutrality

    • ISPs: Net neutrality rules are illegal because Internet access uses computers

      Internet service providers yesterday filed a 95-page brief outlining their case that the Federal Communications Commission’s new net neutrality rules should be overturned.

      One of the central arguments is that the FCC cannot impose common carrier rules on Internet access because it can’t be defined as a “telecommunications” service under Title II of the Communications Act. The ISPs argued that Internet access must be treated as a more lightly regulated “information service” because it involves “computer processing.”

      “No matter how many computer-mediated features the FCC may sweep under the rug, the inescapable core of Internet access is a service that uses computer processing to enable consumers to ‘retrieve files from the World Wide Web, and browse their contents’ and, thus, ‘offers the ‘capability for… acquiring,… retrieving [and] utilizing… information.’ Under the straightforward statutory definition, an ‘offering’ of that ‘capability’ is an information service,” the ISPs wrote.

  • Intellectual Monopolies

    • Copyrights

      • Kim Dotcom & Mega Trade Barbs Over Hostile Takeover Claims

        In a Q&A session with users of Slashdot this week, Kim Dotcom advised surprised readers not use Mega amid claims of a hostile takeover. Intrigued, TorrentFreak caught up with both Dotcom and his former colleagues at the cloud storage site. Both had plenty to say and it’s now clear that previously warm relations have now iced over.

]]> http://techrights.org/2015/08/01/blackpanther-os-14-1/feed/ 0 Links 15/5/2015: GNOME 3.16.2, GNU Guix 0.8.2 http://techrights.org/2015/05/15/gnu-guix-0-8-2/ http://techrights.org/2015/05/15/gnu-guix-0-8-2/#comments Fri, 15 May 2015 16:33:51 +0000 http://techrights.org/?p=82865

GNOME bluefish

Contents

GNU/Linux

Free Software/Open Source

  • Top tips for finding free software

    Instead of MS Office, try LibreOffice, which contains a word processor, spreadsheet program, presentation software and much more. It borrows its design heavily from older versions of Office so it should be familiar. Even better, it can open and save Microsoft Office documents, and with each release it gets faster and more Office compatible.

  • Open-source and EMC (code)

    EMC’s commitment to open-source is changing the way the company does business — but it can be hard for such a large, established company to become accepted in that space. Brian Gracely, senior director of EMC {code}, is helping the company make that transition. While talking with theCUBE during EMC World 2015, Gracely laid out an overview of his work.

  • Handing On The Baton

    As a result, the Board unanimously elected Allison Randal as its new President yesterday. She is a fantastic choice, with long experience at the heart of the free and open source movement as well as in the business use of open source at all scales. She’s been chairing the ongoing in-person Board meeting and continuing the move towards an OSI that enables people to make things better in open source as well as stewarding licenses.

  • Events

  • Web Browsers

  • SaaS/Big Data

    • DefCore, project management, and the future of OpenStack

      Rob Hirschfeld has been involved with OpenStack since before the project was even officially formed, and so he brings a rich perspective as to the project’s history, its organization, and where it may be headed next. Recently, he has focused primarily on the physical infrastructure automation space, working with an an enterprise version of OpenCrowbar, an “API-driven metal” project which started as an OpenStack installer and moved to a generic workload underlay.

    • Oracle Refines Big Data Focus with New Hadoop Analytics Tools

      This week researchers at Gartner threw cold water on the notion that everyone everywhere is adopting Hadoop, the open source framework for culling fresh insights from large data stores. Their latest study showed that Hadoop is presenting difficulties for some enterprise users, and found that there are not enough trained Hadoop experts.

  • Oracle/Java/LibreOffice

  • Openness/Sharing

  • Programming

    • How to put the R programming language to work

      We tend to think of programming languages as general purpose, able to deliver any kind of application given enough time and enough code. But sometimes you want a language focused on solving one class of problem as efficiently as possible — think SQL for database programming.

  • Standards/Consortia

    • Auto industry first to get wireless charging open standard

      One of the most eagerly anticipated mobile device innovations is widespread application of wire-free inductive charging. Nobody will miss lugging power bricks around, looking for outlets to plug them in, and fumbling with cable connectors with attendant potential for port damage through extended or rough use. Along with the obvious convenience and non-mechanical connectivity’s durability are the minimal likelihood of corrosion with all electronics enclosed and protected from water or oxygen in the atmosphere, enhanced safety for medical implants enabling recharging/powering through the skin rather than penetrating wires creating opportunity for infection, and non radiative energy transfer.

Leftovers

  • The Circus of UKIP – on a TV near you!

    The Circus of UKIP has parked up in town and election or not its show rumbles on.

  • Science

  • Security

  • Defence/Police/Secrecy/Aggression

    • ‘Wrong as Often as Right’ Is Good Enough When Reporting on an Official Enemy

      So the sensational stuff in the article is what local South Korean journalists said they were told by South Korean intelligence about that country’s bitter rivals. But South Korean intelligence is a reliable source, right?

      Well, no—not according to the Post. In the article’s eighth paragraph, the reporters note: “The NIS report could not be independently verified. NIS’s claims turn out to be wrong as often as they are right.”

      Is it really the Washington Post‘s policy to base stories on claims that are “wrong as often as they are right”?

    • Migrant crisis: EU plan to strike Libya networks could include ground forces

      European plans for a military campaign to smash the migrant smuggling networks operating out of Libya include options for ground forces on Libyan territory.

      The 19-page strategy paper for the mission, obtained by the Guardian, focuses on an air and naval campaign in the Mediterranean and in Libyan territorial waters, subject to United Nations blessing. But it adds that ground operations in Libya may also be needed to destroy the smugglers’ vessels and assets, such as fuel dumps.

  • Environment/Energy/Wildlife

    • Bee Survey: Lower Winter Losses, Higher Summer Losses, Increased Total Annual Losses

      Losses of managed honey bee colonies were 23.1 percent for the 2014-2015 winter but summer losses exceeded winter numbers for the first time, making annual losses for the year 42.1 percent, according to preliminary results of the annual survey conducted by the Bee Informed Partnership (http://beeinformed.org), the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) and the Apiary Inspectors of America.

    • AP, Review-Journal Miss Jeb Bush’s Yucca Mountain Flip-Flop

      Speaking in Nevada on May 13, Bush told a group of reporters that Yucca Mountain will not likely become the permanent storage location for the nation’s nuclear waste. The Associated Press story quoted Bush saying the project “stalled out” and reported that he “said the waste dump shouldn’t be ‘forced down the throat’ of anyone.” And according to the Las Vegas Review-Journal, Bush also said “we need to move to a system where the communities and states want it.”

  • Finance

    • Some of David Brooks’ Best Friends Are Progressives–So Long as They Don’t Scare the Wealthy

      Clinton also strengthened and lengthened copyright and patent monopolies. These are forms of government intervention in the market that have the same effect on the price of drugs and other protected items as tariffs of several thousand percent. In the case of drugs, the costs are not only economic, but also felt in the form of bad health outcomes from mismarketed drugs by companies trying to maximize their patent rents.

      And the federal government directly intervenes to redistribute income upward when the Federal Reserve Board raises interest rates to slow job creation, keeping workers at the middle and bottom of the income distribution from getting enough bargaining power to raise their wages.

      In these areas and others, David Brooks’ center-right politicians, as well as “opportunity” progressives, are every bit as willing to use the government to intervene in the market as people like Warren and de Blasio. The difference is that the politicians Brooks admires want to use the government to redistribute income upward, while Warren and de Blasio want to ensure that people at the middle and bottom get their share of the gains from economic growth. (Their agenda is laid out in more detail in this report from the Roosevelt Institute.)

    • URGENT: Senate backtracks on TPP fasttrack — call Congress to oppose the Trans Pacific Partnership

      Just days after the Senate rejected the Obama administration’s bid to fast-track the secretive Trans-Pacific Partnership, they’ve backtracked, and now they’re getting ready to rush fast-track through.

  • PR/AstroTurf/Lobbying

    • Lack of Oversight of Charter Schools Designed as a Plus; $3.3+ Billion Spent (Part 2)

      “The waste of taxpayer money—none of us can feel good about,” Education Secretary Arne Duncan told the Appropriations Subcommittee on Labor, Health & Human Services and Education just last month.

      Yet, he is calling for a 48% increase in the U.S. Department of Education’s (ED) quarter-billion-dollar-a-year ($253.2 million) program designed to create, expand, and replicate charter schools—an initiative repeatedly criticized by the Office of the Inspector General (OIG) for suspected waste and inadequate financial controls.

  • Privacy

    • Internet.org Expands to Malawi Amidst India Backlash

      Facebook’s Internet.org project this week expanded into Malawi, bringing free Web services to subscribers of Telekom Networks Malawi (TNM) and Airtel Malwai.

    • Privacy groups baulk at US government’s ‘fake’ surveillance reform

      US RIGHTS AND PRIVACY GROUPS have reacted quickly to oppose the recently passed US Freedom Act, and asked Congress to reconsider and ensure that bulk data collection is prevented and that personal privacy is preserved.

    • Facebook’s Quest To Absorb The Internet

      Facebook never wants you to leave, so it’s swallowing up where you might try to go. A few years back, its News Feed brimmed with links to content hosted elsewhere. News articles, YouTube clips, business websites, ads for ecommerce stores.

    • Federal Appeals Court Rules NSA Spying Illegal

      A federal appeals court ruled Thursday that the National Security Agency’s bulk collection of billions of U.S. phone records is illegal, dealing a startling blow to the program just as Congress is weighing reforms to the government’s expansive surveillance authorities.

    • France passes new surveillance law in wake of Charlie Hebdo attack

      The French parliament has overwhelmingly approved sweeping new surveillance powers in the wake of the terrorist attacks in Paris in January that killed 17 people at the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo and a kosher grocery in Paris.

    • USA Freedom Act Passes House, Codifying Bulk Collection For First Time, Critics Say

      After only one hour of floor debate, and no allowed amendments, the House of Representatives today passed legislation that seeks to address the NSA’s controversial surveillance of American communications. However, opponents believe it may give brand new authorization to the U.S. government to conduct domestic dragnets.

    • Tor Cloud Shut Down Amid Lack of Support

      The Tor Project has shuttered its cloud proxy service citing security vulnerabilities, usability bugs and a lack of resources.

      Tor offers its users the capacity to surf the Web anonymously, bouncing traffic through a series of relay servers so that no observer at any point can tell where that user’s traffic is traveling to or coming from. The Tor Cloud Project essentially offered a platform for creating network bridges within Amazon’s Elastic Cloud Compute in order for users to evade censorship.

  • Internet/Net Neutrality

    • Why net neutrality rules have angered some small Internet providers

      Giant Internet service providers are roaring mad about new net neutrality rules and the reclassification of broadband as a common carrier service. Reaction among small ISPs is more diverse, but some of them say they will be saddled with legal costs so high that it will prevent them from upgrading equipment that provides Internet service to small towns and rural areas.

  • Intellectual Monopolies

    • Copyrights

      • Why streaming services will not end piracy

        With the arrival of Netflix in Australia, there have been suggestions that people no longer have a valid reason to indulge in unauthorised downloading of movies. Such reasoning is short on logic.

      • Mega Rolls Out Legal Heavyweights to Refute Piracy Claims

        Mega.co.nz has today published an independent report which refutes claims that the site is a piracy haven. The analysis, carried out by Olswang, an international law firm that previously worked with the UK government on copyright issues, concludes that claims in a 2014 NetNames report have “no factual basis whatsoever.”

]]> http://techrights.org/2015/05/15/gnu-guix-0-8-2/feed/ 0 Links 23/3/2015: Linux 4.0 RC5, Kubuntu Celebrates Ten Years http://techrights.org/2015/03/23/kubuntu-celebrates-ten-years/ http://techrights.org/2015/03/23/kubuntu-celebrates-ten-years/#comments Mon, 23 Mar 2015 17:12:02 +0000 http://techrights.org/?p=82030

GNOME bluefish

Contents

GNU/Linux

Free Software/Open Source

  • Is This Open-Source Siri Smarter Than Apple’s Version?

    While tech industry giants like Apple and Microsoft have popularized the personal digital assistant by enabling smartphone users to ask Siri or Cortana to set alarms or find answers to their questions, now other developers and smaller companies can implement their own version of such assistants with new open-source software called Sirius.

  • Telco sector OPNFV project champions open network services

    This group is a community-led industry-supported open source reference platform for Network Functions Virtualisation (NFV).

    TechTarget defines NFV as an initiative to virtualise the network services that are (or were previously) being carried out by proprietary, dedicated hardware — NFV is part of the wider industry shift towards network and application virtualisation.

  • An introduction to software defined networking

    Software defined networking (SDN) is becoming a major driver for a number of next generation technologies to power the communications systems and networks of tomorow. Many of these projects are being developed as open source collaborations between the companies creating and using networking solutions.

  • Events

    • FOSSAsia 2015, Singapore

      FOSSAsia is the largest open source conference in Asia. This year, it was hosted in Singapore and I had a chance to speak there about Project Atomic. Singapore is a beautiful place but unfortunately I had a bad throat as soon as I reached there. That killed most of the fun but nonetheless the conference was great. I met up with a lot of new and old faces. The conference was kick started by Hong Phuc and Mario. Day 1 had a lot of interesting talks by Harish, Lennart, Brian and a lot of other interesting people. Novena project had an interesting talk by Bunny who showed why failure of Moore’s Law is actually a good news for open hardware hackers. I heard about Novena during Flock and I must say that it has come long way since. Most of all I enjoyed the talk given by Dr Vivian Balakrishnan on open data. The efforts of his team to bring data to public is really commendable. I wish more politicians think the way he is thinking. The day concluded and there was a barbeque in the evening but I had to skip it due to bad health.

    • February, one hell of a month packed with knowledge!

      Wow, finally I have time to write about February. This one was a packed month! First we had FOSDEM, then DevConf.CZ and then finally SCALE 13x.

    • Leveraging the power of academia in your open source project

      When academia and open source collaborate, everybody wins. Open source projects get new contributors, professors get students with more knowledge and perspective about real-world software development, and—most importantly—students can get extra mentorship while gaining hands-on experience in their chosen fields.

  • Web Browsers

  • BSD

    • DragonFly 4.0.5 out

      I’ve tagged version 4.0.5 of DragonFly, and it’s available at your nearest mirror. This revision is mostly to incorporate the newest OpenSSL security bump.

  • FSF/FSFE/GNU/SFLC

    • Sébastien Jodogne, ReGlue are Free Software Award winners

      Free Software Foundation executive director John Sullivan announced the winners of the FSF’s annual Free Software Awards at a ceremony on Saturday, March 21st, held during the LibrePlanet 2015 conference at MIT, in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Two awards were given: the Award for the Advancement of Free Software and the Award for Projects of Social Benefit.

  • Openness/Sharing

    • Open Source Model In Computers Should Be Applied To Genomic Data, Paper Says

      Genomic data should be made publicly available for the promotion of science as a global public good, a new paper argues. Two researchers suggest that a model inspired by the open-source computer software movement should be developed for plant breeding, animal breeding, and biomedicine.

    • Getting started guide, making your first OpenStack commit, and more

    • Open Access/Content

      • How one professor saves students millions with his shared textbooks

        I learned about David Lippman from an article on TeamOpen and realized I needed to talk to him more about his work in open education and open source. David is a professor at Pierce College and has saved students a million dollars with his shared textbooks. He also built IMathAS, a free, open source math assessment and course platform.

    • Open Hardware

      • Sub $300 exiii handiii 3D Printed Open Source Bionic Hand is Controlled by a Smartphone

        As time goes by and technology improves, we are constantly seeing prices for previously groundbreaking technology fall to levels which allow for the adoption of this technology by the masses. 3D printing is one of these technologies, in that now, virtually anyone in the developed world can afford a desktop 3D printer. At the same time though, other technologies are following in this same path. For example smartphones, tablets and mini computers can now perform tasks that a machine 20 years ago, at 100 times the price, couldn’t even have come close to achieving.

  • Programming

    • 101 Open Source Tools for Developers

      These days, nearly every developer is familiar with the benefits of open source code and coding tools. Open source repositories like GitHub and SourceForge provide invaluable resources for those searching for assistance in creating their own applications.

      In addition, many of the most popular development tools are available under open source licenses. The last few years have seen an explosion of new tools, particularly in categories like mobile development and JavaScript frameworks. This month we’re updating our previous list of open source development tools and highlighting 101 of the very best open source bugtrackers, programming languages, version control systems, frameworks, IDEs, text editors and other tools.

    • The Demise of Open Source Hosting Providers Codehaus and Google Code

      At the turn of the millenium, a new breed of open-source hosting platforms was created to provide free hosting for open-source projects. The inaugral hosting service was SourceForge, created by VA Linux as a means to host open-source projects in 1999, to support their VA Linux product created in 1993. The repository provided a location for developers to host code (with CVS), have an issue tracking system, mailing lists and hosting for download purposes. By the end of 2001, over 30,000 projects were hosted on SourceForge. By 2006 the number of projects had grown to 100k, and adding Google Ads provided a means of income to support the hosting site. 2006 also saw Subversion being added to the platform.

Leftovers

  • The FTC’s internal memo on Google teaches companies a terrible lesson

    Many in Washington this week have been questioning whether the Federal Trade Commission made the right call when it rebuffed its own staff recommendation in 2013 to take Google to court over alleged anti-competitive practices. The debate was sparked by a Wall Street Journal story describing the FTC’s internal staff memo on Google, which the agency inadvertently sent to the publication.

  • Cash for access: Fake donor pays way to heart of big parties

    David Cameron, Ed Miliband and Nick Clegg have been drawn into the cash for access debate after it emerged that all three met an undercover businessman posing as a potential donor.

  • Security

    • Stealing Data From Computers Using Heat

      The method would allow attackers to surreptitiously siphon passwords or security keys from a protected system and transmit the data to an internet-connected system that’s in close proximity and that the attackers control. They could also use the internet-connected system to send malicious commands to the air-gapped system using the same heat and sensor technique.

    • At Pwn2Own Hacker Competition, All Major Browsers Get Punk’d

      Slowly but surely, the Pwn2Own hacker contest has become an important fixture in the world of testing the security of software applications, operating systems and hardware devices. In fact, it’s now widely followed by major technology companies and technologists of all stripes.

  • Transparency Reporting

    • Mexican Wikileaks Launched: Will Mexicoleaks Unearth Corruption?

      A consortium of Mexican media organizations have launched Méxicoleaks, an unedited online whistleblower tool similar to Wikileaks. The site uses the Tor browser to anonymize users and encryption to guarantee the safety of those that submit information, according to Processo, one of the organizations supporting the website.

    • Mexico’s version of WikiLeaks causes controversy before its first story

      There have been no classified diplomatic cables. No top-secret intelligence reports. No fugitive whistleblowers.

      And yet Mexico’s latest experiment in free speech, the new Web site MexicoLeaks, has already generated its own media mini-tempest.

    • Mexico Launches Own Wikileaks to Fight Corruption
    • Mexico’s own ‘WikiLeaks’ already making waves

      Mexico’s WikiLeaks-inspired whistleblower website is already making waves just days after its launch, even though it has yet to expose any government scandals.

      MexicoLeaks was announced by star journalist Carmen Aristegui last week when she told her audience that her MVS radio team was part of the initiative.

    • Spy cables: SA’s WikiLeaks moment

      South Africa is experiencing its own WikiLeaks moment as leaked classified documents from the State Security Agency and some foreign spy agencies are to be published by News24, Al Jazeera and the British Guardian, starting on Monday night.

    • Tweets of the Day: WikiLeaks vs WikiLeaksForum
    • ‘I’m Condemned to Death’ – WikiLeaks Founder Julian Assange

      Julian Assange still remains holed up in Ecuador’s embassy in London. The WikiLeaks founder told RTS the US government would never let him off the hook for publishing top secret US military documents leaked in 2010.

      [...]

      “Phones and hard drives worldwide are now under surveillance. This makes the world a very vulnerable place and poses a threat to everyone,” Assange said, adding that he will keep working to make sure people have access to censored data, because this information is essential in order to have a better understanding of the world we live in.

    • Whistleblowers Have a Human Right to a Public Interest Defense, And Hacktivists Do, Too

      Not a single one of those prosecuted has been allowed to argue that their actions served the public good. Chelsea Manning, the alleged WikiLeaks whistleblower, exposed human rights abuses worldwide and opened an unprecedented window into global politics. Her disclosures are to this day cited regularly by the media and courts. Thomas Drake exposed massive NSA waste, while John Kiriakou exposed waterboarding later admitted to be torture in the recent Senate CIA Torture Report. The story of Edward Snowden’s disclosures of widespread NSA surveillance recently won an Oscar.

  • Environment/Energy/Wildlife

    • Shell oil driling in Arctic set to get US government permission

      The US government is expected this week to give the go-ahead to a controversial plan by Shell to restart drilling for oil in the Arctic.

      The green light from Sally Jewell, the interior secretary, will spark protests from environmentalists who have campaigned against proposed exploration by the Anglo-Dutch group in the Chukchi and Beaufort seas off Alaska.

    • Climate Change Advocate Bill Gates’ Foundation has Over $1 Billion Invested in Fossil Fuel Industry

      Bill and Melinda Gates are some of the most vocal advocates for reversing the effects of climate change, but The Guardian revealed yesterday that their foundation held at least $1.4 billion worth of investments in fossil fuel companies, according to the charity’s 2013 tax filings.

    • Can the Gates Foundation be convinced to dump fossil fuels?
    • Gates’ foundation has invested $1.4 billion in fossil fuel cos
    • Guardian Newspaper Targets Gates Foundation Over Oil Assets

      The London-based Guardian newspaper has taken aim at two leading charities—the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the UK’s Wellcome Trust—pressuring them to divest from fossil fuel-related assets.

    • Gates Fund Held $1.4 Billion in Fossil-Fuel Stock in 2013

      The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation had at least $1.4 billion invested in large oil, gas, and coal companies in 2013, The Guardian writes, citing an analysis of the charity’s most recent available tax return. The $43 billion fund had stakes in 35 of the 200 firms with the biggest fossil-fuel reserves, according to the newspaper, which launched a petition drive Monday calling on the foundation to divest from the industry.

    • Florida and the Science Who Must Not Be Named

      The oceans are slowly overtaking Florida. Ancient reefs of mollusk and coral off the present-day coasts are dying. Annual extremes in hot and cold, wet and dry, are becoming more pronounced. Women and men of science have investigated, and a great majority agree upon a culprit. In the outside world, this culprit has a name, but within the borders of Florida, it does not. According to a Miami Herald investigation, the state Department of Environmental Protection has since 2010 had an unwritten policy prohibiting the use of some well-understood phrases for the meteorological phenomena slowly drowning America’s weirdest-shaped state. It’s … that thing where burning too much fossil fuel puts certain molecules into a certain atmosphere, disrupting a certain planetary ecosystem. You know what we’re talking about. We know you know. They know we know you know. But are we allowed to talk about … you know? No. Not in Florida. It must not be spoken of. Ever.

  • Censorship

    • Hate speech social media bans may not be the answer

      Parliamentary report on antisemitism calls for protection orders used to ban sex offenders from using the internet to be extended to hate crime. But these should be used to prevent serious harm, not as punishment for hate speech in general.

    • A Test of Free Speech and Bias, Served on a Plate From Texas

      The next great First Amendment battleground is just six inches high. It is a license plate bearing the Confederate flag.

      Nine states let drivers choose specialty license plates featuring the flag and honoring the Sons of Confederate Veterans, which says it seeks to celebrate Southern heritage. But Texas refused to allow the group’s plates, saying the flag was offensive.

  • Privacy

    • GCHQ and Mass Surveillance

      The consequences of GCHQ’s activities have the potential to harm society, the economy and our foreign standing. These have not been fully explored by Parliament. We hope that this report helps MPs to understand the range of GCHQ’s activities and the fact that they affect ordinary people not just those suspected of threatening national security.

    • The real impact of surveillance

      For many people surveillance makes them less safe.

    • New Zealand Spied on WTO Director Candidates

      New Zealand launched a covert surveillance operation targeting candidates vying to be director general of the World Trade Organization, a top-secret document reveals.

    • New Zealand used NSA’s XKeyscore to spy on trade candidates

      New Zealand’s spy agency GCSB used the US NSA’s XKeyscore mass surveillance tool to spy on candidates from around the world vying to lead the World Trade Organisation.

      GCSB used XKeyscore to set up searches for communications about candidates from Brazil, South Korea, Indonesia. Mexico, Ghana, Jordan, Kenya and Costa Rica, according to a document released by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden.

    • How spy agency homed in on Groser’s rivals

      GCSB used United States’ XKeyscore surveillance system to intercept emails mentioning other candidates for WTO job and paid close attention to Indonesian contender.

    • GCSB spies monitored diplomats in line for World Trade Organisation job

      Exclusive – Secret document reveals Five Eyes software used for surveillance on candidates for WTO job.

    • Government accused of spying on WTO top job candidates

      The Green Party has slammed the Government’s claimed use of its spy agency to snoop on rival candidates for a top World Trade Organisation Job.

      Documents obtained by the US-based Intercept website purport to show the Government Communications Security Bureau (GCSB) snooped on candidates for the WTO job for which Trade Minister Tim Groser was in the running.

      Groser ultimately missed out on the job to Brazil’s Roberto Azevedo.

    • Spy agencies used for personal gain, again – Greens

      Documents released today, by the Herald, show the Government Communications Security Bureau (GCSB) was spying on Tim Groser’s rivals for the position of the director-general of the World Trade Organisation (WTO).

    • GCSB: Groser’s Competition Scuttling Bureau

      Tim Groser’s personal use of the GCSB to try and get himself a job at the WTO is a highly dubious use of an agency that is meant to combat security threats, Labour Leader Andrew Little says.

    • Spy agencies used for personal gain, again

      New Zealand’s spy agencies are once again being used to further the personal ambitions of Cabinet Ministers, the Green Party said today.

    • How far does GCSB ‘trade team’ spying go?

      How far does GCSB ‘trade team’ spying go?

      “Revelations this morning that the GCSB was spying on Trade Minister Groser’s opponents for the top job at the world Trade Organization raise the question about other activities of the GCSB’s ‘trade team’.

    • GCSB spies monitored diplomats in line for World Trade Organisation job

      Our spies monitored email and internet traffic about international diplomats vying for the job of director-general of the World Trade Organisation – a job for which National Government Trade Minister Tim Groser was competing.

      The spying operation was active in 2013 and called the “WTO Project” by New Zealand’s Government Communications Security Bureau (GCSB), according to a top secret document obtained by the Herald and United States news site The Intercept.

    • GCSB snooped on Trade Minister’s rivals

      The Government Communications Security Bureau used the Five Eyes spying network to trawl through the communications of candidates from Brazil, South Korea, Kenya, Indonesia and others, according to documents obtained by journalists Glenn Greenwald and Nicky Hager.

    • Govt downplays WTO spying claims

      The government is playing down allegations New Zealand’s spy agency snooped on foreigners competing with Trade Minister Tim Groser for the top job at the World Trade Organisation.

    • NZ spied on WTO candidates – Hager

      Journalist Nicky Hager says New Zealand spied on candidates vying to lead the World Trade Organisation (WTO) in a bid to help the New Zealand contender Tim Groser.

    • Don’t want NSA to spy on your email? 5 things you can do

      Encryption programs such as Pretty Good Privacy, or PGP, can make your email appear indecipherable to anyone without the digital key to translate the gibberish. This can help prevent highly sensitive financial and business information from getting swept up by hackers, as well as a government dragnet. Yet only 2 percent of the people surveyed by Pew used PGP or other email encryption programs. Part of the problem: Encryption isn’t easy to use, as email recipients also need to use encryption or leave their regular inboxes to read messages.

  • Civil Rights

    • Athens marches against racism and fascism

      In Athens thousands joined the Greek leg of the international day of action against racism and fascism. Kevin Ovenden reports

    • Wikileaks Founder Julian Assange Blasts Canada For Denying Asylum To Alleged Anonymous Hacker Matt Dehart

      DeHart fled to Canada in 2014 ahead of a criminal trial on child pornography charges. But such were only false accusations, he claimed, meant to be used as leverage to push a probe into espionage and national security focused on his alleged involvement with the Anonymous and WikiLeaks hacker groups. He had likewise been alleged as to have leaked a number of classified U.S. government documents. While in custody in the United States, the former American serviceman in the Air National Guard claimed he was subjected to torture. “The abuse of the law in DeHart’s case is obvious, shocking and wrong,” Assange said in a statement.

    • Georgia anti-NDAA Bill Receives First Subcommittee Hearing

      On Tuesday, a Georgia House Subcommittee held a hearing about a bill that would take a first step against NDAA indefinite detention in the state.

    • May defense bill vote seen in U.S. House, acquisition reform in works

      The U.S. House of Representatives is moving toward a vote in mid-May on the annual half-billion-dollar defense policy bill, U.S. Representative Mac Thornberry, chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, said on Monday.

      Thornberry also said he plans to introduce next week legislation to reform the U.S. defense acquisition process. There is no schedule yet for a vote on that bill in the House, he told a news briefing, saying he first wanted to open up the process for comments.

    • Lee Kuan Yew inspired hopeful autocrats near and far

      Kazakhstan president Nursultan Nazarbayev suggested that Singapore was a model on how a country should run, making it clear that he intended to follow Lee’s and not the West’s advice.

    • After Singapore patriarch Lee Kuan Yew, challenges for the Lion City

      A famously unsentimental man, he would laugh off complaints that the Singapore he’d built was “sterile” or “boring” or “charmless.” After all, the Singapore it replaced – a colonial British port – was squalid and poor. Yes the old kampong and Chinese-style shop-houses had character, but the government’s utilitarian public housing, block after block, put apartment ownership within reach of almost every Singaporean family.

    • Singapore: Death of Lee Kuan Yew

      On the passing on Singapore’s former Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew, Rupert Abbott, Amnesty International’s Research Director for Southeast Asia and the Pacific, said:

      “Our thoughts and sympathies go out to the family of Lee Kuan Yew and others who mourn his passing.”

      “Lee Kuan Yew more than anyone else built modern Singapore, and his legacy will be unrivalled economic progress and development. There is, however, a dark side to what he leaves behind – too often, basic freedoms and human rights were sacrificed to ensure economic growth. Restrictions on freedom of expression and the silencing of criticism is still part of the daily reality for Singaporeans.”

      “Lee Kuan Yew’s passing, just a few months short of Singapore’s 50th anniversary of independence, happens just as the country enters a new era. We urge the next generation of leaders to ensure that this is marked by genuine respect for human rights.”

    • 5 Hallmarks of the New American Order

      A new kind of governance is being born right before our eyes. Stop pretending it’s not happening.

]]> http://techrights.org/2015/03/23/kubuntu-celebrates-ten-years/feed/ 0 Links 30/11/2014: Debian Fork, New Mint Linux Releases http://techrights.org/2014/11/30/new-mint-linux-releases/ http://techrights.org/2014/11/30/new-mint-linux-releases/#comments Sun, 30 Nov 2014 08:57:27 +0000 http://techrights.org/?p=80405

GNOME bluefish

Contents

GNU/Linux

  • Issue 10 Out Now!

    Once we’ve finished boasting about the prowess of Linux, we search out the best light-weight distro, look into the murky world of patent litigation, uncover the secrets of systemd, play with Google Cardboard, add more forms of input to a Raspberry Pi and program autonomous battle droids.

  • Server

    • Docker: Sorry, you’re just going to have to learn about it. Today we begin

      Containers aren’t a new idea, and Docker isn’t remotely the only company working on productising containers. It is, however, the one that has captured hearts and minds.

      Docker started out with the standard LXC containers that are part of virtually every Linux distribution out there, but eventually transitioned to libcontainer, its own creation. Normally, nobody would have cared about libcontainer, but as we’ll dig into later, it was exactly the right move at the right time.

  • Kernel Space

    • Nasty Lockup Issue Still Being Investigated For Linux 3.18

      When Linux 3.18-rc6 was released last Sunday, Linus Torvalds noted in the release announcement that a “a big unknown worry in a regression” remained. Nearly one week later, kernel developers are still figuring out what’s going on with this regression that can cause frequent lockups. Worse off, it looks like it might affect the Linux 3.17 kernel too.

    • Generic TrustZone Driver Proposed For Linux Kernel

      ARM’s security extensions are in the process of being bettered on Linux.

    • Graphics Stack

      • Mesa Git Yields Performance Improvements For Newer AMD GPUs

        Earlier this week I published some benchmark results showing Mesa 10.5-devel delivering Intel performance changes compared to Mesa 10.3 as found in Ubuntu 14.10. The next logical step to this testing is looking at the AMD Radeon graphics results for the R600g and RadeonSI drivers using multiple graphics cards while seeing what the open-source Radeon Linux driver has to offer if upgrading past what’s shipped in Ubuntu 14.10 and other recent Linux distribution releases.

    • Benchmarks

      • OS X 10.10 vs. Ubuntu 14.10 vs. Fedora 21 vs. openSUSE Factory

        This week I posted some OS X 10.10 vs. Ubuntu 14.10 performance results that were quite interesting and showed Ubuntu Linux largely dominating over OS X Yosemite with a Haswell-based MacBook Air. For those curious how other Linux distributions compare in this performance showdown, here are some results when also testing Fedora 21 in its near-final state and also openSUSE in its rolling-release form.

  • Applications

  • Desktop Environments/WMs

    • K Desktop Environment/KDE SC/Qt

      • Google Code In 2014 : Call for Participation

        The Google Code-in is a contest to introduce pre-university students (ages 13-17) to the many kinds of contributions that make open source software development possible. The contest runs from December 1, 2014 to January 19, 2015. For many students the Google Code-in contest is their first introduction to open source development.

      • KDE at LISA 2014 conference

        KDE was one of about 50 exhibitors at the LISA (Large Installation System Administration) Conference November 12th and 13th in Seattle. The expo was part of the week-long conference for system administrators that has been held annually since 1986. Expo participants included big name tech companies and smaller niche organizations offering products and services to this audience of professional technical people. As we discovered, KDE is well known among this audience.

    • GNOME Desktop/GTK

  • Distributions

    • Material Design Adorns Desktop Thanks to a Custom Linux OS

      Google introduced the clean new design language this year naming it Material Design. The design ideology of Material Design was loved by many thanks to its clean and simple UI. If you too are one of those in love with Lollipop’s Material Design, chances are you will soon be able to get the design for your desktop. Currently being developed by Michael Spencer, this upcoming Linux distribution is being called Quantum OS (previously Quartz OS).

    • Red Hat Family

      • [Red Hat JBoss Unified Push] Now Available on Openshift

        The Unified Push Server allows developers to send native push messages to Apple’s Push Notification Service (APNS) and Google’s Cloud Messaging (GCM). It features a built-in administration console that makes it easy for developers to create and manage push related aspects of their applications for any mobile development environment. Includes client SDKs (iOS, Android, & Cordova), and a REST based sender service with an available Java sender library.

      • Fedora

        • To Do

          OK, there are endless to-do list applications, each with its own plusses and deltas. I tried the emacs todo without a lot of joy. I more or less settled on using bugzilla since it allowed me to not only capture relationships and estimates, but also to keep notes on various projects or bits of projects. I tend to have lots of things that I need to do “right now”, but even more things that I would like to do if I ever get one of them round tuit thingies. BZ works well for this in terms of capturing things, and especially capturing thoughts on those things I want to get around to some day.

        • It’s a good thing they pay me to break stuff

          Yesterday’s was triggered by me messing up the Fedora kernel package git repository – whoops. I keep Fedlet’s kernel as a branch that only exists in my checkout; it’s not pushed anywhere (I should just push it out on my git server now I have one, but I keep forgetting). I accidentally ran git push from that branch yesterday, and it promptly pushed all the changes on it to master, effectively turning Fedora’s kernel into the Fedlet kernel for a few glorious hours until Josh reverted it.

        • [Test-Announce] Fedora 21 Final Release Candidate 1 (RC1) Available Now!

    • Debian Family

      • Systemd fallout: Debian fork Devuan set up

        A group styling itself as veteran UNIX administrators has announced that it has set up a fork of the Debian GNU/Linux project.

      • Fork Debian Project Announces the Systemd-less OS Devuan

        A group of unknown developers have proposed a while ago to fork Debian in an effort to create a parallel project that would go on without Systemd. It seemed ridiculous at the time and many have thought that it was just just some kind of pressure, but it looks like the project is real enough.

      • Debian Forked, Ubuntu MATE Fabulous, and Fedora 21 RC1

        Everybody went back to work today and there is so much news I hardly know where to start. The top story tonight is bound to be the official forking of Debian. In other news, Dediomedio.com says Ubuntu 14.10 MATE is “almost fabulous” and the Free Software Foundation released their 2014 gift buying guide. Mint 17.1 is almost here and a Fedora 21 release candidate has been released. Carla Schroder has an exclusive on Linux.com about being a maker instead of a user and, finally, a bunch of too-good-to-resist tidbits.

      • Derivatives

        • Canonical/Ubuntu

          • Meizu’s first Ubuntu phones coming in early 2015
          • Ubuntu powered Meizu smartphones could arrive in early 2015
          • A Ubuntu Phone will finally go on sale next year

            Fans of Ubuntu have been waiting patiently for a phone running Canonical’s mobile OS to make its way to retail shelves. Thanks to Chinese OEM Meizu, they may only have a few more months to wait.

          • Ubuntu 14.10 MATE edition – Almost fabulous

            Ubuntu 14.10 Utopic Unicorn with the MATE desktop environment is a very cool distro. It suffers from two big problems, one of which has been inherited from its Unity parent, and that would be the inability to format old partitions, created by previous versions of Ubuntu. This is somewhat worrying. Samba printing is another disappointment. There was no screenshot problem like with some other distros, though.

            Besides these issues, everything else was perfect. Familiar, friendly, extremely productive. Super fast and super stable, too. There was nothing out of ordinary, no problems. Suspend and resume worked without any issues, the system blazed at the speed of light, and with maybe ten minutes of work, you can transform it into anything you want. Docks, menus, new fonts, new themes, all there, just waiting for you. Total freedom and fun.

            There can’t be a perfect score, because the associated problems do not allow it. But assuming you had this distro given to you, and someone bothered to install the needed Samba package that normal people require, it would be an excellent alternative to many other mainstream releases. Highly polished, slick, and almost overwhelmingly simple and easy to use. The grade is something like 9.0/10, but it can do better. I demand it. For you, this is an excellent test bed. Go for it.

          • Flavours and Variants

            • Linux Mint 17.1 `Rebecca` Available For Download

              Linux Mint 17.1 “Rebecca” has been released and is available as usual in two main editions: MATE and Cinnamon. Let’s take a look at what’s new!

            • Just a few more days before 17.1

              The ISO images for the Cinnamon and MATE editions of Linux Mint 17.1 “Rebecca” just passed QA testing and were approved for a stable release. This release should go public in the coming days.

              If you are running Linux Mint 17.1 RC, you do not need to wait for the stable release, and you do not need to reinstall. You can simply use the Update Manager to install any level 1 update you haven’t installed already.

            • Linux Mint 17.1 “Rebecca” Cinnamon released!
            • Linux Mint 17.1 “Rebecca” MATE released!
            • Do you smell the minty goodness? Linux Mint 17.1 ‘Rebecca’ is finally here!

              Christmas is coming, which means lots of festivities are about to happen. For me, however, the holiday is all about one thing — smells. No, I’m not crazy, although many will disagree. What I mean to say is, the smells of Christmas resonate with me more than any other aspect. Of course, the smell of pine trees conjure images of decorated trees with gifts underneath, but don’t forget the smells of cookies baking and grandma’s perfume. All of these scents comes together to culminate Christmastime.

            • Linux Mint 17.1 Cinnamon Is Out and the Best So Far – Screenshot Tour

              Linux Mint 17.1 “Rebecca” Cinnamon has been released and is now available for download. The new version of the operating system features a major update for the desktop environment, along with a multitude of other upgrades.

  • Devices/Embedded

    • Imagination brings virtualised Linux security to the Internet of Things

      IMAGINATION TECHNOLOGIES has announced the creation of a tiny hypervisor rig to power its MIPS-based CPUs.

      The joint venture with Japanese firm Seltech saw the Fexerox hypervisor embedded firmware from Seltech paired with an Imagination MIPSM5150 CPU to create a virtualised environment, allowing multiple operating systems to run independently off a single unit packed into a tiny space.

    • Rugged box-PC runs Linux on quad-core 2.1GHz Core i7

      An MPL spokesperson confirmed in an email that the “PIP39 as well as all other MPL CPU products are fully Linux supported.” Although a specific version was not mentioned, the PIP39 presumably is supported with the same Debian Linux distribution that’s available with the company’s CEC10 system.

    • Hands-on with the Raspberry Pi Model B+

      There have been a several interesting new hardware announcements from the Raspberry Pi Foundation this year. Sometimes I wonder how they do it all – with so much involvement in education, development of new hardware and software, and the many Pi user groups and events. It really is quite impressive.

    • Raspberry Pi and Coder by Google for beginners and kids

      Coder is an experiment for Raspberry Pi, built by a small team of Googlers in New York. It converts a Raspberry Pi into a friendly environment for learning web programming. It is ideal for beginners and requires absolutely no experience with coding.

    • Phones

      • Tizen

      • Android

        • Preview: Office for Android tablets is like Office for iPad, but on Android

          Google’s Docs, Sheets, and Slides apps are a lot of things—they’re fast, they’re convenient, and they’re available on both iOS and Android—but you couldn’t call them “powerful.” Even the Web versions of Google’s productivity software are pretty basic compared with the feature-stuffed behemoth that is Microsoft Office, and the mobile apps are minimalist by comparison.

        • CuBox-i4Pro: A whole lotta Linux or Android for not a whole lotta cash

          I recently reviewed the Hummingboard, an excellent, low-priced single board computer that competes in the same market as the the Raspberry Pi. Recently the manufacturer of the Hummingboard, SolidRun, sent me one of their new products to check out: The CuBox-i4Pro.

        • 35 Android Apps for Pure Fun

          Why, yes, of course you have apps on your Android phone and tablet. But most of these Android apps are for work or purely practical reasons, right? All work and no play not only makes you dull but it’s actually bad for your health. (Isn’t there a study somewhere that supports that?) So, in the interest of health and the joy of nonsense, here are 35 Android apps that have only one purpose: fun!

Free Software/Open Source

  • Robocoin Bitcoin ATMs Can Now Run Lamassu Open Source Software

    Robocoin Bitcoin ATM operators now have a new attractive alternative to abiding by Robocoin’s new compliance standards. In response to Robocoin’s move to enforce AML/KYC compliance for all of its ATM operators (even non-American ones), some Bitcoin enthusiasts have banded together to port Lamassu’s open source Bitcoin ATM software to run on Robocoin’s hardware.

  • Enjoy the New ReactOS Explorer

    The new ReactOS Explorer is much more compatible, stable, and comes with more features than the current (and now old) explorer. We expect it to be a big quality jump in terms of usability, and the rockstar feature of the upcoming 0.4 release. Just keep reading to discover more about it!

  • India’s offline mobile internet is going open source

    “By giving away the source code, we can ignite the creative energies of the entire developer community and fuel unprecedented levels of innovation in the SMS market. Customers can benefit from world-class technology advancements, the development community gains access to a whole new market opportunity and Innoz core businesses benefit from licensing it with telecom operators.”

  • Events

    • LinuxDay 2014 Dornbirn

      Again the Fedora Project was present at the LinuxDay at Dornbirn (a small linux event near the German, Swiss, and Austrian border beside the Lake Constance). I arrived some minutes before the event started. Matthias Summer was already there and prepared the booth. Well, there was not much to prepare.

    • Learn about open source software in Bernardsville

  • Web Browsers

    • 4 Cutting Edge Web Browsers

      The usage share of web browsers is dominated by a few mature applications. Chrome, Internet Explorer, Firefox, Safari and Opera account for around 95% of all desktop web browsing activity. However, there are a myriad of other web browsers that are worth investigating.

    • Mozilla

  • SaaS/Big Data

    • Open Cloud Alliance Rallies Open Source Community

      To assist with maintaining the interoperability of open source software, IBM and Univention have formed the Open Cloud Alliance (OCA), a consortium that is dedicated to reducing the cost of open source interoperability of open source software deployed in cloud computing environments.

  • BSD

    • Failed attempts to dual-boot PC-BSD 10.1 with Windows 8

      So it appears that the installation attempt failed at that point because the correct gpart option was not specified. The -i option is used to run gpart interactively, but why it’s necessary to use it in the graphical application? In any case, I’ll be logging a bug report.

    • FreeBSD Plans For The Next Ten Years

      Jordan Hubbard, the co-founder of FreeBSD and CTO of iXsystems, gave a talk at this month’s MeetBSD California 2014 conference about the next ten years of FreeBSD.

  • FSF/FSFE/GNU/SFLC

    • The 2014 Giving Guide is here!

      Today, we’re launching the 2014 Giving Guide, the Free Software Foundation (FSF) guide to smarter gifts, compared with their restrictive counterparts.

  • Project Releases

  • Openness/Sharing

Leftovers

  • Pigs can’t fly: Passenger escorted off US flight after 80-pound ‘emotional support’ hog is disruptive

  • Security

  • Defence/Police/Secrecy/Aggression

    • Letter: US military’s drone policy worth fighting

      “(My husband Michael Pike died in September of Agent Orange related cancer.) My husband was Special Forces in Vietnam and came to regret his role in the war and what the U.S. government did. I am here today in loving memory of that fine man to ask you to stop your role in the kill chain which uses the Northrup Grumman Global Hawk drone to identify human targets for extrajudicial execution. This is neither lawful (international and higher law) nor moral and you must know that. Horrible acts, like drone strikes, lead to the atrocities we see now. Inhumanity engenders inhumanity.

