06.28.15
Posted in Site News at 2:51 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Summary: A look at the bias of one of the most overzealous sites for and by patent lawyers
THE bias of patent lawyers can be amusing at times. Over at IAM ‘magazine’, a notorious maximalist of patents (we have fished out some truly ridiculous articles from there over the years; search this site for “iam” to find many dozens of examples), it is being said: “It’s not just Google whose US patent grants rates have soared – it’s been a similar story for Apple & Qualcomm too.”
“Sadly, it is them who write in corporate media or (mis)inform authors in corporate media.”These are very large companies that dominate the mobile market and want to guard their domination using patents. It’s monopolisation and it’s not based on merit. Apple and Qualcomm are both exceptionally notorious as patent aggressors. In this so-called ‘magazine’ (glorified name), one of the maximalists, Joff Wild, uses the word “superpowers” to describe patent stockpiling. IAM’s intention is of course to glorify such a practice.
Over at India, where software patents are generally not allowed, IAM hopes that software and pharmaceutical patents will become possible. To quote the relevant part: “The proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) has grabbed its fair share of headlines in both Asia and the Americas after the US House of Representatives’ dramatic rejection of a key part of the package. But although intellectual property features prominently in the deal, it may not have much of an impact on Asia’s overall IP climate even if it is passed. That’s because China and India – commonly cited as two of the most important (and problematic) markets in the region – are not party to the TPP. They are, however, both participating in negotiations for another trade agreement, the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP), and recently leaked documents show that India’s policies on software and pharmaceutical patents are firmly on the agenda.”
TPP is a massive scam and those who oppose the TPP are often lied to, a common propaganda being that we need TPP to compete with China. In reality, TPP is mostly about corporate power over everything, enhancing the already-excessive protections that super-rich people have enjoyed for decades.
IAM is not alone, but it is one of the worst offenders, as we have pointed out over the past 7 or so year. Watch Reuters using phrases like “create patents”, as seen in this new article [1, 2]. It says that ‘U.S. researchers to create patents ranging from new software,” but people don’t create patents, people create something and can then apply for a monopoly on it (if eligible in their country). Treating patents like objects is not unusual; IAM stands for “Intellectual Asset Management”, so they treat patents like an “assets”.
Don’t ever expect to get an objective account in patents lawyers’ press. Sadly, it is them who write in corporate media or (mis)inform authors in corporate media. █
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Posted in Patents at 2:33 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Summary: Putting the PATENT Act aside for the time being, for it has little or no impact on the really problematic patents
Whether one calls it Innovation/Invent/Invention/Awesome/BEST Act or just PATENT Act, the latest branding incarnation [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7] (whatever buzzword one chooses does not say anything about the substance), in practice there is very limited a reform. It has been systematically watered down, as some experts have already pointed out, to the point of being meaningful and beneficial only to few very large corporations with legions of lobbyists in Washington. Interestingly enough, it is completely absent from the news right now. Not that it matters so much…
“We are likely to hear a lot about ‘reform’ and the so-called PATENT Act in the coming month (it’s not in the news, albeit still on the agenda), but nothing substantial will change as a result.”An article by Mike Masnick speaks of patent reform as it relates to so-called ‘free markets’. “A modest attempt at patent reform,” he wrote, “(mainly targeting egregious patent trolling practices) is making its way through Congress these days at the usual glacial pace. However, even if it does eventually make it through, there is still a tremendous amount left to do on patent reform. Derek Khanna, who famously wrote the wonderful House Republican Study Committee report urging major copyright reform — which so upset Hollywood that favors were called in to get the entire report retracted and cost Khanna his job, has now tried to write a similar report on patent reform. This one is for Lincoln Labs — a think tank trying to present more free market/libertarian ideas into the technology policy arena.”