    • Egyptian Judges Dismiss Charges Against Mubarak
    • Obama’s dangerous embrace of war

      The fact that the U.S. today is increasing its military action in Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria, after a decade of intense warfare in the region, should be a reason for American officials and the public alike to ask some serious questions about how they use their military power around the world. The biggest problem that we see confirmed again this week is that American military action in distant lands usually only turns those lands into chaotic, dysfunctional, ungoverned and violent places. In the chaos that follows such warfare a new danger now steps in – militant Islamist killers such as Al-Qaeda and ISIS.

    • In Congo, peacekeepers at war

      Since Congo’s civil war broke out in 1994, it has become the world’s deadliest conflict, pitting neighboring governments and dozens of local warlords in a free-for-all over the prodigious profits to be made in eastern Congo’s mines. According to demographers, 5.4 million Congolese died during just one stretch from 1998 to 2006.

    • New Australian terrorism bill to facilitate targeted military killings

      …Australian Senate has signed off another “counter-terrorism” bill that grants unprecedented powers to the intelligence and military apparatus.

    • £120m deal to promote a form of terror

      The International Business Times reported this month that British and French governments have signed a £120 million pound deal to develop a military drone – aka unmanned combat air system – following a two-year feasibility study. The combat drone could be deployed from 2030.

    • “Global” Terrorism

      Sure enough, there are now half a dozen Canadian planes bombing ISIS jihadis in Iraq (although it’s unlikely that either of the Canadian attackers, both converts to radical Islam, had any contact with foreign terrorist organizations). But Harper has got the logic completely backwards.

      The purpose of major terrorist activities directed at the West, from the 9/11 attacks to ISIS videos, is not to “cow” or “intimidate” Western countries. It is to get those countries to bomb Muslim countries or, better yet, invade them. The terrorists want to come to power in Muslim countries, not in Canada or Britain or the US. And the best way to establish your revolutionary credentials and recruit local supporters is to get the West to attack you.

    • Terrorists actually welcome attacks from the West
    • Giving terrorists what they want
    • Why terrorists love Western intervention

  • Transparency Reporting

    • Icelandic hacker says guilty of stealing money from Wikileaks

      An Icelandic computer hacker and former associate of Wikileaks founder Julian Assange unexpectedly pleaded guilty on Wednesday to embezzling 30 million Icelandic crowns ($240,000) from the organization.

    • Siggi “The Hacker” ad­mits guilty to all charges

      The case against Siggi “The Hacker” has un­der­gone a sharp turn-around. Siggi has de­cided to change his plea to “Guilty”. Charges against him amount to thirty pages of em­bez­zle­ment and fraud amount­ing to thirty mil­lion kro­nas.

      Orig­i­nally Siggi pleaded “Not Guilty” and the main trial was to take place in Reyk­janes dis­trict court next week. His lawyer, Vil­hjál­mur H.Vil­hjálms­son said at court to­day that “Af­ter go­ing over the charges thor­oughly and speak­ing with my client he has de­cided to plead guilty to all charges.”

  • Environment/Energy/Wildlife

    • Oil Price Fall: Saudi Arabia Targets U.S. Shale Oil, Iran, Iraq, Russia

      It is clear that among the major losers in the fall in the price of Brent crude petroleum from $115 a barrel last summer to about $75 a barrel today are Russia, Iraq and Iran. Petroleum sales are 50% of Russia’s income, and are also central for Iran and Iraq.

      But the big loser will likely be shale oil producers and prospectors in the US, who probably cannot make a profit if the price falls into the 60s.

      The cause of the fall, by $40 a barrel, in petroleum prices since last summer is almost completely on the demand side. Asian economies, especially China, are dramatically slowing, and won’t be requiring as much petroleum to fuel trucks, trains and cars to deliver people and goods around the country. Most petroleum is used to fuel transport. Some is used for heating or cooling, as in Saudi Arabia and Hawaii, but that practice is relatively rare. US journalists seem to feel it obligatory to mention US shale oil production as a contributor to the price fall, since prices are a matter of supply and demand, and US supply has increased by a couple million barrels a day. But frankly that is a minor increase in world terms– global production is roughly 90 million barrels a day. Between Iran, Iraq (Kirkuk), Libya and Syria, enough oil has gone out of production to more than offset the additional American oil. It isn’t that there is more oil being pumped, it is that the world doesn’t want it as much because of cooling economies.

  • Finance

  • Censorship

    • China writer goes on trial for media censorship protest after long delay

      The long-awaited trial of a prominent Chinese writer and activist resumed in southern China on Friday, more than two months after his lawyers boycotted an earlier hearing with Beijing showing little sign of easing its clampdown against rights campaigners.

    • Chinese Activists Go on Trial for Protesting Media Censorship; Lawyers Claim Human Rights Violation

      Feixiong, whose original name is Yang Maodong, was charged for ‘gathering crowds to disturb public order’ after he organized protests outside the office of the Southern Weekly newspaper last January. Activist Sun Desheng, who was part of the protest, was also arrested.

    • Censorship distortion of ‘comfort women’

      The U.S. Occupation censored Taijiro Tamura’s 1947 story “The Life of an Alluring Woman” (Shunpu den) for describing Korean prostitutes in a war zone. The Civil Information and Education Section with censorship power decided that identifying the nationality of the prostitutes constituted “criticism” of that nation.

    • Lessons On Censorship From Syria’s Internet Filter Machines

      Organizations such as Reporters Without Borders, Freedom House, or the Open Net Initiative periodically report on the extent of censorship worldwide. But as countries that are fond of censorship are not particularly keen to share details, we must resort to probing filtered networks, that is, generating requests from within them to see what gets blocked and what gets through. We cannot hope to record all the possible censorship-triggering events, so our understanding of what is or isn’t acceptable to the censor will only ever be partial. And of course it’s risky, even outright illegal, to probe the censor’s limits within countries with strict censorship and surveillance programs.

      This is why the leak of 600GB of logs from hardware appliances used to filter internet traffic in and out of Syria is a unique opportunity to examine the workings of a real-world internet censorship apparatus.

    • Council member objects to museum’s “pornographic” photo

      A nude photo of a pregnant woman at a local art museum has drawn the ire of a Jacksonville council member.

      Emails obtained by First Coast News shed light on the nude photo that has city council member Clay Yarborough calling for the City of Jacksonville to pull nearly $233,000 worth of funding designated for the Jacksonville Museum of Contemporary Art.

    • The Story Behind Iran’s Censorship Redirect Page
    • Morehshin Allahyari’s Art on Iranian Censorship Will Soon Be Out of This World
    • Europe wants Google to expand ‘right to be forgotten’ censorship to global search

      Google should start applying the European Union’s “right to be forgotten” to its global, .com domain, European privacy regulators say.

      European data protection authorities in the so-called Article 29 Working Party (WP29) have compiled a set of guidelines detailing how search engines should apply a court ruling that gave Europeans the right to be forgotten by search engines. As of the May decision, EU citizens have the right to compel search engines to remove search results in Europe for queries that include their names if the results are “inadequate, irrelevant or no longer relevant, or excessive.”

    • EU demands “right to be forgotten” goes international
    • EU wants ‘right to be forgotten’ applied globally

      Privacy watchdogs in Europe say the controversial ruling, which affects only local European versions of Google’s search engine, should be applied more broadly.

    • When (if ever) is media censorship justifiable?

      How does one measure the degree to which content is ‘inappropriate’ or ‘harmful’? Are there cases where media censorship is justifiable?

    • Russia’s Freest Website Now Lives in Latvia

      Moscow-based Editor in Chief Galina Timchenko was fired for ‘extremism’ after running an article on Ukraine. So she and her staff packed up shop and moved west.

  • Privacy

    • Germany Signs No-Spy Deal with BlackBerry

      Germany has approved BlackBerry’s purchase of encryption firm Secusmart after signing a “no-spy” agreement with the Canadian smartphone maker.

      Duesseldorf-based Secusmart provides special smartphones to German government officials that are meant to be safe from eavesdropping.

    • Big Data Ethics and Your Privacy [INFOGRAPHIC]

      But access to data is not the only important aspect of Big Data ethics. The fact that our privacy is not for granted any more became quite clear after the NSA files were made public in the summer of 2013. All of a sudden it was public knowledge that the governments basically had unlimited acces to all of your data. But not only governments have access to your data. Many of the largest organisations that you interact with every day know probably more about you than you do yourself. Google, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn know a lot about you, because you provide that information to them. Although Facebook just released a new, simpeler, privacy policy that does not mean that they collect less data about you. On the contrary; they want to collect a lot more data about you.

    • UK spy base GCHQ tapped Irish internet cables

      New documents released this week via the National Security Agency whistleblower Edward Snowden outline how Irish subsea telecommunications cables have been targeted by British intelligence.

      The documents detail a whole series of underwater cables – essentially the backbone that connects Ireland to the globe – that are being tapped.

    • Europe’s next privacy war is with websites silently tracking users

      The pan-European data regulator group Article 29 has issued new opinion on how websites and advertisers can track users and the permissions they require.

      The new opinion dictates that “device fingerprinting” – a process of silently collecting information about a user – requires the same level of consent as cookies that are used to track users across the internet.

    • The UK’s Real Intelligence Failure

      That is, the Home Office wants CSPs based outside the UK (Internet companies like Google, Facebook, Twitter etc.) to co-operate with the UK government in the same way as UK-based ones by handing over any requested information. But the Home Office itself admits that any US company doing so would breach the US Wiretap Act. Which means that the Home Office seriously expects US companies and their officers to risk punishment by the US government just because the UK wants easy access to information.

    • No Halt to the Sharing of Medical Records

      Despite uncovering thousands of cases of patient information being wrongly disclosed to third parties a recent review into the sharing of medical records with private sector companies endorses the practice.

    • NHS to carry on selling patient records to insurers

      The National Health Service will continue to sell medical data to insurers and other third parties despite an investigation that has discovered tens of thousands of patient records were unlawfully sold.

      Fears were raised earlier this year that patient records were being misused and sold to insurers, and the Government amended the law to restrict access to data.

      The report from an eight-month inquiry has found tens of thousands of records were wrongly passed to third parties.

    • Germans end investigation into Merkel phone tapping
    • How to stop NSA from snooping on you

      The first thing to know about securing your phone is that you can’t secure your phone.

    • Panel probing NSA surveillance finds legal loophole that lets German intel spy on own citizens

      German lawmakers probing the surveillance activities of the U.S. National Security Agency have uncovered a legal loophole that allows the country’s foreign intelligence agency to spy on its own citizens.

      The agency, known by its German acronym BND, is normally forbidden from eavesdropping on Germans or German companies.

      But a former BND lawyer told Parliament this week that Germans aren’t protected while working abroad for foreign companies.

      The government confirmed Saturday to The Associated Press that work-related calls or emails are attributed to the employer. If the employer is foreign, the BND can intercept them.

    • Edward Snowden Revelations Not Having Much Impact on Internet Users

      Despite the shocking revelations by Edward Snowden about the degree of surveillance carried out by the US National Security Agency (NSA), most internet users across the world do not appear to be taking proper measures to be safe online.

    • The bigger the haystack, the harder the terrorist is to find

      The UK parliament’s intelligence and security committee report this week into the murder of Lee Rigby described British intelligence and law enforcement agencies’ multiple failures to prevent the terrible crime.

      Rigby’s killers together had figured in seven prior surveillance operations during the course of which officials learned that one of them had travelled to Kenya in an attempt to join the al-Qaida-linked al-Shabaab.

      The shocking failures and bungling that ensued in the years the two men were tracked is, tellingly, chalked up to the “extreme pressure” brought on by the fact that at any one time, MI5 is investigating several thousand individuals suspected of links to Islamic extremist activities in Britain.

  • Civil Rights

  • Internet/Net Neutrality

    • Global net neutrality pact hopes to silence European malcontents

      THE ELECTRONIC FREEDOM FOUNDATION has announced a worldwide coalition of organisations dedicated to the fight for net neutrality.

      The Global Net Neutrality Coalition defines the term thus: “Net neutrality requires that the internet be maintained as an open platform, on which network providers treat all content, applications and services equally, without discrimination.”

      Comprising 25 organisations from 19 countries, the coalition will use its site as a repository for information regarding net neutrality laws and legislation in given territories, along with advice on petitioning the relevant authorities to preserve an equal internet for all.

  • DRM

    • Buy from Amazon and Apple and it’s you that ends up owned

      Readers of Nick Hornby’s debut novel High Fidelity will remember that much of it takes place in a record shop on Holloway Road called Championship Vinyl. Not surprisingly, Hollywood deemed Holloway a postcode too far when it adapted the 1995 book. The studio installed John Cusack and his music-buff sidekick in a sunny gaff in Chicago. At least, in 2000, Hornby’s obsessive blokes still sold rotating plastic discs. A decade later, the film business would have treated any story set in a music or bookshop as an antique period piece to feature (if at all) alongside samurai yarns or Roman sword-and-sandal epics.

  • Intellectual Monopolies

    • Copyrights

      • Music publishers finally pull the trigger, sue an ISP over piracy

        BMG Rights Management and Round Hill Music have sued Cox Communications for copyright infringement, arguing that the Internet service provider doesn’t do enough to punish those who download music illegally.

        Both BMG and Round Hill are clients of Rightscorp, a copyright enforcement agent whose business is based on threatening ISPs with a high-stakes lawsuit if they don’t forward settlement notices to users that Rightscorp believes are “repeat infringers” of copyright.

      • Cox Communications Sued For Not Disconnecting Pirates

        Cox Communications, one of the largest telecoms companies in the U.S., is being sued by a pair of music publishers for refusing to disconnect persistent music pirates. Evidence in the case is being provided by Rightscorp, who say that ISPs lose their safe harbor protections if they fail to take action against repeat infringers.

]]> http://techrights.org/2014/11/30/new-mint-linux-releases/feed/ 0 Links 3/9/2014: Android Gadgets, New Tails OS http://techrights.org/2014/09/03/new-tails-os/ http://techrights.org/2014/09/03/new-tails-os/#comments Wed, 03 Sep 2014 23:59:55 +0000 http://techrights.org/?p=79227

GNOME bluefish

Contents

GNU/Linux

  • China Plans To Oust Windows

    However, there are also good commercial reasons. Most of China’s mobile phone manufacturers make use of Android and, even if the OS is nominally free and open source, we all know that it is still very much Google’s. An OS controlled by Chinese manufacturers makes sense. What is surprising is that there have already been a number of attempts at creating a Chinese operating system – Red Flag in 2000 eventually ran out of funds and COS China Operating System was launched as an Android replacement.

  • 10 Answers To The Most Frequently Asked Linux Questions On Google

    Go to Google and type in a query. As you type you will notice that Google suggests some questions and topics for you.

    The suggestions that appear are based on the most searched for topics based on the keywords provided. There is a caviat and that is each person may receive a slightly different list based on things they have naturally searched for in the past.

    The concept of todays article is to provide answers to the most commonly asked questions using terms such as Why is Linux, What does Linux, Can Linux and Which Linux.

  • Server

    • Parallels to line up with Linux containers

      Parallels is working to bring its automation, security and management wares to the burgeoning world of Linux containerisation.

      The junior virtualiser finds itself in an interesting position vis a vis Linux containers and Docker, because it has long described its own Virtuozzo product as offering containers. But Virtuozzo is closer to conventional virtualisation than containerisation, because it wraps an operating system rather than just an application.

    • Bringing new security features to Docker

      In the first of this series on Docker security, I wrote “containers do not contain.” In this second article, I’ll cover why and what we’re doing about it.

      Docker, Red Hat, and the open source community are working together to make Docker more secure. When I look at security containers, I am looking to protect the host from the processes within the container, and I’m also looking to protect containers from each other. With Docker we are using the layered security approach, which is “the practice of combining multiple mitigating security controls to protect resources and data.”

      Basically, we want to put in as many security barriers as possible to prevent a break out. If a privileged process can break out of one containment mechanism, we want to block them with the next. With Docker, we want to take advantage of as many security mechanisms of Linux as possible.

      Luckily, with Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 7, we get a plethora of security features.

    • Clusterbit Developed the World’s Smallest Datacenter

      The project began in March 2014 with both co-geeks Raffi Manoian and Zohrab Tavitian who founded Clusterbit. They decided to cram 8 credit card size servers into a little box and develop an open source platform where home enthusiasts, IT professionals, Linux technicians as well as high-end users can explore new possibilities.

    • Edge-Core Networks Accelerates Open Networking with Integrated Cumulus Linux Worldwide

  • Kernel Space

    • Linux kernel developer arrested in Russia

      Dmitry Monakhov apparently jailed for public protest against Ukraine conflict.

    • Kernel Developer Arrested in Russia for Protesting Against the Invasion of Ukraine – Gallery

      It’s not a secret that Russia doesn’t like democratic protesters and this was amply demonstrated in the last few years. Now, it looks like one of the kernel developers has been arrested in Russia while he was protesting against Ukraine’s invasion.

    • Sony backs AllSeen Alliance in Internet of Stuff standards slap-fight

      Sony has cast its lot with the AllSeen Alliance in the ongoing standards squabble over the pervasive-computing future tech known as the Internet of Things (IoT).

    • Sony Joins AllSeen Internet of Things Alliance
    • Systemd Controversy Not Going Away Quietly

      If you thought the systemd argument was settled, I’m not sure you’d be correct. Paul Venezia is back on the case today saying folks are continuing to blog, thread, mailing list, and forum about their problems with systemd. Katherine Noyes noted the trend in her Blog Safari today as well. Her first example says Linux is being turned into “OS X or even Windows.”

    • New Group Calls For Boycotting Systemd

      A new project has been established that’s trying to boycott systemd and the Linux distributions utilizing systemd.

    • Fanning the Flames of the Systemd Inferno

      They say art imitates life, but it’s surprising how often the same can be said of the Linux blogs.

      Case in point: Just as the world at large is filled today with fiery strife — Gaza, Ukraine, Syria, Ferguson — so, too, is the Linux blogosphere. Of course, it’s not political, social or racial struggles tearing the FOSS community apart. Rather, the dividing issue here is none other than Systemd.

      Systemd is a topic that’s been discussed in heated terms many times before, of course — including a lively debate here in the Linux Blog Safari back in May.

    • Is systemd as bad as boycott systemd is trying to make it?

      From just a purely end-user perspective, systemd is an application that I’ve come to like a lot. And I think that its adoption by all Linux distributions will make it easier to manage Linux systems.

      But it has come under heavy criticism from some quarters – for trying to be a Swiss-army-knife-type application. One that does practically anything and everything, which the critics claim is against the UNIX/Linux philosophy of coding an application to do one thing and do it well.

    • Intel Lands More Graphics Changes For Linux 3.18

      For the Linux 3.18 kernel Intel has ready some more DRM graphics driver changes beyond the exciting work already sent into drm-next.

    • Linus Torvalds: Respect should be earned [part1 from DebConf 14]

      Linux is also one of the oldest technologies which is growing strong day by day; Linux has been around for more than two decades (23 years to be precise) and it dominates virtually every space. It’s also one of those few open source technologies which are still being lead by their creators.

    • Graphics Stack

      • Trying Intel OpenCL On Linux For Video Encoding

        Following my testing and reporting last weekend about Intel Beignet starting to provide very usable open-source OpenCL support on Linux, one of the most common requests was to next see if this Intel OpenCL Linux supprot benefits x264 encoding at all.

      • GSoC 2014 Yielded Some Improvements For Mesa/X.Org This Year

        Google’s annual Summer of Code project ended last month and I’ve been meaning to write a brief update about the work done by the student open-source developers on their X.Org-related work.

      • AMD Releases Updated Catalyst Linux Graphics Driver (v14.30)

        Those dependent upon AMD’s proprietary Linux graphics driver have a new Catalyst update to play with today.

        Launched yesterday by AMD was the Radeon R9 285 “Tonga” graphics card, a GPU that’s derived from their Tahiti GPU core. The Radeon R9 285 has a $249 price point and comes in 2GB and 4GB GDDR5 versions. Unfortunately we weren’t seeded with any Radeon R9 285 so don’t know how well this new Rx 200 series graphics card works under Linux, but they released a Catalyst update that appears to support the new hardware for Linux users.

    • Benchmarks

      • littler is faster at doing nothing!

        With yesterday’s announcement of littler 0.2.0, I kept thinking about a few not-so-frequently-asked but recurring questions about littler. And an obvious one if of course the relationship to Rscript.

        As we have pointed out before, littler preceded Rscript. Now, with Rscript being present in every R installation, it is of course by now more widely known.

      • Running Gallium3D’s LLVMpipe On The Eight-Core 5GHz CPU

        Having an eight-core CPU that can clock up to 5.0GHz (albeit having a 220 Watt TDP), curiosity got the best of me to run some quick (or slow) Gallium3D LLVMpipe tests just to see how this software fall-back driver performs.

      • GCC 5.0 Outruns LLVM 3.5 Compiler By A Bit On Core-AVX2

        In anticipation of the LLVM 3.5 release that brings a number of new compiler features — including possible performance improvements from our benchmarking done earlier today — here’s some benchmarks comparing LLVM Clang 3.5 RC3 to a recent SVN snapshot of the GCC 5.0 compiler that’s presently under development.

  • Applications

  • Desktop Environments/WMs

    • K Desktop Environment/KDE SC/Qt

      • INTERMEDIATE RESULTS OF THE ICON TESTS: BREEZE

        The introduction of the new Breeze icon set in KDE let us again wonder, what aspects of an icon set actually takes what impact on the usability of it. We investigated Oxygen and Tango Icons for the LibreOffice project before, but our focus then was on checking all icons of the standard tool bar. This time we focus on different icon sets and will use 13 common actions to compare them.

    • GNOME Desktop/GTK

      • The GNOME Foundation’s 2013 annual report

        The GNOME Foundation has put out its annual report for 2013 as a 24-page PDF file. “As you will see when you read this annual report, there have been a lot of great things that have happened for the GNOME Foundation during this period. Two new companies joined our advisory board, the Linux Foundation and Private Internet Access. The work funded by our accessibility campaign was completed and we ran a successful campaign for privacy. During this period, there was a fantastic Board of Directors, a dedicated Engagement team (who worked so hard to put this report together), and the conference teams (GNOME.Asia, GUADEC and the Montreal Summit) knocked it out of the park. Most importantly, we’ve had an influx of contributors, more so than I’ve seen in some time.”

      • gedit 3.14 for OS X (preview)

        If you’re reading this through planet GNOME, you’ll probably remember Ignacio talking about gedit 3 for windows. The windows port has always been difficult to maintain, especially due to gedit and its dependencies being a fast moving target, as well as the harsh build environment. Having seen his awesome work on such a difficult platform, I felt pretty bad about the general state of the OS X port of gedit.

      • Raspberry Pi gets a brand new browser
      • Epiphany Browser For Raspberry Pi (Raspbian) Got Improved HTML5 Support

        As you may know, Raspberry Pi is an ARM single-board computer with the size of a credit card, being available in three variants: model A, model B and model B+.

      • Raspberry Pi Now Has a Much Faster Web Browser

        Raspberry Pi is powered by a wealth of operating systems, but there is also an official one called Raspbian, which is based on Debian, as the name implies. The developers have now released a new web browser that should be much faster.

  • Distributions

    • Simplicity Linux 14.10 Alpha Is an OS Based on Slacko 5.9.3 and Linux kernel 3.15.4

      The developers of Simplicity Linux have based their system on Slacko 5.9.3 and they are using the 3.15.4 Linux kernel. This kernel is one of the newest available and should provide adequate hardware support for the latest devices. Also, unlike previous releases in the series, the new version covers only two flavors, Netbook and Desktop.

    • How Many Linux Distros Are On the Top Ten?

      This means, in a way, that we can say that DistroWatch’s top ten distro list only contains five unique distros.

    • New Releases

      • Tails OS 1.1.1 update fixes some major bugs

        Today, the Tails OS was updated to version 1.1.1, bringing with it some critical security patches. In this release we see Tor updated to 0.2.4.23 which tries to protect users from entities who control your first and last node and can then see who you are and where you’re going, this patch changes the rotation rates to help protect from this sort of attack.

      • Tails 1.1.1 Screenshot Tour

    • PCLinuxOS/Mageia/Mandrake/Mandriva Family

      • September 2014 Issue of The PCLinuxOS Magazine Released

        The PCLinuxOS Magazine is a product of the PCLinuxOS community, published
        by volunteers from the community. The magazine is lead by Paul Arnote, Chief Editor,
        and Assistant Editor Meemaw. The PCLinuxOS Magazine is released under the
        Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-Share-Alike 3.0 Unported license,
        and some rights are reserved.

    • Red Hat Family

      • Red Hat to Webcast Results for Second Quarter Fiscal Year 2015
      • Red Hat Named As One of World’s Most Innovative Companies

        Red Hat, Inc. (NYSE: RHT), the world’s leading provider of open source solutions, today announced that the company has been named one of the “World’s Most Innovative Companies” by Forbes magazine. Forbes named Red Hat the 12th most innovative company on its global list, and the eighth most innovative company in North America. Red Hat was one of only two enterprise IT systems software companies recognized by Forbes.

      • Open source not just software at Red Hat

        My internship at Red Hat has not only advanced my knowledge and skills of Linux but also about the concept of open source. When I first started experimenting with Linux, I downloaded a copy of a Debian ISO to share a partition on my Windows machine. While researching Linux, the phrase “open source” would often appear on blogs, articles, and on quick “how-to” YouTube tutorials. I would soon come to realize what that term really meant.

      • Red Hat: Open source “more secure” than proprietary

        Open source technologies are “more secure” than software that is developed in a proprietary way, Red Hat’s JBoss middleware business unit general manager, Mike Piech, said in a meeting with journalists.

        On the one hand, open source software code is freely available, which means that hackers will see how to hack it. But, on the other, there is also a vast community of people working to maintain open source software security.

      • DISA awards open-source BPA to DLT

        Herndon, Virginia-based DLT solutions on Sept. 3 announced the award of a five-year blanket purchase agreement through the Defense Information Systems Agency for Red Hat enterprise software and services.

        The award comes under the Defense Department’s broader enterprise software initiative, a Pentagon plan to cut costs associated with common-use, commercial off-the-shelf software.

        The agreement, worth up to $40 million through June 2019, covers the procurement of Red Hat open-source software and services for use by DoD and intelligence agencies. DLT is a reseller of government IT software and services. The award includes Red Hat offerings for Linux, virtualization, storage and certain cloud capabilities, according to a release from DLT.

      • Fedora

        • [GNU IceCat] browser is (finally) on Fedora

          GNU Icecat will be available on Fedora updates-testing repositories for some days. That’s right time to test harshly this new web browser (really it’s not so new considering it’s a fork of Firefox) and leave a positive/negative karma or open a bug.

        • Fedora’s New Project Leader Plots What’s Next

          On June 3, Matthew Miller was named as the new Fedora Project Leader, succeeding the outgoing Robyn Bergeron. Over the last several months, Miller has settled into his role of running Red Hat’s community project and is overseeing one of the biggest changes in the project’s history.

    • Debian Family

      • Debian GNU/Linux, The Distro I Love

        Debian is more than software. It’s 1K+ developers doing stuff I don’t have to do, bringing together thousands of software packages and providing an installer and package-manager to provide a pleasant installation, management and usage experience. Debian is also democratic and open. I can see their rules, their known bugs and what they’re doing about them, just like a modern political democracy, thriving and true.

      • Why Linus Torvalds doesn’t use Ubuntu or Debian [Part 2 DebConf]

        It’s well known that Linus once tried Debian, way back in 2007, and found it hard to install. One of the attendees during the Q&A session of DebConf 2014 asked if he tried it lately. The creator of Linux replied that while he didn’t give Debian a try lately he was sure that it has become much easier to install Debian.

      • Derivatives

        • Canonical/Ubuntu

          • Canonical Releases Ubuntu Developer Tools Center, Makes It Easy To Install Android Studio And Android SDK In Ubuntu

            Canonical wants to make developers who create applications for platforms other than Ubuntu feel at home. In a recent article posted on his blog, +Didier Roche, Software Engineer at Canonical, writes: “Ubuntu loves developers and we are going to showcase it by making Ubuntu the best available developer platform!”.

          • Unity 8 and Mir Updates Show Great Progress

            Unity 8 and Mir are the technologies that are going to be the forefront of the upcoming Ubuntu releases and they are updated constantly. They are still pretty far off from a desktop implementation, but the progress made by the developers is visible.

            Canonical is now focusing all their efforts to develop a stable and shippable Ubuntu Touch image for the phones that will arrive in just a few months. This means that developers are working around the clock to fix the problems and other various bugs that plague the Ubuntu for phones operating system.

          • Ubuntu Touch: Canonical Is Focusing On The RTM Branch. The Scope Management Experience Has Been Improved

            While new features and changes are first tested on the devel branch and get moved to the stable one when they are stable enough, the RTM branch does not get new features, only security and stability fixes.

            While there is no official release date for the Ubuntu Touch powered phones, they should be released this Autumn, if everything goes as scheduled.

          • With its powerful octa-core chip and unusual display, Meizu MX4 is great – but can it “handle” Ubuntu Touch?

            Yesterday Meizu announced its latest flagship device, the MX4, and we love it. This bad boy comes with a 5.36-inch IPS display with unusual resolution of 1920 x 1152 pixels; that’s 418 PPI for those who count these sort of things.

            MediaTek’s brand-new MT6595 octa-core chip is providing the processing power needed to run things smoothly. Said SoC rocks four high-performance Cortex-A17 and four energy-efficient Cortex-A7 cores. This combo can apparently score as high as 47,000 points at the popular benchmark website AnTuTu; so yes, future owners of the MX4 will get one fast phone.

          • Ubuntu Wants to Be the Best Development Platform for Android Apps

            Canonical is looking to befriend the Android developers by becoming the development platform of choice. In this regard, the Ubuntu developers have implemented a simple way of getting the latest Android Studio (beta) and Android SDK, with all the required dependencies.

          • Canonical is Testing a Big New OpenStack Cloud Play: BootStack

            Canonical has a new spin on its OpenStack plans. The company is rolling out BootStack, which is a managed service offering currently in private beta testing. Through BootStack, Canonical wants to help customers build, support and manage OpenStack-centric clouds for a fee of $15 per server per day.

          • Canonical Releases Mir 0.7 Display Server

            While Ubuntu 14.10 is still sticking to the X.Org Server by default on the desktop, an updated version of Mir is now available for early adopters and those running the Ubuntu mobile stack.

          • Canonical BootStack Will Build & Manage Your OpenStack Cloud

            Mark Shuttleworth announced earlier this year “Your Cloud” as a paid service by Canonical to build and manage OpenStack cloud deployments. Your Cloud has turned into BootStack and is rolling forward for those that wish to have Canonical build out and manage their cloud computing environment.

            BootStack aims to “take away the pain of cloud management” by building, supporting, and managing clouds. Canonical will build a cloud for you either within your data center / premises or hosted by IBM’s Softlayer. The cloud will be built to your needs and on the hardware of your choosing.

          • BootStack – taking away the pain of cloud management

            BootStack (short for: build, operate, and optionally transfer) is the new offer from Canonical to round up its cloud offering. Utilising their experience in working with some of the world’s leading telcos and enterprises to build OpenStack clouds, Canonical experts will design and build your OpenStack cloud in predictable time and on budget. Canonical will manage the cloud for you for a fixed price, relieving you from the pain of recruiting and training OpenStack staff. When your team is ready to take over your cloud operations, Canonical will transfer it to your care. It’s the best way to get up and running quickly on OpenStack.

          • Ubuntu Touch Now Has a Torrent Client in the Ubuntu Store

  • Devices/Embedded

    • Android mini-PC jumps on Cortex-A17 trend

      Tronsmart has launched an $80-and-up “Orion R28″ mini-PC that runs Android 4.4 on a quad-core, Cortex-A17 Rockchip RK3188 SoC clocked at 1.8GHz.

    • Phones

      • Android

        • Sony joins the Android Wear ranks with underwhelming SmartWatch 3

          In March, Sony said it’d stick to its own smartwatch software in lieu of joining the Android Wear party with the likes of LG, Motorola, and Samsung. Today, Sony’s completely reversing that stance with the introduction of SmartWatch 3, its fifth-generation smartwatch, which has completely embraced Google’s Android Wear platform. Sony intends to add a Walkman app for music playback via a Bluetooth headset along with a remote control app for stuff you’re playing on another device. Don’t look for much more to distinguish this device on the software front.

        • Five must-have apps for Android Wear

          Android Wear devices are getting lots of attention in the media these days, and that’s definitely a good thing. But what about the software for Google’s newest mobile platform? Which apps do you need to get started using your Android Wear device? Android Police takes a look at five essential apps for Android Wear.

        • Top 5 Essential Android Wear Apps

          So you’ve just picked up an Android Wear device, but what the heck can you do with this tiny wrist computer? Sure, it pulls in notification from your phone and shows you Google Now cards, but you need some apps too. It can be a challenge to navigate the Play Store in search of the best watch apps, but we’ve been keeping a close eye on things. Here are the five apps every Android Wear device needs to have installed.

        • Android Wear will get smarter says Google

          It is hard to argue against 2014 being the year of the ‘wearables’. So far we have seen smartwatches launched by Samsung and LG which first highlighted what we can expect from the new technology.

          ASUS is also entering the smartwatch landscape with their Xen Watch which they claim to be the most good looking sub $200 watch.

        • HTC’s Nexus tablet to come with folio style case

          Over the last few months there has been massive speculation in regard to the future of the Nexus range. Some rumours highly suggest Motorola will be making the Nexus 6 (codename Shamu) while other rumours highly anticipate the Nexus 8 will be manufactured by HTC (codenames Flounder/Volantis). Of the two rumours it would seem that HTC and the Nexus 8 are a likely pairing and this was further suggested by the leaked information of the accessories to come with the Nexus 8.

        • Asus ZenWatch flaunts its stylish metal body and curved screen (pictures)

          The Asus ZenWatch is the first smartwatch using Android Wear — Google’s operating system designed specifically for watches.

        • Asus adds Zen to the Android Wear smartwatch
        • This Amazingly secure Android phone was able to discover fake cell phone towers

          We’ve always been suspicious of folks being able to snoop in on phone conversations or intercept data, but there isn’t much we can do to prove that happening or to prevent the foul act. One secure phone seems to have changed that, however.

        • Why Do Android Apps Want So Much Access to My Data?

          This week, reader Maureen noted that these apps seemed to be overreaching just a tad. Why, for example, would The Weather Channel app need access to your Device and Call information? Why would it need to know if WiFi is enabled and the names of all nearby WiFi devices?

        • With Galaxy Note 4 launch, Samsung aims to pre-empt Apple, claim innovation mantle

          Samsung on Wednesday launched its Galaxy Note 4, Galaxy Note Edge, a curved screen phablet, and Gear VR, a virtual reality headset, but the larger mission for the electronics giant was to claim ownership of large screen mobile devices and to position itself as an innovation leader.

          The timing of the launch event, held at the IFA conference in Berlin and New York, was hard to ignore with Apple’s iPhone 6 debut next week. Samsung was clearly trying to claim the innovation mantle as Apple finally gets around to offering a larger screen iPhone.

    • Sub-notebooks/Tablets

      • webOS rises from the ashes (again) as LuneOS: open source operating system for phones and tablets

        The operating system that once powered devices like the Palm Pre and the HP TouchPad is getting another crack at life. A group of developers have taken the source code HP released a few years ago and turned it into something new(ish) called LuneOS.

        While the software is still very much a work in progress, you can now download and install the operating system on a handful of devices including the HP TouchPad tablet and Google Nexus 4 smartphone.

      • webOS Lives On As LuneOS With New Release

        Formerly known as webOS Ports, LuneOS was officially released today for letting the HP TouchPad and select Google Nexus devices re-live what’s best about webOS.

      • Open WebOS reborn in new LuneOS release

        The Open WebOS mobile Linux operating system has been renamed “LuneOS,” and is available in an “Affogato” release supporting HP’s TouchPad and LG’s Nexus 4.

        WebOS is back — yet again — in an open source “LuneOS” respin of the Open WebOS project, itself a spinoff of the proprietary WebOS. The WebOS Ports backed project, which was officially called “WebOS Ports Open WebOS,” released an Alpha 2 version in June 2013, and a year later announced its new project name based on the platform’s LunaSysMgr UI. The goal of LuneOS is “not to reach feature comparison with Android or iOS but rather building a system to satisfy basic needs in the mobile environment,” says the project.

Free Software/Open Source

  • Keep (developers) calm and carry on: How Puppet maintains open source civility

    Above all the company also has a “3 Strikes” rule for any bad actors and states that certain violations like “threatening, abusive, destructive or illegal nature will be addressed immediately and are not subject to 3 strikes.”

  • Meet The Open-Source Startup That Wants To Automate Your Next App

    This places Hashicorp right at the nexus of so-called DevOps, in which developers take on more responsibility for managing the infrastructure that hosts their applications and puts them in the hands of users. Some people view DevOps as heralding the eventual extinction of IT operations as a specialized function; Hashimoto isn’t one of them, although he does think IT suffers from a fatal lack of automation. And that’s a problem he’s trying to fix.

  • Tox aims to be an open source and secure alternative to Skype

    A group of developers have been working to make an app like Skype that isn’t owned by a large corporation and can avoid surveillance from organizations like the NSA. It’s called Tox, and while it’s still in development– its security is far from guaranteed at the moment– you can already download and try the app for Windows, OS X and Linux.

  • Tox: Open-source, P2P Skype alternative

    If you like the convenience of Skype, but you are worried about government surveillance and don’t trust Microsoft to keep you safe against it, Tox might be just the thing for you.

  • What Is Tox? Hackers Develop Secure, Private Skype Alternative

    Since Edward Snowden revealed the National Security Agency’s mass surveillance programs last summer, developers and tech companies like Google have been rushing to create tools that restore some semblance of security and privacy for Internet users. Tox, a Skype alternative that features instant messaging, call and video features, is the latest entry in that field.

  • The Open Source Tool That Lets You Send Encrypted Emails to Anyone

    In the wake of the mass NSA surveillance scandal sparked by whistleblower Edward Snowden, all sorts of hackers, academics, startups, and major corporations are working to build tools that let us more easily secure our email messages and other online communications.

  • Out in the Open: Take Back Your Privacy With This Open Source WhatsApp

    Private messaging apps like SnapChat and WhatsApp aren’t as private as you might think.

  • Application Awareness goes open source: Snort OpenAppID

    Cisco Sourcefire recently announced that their Snort open source IDS/IPS 2.9.7 will now support free application visibility and control, called OpenAppID. It will be fully integrated into the current Snort framework and offers a new application preprocessor and keyword ‘appid’ that can be used in any Snort rule. OpenAppID will launch with detection for over 1400+ applications, providing Snort admins with much needed awareness of the applications on their networks. The Snort application information can also be sent to 3rd party analytics or SIEM tools.

  • Events

    • Celebrate Software Freedom Day on September 20

      I am very glad to share with you that registration of the eleventh edition of Software Freedom Day has been opened since early August and you can see from our SFD event map, we already have 129 events from more than 50 countries shown in our map. As usual registration happens after you have created your event page on the wiki. We have a detail guide here for newcomers and for the others who need help, the SFD-Discuss mailing would be the best place to get prompt support.

    • Wikimania 2014 Notes – very miscellaneous
    • Learn more about open source at Software Freedom Day 2014

      The days of open source software being something that only pasty white guys living in their moms’ basements cared about are long gone. Today, the open source movement is absolutely huge, with even big companies buying into the concept thanks to the cost savings and beneficial functionality offered by increasingly competitive and polished open source options.

    • Nine Reasons to Attend Xen Project User Summit

      Some claim that the age of virtualization is now past. However, nothing could be farther from the truth. And this year’s Xen Project User Summit will highlight many of the newest advances in virtualization. If you use the Xen Project Hypervisor — or if you are simply evaluating your virtualization alternatives — join us in New York on September 15!

  • Web Browsers

    • Mozilla

      • Firefox 32 Debuts With Improved SSL Security

        The new open-source Mozilla browser release supports public-key pinning and fixes half a dozen vulnerabilities.

        Mozilla is out today with its Firefox 32 release, providing users of the open-source Web browser with new security fixes and features. Firefox 32 now provides support for public-key pinning, which enables enhanced security for Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) certificate authenticity.

      • Firefox 32 With New HTTP Cache Released for Android, Linux, Mac, Windows

        Mozilla has rolled out an update for its Firefox browser’s desktop and mobile platforms. The Firefox 32 for Android, Linux, Mac and Windows brings a number of additions, while fixing some major bugs and updating other features.

        As a part of the Firefox update, Mozilla introduced a new HTTP cache for both platforms. According to the company, the new cache system will deliver improved performance and easy recovery when facing crash issues.

      • Firefox 32 gets a facelift, speedboost and more security

        Firefox 32 was released the past few days and it comes with some new perspectives from a user interface standpoint, it does more caching to speed up your browsing experience(if you switch from another browser to try this release let the cache build to see improvements) and improved security regards certificates.

      • Firefox 32 Delivers Ramped-Up Security, New HTTP Cache

        Mozilla has built a notable security system into the new Firefox version 32 for Windows, Mac, Linux, and Android. The new security scheme is targeted to keep hackers from intercepting data, including data aimed at online services. The browser incorporates public key pinning, which can ensure that users are connecting to the sites they mean to connect with. Pinning allows greater control over which site certificates are deemed valid.

  • SaaS/Big Data

    • Mirantis Counters VMware OpenStack’s Openness

      How open is the OpenStack cloud computing distribution that VMware (VMW) recently launched? Not very, according to OpenStack vendor Mirantis, which is loudly touting its own ability to integrate its “pure-play” OpenStack distribution with VMware infrastructure while keeping the cloud open.

    • How Elizabeth Joseph Became a SysAdmin on HP’s OpenStack Infrastructure Team

      Before Elizabeth Joseph began her career as a system administrator, she was a hobbyist who attended a lot of Linux Users Group meetings in her hometown near Philadelphia. Now she’s an automation and tools engineer at HP, working on the OpenStack infrastructure team and recently co-authored the latest revision of The Official Ubuntu Book.

  • Databases

    • Oracle’s MySQL buy a ‘fiasco’ says Dovecot man Mikko Linnanmäki

      A co-founder of the widely-used IMAP server Dovecot has outlined his three rules for open source success, in terms Larry Ellison may not enjoy.

      “The first rule is don’t sell your company to Oracle if you want to keep your product alive,” he told World Hosting Day in Singapore yesterday.

      “The second rule is also don’t sell sell your company to Oracle.”

      Linnanmäki’s remarks were, of course, made in reference to Oracle’s acquisition of MySQL, a transaction he feels was a “fiasco” but has turned out “not that bad because the only one suffering is Oracle.”

  • Education

    • Open-source programming: Project initiated to help IT students

      Open source software development is a very well-coordinated and properly engineered practice on a larger scale as typically, an individual or a small group of people start work on a project. After reaching a certain maturity level, the project is floated as open-source and volunteers are invited to participate in the development effort.

  • Business

  • BSD

    • The Features To Find With The Imminent Release Of LLVM/Clang 3.5

      LLVM 3.5 is tentatively scheduled to be released tomorrow as the latest bi-annual update to the open-source compiler infrastructure along with its sub-projects like the Clang C/C++ front-end. If you haven’t been following its development closely or trying out the pre-releases, here’s a recap of some of the changes you can find with this newest release.

    • LLVM Clang 3.5 Brings Some Compiler Performance Improvements

      If all goes well, LLVM 3.5 will be released today. While we have already delivered some LLVM/Clang benchmarks of the 3.5 SVN code, over the days ahead we will be delivering more benchmarks of the updated compiler stack — including looking at its performance against the in-development GCC 5.0. For getting this latest series of compiler benchmarking at Phoronix started, here’s some fresh numbers of LLVM Clang 3.4 compared to a recent release candidate of LLVM Clang 3.5.

    • GCC 5.0 Adds DragonFlyBSD Support

      The latest addition to GCC 5′s growing list of features is official support for DragonFlyBSD on i386 and x86_64 architectures.

      Up to now a DragonFlyBSD developer had been maintaining his own out-of-tree patches that add support for the DragonFlyBSD target and complete ADA front-end support to all four major BSDs. A few months ago John Marino, the developer maintaining the patches, began working to mainline them to provide out-of-the-box support for C, C++, Objective-C, and Fortran.

  • Openness/Sharing

    • California, Texas serve as testing grounds for open-source voting technology

      “We spend $1.8 million annually on maintenance for our systems, and we can’t find another firm to do the work that’s cheaper,” he said. Los Angeles County is hoping to release an RFP for its open-source system in the next few months.

    • Open source as a philosophy for life

      Washington DC based educator and FOSS evangelist Phil Shapiro thinks that open source could be a route to a more balanced mind if mental energies are attuned correctly.

      Open source is as much a philosophy of living as it is a method of creating software argues Shapiro.

  • Programming

Leftovers

  • KlearGear Apparently Healthier Than Ever, Announces Plans To Start F**cking Customers Through Amazon Fulfillment

    A new phone number appears at the bottom of the press release [(646) 810-9268] which traces back to New York City, but it’s as useless as any other phone number the company has provided. Callers are greeted with an opening spiel in French before being spoken to in English. Callers inquiring about Descoteaux’s retail holdings (Gift World, KlearGear) are asked to press “1.” Doing so results in the message “Invalid selection. Please try again.”

  • AnandTech founder Anand Shimpi retires from journalism to work at Apple

    In case you missed it over the long weekend, Anand Shimpi, founder and editor-in-chief of hardware site AnandTech, retired from his position on Saturday evening. His farewell post doesn’t mention what his next project will be, but Re/code later reported that he had been hired by Apple, a fact that Apple confirmed without divulging more specifics.

  • Orange March IS Illegal

    What is at question here is not whether it ought to be illegal to march in uniform for political objects. The fact is that plainly it is illegal. The law is not moribund – it was applied for example against Irish republicans in London in the 1980s.

  • Health/Nutrition

    • Guatemala Resists ‘Monsanto Law’ Required As Part Of Trade Agreement With US

      One of the less well-known projects of the West is to convince developing countries that they need to convert traditional approaches to agriculture, which have functioned well for hundreds of years, into a system of intellectual monopolies for seeds — the implicit and patronizing message being that this is the “modern” way to do things. Last year we wrote about how this was happening in Africa, and an article on bilaterals.org reports on similar moves in Guatemala…

    • Guatemala: People reject “Monsanto Law” for threatening food security

      The controversial “Law for the Protection of New Plant Varieties,” also known as the “Monsanto Law”, has been widely rejected by Guatemalan civil society. Groups say the rules will jeopardise food security and affect the farm economy.

      On 10 June, the Congress of Guatemala approved Decree 19-2014 or the “Law for the Protection of New Plant Varieties” which led to an outpouring of criticism from various sectors of civil society.

  • Security

  • Defence/Police/Secrecy/Aggression

    • Does the Public Want More War?

      The paper’s August 29 edition boasted the front-page headline “More Want US to Flex Muscle.” As if that militaristic tone wasn’t obvious enough, right next to it is a graphic labeled “Is Obama Tough Enough?”

    • After Project Fear, Expect Project Terror

      But I also have no doubt the establishment are not going to accept this lightly. They are not simply going to let Scotland’s people walk away with Scotland’s resources. They have yet to make serious use of their most frequent instrument of population control – the “War on Terror”.

      The scene has already been set. Cameron has already told parliament that ISIS, or the Caliphate as it calls itself (I always think it is better to call people what they call themselves, rather than some made-up name) poses a major and imminent threat to the UK. Jack Straw is back on Radio 4 saying that Britain must bomb Iraq, as though the very cause of the Caliphate was not the last time he invaded Iraq. Saudi Arabia, which funded and still funds the Caliphate, is giving warnings to the security services of planned attacks in the UK.

      The truth is that everybody who has ever carried out an actual Islamic terror attack in the UK (of which there have been very few indeed) has stated that they did so because of British bombings and invasions of Muslim countries – a fact which is very plainly true. The notion that the way to stop this is to bomb or invade Muslim countries is quite incredible.

    • The Pentagon’s Strategy for World Domination: Full Spectrum Dominance, from Asia to Africa

      In May 2000 the Washington Post published an article called “For Pentagon, Asia Moving to Forefront.” The article stated that, “The Pentagon is looking at Asia as the most likely arena for future military conflict, or at least competition.” The article said the US would double its military presence in the region and essentially attempt to manage China.

      The Pentagon has become the primary resource extraction service for corporate capital. Whether it is Caspian Sea oil and natural gas, rare earth minerals found in Africa, Libya’s oil deposits, or Venezuelan oil, the US’s increasingly high-tech military is on the case.

    • The Case for Kill Switches in Military Weaponry

      This summer the insurgent group ISIS captured the Iraqi city of Mosul—and along with it, three army divisions’ worth of U.S.-supplied equipment from the Iraqi army, including Humvees, helicopters, antiaircraft cannons and M1 Abrams tanks. ISIS staged a parade with its new weapons and then deployed them to capture the strategic Mosul Dam from outgunned Kurdish defenders. The U.S. began conducting air strikes and rearming the Kurds to even the score against its own weaponry. As a result, even more weapons have been added to the conflict, and local arms bazaars have reportedly seen an influx of supply.

    • Midday Roundup: Deconstructing Putin’s scary statement on Kiev

      Look out, Kiev. Russian President Vladimir Putin is so misunderstood. A Kremlin spokesman said today that EU Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso took Putin’s recent comments about the fighting in Ukraine out of context. According to Barroso, as quoted in an Italian newspaper, Putin told him, “If I want to, I can take Kiev in two weeks.” The Kremlin says those comments had a completely different meaning when Putin said them. Russian officials also accuse Barroso of a breach of confidentiality for sharing the contents of a private conversation. Did Putin really expect him to stay quiet about the possible expansion of the Russian “incursion” into Ukraine? Despite what appears to be a direct threat, European leaders remain flummoxed about what to do with Putin. They can’t live with him, but they just can’t live without his natural gas.

    • US hopes to reduce EU gas dependence on Russia

      The U.S. hopes, by including energy in a trade agreement, to reduce European dependence on Russian gas just as relations between Russia and the West are more fraught than since the days of the Cold War, APA reports quoting Anadolu Agency.

    • Russia and NATO square off over Ukraine

      Moscow’s surprise declaration of a shift in its military doctrine over Ukraine has come just ahead of a NATO summit in Wales.

    • Obama’s Paralyzed Presidency

      The U.S. super rich are outraged by Obama’s hesitancy to wage war overseas.

    • Saudi arrests 88 in ‘anti-terrorism’ drive

      Saudi Arabia said yesterday it had arrested 88 men suspected of being parts of an Al Qaeda cell that was plotting attacks inside and outside the kingdom.

      The interior ministry did not give any details about the alleged plots, but said 59 of the men arrested had previously served prison sentences for similar offences.

    • Israel shows evidence Hamas used Gaza schools for rocket fire

      The Israeli military has provided its most detailed assessment yet of the conduct and impact of the Gaza war, including photographs indicating that militants stored and fired rockets from schools and a breakdown of the toll inflicted on Hamas.

      In a briefing at its headquarters in Tel Aviv, the Israel Defense Forces presented a minute picture of the structure and capability of Hamas and other militant groups operating in Gaza, an effort to explain the severity of the threat Israel faced and justify Israel’s heavy tank shelling and air strikes during the 50-day conflict — tactics that drew international criticism.

    • US drones strike 390 times since ’04

      The London-based Bureau of Investigative Journalism has reported that with only one CIA drone attack in Pakistan in August 2014 the drone strike casualty rate for August was less than half that of July’s casualty rate.

    • First US drone strike in seven months hits Somalia

      A US drone strike hit Somalia, the first in seven months, in an attack aimed at killing al Shabaab leader, Ahmed Abdi Godane (below).

      The attack killed “six al Shabaab officers” but it is not clear if Godane was among them, said Abdullahi Abukar, executive director of the Somali Human Rights Association (SOHRA).

    • The arrogance of warmongers: Pacifism for the 21st century

      Much of what we today see as reasons to wage wars is in fact caused by wars. The atrocities of the Islamic State, a phenomenon that would not be possible without the Syrian Civil War and the American invasion of Iraq, is of course the prime contemporary example of this. A good runner-up is the reasons given for assassinating people with drones. Generating a worse situation than the status quo by engaging in an activity that is bad in itself is the risk. Improving the status quo is the potential gain. If we assume that the sizes of how much worse the situation can get and of how much better they can get are the same, the probability that we will see the gains must be commensurate with the evils of the war. In all other cases, waging a war cannot be justified on consequentialist grounds.

    • Ahmed Godane Survives Drone Attack-source

      Mareeg.com-According to media reports, the overall leader of Alshabaab Ahmed Godane survived the drone attack of last night.

    • US Kills Several in Strike on Somalia: Unknown if Target Was Hit

      The Pentagon confirmed an attack on Somalia yesterday, but offered no details until this morning, confirming it was a drone attack with several Hellfire missiles fired along the southern Somali coast. Perhaps even more interesting, President Obama is said not to have given specific authorization for the attack.

    • Somalia: Shabaab leader’s fate remains unclear

      US forces have carried out air strikes against senior members of Somalia’s al-Qaeda-linked Shabaab rebels, with casualties reported but uncertainty hanging over the fate of the group’s leader, officials said on Tuesday.

      Pentagon press secretary Rear Admiral John Kirby confirmed that the attack was aimed at the group’s leader Ahmed Abdi Godane, also referred to as Abu-Zubayr, and that the bombs definitely hit the meeting of Shabaab chiefs.

    • Al Shabaab denies leader killed in US drone strike

      Al Shabaab militant group has denied that its leader Abu Zubeyr, whose real name is Ahmed Abdi Godane, was killed in the convoy hit by US drone strike on Tuesday but confirmed that their convoy come under attack.

    • U.S. ‘80% sure’ it killed Al Shabab’s top leader in an air strike
    • US Bombs Somalia In Drone Attack

      Pentagon admits US airstrikes took place, but says details on operations will only be released to public “as and when appropriate”.

    • AFRICOM Conducts Operation In Somalia
    • Details scarce on US operation in Somalia

      A member of al-Shabaab said its leader was traveling in one of two vehicles hit by the strike but would not say if the leader was among those who were killed.

    • US set to open 2nd drone base in Niger, expand operations in Africa

      The Pentagon is preparing to open a drone base in one of the remotest places on Earth: an ancient caravan crossroads in the middle of the Sahara.

      After months of negotiations, the government of Niger, a landlocked West African nation, has authorized the U.S. military to fly unarmed drones from the mud-walled desert city of Agadez, according to Nigerien and U.S. officials.

    • Drone stricken families hit by PTSD

      There is no end in sight for the drone strikes carried out in Marib, Abyan, Shabwa, Al-Bayda, Hadramout, and Dhamar governorates. In fact, it is said that the number of civilian casualties is still on the rise. In most cases the repercussions to families affected by the unmanned planes go beyond the loss of lives, often leaving them clueless, traumatized, and desperate for answers.

      Meqdad Toiaman’s father was killed in a drone strike in Marib governorate in 2011. His death was a big blow to the family, both emotionally and economically. Toiaman, 18, found himself in a peculiar situation, suddenly having to bear the burden of financial responsibilities.

      Although the attack took place three years ago, the psychological damage it fraught on Toiaman and his family exceeds their personal loss.

    • The Zero-Sum Game of Perpetual War

      Readers with a morbid sense of curiosity can visit a web site called NukeMap that allows visitors to witness the devastation caused by nuclear weapons of varying yields on a city of their choosing[i]. Herman Kahn, who was an armchair theorist from RAND during the Cold War, insisted that nuclear war was winnable[ii]. But a few hours with NukeMap will disprove Kahn’s folly and the baleful smiley face that he tried to slap over human extinction.

      [...]

      Such men often go unnoticed because they tend to exercise power discreetly, standing behind a veil of propaganda[ix]. For instance Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter Steve Coll has called ExxonMobil an “invisible company” thanks to a disciplined and well-funded public relations division[x]. This underscores the fact that the narratives put forth by the press are under the influence of an extensive subversion apparatus that CIA officer Frank Wisner referred to as the Mighty Wurlitzer[xi]. Powerful groups build consensus behind closed doors and then, as Chomsky and Herman explain, coax the rest of society along by manufacturing consent[xii]. Thus enabling what’s known as democratic elitism.

    • HRW: ISIL Using Cluster Bombs

      The New York-based group, citing reports from local Kurdish officials and photographic evidence, said ISIL fighters had used cluster bombs on July 12 and August 14, AFP reported.

      They were deployed in fighting around the town of Ayn al-Arab in Aleppo province, near the border with Turkey, in clashes between the Takfiri group and local Kurdish fighters.

    • ISIS is America’s New Terror Brand

      Endless Propaganda Fuels “War on Terror”

    • Obama pledges to send more aircraft and military to Estonia

      After Estonia’s request, Barack Obama said the US would send more air force units and aircraft to the country, as the North Atlantic Treaty Organization continues to amass on Russia’s border.

      The American leader, in a one-day visit to Estonia, emphasized NATO’s commitment to a rapid-response force, as well as enlarging the military bloc’s footprint at Estonia’s Amari Air Base.

    • NATO now versus then

      In the mid-1980s, Western Europe had good reason to fear the military might of the Soviet Union and its allies in the Warsaw Pact.

    • The Invasions That Dare Not Speak Their Name

      Last week, I wrote about the rhetorical contortions the Russian government and its rebel allies have employed to discuss the increasingly obvious and blatant presence of Russian troops in eastern Ukraine. While the Ukrainian government is describing Russia’s actions as “undisguised aggression,” the Kremlin still hasn’t publicly acknowledged any Russian military presence across the border. President Vladimir Putin, though, may be a bit more brazen in private. According to a leaked report today, he told the president of the European commission that his forces could easily conquer Kiev if he wanted them to.

    • Warning to the World: Washington and its NATO & EU Vassals are Insane — Paul Craig Roberts

      Herbert E. Meyer, a nutcase who was a special assistant to the CIA director for a period during the Reagan administration, has penned an article calling for Russian President Putin’s assassination. If we have “ to get him out of the Kremlin feet-first with a bullet hole in the back of his head, that would be okay with us.” http://www.americanthinker.com/2014/08/how_to_solve_the_putin_problem.html

      As the crazed Meyer illiustrates, the insanity that Washington has released upon the world knows no restraint. Jose Manual Barroso, installed as Washington’s puppet as European Commission President, misrepresented his recent confidential telephone conversation with Russia’s President Putin by telling the media that Putin issued a threat: “If I want to, I can take Kiev in two weeks.”

      Clearly, Putin did not issue a threat. A threat would be inconsistent with Putin’s entire unprovocative approach to the strategic threat that Washington and its NATO puppets have brought to Russia in Ukraine. Russia’s permanent representative to the EU, Vladimir Chizhov, said that if Barroso’s lie stands, Russia will make public the full recording of the conversation

    • U.S. troops are (probably) already in Iraq fighting ISIS

      I don’t care for the phrase. Never did. Wearing boots is what combat forces do in certain circumstances. Using it as synecdoche for “troops in harm’s way” warps the scope of what the U.S. military does. It may also give the Pentagon an easy out, because certain forces wear sneakers, not boots.

    • 11 Tripoli Planes Still Missing, Sparks 9/11 Concerns

      Over the last month, Libya has been spiraling out of control, as terrorist gains and attacks have intensified. As of August, the US embassy in Tripoli was overrun. The Inquisitr reported that a local militia group stormed the compound and took control.

    • Bring back the draft to make clear the cost of war

      When the draft was ended in 1973, it became all too easy for American presidents to intervene militarily anywhere without the kind of public scrutiny and opposition that developed after the Vietnam War destroyed thousands of young lives in an endless, unwinnable conflict.

    • North Korea threatens Britain over ‘mud-slinging’ Channel 4 thriller focusing on Kim Jong-un’s nuclear weapons programme

      North Korea has threatened to cut diplomatic ties if a forthcoming Channel 4 drama focusing on their nuclear weapons programme is allowed to air.

      The country has branded political thriller Opposite Number a “slanderous, conspiratorial charade based on a sheer lie” and insisted through its state media that the British government ensure it is “dumped without delay”.

      London’s Foreign and Commonwealth office remains unbothered by the demand, explaining that Channel 4 is responsible for its own programming schedule.

    • North Korean military warns UK over Channel 4 drama
    • North Korea Drama a “Slanderous Farce” Says… North Korea

      A forthcoming drama about North Korea’s nuclear weapons programme has been criticised by the regime before it’s even been broadcast, with an NK spokesman saying that “hooligans and rogues under the guise of artistes” are disrespecting the country.

    • North Korea Slams New UK TV Series About Nuclear Program
    • N. Korea slams UK TV show on its nukes as ‘hideous farce’
    • “At this point, no plan for war is a good plan for America.”

      One man thinks Americans should have had enough by now of hawks and chicken hawks drum beating for President Obama to get America into yet another war, this time against Isis or the Russians in the Ukraine or perhaps invading Syria.

    • America’s War Hawks Back in Flight

      With America’s government-and-media war hawks back in full flight – preparing to swoop down on Syria as well as Iraq – wiser heads might reflect on the chaos that previous adventures have caused, as Danny Schechter recalls.

  • Environment/Energy/Wildlife

    • The Annual Slaughter Begins in Taiji, but the Japanese Are Shunning Dolphin Meat

      The annual dolphin hunt at the cove in Taiji, Japan, began on Monday. For the next six months, hundreds of dolphins will be rounded up and killed, their meat sold in stores and restaurants in Japan and other countries. But butchered dolphins are becoming scarcer on the Japanese market, which is good not only for the dolphins but for public health.

  • Finance

    • Participation: Of Whom, By Whom, For Whom?

      2.1 Spooky Business: Corporate Espionage against Nonprofit Organizations, a report by Washington DC-based Center for Corporate Policy (CCP), reveals the “amazing” world of corporate espionage on a global-scale: Giant corporations engaging private spy agencies to smash activism. Like a public-private partnership (P-P-P), the catchword in vogue, government intelligence agencies are collaborating in the surveillance-espionage “enterprise” that targets activists and organizations active in the areas of social justice, public interests, safe food, environment, consumer rights, animal rights, insecticide-pesticide reform, opposition to war, nursing home reform, gun and arms control. With extensive evidence collected from sources that include government documents the report exposes a “mine” of chilling facts:

  • PR/AstroTurf/Lobbying

    • Why Is Huffington Post Running A Multi-Part Series To Promote The Lies Of A Guy Who Pretended To Invent Email?

      I thought this story had ended a few years ago. Back in 2012, we wrote about how The Washington Post and some other big name media outlets were claiming that a guy named V.A. Shiva Ayyadurai had “invented email” in 1978. The problem was that it wasn’t even close to true and relied on a number of total misconceptions about email, software and copyright law. Ayyadurai and some of his friends have continued to play up the claim that he “invented” email, but it simply was never true, and it’s reaching a level that seems truly bizarre. Ayyadurai may have done some interesting things, but his continued false insistence that he invented email is reaching really questionable levels. And, now it’s gone absolutely nutty, with the Huffington Post running a multi-part series (up to five separate articles so far — all done in the past 10 days) all playing up misleading claims saying that Ayyadurai invented email, even though even a basic understanding of the history shows he did not.

    • The Wash. Post’s Resident Scott Walker Cheerleader

      Former George W. Bush speechwriter Marc Thiessen, who has a financial relationship with Gov. Scott Walker, is using his Washington Post column to lavish praise on the Wisconsin Republican and help position him for a 2016 presidential run.

    • Leaked Audio Suggests Koch’s AFP Violated Law During Walker Recall

      Leaked audio from an invite-only Koch donor summit highlighted the role of the billionaire brothers in boosting Scott Walker in Wisconsin — and suggests that David Koch’s Americans for Prosperity Foundation may have violated its charitable status during the state’s 2012 recall elections.

    • Chuck Todd’s Theory of Politics

      The upshot was that being in the middle is what wins, and that Obama has had trouble when he’s leaned too far to the left. So that’s good politics, then–when Democrats move further to the right to meet Republicans in some mythical, pundit-approved “center.” But there’s a real chance that some people aren’t confused–they actually don’t like politics, or at least they don’t care much for politicians. And some critics of political journalism actually think that it should hold powerful people to account. That is very much at odds with viewing politics as a sport where the athletes just aren’t performing particularly well. That’s where Chuck Todd is coming from.

  • Censorship

    • Netizens call out Turkey for prosecuting Twitter users while hosting UN net forum

      Twitter users are questioning Turkey’s hosting of this year’s Internet Governance Forum (link is external) despite its controversial internet policies.

      Amnesty International highlighted the country’s prosecution (link is external) of more than 20 Turkish citizens for social media posts. They’re standing trial for allegedly “inciting riots” (link is external) by retweeting information about the 2013 Gezi protests. “It’s astounding to see Turkish authorities plough on with the prosecution of Twitter critics, even as they host a discussion on internet governance where human rights are a key theme,” said (link is external) Amnesty’s Deputy Director of Global Issues.

    • Ares Rights Wants Ecuador Journalists To Stop Talking About Ares Rights’ Censorious Abuse of Copyright

      The Ares Rights saga is… bizarre. So, they’ve summoned Barbra Streisand to sing their song. After substantial attention to the firm’s abuse of copyright law to censor political dissidents (and, er, international oil conglomerates), Ares Rights has deployed a DMCA (copyright) takedown notice against an Ecuadorian news outlet targeting their coverage of Ares Rights’ censorious abuse of copyright.

    • Ares Rights, Notorious DMCA Abusers For The Ecuadorian Gov’t, Now Sending DMCA Notices On Stories About Ares Rights

      We still hear from copyright system supporters who insist that copyright is never used as a censorship tool. And yet… we’ve written a few times about a Spanish firm named Ares Rights that works with the Ecuadorian government and others to seek to censor critical content by totally abusing the DMCA process. However, it appears to have stepped things up a notch in the ridiculous category, now seeking to abuse the DMCA even further to censor stories about its own censorship-by-DMCA. It gets a bit recursive.

    • UK Culture Secretary: Search Engines Must Magically Stop Piracy Or Else!

      You’d think that after years and years of pointless banter along these lines that people in power would understand just how ridiculous they sound when they try to blame search engines for infringement. TorrentFreak points out that the UK’s Culture Secretary Sajid Javid gave a barn raising speech to folks from the British recording industry. It starts out with the usual political fluff about just how important the recording industry is and how much money the government is forking over to the industry in questionable subsidies. And, apparently Javid has no qualms directly admitting to accepting favors (bribes?) from the industry. Specifically he tells a “joke” about now his kids thing he’s cool, because he can get hot concert tickets (“my new-found ability to get tickets for the Capital FM Summertime Ball, or Sam Smith at Somerset House!”), whereas in his previous job no one was rushing to give him such favors. It’s a joke, but it’s pretty telling.

    • UK Govt. Warns Google, Microsoft & Yahoo Over Piracy

      UK Culture Secretary Sajid Javid says that the government has warned Google, Microsoft and Yahoo over the issue of online piracy. In an address to the BPI’s AGM in London yesterday, Javid said that if the search engines don’t stop referring people to pirate sites, the government will take a legislative approach.

    • Iranian Grand Ayatollah Issues Fatwa Against ‘Immoral’ High-Speed Internet Connections

      Iran continues to battle the Internet, recognizing the fact that an unfiltered exchange of ideas (some of them admittedly often horrifically bad) tends to undermine repressive regimes. While the President and the Minister of Communications have stressed that higher-speed connections (and less censorship) are useful to Iran’s citizens, many others in the government feel that increasing speeds means giving up lots and lots of control.

    • Grand Ayatollah Issues Fatwa Stating High Speed Internet is against Sharia

      A Grand Ayatollah in Iran has determined that access to high-speed and 3G Internet is “against Sharia” and “against moral standards.” In answer to a question published on his website, Grand Ayatollah Nasser Makarem Shirazi, one of the country’s highest clerical authorities, issued a fatwa, stating “All third generation [3G] and high-speed internet services, prior to realization of the required conditions for the National Information Network [Iran’s government-controlled and censored Internet which is under development], is against Sharia [and] against moral and human standards.”

    • Google just banned our new Android app before it even launched

      This post is about more than our new app, Disconnect Mobile, being arbitrarily removed by Google from the Play Store Tuesday, five days after it went live and prior to doing any PR announcement. This post is really about Google’s disregard for user privacy and security, their ability to arbitrarily and unilaterally ban any app from the world’s dominant mobile operating system (78% of total smartphones run Android), and the importance of alternative Android distribution platforms that support privacy and security.

    • Google Bans Disconnect.me App From Play Store Based On Vague Guidelines

      So it’s quite disappointing that Google has chosen to pull Disconnect.me’s new app from the Android store based only on a very vague and broad “prohibition” in its terms of service, saying that you can’t offer an app that “interferes with” other services. The email Google sent doesn’t provide many details, other than saying that the Disconnect.me app “interferes with or accesses another service or product in an unauthorized manner.”

    • In The Fappening’s Wake, 4chan Intros DMCA Policy

      After doing without an element needed for safe harbor protection, 4chan has just introduced an official DMCA policy. The decision comes in the wake of the celebrity photo leak known as The Fappening and 4chan users’ connections to it. In the meantime, the leaked image library has clocked a million torrent downloads.

  • Privacy

    • Apple Is Totally Screwed

      But a much larger crisis looms – everyone, and I mean everyone, now knows that everything private they’ve done with their iPhone, if they use iCloud, is not only vulnerable, but extremely vulnerable.

      The Next Web says that a tool that allows brute force attacks against the Find My iPhone service gives hackers a way in to iCloud.

      That may or may not be what’s actually going on. Hacker Nik Cubrilovic, for example, says it isn’t slowing people down from accessing new accounts…

    • You Can’t Be Fired For ‘Liking’ A Colleague Calling Your Bosses ‘Assholes’ On Facebook

      A couple of years ago, we wrote about a rather troubling legal ruling in which a court declared that Facebook “likes” aren’t a First Amendment protected expression. The ruling made little sense. It involved some employees of a local sheriff getting fired after “liking” the Facebook profile of the sheriff’s opponent in the next election. Thankfully, that key part was overturned on appeal, with the 4th Circuit appeals court ruling that Facebook likes absolutely could be protected speech. Now, facing a somewhat similar issue, the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) has similarly concluded that a Facebook like can be a form of “concerted protected activity” for which you cannot be fired.

    • Protecting And Sharing Linked Data With Virtuoso

      Last time we saw how to share files and folders stored in the Virtuoso DAV system. Today we will protect and share data stored in Virtuoso’s Triple Store – we will share RDF data.

    • Download MEGAsync For Linux Desktops (MEGA.co.nz Linux Sync Client)
    • Law Enforcement Agencies Scramble For Pricey Cell Tower Spoofer Upgrades As Older Networks Are Shut Down
    • How Hackable Are Your Security Questions?

      All kinds of ways? I was intrigued. So I clicked on the Gizmodo link and found….two suggestions. The first is two-step authentication, which is a fine idea for anyone with a cell phone. The second is encrypting all your data. But like it or not, this is much too hard for most people to implement. There’s just no way it’s going to become widespread anytime in the near future.

    • Decrypting Google’s HTTPS Security Carrot

      In the meantime, SEOs are left to ponder the consequences of Google’s adding HTTPS encryption to its approximately 200 search ranking signals. It’s eerily reminiscent of the company’s move a while back to add the speed at which web pages load to its algorithmic bag of tricks. After all, how do security and speed relate to content authority and relevance.

    • NSA Surveillance: Supreme Court Could Debate Data Collection Program After ACLU Lawsuit

      The U.S. Supreme Court could soon be asked to decide the constitutionality of the federal government’s massive data collection of phone records after two lawsuits challenging the National Security Agency’s controversial surveillance program have begun to inch forward in federal circuit court for the first time. The American Civil Liberties Union and other privacy rights groups have denounced the NSA’s data collection program, first revealed by former contractor Edward Snowden last summer.

    • NSA Spying News: Federal Court To Rule For First Time On NSA Surveillance Program In ACLU Lawsuit
    • Appeals Court Hears Arguments on NSA Tracking Program
    • Federal appeals court questions NSA surveillance efforts
    • Debate on NSA’s Collection of Americans’ Phone Records

      In July 2013, the program was publicized after NSA’s contractor Edward Snowden leaked the NSA documents. As soon as the program was revealed, the ACLU challenged its legality and constitutionality.

    • Who is putting up ‘interceptor’ cell towers? The mystery deepens

      Mysterious “interceptor” cell towers in the USA are grabbing phone calls — but they’re not part of the phone networks. And, two experts told VentureBeat today, the towers don’t appear to be projects of the National Security Agency (NSA).

    • Mystery fake cellphone towers discovered across America

      Fake mobile phone ‘towers’ dotted across the US could be listening in on unsuspecting smartphone users according to recent reports. And — tin foil hats on, everyone — nobody knows who’s behind them.

    • Mystery of fake US mobile phone towers capable of tapping smartphones
    • The American Delusion: Distracted, Diverted and Insulated from the Grim Reality of the Police State

      Caught up in the uproar over this year’s latest hullabaloo—militarized police in Ferguson, tanks on Main Street and ISIS—Americans have not only largely forgotten last year’s hullabaloo over the NSA and government surveillance but are generally foggy about everything that has happened in between.

    • Truland trustee seeks to relinquish claim to massive NSA data center project

      The trustee overseeing Reston-based Truland Group Inc.’s bankruptcy wants to abandon its claim to millions of dollars it might be owed for building a massive data center in Utah, a mostly unpaid project that appears to have led in large measure to the firm’s abrupt shutdown and subsequent Chapter 7 filing in July.

    • Can You Trust the Car of the Future?

      Big Brother is watching just about everywhere you go and soon you won’t be able to drive away from the electronic surveillance. GM says it’s about to launch cars that detect distracted driving.

      KTRH Car Pro Show host Jerry Reynolds agrees it’s the next step toward the driverless car of the future.

      “As long as they don’t store the information somewhere like currently they do with the black boxes it’s probably okay.”

      We can trust the NSA, right? Reynolds says it’s great technology, but he doesn’t need it.

    • NO ALLY SPY AGENCY, BRITISH EXPERTS SAY

      Richard Aldrich, an academic at Warwick University’s Politics and International Relations Department, echoed an official’s remark from the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) that there is no allied intelligence, only intelligence on allied countries.Speaking to Anadolu Agency (AA) regarding the latest allegations that the U.S. intelligence service NSA and the U.K. intelligence agency GCHQ are keeping tabs on Turkey, Alrich said, “Your closest ally may not share your political and economic interests.

    • Gerhard Schindler: Germany’s Spymaster

      Schindler wants an agency befitting Germany’s position.

    • No regrets from Germany for spying claims

      Germany shows no sign of regret over the electronic spying claims, with a senior German official saying it would not be surprising if they learn that Germany is also being spied on by the Turkish government in a similar way.

    • Spying Among Allies Now Normal, German Experts Say

      The recent revelations of US, British and German surveillance of NATO ally Turkey sparks debate about relations among friendly nations.

    • EDITORIAL: When a fed trolls for trouble online

      A court convicts a cybersecurity director for child pornography

    • Google’s upcoming trans-Pacific cable ripe for NSA intercepts

      The National Security Agency is no doubt licking their lips over the potential intelligence trove of Google’s proposed fiber optic cable, which will span the Pacific Ocean from the U.S. to Japan.

      As a former NSA official told VentureBeat, “Easy to tap for sure. If its US to JP, then no need to tap in the middle obviously, just look behind the big red door :)… if its a win would depend on what its replacing, if anything.”

    • Brandis warns against future Snowdens and Mannings

      Australian government agencies will be required to implement stringent new security policies, to monitor public servants in order to protect the government against the ‘insidious enemy’ of the ‘trusted insiders’ leaking sensitive information to the public.

    • Two Privacy Bills Move as Congress Returns From Vacation

      After all its hard work this year Congress is almost done with its summer recess. Lawmakers are due back Sept. 8 and have much to tackle. Two bills are of paramount importance to EFF: one—the USA FREEDOM Act—must be passed by Congress, while the other—the Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act (CISA)—must be killed.

    • Well, was it the US intercepting the official crypto phones?

      I think the interception of these crypto phones is the biggest security scandal of the republic; but we are blatantly forgetting and are being forced to forget about it.

    • Stuff That Matters

      We do have some degree of privacy on our computers and hard drives when they are disconnected from the Net and through public key cryptography when we communicate with each other through the Net. But both are primitive stuff—the cyber equivalents of cave dwellings and sneaking about at night wearing bear skins.

    • US Cold War Covert Civilian Agent Program Targeting Soviet Union Exposed

      During the Cold War, the United States recruited and trained civilian Alaskans as part of a covert network designed to collect intelligence in preparation for a Russian invasion, the AP reported.

      “The military believes that it would be an airborne invasion involving bombing and the dropping of paratroopers,” one FBI memo said of the expected Russian attack, according to the AP. Expected targets were the cities of Nome, Fairbanks, Anchorage and Seward.

    • Despite billions spent on intelligence, we know very little

      The U.S. spends billions on intelligence, yet we always seem to be surprised by events in the world. George W. Bush told us that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, and CIA Director George Tenet backed up this assessment. In fact, Iraq had no such weapons.

    • Short-term pragmatism in Bali

      Indonesian Foreign Minister Marty Natalegawa and his Australian counterpart Julie Bishop have signed a long awaited document entitled, “Code of Conduct on Espionage”.

    • Resisting the Surveillance State in Germany

      On Saturday, August 30, more than 6000 people took to the streets of Berlin, Germany to protest against intelligence agencies’ mass surveillance produced by Weltnetz.tv

    • Secret surveillance weapons don’t belong in police arsenals

      Law enforcement ought to be using state-of-the-art digital and communications tools: The more traps for catching crooks, the better. But it shouldn’t shroud its weapons in multiple layers of secrecy.

      The Tacoma Police Department has been far too secretive in deploying Stingray, a powerful electronic surveillance and tracking device frequently used in federal investigations.

      The technology – broadly known as cell site simulators – could be described as a microcosm of the National Security Agency’s continental-scale data-mining. It tracks cell phones, which normally exchange signals with commercial towers. Stingray diverts those transmissions into the device, allowing police to capture and analyze them.

    • Are Phony Cell Towers Intercepting Your Calls? (Video)

      Les Goldsmith, the CEO of ESD America, recently claimed that his CryptoPhone 500 found 17 different fake cell towers known as “interceptors” in the U.S. during July.

      According to Popular Science, these “interceptors” can trick cell phones into connecting and then eavesdrop on calls or texts, and add spyware to phones.

      “Interceptor use in the U.S. is much higher than people had anticipated,” Goldsmith told Popular Science. “One of our customers took a road trip from Florida to North Carolina and he found 8 different interceptors on that trip. We even found one at South Point Casino in Las Vegas.”

    • Don’t excuse NSA’s wrongdoing [Letter]

      Gary Sullivan’s commentary defending the actions of the National Security Agency is full of faulty arguments (“Too much of a good thing,” Aug. 27). First of all, the Fourth Amendment is the law and was established at the time of this country’s founding. No one needs to “get out and vote” in order to be protected by it from government spying.

    • NSA Docs Reveal US Hand In Tracking And Killing Kurdish Separatists

      Turkish government is ‘both partner and target’ for US spying, Der Spiegel and Intercept jointly report.

    • NSA Provided Turkey With Intelligence To Kill Kurdish Rebels
    • Remember Iraq? Former US intel officers warn Merkel against NATO images of Ukraine
    • Has the U.S. Targeted Nuclear-Armed Russia with Regime Change?

      In 1957, the U.S. and British governments planned regime change in Syria … because it was drifting too close to the Soviet Union.

      20 years ago, influential U.S. government officials decided to effect regime change throughout the Middle East and North Africa. The countries targeted were “old Soviet regimes”.

    • Ex US Intel Warn Merkel: Careful with Kiev & NATO’s Dubious ‘Evidence’ on Russia

      Alarmed at the anti-Russian hysteria sweeping Washington, and the specter of a new Cold War, U.S. intelligence veterans one of whom is none other than William Binney, the former senior NSA crypto-mathematician who back in March 2012 blew the whistle on the NSA’s spying programs more than a year before Edward Snowden, took the unusual step of sending the following memo dated August 30 to German Chancellor Merkel challenging the reliability of Ukrainian and U.S. media claims about a Russian “invasion.”

    • Group of Former US Intel Officials Urge Merkel to Reject Politicized Intelligence

      A group of former U.S. Intelligence officials including William Binny, the first whistleblower to report on the NSA’s mass surveillance, has sent an open letter to German Chancellor Angela Merkel, warning her of the risks of Ukrainian NATO membership and of the dangers of faulty intelligence resulting in an escalation of the conflict, as published on the website Antiwar.org

    • EU Taking Harder Look At $19B Facebook-WhatsApp Deal

      There’s also the more general underlying concern about US tech companies’ dominance of European consumer services, against the backdrop of the NSA spying scandal. All these things could mean mean a rocky road ahead for the $19 billion deal. The US Federal Trade Commission approved the acquisition earlier this year with some privacy caveats and warnings.

    • US refuses to comment on alleged spying on Turkey

      The United States government has refused to respond to claims that it spied on Turkey made based on documents from the archive of US whistleblower Edward Snowden seen by German magazine Der Spiegel.

    • Why We Should Encrypt Everyone’s Email

      Ladar Levison is the owner of the encrypted email startup Lavabit. After Edward Snowden’s NSA document leaks last summer, Levison rebuffed government demands to hand over the email service’s private encryption keys—opting to shut it down instead. He spoke with Popular Mechanics about his new project Dark Mail, online privacy, and how encrypting our email helps disassemble today’s unconstitutional surveillance networks.

  • Civil Rights

    • Government vs. Constitution

      The American Civil Liberties Union and other groups recently filed a lawsuit accusing the federal government of, among other lapses, denying due process to mothers with children detained at the border and interfering with their efforts to get legal advice to guide them in appearances before immigration judges.

    • Saudi Arabia beheads 3 Syrian drug traffickers

      Three Syrians convicted of drug trafficking were executed by the sword in Saudi Arabia on Tuesday, the interior ministry announced.

    • A Shared Culture of Conflict of Interest

      Elite media don’t see Human Rights Watch’s closeness to power as a problem

      [...]

      Human Rights Watch executive director Kenneth Roth arrived at the function, which also hosted the leaders of Microsoft, Boeing, Goldman Sachs, JP-Morgan Chase and Disney. (The administration also aimed to “press China to open its markets to goods made by American companies,” reported the Times.)

    • Ferguson Debacle Results In Armored Vehicles Being Removed From Two California Police Departments

      Today’s militarized policeman often feels naked without the protection of mine-resistant vehicles, despite very little evidence that such vehicles are necessary to handle the deadly (or is it?) rigors of police work. Citizens, however, aren’t so sure they like seeing their law enforcement officers rolling out like they’re keeping the peace in the middle of Baghdad.

    • Citing unsettling Ferguson images, Davis to return armored vehicle

      Davis, Calif., city officials have directed the police department to return a surplus U.S. military armored vehicle to the federal government after residents, citing images seen during protests in Ferguson, Mo., expressed fears of militarization.

    • Digby on Tasers, Guns and the Next Wave of Police Militarization

      Ten days after a police officer in Ferguson, Missouri, killed Michael Brown another young African-American man was shot dead a few miles away in St. Louis.

      The circumstances around the death of Kajieme Powell were markedly different from those in Ferguson. Powell, who may have suffered from mental health issues, had a knife, and shouted, “Shoot me now… kill me now,” at responding officers.

    • House Democrats To Obama: ‘Secret Law Is A Threat To Democracy’

      Joining forces with a group of privacy organizations and former White House officials, four House Democrats sent a letter to President Barack Obama over the weekend urging him to declassify all legal opinions and interpretations involving a controversial executive order used to justify government surveillance.

    • Obama Faces Calls to Reform Reagan-Era Mass Surveillance Order
    • ‘Secret law is a threat to democracy,’ Dems warn in letter to Obama
    • Why the Deep State always Wins

      Against this backdrop it’s no wonder that recent developments in the Ukraine have been known to cause night terrors. Your author can vouch for this. Last week there was an earthquake in the Bay Area and at the outset I woke up mistaking it for a shock wave from sub-megaton warhead hitting Silicon Valley.

      One could posit that what’s happening in Eastern Europe offers a look-see into the nature of the groups that are calling the shots in the United States. Do they care that their destabilization program in Ukraine provokes a nuclear-armed country or enables neo-Nazis to assume vital positions in government?3 So far almost 2,600 civilians have been killed in the ongoing humanitarian crisis.4 While the corporate press does its best to create the impression of a “shining city upon a hill” which aims to “spread democracy” and conduct “humanitarian intervention,”5 a different sort of world power is clearly visible to those who look carefully.

    • Senate Torture Report Will Be Public in 2 to 4 Weeks, Says Feinstein

      Senate intelligence committee chair Dianne Feinstein expects the executive summary of her staff’s long-awaited report on the torture of American detainees to be ready for public release before the end of September, she said in an unaired segment of her “Meet the Press” interview this weekend (starts at 10:25 of the video).

      The torture report, which was five years in the making, was sent to the White House for declassification in April. But the exhaustive redactions that Obama administration officials sent back in early August included such things as the elimination of pseudonyms, apparently to make the report too confusing to follow, and the blacking out of copious supporting evidence, such as proof that information derived from torture actually came from other intelligence sources.

    • Nerves fray over timing of CIA interrogation report’s release
    • US military lawyer resigns from Army over Guantanamo show trial

      On August 26, Wright, a US military lawyer also resigned from the Army in protest at what he called the “show trial” of Mohammed being held by the US at Guantanamo Bay. Wright also accused the US of not providing due process and of “abhorrent leadership” on human rights at the Guantanamo facility.

      Wright has been in the US army since 2005 and served over a year in Iraq. He has been on Mohammed’s defense team for three years. Wright resigned after he was given a choice between leaving the army and leaving the defense team in order to complete a graduate course so he would qualify for promotion from Captain to Major. Wright claims it would be unethical to follow the order.

    • Army Lawyer for Alleged 9/11 Mastermind Resigns

      An Army lawyer assigned to defend Khalid Sheikh Mohammed at Guantanamo Bay has resigned his commission after being told he was being pulled from the case to attend a graduate program required for promotion.

      Maj. Jason Wright, one of a team of lawyers defending Mohammed, resigned Aug. 26 from the Army, National Public Radio and others have reported.

      Wright joined the Army in 2005, and for almost three years, he served on Mohammed’s defense team.

      The Army had instructed him to leave the team in order to complete the course. He refused, saying it would have been unethical for him to leave the team.

    • There is no free pass for a free press

      New York Times reporter James Risen may soon have to decide whether to testify in a criminal trial or go to jail for contempt of court.

    • Saudi Arabia faces big challenges

      The kingdom’s many critics argue that Saudi Arabia itself helped spread the toxic virus by bankrolling Islamist rebels and their extremist Salafist Muslim ideology.

    • Angolan Solidarity Association Denounces Anti-Cuba Subversion

      The Angola-Cuba Friendship Association (ASAC) today denounced the U.S. government”s plans to promote subversion and destabilize the revolutionary process in Cuba.

    • Did Brennan dodge a bullet?

      CIA Director John Brennan might have dodged a bullet over his agency’s potentially unconstitutional snooping on the Senate, but critics insist his reprieve is only temporary.

      Calls for the spy leader to resign after the CIA admitted that officials spied on the Senate have lost steam in recent weeks, since lawmakers left town for a five-week summer recess.

      November’s midterm elections and crises from Syria to Ukraine could distract Congress from forcing the director to offer a public mea culpa in the short term.

    • Need to rein in CIA

      Dysfunction in Congress can damage the country in many ways, but none may be as serious as a failure to fill its role in the system of checks and balances set up by the U.S. Constitution. When Congress heads back to Washington after the August recess, members of the Senate face a serious test on whether they can assert control over the U.S. intelligence agencies.

    • United States’ shameful behavior: Suppresses release of torture photographs

      Under the Protected National Security Document Act, enacted by the Obama administration in 2009 to cover the period September 2001 through January 2009, the United States Government has prohibited the release of photographs depicting ‘enhanced interrogation techniques’ – Torture – administered on enemy combatants taken into custody abroad by the U.S. military and/or its allied forces.

    • The CIA Spies on the U.S. Senate – is no one safe from spying?

      The CIA’s admission that they lied for several months when accused of doing what they did, as well as their apology to the senators to whom they had spied on, does not make their actions acceptable.

    • David Sarasohn: Senate has had enough of CIA snooping

      Unlike his close ally in pursuing intelligence abuses, Sen. Mark Udall of Colorado, Ron Wyden has not yet called for CIA Director John Brennan to quit or be fired. But speaking about the agency in Oregon this month, the senior senator from Oregon used the D.C. magic words:

  • Internet/Net Neutrality

    • Most comments warned FCC against ‘fast lanes’

      About two-thirds of people commenting on potential new rules for the Internet warned regulators not to allow “fast lanes” online, according to an analysis of hundreds of thousands of the filings.

    • What can we learn from 800,000 public comments on the FCC’s net neutrality plan?

      At least 200 comments came from law firms, on behalf of themselves or their clients.

    • ‘U.S. monopoly over Internet must go’

      Today, China and Russia are capable of challenging U.S. dominance. Despite being a strong commercial power, China has not deployed Internet technology across the world. The Chinese have good infrastructure but they use U.S. Domain Naming System, which is a basic component of the functioning of the Internet. One good thing is because they use the Chinese language for domain registration, it limits access to outsiders in some way.

      India too is a big country. It helps that it is not an authoritarian country and has many languages. It should make the most of its regional languages, but with regard to technology itself, India has to tread more carefully in developing independent capabilities in this area.

  • DRM

    • Ferrari ‘DRM:’ Don’t Screw With Our Logos And We’ll Let You Know If It’s OK To Sell Your Car

      We’ve covered a lot of stories dealing with the Right of First Sale being undermined by digital goods being sold as licenses, rather than products. It’s much more rare to find the Right of First Sale being yanked away from paying customers who have purchased physical products. But it happens. You’d think shelling out a quarter-million dollars would allow you to do what you please with your purchase.

  • Intellectual Monopolies

    • Copyrights

      • Prosecution presents case in hacker trial

        The trial of Pirate Bay co-founder Gottrid Svartholm Warg and his Danish co-defendant began with an almost immediate delay followed by the surprise showing of a hitherto unseen video of the hacker known as anakata.

      • Pirate Bay founder case starts in confusion

        The largest hacking case in Danish history began in confusion on Tuesday, after lawyers representing Swedish Pirate Bay co-founder Gottfrid Svartholm Warg accused the prosecution of “unreasonable” tactics.