We are likely to hear a lot about ‘reform’ and the so-called PATENT Act in the coming month (it’s not in the news, albeit still on the agenda), but nothing substantial will change as a result. In the coming few posts we will deal with the real reform that comes from key rulings at the courts, gradually weakening software patents. There is plenty of good news these days. █
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06.27.15
Posted in Deception, GNU/Linux, Microsoft at 4:07 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Rule of thumb: The more outrageous the lie, the more provocative it becomes (divisive and offensive)
Photo credit: Neil McAllister
Summary: Having spread the outrageous lie that “Microsoft loves Linux” (whilst obviously attacking it in many ways), Microsoft’s CEO (essentially Bill Gates’ right-hand man) says Microsoft is “one of the biggest contributors to Linux kernel” (because of proprietary software it tries to contaminate it with while violating the terms of the GPL)
Microsoft has a new courier. who is passing memos around — memos that appear to have been (ghost)written by PR professionals who prepared ‘damage control’. Nadella’s role is rather simple and the real bosses are above him (people like Gates, who is officially back at the company).
Nadella is a liar and a lousy one, too. Nadella tries to paint himself a peacemaker, after Bill and Steve (Gates and Ballmer) spent decades viciously attacking GNU/Linux and Free software.
Here is the latest lie from Nadella. The quote is unsourced, but this article (if not some kind of a scam because we cannot find any corroborating article) says that Nadella uttered these words: “[T]his should not come as a surprise. Microsoft has always been one of the biggest contributors to Linux kernel.”
“Nadella tries to paint himself a peacemaker, after Bill and Steve (Gates and Ballmer) spent decades viciously attacking GNU/Linux and Free software.”Tying Hyper-V to Linux, to make it a guest of a Windows host (with back doors), is not a contribution. Microsoft was even violating the GPL’s terms when it gave Novell’s henchmen some code to drop into the kernel (later Microsoft decided to comply with the teems because it got caught red-handed). How is that a contribution? Microsoft was later accused by Novell’s own henchmen of neglecting the code and not maintaining it to work with future releases of Linux, leaving Novell to deal with the mess it that had left to promote Hyper-V.
The author of the above article, Alap Naik Desai, repeats this lie: “Interestingly, Microsoft is an avid contributor to the Linux development.”
No, it is not, and to refute another lie from this article, Microsoft hates GNU/Linux, as its own actions clearly show. In one single day 3 months ago we gave the following 6 examples:
In DockerCon, Microsoft was spreading the lie using “Microsoft ♥ Linux” pins, much to the chagrin of Microsoft propaganda sites.
According to Alap Naik Desai, Microsoft might release its own distro. Microsoft is just further increasing control of what’s in Azure, which is already under surveillance by Microsoft and the NSA .
Microsoft’s booster Peter Bright, linking to Microsoft boosters from GeekWire (another Microsoft mouthpiece, like other Bill Gated-funded media that covered it with a positive spin), explains the situation with Nokia, which Microsoft practically killed (Elop's latest mission is accomplished, so he is free to go now) and turned into an anti-Android patent troll rather than Android/Linux supporter (that’s where Nokia was heading before Elop killed it, back when Nokia was a top Linux contributor — a real contributor).
Microsoft Peter wrote:
There’s a widespread feeling among industry observers that Nadella wants or plans to get rid of the phone division bought from Nokia last year. Ditching the division could well be the kind of “tough choice” that the e-mail alludes to.
Lots of puff pieces like [1, 2, 3] got published (maybe a hundred), but “Citi Still Says Sell Microsoft” amid ongoing layoffs at the company. Microsoft will continue to lose money (perhaps as much as billions lost in the phone business alone) to maintain the illusion that it is a practising company in the mobile sector and not purely a patent troll, filing lawsuits against Android and Linux. Dan Kedmey, who has become somewhat of a Microsoft booster this past year, does a Microsoft advert for Time (large readership, albeit not the only such example) because Microsoft re-announced (yet again) Office for Android in an effort to promote proprietary formats (lock-in), surveillance, and an expensive (in the long term) trap.