      • Blunders By Convicted ‘Fast And Furious 6′ Cammer Made It Easy To Track Him Down

        In other words, these high-profile wins for the copyright industry are not the result of the police making use of surveillance powers, or of clever sleuthing by organizations like FACT. Rather, they are the direct and largely predictable result of the arrogance and stupidity displayed by those breaking the law.

      • City Of London Police Issue Vague, Idiotic Warning To Registrars That They’re Engaged In Criminal Behavior Because It Says So

        This was mentioned briefly in our recent post about EasyDNS changing how it deals with online pharmacies, but it’s still dealing with bizarre requests from the City of London Police. As we’ve been detailing, the City of London Police seem to think that (1) their job is to protect the business model of the legacy entertainment industry and (2) that they can do this globally, despite actually just representing one-square mile and (3) that they can do this entirely based on their own say so, rather than any actual court ruling. It started last year when the City of London Police started ordering registrars to transfer domains to the police based entirely on their say so, rather than any sort of due process/trial that found the sites guilty of violating a law. The police wanted the domains to point to sites that the legacy entertainment industry approved of, which makes you wonder why the police are working on behalf of one particular industry and acting as an ad campaign for them.

]]> http://techrights.org/2014/09/03/new-tails-os/feed/ 0 Links 12/7/2014: CrossOver, New Wine http://techrights.org/2014/07/12/crossover-new-wine/ http://techrights.org/2014/07/12/crossover-new-wine/#comments Sat, 12 Jul 2014 07:54:22 +0000 http://techrights.org/?p=78450

GNOME bluefish

Contents

GNU/Linux

Free Software/Open Source

  • BitPay’s Copay Open Source Multisig Wallet Launches in Beta

    We’ve heard a bit on BitPay’s doings in the open source field, and today, the company announced on their blog that they’ve got a multisig, open source wallet in the works called Copay.

    We’ve heard of Copay previously, but now it’s got its own website at Copay.io, and has launched in beta.

  • BitPay is pleased to announce Copay, an open source, multi-signature wallet
  • BitPay Releases Beta for Open-Source, Multi-Signature Bitcoin Wallet
  • Asciidoctor coder writes less documentation

    I’ve been working as the documentation manager for the Koha project for six and a half years, so when I saw that Sarah White would be talking about documentation at OSCON this year I knew I wanted a chance to interview her.

  • Understanding the metrics behind open source projects

    What do the numbers behind an open source project tell us about where it is headed? That’s the subject of Jesus M. Gonzalez-Barahona’s OSCON 2014 talk later this month, where he looks at four open source cloud computing projects—OpenStack, CloudStack, Eucalyptus, and OpenNebula—and turns those numbers into a meaningful analysis.

  • LinkedIn behind the scenes: How open source software can transform a company – and the world

    Open source also helps the branding of our engineering team – the fact that we work on world-class technical problems, the scale of the problems we have to solve, and the complexity of the features that we’re building. Being able to showcase our technology to the world is something that hopefully is going to be attractive to world class engineers around the world, which we would love to have work for us.

  • Metaswitch unveils open source NFV project Calico to bolster cloud datacentres

    Networking technology vendor Metaswitch Networks announced the formation of Project Calico, which will focus on developing an open source networking virtualisation solution it claims will help enable the implementation of large, cloud datacentre infrastructures as IP-based starts to account for the majority of network traffic.

  • Metaswitch Contributes Virtualised Network Code To Open Source

    UK-based Metaswitch Networks has given away some of its network virtualization code to the open source community, designating it as Project Calico.

    The technology integrates with OpenStack and provides the framework for orchestrated IP routing between virtual machines (VMs) and host machines, along with internal and inter-data centre interconnects. It describes Layer 3 virtualisation techniques, and is aimed at large cloud data centres.

  • As Chef gets bigger, it’s learning how to appease its open source community

    A former employee singled out the open source configuration management company for not practicing what it preaches, and as a result, Chef said it will be working on addressing its developer community.

  • Mellanox Contributes the World’s First Open Source Ethernet Switch MLAG Implementation
  • iSchool Pair Demo Open-Source Code at Labman Conference

    Two Syracuse University School of Information Studies (iSchool) information technology professionals wowed the crowd at this year’s Labman computer lab managers conference by presenting a live demonstration of their Remote Lab 2.0 software, which they recently released as open-source code.

  • CartoDB’s Odyssey.js Is An Open-Source Tool For Telling Stories With Interactive Maps

    Everything happens somewhere. That’s the logic behind Odyssey.js, an open-source tool that utilizes maps to help turn data into interactive multimedia stories without the user needing coding skills.

  • Building an Inter-University Private Cloud with Open Source ownCloud

    In late 2011, a lively discussion (we enjoy lively discussions here in Germany) among the IT managers of the publicly-funded research universities in Northrhine-Westfalia (NRW), Germany’s most populouIn late 2011, a lively discussion (we enjoy lively discussions here in Germany) among the IT managers of the publicly-funded research universities in Northrhine-Westfalia (NRW), Germany’s most populous federal state, started over a set of interrelated topics:s federal state, started over a set of interrelated topics:

  • Web Browsers

    • Chrome

      • Chrome Remote Desktop Plug-in Now Supports Linux Users

        Being able to access a computer remotely, or let someone else remotely access your computer, can be an enormous convenience. It can help you retrieve a much needed presentation that you left behind while on a trip, and it can help you allow a distant user to make changes to or access your files.

  • SaaS/Big Data

  • CMS

    • Introduction to 4 Open Source CMS

      A content management system (CMS is a computer application that allows publishing, editing and modifying content, organizing, deleting as

  • Funding

    • Is the IRS scheming to destroy open source projects?

      The IRS is one of the most feared and loathed parts of the federal government. It has recently been found to target political groups that don’t tow the line of the people currently in charge of the US government.

  • BSD

    • There’s Now Even LLVM Support For Pascal-86

      The latest programming language that can leverage using LLVM and its plethora of back-ends is Pascal-86, a language most Phoronix readers have probably never even heard of.

    • LLVM’s Clang Is Working Better For Building Windows Programs

      While LLVM’s Clang compiler is predominantly used on Linux, OS X, and BSD systems, the Microsoft Windows support has been a focus over the past several months and is reaching an improved state for building native Windows programs with Visual C++ compatibility.

  • Public Services/Government

    • Untapped potential? Rise of open source council web tools

      UK councils are so far failing to tap into the full money-saving potential and speed of open source web service tools, but moves are underway to address this, delegates heard at yesterday’s ‘Building perfect council websites’ conference in Birmingham.

      Although most councils still run a Microsoft-based ICT infrastructure, almost all do also now run at least some open source software, Kevin Jump, director of digital services firm Jumoo, told delegates.

      Jump is former web manager at Liverpool City Council, which migrated to open source CMS Umbraco in 2011.

  • Openness/Sharing

    • Working to keep the Internet an open source

      In a nutshell, open-source is the opposite of proprietary. Consider the sale of a muffin. The person who sells you the muffin is selling you a proprietary product. The ingredients (what they are and from whence they came) are kept a secret. With open source, the person not just gives you the muffin; she also gives you the recipe and invites you to change it even more, and pass it along to the next person.

    • ‘Open source’ real estate brokerage willing to share best practices

      “We call it an open source real estate company,” he says. That’s because Go Realty not only shares lessons that agents have learned within the company, but with other companies.

    • Xiki shell Kickstarter, HummingBoard computer, and more

    • Open Access/Content

      • What is open knowledge and how do you spread it?

        Beatrice Martini shared the work she does alongside a talented group working to bring openness to the world for Open Knowledge with me earlier this year. This time she tells me what it’s like to bring to fruition an event like OKFestival 2014, organised by Open Knowledge. How does a gathering organized by one organisation (and a small team) reach out to the global ecosystem of open communities? How can participants co-create its message and mission?

    • Open Hardware

      • Open source robot is waiting for you to make it even more amazing

        It is not uncommon to hear that many people don’t like bugs. Those tiny, many-legged creatures are the source of our worst nightmares. Robots, on the other hand, are fantastic. Whether they come to us as Furby-sized companions or giant robot protector of the Earth Gundams, they amuse and entertain us to no end. So when we heard of the open source project combining insect-like parts and robotics, we timidly decided to check it out.

  • Programming

    • rest: Open Source REST Framework For Haskell

      Silk has recently open-sourced a REST framework for Haskell, called “rest”. It provides a DSL for defining REST services which can then be run in popular web frameworks such as happstack. This comes with features such as type-safe URLs, abstraction of format-type support, and a clean separation of API specification and business logic.

  • Standards/Consortia

Leftovers

  • FTC files suit against Amazon over accidental in-app purchases

    For most parents, seeing a random $358 charge on their credit card bill would elicit a lot of questions.

    But for the parents of the 71% of children who play mobile games such as Angry Birds or Temple Run, those seemingly random charges are becoming more common as the games allegedly trick children into buying virtual goods with real-world money.

  • Security

  • Defence/Police/Secrecy/Aggression

    • Why ABC Thought Suffering Palestinians Were Israelis

      But there’s a pretty well-established pattern of corporate media trying to paint the conflict as between equals, a type of false balance that treats the threats to Israeli lives and Palestinians lives as similar. But at times it’s much more than that; this ABC report, and others like it, foreground the fear that Israelis are dealing with as sirens warn of incoming rockets from Gaza. “Running in terror as sirens wail” is how ABC correspondent Alex Marquardt began the segment right after Sawyer’s introduction. He conveyed Israel’s view of the conflict before shifting to life in Gaza.

    • When Does the ‘Cycle of Violence’ Start?

      But determining when such a “cycle” begins is a political act. The current conflict is usually traced back to the kidnapping and killing of three Israeli teenagers on the West Bank (CNN, 7/7/14). When their bodies were found on June 30, Israel “retaliated” by attacking Gaza. The July 2 killing of Palestinian teenager Muhammad Abu Khdeir, allegedly a revenge murder by Israeli extremists, was reported as further escalating the conflict.

    • Let’s Name the Victims on Both Sides of Israel-Palestine Clashes

      Over a three-week rescue mission to find the three Israeli teenagers, more than 700 Palestinians were arrested, with more than 400 still being held, according to Palestinian prisoner’s rights organization Addameer. Many are being held in administrative detention, an Israeli practice that holds prisoners without charge or trial set, but renewable amounts of time. At least 58 of the arrestees are former prisoners released as part of the Gilad Shalit prisoner swap; their re-arrest directly contradicting the terms of the agreement. One of these prisoners is Samer Issawi, who was released last year after engaging in a prolonged hunger strike protesting his first arbitrary re-arrest.

  • Environment/Energy/Wildlife

  • Finance

    • Just the beginning: 2 million come out fighting

      TWO MILLION people defied Tory strike ban threats yesterday to come out fighting against poverty pay — and PCS union leader Mark Serwotka warned the government it was “just the beginning.”

      Mr Serwotka rallied a sea of teachers, firefighters, council workers and civil servants in Trafalgar Square in his first major speech since recovering from heart surgery.

  • PR/AstroTurf/Lobbying

    • NPR and the Eagerness of White Guy Sources

      NPR’s official response to the brouhaha was a memo, instructing staff to be more careful about sharing private thoughts on social media. Likewise missing the point that the problem lies in what the network does–and doesn’t do–in public.

    • ABC: Three Cheers for Walmart!

      The “economists” in question would appear to be the Boston Consulting Group, a consulting firm that advises major companies. It’s not a stretch to think that Walmart is one of them. So you might want to take those job creation numbers with a grain of salt.

      But ABC’s newscast looked less like journalism and more like PR–even including footage from a Walmart infomercial and a comment from the company’s CEO that this initiative “is not a PR thing.”

  • Censorship

  • Privacy

    • One Nation Under Surveillance
    • New German spy scandal — RT interview

      As a second Ger­man intel­li­gence officer was arres­ted for spy­ing for the Amer­ic­ans, here’s my recent RT inter­view on the sub­ject…

    • Germany Expels Top US Intelligence Official, Says It Will (Officially) Spy Back On US And UK

      Techdirt has been following the complicated German reaction to Edward Snowden’s revelations about US and UK surveillance of people in that country, whether or not in high places, for some while now. Although the German public has been deeply shocked by the leaks, the German government has been keen to preserve good relations with the US.

    • Opinion: Is online privacy lost? Forever?

      What is the way forward? – Is privacy already gone forever with the war being lost… or are there still some battles that may determine better outcomes for a subset of the human population? I guess I’ll just have to wait and see. In the mean time, I continue to fight off the little voice in my head that says I need a smart phone… and I try to learn more about and utilize some of the desktop tools that make me look suspicious.

    • Emergency laws to monitor phone and internet records ‘to stop terrorists’

      David Cameron says Iraq and Syria makes emergency data laws necessary, warning: ‘The consequences of not acting are grave’

    • Here’s a challenge: Can you shun Facebook for 99 days?

      What if you are asked to perform a different kind of fasting – to log out from Facebook for 99 days?

      Do not fret as this is a challenge set out by a Dutch creative agency Just.

      Called “99 Days of Freedom”, the non-profit initiative asks whether people would be happier without Facebook.

      It asks users to give up Facebook for a 99-day period, completing anonymous happiness surveys on days 33, 66 and 99.

    • Silent Circle guns for Skype with global expansion of encrypted calling service

      SECURE COMMUNICATIONS OUTFIT Silent Circle expanded its encrypted calling service globally on Thursday, allowing people worldwide to make secure phone calls without incurring roaming charges.

      Until now, Silent Circle’s apps – which enable users to make encrypted calls, send secure messages and transfer files – had to be used by both parties, but the firm announced on Thursday that it is expanding the service worldwide, allowing users to make private calls to non-Silent Circle subscribers across 79 countries.

    • Surveillance Stitch Up to be Rushed Through

      Pirate Party spokespeople are always ready to give a lively, informed, and often provocative view on the issues of the day. Whether it’s tech politics, civil liberties, the EU, local issues or anything else we’ll have something to say.

    • “Emergency” Data Retention: What I told my MP

      The European Court of Justice ruled in April that blanket data retention, which the government requires of ISPs, is illegal and ignores the fundamental rights to privacy and data protection. However, rather than take the time to debate and redraft the law, they are pushing through a new Bill in record time: released today and put before Parliament on Monday.

  • Civil Rights

    • Water Damage

      The FCO claim that records of extraordinary rendition flights to Diego Garcia were destroyed by water damage is an insult to all our intelligence. The FCO is refusing to say where the records were at the time, or what else was damaged in the (presumed) flood. This is of a piece with, but much more serious than, the “accidental” shredding of all Tony Blair’s parliamentary expenses claims. It is not that they expect us to believe them – they just don’t care. They have the power, and we don’t.

    • The Worst Butt Dialing Fiasco Ever

      His wife called 911. Thirty(!) SWAT team members, with machine guns, descended on the middle school at 5 p.m., and spent three hours searching it for the mysterious gunman. “At one point three news media choppers hovered overhead.”

    • The Absence of Liberalism

      The overruling of a European Court judgement to assert individual privacy, and the anti-democratic rushing of emergency legislation through parliament where no emergency exists, are the antithesis of liberalism. So of course is the jettisoning of all the Lib Dem manifesto pledges on civil liberties.

  • Internet/Net Neutrality

    • FCC got over 647K comments on net neutrality, will it listen to ‘The People’?

      FCC chief, Tom Wheeler, today tweeted that they have received over 647k net-neutrality comments on the FCC website, as it reaches the July 15 deadline. Reply to these comments are due September 10th. There is an anger in the US against Wheeler’s proposed ‘fast lane plan’ which would destroy the net-neutrality as we know it.

  • DRM

  • Copyrights

    • UK Lawmakers Favor Legalization of MP3 and DVD Copying

      Earlier this year the UK Government promised to legalize the copying of MP3s, CDs and DVDs for personal use, but the changes have yet to pass. The entertainment industry and some lawmakers have voiced concerns over the plan, but the majority appears to be in favor of decriminalizing format shifting.

]]> http://techrights.org/2014/07/12/crossover-new-wine/feed/ 0 Links 26/5/2014: Chromebook Prospects, China and GNU/Linux http://techrights.org/2014/05/26/chromebook-prospects/ http://techrights.org/2014/05/26/chromebook-prospects/#comments Mon, 26 May 2014 16:43:17 +0000 http://techrights.org/?p=77773

GNOME bluefish

Contents

GNU/Linux

Free Software/Open Source

  • 60 Open Source Apps You Can Use in the Cloud

    The open source community is participating in this race to the cloud in two key ways. First, much open source software, particularly software for enterprises and small businesses, is now available on a SaaS basis. This provides customers with quality, low-cost applications and eliminates the hassles of deploying software on their own servers. At the same time, it gives open source companies a viable business model that allows them to make money from their technology.

  • Open source cloud hosting environment built in Swiss data centre

    A research lab at Zurich’s University of Applied Science has helped a data centre provider to create a new open source cloud hosting environment for its European research and development program.

  • Source Serif: Adobe’s New Open Source Typeface

    Adobe has released its 100th Typeface family, Source Serif, to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the Adobe Originals font library. Source Serif is an open-source font available via Adobe Typekit or via SourceForge.

  • GroundWork Unveils OpenStack Open Source Cloud Monitoring Tool

    OpenStack, the open source cloud operating system, offers some metering tools as parts of the core OpenStack code. But it lacks a robust performance monitoring framework, which is why GroundWork has rolled out a new solution for tracking the performance of various parts of the OpenStack public and private cloud infrastructure.

  • Hadoop security: Hortonworks buys XA Secure – and plans to turn it open source

    Hortonworks says the deal struck this week to acquire XA Secure will help provide a comprehensive approach to Hadoop security for the first time.

  • Trendnet Embraces Open Source DD-WRT Firmware for Select Wireless AC Routers
  • TRENDnet(R) Announces Open Source DD-WRT Compatibility for Wireless AC Routers
  • Out in the Open: Take Back Your Privacy With This Open Source WhatsApp

    SnapChat settled with the Federal Trade Commission earlier this month over a complaint that its privacy claims were misleading, as reported by USA Today, and last week, the Electronic Frontier Foundation published a report listing the company as the least privacy-friendly tech outfit it reviewed, including Comcast, Facebook, and Google. Last year, WhatsApp faced privacy complaints from the Canadian and Dutch governments, and like Snapchat, its security has been an issue as well.

  • Open source light sabre with Virtual Reality IMAX headset
  • Salesagility release 3 new open source versions of SuiteCRM to target Salesforce
  • To help Hadoop adoption, Hortonworks to make security tools open-source
  • Clinovo to launch new Clincapture open source EDC system on May 23, 2014

  • Events

  • Web Browsers

    • Chrome

      • Text missing in chrome on Linux

        I’m in the process of trying Fedora 20 on my retina MacBook and I ran into a peculiar issue with Chrome. Some sites would load up normally and I could read everything on the page. Other sites would load up and only some of the text would be displayed. Images were totally unaffected.

    • Mozilla

      • Mozilla, a tale of gentrification

        The problem I see, however, is something I’ve witnessed for some time now, and while I’m aware that I will probably look like I’m howling with the pack (something I do not like at all) I believe I should come clean about it. This problem is about Mozilla itself, what it does, how it operates, its own standing within the Free and Open Source Software community and its revenue model. In fact, I believe all these points are tightly connected and discretely conspired to bring Mozilla where it is today. This is not to say that I don’t like what Mozilla does and has done. This is not to say that there isn’t a whole bunch of great people inside Mozilla: there are, I know several of them. This is not to say that Mozilla is not an exciting set of projects and ventures: I think it will continue to be exciting in the years to come. And many of us know what technology does to any project or company in just a few years: kill it or make it blossom.

  • SaaS/Big Data

  • Oracle/Java/LibreOffice

    • LibreOffice 4.3 In Beta, Bringing Good Improvements

      The beta release of LibreOffice 4.3 is available this week with many new features being under development for this popular open-source office suite.

      Among the features being worked on for LibreOffice 4.3 is going from a 16-bit character limitation of Writer paragraphs to now 32-bit, changes to navigation buttons and other UI elements, DrawingML import/export support, proportional image scaling support, support for printing comments in margins, improved formula engine support within the Calc spreadsheet, auto detection of fax4CUPS printers, improved PDF importing, improved OOXML support, and many other changes.

  • CMS

    • White House contributes APIs, stages hackathons & runs on Drupal

      Director of new media technologies at the Executive Office of the President of the United State of America Leigh Heyman was recently reported to be the man behind all the modern interactive media delivered during Barack Obama’s last ‘state of the union’ address.

    • Orion Launches Open-Source Client Portal

      Orion announced in early May that it has launched a redesigned client portal that uses open-source code so other providers can build their own pages to integrate into the site.

  • Education

    • Damian Conway on Teaching, Programming Languages, Open Source and Our Future

      Damian Conway is well known in the Perl community and has worked on Perl 6 for many years; he’s a speaker and teacher, author of several technical books and Perl software modules, and runs an international IT training company, Thoughtstream, which provides programmer training from beginner to masterclass level in Europe, North America, and Australasia. His website is: http://damian.conway.org

  • Funding

  • BSD

  • FSF/FSFE/GNU/SFLC

    • GCC 4.8.3 Compiler Released

      For those that haven’t already moved over to the recently released GCC 4.9, the third point release to the GNU Compiler Collection 4.8 series has finally surfaced.

  • Public Services/Government

    • City of Vienna increasingly turns to open source

      The administration in the Austrian capital, Vienna, is expanding its use of open source solutions, including on its workstations, because of new requirements, open data, budget constraints and the major shift towards smartphones and tablets.

      “Open source helps to solve IT vendor lock-in situations”, Norbert Weidinger, ICT-Strategist for the city, said in a presentation on the city’s use of free and open source solutions.

      Open source is now well-established in the city’s main IT operations, according to the presentation which Weidinger delivered at a Major Cities of Europe conference in Dublin on 17 January. The city has 454 Linux servers (from a total of 2,000 servers), 270 Apache instances, uses Postgres to manage 380 databases and MySQL to manage another 90. Open source is used for file and printing services, for e-government services and for external and internal websites.

      “We’re promoting the use of open source products where possible”, Weidinger said.

      The IT department’s responsibilities include the IT in the city’s public healthcare, public schools and the administration of city-owned housing.

    • Opportunity

      In the UK, The National ICT Category Management Programme (NICTMP) is intended to guide local governments towards better IT, including using FLOSS. It’s about time. Many small businesses and governments are scarcely more skilled at IT than consumers and a little help can go a long way towards huge savings greater diversity and better IT. With FLOSS it’s easy to put up a web-server sharing information with the public and using open standards to ensure interoperability with minimal cost. I think savings of 20% are at the lower end of estimates. In my experience, software licences can save 20% of IT costs but ease of maintenance could do that again and getting full performance out of hardware purchases that much again. Local governments in UK spend hundreds of millions of dollars on hardware and software for IT each year. Break-even can be immediate if hardware is re-used by using FLOSS. Governments should be looking at savings of ~50% by using FLOSS. There’s a reason M$ and “partners” do what they do. It doubles the cost of IT making slaves of us all providing free labour. FLOSS works for us the users and not some monopolists.

    • New UK IT procurement model urges open standards

      A new model for IT procurement for local governments in the United Kingdom is urging public administrations to use open standards, to create room for agile and innovative software solutions including open source. One of the aims of the National ICT Commercial Category Strategy for Local Government is to reduce IT expenses by 10 to 20 percent over the next five years.

    • How governments are more collaborative with open source

      Technology is the easy part in government. The biggest challenges are cultural barriers – it’s a question of thinking in a more collaborative and open way, believes Ben Balter, Government Evangelist for GitHub, a social network for open source communities.

    • American elections are stuck in the 20th century. Here’s how to change that.

      Aneesh Chopra, President Obama’s choice to be the nation’s first Chief Technology Officer from 2009 to 2012, wants to do something about the problem. He is teaming up with a group called the Open Source Elections Technology Foundation to address the problem. Their plan: develop the software necessary to run an election and release it as an open-source project. Chopra and his colleagues believe that could lead to better election systems while simultaneously saving cash-strapped states money.

    • Open Source Lessons For Feds

      White House and agency IT leaders discuss how open source can empower government IT project teams, at FOSE conference in Washington, D.C.

  • Licensing

    • Scratch 2.0 editor and player now open source

      The latest version of a tool used to teach kids how to program video games, animations and interactive art is now open source. The Scratch 2.0 editor and player can now be found in GitHub under the GPL version 2 license.

  • Openness/Sharing

  • Programming

    • The LLVM 64-bit ARM64/AArch64 Back-Ends Have Merged

      Back in March Apple open-sourced their ARM 64-bit LLVM back-end (dubbed ARM64) many months after other ARM vendors had already developed a competing 64-bit ARM back-end (dubbed “AArch64″ as ARM’s official name for architecture). Since Apple opened up their back-end, Apple and outside LLVM developers have been working to converge the competing 64-bit ARM back-ends into a single 64-bit ARM target. That work is now complete.

    • Create a game with Scratch on Raspberry Pi

      While Scratch may seem like a very simplistic programming language that’s just for kids, you’d be wrong to overlook it as an excellent first step into coding for all age levels. One aspect of learning to code is understanding the underlying logic that makes up all programs; comparing two systems, learning to work with loops and general decision-making within the code.

    • Raspberry Pi Motion Camera: Part 2, using gphoto2
    • A Raspberry Pi motion-detecting wildlife camera

      I’ve been working on an automated wildlife camera, to catch birds at the feeder, and the coyotes, deer, rabbits and perhaps roadrunners (we haven’t seen one yet, but they ought to be out there) that roam the juniper woodland.

    • Clive: A New Operating System Written In The Go Language

      Clive is the new operating system announced on Friday and is written in Google’s Go programming language, features a “new weird file protocol” called ZX, and uses parts of the Plan 9 operating system. Clive is also going to run on a modified Nix kernel.

    • Open source Hoodie is tailored for quick app dev

      A quick option for building Web and iOS apps is on the horizon from a group of developers in Europe. Hoodie is an open source tool for building Web applications in days via an open source library described as being easier to use than JQuery.

Leftovers

  • Pope Francis to Call for Sovereign, Independent Palestinian State

    Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Pietro Parolin is signaling that Pope Francis in his visit to Bethlehem on Sunday will strongly support the right of Palestinians to a sovereign state.

    Implicitly, Pope Francis will condemn the Apartheid system of military rule used by Israel in the West Bank, though he likely won’t use the word.

  • Haiku OS Adds Support For Latest Radeon HD Graphics Cards
  • Afghanistan strongly condemns recording of phone calls by U.S. NSA

    Amirzai Sangin, Minister of Communications and Information Technology of Afghanistan said Sunday that the phone calls are recorded by devices which have been set up in the country to fight drugs smuggling.

    [...]

    Assange said that Afghanistan was the second country where NSA “has been recording and storing nearly all the domestic and international phone calls.”

    Bahamas was revealed as one of the country where the phone calls were being recorded by National Security Agency in earlier reports; however the second country was called “country x.”

  • US Collecting All Cell Phone Calls in Afghanistan
  • White House mistakenly reveals name of top CIA officer in Afghanistan

    The White House inadvertently included the name of the top CIA official in Afghanistan on a list of participants in a military briefing with President Barack Obama that was distributed to reporters on Sunday, the Washington Post reported.

  • Oops! White House said to have blown cover of CIA chief in Afghanistan
  • CSG implements first napping station in UGLi

  • Science

    • Nobody Cares How Awesome You Are at Your Job

      In an article published in the journal Social Psychological and Personality Science, University of California at San Diego behavioral scientist Ayelet Gneezy and University of Chicago business professor Nicholas Epley tracked people’s responses to three types of promises: broken ones, kept ones, and then ones that were fulfilled beyond expectations. And while it’s true that everyone gets upset when a promise is broken (I’m looking at you, housing-contractors-who-claim-bathroom-renovations-will-be-done-in-a-week), it turns out that overdelivering on something won’t make anyone significantly more impressed by your awesomeness.

  • Health/Nutrition

  • Security

    • Hacker Turned FBI Informant Sabu Will Be Sentenced Next Week

      Wired reports that Hector Xavier Monsegur, aka “Sabu”, the LulzSec hacker who became an FBI informant and helped take down numerous other hackers, will be sentenced on Tuesday, May 27. The government will seek a sentence of just seven months, citing time served and his immense cooperation with the government.

    • Feds Seek 7-Month Sentence for LulzSec Hacker and Lower East Sider ‘Sabu’

      Anarchism and the Lower East Side go hand in hand, so should we be super surprised that one of the most notorious hackers of our day operated from within the Jacob Riis Houses on Avenue D?

      You’ll recall that in June 2011, hacker Hector Xavier Monsegur, an unemployed father of two, was caught by the FBI and quickly turned snitch. The high-ranking capture immediately paid dividends, as “Sabu” was the man who once led the outlaw LulzSec, an offshoot of the notorious Anonymous organization. With the new traitor status, he helped deliver a number of top hackers on a platter and still helps the bureau with his connections.

    • US seeks leniency for ‘Sabu,’ Lulzsec leader-turned-snitch

      U.S. prosecutors say a hacking group’s mastermind should be spared a long prison sentence due to his quick and fruitful cooperation with law enforcement.

      The man, Hector Xavier Monsegur of New York, is accused of leading a gang of international miscreants calling themselves “Lulzsec,” short for Lulz Security, on a noisy hacking spree in 2011, striking companies such as HBGary, Fox Entertainment and Sony Pictures.

      Lulzsec, an offshoot of Anonymous, led a high-profile campaign that taunted law enforcement, released stolen data publicly and bragged of their exploits on Twitter. Their campaign touched off a worldwide law enforcement action that resulted in more than a dozen arrests.

  • Defence/Police/Secrecy/Aggression

    • Private Group Sought to Arm Syrian Rebels

      For one group of Americans, that wasn’t enough. On their own, the Americans offered to provide 70,000 Russian-made assault rifles and 21 million rounds of ammunition to the Free Syrian Army, a major infusion they said could be a game changer. With a tentative nod from the rebels, the group set about arranging a weapons shipment from Eastern Europe, to be paid for by a Saudi prince.

    • Canada Is Selling Arms to Everyone It Can

      While Canada exports oil, maple syrup, and hockey players, it also deals a lot of arms. And Canadian military exports are growing: the latest available figures say sales jumped more than 50 percent from 2010 to 2011, with later years reportedly expected to spike.

    • Were These 3 Guantanamo Deaths Really Suicides?

      On June 9th, 2006, it is said that three prisoners in Guantanamo Bay Detention Camp committed suicide in a coordinated effort. They all died using the exact same methods, in their cells, on that evening.

      However, when NCOs (non-commissioned officers) contradicted this account, cracks began to show in the official NCIS investigation. The NCOs revealed that these three prisoners were actually not in their cellblocks the night they died. Rather, they were taken to a secret CIA black spot nearby, dubbed ‘Penny Lane’ or ‘Camp No’. While they were returned to their cell at the time of death, more than 12 papers that contradicted the official report of that night were suppressed during an internal investigation.

    • Police Investigating Use of Scottish Airports by CIA “Rendition” Torture Flights

      Legal charity Reprieve has called on the Scottish Government to ensure that police investigating the use of Scottish airports by CIA ‘torture flights’ have access to a major US Senate report on the spy agency’s secret ‘rendition’ programme.

    • Onerous, irrational and unconstitutional

      Political. America is freeloading. Events belie the local panel’s assertion that the Philippines invited the United States as our guest, to use our former bases and facilities—rent-free—as counterweight to China. The Chinese became aggressive in the West Philippine Sea in 2012; the United States decreed its “pivot” to Asia much earlier. Clearly, America decided, unilaterally, to make the Philippines home to thousands of its soldiers, aircraft carriers, battleships and warplanes. And the Philippines followed America in a zombie-like stupor.

    • Once a U.S. asset, Gen. Hafter recruited Libya’s entire military command with Egypt’s backing

      Egypt has been deemed a leading supporter of this week’s mutiny within the Libyan military.

      Diplomatic sources said renegade Gen. Khalifa Hafter was receiving guidance and military support from Egypt.

    • WPost Seeks US-Patrolled ‘Safe Zone’ in Syria

      Neocons never blush at their own hypocrisies, demanding Russia respect international law and do nothing to protect eastern Ukrainians, while demanding President Obama ignore international law and create a rebel “safe zone” in Syria, writes ex-CIA analyst Ray McGovern.

    • The Real Financiers of Boko Haram–Exposed

      In other words, the incitement of North against South, Christians against Muslims, was recognised as the most potent strategy that could push Nigeria into sectarianism. In fact, that Boko Haram has extremist religious connotation is believed to be enough to keep Nigeria busy to think beyond its survival.

      So carefully managed, it is impossible to trace Boko Haram’s funding and arms supply sources; unless one has a privileged access to the CIA-led trillion dollar terror economy, which Loretta Napoleoni, in her book, ‘’Terror Incorporated: Tracing the Dollars Behind the Terror Network,’’ argued is impossible for CIA’s unofficial funding sources include money laundering, terrorism, extrajudicial killings, drug trafficking, prostitution, kidnapping, human trafficking, gambling and illegal arms and oil sales.

      Known not to leave anything to chance, the CIA ensured that it was in full control of both the mainstream and grassroots media in Nigeria. This was a smart move since it is a given that the one who controls what the people read, hear and watch invariably controls what the people think about and how they think.

      Thus, fully aware that press freedom actually belongs only to those who own the press, the CIA is secret marriage with some media owners and as a result has been successful at controlling and manipulating what gets to most Nigerians.

      Little wonder no one seems to wonder how the US Embassy (and by that the CIA) gets its intelligence, including the recent announcement it made that “As of late April, groups associated with terrorism allegedly planned to mount an unspecified attack against the Sheraton Hotel, in Nigeria.”

      The problem is that our government is not bold enough to demand their source of intelligence, and why rather than sharing such important intelligence with Nigeria, the US chose to make them public in the form of announcements.

    • ‘Over 60% drone targets homes in Pakistan’
    • The Drone Promise
    • PM unimpressed by protest outside his house

      Prime Minister John Key thought the candlelight vigil outside his house last night was “not really cricket”.

      About 30 protesters gathered outside his Auckland home last night in a candlelight vigil commemorating “the numerous deaths of civilians and the illegal killing of ‘supposed’ terrorists, including New Zealander Daryl Jones — killed by the US drone strike programme”.

    • PM: Don’t protest outside my home

      Prime Minister John Key has hit out at protesters who gathered at his home last night, to protest his position on deadly drone strikes.

      Last week Key said drone strikes were justified, but acknowledged innocent civilians were caught in the crossfire.

    • Australian drone deaths expose government indifference

      While the last couple of weeks have been taken up with thinking about the Budget and its disproportionate impact on poorer Australians, another, more spectacular, area of government disregard for the lives and rights of its citizens has gone relatively unremarked.

    • Most US Drone Strikes in Pakistan Attack Houses

      Domestic buildings have been hit by drone strikes more than any other type of target in the CIA’s 10-year campaign in the tribal regions of northern Pakistan, new research reveals.

      By way of contrast, since 2008, in neighbouring Afghanistan drone strikes on buildings have been banned in all but the most urgent situations, as part of measures to protect civilian lives. But a new investigative project by the Bureau, Forensic Architecture, a research unit based at London’s Goldsmiths University, and New York-based Situ Research, reveals that in Pakistan, domestic buildings continue to be the most frequent target of drone attacks.

    • Secret Cable Reveals Russia Warned US in 2008 Meddling in Ukraine Could Split Country

      A secret cable released by Wikileaks on Tuesday revealed that Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov warned Washington as far back as 2008 that US-EU-NATO meddling in Ukraine could split the country in two.

      “Following a muted first reaction to Ukraine’s intent to seek a NATO Membership Action Plan (MAP) at the Bucharest summit (ref A), Foreign Minister Lavrov and other senior officials have reiterated strong opposition, stressing that Russia would view further eastward expansion as a potential military threat,” said the 2008 cable classified by William Burns, than US Ambassador to Moscow and currently the US Deputy Secretary of State.

    • This Leaked Diplomatic Cable From 2008 Foreshadowed Russia’s Invasion Of Ukraine

      A secret U.S. diplomatic cable written six years ago (and tweeted by Wikileaks on Tuesday) foreshadowed much of the tension between Russia and the U.S. over Ukraine.

    • Donetsk crowds protest Ukrainian elections, besiege richest oligarch’s mansion
    • Wikileaks Released Cable Reveals Russia Warned US of Potential Split in Ukraine

      A secret cable released by Wikileaks on Tuesday revealed that Washington had been warned by Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov as early as 2008 that US-EU-NATO interfering in Ukraine would result in the country splitting in two.

    • China fumes over cyber theft charges, accuses US of hypocrisy

      Miffed with the US over indictment of five People’s Liberation Army officers over commercial cyber espionage charges, China accused the US of hypocrisy and double standards.

      Chinese Defence Ministry posted a statement on its website, saying, “From ‘WikiLeaks’ to the ‘Snowden’ case, US hypocrisy and double standards regarding the issue of cyber-security have long been abundantly clear”.

      “The so-called ‘commercial espionage network’ is a pure fabrication by the US, a move to mislead the public based on ulterior motives,” the AFP quoted the statement.

    • Which 39 Democrats Want a War That Never Ends–and Voted Against Sunsetting the AUMF?

      During the defense appropriations amendment process, Adam Schiff (CA-28) proposed an amendment that would sunset the Authorization for the Use of Military Force (AUMF) with the end of our combat role in Afghanistan, i.e. December 31, 2014.

    • Vladimir Putin hits back at Prince Charles

      The Russian president accuses the Prince of Wales of ‘unacceptable’ and ‘unroyal behaviour’

    • Drone Killing Memo Author Confirmed as Federal Judge

      Speaking on the Senate floor Wednesday, Sen. Paul said, “I rise today in opposition to killing American citizens without trials. I rise today to oppose the nomination of anyone who would argue that the President has the power to kill American citizens not involved in combat.”

      “I rise today to say that there is no legal precedent for killing American citizens not directly involved in combat and that any nominee who rubber stamps and grants such power to a President is not worthy of being placed one step away from the Supreme Court,” the Kentucky senator said.

      On Wednesday, the Obama administration agreed to release to senators a redacted version of the document co-authored by Barron that provided the legal justification for the targeted drone killing of U.S. citizen Anwar al-Awlaki in Yemen.

    • AP’s Fram Neglects to Mention ‘Filibuster’ or ‘Waterboarding’ in Covering Judicial Confirmation of Obama’s ‘Drone Memo’ Author

      Given that he was confirmed on a 53-45 vote, it is highly unlikely that Barron’s nomination would have survived had Senate majority leader Harry Reid not imposed the “nuclear option” last year to prevent senators from stopping a contentious nomination by requiring 60 senators to approve the idea of even having a confirmation vote. As for waterboarding, Barron’s nomination became controversial because he is, as Fram noted, the “architect of the Obama administration’s legal foundation for killing American terror suspects overseas with drones.” 53 Democratic senators are apparently okay with that, even though many if not most of them have gone apoplectic over the idea of waterboarding known terrorists of any nationality who may have knowledge of their fellow travelers’ plans.

    • The Three Laws of Pentagon Robotics

      1. A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.
      2. A robot must obey the orders given to it by human beings, except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.
      3. A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.

    • A Yemeni Man Is Suing British Telecom over America’s Deadly Drone Strikes

      A deep boom rocked through Sanaa, Yemen, the sound coming from outside of the city, perhaps from near the village of al-Masna’a.

    • Despite Obama’s new rules, no end in sight for drone war
    • Drone strike protest outside PM’s home
    • Candlelight Vigil to Be Held Outside John Keys House
    • Vigil planned outside Key’s home

      There will be a candlelight vigil outside Prime Minister John Key’s home in Auckland to highlight the issue of US drone strikes.

    • “Masters of Manipulation”: Psychopaths Rule The World

      Psychopaths are in love with power and risk taking, masters of manipulation, self-serving opportunism and self-aggrandizement, and hold doctorates in deceit and deception. Psychopaths are super intelligent charmers who are highly skilled at playing others in order to get what they want. They are keenly perceptive at reading people, understanding their motives and values, brilliant at learning their weaknesses and blind spots, and highly effective at inducing both sympathy and guilt in others.

    • The War on America’s Military Veterans, Waged with SWAT Teams, Surveillance and Neglect

      Just in time for Memorial Day, we’re once again being treated to a generous serving of praise and grandstanding by politicians and corporations eager to go on record as being supportive of our veterans.

      Patriotic platitudes aside, however, America has done a deplorable job of caring for her veterans. We erect monuments for those who die while serving in the military, yet for those who return home, there’s little honor to be found.

      The plight of veterans today is deplorable, with large numbers of them impoverished, unemployed, traumatized mentally and physically, struggling with depression, thoughts of suicide, and marital stress, homeless (a third of all homeless Americans are veterans), subjected to sub-par treatment at clinics and hospitals, and left to molder while their paperwork piles up within Veterans Administration (VA) offices.

    • CIA ‘gave Beirut bomber refuge in return for secrets’

      AN IRANIAN terrorist responsible for the murder of hundreds of Americans in the 1983 Beirut bombings was resettled in the United States by the CIA in return for divulging secrets about Tehran’s nuclear programme, a new book claims.

      Ali Reza Asgari is believed to have masterminded the attacks in April 1983 on the US embassy in the Lebanese capital, which killed 63 people, and another attack six months later on the marine barracks and the French barracks, in which 241 US servicemen and 58 French citizens died.

    • Ex-CIA analyst: U.S. regularly use death as criminal punishment

      An inconvenient truth about America’s use of capital punishment is that it puts the U.S. in company with unappealing authoritarian states, like China, Iran and Saudi Arabia, while creating a divide from modern democratic societies in Europe and the Americas, notes ex-CIA analyst Paul R. Pillar, consortiumnews.com reported.

    • America’s Death-Penalty Fellow Travelers

      An inconvenient truth about America’s use of capital punishment is that it puts the U.S. in company with unappealing authoritarian states, like China, Iran and Saudi Arabia, while creating a divide from modern democratic societies in Europe and the Americas, notes ex-CIA analyst Paul R. Pillar.

    • Former Texas A&M President, CIA Director, Takes Over Boy Scouts of America

      Robert Gates, the new president of the Boy Scouts of America, says he has no problems with allowing openly gay adults in the organization, but won’t address changing their policy right now.

    • US report on Scots role in terror suspect transfer

      SCOTLAND’s role in the interrogation and alleged torture of terror suspects by the CIA could be laid bare by a recently declassified US intelligence report, it has been revealed.

      Police are currently investigating claims Scottish airports were used as a stop-off for “rendition” flights, which transferred prisoners to secret jails overseas.

    • Qatar Sentences Alleged Filipino Spy to Death

      The unknowing also includes Qatar that has sentenced a Filipino national to death for allegedly selling top secret Qatari military information to “Filipino state security forces” that the Qataris left unnamed.

    • The information wars

      The US government continues its efforts to clamp down on leaks of classified information.

    • Disability Pay of Ex-Cop, Now FBI Agent Probed

      A former police officer in Northern California is being investigated for collecting a disability pension while he is currently working for the FBI.

      Oakland city officials are looking into how former police officer Aaron McFarlane receives more than $52,000 in disability benefits from the city while he has been working as an FBI special agent in Boston.

    • Tsarnaev pal’s lawyer seeks to grill FBI agents

      Federal prosecutors have acknowledged that the two FBI agents and a Homeland Security Investigations agent questioning the youth at the state police barracks in North Darmouth knew a lawyer had called, but neither they nor the trooper who spoke with Griffin passed that information along to the students.

    • To Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley: We Need Accountability and Transparency for Local Law Enforcement!
    • The FBI Prospers by Feeding Fears

      James Comey became FBI director last year, at a time when Osama bin Laden was dead, terrorism at home was on the decline and the United States was shrinking its inflammatory presence in the Muslim world. So naturally, he says the danger is way worse than you think.

    • The FBI prospers by feeding public safety fears

      James Comey became FBI director last year, at a time when Osama bin Laden was dead, terrorism at home was on the decline and the United States was shrinking its inflammatory presence in the Muslim world. So naturally, he says the danger is way worse than you think.

      Referring to al Qaeda groups in Africa and the Middle East, he recently told the New York Times, “I didn’t have anywhere near the appreciation I got after I came into this job just how virulent those affiliates had become. There are both many more than I appreciated, and they are stronger than I appreciated.”

    • The FBI hypes terrorism

      Terrorism has fed the FBI’s growth. Between 2001 and 2013, its budget nearly doubled after adjusting for inflation. But Comey was not pleased on arriving to learn that he would be inconvenienced by last year’s federal budget sequester.

    • God won’t save us: Memorial Day, honest history and our new military-industrial complex

      You had to take Johnson’s point. The question was, Why did Obama choose this man? As defense secretary, Gates oversaw an increase in troop strength in Afghanistan from 32,000 (when Obama took office and named him) to roughly 100,000 (before withdrawals began). Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting does the counting here. Why did Obama do that?

  • Transparency Reporting

    • ‘They think of WikiLeaks like Al-Qaeda’

      “They think of WikiLeaks like Al-Qaeda,” he said of the U.S. government. “I needed to move away from it all. I [still] talked to a few people on the computer but I generally completely disassociated myself with anything to do with Anonymous.”

    • Media Direct: towards better security for whistleblowers

      In essence, Media Direct seeks to enable encrypted interactions between anonymous whistleblowers, who access it via the Tor relay network, and specified journalists, with the submission server itself not logging anything, thus meaning it has no information to provide should it be targeted by the government of its host country (which remains secret, even from the administrators to the Media Direct site here in Australia). The site automatically deletes material that isn’t used within two weeks, and the keys whistleblowers use to access the server also have a limited lifespan. It’s close to plug-and-play for whistleblowers, as long as they can install Tor.

    • Chagossians: Wikileaked cable admissible after all
    • CIA won’t fake vaccinations, FBI still pursuing WikiLeaks’ Julian Assange, latest on Benghazi: Spy Games Update

      The Sydney Morning Herald reported that the FBI and U.S. Department of Justice are still actively pursuing a criminal investigation against WikiLeaks publisher Julian Assange.

    • Assange targeted by FBI probe, US court documents reveal

      WikiLeaks publisher Julian Assange remains the subject of an active criminal investigation by the United States Justice Department and Federal Bureau of Investigation, newly published court documents reveal.

      Papers released in US legal proceedings have revealed that a “criminal/national security investigation” by the US Department of Justice and FBI probe of WikiLeaks is “a multi-subject investigation” that is still “active and ongoing” more than four years after the anti-secrecy website began publishing secret US diplomatic and military documents.

      Confirmation that US prosecutors have not closed the book on WikiLeaks and Mr Assange comes as a consequence of litigation by the US Electronic Privacy Information Centre to enforce a freedom of information request for documents relating to the FBI’s WikiLeaks investigation.

    • Julian Assange’s father in Newcastle to receive award

      JOHN Shipton says he is not, by nature, the most outgoing of people.

      “I’m a private person; I’d prefer to be at home reading a book,” Mr Shipton said yesterday.

      But having WikiLeaks whistle-blower Julian Assange for a son means Mr Shipton’s life is no longer solely his own.

    • TOPICS: Truckers missing trick without cartoon mascot

      Assange will receive an International Award for Outstanding Service in the Defence of Human Rights and Global Justice. You know, one of those.

    • Afghan anger at mass US phone monitoring
    • Julian Assange Goes Where Glenn Greenwald Wouldn’t

      Though they’re often lumped together as crusaders against state secrets, WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange and journalist Glenn Greenwald don’t always see eye to eye.

    • Julian Assange’s spy report knocks Glenn Greenwald down a peg

      A rift is forming in the world of leaked top-secret government documents. On one side is Glenn Greenwald, the founding editor of The Intercept online news site, who earlier this week reported that the U.S. government was recording practically every single cell phone call made to or from the Bahamas and another, unnamed country.

    • Will Julian Assange Be Moving to a Squatters’ Settlement In Brazil?

      On May 14, João Paulo Rodrigues, a leader of Brazil’s Landless Workers’ Movement (MST), met with Julian Assange in the Ecuadorian embassy in London. The two men discussed ways in which Latin American social movements might help Wikileaks. Following their two-hour discussion, the leader told Assange, “If you need asylum in Brazil, we offer our land settlements.” Assange responded with a hug.

    • Wikileaks Founder Assange Endorses Bitcoin at South African Tech Conference

      Notorious whistleblower Julian Assange spoke glowingly about Bitcoin during a technology conference in South Africa on Wednesday, calling the currency “the most intellectually interesting development in the last two years.”

    • WikiLeaks: US eavesdrops on Kenyans’ calls

      A US intelligence agency is allegedly tapping all phone calls made in Kenya, possibly informing the recent travel advisories and the heightened alert at its Embassy in Nairobi.

    • Hacker who Targeted WikiLeaks is Going after Edward Snowden
    • Film About 1971 FBI Break-in Traces Path To Snowden And Wikileaks

      The film 1971, which just had its world premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival, documents the activities of “eight ordinary citizens,” but their story is far beyond the ordinary. On March 8, 1971, the group orchestrated a robbery at an FBI office in the Philadelphia suburb aptly called Media, making off with every file. Those hundreds of documents, mailed to the press leading to 50,000 more pages, laid bare the details and degree of government surveillance of the American people. Congressional hearings in subsequent years revealed that the FBI, under the autocratic leadership of J. Edgar Hoover, infiltrated institutions from universities to community groups and even threatened the life of Martin Luther King, Jr. The mere fact of the existence of residential FBI offices, in low-slung brick buildings along tree-lined, mostly residential streets, reflected the acceptance — and even deification of the agency in earlier decades. No member of the Media, Pa., group was ever caught or prosecuted for the break-in. They broke their long silence in the film and a new book by Washington Post reporter Betty Medsger.

  • Environment/Energy/Wildlife

  • Finance

    • Swansea traffic warden caught on camera refusing to give ticket to vehicle on double yellow lines ‘because that’s the boss’s car’

      As a man who has himself experienced wardens deciding, with their “discretion”, to give him a ticket in that very spot before, Steve McMillan perhaps understandably felt he could not just let it slide.

      Filming the whole incident on his mobile phone, he can be seen confronting a warden who initially says that it hasn’t yet “been five minutes”.

      But when Mr McMillan explains that it clearly has – and that he has this recorded on his phone – the unnamed warden quickly goes on the defensive.

    • Obama Administration Sued for Refusing to Disclose Data on Student Loan Debt Collectors

      President Barack Obama has taken several steps over the past few years to address the $1 trillion problem of student loan debt. He’s pushed loan forgiveness programs and efforts to help borrowers reduce payments. One thing that apparently isn’t factoring into his plans, though, is reining in abusive debt collectors that the Department of Education hires to collect student loans debt when people can’t pay.

      More than $94 billion of the nation’s student loan debt was in default as of September 2013, according to a March report from the Government Accountability Office. And the percentage of people defaulting on school loans has increased steadily for six years in a row. In 2011, the Department of Education paid private debt collectors $1 billion to try to collect on that debt—a number that is expected to double by 2016. The tactics used by those debt collectors range from harassing to downright abusive. In March 2012, Bloomberg reported that three of the companies working for the Department of Education had settled federal or state charges that they’d engaged in abusive debt collection.

    • Fighting Poverty Wages

      We’re at a critical moment in our economic recovery that requires real leadership and people power to ensure true economic democracy in our country. There is incredible work being done to build a strong antipoverty movement, and spaces like these are fundamental to encourage an open dialogue about our strategies and tactics as well as our successes and failures.

      As corporate profits keep soaring, workers’ wages continue to stagnate, creating the widest income inequality gap our nation has seen in modern times. At Jobs With Justice we still believe that in America, people who work hard should be paid enough to live with dignity and raise a family. Today, millions of people go to work every day and still don’t earn enough money to feed their families. If people can work full-time and still can’t afford groceries, rent and medication, then the entire model is flawed and unfair. We can’t continue down this path of creating bottom-of-the-barrel, low-wage jobs that condemn our friends and neighbors to poverty.

    • Big Credit Suisse’s Sweetheart Deal

      Attorney General Eric Holder’s sweetheart settlement with Switzerland’s second largest bank, corporate criminal Credit Suisse, sent the wrong message to other corporate barons. Senator John McCain (R-AZ) says it well:

      “Nor does the plea deal hold any officers, directors or key executives individually accountable for wrongdoing, raising the question of whether it will sufficiently deter similar misconduct in the future.”

      Mr. Holder, of course, touted the deal as tough. Credit Suisse was fined a non-deductible $2.6 billion for their long, elaborate plan to provide tax evasion services for many thousands of wealthy Americans. The bank agreed to plead guilty of criminal wrongdoing – a rare demand on the usually coddled large financial institutions. In addition, Credit Suisse, in Mr. Holder’s words, failed “to retain key documents, allowed evidence to be lost or destroyed, and conducted a shamefully inadequate internal inquiry”… through a “conspiracy” that “spanned decades.”

    • What do Brazilians really think of their maids?

      An anonymous Twitter account is highlighting the poor treatment of maids in Brazil.

    • Even Iran Knows How To Fix The Corrupt Banker Problem

      Having watched Tim Geithner’s disgusting defense of the tax-payer-backed re-inflation of a corrupt and knowingly devastating banking system on Jon Stewart’s Daily Show, and watching the US fine (no jail time for anyone) a Swiss bank which admits its guilt over billions of fraud yet allow them to remain a prime dealer of US Treasuries; we thought the following story from a ’3rd world banking system’ would open a few eyes in the US this weekend as ‘we remember’. As AP reports, a billionaire businessman at the heart of a $2.6 billion state bank scam in Iran, the largest fraud case since the country’s 1979 Islamic Revolution, was executed Saturday, state television reported.

    • We (and This Includes You, Democrats) Have Blown a Huge Hole in the Safety Net
    • Law Enforcement vs. the Hippies

      Maybe this is because lefties don’t complain enough. You may remember the hissy fit thrown by Fox News when the Department of Homeland Security issued a report suggesting that the election of a black president might spur recruitment among right-wing extremist groups and “even result in confrontations between such groups and government authorities similar to those in the past.” As it turns out, that was a good call. But the specter of jack-booted Obama thugs smashing down the doors of earnest, heartland Republicans dominated the news cycle long enough for DHS to repudiate the report under pressure and eventually dissolve the team that had produced it.

      And the similar report about left-wing extremism that DHS had produced a few months earlier? You don’t remember that? I don’t suppose you would. That’s because it was barely noticed, let alone an object of complaint. And even if lefties had complained, I doubt that anyone would have taken it seriously. There’s just no equivalent of Fox News on the left when it comes to turning partisan grievances into mainstream news.

    • Housing crisis? No, just a very British sickness

      Housing booms are today’s medieval plagues. Boils suppurate on the political backside. People rush to find culprits to lynch. Quacks appear on street corners with fake remedies. Reason takes a holiday.

      Thus it was yesterday, as the Today programme’s John Humphrys chided David Cameron for the “housing crisis” and for not building more houses in the Tory shires. It was like curing famine by sending caviar to Africa.

      Meanwhile, everyone from Ed Miliband to the governor of the Bank of England screams crisis. There is a crisis when prices fall and a crisis when prices rise. Almost everywhere house prices are still bouncing along the bottom, but at London dinner parties they are a “bubble”.

    • How the IMF Destroyed Greece: The Reality of the Greek “Success story”: On Its Way to Become a Third World Country
    • As the Global Economy Continues to Crumble, Old Fascism Finds a New Voice

      Europe has a special worry about a broken, uncaring economy.

      Things rip apart. More and more people fall into desperation. Some of them decide it’s the fault of immigrants. Or homosexuals.

    • Unification of Europe’s Far Right: Rise of the Fourth Reich?

      The situation is not entirely comparable to that of Europe and Germany of the 1930s and 40s. Nevertheless, the rise of these far-right parties, their ties to the economic hardships and austerity measures imposed by the European Union, and the spread of nationalistic and xenophobic tendencies are alarming.

    • Jean-Marie Le Pen suggests Ebola as solution to global population explosion

      Virus ‘could sort out demographic explosion’ and by extension Europe’s ‘immigration problem’, says founder of Front National

  • Politics

  • Censorship

  • Privacy

    • Report blasts “unscrupulous” U.S. surveillance in China

      In particular, it described China as a main target of the U.S. clandestine secret surveillance.

    • Afghanistan Hits Out at U.S. Spying Allegations

      Afghanistan on Sunday expressed anger at the United States for allegedly monitoring almost all the country’s telephone conversations after revelations by the Wikileaks website.

      Wikileaks editor Julian Assange said on Friday that Afghanistan was one of at least two countries where the U.S. National Security Agency “has been recording and storing nearly all the domestic [and international] phone calls.” Earlier last week journalist Glenn Greenwald had revealed that the NSA had been monitoring all the domestic and international phone calls of the Bahamas, but had refused to identify the second country, claiming he believed it could lead to the death of innocent people.

    • The world’s biggest internet spy is playing cop

      Since the US Department of Justice announced indictments against 5 Chinese military officers, some US media have reported that the US is conducting spying operations not confined to national security. The claims are based on secret documents leaked by former US National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden.

    • ‘USA Freedom Act’ and bipartisan tyranny
    • NSA reform falls short

      While a welcome first step toward reining in a government with “Big Brother” powers, the House bill falls short of the objective of its original sponsors. Transparency measures intended to guard against secret intrusions on personal privacy were weakened. And there are concerns about an undefined “specific selection term” to theoretically limit the reach of government intrusion into personal records and personal communications.

    • Jesse Kline: A bigger surveillance state won’t stop ‘cyberbullying’

      …making it easier for government officials to gather information about Canadians’ online activities.

    • Snowden In Russia Of His Own Free Will, Says Glenn Greenwald

      If not, other countries are ready to offer him shelter, including Brazil, Venezuela, Bolivia and Nicaragua, and possibly even Germany or perhaps also Switzerland as there have been reports of the NSA spying on Swiss banks, he added.If not, other countries are ready to offer him shelter, including Brazil, Venezuela, Bolivia and Nicaragua, and possibly even Germany or perhaps also Switzerland as there have been reports of the NSA spying on Swiss banks, he added.

    • Why US is in no position to accuse the Chinese of hacking
    • As Snowden gets his own comic book, the writer ‘leaks’ her inspiration and motivations

      FOUR years ago, Valerie D’Orazio was writing a story about a character who knows too much. Whom people want silenced. And who ultimately delivers all her files to the media, via email, so the whole world shall know these dark secrets. Little could D’Orazio have known then that this Marvel Comics story, titled Punisher MAX: Butterfly, was professional prologue to another big assignment: Writing about the life and exploits of NSA leaker Edward Snowden.

    • Lawyer: Edward Snowden ‘Considering’ Return to US

      NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden is “considering’ returning to the United States if certain conditions are met, his lawyer told Germany’s Der Spiegel.

      “There are negotiations,” Snowden’s German lawyer Wolfgang Kaleck said, according to a translation on RT.com, a news agency based in Russia. “Those who know the case are aware that an amicable agreement with the U.S. authorities will be most reasonable,” Kaleck said.

      Snowden is not involved in the negotations, Kaleck told Der Spiegel.

    • Snowden ‘considers’ returning to US – report
    • Congress divorces NIST and NSA

      The US Congress has passed a bill that removes the NSA’s direct input into encryption standards.

      According to a report at ProPublica, an amendment to the National Institute of Standards and Technology act removes the requirement that NIST consult with the NSA in setting new encryption standards.

    • Chinese Troops Must Take Up ‘Legal Arms’ Against ‘Pretentious’ U.S. (Huanqiu, China)

      The U.S. Department of Justice last week announced the criminal indictments of five Chinese army officers, claiming that they helped Chinese companies steal American corporate business information, and that all five are from “Unit 61398″ of the People’s Liberation Army. Since February last year, the U.S. government has accused the unit “headquartered in Shanghai” of being part of a “hacker army” involved in the long-term theft of U.S. trade secrets.

    • Scottish Nationalist Proposes Asylum For NSA Whistle-Blower Edward Snowden

      Scottish supporters of Edward Snowden say an independent Scotland should offer political asylum to the man whose disclosure of classified NSA documents revealed pervasive U.S. surveillance around the world.

      Members of the Scottish parliament (MSPs) have considered a call for the former NSA contractor, who is currently being sheltered in Russia, to be given political asylum in Scotland if voters opt for independence in September’s referendum.

    • China’s state-owned sector told to cut ties with US consulting firms

      China has told its state-owned enterprises to sever links with American consulting firms just days after the US charged five Chinese military officers with hacking US companies, the Financial Times reported on Sunday.

      China’s action, which targets companies like McKinsey & Company and The Boston Consulting Group (BCG), stems from fears the firms are providing trade secrets to the US government, the FT reported, citing unnamed sources close to senior Chinese leaders.

    • US-China cyber-battles intensify

      The United States has accused some Chinese of hacking into American companies’ computers but the US itself has been engaging in massive spying of foreign companies and trade officials.

      [...]

      But in fact the US does spy on companies and trade policy makers and negotiators of other countries, presumably in order to obtain a commercial advantage.

    • ‘USA Freedom Act’ and bipartisan tyranny
    • US tries to bar Chinese nationals from two hacker conferences in the US
    • Licence to spy

      In January, after the disclosures by Edward Snowden about the scale of the US intelligence apparatus’s cyber snooping capabilities, President Barack Obama acknowledged the need to curtail the National Security Agency’s damaging practices and to begin a conversation on how a balance between national security and civil liberties could be struck. If it was clear then that downsizing the surveillance state would be a difficult task, the version of the USA Freedom Act that passed the House of Representatives last week underscored that fact.

    • German Lawmakers May Call Apple CEO Tim Cook Over NSA Spying

      An investigation committee set up by German parliamentarians to look into the NSA’s bulk collection of Europe’s telecommunications data may call several prominent U.S. tech company executives to testify, including Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) CEO Tim Cook, reports The Wall Street Journal. Other witnesses that the committee may call include Facebook (NASDAQ:FB) CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Google (NASDAQ:GOOG) (NASDAQ:GOOGL) executive chairman Eric Schmidt, Twitter (NYSE:TWTR) CEO Dick Costolo, and Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) executive vice

    • The Washington Post’s ‘Fear-Driven Approach’ to NSA Files Infuriated Snowden

      When National Security Agency whistleblower Edward Snowden was working to convince journalists to cover NSA documents he taken with him to expose evidence of dragnet warrantless surveillance, he was especially frustrated with one media organization, which has actually received recognition for its work on the NSA files: The Washington Post.

      The story of how the Post became involved and, in many ways, let a whistleblower down is a testament to why future whistleblowers should be cautious when approaching such establishment media outlets. What happened is detailed in journalist Glenn Greenwald’s book, No Place to Hide: Edward Snowden, the NSA & the US Surveillance State.

    • The Bahamas Wants To Know The Reasons Of NSA Recording Its Phone Calls

      The Bahamas government officials want their US counterparts to explain why the National Security Agency (NSA) has been intercepting and recording every cell phone call taking place on the island nation.

    • NBC’s Brian Williams Gets Exclusive with Edward Snowden

      NBC anchor Brian Williams has landed an exclusive interview with NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden. It will be Snowden’s first American television interview. Williams traveled to Moscow this week to speak with both Snowden and Glenn Greenwald for an hour-long special that will air during primetime on May 28th.

    • US-China tech exchange strained over hacking accusations

      The U.S.’ escalating feud with China over hacking charges could end up hurting IT suppliers in both countries, as suspicions and eroding trust threaten to dampen the tech exchange between the two nations.

    • New York Times Admits Reason For Delay In Delivering NSA Wiretapping Story

      On the 2004 campaign trail, President Bush denied the existence of an American warrantless surveillance program. But inside the Department of Justice, an attorney leaked information to The New York Times explaining the National Security Agency did indeed eavesdrop on phones around the country.

    • New York Times: Spy bill falls short

      Unfortunately, the bill passed by the House on Thursday falls far short of those promises, and does not live up to its title, the USA Freedom Act. Because of last-minute pressure from a recalcitrant Obama administration, the bill contains loopholes that dilute the strong restrictions in an earlier version, potentially allowing the spy agencies to continue much of their phone-data collection.

    • NSA reform to be ‘fight of the summer’

      Civil libertarians who say the House didn’t go far enough to reform the National Security Agency are mounting a renewed effort in the Senate to shift momentum in their direction.

    • FBI introduces app to help protect children
    • The FBI’s Massive Facial Recognition Database: Privacy Implications
    • House Committee Puts NSA on Notice Over Encryption Standards

      An amendment adopted by a House committee would, if enacted, take a step toward removing the National Security Agency from the business of meddling with encryption standards that protect security on the Internet.

    • Will The House’s Gutted USA Freedom Act Really Stop The NSA?

      “While it represents a slight improvement from the status quo, it isn’t the reform bill that Americans deserve,” says a staff attorney with the ACLU.

    • Unhackable NSA-proof instant messaging program

      In the digital world, you never know who is spying on you. There’s hackers, nosy neighbors, a vengeful ex, the NSA, and that’s just a handful of the possibilities.

      Wouldn’t it be nice if there were a way to keep your messages safe from prying eyes? Now there is.

      Take a look at PQChat, an unhackable – yes, I said unhackable – secure instant messaging app.

    • CERN Scientists Launch Encrypted Email Service

      As it turns out, people really don’t want the government reading their email. Scientists at CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research, have launched a new email service featuring end-to-end encryption to ensure complete privacy for users.

      Dubbed ProtonMail, the service claims to be fully anonymous. “Because of our end-to-end encryption, your data is already encrypted by the time it reaches our servers,” the site says. “We have no access to your messages, and since we cannot decrypt them, we cannot share them with third parties.”

      According to Jason Stockman, a co-developer of ProtonMail, the service was inspired by the revelations of the massive citizen surveillance programs by the US National Security Agency (NSA) made public by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden last year.

    • NSA row sparks rush for encrypted email

      A new push to encrypt email, keeping messages free from government snooping, is gaining momentum. One new email service promising “end-to-end” encryption launched last Friday, and others are being developed while major services such as Google Gmail and Yahoo Mail have stepped up security measures.

      A major catalyst for email encryption were revelations about widespread online surveillance in documents leaked by Edward Snowden, the former National Security Agency contractor. “A lot of people were upset with those revelations, and that coalesced into this effort,” said Jason Stockman, a co-developer of ProtonMail, a new encrypted email service which launched last Friday with collaboration of scientists from Harvard, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the European research lab CERN.

    • US considers denying visas to Chinese hackers to attend conferences
    • US accuses Chinese officials of cyber espionage

      Meanwhile, US is engaged in massive electronic surveillance

    • Read it, you’ll doubt no more

      In the journalist Glenn Greenwald, Edward Snowden found a perfect match. I don’t mean to slight the contributions of Laura Poitras and Barton Gellman, the other two journalists who first dug into Snowden’s amazing and unprecedented trove of National Security Agency (NSA) documents.

    • America: spying mostly on its own

      One characteristic of a totalitarian state is that it is as determined to subjugate its own citizens as it is to conquer foreigners. That’s why Edward Snowden could tell the National Press Club by live video link from his Russian exile that when he was a contractor for the National Security Agency (NSA) he was appalled to see NSA “collecting more information about Americans in America than it is about Russians in Russia.”

    • Independent Scotland could give asylum to ‘traitor’ Edward Snowden

      HOLYROOD has triggered a major diplomatic row with the US over a proposal to grant asylum to the “traitor” Edward Snowden in the event of independence.

    • The Pressure’s On Harper to End Online Spying — Let’s Keep it Up

      Leading Conservative elder statesman Stockwell Day has joined the growing chorus of Canadians speaking out about how Bill C-13 would expose law-abiding Canadians to warrantless government spying. If passed, the controversial bill would grant immunity to telecom companies who hand our private information to the government without a warrant.

    • Commentary: U.S. cyber-scoundrelism doomed to backfire

      “Play by the rules” seems to be Washington’s sacrosanct motto on international interaction. But time and again rules are just a lump of clay in Uncle Sam’s hands.

      In a recent farce about cyber-security, the United States slapped some fabricated charges against five Chinese military officers, accusing them of hacking into the systems of U.S. companies to steal trade secrets.

    • Chinese indicted for acting like America’s NSA
    • What does GCHQ know about our devices that we don’t?
    • Police use cellphone spying device
    • The Pentagon report on Snowden’s ‘grave’ threat is gravely overblown

      NSA defenders still won’t tell the whole truth, but a newly revealed damage assessment offers a window into government damage control – not any actual damage done by Snowden

    • Edward Snowden Threw Crypto Parties Before He Blew the Whistle on NSAEdward Snowden Threw Crypto Parties Before He Blew the Whistle on NSA
    • A warning, not a blueprint – living in a post-Snowden world

      It is twenty five years since Tim Berners-Lee had the germ of an idea that became the World Wide Web. Smartphones for everyone have been with us less than a decade. Technology is transformative and world changing. 150 years ago we didn’t have the electric light or the phonograph. Photography was a new and rare technology, and everything we take for granted in our lives today – central heating, hot and cold running water, flushing toilets, fridges, cars, radio, and TV – had yet to be invented, or was at the very least out of the reach of the average citizen.

  • Civil Rights

  • DRM

    • Tell Mozilla: Keep DRM out of Firefox

      Only a week after the International Day Against DRM, Mozilla has announced that it will support Digital Restrictions Management in its Firefox Browser. The browser will have a built-in utility that automatically fetches and installs DRM from Adobe.

  • Intellectual Monopolies

    • Majority of Japanese public oppose compromising over TPP: Mainichi poll

    • Trademarks

    • Copyrights

      • Supreme Court Admits Copyright Infringement May Actually Help The Copyright Holder
      • Pirates Are Staying In European Parliament

        As of 18:00 on Election Day, it is clear that the Pirate Party remains in the European Parliament for another term. The German exit polls predict that at least Julia Reda from Germany has just been elected as Member of European Parliament, securing a pirate seat for the coming term. More results as they come in (developing story).

      • THE CONNECTION BETWEEN THE COPYRIGHT INDUSTRY AND THE NSA

        Most notably, the copyright industry is known for using child porn as an argument for introducing mass surveillance, so that the mass surveillance can be expanded in the next step to targeting people who share knowledge and culture in violation of that industry’s distribution monopolies. This is a case study in taking corporate cynicism to the next level.

        This mass surveillance is also what feeds the NSA, the GCHQ, and its other European counterparts (like the Swedish FRA). It is continuously argued, along the precise same lines, that so-called “metadata” – whom you’re calling, from where, for how long – is not sensitive and therefore not protected by privacy safeguards. This was the argument that the European Court of Justice struck down with the force of a sledgehammer, followed by about two metric tons of bricks: it’s more than a little private if you’re talking to a sex service for 19 minutes at 2am, or if you’re making a call to the suicide hotline from the top of a bridge. This is the kind of data that the spy services wanted to have logged, eagerly cheered on by the copyright industry.

      • Amazon Won’t Sell You The Paperback Version Of The Anti-Amazon Book

        The latest evidence: Amazon has escalated its battle against book publisher Hachette. Now Amazon won’t allow you to pre-order any Hachette books, the publisher confirmed to The Huffington Post on Friday. That means you cannot buy the paperback version of Brad Stone’s Amazon exposé “The Everything Store: Jeff Bezos and the Age of Amazon.”

      • Amazon Is Cracking Down on Book Publisher, Say Critics

        Amazon appears to be trying to pressure a book publisher into agreeing to more favorable terms for the online retail giant by refusing to offer pre-orders of some of the publisher’s titles. Books for which Amazon is no longer taking orders include a new novel by J.K. Rowling and the paperback version of “The Everything Store,” an inside look at the operations of Amazon.

      • Kim Dotcom Fails in Bid to Suppress FBI Evidence

        Kim Dotcom has lost his bid to have evidence held by the FBI against him kept a secret. The information , a 200-page document which includes a sampling of 22 million emails relevant to his extradition case, may now be made public. Efforts by Dotcom to gain access to government held documentation against him were also rejected.

      • Public BitTorrent Trackers Ban Piracy Monitoring Outfits

        The three largest BitTorrent trackers have banned the IP-ranges of several major hosting companies. The move aims to make it harder for anti-piracy outfits and other information gathering outfits to snoop on file-sharers. Unfortunately, the changes also mean that users of some VPNs, proxies and seedboxes can no longer connect.

      • Open WiFi Is Not a CopyCrime: EFF’s Primer on Open WiFi and Copyright

        Every day cafes, airports, libraries, laundromats, schools and individuals operate “open” Wi-Fi routers, sharing their connection with neighbors and passers-by at no charge. The City of San Francisco recently deployed a free, public Wi-Fi network along a three-mile stretch of Market Street. Sometimes people use those connections for unauthorized activities. Most of the time they don’t, and the world gets a valuable public service of simple, ubiquitous Internet access.

]]> http://techrights.org/2014/05/26/chromebook-prospects/feed/ 0 Links 21/5/2014: New Qt, Bacon Leaves Canonical http://techrights.org/2014/05/21/bacon-leaves-canonical/ http://techrights.org/2014/05/21/bacon-leaves-canonical/#comments Wed, 21 May 2014 19:23:43 +0000 http://techrights.org/?p=77712

GNOME bluefish

Contents

GNU/Linux

Free Software/Open Source

  • Planet FLOSS India – 10th anniversary
  • Good Enough Is Good Enough
  • Do You REALLY Need That Non-Free Software?

    The standard comment trolls make to FLOSS is that non-Free software is better, somehow, because you pay for it up front. I’ve seen several instances of that being false in schools. Here’s an example of a big business rolling out non-Free software. It didn’t work for them and they are stopping the rollout part way through. You don’t always get what you pay for…

  • Security’s future belongs to open source

    The proof that open source, properly applied, is available. Studies, such as the one recently done by Coverity, have found that open-source programs have fewer errors per thousand lines of code than its proprietary brothers. And, it’s hard to ignore the Communications-Electronics Security Group (CESG), the group within the UK Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) that assesses operating systems and software for security issues, when they said that that while no end-user operating system is as secure as they’d like it to be, Ubuntu 12.04 is the most secure desktop.

    On the other hand, the mere existence of Microsoft’s monthly Patch Tuesday says everything most of us need to know about how “secure” proprietary software is. I also can’t help noticing how every time Microsoft releases a new version of Internet Explorer (IE), they always claim it’s the most secure ever. And, then, a new hole is found, and guess what, that same security hole is in every version of IE from IE 6 to IE 11. If IE really were being rewritten to make it secure why are the same holes showing up In Every Version??

  • HP Strengthens Commitment to Open Networking and the Open Cloud

    As a platinum member of both the Linux Foundation and the OpenStack Foundation, HP hasn’t exactly kept its interest in open source a secret. Recently, however, it upped its commitment to open source in two key areas. First, it added the OpenDaylight project — one it helped found — to its list of platinum memberships. Second, it launched the Helion portfolio and pledged to invest more than $1 billion in support of new open source cloud products and platforms.

    “Our views on open source are captured by our commitment to base HP’s cloud product and services strategy entirely upon the open source OpenStack framework,” Mark Pearson, chief technologist for HP Networking, told Linux.com. “We believe openness speeds up innovation.”

  • Events

  • Web Browsers

  • SaaS/Big Data

    • Looker Unveils New ‘Self-Service’ Big Data Analytics Platform
    • OpenStack launches new marketplace of vendors

      The OpenStack Juno Summit last week in Atlanta was a source of many new and exciting announcements, from both vendors and the OpenStack Foundation itself. One of the more interesting of such announcements was of a new OpenStack Marketplace. For those looking to explore their options in commercial offerings of OpenStack, from training to distributions to public clouds and more, the Marketplace is designed to help users better understand what resources are available.

    • New OpenStack Resources Flowed Out of the Atlanta Summit

      Last week was filled with soundbytes and announcements from OpenStack Summit in Atlanta, and there were also announcements of several new services and resources surrounding the OpenStack cloud platform. In case you missed some of the most important ones, here is what you need to know, whether you are considering an OpenStack deployment or already have one underway.

    • OpenStack Building Storyboard for the Software-Defined Economy
    • Ubuntu, Puppet, Grizzly Play Key Roles in OpenStack Deployments

      During an afternoon session at the OpenStack Juno Summit in Atlanta on May 14, members of the OpenStack User Committee publicly revealed the results of the latest OpenStack user survey. OpenStack is an open-source cloud platform originally started by NASA and Rackspace in 2010 that has since grown to include many of the leading names in the technology world, including IBM, HP, Dell, Cisco and AT&T. Since 2010, there have been nine major milestone releases of OpenStack, with the most recent being the Icehouse release that debuted on April 17. The new OpenStack user study includes responses from 506 OpenStack deployments around the world. The top country for deployments is the United States, followed by China. Across the 506 OpenStack clouds, organizations are in various stages of deployments, with 210 being in development/quality assurance, 218 in proof of concept and 209 in production deployment. One of the key findings of the user survey is that OpenStack users are running different OpenStack releases and don’t always update to the latest version, for various reasons. For the OpenStack clouds running in production, the survey found that the Ubuntu Linux operating system is the leading choice. In this eWEEK slide show, we take a look at some of the key findings from the OpenStack user survey.

    • KEMP Unveils Condor Cloud Application Delivery Framework

  • CMS

    • WordPress 3.9.1 now available in Fedora

      This update is a bugfix update of the previous major WordPress update 3.9 (codenamed “Smith”). WordPress 3.9.1 has been available for a few days in Fedora 20, and was recently just pushed to the Fedora 19 repos.

      The 3.9 WordPress update introduced a slew of new features and refinements, including a new theme browser, improved post editing, and updates to the image editing tools.

  • Public Services/Government

    • Local government software sharing and reuse site revamped

      Europe Commons, an online platform for the sharing, exchange and reuse of software solutions for Europe’s municipalities and other local government organisations was revamped earlier this month, during which it also received a new name – Civic Exchange. The platform collects and promotes applications and digital services that help improve public services in Europe. The platform’s consortium is doubling its efforts to find new solutions, announcing evidence-based case studies to showcase those with the most impact.

    • 3 ways government can unleash the power of feedback

      Open government is a critical dimension to democracy. It is also difficult. If it were easy, our work would be over. Yet, open government by its nature needs constant iteration. Open government, much like open source, is grounded in collaborative and participatory processes that ultimately shape how we experience our cities, states, and country. It requires several dimensions—from releasing information to creating structures and processes to empower people inside and out of government.

  • Openness/Sharing

  • Programming

  • Standards/Consortia

    • Direct from the White House: APIs are key to extending platforms

      To a technology director at the White House, the State of the Union is like the Superbowl. While the world is watching the President of the United States deliver an address to the nation, Leigh Heyman and his team are managing the media technology behind the scenes to create an enhanced and interactive experience for the viewers. How many of you watched the State of the Union on YouTube this year?

    • Finding OpenGL Driver Bottlenecks With OProfile + PTS

      A new initiative is underway by a Mesa developer to pair the OProfile system profiler with the Phoronix Test Suite for more easily finding OpenGL driver bottlenecks, etc.

Leftovers

  • Why Tech’s Best Minds Are Very Worried About the Internet of Things

    The 1,606 respondents said they saw many potential benefits to the Internet of Things. New voice- and gesture-based interfaces could make computers easier to use. Medical devices and health monitoring services could help prevent and treat diseases. Environmental sensors could detect pollution. Salesforce.com chief scientist JP Rangaswami said that improved logistics and planning systems could reduce waste.

  • iOS 7: users destroy iPhones after fake waterproof advert

    A spoof advert suggesting Apple’s new iOS 7 operating system made handsets waterproof appears to have fooled some users into destroying their iPhones.

  • First academy chain closes leaving the fates of six schools in the balance

    An academy chain in charge of running six state schools became the first in the country to fold today – forcing a sudden hunt for new sponsors to take them over.

  • Security

  • Defence/Police/Secrecy/Aggression

    • The Blair-Bush Letters

      If anybody is surprised that key letters between Tony Blair and George Bush on launching the invasion of Iraq have gone missing, they have not been paying attention. On both sides of the Atlantic, the Obama and Cameron regimes have consistently and continually covered up the crimes of their predecessors, from launch illegal wars of aggression to instituting programmes of torture and extraordinary rendition and murder.

  • Environment/Energy/Wildlife

    • How a Raccoon Became an Aardvark

      In July of 2008, Dylan Breves, then a seventeen-year-old student from New York City, made a mundane edit to a Wikipedia entry on the coati. The coati, a member of the raccoon family, is “also known as … a Brazilian aardvark,” Breves wrote. He did not cite a source for this nickname, and with good reason: he had invented it. He and his brother had spotted several coatis while on a trip to the Iguaçu Falls, in Brazil, where they had mistaken them for actual aardvarks.

  • PR/AstroTurf/Lobbying

    • Vote Green in England

      So who should those of us living in England vote for tomorrow? I intend to vote Green – it seems to me that in England that is the best way to give a positive expression to the discontent with mainstream parties. I particularly hope that those who have the opportunity to vote for Rupert Read in the East of England will do so. Their support for renationalizing the railways would be enough for me, but actually I find myself in agreement with the large majority of their platform. I reproduce here an article from the ever excellent Peter Tatchell.

    • Hungary and the End of Politics

      How Victor Orbán launched a constitutional coup and created a one-party state.

  • Censorship

    • Facebook Shuts Down Account Of Woman Who Posted Same-Sex Kiss Photo

      A woman in Italy is accusing Facebook of closing her account with less than 24 hours notice after she refused to remove a photo of two women kissing. Carlotta Trevisan says Facebook deemed that the image, which she described as “chaste” and “pure,” “violated the community’s standards on nudity and pornography.”

  • Privacy

  • Civil Rights

  • Internet/Net Neutrality

    • Why the UK needs to start caring about net neutrality

      LAST THURSDAY the US Federal Communications Commission (FCC) voted by a three to two margin to move forward with chairman Tom Wheeler’s proposals to gut net neutrality rules in the USA. But what exactly does that mean? And why should we, on a small island 3,000 miles away, care anyway?

      It all started in January when US internet service provider (ISP) Verizon successfully appealed against FCC Open Internet Order 2010, arguing that because internet service had been classified as an “information service” rather than a “telecommunications service”, the FCC had no right to enforce net neutrality rules under the common carrier regulations that had been the backbone of the 2010 rules, and a cornerstone of the Obama administration.

    • FCC chairman clarifies position with House Subcommittee

  • Intellectual Monopolies

    • TTIP Update XXVI

      This is probably the most action-packed update so far – a reflection of the fact that we are now deep in the TAFTA/TTIP negotiations, which have been running for nearly a year. Of course, information about what exactly is happening behind the closed doors is still thin on the ground. To its credit, the European Commission has recently published its negotiating positions in five areas: chemicals, cosmetics, pharmaceutical products, motor vehicles, textiles and clothing. Significantly, though, it did not publish its proposals for energy. That’s because they are far more contentious than for those other sectors.

    • Copyrights

      • Election Week, Swedish And Czech Pirate Parties Liftoff In Polls

        Last Friday, Swedish Public Radio opened with the headline “Swedish Pirate Party Heading For Re-Election To European Parliament” as a fresh poll was published. This was followed by similar news from the Czech Republic. As election week opens, more is up in the air than ever – but things are looking overall positive for the movement.

      • Student Wins Pirate Bay Domain To Protest Website Blockades

        A student has been awarded a valuable Pirate Bay-related domain after successfully complaining to Denmark’s domain name dispute body. ThePirateBay.dk will now be taken away from its current owner and transformed into a special site to protest the ISP blockade of The Pirate Bay in Denmark.

      • The Biggest Filer of Copyright Lawsuits? This Erotica Web Site

        In 2006, Colette Pelissier was selling houses in Southern California, and her boyfriend, Brigham Field, was working as a photographer of nude models. Colette wanted to leave the real-estate business, so she convinced her boyfriend to start making adult films. “I had this idea, when the real-estate market was cooling—you know, maybe we could make beautiful erotic movies,” she said.

      • Pirate Bay Backs Pirate Party With EU Election Banners

        The Pirate Bay has just launched a banner campaign to support the various Pirate parties participating in the European Parliament elections this week. The notorious torrent site is running localized ads, encouraging its millions of visitors to vote Pirate.

      • The Pirate Bay Running Promos For European Pirate Parties In Election Week
]]> http://techrights.org/2014/05/21/bacon-leaves-canonical/feed/ 0 Links 13/5/2014: China Promotes GNU/Linux, NSA Backdoors Hardware http://techrights.org/2014/05/13/china-promotes-gnu-linux/ http://techrights.org/2014/05/13/china-promotes-gnu-linux/#comments Tue, 13 May 2014 14:29:58 +0000 http://techrights.org/?p=77646

GNOME bluefish

Contents

GNU/Linux

  • Divide And Conquer Should Work For GNU/Linux

    So many times we read here in comments and in articles out in the web that migration to GNU/Linux is hard/impossible because… It is hard/impossible to move a ship from some factory inland to a shipyard but it is routine/easy if only the parts need to be shipped. Stop making migration to GNU/Linux look hard by identifying various problems. No problem prevents migrating a good chunk of IT to FLOSS on GNU/Linux.

  • Desktop

    • Kim Komando: Buy a computer for less than $100

      Instead you could try an operating system based on Linux. These are free, come with everything you need for basic computing, and will run great on older hardware. If you’re going to give this a whirl, check out Linux Mint. The MATE edition should run better than XP, in fact.

      [...]

      And in the last few years, it has been made easier for beginners to use, thanks to its whimsically named New Out of Box Software, or NOOBS, system. This helps you install a few of the various operating systems it runs, which are based on the free Linux.

      You might still end up doing some tweaking, but fortunately, the Raspberry Pi site has excellent tutorials for beginners.

      Via’s APC Rock ($79) and Paper ($99) are similar systems with a bit more oomph.

      When you’re poking around for DIY computers, you might come across the Arduino board. While this is a fantastic system for hobbyists, it won’t work as a computer.
      Android computers

      Android isn’t just for smartphones and tablets.

      There are a few companies making Android “sticks.” These are the size of a USB and plug right into the HDMI port on your TV — similar to a Chromecast or Roku Streaming Stick.

      However, these run a full version of Android, which means you can surf the Web, install apps and anything else you’d do on an Android tablet.

    • Kim Komando Recommends GNU/Linux
    • Security pioneer Alan Solomon uses Linux to avoid viruses

      Alan Solomon, creator of Dr Soloman’s Antivirus, has admitted to using Linux to avoid viruses rather than try to combat them on Windows.

      His comments come after Symantec’s Brian Dye estimated that antivirus systems do not even catch half of cyber attacks.

      Writing of his decision on his blog, Solomon said: “There doesn’t seem to be much malware for Linux. I don’t know why. Some say it’s because Linux’s security is better, some say it’s because fewer people use it. I’m not really bothered.”

    • XP users urged to switch alliegance to Linux

      China’s Ministry of Industry and Information of Technology (MIIT) urged Windows XP users in China to switch to domestically made computer operating systems, China Central Television (CCTV) reported on Saturday.

      “We want users to pay attention to the potential security risk brought by their Windows XP system as Microsoft ceased providing further patch services. At the same time, the ministry will work on developing China’s own computer system and applications based on Linux and we hope that the users will give more support to these domestically made products,” Zhang Feng, chief engineer of MIIT, told CCTV.

    • Chinese Government Says on TV That Windows XP Users Should Choose Linux

  • Server

    • SME Server 9.0 RC1 Linux Server Prepares for the Final Version

      SME Server 9.0 RC1 is based on CentOS 6.5, just like all the development versions that came before it, and contains a lot of improvements, changes, and new features. This is normal, especially with such a complex Linux distribution.

      “SME Server is the leading Linux distribution for small and medium enterprises. SME Server is brought to you by Koozali Foundation, Inc., a non-profit corporation that exists to provide marketing and legal support for SME Server.”

    • Bank finds stability in Linux, innovation in Agile

      Linux, ‘dual live’ data centres and a collaborative relationship between development and IT operations have all helped play a role delivering infrastructure stability while driving rapid ongoing growth at Tyro Payments, according to Sascha Hess, the vice-president for operations at the acquiring bank.

      In the half year to December 2013, Tyro reported $25.4 million in revenue — a 36 per cent increase in revenue over the previous corresponding period. The processor has been in the BRW Fast 100 for four consecutive years.

      Tyro Payments is “basically a software development company with a banking licence and a sales arm”, according to Hess. The company was founded just over a decade ago and is Australia’s only independent EFTPOS provider.

    • Siege Your Servers!

      Setting up Web servers is fairly simple. In fact, it’s so simple that once the server is set up, we often don’t think about it anymore. It wasn’t until I had a very large Web site rollout fail miserably that I started to research a method for load-testing servers before releasing a Web site to production.

    • Compare popular Linux distributions for servers

      There is no single best Linux distribution for every enterprise’s servers. It all depends on what your company needs.

      Today, Linux is more than a free OS to mess around with — it runs core business applications. When comparing the most popular Linux distributions, corporate Linux users care about support throughout the stack, not just an attractive feature set.

  • Kernel Space

  • Applications

  • Desktop Environments/WMs

    • K Desktop Environment/KDE SC/Qt

      • Slackel Live KDE 4.10.5 Is a Conservative Linux Distro

        The developers of the Slackel KDE are not trying to get the newest packages into the operating system, but to provide a stable experience for all the users, which the most important aspect for any Linux distribution.

      • Kubuntu Utopic Kickoff Meeting

        A new cycle and lots of interesting possibilities! Will KF5 and Plasma 5 be supreme? All welcome at the Kubuntu kickoff meeting this european evening and american afternoon at 19:00UTC.

    • GNOME Desktop/GTK

      • GNOME: TARBALLS DUE: 3.12.2

        Now is the time for a new update to our stable release, this is 3.12.2.

      • Custom Layouts on Android

        If you ever built an Android app, you have definitely used some of the built-in layouts available in the platform—RelativeLayout, LinearLayout, FrameLayout, etc. They are our bread and butter for building Android UIs.

        The built-in layouts combined provide a powerful toolbox for implementing complex UIs. But there will still be cases where the design of your app will require you to implement custom layouts.

      • GNOME’s Tracker 1.0.1 Gets a Ton of Fixes

        The Tracker developer took a very big leap when the GNOME 3.12 branch was release and they decided that it’s the perfect time to ditch the old numbering system, which advanced really hard (the last stable was 0.17.2) and to get to 1.0.

        The package was stable to a long time, but it must have created some confusion to have something numbered like that.

      • GTK+ 3.12.2 Released with Numerous Fixes

        GTK+, a multi-platform toolkit for creating graphical user interfaces that provide a complete set of widgets, suitable for projects ranging from small one-off tools to complete application suites, is now at version 3.12.2.

  • Distributions

    • Pinguy 14.04 Full Edition Is Based on Ubuntu 14.04 LTS, but It’s Completely Different

      Pinguy OS 14.04 Full edition is based on Ubuntu 14.04 LTS (Trusty Tahr), but the developer chose to depart from the base distribution and adopt GNOME 3.10 as the desktop environment, with a few changes.

      The developers of Pinguy OS wanted to make something different from what users can find right now, and one of the ways they can achieve that is by implementing an interesting selection of applications.