Are there people out there who actually fool themselves into thinking that Microsoft changed its attitude? █
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Posted in Free/Libre Software, Marketing, Microsoft, Office Suites, OpenOffice at 3:50 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
“Well the initial impression is how much it [Windows 7] looks like Vista. Which I think is…uh…the thing I’m not supposed to say.”
–Microsoft Jack
Summary: Jack Schofield, writing for a Bill Gates-funded paper despite claiming to have retired, promotes Microsoft Office and insults all those readers who do not agree with him
Jack Schofield is no stranger to us. He rewrites the past in favour of Microsoft (facts disregarded) and has been accused of "lack of professionalism". His Microsoft boosting has become so epic that many people all around the Web refer to him as “Microsoft Jack” (we cannot claim credit for this label). He now writes in The Guardian again. He never quite retired as he had claimed ages ago. Well, unfortunately he still smokes his pipe and curses at his screen after he writes Microsoft screed.
The Guardian is a suitable (if not ideal) home for Microsoft Jack. It is paid by Bill Gates and renowned for Microsoft propaganda since these considerable (but undisclosed) payments. It’s a sham publication which refuses to even acknowledge financial dependence on ‘Sugar Daddies’ like Bill Gates, with clear impact on editorial control (so gross that ads are disguised as articles or parts of articles).
Microsoft Jack claimed to be retiring several years ago, but it was purely nonsense. He later wrote in another Microsoft propaganda rag (ZDNet) and he even continues writing for The Guardian, where bashing Microsoft’s competitors is OK (even for the same behaviour as Microsoft’s) and criticising Microsoft or Bill Gates is very rare (they are literally funding the paper).
“Microsoft Jack claimed to be retiring several years ago, but it was purely nonsense.”Some might deem it AstroTurfing, but “reading Microsoft Jack’s responses to the commenters who dare suggest Openoffice or Libreoffice is revealing,” Alex Barker wrote to me. Looking at the article in full, it reads like a Microsoft advertisement where nothing but Microsoft is even an option. The only provided option or question is, which version/edition? It’s a pretty clever way for Microsoft to disseminate propaganda (making the competition disappear, an exclusion by design), which is does a lot of at the moment, as we pointed out some days ago (the timing is strategic), alluding to some British Web sites. Some of these sites Microsoft literally subsidised in exchange for Microsoft propaganda and advertisements (e.g. Ars Technica UK).
Looking at the comments, it is clear that many readers are not interested in Microsoft Office. Readers of the papers are using and are happy to recommend Free software, but here is how Microsoft Jack responds:
I think they’re brainless trolls.
[...]
I find idiocy gets a bit wearing after the first 15 years or so 
[...]
Otherwise, I wonder if there’s anything you can take for verbal diarrhea?
[...]
Stop kidding yourself. It’s because you didn’t bother to read the answer and/or some of the many comments above, which show that LibreOffice (a) is not a practical alternative and (b) it’s not cheaper
Most trolls are by now smart enough to have figured out that Microsoft Office is already free for the vast majority of UK students. And, by the way, it also works on Macs.
Otherwise, I’m not quite sure how saving £0 on Office 365 — or, at the very worst, £15 a year on Office 365 University — fits with expecting students to shell out £1,000 or so to get totally unnecessary proprietary software on an Apple-shaped dongle. I guess logic is not one of your stronger points…..
Free as in ‘free sample’, right? Microsoft Jack can only pretend that he doesn’t know how lock-in works. What happens when one is no longer a student? Well, Microsoft Jack is smart enough to know what he’s doing here. He cannot use ignorance as an excuse.
Microsoft Jack then calls Google “biggest proprietary spyware and surveillance company”. Yeah, because Chromium, ChromeOS, Android etc. are all proprietary, right? Unlike the platforms from the NSA’s #1 (first) PRISM partner, Microsoft. It is clear, based on numerous yardsticks, that Microsoft is far worse than Google, but Microsoft started high-budget PR campaigns (e.g. “Scroogled”) to convince the public otherwise and lobby politicians to cripple Google over it. Microsoft is one of the worst. The company’s managers even have security clearances with the spies. But why not blame it all on Google? This is acceptable propaganda for the Bill Gates-funded paper, which likes to accuse Google of tax evasion but not Microsoft (especially so after Gates gave a lot of money for the newspaper to look the other way while regularly planting Gates Foundation PR and endorsements across letterheads of entire sections).