    • Docker-Based CoreOS Linux Distribution Beta Launches

      CoreOS, a new Linux designed for massive server deployments and using the Docker containerisation system for applications, has been delivered as a beta.

      The open source Docker technology runs applications within containers – so they are virtualised and can be moved between systems, but without having to have a virtual machine for every one. It is becoming popular for its ability to move projects between development and operations swiftly.

    • Screenshots

    • PCLinuxOS/Mageia/Mandrake/Mandriva Family

      • Hands-on with PCLinuxOS 2014.05 KDE and LXDE: The Linux with something for everyone

        The last time I wrote about PCLinuxOS I was a bit critical about its Linux kernel version being quite a bit behind most of the other mainstream Linux distributions, so I was pleased to see that they have really caught up with this release. It has kernel 3.12.18, KDE 4.12.3, X.org X server 1.12.4, LibreOffice 4.2.4.2 and Firefox 29.0.1. Those are all quite good, and that Firefox release is really “hot off the press”.

      • Pros’ Secrets and Red Hat 7 and PCLinuxOS 2014.05 Reviews

        Today in Linux news Katherine Noyes scoured Linuxdom to find “Linux Pros’ top command line secrets,” if there’s really such a thing argues one blogger. In other news, Jesse Smith reviewed new Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 Release Candidate and Jamie Watson reviewed quietly released PCLinuxOS 2014.05.

    • Gentoo Family

    • Red Hat Family

    • Debian Family

      • wattOS OS R8 Ditches Ubuntu for Debian

        wattOS, a lightweight, energy-saving Linux distribution designed not only to bring your old computer back to life, but also to eat up as little power as possible, is now at version R8.

        WattOS is a very light and fast operating system that was initially based on Ubuntu, but the developers have decided to switch to Debian. They didn’t provide any reasons for doing so, but they wouldn’t be the first ones to make this decision.

      • wattOS R8 Released! and Info
      • wattOS R8 Is Now Based On Debian Rather Than Ubuntu

        For five years the wattOS Linux distribution has been around as being an energy-efficient distribution powered at its core by Ubuntu, but with their new release they have shifted to being powered by Debian.

        WattOS R8 was released this morning and they are now running this distribution off Debian Wheezy with some backports plus some components from Debian Jessie was also pulled in.

      • Siduction Is the First OS to Adopt the New LXQt Desktop Environement

        “We are very happy to present to you today, straight from LinuxTag conference in Berlin, the first integration of the shiny new desktop environment LXQt into a distribution image. This is clearly labeled as a Dev-Release, so do not trust it, it might kill your kittens, although the developers of LXQt flagged it as being beta status.”

      • WattOS R8 out now
      • Tails 1.0 review: Protect your privacy with a secure Linux distro

      • Derivatives

        • Canonical/Ubuntu

          • OpenVPN Import Broken in Ubuntu 14.04 LTS

            If you ever used a VPN connection in Ubuntu you know that you need to download a package from the official repository called network-manager-openvpn that allows users to import an openVPN file with all the setting and certificates in place.

            This particular feature used to work in the early versions of Ubuntu 14.04 LTS, but right before the launch something was broken in the network-manager-openvpn packages, which crashes the entire network manager during the import.

          • Canonical Announces The Orange Box $12k USD Ubuntu Cluster Suitcase

            The Orange Box is designed to be a “spectacular development platform” for showcasing Ubuntu, MAAS, Juju, Landscape, OpenStack, Hadoop, and other technologies. Canonical’s Orange Box can be a compact cloud, powerful computational machine, or a lightweight cluster

          • Flavours and Variants

  • Devices/Embedded

    • Drone quadrocopter boasts 14MP camera, runs Linux

      Parrot unveiled a Bebop Drone running Linux on a dual-core SoC, with a 14-megapixel HD fisheye camera and a WiFi-extending remote with Oculus Rift support.

    • Navy set to run helicopter drones on Linux

      Everyone knows at least one guy who uses Linux. I don’t use it myself, but I knew that one guy. He built all his PCs from spart parts, he knew the ins and outs of programming, he was a little bit of an anarchist (ok, more than a little). He fits the bill of the Linux user stereotype– the young hobbyist and hacker.

    • Phones

      • Ballnux

        • Android KitKat coming to older Samsung devices

          According to the source for SamMobile, Samsung is having trouble porting KitKat to its third-generation Galaxy S flagship and has decided to cancel the update for the phone. Things could change in the coming months, but for now, all plans for bringing the update to the Galaxy S III are on hold. It’ll surely displease users of the device, but unless Samsung can find a solution to whatever issues it is facing, the Galaxy S III will probably spend its life on Android 4.3.

        • Marmalade CEO: Tizen is App Developers’ Entryway to Wearables

          Tizen has created an opportunity for app developers to expand into wearable technologies, says Marmalade Technologies CEO, Harvey Elliott. Hundreds of games have already been added to the Tizen app store since Marmalade began offering SDK support last year for the Linux-based mobile operating system, he said. And this is just the beginning.

          Developers who are interested in learning how to port their games and enterprise applications to Tizen on the Marmalade cross-platform development tool can learn all about it at the Tizen Developer Conference, June 2-4 at the Hilton Union Square in San Francisco. Here Elliott gives us a preview of his talk at the conference and discusses Marmalade’s interest and involvement in Tizen.

      • Android

        • Nvidia’s Tegra 64-bit K1 SoC with Denver CPU spotted in Android source

          The upcoming Nvidia Tegra K1 (64-bit) System on a Chip (SoC) featuring Denver GPUs (Tegra 132) has been spotted in the Android source code. The chip is an iteration of the Tegra 124 K1 (32-bit) SoC we reported first about in 2013 which was the first Nvidia Tegra SoC featuring Kepler based GPU cores.

        • What’s Android Silver? Samsung preps Tizen mobes ‘for Russia, India’

          If Samsung does indeed release a smartphone running Tizen it would be another sign that the company is not entirely happy in its relationship with Google and the amount of cash it can make from Android-powered handsets. As the world’s number one mobe-maker, Samsung is certainly shifting hardware by the container-load. But as Apple, Amazon and Google have shown, sales of apps and content can deliver cash for years after a device is first sold.

        • ‘Tablet for hackers’ no longer on sale

          An Android tablet that was advertised as an open device for hackers appears to have gone off the market, quite soon after its release.

          The ZaTab ZT2 (seen above) was advertised late last year on the website of the small California company ZaReason, which also sells PCs and laptops loaded with GNU/Linux.

          It was listed along with the laptops on the website, but now is no longer featured there. There are, however, specific pages for this tablet and also the first one which the company produced, but one needs to know the URLs to view them.

          The page for the ZT2 says the device is now out of stock.

Free Software/Open Source

  • 4 words to avoid when negotiating the use of open source at your job

    If you work in an organization that isn’t focused on development, where computer systems are used to support other core business functions, getting management buy-in for the use of open source can be tricky. Here’s how I negotiated with my boss and my team to get them to accept and try open source software.

  • App.net’s open source failure

    When they launched, you’ll recall I was skeptical about the model, not least because of the company’s attitude to open source. The folks over there have continued with their self-confident tone all along, with a “wait until renewal, that’ll show you” attitude and a general disdain for anyone questioning their approach. I and other skeptics were firmly put in our place — but seems we made a decent call of it after all.

  • HP pivots, says open sourcing SDNs is right
  • HP Joins OpenDaylight Open Source SDN Project

    HP (HPQ) has added its name to the list of official backers of OpenDaylight, the open source software-defined networking (SDN) project supported by the Linux Foundation. HP is now a platinum member of the project.

    The Linux Foundation, which sponsors OpenDaylight as a collaborative project, is welcoming the addition of HP to the line-up of vendors helping to lead OpenDaylight — which already includes Brocade, Cisco, Citrix, Ericsson, IBM, Juniper, Microsoft and Red Hat as platinum members — as a sign of industry convergence around OpenDaylight as the SDN platform of choice.

  • HP Doubles Down on OpenDaylight
  • Words: Open source, Free, Contribute, Development

    The language of FLOSS and how you describe FLOSS to people is delivering a shocking change in mindset. Words will be resisted. Seeing the stuff in action, performing impossible feats with ease thanks to a FLOSS licence and doing all that the hardware can do without restriction is a powerful motivator. That’s why you see big images of cars being driven in ads for cars rather than just words. The words may fill in the gaps or finish the deal but performance and price should be the starting point of any conversation about migration to GNU/Linux and FLOSS applications. People resist change. They embrace doing more with less pain and suffering.

  • Events

  • Web Browsers

    • Mozilla

      • Firefox OS 1.3 Stable Is Now Ready. It Will Be Available On Devices Soon

        Among others, Firefox OS 1.3 comes with improved graphics, audio and gaming support with WebGL, asm.js and WebAudio being included, the galery app has received a feature that enables the users to sort the picture by month, Dual-SIM support has been added, the apps from the home screen are organized in Smart Collections, being categorized under Social, Games or Music, the Play FM Radio can be listened through the speaker, support for both email notifications and POP3 email accounts has been added, the Camera app has received both auto-focus and flash features, on supported devices, the Music app can be controlled via either the notification tray and the lock screen and support for sharing multiple files at once over Bluetooth connections has been added.

      • ZTE Open C, Running Firefox OS 1.3, Is Now Available On eBay For 100$
      • Mozilla Adjusts Sponsored New-Tab Page Testing

  • SaaS/Big Data

  • Databases

    • Pushing open source to the limit

      Sahoo chose MySQL as TradeMonster’s database, which might seem an odd choice given the extreme high availability and performance demands. Partly, he says, the decision was based on the fact that “with trading applications, three-fourths of activity is read-only.” More important, however, was the complex caching technology and fault tolerance Sahoo and his team built around the MySQL core (which is replicated using Microsoft SQL Server, one of the few pieces of commercial software in the mix). The back end has been so bulked up that Sahoo says it’s prepared to scale as much as 7,000 percent…

  • Oracle/Java/LibreOffice

    • Oracle Solaris 11.2 Beta Features Full OpenStack Cloud Distribution

      Oracle announced the beta release of its Solaris 11.2 Unix operating system at an event in late April. Solaris became part of Oracle’s product portfolio with the $7.4 billion acquisition of Sun Microsystems in 2010. Under Oracle’s leadership, the first major update to Solaris was in November 2011 with Solaris 11. Oracle positioned Solaris 11 from the beginning to be an operating system for the cloud. The Solaris 11.1 update debuted in October 2012 and provided incremental updates to the Unix platform. Now, Oracle is testing out Solaris 11.2 with a beta release that enables users to experience some of the new features. One of the biggest additions to Solaris 11.2 is a complete OpenStack cloud distribution, including compute, storage and networking components. Oracle has also further improved networking in Solaris with the Elastic Virtual Switch, which enables a distributed virtual switching platform. Virtualization gets a boost in Solaris 11.2, with the inclusion of Kernel Zones, which enables a full version of Solaris to run on top of a Solaris container. From an image management perspective, Solaris 11.2 introduces the concept of Unified Archives, which aim to make it easier to archive and create application images. In this slide show, eWEEK takes a look at some of the features in Oracle’s Solaris 11.2

  • CMS

  • Funding

    • Hewlett-Packard to spread free, open-source cloud services

      Hewlett-Packard said it plans to invest more than $1 billion over the next two years to develop and offer cloud-computing products and services.

      The company said it will make its OpenStack-based public cloud services available in 20 data centers over the next 18 months.

  • BSD

  • FSF/FSFE/GNU/SFLC

    • Liberty Eiffel first release: 2013.11

      Liberty Eiffel is a free eiffel compiler started from SmartEiffel code base. Its goal is to retain from SmartEiffel its rigour; but not its rigidity.

    • GNU Xnee 3.19 (‘Lucia’) released

      We are pleased to announce the availability of GNU Xnee 3.19

    • gs-emacs 0.1

      Well, after play some time with elisp I wrote this package to add a entry called GNUstep to Emacs menu. This entry has three options, two are to make simple App/Tool projects (for beginners). The third is for replace the non English characters to its corresponding code. This is useful for strings and plist files. This three commands can be executed with, respectively: M-x make-app, M-x make-tool y M-x replace-foreign-characters. The image below show the menu:

    • Presenting CADET, GNUnet’s routing and transport layer

      In the upcoming Med-Hoc-Net 2014 we will present a paper describing GNUnet’s CADET service (previously known as “mesh”) which allows a GNUnet application to communicate securely with any peer on the network knowing only it’s Peer Identity.

    • FreeIPMI 1.4.2 Released
    • FreeIPMI 1.4.3 Released

  • Public Services/Government

    • Open source everywhere at Plovdiv military prosecution

      Open source solutions are used in all parts of the organisation at the Military Prosecutor’s office in the Bulgarian province of Plovdiv. The public administration’s IT staff by default uses the Debian free software distribution, which has found its way to all kinds of computing devices, large and tiny.

    • The best and brightest in open government at TransparencyCamp 2014
    • Civic hacking is taking off

      The open government movement has become super-charged over the last year. Largely in part to the people and organizations on the front lines. At the 2013 Code for America Summit held in San Francisco, California, I got a chance to speak with some of the people who are volunteering their time, finding better ways to make government work for us, and bridging the gap for citizens to access and participate in their government.

    • Plovdiv Military Prosecutor’s office is all open source!

      Plovdiv is a province in Bulgaria which you may have never heard of. However, something out of the ordinary is going on there, literally exemplifying the limits of open source usage in Government offices. The Military Prosecutor’s office in Plovdiv uses a combined solution of Debian and Ubuntu along with other open source software for all their computing needs.

  • Licensing

    • Interview with Ciaran Gultnieks of F-Droid

      This is the latest installment of our Licensing and Compliance Lab’s series on free software developers who choose GNU licenses for their works.

    • Oracle continue to circumvent EXPORT_SYMBOL_GPL()

      So, in the face of a technical mechanism designed to enforce the author’s beliefs about the copyright status of callers of this function, Oracle deliberately circumvent that technical mechanism by simply re-exporting the same function under a new name. It should be emphasised that calling an EXPORT_SYMBOL_GPL() function does not inherently cause the caller to become a derivative work of the kernel – it only represents the original author’s opinion of whether it would. You’d still need a court case to find out for sure. But if it turns out that the use of ktime_get() does cause a work to become derivative, Oracle would find it fairly difficult to argue that their infringement was accidental.

      Of course, as copyright holders of DTrace, Oracle could solve the problem by dual-licensing DTrace under the GPL as well as the CDDL. The fact that they haven’t implies that they think there’s enough value in keeping it under an incompatible license to risk losing a copyright infringement suit. This might be just the kind of recklessness that Oracle accused Google of back in their last case.

  • Openness/Sharing

  • Programming

    • Sonograms in Python

      I went to a terrific workshop last week on identifying bird songs. We listened to recordings of songs from some of the trickier local species, and discussed the differences and how to remember them. I’m not a serious birder — I don’t do lists or Big Days or anything like that, and I dislike getting up at 6am just because the birds do — but I do try to identify birds (as well as mammals, reptiles, rocks, geographic features, and pretty much anything else I see while hiking or just sitting in the yard) and I’ve always had trouble remembering their songs.

    • PyPy 2.3 – Terrestrial Arthropod Trap

      We’re pleased to announce PyPy 2.3, which targets version 2.7.6 of the Python language. This release updates the stdlib from 2.7.3, jumping directly to 2.7.6.

      This release also contains several bugfixes and performance improvements, many generated by real users finding corner cases our TDD methods missed. CFFI has made it easier than ever to use existing C code with both cpython and PyPy, easing the transition for packages like cryptography, Pillow (Python Imaging Library [Fork]), a basic port of pygame-cffi, and others.

    • PyPy 2.3 Interpreter Released

  • Standards/Consortia

    • Things that drive me nuts about OpenGL

      Here’s a brain dump of the things that sometimes drive me crazy about OpenGL. (Note these are strictly my own opinions, not those of Valve or my coworkers. I’m also in a ranty-type mood today after grappling with OpenGL for several years now..) My major motivation to posting this: the GL API needs a reboot because IMO Mantle/D3D12 are going to most likely eat it for lunch soon, so we should start talking and thinking about this stuff now.

    • The Truth on OpenGL Driver Quality
    • Open Source Projects Take on Some Work of Standards Bodies

      As companies become more comfortable collaborating through open source projects, some predict they’ll replace some of the slower-moving standards bodies.

Leftovers

  • Bletchley Park row rages on as restored site opens to public with ‘Berlin Wall’

    Bletchley Park, the home of British wartime codebreaking, opens on Monday with new lawns and a new visitor centre for the 150,000 people who come each year to explore the historic site.

    The visitor centre is part of an £8m lottery grant won by the Bletchley Park Trust in 2011, which secured the future of the site and helped to restore the decaying huts in which many of the codebreakers worked.

    But it also opens with some six foot-high fences – separating two museums which each claim the legacy of Bletchley – which have been described as a Berlin Wall and symbolise an ugly, long-running dispute with Bletchley Park’s neighbour, the National Museum of Computing (TNMOC).

  • Writers Feel an Amazon-Hachette Spat

    Amazon’s secret campaign to discourage customers from buying books by Hachette, one of the big New York publishers, burst into the open on Friday.

  • Hardware

  • Health/Nutrition

    • Honeybee killer neonicotinoids caused colony Collapse Disorder, Harvard study says

      Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD), or the widespread population loss of honeybees, may have been caused by the use of neonicotinoids, according to a new study out of Harvard University.

      Neonicotinoids are a class of pesticides, chemically similar to nicotine. They were first developed for agricultural use in the 1980′s by petroleum giant Shell. The pesticides were refined by Bayer the following decade.

      Two of these chemicals are now believed to be the cause of CCD, according to the new study from the School of Public Health at the university. This study replicated their own research performed in 2012.

    • The Animals of Chernobyl [The New York Times]

      Biologist Timothy Mousseau has been studying the lasting effects of radiation on the flora and fauna of Chernobyl, Ukraine.

  • Security

  • Defence/Police/Secrecy/Aggression

    • Ernst seeks to clarify remark on Iraq WMDs

      Ernst clarifies her statement by saying Iraq had used weapons of mass destruction before the U.S. invasion in 2003.

    • Human Rights Groups Condemn Canadian Government for Allowing George W. Bush Visit

      Today, in response to George W. Bush’s arrival in Toronto, Canada, for a fundraiser with Bill Clinton, the Center for Constitutional Rights and the Canadian Centre for International Justice issued the following statement:

      “By allowing Bush to enter its territory, Canada is undermining the UN Convention Against Torture, which was adopted to ensure there are no safe havens for torturers. Canada is already under review by a UN committee for failing to take action when Bush visited in 2011. During that visit, four men brought forward claims of torture against Bush for the treatment they endured while detained at Guantánamo and in Afghanistan. Canadian law criminalizes torture wherever it occurs and Canada’s obligations under the Convention Against Torture make it clear that if a known torturer sets foot in the country, the government must investigate and prosecute if appropriate. Evidence of Bush’s role in authorizing torture in Abu Ghraib, Bagram, Guantánamo, and CIA black sites has been in the public record for years and Bush himself has admitted to his involvement. Canada is flouting the law by turning a blind eye to Bush’s visit.”

    • Greek neo-Nazi party allowed to participate in EU elections
    • Odessa Provocateurs: Censored News

      When a massacre happens the horrors of the atrocities tend to distract the public’s attention from the details of how it came to be in the first place. This is known to provocateurs, be they in Kiev, Moscow or in Langley Virginia. Langley is the home base of the Central Intelligence Agency, of course. The CIA director visited Kiev, confirmed by the White House on April 15th, and “dozens” of CIA agents are reported to be in Ukraine “advising” the unelected coup regime as I type this.

    • Burning Ukraine’s Protesters Alive

      For the second time in a week, Ukrainian anti-regime protesters holed up in a building were killed by fires set by pro-regime attackers with ties to newly formed neo-Nazi security forces, reports Robert Parry.

    • OPINION: US Sent CIA Director to Kiev to Initiate Crackdown on Protesters
    • Shame, Shame on the US

      United States is, today, backing a fascist regime in Ukraine whose army is shooting people based upon their nationality…

    • Ukraine: Majority of Mercenaries Source From USA

      An article published at the Global Research website echoes the charge from the German Bild am Sonntag newspaper, which said that nearly 400 U.S. mercenaries are working with coup authorities to suppress the opposition in the eastern region of the country.

    • The Twilight Zone of American Political Life

      The Twilight Zone of American Political Life Where Almost Every Word of News Isn’t What It Seems

    • Ukraine reminiscent of Hitler’s Germany – President Yanukovych
    • CIA’s Blackwater-Academi Threatened Donetsk-Lugansk 5/11/14 Elections
    • Russia sheds a tear on Victory Day, while history rewrites it

      The current events in Ukraine, where the Nazi-admirers play not the smallest role, are just a part of the trend,that for the moment remains with no adequate reaction. For example the Kherson governor, appointed by Kiev, addressing the veterans on the May 9, called Hitler a “liberator.”

    • Amos Oz calls perpetrators of hate crimes ‘Hebrew neo-Nazis’

      The writer and Israel Prize laureate Amoz Oz said on Friday that those responsible for hate crimes against Arabs and Christians are “Hebrew neo-Nazis.”

    • The Big Gay Wedding

      I was however saddened by the audience booing of the two young Russian girls. That was really nasty and unfair. They were scarcely more than children, for goodness sake. Putin is not their fault. That booing was an exhibition of racism; nothing else you can call it. If people wanted to make a point, they could have screamed for the Ukrainian girl – they didn’t have to boo the young Russians.

    • Western Reset Of Fascist Aggression Towards Russia – OpEd
    • Hundreds of Bosnia and Herzegovina Protesters March on Parliament and City Hall

      Protest started today at the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina. The intention of protesters is to hold the plenum of all plenum’s (assembly), hundreds of people from all around Bosnia came to parliament today, some of them having marched on foot for 2 days covering around 120 kilometers on the journey.

    • Drone war: Remote and personal

      Enemies, innocent victims, and soldiers have always made up the three faces of war. With war growing more distant, with drones capable of performing on the battlefield while their “pilots” remain thousands of miles away, two of those faces have, however, faded into the background in recent years. Today, we are left with just the reassuring “face” of the terrorist enemy, killed clinically by remote control while we go about our lives, apparently without any “collateral damage” or danger to our soldiers. Now, however, that may slowly be changing, bringing the true face of the drone

    • The True Costs of Remote Control War

      It’s rare to hear a government official speak in contrite tones; rarer still if that official represents the National Security Agency. Recently, however, Anne Neuberger, a special assistant to former NSA Director Keith Alexander, did just that.

      A year of revelations, courtesy of NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden, prepared the way. Since last June, the world has learned that the agency collects information on almost all U.S. domestic phone calls, spies on Internet activity – courtesy of Google, Microsoft, Yahoo, Apple, and Facebook – taps fiber optic cables and other key Internet infrastructure, uses digital dirty tricks to undermine worldwide computer security, breaks its own internal privacy rules, and as Jeremy Scahill and Glenn Greenwald of the Intercept revealed earlier this year, is using “complex analysis of electronic surveillance… as the primary method to locate targets for lethal drone strikes – an unreliable tactic that results in the deaths of innocent or unidentified people.” And that’s only the beginning.

    • Former director of NSA and CIA: ‘We kill people based on metadata’

      On Wednesday, Democratic Senator Patrick Leahy and Republican Congressman James Sensenbrenner proposal to amend the USA Freedom Act, the domestic metadata collection by the National Security Agency (NSA) of millions of Americans, passed unanimously by a vote of 32-0, in the House Judiciary Committee.

    • Drone strikes — a political perspective
    • Debate grows over proposal for CIA to turn over drones to Pentagon

      Soon after a U.S. military drone killed about a dozen people on a remote road in central Yemen on Dec. 12, a disturbing narrative emerged.

    • Fascist Killers

      Attacks are indiscriminate. Mostly noncombatant civilians are killed. A 2012 “Living Under Drones” report explained.

      Stanford University’s International Human Rights and Conflict Resolution Clinic (SU) and New York University School of Law’s Global Justice Clinic (NYU) jointly prepared it.

      Credible firsthand documentation was compiled. It “present(ed) (clear) evidence of the damaging and counterproductive effects of” Obama’s drone-strike policy.

    • The UN Agenda In Geneva Includes Disscussion On Killer Robots

      The experts gathering at the UN will be discussing a possible killer robots moratorium or ban. Professor Sharkey, a member and co-founder of the Campaign Against Killer Robots and chairman of the International Committee for Robot Arms Control, pointed out that Killer autonomous robots “cannot be guaranteed to “predictably comply with international law.” He also told the BBC: “Nations aren’t talking to each other about this, which poses a big risk to humanity.”

    • Drone strike kills at least five in Yemen- UPDATED

      The drone destroyed the car in which they were travelling in the Wadi Abida district of the province, which is east of the capital Sanaa

    • Show Us the Drone Memos

      I BELIEVE that killing an American citizen without a trial is an extraordinary concept and deserves serious debate. I can’t imagine appointing someone to the federal bench, one level below the Supreme Court, without fully understanding that person’s views concerning the extrajudicial killing of American citizens.

      But President Obama is seeking to do just that. He has nominated David J. Barron, a Harvard law professor and a former acting assistant attorney general, to a seat on the United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit.

    • Drone debates not done

      Soon after a U.S. military drone killed about a dozen people on a remote road in central Yemen Dec. 12, a disturbing story emerged.

      Witnesses and tribal leaders said the four Hellfire missiles had hit a convoy headed to a wedding, and the Yemeni government paid compensation to some of the victims’ families. After an investigation, Human Rights Watch charged that “some, if not all those killed and wounded were civilians.”

    • Undue US pressure for Dr Afridi hurt me: lawyer

      Samiullah Khan Afridi, lawyer for Dr Shakil Afridi who helped the US find Osama bin Laden, said he wouldn’t represent him any longer after facing threats from militants, a foreign news channel reported on Monday.

    • How US imperialism helped to foster al Qaeda

      The US also turned to the Saudi regime to enlist the support of wealthy individuals as bankers to the Islamist counterrevolution. Cooley calls this “the creeping privatisation of the jihad” for which bin Laden became the foremost symbol. His organisation, al-Qa’ida (the base), was set up in 1985 under the tutelage of Saudi military intelligence, the Istikhabarat. As an unofficial ambassador of the Saudi regime, Hiro recounts how “bin Laden had by now initiated a scheme of recruiting volunteers from the Arab world to join the anti-Soviet jihad, an enterprise in which he had the active backing of the Saudi intelligence chief, Prince Turki. This programme was then extended to the non-Arab Muslim world. By the time the Afghan mujadeddin captured Kabul in 1992, an estimated 35,000 Islamists from 43 countries had participated in the jihad, nearly two-thirds of them from Arab states, with the Saudi kingdom contributing 15,000 – according to Saudi foreign minister, Saud al Faisal – followed by Yemen, Algeria and Egypt”. In this way, the future leaders of Jemaah Islamiyah in Indonesia (responsible for the Bali bombing in October 2002), the Abu Sayyaf group in the Philippines and GIA in Algeria, all received training as guests of the CIA with bin Laden as their tour guide.

    • CIA Agent, Commando ‘Getting a Haircut’ Before Yemen Killings

      What happened next is still not entirely clear, but a pair of Yemenis stormed into the barbershop, identifying themselves as police, and were immediately killed by the Americans.

    • NYPD Recruited Muslims to Spy on Muslims (Video)

      The New York Police Department (NYPD) has been recruiting Muslims to act as informants and eavesdrop on Muslim cafes, restaurants, barber shops, gyms and mosques since 9/11.

      According to The New York Times, former and present NYPD officials say that the NYPD’s Citywide Debriefing Team has conducted hundreds of interviews with Muslims in New York City.

    • Eleanor Clift: Chris Stevens Not Murdered, Died Of Smoke Inhalation; Blames YouTube Video

      Clift slammed the House Republican select committee effort, but she insisted that U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens wasn’t a casualty of the attack directly, but instead a victim of smoke inhalation during the terrorist attack on not a diplomatic outpost, but one that was functioning as a CIA outpost.

    • Getting to the “Foggy Bottom” of Benghazi

      The CIA compound in Benghazi, along with the half-dozen or so related warehouses, were central into not just arming, but creating a rebel force to oust Assad much like what was planned a half-century ago in Cuba, but for much different reasons. Much like Cuba, anti-Assad rebels could never exist without outside help, both in arms and training. Benghazi also has many elements of Iran-Contra, where weapons were diverted then just as today. Much like Watergate, there is a sanctioned cover-up at the very highest levels of our government. And the now infamous finger-wagging denial of a president to an entire nation has been replaced by a ceremonious bow to a Saudi king, where we appear to be less deserving of a face-to-face denial. Instead, we are the recipients of another anatomical display of contempt—the posterior of a servant bowing deep to his master.

    • Force, not books

      Just kidding, and Mr. Kristof is just spouting liberal gibberish. I say kill all the extremists or use at least enough force so they give up. Mr. Kristof, the Post-Gazette and you liberals out there, that is the answer, not books. Not books and not President Barack Obama telling Muslims we love them — nor Hillary Clinton pleading that we had nothing to do with the anti-Islam video.

    • Should the world kill killer robots before it’s too late?
    • US Drone Strike Kills Six in Southeast Yemen

      A US drone strike has destroyed a car traveling in the southeastern Maarib Province on Yemen today, killing six people, all of whom the Yemeni government dubbed “al-Qaeda” suspects.

    • How America’s Drone War Is Infecting Pakistani Culture

      Americans talk of drones in terms of terrorist targets and civilian casualties. But to the people who live in the strike zone, it’s become a part of their poetry.

    • The faces of drone war

      Their intent: to create images of the victims of Washington’s drone wars that could be seen from the sky. Smaller images have, in fact, been placed on rooftops in Waziristan. Their target audience: drone pilots like Bryant, Haas, and Lopez who, searching for targets to kill, might just see the face of the child of one of their previous victims.

    • The Limits of Military Power

      Is overwhelming national military power a reliable source of influence in world affairs?

    • What We aren’t Told about Yemen

      Last April, 63 Yemenis were reportedly killed in US drone strikes allegedly targeting al-Qaeda. No credible verification of that claim is available, and none of the victims have been identified. “Signature” drone strikes don’t require identification, we are told. It could take months, if not years, before rights groups shed light on the April killings, which are a continuation of a protracted drone war.

    • Hagel begins Middle East trip — Fight over drone strike program intensifies — Gates sees no military options in Nigeria, Ukraine
    • President Drone-Strike Wishes He Could ‘Reach Out’ in Nigeria

      You might think the president who joked about his authority to kill the Jonas Brothers with a drone strike if they got too close to his daughters might have an actual ability to “reach out” and, if not save the abducted girls, rain a little hellfire upon their captors. After all, during Obama’s presidency, he’s authorized roughly 400 drone strikes that have killed an estimated 2,700 to 4,100 people.

    • UK troops working with US military at base for Yemen drone operations

      British liaison staff are embedded with US forces in the Horn of Africa, the Ministry of Defence has revealed, as concern grows about redeployment of the UK squadron of 10 armed Reaper drones.

    • Should Killer Robots be Banned in Policing?
    • Ban Killer Robocops Before It’s Too Late, Rights Groups Say
    • Will robots prove a major threat in the near future?
    • Killer robots could start new arms race, human rights groups say
    • Nobel Peace Prize laureates add support to ban on ‘killer robots’

      A group of Nobel Peace Prize laureates are adding their names to a growing international effort to ban “fully autonomous weapons” or killer robots.

      Signatories, which include activist Jody Williams, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, former South African President F.W. de Klerk, warn robotic machines are “already taking the place of soldiers on the battlefield,” and are concerned that “leaving the killing to machines might make going to war easier and shift the burden of armed conflict onto civilians.”

    • UN To Debate Killer Robots At Landmark Meeting, Because Technology Is Terrifying

      But the informal meeting will not culminate in binding policy, meaning that the future use of deadly automatic machines is still to some extent open.

    • Puny humans meet to decide fate of killer robots
    • Paul demands release of drone memos
    • Rand Paul op-ed: ‘Show us the drone memos’
    • Show us the drone memos

      While he was an official in the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel, Barron wrote at least two legal memos justifying the execution without trial of a U.S. citizen abroad. Now Obama is refusing to share that legal argument with the American people.

    • Rand Paul Wants Barron Memos on Extrajudicial Killings Made Public

      U.S. Senator Rand Paul (R-Ky.) writing in an op-ed for Sunday’s New York Times, questioned the Obama administration’s actions of “appointing someone to the federal bench … without fully understanding that person’s views concerning the extrajudicial killing of American citizens.”

      Last September, President Obama nominated the candidate in question, Harvard Professor David J. Barron, for Circuit Judge for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit. Barron previously served as the acting assistant attorney general of the Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) at the Department of Justice, and Paul has serious concerns that, while serving in that capacity, he wrote “at least two legal memos justifying the execution without a trial of an American citizen abroad.”

    • Rand Paul’s ‘New York Times’ Op-Ed On Drone Memos Sees Him Agree With The ACLU, For Once

      On Sunday, Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul published a New York Times op-ed Sunday calling for the release of controversial memos on drone strikes, which are authored by former Assistant Attorney General at the Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) David Barron. For once, Rand has bipartisan support on this one, including — surprise! — from the ACLU. As the Senate prepares to vote on whether or not to approve Barron, controversy has erupted over Barron’s role in crafting the legal framework which enabled the drone strike, without trial, of alleged radical imam and al-Qaeda supporter Anwar al-Awlaki.

    • Drone Wars Coming to a Theater Near You

      According to Defense One news, every country could have armed drones within the next ten years. Every one. What will that mean for global security?

    • The Need for the Preserving Freedom from Unwarranted Surveillance Act

      It should not be a surprise to anyone to learn that drones are flying across America. Most people, when they hear the word drone, think of something that’s military; something that’s large; a system that’s lethal; something that’s hostile. This is simply not the drone I am talking about. Drones are used by the FBI, local law enforcement, university researchers, amateur photographers, the movie industry, farmers, utility companies and nosy neighbors (or enthusiasts).

  • Environment/Energy/Wildlife

    • Scientists Warn of Rising Oceans From Polar Melt

      A large section of the mighty West Antarctica ice sheet has begun falling apart and its continued melting now appears to be unstoppable, two groups of scientists reported on Monday. If the findings hold up, they suggest that the melting could destabilize neighboring parts of the ice sheet and a rise in sea level of 10 feet or more may be unavoidable in coming centuries.

    • The Wrong Response to Rubio’s Climate Nonsense

      This is a perfect example of a journalist adopting the mentality of a campaign strategist or a political operative. Of course a hard-right stance will go over better with the GOP base. But as a reporter, Karl’s first loyalty should be to the truth–and to explaining to viewers that what is good for Rubio’s political fortunes is bad for the planet.

  • Finance

  • PR/AstroTurf/Lobbying

    • ABC News Exclusive: Our Parent Company’s Awesome New Things
    • As Government Officials Continue To Shed Trustworthiness, Journalists Continue Placing More Trust In Government Officials

      Despite the current administration’s track record on transparency (completely lousy from nearly every angle), there’s little being done by the majority of the press to work around the roadblocks being set up by the government. While the administration has offered a few half-measures aimed at reining in the NSA in the wake of the leaks, the ODNI (Office of the Director of National Intelligence) has gone the other way, forbidding employees from speaking to the media about even unclassified information.

    • Are journalists getting less political?

      Not only that, but the percentage who justified “badgering unwilling informants” fell to 37.7 percent, down from 52 percent in 2002.

    • A Key Reason Why U.S. Politicians Don’t Understand Science

      Congress created the Office of Technology Assessment in 1972, at a time of mounting public concern over pollution, nuclear energy, pesticides, and other technology-induced hazards. OTA was conceived as an in-house think tank that would help Congress fact-check technical claims made by the various expert agencies of the executive branch (such as the EPA and the Department of Defense), while also forecasting coming technological quandaries. A twelve-member board, comprised of six members of Congress from each party, approved each OTA project, to help ensure the agency’s objectivity.

      Over the years, OTA produced some 750 reports and assessments on topics ranging from global climate change to the accuracy of polygraphs. The studies were highly regarded for their ability to translate complex science-speak into accessible prose. The reports were made available to the general public as well as Congress, and were often Government Printing Office best sellers. Other countries, including the UK and Germany, copied the U.S. example, establishing their own versions of OTA.

      The first rumblings of Congressional discontent emerged in the 1980s, when OTA published reports raising questions about the technological feasibility of the Reagan administration’s Strategic Defense Initiative. In a 1985 assessment, OTA concluded that SDI’s goal of protecting the entire U.S. population from a nuclear attack would be “impossible to achieve if the Soviets are determined to deny it to us.” Three years later, another OTA report warned that SDI would stand a significant chance of “catastrophic failure” due to software glitches.

      [...]

      This is not the first time that Holt has tried to revive the agency, and he says that he’ll keep trying this year, working with colleagues in the Senate. “Funding OTA would be a minimal expense that would pay off many times over by averting foolish or wasteful policies,” he says. “Decisions made in ignorance are costly.”

  • Censorship

  • Privacy

    • Woman allegedly records own arrest, gets accused of wiretapping

      A Massachusetts woman faces charges of allegedly using a hidden mobile phone to audio-record her own suspicion-of-disorderly-conduct arrest.

      Karen Dziewit, 24 of Chicopee, was allegedly “loud and belligerent” and disturbing her building’s tenants early Sunday when police arrested her, according to local media outlet Mass Live. When police inventoried her purse, they said they found a mobile phone secretly recording the incident, allegedly in violation of state wiretapping regulations. Springfield police told Mass Live that the woman slipped the phone in her purse and activated the recording feature before the arrest.

    • The NSA’s domestic snooping

      There’s a Northwest thread that knits together leadership on civil liberties and birddogging abuses by America’s intelligence community. Idaho Sen. Frank Church led the charge in the 1970s, throwing light on a scofflaw culture.The Church Committee issued 14 reports and brought into focus CIA-sponsored assassinations, black-bag FBI break-ins, and warrantless spying on Americans, a practice that extended back decades.After 9/11, an anything-goes intelligence culture was reignited, with the National Security Agency operating just as Church described the CIA — “a rogue elephant.” Republican Sen. Barry Goldwater was more colorful. “Like a wild jackass,” he said at the time.

    • Glenn Greenwald: ‘I don’t trust the UK not to arrest me. Their behaviour has been extreme’

      He has been lauded and vilified in equal measure. But did the journalist’s ‘outsider’ status help him land Edward Snowden’s NSA revelations? Why did he nearly miss the story? And how powerless did he feel when his partner was detained at Heathrow? One year after the scoop, we meet him in his jungle paradise in Rio

    • Glenn Greenwald: ‘I don’t trust the UK not to arrest me’ over NSA leaks
    • Glenn Greenwald: the explosive day we revealed Edward Snowden’s identity to the world
    • Don’t wait for Washington’s help to protect Internet

      This latest viral attack provides criminals and opportunists with a back door into secure websites. But anyone who looks to federal government for an answer is sure to be disappointed; in all the varied ways that different federal departments can phrase the words, they say: “Watch out for yourself.” And that attitude is very much a top-down sentiment.

    • US intel agencies withhold info on cyber threats that harm private sector – ex-FBI official
    • Intel agencies don’t share cyber threats that could harm companies, ex-FBI official says
    • Big Data, meet Big Brother

      In the dystopian future of George Orwell’s “1984,” the government uses an endless state of war to justify food rationing by the Ministry of Plenty, rewriting history by the Ministry of Truth, and brutal interrogation by the Ministry of Love. Recently, President Obama’s Privacy Working Group — a response to the public outcry over the mass collection of telephone data — concluded that the government needed to collect and review more private data. It’s tempting to think, “you couldn’t make this up.” But, of course, Orwell imagined it in detail.

    • Greenwald details day Snowden revealed himself as NSA whistleblower
    • Ownership of personal data still appears up for grabs

      In response to the NSA spying revelations, the European Parliament passed even stricter privacy rules in March. They still have to be approved by the European Union’s 28 member countries, but they represent the region’s commitment to individual rights.

    • Lack of oversight of NSA at Menwith Hill

      We are concerned about the lack of oversight by the intelligence and security committee (ISC) regarding the role and function of the NSA at Menwith Hill and other US bases (MPs condemn oversight of spy agencies, 9 May). There is no mention of this secretive and unaccountable US agency anywhere either in the report by the home affairs select committee or in your report and leader (9 May). On 10 April, Fabian Hamilton MP, in a parliamentary question, asked the defence secretary “whether his department was (a) aware of the nature of and (b) consulted before the start of surveillance being carried out at NSA Menwith Hill?” Mark Francois (minister of state, MoD) answered: “Operations at RAF Menwith Hill have always been, and continue to be, carried out with the knowledge and consent of the UK government.”

    • Tech Community Will ‘Reset The Net’ to Protest the NSA [Video]

      Tech communities like Reddit, Imgur and Boing Boing are teaming up with civil liberties groups in the “Reset The Net” campaign against NSA surveillance. The more than 30 groups are planning a day of protest action on June 5 to mark the anniversary of former NSA contractor Edward Snowden’s leaks about the NSA coming to light. The protest is designed along the lines of the protests against the Protect IP Act and Stop Online Piracy Act, better known as PIPA and SOPA.

    • Security expert Mikko Hypponen talks online safety: “The war is not lost”
    • The Disturbing Clause not Covered by Proposed NSA Reform

      The U.S. House of Representatives has before it two bills that are supposed to put some safeguards on the National Security Agency’s (NSA) spying activities on Americans. But neither plan includes reforms for a controversial section of federal law on which many of the NSA’s most intruding programs are legally based.

      The provision in question is part of the FISA (Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act) Amendments Act, specifically Section 702.

    • Glenn Greenwald: how the NSA tampers with US-made internet routers

      The NSA has been covertly implanting interception tools in US servers heading overseas – even though the US government has warned against using Chinese technology for the same reasons, says Glenn Greenwald, in an extract from his new book about the Snowden affair, No Place to Hide

    • Former CIA director: ‘We kill people based on metadata’

      At a recent debate concerning the National Security Agency’s bulk surveillance programs, former CIA and NSA director Michael Hayden admitted that metadata is used as the basis for killing people.

    • US media steps up espionage slander against Edward Snowden

      As the one-year anniversary of the publication of the first of Edward Snowden’s revelations of massive and illegal government spying on the American and world population approaches, the campaign of vilification and character assassination against the former National Security Agency contractor is being stepped up.

      A particularly filthy example is a column published Saturday in the Wall Street Journal by author Edward Jay Epstein, entitled “Was Snowden’s Heist a Foreign Espionage Operation?”

    • ABC’s ‘Raging Debate’ Over Edward Snowden

      This Week anchor Martha Raddatz (5/11/14) introduced a lookback at the Edward Snowden/NSA stories by saying, “A year later, Snowden still sparks a raging debate.” But the show sure had a funny way of illustrating that fierce debate–with two guests who both attacked Snowden for revealing the extent of NSA spying.

    • Greenwald Pushes Back Against Lauer’s ‘Accusation’ That Snowden Aided Russia
    • Report claims Anonymous will protest Glenn Greenwald for ties to PayPal billionaire

      The Internet hacktivist group Anonymous is calling for protests against author and civil liberties advocate Glenn Greenwald because of his relationship with eBay founder Pierre Omidyar.

      In a release posted to Pastebin, the secretive activist group is calling for members to attend and disrupt scheduled book signings where Greenwald will be promoting his new book, No Place to Hide: Edward Snowden, the NSA, and the U.S. Surveillance State.

      The point of contention between Greenwald and the group stems from his relationship with First Look founder and eBay billionaire Pierre Omidyar.

      eBay purchased PayPal in 2002.

      Representing the “PayPal 14,” — a group charged under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act after they attempted to disrupt PayPal’s operations in retaliation for PayPal’s refusal to process donations to WikiLeaks — Anonymous stated that the 14 are “struggling to raise more than $80,000 in court-ordered restitution” that must be paid to eBay/PayPal.

    • Edward Snowden ‘at peace’ with leaks: book
    • Snowden ‘at peace’ with his decisions – book

      Edward Snowden was “profoundly at peace” with his decision to leak national security documents, and even joked about the consequences, journalist Glenn Greenwald says in a new book.

      “I call the bottom bunk at Gitmo,” Snowden joked, referring to the US detention centre at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, says the book to be released on Tuesday, excerpts of which were published on Monday in The Guardian.

      Greenwald, recounting the series of discussions last year in Hong Kong when the former National Security Agency contractor decided to reveal his identity, said Snowden appeared to sleep soundly and was “completely refreshed the next day” despite the tension.

    • Cyber Space and its Militarization

      Globally, cyber security is seen as a critical element of the national security apparatus by nations. The reasons are proliferation of advance and sophisticated cyber attacks, cyber threats with political and social effects, increase in cyber espionages, developments of cyber weapons and its usage for military purposes, attacks against nations by non-state actors, cyber terrorists, hackers etc.

      The assets which are under attack are economic plans, defence plans, nuclear codes, energy resource information, political designs, law enforcement details, nation’s cyber space.

      Cyber security is now elevated to the pedestal of national security; this development is invoking it in the enemy’s eyes. The problem for the cyber space experts is that the enemy is unidentified and difficult to track due to dynamic characteristics of cyber space i.e. attribution is difficult in cyber space; so it becomes difficult to hold the perpetrators accountable.

    • Greenwald alleges NSA tampers with routers to plant backdoors
    • NSA intercepts US-made routers, adds spy backdoors: report
    • NSA bugs exported US-made network equipment
    • Metadata may be only basis for killing people – ex-director of CIA and NSA
    • Glenn Greenwald: from Martin Luther King to Anonymous, the state targets dissenters not just “bad guys”

      Don’t believe the argument that mass surveillance is only a problem for wrongdoers. Governments have repeatedly spied on anyone who challenges their power, says Glenn Greenwald in an extract from his book about Edward Snowden and the NSA, No Place to Hide

    • No Place to Hide: Monumentally important book shines a spotlight on the surveillance state
    • Guardian discloses more Western spy secrets
    • Why Are You So Fearful, O Ye of Little Faith?

      In the journalist Glenn Greenwald, Edward Snowden found a perfect match. I don’t mean to slight the contributions of Laura Poitras and Barton Gellman, the other two journalists who first dug into Snowden’s amazing and unprecedented trove of National Security Agency documents. Poitras was the one who realized Snowden was for real, and Gellman brought experience to the party. But Greenwald is the fighter—the one you want in your corner when the world comes after you. Snowden knew what he was in for, and he chose his cornerman well.

    • No Such Agency

      On June 5, 2013, when UK newspaper The Guardian informed U.S. officials that it was about to publish a report about the NSA’s mass surveillance of Americans, the government’s response was indignant. Janine Gibson, the paper’s U.S. editor, was “not a serious journalist,” The Guardian “not a serious newspaper,” and “no normal journalistic outlet would publish this quickly without first meeting with us,” unnamed officials told the paper.

    • Book Reveals Wider Net of U.S. Spying on Envoys
    • Australia asked Americans for more help to spy on Australian citizens

      Australia’s intelligence agency asked for more help from its US counterparts to increase surveillance on Australians suspected of involvement in international extremist activities.

    • Glenn Greenwald Slams ‘F**king Hawk’ Hillary Clinton as ‘Banal, Corrupted’

      With his book entitled No Place to Hide: Edward Snowden, the NSA and the U.S. Surveillance State set for release on Tuesday, the GQ website posted an extensive interview with radical-left reporter Glenn Greenwald in which he covers a wide range of topics, ranging from his continuing friendship with Snowden to his strong distaste for the presumptive Democratic candidate in the upcoming 2016 presidential election.

    • Greenwald Bashes ‘Neocon’ Hillary Clinton: ‘She’s a F*cking Hawk’
    • Chronicling the abuse of authority

      THE disclosures of Edward Snowden constitute perhaps the most notorious leak in history. America’s National Security Agency was so secretive that for decades even its existence was classified. Insiders joked that its initials stood for “no such agency”. That a 29-year-old contractor was able to steal tens of thousands of classified documents is not only astounding, but also unprecedented. Only recently had it become possible to fit so much material on an inexpensive digital chip.

    • Glenn Greenwald: NSA Believes It Should Be Able To Monitor All Communication
    • When it comes to protecting its citizens’ data, Europe is way ahead of the U.S.

      Americans haven’t had much good news about their privacy since Edward Snowden launched his soap opera of NSA revelations last June. True, the president, Sen. Dianne Feinstein and Patriot Act co-author Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner are finally distancing themselves from the most outrageous snooping. But it hasn’t stopped. According to the New York Times, a request from one U.S. phone company to cease sharing its records with the National Security Agency was rebuffed in March by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court — the secret federal tribunal that mostly seems to specialize in saying “yes” to surveillance.

    • European Regulators Take Aim at U.S. Tech Companies
    • Reported NSA backdoors might open up networks to more threat

      While the U.S. government warned router buyers that the Chinese government might spy on them through networking gear made in China, the U.S. National Security Agency was doing that very thing, according to a report in the Guardian newspaper Monday.

    • NSA backdoors US hardware headed overseas: Greenwald
    • NSA reportedly installing spyware on US-made hardware
    • This Is What The Most Secure Email In The World Could Look Like

      Researchers at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst and Raytheon BBN Technologies have created a way to make your email correspondence so secure (PDF), that even the NSA would have a hard time getting to it.

    • Crypto for the Masses: Here’s How You Can Resist the NSA

      As revelations of the NSA’s mass surveillance have poured out over the last year, we’ve all been told that we have to encrypt our communications to keep them safe from prying eyes. The trouble is, crypto programs are still too hard for normal people to use.

    • Obama administration moving towards even less transparency

      President Barack Obama promised his administration would be the most transparent ever. His actions go counter to any such claim. He has prosecuted whistle-blowers and failed to provide information on the drone program, among other actions. After all the secrecy about NSA mass surveillance programs and the revelations of Edward Snowden, critics of Obama are scornful of his transparency claims.

    • Glenn Greenwald: Edward Snowden told Guantanamo Bay joke

      Glenn Greenwald defended Edward Snowden on Monday, saying the NSA leaker “sacrificed his entire life” to bring more transparency about U.S. intelligence. He also recalled Snowden joking about ending up in prison.

      Greenwald, the journalist whose work in The Guardian published a series of reports based on Snowden’s leaks, praised his humor during an interview with NBC’s “Today” show host Matt Lauer.

    • Glenn Greenwald’s Pulse-Pounding Tale of Breaking the Snowden Leaks
    • Greenwald expected NSA leaker Snowden to end up in ‘shackles’

      In an excerpt from his upcoming book about the NSA leaks published on Monday, Greenwald recounted the harried schemes he and filmmaker Laura Poitras used to protect Snowden, who disclosed the government’s controversial surveillance practices.

    • Ex-NSA Chief: ‘We Kill People Based on Metadata’
    • Cisco: Another Challenging Quarter Due To Product Transitions, Emerging Market Weakness
    • Report: NSA intercepts US-made servers heading overseas to install surveillance hooks

      According to NSA expert and former Guardian columnist Glenn Greenwald’s new book, No Place to Hide, the NSA has intercepted servers and routers from U.S. manufacturers in the delivery process in order to install tracking gear.

    • Carnegie Mellon just got a $2M grant from the NSA
    • How adorable: NSA hatches “lablets” at 4 universities
    • CMU launches NSA-sponsored lab
    • NSA Allegedly Intercepts Shipments of Servers To Install Spying Backdoors
    • The Human Soldiers Behind Obama’s Drone War

      Brandon Bryant, a 28-year-old US airman, whose squadron has been credited with 1,626 kills, was among the first to be openly critical of the impact of remote tracking and targeting, of, that is, robot war. Bryant was a “sensor operator,” which meant that he operated the cameras on the drone aircraft as part of a three-person team that included a pilot and an intelligence analyst.

    • Pilots Come Clean: Drone Warfare Is Riddled with Tragic, Bloody Errors

      Brandon Bryant, a 28-year-old U.S. airman, whose squadron has been credited with 1,626 kills, was among the first to be openly critical of the impact of remote tracking and targeting, of, that is, robot war. Bryant was a “sensor operator,” which meant that he operated the cameras on the drone aircraft as part of a three-person team that included a pilot and an intelligence analyst.

    • Metadata Can Get You Killed According To Former NSA Chief
    • NSA tipped to spy with US-made web routers abroad
    • Orwellian threats caused the New York Times to spike a story on NSA spying way back in 2004

      Tamm claims he tried to blow the whistle on the subject, working with New York Times reporter James Risen to make the story public. But Risen’s editors decided to run the story by the government. They wanted to get the governmnet’s take, before the Times revealed “The Program.” Kirk says top White House officials made three arguments to Times editors, in trying to convince them not to run the story.

      1. It’s completely legal.

      2. It’s a vulnerable secret. If you reveal it, hundreds of thousands of Americans may die in a future attack.

      3. It’s working. You wouldn’t believe the threats we’re stopping.

      Former Editor Bill Keller spiked the story, outraging Risen.

      Years later, we see the impacts of the reveal. We’re continuing to debate the merits of domestic spying. Kirk says the government has yet to prove any of the three arguments it gave to Keller. And he says it causes some to question the program’s validity. But the spying program continues.

    • NSA embedded surveillance tools within exported US computer hardware
    • NSA sabotaged exported US-made routers with backdoors
    • So, you & your friends are headed to a desert festival. This ‘no wi-fi required’ chat app has you covered

      The Android version of the app works using Open Garden’s own mesh networking technology,

    • UK needs new spy watchdog

      Britain should create a new body to oversee its intelligence agencies to reassure the public after revelations from ex-US intelligence contractor Edward Snowden, the former head of the British foreign intelligence service said on Monday.

      Documents leaked by Snowden exposed the vast scale of surveillance carried out by Britain’s intelligence agencies and their close collaboration with America’s National Security Agency, sparking a public debate about how they operate.

    • UK needs new watchdog for its spies, ex-MI6 chief says
    • Herbalife Ltd. (HLF) Offices Reportedly Bugged

      Charlie Gasparino of Fox Business News could have uncovered the latest activist hedge fund investing strategy, all as Herbalife Ltd. (NYSE:HLF) claims to have discovered bugs in its Los Angeles headquarters.

    • Privacy Tools: Encrypt What You Can

      Encrypt the data you transmit. The Snowden revelations have revealed that U.S. and British spy agencies are grabbing as much unencrypted data as they can find as it passes over the Internet. Encrypting your data in transit can protect it against spy agencies, as well as commercial data gatherers.

    • Government Policy Bans Mention of NSA News Leaks

      Congress is advancing bills to reform surveillance at the National Security Agency but the Obama administration has put into place a new policy that forbids intelligence employees from mentioning news reports about government leaks.

    • NSA Legislation and Fourth Amendment Challenges
    • A growing cyber security market
    • Book details NSA spying on Japan

      The U.S. National Security Agency eavesdropped on Japan’s government and hacked online networks to spy on its policies and activities, according to a new book by journalist Glenn Greenwald.

    • Book on whistleblower Snowden details U.S. spying on Japan
    • The Man Who Knows Too Much

      Glenn Greenwald is trying to lose fifteen pounds. “Um, it’s been a little crazy these past nine months,” he says. “And I will eat French fries or potato chips if they’re in front of me.” On his porch, perched on a jungle mountaintop in Rio, the morning is fresh. Greenwald, in board shorts and a collared short-sleeve shirt, has done his daily hour’s worth of yoga and attached himself to one of his five laptops as his dozen dogs yap and wag to begin the day’s circus in his monkey-and-macaw paradise.

    • ‘No Place to Hide’: Behind the scenes of the Edward Snowden affair
    • Michael Hayden Gleefully Admits: We Kill People Based On Metadata

      Since the very first Snowden leak a year ago, one of the more common refrains from defenders of the program is “but it’s just metadata, not actual content, so what’s the big deal?” Beyond the fact that other programs do collect content, we’ve pointed out time and time again that the “just metadata, don’t worry” argument only makes sense if you don’t know what metadata reveals. Anyone with any knowledge of the subject knows that metadata reveals a ton of private info. Furthermore, we’ve even pointed out that the NSA regularly uses “just metadata” to pick targets for drone assassinations. As one person called it: “death by unreliable metadata.”

    • Germany Planning to Hear Snowden’s Testimony over US-NSA Snoopgate in Switzerland

      Former NSA agent Edward Snowden is expected to be asked by the German NSA-leak investigations committee, set up by the German parliament, to meet its officials to testify before the committee in the Russian Embassy in Switzerland.

    • Secret agencies, media and the national interest

      Secret agencies and the media have a long history of association and this relationship continues and will keep on continuing. The two champions of democracy, the US and the UK, are known for their elaborate vast secret systems of secret agencies, CIA and MI6 and MI5, and we all know the influence both have on their politics and governance.

    • Pretending that leaked information is secret hurts democratic debate

      The aftermath of WikiLeaks raises a very difficult question. What should government do after leaks? Can government officials acknowledge the facts that leaks expose? Or must they pretend that the information remains secret? New government guidelines appear to explicitly force officials to play “let’s pretend.” Late last week, Steven Aftergood and Charlie Savage of the New York Times reported on new rules from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI). The guidelines explicitly forbid government officials with classified access from publicly citing information that has been leaked or made public through anonymous sources. Intelligence and transparency analysts were alarmed by this and other apparent changes. Even after ODNI sought to clarify the guidelines, a follow-up story confirms an explicit ban on citing leaked information, which did not exist in prior versions.

    • Tough NZ comms interception, network security law kicks in

      Local and international telcos and network providers in New Zealand are now required to comply with strict and complex new communications interception and security legislation.

    • Spy base will cost €1 billion (and it’s late)

      The budget is not enough – Germany’s new spy headquarters is costing hundreds of millions of euros more than expected – and it’s late.

  • Civil Rights

    • Iranian women post pictures of themselves without hijabs on Facebook

      Campaign set up by London-based Iranian journalist Masih Alinejad attracts more than 130,000 likes on social media site

    • The random Muslim scare story generator: separating fact from fiction

      Halal meat is on every menu; sharia law is taking over; the niqab is undermining the nation. Ever noticed how often the same old stories keep appearing about Muslims in Britain? Here’s the truth about these and other media myths

    • Being a good mom can get you fired

      Ask Rhiannon Broschard of Chicago, who was “separated” from her employer after public schools closed because it was so cold, it was dangerous for kids to be outside. Broschard knew that she couldn’t leave her special-needs son home alone and called in to say she couldn’t come into work. Her manager was sympathetic. But the next day, a company representative phoned to let her know she’d been fired for “abusing” their attendance policy. Others had come in; why hadn’t she?

    • Ted Cruz zeroes in on 76 examples of Barack Obama’s ‘lawlessness’
    • GOP Issues vs. Real Issues

      The Republican Congress continues to keep busy. For years, most of their efforts have focused on depriving citizens of health care, mainly because the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act was enacted by the Democrats, led by Satan incarnate, Barack Obama. ‘Repeal and Replace’ was a euphemism for ‘Repeal’, and it was said that this issue would certainly cause Mr. Obama to lose his reelection bid, and Democrats to be swept out of the Senate in 2012.

    • US appeals order to release details on CIA prisons

      The United States has appealed an order from a military judge at the US jail in Guantanamo that they turn over information on secret CIA interrogation centers.

      In a 26-page document dated April 23 but only just declassified, top military prosecutor Mark Martins asked the judge to re-evaluate his order from April 14.

    • The war on terrorism led to a worldwide increase of torture
    • Psychology and War on Terror Abuses

      Other carefully documented accounts of psychologist involvement in the abuse and torture of prisoners at places like Guantanamo, Bagram, and CIA black sites have emerged repeatedly for nearly a decade. But the comprehensive, multi-year Senate investigation is likely to provide the most detailed account to date of how psychologists abandoned their fundamental do-no-harm ethics and participated in the horrific excesses of the “war on terror.” In the past, the American Psychological Association (APA) – the world’s largest organization of psychologists – has responded to similar revelations with silence, denials, unactionable platitudes, and assertions that the APA has always been steadfast in its opposition to torture. Such responses, however, conceal a distressing and unwelcome truth: that U.S. torture programs took root and grew in a climate made more hospitable by the APA leadership’s support of our government’s counter-terrorism strategy despite its bring-it-on, gloves-off, anything-goes tactics.

    • NYPD Recruiting Muslim Informants in City Jails

      The New York City Police Department is running a program that recruits jailed Muslim immigrants to act as informants. According to The New York Times, a unit known as the “Citywide Debriefing Team” confronts mostly Muslim suspects after they are arrested for minor infractions. The immigrants have been asked to spy on cafes, restaurants and mosques as part of counterterrorism operations. Some have reported feeling intimidated by the encounters. The debriefing team appears to be formally separate from the controversial NYPD spying unit targeting Muslims disbanded just last month.

    • Muslim Spying Efforts Combine the Worst of the NYPD’s Practices

      The latest Frankenstein’s monster of New York “counterterror” policing policy brings together two of the most problematic practices enacted by the NYPD in recent years: the unconstitutional targeting of the city’s Muslim communities, and the focus on the most minor of infractions as grounds for interrogation and arrest.

    • Amnesty: 141 countries still torture
    • Government backed torture is flourishing, says Amnesty

      Governments are failing to live up to their commitments to stamp out state-sanctioned torture, according to London-based Amnesty International.

    • Price for new prison at Guantanamo rises to $69 million

      The proposed price of an exclusive new prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, rose by $20 million in a year because designers added meeting rooms and a medical clinic for 15 former CIA captives, including accused 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheik Mohammed, a military spokesman saidMonday.

    • Price of new, secret Gitmo prison rises $20 million in a year

      The proposed price of an exclusive new prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, rose by $20 million in a year because designers added meeting rooms and a medical clinic for 15 former CIA captives, including accused 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheik Mohammed, a military spokesman said Monday.

    • FBI investigation at Guantanamo Bay winding down; no charges expected

      An FBI inquiry that disrupted criminal proceedings at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and generated fears of government spying is not expected to result in charges, law enforcement officials said.

      Investigators said last month that they had opened a preliminary inquiry involving the possible disclosure of classified information at the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay. A defense lawyer told the military court that the FBI had questioned a member of a defense team, raising concerns that the probe was interfering with their ability to defend their clients.

    • A National Hero

      What was special is that the whole scene was photographed and broadcast. Army orders forbid soldiers to behave like this when photographers are present, and especially to threaten the cameramen. Painful experience has taught the army that such clips, if broadcast abroad, can seriously undermine Israeli propaganda (officially called “explaining”).

  • Internet/Net Neutrality

  • Intellectual Monopolies

    • Copyrights

      • Megaupload Asks Court to Freeze MPAA and RIAA Cases

        Megaupload’s legal team has asked the federal court of Virginia to freeze the cases filed by the movie and music industries last month. According to Dotcom’s lawyers, this is needed pending the criminal case against the defendants, in order to protect their Fifth Amendment rights.

      • Music Distributor Claims Right to Monetize JFK Speech

        After uploading part of a JFK speech to YouTube, a TorrentFreak reader had a surprise when a music distribution company filed a complaint, claiming full monetization rights on the clip. Why would they do that to material in the public domain ? With the company involved refusing to respond, TF took a closer look.

      • These Pirate Parties Plan to Enter The European Parliament

        Almost five years ago, the Swedish Pirate Party blew people away worldwide when it received more than 7% of the vote in the European elections, giving it one seat, and the option for another if the Lisbon Treaty was approved. Now it’s time for another election, and there are Pirates standing just about everywhere it seems.

]]> http://techrights.org/2014/05/13/china-promotes-gnu-linux/feed/ 0 Chromebooks Run GNU/Linux But Don’t Offer Freedom http://techrights.org/2014/02/17/chromebooks-and-freedom/ http://techrights.org/2014/02/17/chromebooks-and-freedom/#comments Mon, 17 Feb 2014 12:20:59 +0000 http://techrights.org/?p=75703 Summary: Now that GNU/Linux is sold/installed on many PCs (laptops in particular) we need to remember what Chrom* is all about

GNU/LINUX is doing just fine on the desktop. There are new stories that show its quiet expansion [1] and there is additional help from Chromebooks [2], which also essentially run GNU/Linux out of the box. A lot of people run GNU/Linux distributions other than Chrome OS on their Chromebooks and some distro developers optimise their distros for Chromebooks [3,4]. Google goes further than this by trying to facilitate Windows running (virtualised) on Chromebooks [5-8] while expanding the reach of Chrome “apps” [9] and the fitness of the browser [10] which runs very well on GNU/Linux, even with Wayland [11].

One must remember that Chrome and Chrome OS are proprietary, unlike their FOSS siblings (*ium), and they are very privacy-infringing (much more so than Ubuntu). Chromecast takes this even further by introducing additional limitations (APIs and SDK [12-16], no source code, and probably DRM).

Google is basically taking GNU/Linux mainstream with Chrome OS and Android, but Google shouldn’t be confused with respect for freedom. A lot of the apps are proprietary, the base system has a certain duality on freedom, and even Windows is now being facilitated. Chromebooks are not about freedom, but it’s easy to convert them into freedom-respecting machines. █

Related/contextual items from the news:

  1. High School Rolls Out 1,700 Linux Laptops

    Penn Manor High School this semester gave a Linux laptop to each of its more than 1,700 students, grades 9-12. Student help desk apprentices helped with laptop configuration and testing, distribution and orientation.

  2. Six Clicks: 2014′s top Linux desktops

    For years, we’ve talked about the Linux desktop becoming important. Now, it finally is. But thanks to Chromebooks and Android PCs, it’s not the Linux desktop we expected. Instead of desktop distributions from smaller groups such as Arch or Mint, or companies such as Canonical, we’re seeing Chrome OS and Android, thanks to Google and top vendors such as Asus, Dell, HP, and Lenovo — who are robbing market share from the moribund Windows PC industry.

  3. Acer C720 Review – Perfect Little PC

    By default the C720 comes with Chrome OS preinstalled – if you are happy with that skip onto the next section.

  4. Improvements to Bodhi’s Chromebook Support

    Just a quick update to let folks know about a few updates our special installers for Bodhi Linux on Chromebook hardware.

  5. Google taps VMware to bring Windows access to Chromebooks
  6. VMware, Google, team to target corporate Chrome OS adopters

    Google teaming up with VMware therefore makes Chrome OS more attractive because it means those organisations that already have VMware VDI infrastructure now have an easier way to pipe those legacy apps into a shiny new Chromebook, or just into Chrome. Or the myriad other devices Horizon View can target.

  7. VMware and Google Partner to Bring Windows Desktops to Chromebooks
  8. VMware, Google Partner for DaaS Chromebooks

    Google exec says solution is a ‘fantastic opportunity’ for VMware partners

  9. Google Means to Take Chrome Apps to Every Major Platform
  10. Google’s revamped JavaScript engine cures Chrome’s stutters

    Google has begun testing a new version of its V8 JavaScript engine for the Chrome browser that improves application performance by executing and compiling JavaScript code at the same time.

  11. Chromium Browser Is Running Great On Wayland

    For several months now Intel developers have been working on a new Ozone-Wayland project that allows Google’s Chrome/Chromium browsers and other applications to work on Wayland. Google’s Ozone component provides the windowing system / input abstraction layer that is where this implementation for Wayland is being plugged into. After much investment, the Chromium browser is now starting to run great with Wayland.

  12. Google Opens Chromecast to App Developers with New SDK, APIs
  13. Google releases Chromecast SDK
  14. Google waves its Chromecast dongle in front of developers

    Google has released the final version of the Google Cast Software Development Kit (SDK), paving the way for broader support for its $35 Chromecast media-streaming dongle.

  15. Google Ships Cast SDK For Chromecast
  16. Ready to cast: Chromecast now open to developers with the Google Cast SDK

    Back in July we announced the developer preview of the Google Cast Software Development Kit (SDK), the underlying Chromecast technology that enables multi-screen experiences across mobile devices (phones, tablet, laptops) and large-screen displays. Starting today, the Google Cast SDK is available for developing and publishing Google Cast-ready apps.

]]> http://techrights.org/2014/02/17/chromebooks-and-freedom/feed/ 0 Links 20/7/2013: Ubuntu Hardware Imminent, Russia Extorted Over Snowden http://techrights.org/2013/07/20/ubuntu-hardware-imminent/ http://techrights.org/2013/07/20/ubuntu-hardware-imminent/#comments Sat, 20 Jul 2013 14:28:05 +0000 http://techrights.org/?p=70638

GNOME bluefish

Contents

GNU/Linux

Free Software/Open Source

  • Nikon Camera Control: An Open Source App for Remote DSLR Control
  • VLC media player returns to the iOS App Store after 30-month hiatus
  • VLC returns to the App Store as a free, open-source video player compatible with every format

    When VLC for iOS left the App Store in mid-2011 after months of contention between its creators, the real owners of VLC (VideoLAN) and Apple, thousands of users were sorry to see it go. The free app allowed for playback of video files, such as MKVs and other esoteric file formats that Apple’s native player didn’t support and other developers charged up to $10 for.

  • Open Source: Internet Association Website Connects Users, Policymakers
  • Open source virtualization software still trails, despite improvements

    Open source virtualization is still a niche technology, despite the rise of multi-hypervisor infrastructures.

    Recent open source virtualization software releases have packed in new features with impressive specs, and there’s a clear appetite for VMware Inc. alternatives in enterprise data centers.

  • Events

  • Web Browsers

    • Mozilla

      • A Planetary Nebula That Looks Like the Firefox Logo

        If you’re reading this web page using Chrome or Safari, beware: you are probably angering the universe. There is reason to believe, you see, that the universe — the collection of all the planets, stars, galaxies, matter, and energy that have ever existed, and the sum total of all that we do and will know — is actually partial to Mozilla products. Which means that there is reason to believe that the universe would really prefer, as you browse the web that connects our tiny little world, that you use Firefox.

  • SaaS/Big Data

  • Oracle/Java/LibreOffice

    • The Document Foundation announces LibreOffice 3.6.7

      Berlin, July 18, 2013 – The Document Foundation (TDF) announces LibreOffice 3.6.7 for Windows, Mac OS X and Linux, which will be the last maintenance release of the leading free office suite’s 3.6 series. All users, from enterprises to individual end users, are encouraged to update to the current and stable 4.0 series, or have a look at the upcoming 4.1 version.

  • Funding

    • The Daily Startup: Firms Launch Open-Source Accelerator

      Austin Ventures, Battery Ventures and a new firm, The Valley Fund–have formed an accelerator called OpenIncubate for open-source startups. It offers joint funding, workspace and help for companies that are using open-source software frameworks to contribute to the emergence of the software-defined data center. Each firm has committed $1 million to the effort, according to The Valley Fund General Partner Steve O’Hara, with investments ranging from $250,000 to $500,000.

    • Top venture firms put out call-to-arms for open source innovators

      The Greater Boston startup scene is beginning to resemble the NICU at Mass. General — incubators everywhere. The latest is OpenIncubate, which launched Thursday, offering funding and workspace to entrepreneurs committed to open-source computing.

    • OpenIncubate launches to supercharge infrastructure startups with open-source cred

      All systems are go for OpenIncubate, a new accelerator seeking startups focused on open IT infrastructure. Austin Ventures, Battery Ventures and The Valley Fund are behind the accelerator, which plans to officially launch Thursday and hopes to shake up staid, proprietary corners of IT.

    • SourceForge’s DevShare Offers Open Source Developers Monetization

      Earlier this month, SourceForge–known as a central hosting and services site for countless open source projects–unveiled a beta version of a service called DevShare. DevShare is an opt-in revenue-sharing program “aimed at giving developers a better way to monetize their projects in a transparent, honest and sustainable way.” The plan presents a way for developers of open source projects to monetize downloads and usage of their creations. After a few weeks of beta testing, some interesting reviews are coming in.

  • FSF/FSFE/GNU/SFLC

    • Interview with Shiv Shankar Dayal of Kunjika

      The latest installment of our Licensing and Compliance Lab’s series on free software developers who choose GNU licenses for their works.

    • Best IDEs for Octave, Python and R

      Code-wise, I’ve been getting my hands dirty with some digital grease over the past few months, and it’s been fun. Most of the fun has resolved around learning Python, which appears to be the language of choice these days.

      Python is almost a requirement everywhere you turn. Many introductory programming classes use Python as the main or default high-level programming language.

  • Project Releases

  • Openness/Sharing

    • Open Source EV Home Charger Offered at $99, With Caveats

      Think home electric car charging equipment is too expensive? Well, maybe you heard about The Juicebox, the new 240-volt charger available for a bargain basement price of $99. Sounds great, but expect to face additional costs, possible safety concerns and, like a piece of furniture from Ikea, once you get it home the device must be assembled.

  • Programming

    • Apache Kills Off Its C++ Standard Library

      While not as widely-used as GCC’s libstdc++ or even LLVM’s libc++ for a C++ standard library, since 2005 Apache has backed the stdcxx C++ standard library. The Apache C++ Standard Library has been a free implementation of the ISO/IEC 14882 standard for C++ and came to the Apache Software Foundation after Rogue Wave Software open-sourced their commercial implementation the better part of a decade ago.

    • LLDB Gains Linux 64-bit Core FIle Support

      The LLVM debugger is back to having ELF core file support for 64-bit Linux.

      The LLVM Debugger, LLDB, that is of growing interest to companies and is showing much promise for developers continues to see better Linux support.

Leftovers

  • A Book Is Better Than a Box of Chocolates

    Summer is an ideal season for jolting your mind into action by expanding your reading horizons. So shut off the computer and the television, put away the various gadgets, close your email and pick up a good book. There are plenty of entertaining choices for your reading pleasure, but the following titles are ones that I have enjoyed. They all address the serious pursuit of justice/happiness side of the written word.

  • Tewksbury motel owner lobbying Congress for reform of federal civil-forfeiture laws

    After winning a landmark federal forfeiture case against the U.S. Attorney’s Office, Russell Caswell, owner of the Motel Caswell in Tewksbury, is headed to Washington, D.C., on Tuesday to take part in a legislative briefing called “Policing For Profit” on the campaign to reform the federal civil-forfeiture laws.

  • Defence/Police/Secrecy/Aggression

    • New Film Shows U.S.-Backed Indonesian Death Squad Leaders Re-enacting Massacres
    • “The Act of Killing”: New Film Shows U.S.-Backed Indonesian Death Squad Leaders Re-enacting Massacres

      We spend the hour with Joshua Oppenheimer, the director of a groundbreaking new documentary called “The Act of Killing.” The film is set in Indonesia, where, beginning in 1965, military and paramilitary forces slaughtered up to a million Indonesians after overthrowing the democratically elected government. That military was backed by the United States and led by General Suharto, who would rule Indonesia for decades. There has been no truth and reconciliation commission, nor have any of the murderers been brought to justice. As the film reveals, Indonesia is a country where the killers are to this day celebrated as heroes by many. Oppenheimer spent more than eight years interviewing the Indonesian death squad leaders, and in “The Act of Killing,” he works with them to re-enact the real-life killings in the style of American movies in which the men love to watch — this includes classic Hollywood gangster movies and lavish musical numbers. A key figure he follows is Anwar Congo, who killed hundreds,
      if not a thousand people with his own hands and is now revered as a founding father of an active right-wing paramilitary organization. We also ask Oppenheimer to discusses the film’s impact in Indonesia, where he screened it for survivors and journalists who have launched new investigations into the massacres. The film is co-directed by Christine Cynn and an Indonesian co-director who remains anonymous for fear of retribution, as does much of the Indonesian film crew. Its executive producers are Werner Herzog and Errol Morris. “The Act of Killing” opens today in New York City, and comes to Los Angeles and Washington, D.C., on July 26, then to theaters nationwide.

    • You Are a Terrorist If You Film Animal Abuse or Unsanitary Conditions

      In five states of the U.S.—Arkansas, Missouri, Iowa, Utah, and South Carolina—you are a criminal for exposing public health dangers and animal rights abuses. If a person takes pictures or films at animal facilities, that person can be prosecuted under laws modeled after a document called “Animal and Ecological Terrorism in America.”

      How did such an obscene thing come to be? As we have documented at REALfarmacy, there is a little-known but powerful group known as the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) that introduces model bills across the country on behalf of its corporate members.

    • Multiple NYPD Cars Caught Blasting Star Wars “Imperial March” Theme Song on Patrol

      NYPD Vehicles have been spotted on multiple occasions cruising around the city with their windows down, blaring Darth Vader’s infamous theme song.

    • Explosion in arrivals hall at Beijing airport – media reports

      The blast occurred in the arrivals hall of terminal three, Xinhua news agency reported. The agency gave no immediate details on the cause of the blast or the potential number of casualties.

  • Transparency Reporting

    • Bradley Manning Wins Peace Prize

      U.S. whistleblower and international hero Bradley Manning has just been awarded the 2013 Sean MacBride Peace Award by the International Peace Bureau, itself a former recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize, for which Manning is a nominee this year

    • US vs. Bradley Manning: defense rests, Manning won’t testify, Wikileaks gets respect

      I traveled to Ft. Meade, Maryland today to observe the trial of Army PFC. Bradley Manning. The 25-year-old Oklahoma native has admitted to providing Wikileaks with more than 700,000 leaked documents, which included battle reports from Iraq and Afghanistan, State Department diplomatic cables, and military videos from combat zones.

  • Finance

    • Thank neoliberalism for our enslavement to capitalism

      The corporations now ruling the world owe their dominance to the application of economist Milton Friedman’s ideas

    • So that’s how H-1B visa fraud is done!

      Reader Mark Surich was looking for a lawyer with Croatian connections to help with a family matter back in the old country. He Googled some candidate lawyers and in one search came up with this federal indictment. It makes very interesting reading and shows one way H-1B visa fraud can be conducted.

      The lawyer under indictment is Marijan Cvjeticanin. Please understand that this is just an indictment, not a conviction. I’m not saying this guy is guilty of anything. My point here is to describe the crime of which he is accused, which I find very interesting. He could be innocent for all I know, but the crime, itself, is I think fairly common and worth understanding.

  • PR/AstroTurf/Lobbying

    • What It Takes to Get a Reporter to Correct An Error

      But, as Scahill pointed out, issuing a correction via Twitter for something you said on the air was insufficient. Baldwin apparently agreed, because later on in her show she said, “And earlier we said that he was killed in the same drone strike that killed his father. That was not the case. We regret that mistake.”

      Accuracy, of course, is a big deal in journalism– and thus it’s a big deal for people who want to hold journalism accountable. Baldwin’s initial response was unfortunate, but she eventually made the right call. Would she have made the same decision if there wasn’t such a public effort to get her to correct the record? Probably not.

    • Pest Control: Syngenta’s Secret Campaign to Discredit Atrazine’s Critics

      To protect profits threatened by a lawsuit over its controversial herbicide atrazine, Syngenta Crop Protection launched an aggressive multi-million dollar campaign that included hiring a detective agency to investigate scientists on a federal advisory panel, looking into the personal life of a judge and commissioning a psychological profile of a leading scientist critical of atrazine.

  • Censorship

    • Yahoo’s Sneaky Strike to Tumble Tumblr’s Adult Artifacts

      Exactly two months ago, when we heard that Yahoo was buying Tumblr for over a billion dollars in cash, I posed a somewhat provocative question.

      To wit: What was Yahoo gonna do with all that porn on Tumblr?

    • HBO Asks Google to Take Down “Infringing” VLC Media Player

      It’s no secret that copyright holders are trying to take down as much pirated content as they can, but their targeting of open source software is something new. In an attempt to remove pirated copies of Game of Thrones from the Internet, HBO sent a DMCA takedown to Google, listing a copy of the popular media player VLC as a copyright infringement. An honest mistake, perhaps, but a worrying one.

  • Privacy

    • Former NSA Chief Smears Glenn Greenwald

      newspaper’s Glenn Greenwald,” writes former NSA director Michael Hayden today in a CNN op-ed, is “more deserving of the Justice Department’s characterization of a co-conspirator than Fox’s James Rosen ever was.” Hayden’s smear came in a column in which he argues that Edward Snowden, whose story Greenwald has been telling in the Guardian, “will likely prove to be the most costly leaker of American secrets in the history of the Republic.”

      Those thuggish words are particularly disturbing coming from a figure who is, as CNN’s editor’s note at the top of the column explains, still tied to military and intelligence elites.

    • NSA admits to spying on more people than previously thought

      Testimony elicited during a Wednesday oversight hearing in Washington revealed that the United States intelligence community regularly collects email and telephone metadata from way more persons than previously thought.

    • Amash Forcing the Issue on NSA

      Representative Justin Amash of Michigan is on his way to forcing the first legislative showdown over the National Security Agency’s controversial policy of collecting the phone logs of every American.

    • NSA head admits the agency made “huge set of mistakes” in 2009

      President then established an internal watchdog group within spy agency.

    • NSA Phone Snooping Cannot Be Challenged in Court, Feds Say

      The Obama administration for the first time responded to a Spygate lawsuit, telling a federal judge the wholesale vacuuming up of all phone-call metadata in the United States is in the “public interest,” does not breach the constitutional rights of Americans and cannot be challenged in a court of law.

    • Biden calls Brazil’s Rousseff over NSA spying tensions

      U.S. Vice President Joe Biden called Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff on Friday to try to smooth tensions caused by allegations that the United States spied on Brazilian Internet communications, Rousseff’s office said.

    • Biden calls Brazil’s Rousseff over NSA spying tensions

      U.S. Vice President Joe Biden called Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff on Friday to try to smooth tensions caused by allegations that the United States spied on Brazilian Internet communications, Rousseff’s office said.

      Latin America’s largest nation has said Washington’s explanations about the National Security Agency’s secret surveillance programs have been unsatisfactory.

      “He lamented the negative repercussions in Brazil and reiterated the U.S. government’s willingness to provide more information on the matter,” Rousseff’s communications minister, Helena Chagas, told reporters after the 25-minute telephone call.

    • NSA surveillance order set to expire Friday

      If the Obama administration elects not to act before Friday evening, the National Security Agency could for the first time in years be unable to collect the phone records of millions of Americans.

      It’s been but six weeks since NSA leaker Edward Snowden first started exposing the surveillance policies used by the United States government, and that month-and-a-half has provided President Barack Obama with a number of opportunities to engage the Congress and citizenry alike with regards to striking a proper balance between privacy and security. But while the recently disclosed surveillance programs could be stopped at any time, Friday allows the administration the opportunity to not renew one of those policies for the first time since the public began to pipe up.

    • Senator to Snowden: ‘You have done the right thing’

      While some current members of Congress continue to rally for the prosecution of National Security Agency leaker Edward Snowden, a long-serving United States senator has sent a letter of support to the NSA contractor-turned-whistleblower.

      According to correspondence published Tuesday by the Guardian’s Glenn Greenwald, former two-term senator Gordon Humphrey (R-New Hampshire) wrote the exiled Mr. Snowden to say, “you have done the right thing in exposing what I regard as massive violation of the United States Constitution.”

    • “What Is That Box?” — When The NSA Shows Up At Your Internet Company

      When people say the feds are monitoring what people are doing online, what does that mean? How does that work? When, and where, does it start?

      Pete Ashdown, CEO of XMission, an internet service provider in Utah, knows. He received a Foreign Intelligence Service Act (FISA) warrant in 2010 mandating he let the feds monitor one of his customers, through his facility. He also received a broad gag order. In his own words:

      The first thing I do when I get a law enforcement request is look for a court signature on it. Then I pass it to my attorneys and say, “Is this legitimate? Does this qualify as a warrant?” If it does, then we will respond to it. We are very up front that we respond to warrants.

      If it isn’t, then the attorneys write back: “We don’t believe it is in jurisdiction or is constitutional. We are happy to respond if you do get an FBI request in jurisdiction or you get a court order to do so.”

      The FISA request was a tricky one, because it was a warrant through the FISA court — whether you believe that is legitimate or not. I have a hard time with secret courts. I ran it past my attorney and asked, “Is there anyway we can fight this?” and he said “No. It is legitimate.”

    • FISA court renews NSA surveillance program

      The Obama administration has renewed the authority for the National Security Agency to regularly collect the phone records of millions of Americas as allowed under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.

    • Fight over NSA Spying Spills into U.S. Courts

      ATLANTA, Georgia, Jul 19 (IPS) – A wide variety of individuals and organisations have filed lawsuits challenging the National Security Agency (NSA) and other federal agencies and officials for conducting a massive, dragnet spying operation on U.S. citizens that was recently confirmed by whistleblower Edward Snowden.

    • Secret court lets NSA extend its trawl of Verizon customers’ phone records

      Latest revelation an indication of how Obama administration has opened up hidden world of mass communications surveillance

    • Senators suggest moving G20 summit over NSA leaker

      Two senators urged President Barack Obama on Friday to consider recommending a new site for the September international summit in St. Petersburg, Russia, if Moscow continues to allow National Security Agency leaker Edward Snowden to remain in the country.

    • Obama may cancel Moscow trip over NSA leaker

      President Barack Obama may cancel a scheduled trip to Moscow to meet with President Vladimir V. Putin in September as the standoff over the fate of Edward J. Snowden, the former National Security Agency contractor seeking asylum there, takes its toll on already strained relations between the United States and Russia, officials said Thursday.

    • Pressure Builds for Data-Sweep Alternative

      White House and Congress Urge National Security Agency to Rethink Its Approach to Terrorism-Related Surveillance

    • CIA Huawei Spying Claims Denounced, US Told To ‘Put Up Or Shut Up’
    • The Internet Sector calls for Greater Transparency in Requests for User Data

      Mozilla is joining with over 60 leading technology companies, startups, investors, technology trade groups and public interest groups today to call on the US government to allow the release of information pertaining to national security requests for user data.

      Mozilla is one of the organizers behind today’s letter. We gathered the signatures of a broad range of Internet and VC leaders for many of whom this is their first time publicly weighing in on this issue. Mozilla has also been one of the leading groups behind the StopWatching.Us campaign, which has gathered over 550,000 signatures and brought together one of the most diverse coalitions of public interest organizations ever assembled on an Internet policy topic.

    • The Philosophy of NSA Surveillance

      What kind of society do we want to live in? That’s the philosophical question at the heart of the debate about the National Security Agency collecting call logs and Internet content on millions of Americans in the name of finding terrorists. I hang my head in disbelief at the continual framing of the debate in solely practical terms. I instinctively think in philosophical terms.

      When the news broke, I had a visceral reaction. The confirmation of the existence of these sweeping programs was like a punch in the gut for this centrist civil libertarian. Yet people whom I know and many pundits and politicians simply shrugged. They seemed uninterested in taking a stand. Supreme Court Justice George Sutherland said in 1937 that “the saddest epitaph which can be carved in memory of a vanished liberty is that it was lost because its possessors failed to stretch forth a saving hand while yet there was time.”

    • NSA secret data to be protected as nuclear weapon

      The National Security Agency is implementing new security measures because of the disclosures by former NSA employee Edward Snowden, a top defense official said. First among the new procedures is a “two-man rule”, often used in guarding nuclear weapons.

    • Lawsuits against NSA: will any of them bring substantial results?

      A coalition of 19 groups in San Francisco is suing the US National Security Agency. The groups, supporting everything from religion and digital rights to drugs and the environment, demand that a federal judge immediately stop the activity of the “unconstitutional program”. At least 3 federal lawsuits have been previously lodged in the country, challenging the US government’s surveillance programs. Tomas Moore, principal attorney at “The Moore Law Team”. And the plaintiffs attorney in the lawsuit, shares his opinion on the issue with the Voice of Russia.
      Read more: http://english.ruvr.ru/2013_07_19/Lawsuits-against-NSA-will-bring-any-of-them-substantial-results-3271/

    • 5 Companies That Are Watching You More Than the NSA

      In the digital age, it’s difficult to define exactly what is public and when we should reasonably expect privacy. Revelations regarding the surveillance reach of the NSA have many questioning who knows what and how much.

      On a daily basis, your activity is being monitored by companies through one simple device – your cell phone. And they know more about you than the government.

    • FISA Court Secretly Renews NSA Telephone Surveillance
    • A Single NSA Wiretap Could Lead To Snooping On ’2.5 Million Americans’
    • Android app randomly takes photos, tweets them to NSA
    • Facebook Event For ‘NSA Nature Walk’ Leads To Police Visit For German Man

      People outside of the United States have been alarmed by revelations about the degree of NSA access to information held by American technology companies given that foreigners are not granted the same privacy protections as U.S. citizens. Daniel Bangert, a 28-year-old German man, has been following news articles about the Edward Snowden leaks closely. Last month, after discovering that the NSA has a facility near his home in Griesheim, he posted a screed to Facebook lamenting “hav[ing] the NSA spies on my doorstep.”

    • Thanks to a Secret Court the NSA Can Continue Spying on Americas

      On Friday, the secret court that oversees cases related to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act renewed the order that enables the NSA to compel telecom companies to hand over records whenever it wants. Translation: No end in sight to the NSA spying on phone records.

    • FISA Court Rubber Stamps Continued Collection Of All Phone Records, While DOJ Insists No One Can Challenge This

      As of this morning, the Feds didn’t want to say if they’d asked the FISA court to renew the order allowing it to collect the data on every single phone call from Verizon (and likely every other major phone carrier, though it’s unclear if the orders for those others also expired today).

    • ACLU warns of mass tracking through license plate scanners

      The American Civil Liberties Union is warning that law enforcement officials are using license plate scanners to amass massive and unregulated databases that can be used to track law-abiding citizens as their go about their daily lives.

    • The NSA Admits It Analyzes More People’s Data Than Previously Revealed
    • The Creepy, Long-Standing Practice of Undersea Cable Tapping

      The newest NSA leaks reveal that governments are probing “the Internet’s backbone.” How does that work?

    • Metadata, the NSA, and the Fourth Amendment: A Constitutional Analysis of Collecting and Querying Call Records Databases

      In his recent Wall Street Journal op-ed, my co-blogger Randy Barnett argues that massive-scale collection of communications metadata by the NSA violates the Fourth Amendment because it is an unreasonable seizure. Randy’s colleague Laura K. Donohue recently argued in the Washington Post that such collection violates the Fourth Amendment as an unreasonable search. Jennifer Granick and Chris Sprigman made a similar argument in the New York Times.

    • The Dangers of Surveillance

      From the Fourth Amendment to George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four, and from the Electronic Communications Privacy Act to films like Minority Report and The Lives of Others, our law and culture are full of warnings about state scrutiny of our lives. These warnings are commonplace, but they are rarely very specific. Other than the vague threat of an Orwellian dystopia, as a society we don’t really know why surveillance is bad and why we should be wary of it. To the extent that the answer has something to do with “privacy,” we lack an understanding of what “privacy” means in this context and why it matters. We’ve been able to live with this state of affairs largely because the threat of constant surveillance has been relegated to the realms of science fiction and failed totalitarian states.

    • NSA comes clean on metadata: Are you within 3 degrees of a target?

      The NSA finally admitted Wednesday why it wants to track your phone’s metadata, like the stats of who you call and when.

      They’re looking to see if you ever call anybody who’s called anybody who’s called anybody who might be of real interest.