Let’s press on with more insults from Microsoft Jack (accusing others of “verbal diarrhea” while it’s mostly him who has it). Let’s start with some revisionism, as Jack surely knows better than judges that dealt with Microsoft in court for many years. Here is what he wrote:
An area I followed closely, and there was no “dirty dealing,” as far as I know. Microsoft simply produced much better products
OK, so either he has bad memory or he has gone senile. It is well-documented and it is common knowledge that Microsoft resorted to “dirty dealing”. We have plenty of original documents to prove it right here in this site.
Here is some more ‘wisdom’ of Microsoft Jack:
Using the 1997-2003 file formats is mostly stupid as the newer formats are more robust, take up less space with large files (they’re zipped), and are ratified open standards.
Bribing officials makes “open standard”, according to Microsoft Jack’s lies-by-omission world. Or blackmailing British politicians perhaps [1, 2, 3]. Microsoft Office still cannot deal properly with ODF, only proprietary OOXML (its secret, ad hoc, undocumented format). Microsoft does not adhere to its own documentation. It’s all a big lie and many people foresaw that all along.
Here are some decent comments from one who refutes Microsoft Jack’s promotional article in a very polite way:
@ JackSchofield
“Pity we don’t have an award for the most (clueless) trollING of the week.”
MS does NOT have the answer for everything.
MS is marketing smart. They provide ‘access’ so they can inculcate new users to their line of software. They hope that new entries will to the work place will provide an internal dynamic for future sales.
‘Popular’ software is usually the lead software that gets ‘hacked’.
Some MS stuff is good (especially with languages) and other stuff is pure doggerel. Many survive but equally many pieces of software end up in the Bit Bucket of history. MS does NOT have the answer for everything.
Much university work (thesis, research) is archived for posterity and Apps/online software gets ‘modded’ and features removed. Copy, on your own PC, is advisable.
For example, I just watched Samsung download an ‘upgrade’ that changes many OS menus to a white on blue background – a combination that is near fatal for colour-blind users.
An associate company of my employer handles orphaned archive material. They have a couple of CP/M operating system – Digital Research – computers with 8 and 5.25 inch drives. They can also read/convert WANG format disks!
And if you need some work done, their systems are booked solid for the next 5 weeks. They operate on a 24/5 basis – they need the weekends for maintenance.
Remember, university students have especial needs and ‘cloud’ is not always the best solution. This also applies to businesses.
Saving documents is plain TEXT is often the best answer almost anything can read TEXT! Even from years ago.
[...]
Skype is popular feature with GCHQ and NSA.
[...]
‘Free’ doesn’t exist. MS rarely does anything ‘free’ without an ulterior motive.
And what happens when you leave your ‘free’ domain at the conclusion of your courses?
Buy a software package that resides ON YOUR HARD DRIVE – not ‘somewhere ‘.
[...]
The problem with Office is that every Version has numerous features that few use, unless you are a type setter.
My employer has licences for 2003, 2007 and, I think 2010. Employees are free to use whatever they like.
Hands down winner is 2007 with most people using Win2003/97 as the format to save in.
As for PowerPoint, it’s clunky, inhibited and a waste of disk space. There are better, free, compatible options. But essential if interacting with the US military!
Remember, using cloud based software is fine, until you are out of InterNet range. Can’t beat software mounted on your hard drive!
Those who don’t agree with Jack, according to Jack, just “post obviously pointless trolls in a topic about Microsoft Office.”