    • First Unitarian Church of Los Angeles v. NSA

      Nineteen organizations including Unitarian church groups, gun ownership advocates, and a broad coalition of membership and political advocacy organizations filed suit against the National Security Agency today for violating their First Amendment right of association by illegally collecting their call records. The coalition is represented by EFF.

  • Civil Rights

    • American justice scandal: FBI could be at fault in 27 death row cases

      Unprecedented federal review rules that the FBI may have exaggerated forensics in case of Willie Jerome Manning – a decision that puts other convictions in doubt

    • Senate and C.I.A. Spar Over Secret Report on Interrogation Program
    • [Old:] Freedom of peaceful assembly and freedom of association and the internet

      The internet, social networks and mobile phones enhance human freedoms to come together around social, political and economic issues, to build associations and networks, and to assemble online to advocate for and to defend human rights. This has been reflected in demonstrations and protests in the middle-east and North Africa; anti- austerity protests in Greece, Italy and Spain; “Occupy” protests; advocacy and protests against the Stop Online Piracy (SOPA) and PROTECT IP (PIPA) bills in the United States; student protests in Quebec and Chile; and protests against the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA).

    • ICC not fit for purpose?

      The Interception of Communications Commissioner (ICC) 2012 Annual Report has raised serious questions about whether the commissioner’s office is actually fit for purpose. The report has failed to make any mention of Tempora and PRISM whilst at the same time seriously lacks the impression that the ICC has been enforcing serious oversight of the way security agencies acquire and use communications data.

    • Dick Durbin to Hold Senate Hearings on ALEC, the NRA, and “Stand Your Ground”

      Senator Dick Durbin (D-IL) announced Friday that he will hold hearings this fall on the role of the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) and the NRA in spreading “Stand Your Ground” laws across the country, which the Center for Media and Democracy uncovered last year, after launching ALECexposed.org.

    • Journalist James Risen ordered to testify in CIA leaker trial

      A federal appeals court has delivered a blow to investigative journalism in America by ruling that reporters have no first amendment protection that would safeguard the confidentiality of their sources in the event of a criminal trial.

      In a two-to-one ruling from the fourth circuit appeals court in Richmond, Virginia, two judges ruled that a New York Times reporter, James Risen, must give evidence at the criminal trial of a former CIA agent who is being prosecuted for unauthorised leaking of state secrets.

    • EXCLUSIVE: Guantanamo’s Indefinite Prisoners To Have Cases Reviewed

      Eighty-six of the 166 prisoners at Guantanamo have already been cleared for release. In May, President Obama announced a series of steps his administration intended to undertake to release the men, including lifting a moratorium on the transfer of Yemeni prisoners. The reviews of individual cases are another step toward reducing the population of the prison.

    • McDonald’s Employees Walk Out In Protest Of No Air Conditioning After Crew Member Collapses

      A New York City McDonald’s crew walked out Friday, saying they were forced to work without air conditioning amid record-high temperatures. One worker collapsed from the heat.

    • Anti-corruption blogger Navalny sentenced to 5 years behind bars for embezzlement

      Prominent anti-corruption blogger and opposition activist Aleksey Navalny has been found guilty of embezzlement on a large scale, and sentenced to 5 years in jail.

      [...]

      Navalny was also the man who coined the phrase “party of crooks and thieves,” which became a ubiquitous nickname in opposition circles for the country’s ruling United Russia party.

]]> http://techrights.org/2013/07/20/ubuntu-hardware-imminent/feed/ 0 Links 3/4/2013: Valve GNU/Linux Distribution http://techrights.org/2013/04/02/valve-distribution/ http://techrights.org/2013/04/02/valve-distribution/#comments Wed, 03 Apr 2013 00:19:17 +0000 http://techrights.org/?p=67489

GNOME bluefish

Contents

GNU/Linux

  • Today’s Linux schisms are a blessing in disguise

    The Linux community is fracturing along a number of fault lines — and that’s a good thing

  • Turn Your Linux Ubuntu Into Windows 7
  • April 2013 Issue of Linux Journal: High Performance Computing

    When I was in college, there was a rich kid down the hall who had a computer with 16MB of RAM. Before you scoff, you need to think back to 1993. The standard amount of RAM in a new computer was 2MB, with 4MB being “high-end”. Anyway, this kid’s computer was amazingly fast because he could create a RAM disk big enough to contain Windows 3.1 completely, so the entire OS ran from RAM. It was the 1993 rich-kid version of an SSD.

  • The Linux Setup – Mark Anderson, Teacher

    On my main laptop, my trusty old Dell Inspiron B130, I run Ubuntu 12.04 LTS. On my old Acer Aspire One netbook, I just recently switched from Ubuntu to Peppermint Linux 3, which has injected much needed speed on that machine. It has become the tool I use for writing.

  • Mini Maker Faires attract penguins

    On Saturday, April 13, 2013, a free “mini maker faire” event will be taking place at the Cleveland Public Library, in downtown Cleveland, Ohio. Modeled on the legendary Maker Faire of San Mateo, California, the mini maker faire will be a celebration of ingenuity and the do-it-yourself (DIY) spirit.

    I’ll be one of the workshop presenters at this event and I’m expecting a large number of penguins will be attending. Note: “Penguins” are an affectionate name for open source enthusiasts—so named in honor of the Linux mascot,

  • Garry’s Mod Creator Plays Cruel Joke on Linux Fans
  • Why Nokia and Linux failed, so far

    Before you judge me by the article title, please read carefully. I have a very important message, and it has everything to do with the commercial and public image success of Nokia, and Linux.

    [...]

    So we need apps.

  • Desktop

    • Why Torvalds loves the Chromebook Pixel: It’s all about the display
    • Resistance Isn’t Futile

      I’ve spent a lot of time in conversation with various people about the State of Desktop Linux. While I have my own ideas as to how we (could have) gained a larger market share on the Desktop, my firm belief is that, at this time…..

      Anything we do from now on will be too little, too late.

      That ship has sailed, it’s water under the bridge, however you wish to express it.

      Linux, as we know it, is not going to ever become a major player in the Desktop market.

      I’ve made peace with that. Since 2005, I’ve chewed my lip over how this can change, but the fact is, there are simply too many people not willing to do the things necessary to make it a reality. Whether you believe it or not, whether you like it or not…

  • Server

    • ‘Petaflop’ supercomputer is decommissioned

      A US supercomputer called Roadrunner has been switched off by the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico.

      The machine was the first to operate at “petaflop pace” – the equivalent of 1,000 trillion calculations per second – when it launched in 2008.

  • Kernel Space

    • Jon Corbet Mulls Linux Kernel Changes

      Now that the Linux kernel 3.9 merge window is closed, it’s safe to say we know what features will be included in the next kernel release. What lies beyond is predictable, still, but will likely hold a surprise or two. That’s where the annual Linux kernel weather report comes in.

    • Linux 3.9-rc5

      I’m like the US postal office – “Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night” will keep me from doing weekly -rc releases. A little holiday like Easter? Bah, humbug. It might delay the release email a
      few hours because a man gotta stuff himself with odd seasonal desserts (and the Finnish Easter desserts are odder than most), but it won’t stop the inevitable progress towards a final 3.9 release.

    • Linux 3.9-rc5 Kernel Is Not Really Peculiar

    • Graphics Stack

      • Hawaii Desktop Is Now Usable On Wayland/Weston

        The lead developer behind the Hawaii Desktop Environment now believes that their Qt Quick 2 desktop is now in a usable state for Wayland and can run fine on the Weston compositor.

        While Hawaii is even less well known that Xfce or LXDE, it’s gained early attention for focusing upon Wayland support and there was also work on its own Wayland compositor known as Green Island. This Wayland support isn’t too hard since the desktop and its components are being written from scratch and is designed around Qt5 and Qt Quick 2, which already has upstream Wayland support.

      • Intel Mesa Driver Gets KDE KWin Optimizations

        A number of commits to the i965 driver in Mesa today benefit the performance of KDE’s KWin window manager for those using Intel Ivy Bridge graphics hardware.

        There were a number of commits pertaining to the i965 driver’s fragment shared pushed this afternoon (i965/fs). Most notably, this should help Ivy Bridge with KWin when using the scaling-related effects using the OpenGL 2.x renderer.

      • RDP Back-End Merged For Wayland’s Weston

        One month ago a FreeRDP-based remote compositor for Wayland’s Weston was proposed. Now having undergone six code revisions, the Weston Remote Desktop Protocol back-end has been merged.

      • VIA Secretly Has A Working Gallium3D Driver

        In years past we long heard about lofty goals out of VIA Technologies for being open-source friendly and ultimately come up with a Mesa Gallium3D driver. We haven’t heard anything officially out of VIA in a great number of months, but it turns out they do now have a Gallium3D driver for Chrome 9!

        In response to a Phoronix Forums thread about using VIA graphics under Linux on an old laptop, a Phoronix reader shared he had working VIA Linux graphics. The reported configuration was Lubuntu 12.10 with an ASRock PVR530 motherboard that boasts VX900 / Chrome 9 graphics.

      • The Wayland/Weston Fork Is Now “Banned”

    • Benchmarks

  • Applications

  • Desktop Environments/WMs

    • K Desktop Environment/KDE SC/Qt

    • GNOME Desktop/GTK

      • GNOME 3.8 Debuts New Open Source Linux Desktop

        The GNOME 3.8 also benefits from the Every Detail Matters initiative from the GNOME Foundation. Back in 2011, GNOME developer Allan Day launched the Every Detail Matters effort with GNOME 3.4 to improve the overall quality of the GNOME desktop.

        With the GNOME 3.8 release, 60 ‘Every Detail Matters’ bugs were fixed.

      • Gnome 3.8 Core Utilities

        Gnome 3.8 has been released and apart from the various Gnome libraries, services and core parts that have been upgraded, we should take a look on the applications and utilities that are also part of Gnome.

        How did the tools that we will be using every day evolved? What new exciting features and improvements consist the base for a greater Gnome experience? Let’s find out!

      • Gnome 3.8 review: it’s almost there

        The much awaited evolutionary release of Gnome — 3.8 — arrived last week. After playing with it for a while I opine that Gnome 3.8 is much closer to what Gnome team was aiming for as the ‘next’ version of this desktop environment – the successor of the 2.x branch. It’s polished (as usual), fast, responsive and a bit more mature.

  • Distributions

    • Distrowatch Almost Got Me, April Fools’ Jokes

      Buuut, it is an awfully large database now. So, it sounded perfectly reasonable when I read Ladislav’s words, “This site’s database has swollen to a whopping 746 free operating systems and is growing every week! Clearly, this is unsustainable. As a result, we have decided to cut down on the number of distributions tracked in our database – from the current 746 to just 25.”

      He had me up until I read the “25!” Then I remembered it was April Fools’ Day. But even if I hadn’t caught on yet the next statement would surely have done it, “All superfluous distributions will be removed and no longer tracked – these include anything below number 25 in our page hit ranking statistics, such as Fuduntu, Kubuntu, Gentoo Linux, PC-BSD or Red Hat Enterprise Linux. These distributions are clearly not very popular, so why bother?”

    • Cookie Cutter Distros Don’t Cut It
    • Standards, Trends, And Shiny Things

      Now apply this to say, Ubuntu PPA’s. Would people be using Grive if not for trends ? Of course not :) Lets take OMG!Ubuntu for example, we could say it’s a trend-setter in the Ubuntu world. Over time a project gains enough following through the Internet’s equivalent of the real-world word of mouth. People flock to these projects and soon they become big enough to be part of everyday Linux life. Note the “Shiny Things” rule is also applicable here.

    • First looks at KANOTIX 2013 and GhostBSD 3.0
    • ZevenOS 3.0 Neptune “Brotkasten” KDE Review: Refreshingly different!

      ZevenOS, a German based distro, is quite a familiar name in the Linux world. Typically they bring out two classes of distro

      * A lightweight XFCE distro based on Ubuntu, with the look and feel of BeOS, which actually never captured my imagination
      * A heavier KDE based Neptune based on Debian testing

    • New Releases

    • Screenshots

    • Red Hat Family

    • Debian Family

      • Derivatives

        • Canonical/Ubuntu

          • Ubuntu Virtual Machine: Guest and Host

            If you’d like to run an Ubuntu virtual machineon your PC, you’ll need to weigh a series of considerations. To be sure, the use of virtualization is commonplace in the IT industry these days. Still, before you decide to run an Ubuntu virtual machine, you must consider whether you fully understand the benefits of setting one up in the first place.

            In this article, I’ll explore virtual machine hosts and guests on Ubuntu, why virtualization is a better bet than relying on WINE and how to ensure that you are selecting the best virtual machine solution for your Ubuntu desktop.

          • MapR brings Hadoop support to Ubuntu
          • Think You Saw Unity In Last Night’s Doctor Who?
          • Ubuntu 13.04 To Axe The Wubi Windows Installer

            One of the less popular ways to use Ubuntu Linux has been through the “Wubi” Windows-based installer that places Ubuntu within a Windows installation just as you would any other application. However, Canonical is planning to remove Wubi from Ubuntu 13.04.

          • Flavours and Variants

            • Interview with Zorin OS creator, Artyom Zorin

              Artyom Zorin: My name is Artyom Zorin and I live in Dublin, Ireland. I’m the CEO of Zorin Group as well as being a student. My parents are ethnic Russians who moved from Ukraine to Ireland many years ago, which explains why my name doesn’t sound like a normal Irish one. I first came across Ubuntu back in 2008. Believe it or not, what actually attracted me most to Linux was the Compiz desktop effects software which I thought was “cool” when I first saw it on YouTube. At the beginning, I was a little bit anxious about making the leap, but after my brother Kyrill installed Ubuntu on our computer we started to see a lot more advantages to using Linux than simply the desktop effects. We also noticed that many people coming from a Windows environment found Ubuntu rather difficult to use as it was lacking a familiarity. Advanced Linux users argue that Ubuntu is simple to use and suffices for Linux beginners coming from Windows but we saw that what this user group really needed was a familiar graphical interface. This prompted us to develop a Linux distribution that resolves this issue to make the transition from Windows to Linux entirely seamless, a distribution now known as Zorin OS.

            • Ubuntu vs. Mint: Which Linux Distro Is Better for Beginners?

              Ubuntu vs. Mint: Which Linux Distro Is Better for Beginners?There’s nothing like digging into your first Linux distribution, whether you’re a tech-savvy user looking to branch out or whether you’re installing it on a friend’s computer. But which distribution is actually better for beginners? Here, we’ll delve into the differences between Ubuntu and Mint, the two most popular beginner distros, and perform a little experiment to see what new users prefer.

            • Bodhi Linux 2.3.0 Released – Download DVD ISO Images

              Bodhi team are happy to announce the immediate availability of Bodhi Linux 2.3.0, a minimalistic Linux operating system based on Ubuntu that uses by default Enlightenment Desktop (E17).

  • Devices/Embedded

Free Software/Open Source

  • Algar Telecom develops open source equipment identity system

    Brazil’s Algar Telecom has decided to develop its own open source Equipment Identity Register (EIR) platform. Speaking to local portal Teletime, the executive director of operations and technology at Algar Telecom, Luis Antonio Lima, said that this is the first EIR open source in the world and that anyone can improve it, modify it or use it in their own business. The source code of the platform can be accessed at: code.google.com/p/jeir.

  • Michigan Tech’s Open Source Optics

    Doing science can be an expensive affair, but a new project from Michigan Technological University is trying to make science more affordable and more accessible.

    In a recently published paper, professors and researchers at the university outlined their plans for creating an online, open-source library of 3D printable optics hardware. According to one of the paper’s authors, associate professor Joshua Pearce, “This library operates as a free, flexible, low-cost tool set for developing both research and teaching optics hardware.”

  • Open source software and start-ups

    Open source software has been instrumental in the growth of many tech companies in Silicon Valley and around the world. The free and open source software enable start-ups to create something innovative at a very low cost, then give it away for free to see how customers like it. In this fashion, they can be very responsive in addressing the feedback from the market and create truly innovative products and services. Google and Facebook are great examples of tech companies that build their empire on open source software.

  • Open source plug-in speeds mobile app development

    A plug-in intended to make it easier for mobile developers to test applications and deploy them to the cloud is available for download.

    The open source plug-in, called the Soasta CloudTest Plugin for Jenkins, links the Jenkins continuous integration system to the Soasta Touchtest platform for testing multi-touch, gesture-based applications on the CloudBees Java platform-as-a-service. Applications would be deployed on CloudBees.

  • Press Release: Avetti.com Launches Enterprise Open Source E-Commerce Software
  • 10 ways to start contributing to open source

    After understanding a project’s capabilities and roadmap, anyone is able to start directly hacking the source code and contributing useful extensions. Because open source is a distributed, participatory meritocracy, the upside benefit is high and the barrier to entry is low—you don’t have to move, be employed by a Valley startup, give up your day job, or wait to obtain a 4 years for a degree.

  • VLC Media Player

    Then I saw it: the URL being provided was not the true URL for the VLC project, http://www.videolan.org/vlc/ , but rather “vlcmediaplayer” dot org. Clearly this is a “scraper” — someone who copies someone else’s web content to a new web site, and then tries to drive traffic to that new web site, to generate ad revenue. I must grudgingly credit them with a good choice, since VLC Media Player works for Windows, Linux, Mac, and Android — plus lots more — and viewing media is something most users want to do.

  • Are you open source enough?

    Is your project open source enough? Are you? Are you doing enough for your communities? Accusations like these are getting thrown around more and more, often in the simple form, “X isn’t really open.” It’s a question we’ve even asked ourselves from time to time when we post stories on opensource.com—is this a real example of openness? But what is “open enough?” And does it really matter?

    There comes a point in any community’s growth where the collective consciousness starts to feel threatened by newcomers. You know it’s happened on a mailing list or web forum when you see posts that start, “I miss when this group used to be…” And if you search Google for the phrase “not really open source,” you get 1,800,000 results, suggesting that the broader open source community has officially reached that time.

  • Bringing Open Source Communities closer together
  • Apache Bloodhound Leads Open Source Trac Forward
  • Free and Open—and Their Opposites

    Merriam-Webster defines a tenet as “a principle, belief, or doctrine generally held to be true; especially one held in common by members of an organization, movement, or profession.” As it happens, Linux is claimed by two doctrines that are to some degree at odds: those of free software and open source. This contention began when Eric S. Raymond published “Goodbye, ‘free software’; hello, ‘open source’”, on February 8, 1998.

  • Web Browsers

    • Mozilla

      • Mozilla Project celebrates 15 years

        The Mozilla Project is celebrating 15 years of “a better web” this week. Fifteen years ago, Netscape Communications released the source code to its web browser and mail suite and created the Mozilla Project. Netscape had been under commercial pressure as Microsoft had begun bundling Internet Explorer for free and the company took the then quite radical step of open sourcing its core software, looking to build a community around that code. Over the next few years, development continued based on that original code and in 2002, Mozilla 1.0, the first major version, was released with various improvements. Mozilla 1.0 arrived into a world where Internet Explorer had a 90 per cent share of the browser market. It was also a world in which the newly released Mozilla 1.0 would make little impact.

  • SaaS/Big Data

    • How Does Big Data Impact the Network?

      Big Data and the hype associated with it is pervasive across IT today. In its most basic definition, Big Data is typically connected to the open source Hadoop Big Data project, though others have a broader definition. No matter how you define Big Data, it’s all about large volumes of data that need to move around a network.

    • OpenStack security brief

      This video from Shmoocon 2013 is a break down of security concerns relating to OpenStack cloud software.

      OpenStack is an open source IaaS solution compatible with Amazon EC2 / S3 and Google’s GCE. The purpose of the talk is to introduce and demonstrate the working mechanics of cloud security mechanisms, or lack thereof.

    • OpenStack Grizzly Rounding Third

      The big OpenStack 2013.1 (aka Grizzly) open source cloud platform release is due out this week on 4/4.

    • Nebula’s OpenStack Hardware Offering Touts Plug-and-Play Simplicity

  • Databases

    • MySQL and the forks in the road

      At the beginning of 2008 Sun Microsystems purchased MySQL AB, and ever since then there have been divisions in the ecosystem. As with any software community or ecosystem, where there are divisions there are usually forks, both in the community and the software itself.

      Just over a year after the Sun acquisition came the announcement that Sun itself was to be bought out by Oracle. It was at this point that the cracks in the ecosystem really started to show. Many inside Sun stayed quiet – not by choice – while outside things were getting very vocal and heated.

  • Business

    • Semi-Open Source

      • Kona’s Scott DeFusco: Open Source Advocate in a Closed Source Firm

        “When we looked at a number of different factors, open source became the obvious answer to this particular project,” said Kona vice president Scott DeFusco. “That’s not to say the proprietary platforms we were using on our other products were not good for those. For us, open source was the better choice for a couple of reasons. One is keeping the cost down so we could pass on a lot of value to our users in the free version. Also, we could maximize our values when we monetized.”

  • FSF/FSFE/GNU/SFLC

    • GNU Spotlight with Karl Berry: 29 new GNU releases!
    • GnuCash 2.4.12 released

      The GnuCash development team proudly announces GnuCash 2.4.12, the ninth bug fix release in a series of stable of the GnuCash Free Accounting Software. With this release series, GnuCash can use an SQL database using SQLite3, MySQL or PostgreSQL. It runs on GNU/Linux, *BSD, Solaris, Microsoft Windows and Mac OSX.

    • How I earned a 286% return in less than 1 year investing in the Free Software Foundation

      At the FSF’s annual conference last year I pledged to donate 100BTC to the FSF, and did so on April 6. I bought about 121.95 bitcoins, for a price of about US$4.92/BTC (made easier thanks to Greg Maxwell’s vouching for me on #bitcoin-otc; thanks!) and haven’t given any thought to the remainder till today.

    • Guile 100 #4: tar files

      Challenge #4 in the Guile 100 Programs Project is quite simple. Write a script that will create a tar file from a list of files. It is the fourth and final challenge in this month’s theme, which is “/bin – reimplementing common Posix tools”.

      The Guile 100 Programs Project is an attempt to collaboratively generate a set of examples of how to use the GNU Guile implementation of Scheme.

    • The GNUstep Makefile Package version 2.6.4 is now available.

  • Openness/Sharing

    • Open Source Robot Mixes A Mean Drink

      For many years now, some of the more creative work in the field of robotics has been driven by open source efforts. Open source robotics platforms have flourished, and they have mostly focused on humanoid robots of the type that Willow Garage and other organizations have specialized in.

    • Open Access/Content

      • US to release Aaron Swartz papers

        The US attorney’s office in Boston agreed on Friday to release documents in the Aaron Swartz case, but the officials are seeking to have some specific identities and materials withheld as the legal wrangling continues in the investigation into the federal prosecution of the Internet activist.

        In calling for redactions of names and materials, the office of US Attorney Carmen M. Ortiz expressed concerns about the safety of individuals and organizations involved in the case.

      • #openaccess The current standard of “debate” is unacceptable; arrogant and ignorant

        I have my head down and am trying to write code – to liberate knowledge (and I haven’t forgotten #scholrev!) but occasionally have to break off and blog. Simply: the standard of debate (if it can be called such) in #openaccess is appalling. Either non-existent or fuelled by prejudice and ignorance. Since (a) many of the “debaters” and academics to whom we might look for clarity, fairness and guidance and (b) we are losing billions (sic) by not getting our act together.

    • Open Hardware

      • ZeroTurnaround Reveals an Open Source Hardware Line

        ZeroTurnaround today announced its plans to open source the company, starting with a new line of hardware products deemed “GRM2”. This marks a significant shift in business model for the Estonian software house, who has been developing JRebel, the popular development productivity tool, since 2007.

  • Programming

    • More Features Of C++14 Are Covered

      C++14 is the next update to the C++ programming language. While only considered a minor update over C++11, it will bring with it several new features.

    • LLVM/Clang 3.3 Planned For Release In June

      An Apple developer has shared plans to see LLVM 3.3 released in June of this year, following the month of May being dedicated to testing.

      Among the improvements to be found out of LLVM 3.3 include better Intel Haswell support (improved AVX2, etc), some noted performance improvements, Clang will have better C++11 support, the long-awaited AMD R600 GPU LLVM back-end, 64-bit ARM / AArch64 support, and many other features to be discussed in the coming weeks.

Leftovers

  • Facebook is still losing teens to mobile messaging apps
  • “Can I resell my MP3s?” redux—federal judge says no

    For years, many a music fan has wondered what we first posited back in 2008: “Can I resell my MP3s?”

    After all, as we’ve pointed out in the past, nearly all digital good sales are really licenses rather than sales as conventionally understood. The question here is, can such a license be bought and sold to other users?

  • Brackets Sprint 22 adds word wrap and community commits

  • Science

    • Astrophysicists: Black hole awakens to swallow planet-sized object

      Astrophysicists have witnessed the rare event of a black hole awakening from its slumber to snack on a planet-sized object in a galaxy 47 million light years away, the University of Geneva said Tuesday.

      The observation made using the European Space Agency’s INTEGRAL satellite project, revealed a black hole that had been slumbering for years chomping on a giant, low-mass object that had come too close.

  • Health/Nutrition

    • NHS at ‘huge risk’ from reforms, says healthcare chief

      New head of National Institute for Health and Care Excellence says structural changes to NHS will prove major challenge

    • Consumers Allege Perdue’s “Humane” Poultry Labels Are “False and Deceptive”

      Have you ever wondered what labels like “humanely raised” and “cage free” mean when you’re looking at a package of meat or eggs at the supermarket? Do corporations actually live up to the claims on the labels?

      Well, a consumer class action lawsuit in New Jersey is trying to bring a little truth to labeling when it comes to the humane treatment of animals. The lawsuit alleges that Perdue Farms, Inc. has misled consumers by advertising its Harvestland brand of chickens as “humane.” The suit was filed by two consumer members of the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS) on behalf of a group of consumers. The case has been cleared to move forward by a federal court in New Jersey and will be heard later this year.

    • U.S. criticizes ‘unnecessary’ EU rules on genetically modified crops

      The United States on Monday criticized “unnecessary” European Union rules against genetically modified US crop imports as it prepares to enter free-trade talks with the EU.

      EU restrictions notably have resulted in delays in the approval of new GM traits “despite positive assessments by the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA),” the US Trade Representative’s office said in a report on reducing trade sanitary barriers.

  • Security

    • IT Pro confession: How I helped in the BIGGEST DDoS OF ALL TIME

      I contributed to the massive DDoS attack against Spamhaus. What flowed through my network wasn’t huge – it averaged 500Kbit/sec – but it contributed. This occurred because I made a simple configuration error when setting up a DNS server; it’s fixed now, so let’s do an autopsy.

  • Defence/Police/Secrecy/Aggression

    • U.S. Lawmakers: CIA Should Keep Armed UAVs

      Pro-military lawmakers and U.S. analysts want the White House to resist shifting the CIA’s armed unmanned aircraft program to the Pentagon, citing operational and legal reasons to keep the spy agency in the targeted-killing business.

    • CIA to Promote Head of “Black Site” Where Torture Occurred?

      According to media reports, the acting director of the CIA’s clandestine service has, for the last month, been an official who was “in the chain of command” in the CIA’s torture program in the years after 9/11. According to a book by Jose Rodriguez, the former head of the clandestine service, this unnamed official even headed one of the early CIA “black sites”—notorious secret prisons set up overseas to torture detainees. Media reports indicate that the unnamed career officer also reportedly signed off on the destruction of 92 videotapes documenting some of the most brutal mistreatment carried out under the CIA program.

    • Are US drones ethical?

      Whether drones should be used in the US is the wrong question. Americans should be asking: Is it ethical to use drones anywhere? Is it fair to search for security for ourselves at the expense of perpetual insecurity for others?

    • Drone policy hurts the U.S.’s image in Yemen

      The United States has played a significant role in Yemen’s transition, which ushered out former president Ali Abdullah Saleh, in exchange for immunity, and inaugurated a unity government and consensus president that are overseeing a national dialogue launched last month. The United States has pledged support for the dialogue, which will lead to a constitutional referendum and new elections.

    • ‘Drones’ changing hands

      The Obama administration seems poised to order that all kinetic attacks on al Qaeda or affiliated bad guys be conducted by elements of the United States military, knee-capping the Central Intelligence Agency’s paramilitary capability and effectively ending its drone program in Pakistan.

    • Strong American role still exists at Afghan-controlled prison

      Days after the Parwan detention center was ceremoniously transferred to Afghan control, its courtroom was full of American bailiffs, American advisers and American attorneys.

      The facility itself — renamed the Afghan National Detention Facility — is on one of the country’s most fortified American bases. When an Afghan defense attorney and prosecutor this week began arguing the case of Abdul Shakor, an alleged Taliban commander detained since 2009, all of the available evidence came from American forces.

    • The drone secrets we should see – Jameel Jaffer
    • US Aids Honduran Police Despite Death Squad Fears

      But The Associated Press has found that all police units are under the control of Director General Juan Carlos Bonilla, nicknamed the “Tiger,” who in 2002 was accused of three extrajudicial killings and links to 11 more deaths and disappearances. He was tried on one killing and acquitted. The rest of the cases were never fully investigated.

      Honduran law prohibits any police unit from operating outside the command of the director general, according to a top Honduran government security official, who would only speak on condition of anonymity. He said that is true in practice as well as on paper.

    • MI6 ‘arranged Cold War killing’ of Congo prime minister
    • Camp Nama: British personnel reveal horrors of secret US base in Baghdad

      Detainees captured by SAS and SBS squads subjected to human-rights abuses at detention centre, say British witnesses

  • Cablegate

    • CIA employee/agent access to WikiLeaks
    • Australian lawyer to run ‘serious’ Assange senate campaign
    • JULIAN ASSANGE’S SENATE BID
    • Assange appoints British monarchy opponent for Australian Senate bid

      Former Australian Republican Movement head and barrister Greg Barns said on Monday he would be campaign director for the WikiLeaks Party spearheading Assange’s rare absentee bid for a Senate seat in Australia’s September 14 election, which even if successful would not bring him any legal protection.

    • Icelandic MP and Wikileaks volunteer goes to the US – Might get arrested

      “If I don’t come back home I hope that there will not be silence about that here at home” said Ms. Birgitta Jonsdottir, MP and volunteer for Wikileaks. She is the co-founder of a new political party called The Pirate Party Iceland. The party will be running for parliament in the upcoming elections on April 27th.

      Birgitta Jonsdottir will travel to the US this week to celebrate that there are three years since the tape from Iraq was published by Wikileaks, where the US army attacked civilians.

      Birgitta has not gone to America for almost three years. During that time the Ministry of Justice in the US has ordered Twitter to hand over all data on Birgitta. Bradley Manning has also been arrested, he is kept at an American army prison.

    • New Laws Target Wikileaks

      As Julian Assange tilts at the Senate, new laws have been passed that will make it harder for organisations like Wikileaks to operate legally – and there are more to come, writes Matthew da Silva
      The Labor Government is tightening up Australian law in areas that will have a direct impact on organisations such as WikiLeaks. Only the Greens are challenging the new bills in parliament, and they are receiving scant media attention.

    • The WikiLeaks Grand Jury

      As Alexa O’Brien reported Tuesday, the US Department of Justice has provided the latest confirmation that the grand jury investigation into WikiLeaks remains currently ongoing. That means it has been actively investigating the whistleblower website now for at least about 26 months (the Guardian first reported back in January 2011 that a subpoena seeking data on WikiLeaks had “appear[ed] to confirm for the first time the existence of a secret grand jury” empanelled to investigate individuals associated with the organisation. Prior to that, in late November 2010, the White House confirmed that there was an “active, ongoing criminal investigation” into WikiLeaks. And in July 2010, the Department of Defence stated that it had requested that the FBI help with an investigation related to WikiLeaks disclosures and that it “go wherever it needs to go”).

    • Department of Justice spokesman for Eastern District of Virginia confirms grand jury investigation into WikiLeaks ‘ongoing’
    • Bradley Manning’s Nobel Peace Prize

  • Environment/Energy/Wildlife

    • Out of control nightmare: tremors increasing at massive 13-acre Louisiana sinkhole

      The head of Louisiana’s Department of Natural Resources named 13 scientists and other experts Friday to serve on a blue-ribbon commission tasked with determining the long-term stability of the area around northern Assumption Parish’s sinkhole. The 13-acre sinkhole and consequences of its emergence and continued growth, such as methane trapped under the Bayou Corne area, have forced the evacuation of 350 residents for more than seven months.

    • Low-wage nation: Seven of 10 most common jobs pay less than $30,000

      Part of the corporate-propelled race to the bottom is that we’re constantly told to expect less—if you’re a food prep worker making $18,720, at least you’re not making minimum wage, amiright? There’s this vast campaign to normalize low wages and set them up as the basic standard most of us should expect, the flip side of the increasing wealth of the top one percent.

  • Finance

    • Dow Chemical Loses $1 Billion in Deductions in Tax Case

      Dow Chemical Co. (DOW)’s claim to $1 billion in tax deductions was based on transactions with sham partnerships promoted by Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (GS) and law firm King & Spalding LLP, a federal judge ruled, throwing out the company’s bid to recover the money.

      The Internal Revenue Service correctly rejected the tax benefits created by the complex partnerships from 1993 to 2003 because the transactions were designed to exploit perceived weaknesses in the tax code and not for legitimate business purposes, U.S. District Judge Brian Jackson said in a ruling filed yesterday in federal court in Baton Rouge, Louisiana,.

    • David Stockman’s American Economic Horror Story

      For all this moral indignation, however, he never gets around to explaining what exactly is wrong about “printing money.” It’s certainly possible for an economy to have too much money–that’s how you get inflation, generally. But doesn’t it stand to reason that if you can have too much money, you can have too little? And maybe you might have too little if your economy has just lost $10 trillion in wealth due to the collapse of a housing bubble? (Stockman complains about how the Fed “digitally printed new money at the astounding rate of $600 million per hour”–which would replace the wealth lost in the bubble’s collapse in a less-than-astonishing two years.)

    • Thousands Protest the UK Government’s Brutal Austerity

      Britain’s government has introduced sweeping changes to the country’s welfare, justice, health and tax systems, including a “bedroom tax” that will reduce housing subsidies that primarily benefit poor people. The levy ostensibly aims to “tackle overcrowding and encourage a more efficient use of social housing,” resulting in an estimated million “social housing” households losing 14-25 percent of their housing benefits.

    • Outrage In UK After Conservative Politician Says He Could Live On $11.50 A Day
    • Is Germany too powerful for Europe?

      Twenty years ago, Germany’s economy was stagnating. Today, as the eurozone crisis deepens, this giant is keeping Europe afloat. But what does it want in return? Stuart Jeffries talks to German sociologist Ulrich Beck, who believes that his country has become a political monster

    • Banks gone bad: Our evolved morality has failed us

      ROB a bank and you risk a long stretch in jail. Run a bank whose dubious behaviour leads to global economic collapse and you risk nothing of the sort, more likely a handsome pay-off.

    • Millionaires’ reign: UK’s rulers ‘out of touch’ with common folk

      Britain’s new political elite is an assortment of multi-millionaires who studied at exclusive universities. But down on the streets there is a growing sentiment that those running the country are detached from those they lead.

      The latest example of how a few careless words by a millionaire in power triggers anger from the people affected by his governmental decisions comes from Work and Pensions Secretary Iain Duncan Smith. On Monday, he claimed in a live radio talk show that if he had to he could live on 53 pounds (US$80) a week.

    • Egyptians Brace for Austerity as Govt. Seeks IMF Loan

      Wednesday, representatives from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) will arrive in Cairo to enter into new rounds of negotiations, regarding a proposed $4bn loan to the country.
      Egypt, which has continued to struggle with social and economic difficulties since the political unrest of 2011 that resulted in the ousting of former President Hosni Mubarak, is seeking the IMF aid in the hopes of bolstering its rapidly deteriorating economy.
      Egypt’s current President Mohammed Morsi is reported to have initiated negotiations with IMF in November. However, he was forced to delay finalization of any potential initial deals until December, due to political divisions throughout the country over the extent of his executive powers. In a statement to reporters, cabinet spokesperson Alaa al-Hadidy ruled out the possibility of any emergency loans, in lieu of talks with the IMF, stating that despite its financial strains, Egypt would not experience a “crisis” in relation to the importing of essential goods.

    • Everyone’s Rich Again–Problem Solved!

      Friday’s USA Today front page (3/29/13) declared, “We’re Feeling Rich Again.” A subhead, pointing to a related sidebar article, recommends that we should “show this bull some love.” That doesn’t mean what you might think.

      But the right question to ask is who precisely “we” might be.

    • Worms, Pond Scum and Economists

      The effort to blame the awful plight of the young on Social Security and Medicare is picking up steam.

      In recent weeks, there were several pieces in The Washington Post and The New York Times that either implicitly or explicitly blamed older workers and retirees for the bad economic plight facing young people today. There is now a full-court press to cut Social Security and Medicare benefits, ostensibly out of a desire to help young workers today and in the future.

      Just to be clear, there is no doubt that young workers face dismal economic prospects at the moment.

    • It’s a stunt! Iain Duncan Smith dismisses demands to live on £53 a week

      Iain Duncan Smith dismissed demands for him to try to make ends meet on £53 a week as a “complete stunt” and insisted he had experienced life “on the breadline” as ministers confronted their critics over wider-ranging cuts to benefits.

      The Work and Pensions Secretary was backed by the Chancellor George Osborne in arguing that welfare reforms were essential to helping recipients back into work and tackling Britain’s previously burgeoning benefits bill. They believe the majority of voters – particularly lower-paid workers – back the Coalition’s moves to trim welfare spending.

  • PR/AstroTurf/Lobbying

    • At Banks, Board Pay Soars Amid Cutbacks

      Wall Street pay, while lucrative, isn’t what it used to be — unless you are a board member.

      Since the financial crisis, compensation for the directors of the nation’s biggest banks has continued to rise even as the banks themselves, facing difficult markets and regulatory pressures, are reining in bonuses and pay.

  • Censorship

    • Obama’s Crackdown on Whistleblowers

      In the annals of national security, the Obama administration will long be remembered for its unprecedented crackdown on whistleblowers. Since 2009, it has employed the World War I–era Espionage Act a record six times to prosecute government officials suspected of leaking classified information. The latest example is John Kiriakou, a former CIA officer serving a thirty-month term in federal prison for publicly identifying an intelligence operative involved in torture. It’s a pattern: the whistleblowers are punished, sometimes severely, while the perpetrators of the crimes they expose remain free.

    • Saudi Arabia ‘threatens Skype ban’

      Encrypted messaging services such as Skype, Viber and WhatsApp could be blocked in Saudi Arabia, the telecommunications regulator there is reported to have warned.

    • The Institute for Cultural Diplomacy and Wikipedia

      A month ago, Mark Donfried from the Institute for Cultural Diplomacy (ICD) — an organization dedicated to promoting open dialogue — sent me this letter threatening me with legal action because of contributions I’ve made to Wikipedia. Yesterday, he sent me this followup threat.

      According to the letters, Donfried has threatened me with legal action because I participated in a discussion on Wikipedia that resulted in his organization’s article being deleted. It is not anything I wrote in any Wikipedia article that made Donfried so upset — although Donfried is also unhappy about at least one off-hand comment I made during the deletion discussion on a now-deleted Wikipedia process page. Donfried is unhappy that my actions, in small part, have resulted in his organization not having an article in Wikipedia. He is able to threaten me personally because — unlike many people — I edit Wikipedia using my real, full, name.

  • Privacy

    • Congress Planning To Debate CISPA Behind Closed Doors; No Public Scrutiny Allowed

      The truth is that this is yet another way to try to hide from the public on this issue. Congress doesn’t want an open discussion on the many problems with CISPA, so it does what it does best: try to hide things away and rush them through when (hopefully) not enough people are looking. It makes you wonder just what CISPA’s supporters are so worried about. Congress is supposed to work for the public, not hide things away from the public. This isn’t a situation where they’re discussing classified info or plans — but merely a bill focused on information sharing between the government and private companies. Any markup on CISPA needs to be public.

    • Bills Would Mandate Warrant for GPS Tracking, Cellphone Location Data

      Two bills introduced Thursday in the House and Senate would compel law enforcement agents to obtain a warrant before affixing a GPS tracker to a vehicle, using a cell site simulator to locate someone through their mobile device or obtaining geolocation data from third-party service providers.

    • Supreme Court: Police Dog Powers Do Not Include Warrantless Searches of a Person’s Home
    • US Government’s Failure To Protect Public Privacy Is Driving Business Overseas

      As we’ve covered over and over again, the US government has made it clear that it wants access to your data. With things like the FISA Amendments Act, ECPA and various other laws, law enforcement plays the FUD card repeatedly, insisting that it needs to be able to go in and see data to “protect” the public. There’s very little basis to make this claim. And, worse, by decimating online privacy, the US government may actively be driving business outside of the US to foreign countries that have stricter privacy laws that actually protect data from government snooping.

    • It’s time to update online privacy
    • Whistleblowing The NSA
    • Government Fights for Use of Spy Tool That Spoofs Cell Towers

      The government’s use of a secret spy tool was on trial on Thursday in a showdown between an accused identity thief and more than a dozen federal lawyers and law enforcement agents who were fighting to ensure that evidence obtained via a location-tracking tool would be admissible in court.

    • When a Secretive Stingray Cell Phone Tracking “Warrant” Isn’t a Warrant

      An Arizona federal court this afternoon will be the battleground over the government’s use of a “Stingray” surveillance device in a closely watched criminal case, United States v. Rigmaiden. And in an important development, new documents revealed after an ACLU of Northern California Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request should leave the government with some explaining to do.

    • Facial recognition and GPS tracking: TrapWire company conducting even more surveillance

      An internationally-spread Orwellian surveillance system uncovered by RT has been linked to a software company that collects the GPS coordinates of cell phone users in over 100 major cities.

    • The Dangers of Surveillance

      From the Fourth Amendment to George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four, our law and literature are full of warnings about state scrutiny of our lives. These warnings are commonplace, but they are rarely very specific. Other than the vague threat of an Orwellian dystopia, as a society we don’t really know why surveillance is bad, and why we should be wary of it. To the extent the answer has something to do with “privacy,” we lack an understanding of what “privacy” means in this context, and why it matters. Developments in government and corporate practices, however, have made this problem more urgent. Although we have laws that protect us against government surveillance, secret government programs cannot be challenged until they are discovered. And even when they are, courts frequently dismiss challenges to such programs for lack of standing, under the theory that mere surveillance creates no tangible harms, as the Supreme Court did recently in the case of Clapper v. Amnesty International. We need a better account of the dangers of surveillance.

    • DOJ Emails Show Feds Were Less Than “Explicit” With Judges On Cell Phone Tracking Tool

      A Justice Department document obtained by the ACLU of Northern California shows that federal investigators were routinely using a sophisticated cell phone tracking tool known as a “stingray,” but hiding that fact from federal magistrate judges when asking for permission to do so.

    • Attorney General Eric Holder: If the President Does It, It’s Legal
    • Kim Dotcom Illegal Surveillance And Response: Timeline

      The surveillance by the GCSB (Government Communications Security Bureau) at the request of OFCANZ (Organised and Financial Crime Agency New Zealand – an agency hosted within the New Zealand Police) was publically revealed in September 2012 and admitted to be illegal as Dotcom, his colleague Bram van der Kolk and their families were New Zealand residents.

    • Mobile Phone Use Patterns: The New Fingerprint

      Mobile phone use may be a more accurate identifier of individuals than even their own fingerprints, according to research published on the web site of the scientific journal Nature.

    • Data Protection Regulation Debate: 1st part
    • Time for action on Google’s privacy policy

      In a statement issued today, it was announced six European data protection authorities are to launch coordinated and simultaneous enforcement actions relating to Google’s privacy policy.

  • Civil Rights

  • Intellectual Monopolies

    • Copyrights

      • Korean Lawmakers and Human Rights Experts Challenge Three Strikes Law

        In July 2009, South Korea became the first country to introduce a graduated response or “three strikes” law. The statute allows the Minister of Culture or the Korean Copyright Commission to tell ISPs and Korean online service providers to suspend the accounts of repeated infringers and block or delete infringing content online. There is no judicial process, no court of appeal, and no opportunity to challenge the accusers.

        The entertainment industry has repeatedly pointed to South Korea as a model for a controlled Internet that should be adopted everywhere else. In the wake of South Korea’s implementation, graduated response laws have been passed in France and the United Kingdom, and ISPs in the United States have voluntarily accepted a similar scheme.

      • Stop the Secret Copyright Agenda: Don’t Trade Away Our Digital Rights
      • South Korea Considers Dumping Draconian Copyright Law Forced On It By The US

        As Mike noted a couple of days ago, international trade agreements often have the effect of constraining the power of national legislatures. Indeed, that’s doubtless one of the reasons why they have become so popular in recent years: they allow backroom deals between politicians and lobbyists to set the agenda for law-making around the world, without the need for any of that pesky democratic oversight nonsense. In particular, the trade agreement between South Korea and the US is turning out to be a key limiting factor for both TPP and what US politicians might try to do about phone unlocking. This makes two recent moves to loosen South Korea’s harsh copyright laws potentially important far beyond that country’s borders.

      • Deep Dive: Prenda Law Is Dead

        Today the Prenda Law enterprise encountered an extinction-level event. Faced with a federal judge’s demand that they explain their litigation conduct, Prenda Law’s attorney principals — and one paralegal — invoked their right to remain silent under the Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution. As a matter of individual prudence, that may have been the right decision. But for the nationwide Prenda Law enterprise, under whatever name or guise or glamour, it spelled doom.

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