Here are insults and generalisations: “Of course, some of that hostility could be prompted by the long-winded, self-interested piffle posted by here OO fans, who are — to put it kindly — little more than trolls in a topic devoted to Microsoft Office.
“Isn’t it odd how open source supporters are generally so lacking in social skills?”
So people who care about software freedom, open standards, or like OpenOffice are “fans…so lacking in social skills” (according to Jack). He later uses the term “OpenOffice fanboy.” So they’re all just “trolls and “fanboys”. He refers to every pro-LibreOffice comment collectively as “mostly-mindless LibreOffice comments”.
Here is another response to a commenter: “Pity we don’t have an award for the most clueless troll of the week ;-)”
Just because someone adds a recommendation of freedom-respecting alternatives doesn’t make one a “troll”. Jack gamed the debate by limiting it only to Microsoft Office (or versions of it) and then he frames anyone who goes outside the boundry of his silly game a “troll”.
He later repeats the nonsense that “Microsoft’s office formats are ratified open standards.” By bribing and bullying? Like Jack himself? He too is a bully when one confronts him. We gave examples before.
What Microsoft Jack does is unethical because he helps Microsoft get young people addicted to (locked in to) Office. It’s like the drug dealer’s mentality. “They’ll get sort of addicted,” Bill Gates explained, “and then we’ll somehow figure out how to collect sometime in the next decade.”
In the comments we can see Microsoft Jack relaying Microsoft’s FUD about Munich. He writes: “Good luck to the Germans. I hope they do better than Munich, which spent a decade trying to get rid of Office and Windows (and didn’t make it), saved no money, and probably lost a huge amount of productivity. And now it’s considering switching back….”
Not true, but Jack doesn’t care about what’s true. He calls LibreOffice a “pile of crap” (how professional a language from the man who accuses others of having “verbal diarrhea”). He says it is “slow, bug-ridden, and very imperfectly compatible with Microsoft Office” (as if being compatible with Microsoft Office with its proprietary formats is the goal). There is actually a large number of comments that recommend LibreOffice and OpenOffice. No wonder Jack feels a little marginalised and threatened/intimidated. His article is revealed as biased and unpopular among readers. Now he need to cope with it.
Jack spreads a common lie, along the lines of needing Microsoft to get a job. He writes: “There are, after all, many reasons why it makes much more sense to become proficient in Microsoft Office, such as your future employability.”
Complete nonsense. The world has moved on, so the myths like “nobody gets fired for buying Microsoft” needs a boost from the likes of Jack (for Microsoft’s sake). He also wrote: “Unless you don’t have a job and really can’t afford Office, life’s too short.”
So free software is just for the unemployed, according to Jack. Nice stigma he spreads there.
Jack also finds the time to trash-talk LATEX. He says: “They should be learning their course topics rather than, say, LaTeX…. ;-)” (actually, LATEX has several very good front ends that are easier to use than Microsoft Office). One can also hand-pick XML files to manipulate Word files, but in reality one uses front ends, right? So it’s another straw man argument from Jack. Nothing but Microsoft, not even Google’s offerings, is allowed any acceptance. Even the mention of alternatives is verboten.
Notice the update on Microsoft Jack’s ‘article’ (puff piece/ad). It’s like he’s working in coordination with Microsoft UK. He speaks to them and adds: “Microsoft UK says that students can get the full Office 365 free if their school or university has a site-licensing agreement, and that “most universities in the UK are part of the scheme”. Students can find out if they qualify by going to Office 365 and clicking the green “Find out if you’re eligible” button.”
Nice ad you got there, Microsoft Jack. Does the paymaster of the employer, The Guardian, endorse this kind of behaviour towards readers who comment? Since Bill Gates is one of the paymasters, surely the answer can be “yes”. To close off with Jack’s own words, “I handle a lot of documents from large professional companies, fancy PR agencies, pseufo-academic [sic] white papers etc.” Yes, Jack, we can tell… █
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06.26.15
Posted in Europe, Patents at 8:35 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Summary: Battistelli et al. come under yet more fire as politicians — many of whom from Battistelli’s home country — become better informed of the EPO’s management fiasco, abuses, and scandals
We have just been sent a copy [PDF] of the written declaration sponsored by Pierre-Yves Le Borgn’ (mentioned here before) and signed by 82 members of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe. Rollbacks of fundamental rights at the European Patent Office are clearly not being tolerated. Here is the declaration as HTML:
Doc. 13836
25 June 2015
Rollback of fundamental rights at the European Patent Office
Written declaration No. 596
This written declaration commits only those who have signed it On 17 February 2015, the Hague Court of Appeal condemned the European Patent Office (EPO), arguing that its internal dispute settlement system led to a rollback of fundamental rights enshrined in the European Convention of Human Rights and the European Social Charter. The Court considered that the EPO could not invoke its immunity when a trade union is deprived of any means to challenge violations of the personnel’s rights, for want of any legal remedy before the International Labour Organisation Administrative Tribunal or via any other internal procedure.
An international organisation cannot become a place of lesser law, sheltered by its jurisdictional immunity. Restraining the right of association, reducing the right to go on strike, preventing the personnel from being entitled to collective bargaining, depriving all organisations from any effective remedy and failing to carry out a court decision are all unacceptable developments. We call on the 38 member States of the EPO, all members of the Council of Europe, to bring this situation to an end and urge the EPO’s management to comply with the decision of the Hague Court of Appeal.
Signed (see overleaf)
Doc. 13836 Written declaration
Signed1:
LE BORGN’ Pierre-Yves, France, SOC
AGRAMUNT Pedro, Spain, EPP/CD
ALAVEZ RUIZ Aleida, Mexico
ALLAIN Brigitte, France, SOC
ANDERSON Donald, United Kingdom, SOC
ANDREOLI Paride, San Marino, SOC
BARILARO Christian, Monaco, ALDE
BENTON Joe, United Kingdom, SOC
BIES Philippe, France, SOC
BİLGEHAN Gülsün, Turkey, SOC
BLONDIN Maryvonne, France, SOC
BOCKEL Jean-Marie, France, EPP/CD
BONET PEROT Sílvia Eloïsa, Andorra, SOC
CANTU SEGOVIA Eloy, Mexico
CHAOUKI Khalid, Italy, SOC
CHRISTOFFERSEN Lise, Norway, SOC
CILEVIČS Boriss, Latvia, SOC
CORSINI Paolo, Italy, SOC
CROZON Pascale, France, SOC
DAVIES Geraint, United Kingdom, SOC
DÍAZ TEJERA Arcadio, Spain, SOC
DOKLE Namik, Albania, SOC
DURRIEU Josette, France, SOC
FLEGO Gvozden Srećko, Croatia, SOC
FLYNN Paul, United Kingdom, SOC
FOURNIER Bernard, France, EPP/CD
FRESKO-ROLFO Béatrice, Monaco, EPP/CD
GABÁNIOVÁ Darina, Slovak Republic, SOC
GIOVAGNOLI Gerardo, San Marino, SOC
GOSSELIN-FLEURY Geneviève, France, SOC
GROSS Andreas, Switzerland, SOC
GUNNARSSON Jonas, Sweden, SOC
GUTIÉRREZ Antonio, Spain, SOC
GUZENINA Maria, Finland, SOC
HAGEBAKKEN Tore, Norway, SOC
HAIDER Monica, Sweden, SOC
HARANGOZÓ Gábor, Hungary, SOC
HEINRICH Gabriela, Germany, SOC
IORDACHE Florin, Romania, SOC
IWIŃSKI Tadeusz, Poland, SOC
JANSSON Eva-Lena, Sweden, SOC
JURATOVIC Josip, Germany, SOC
KARLSSON Niklas, Sweden, SOC
KOX Tiny, Netherlands, UEL
LE DÉAUT Jean-Yves, France, SOC
LESKAJ Valentina, Albania, SOC
LONCLE François, France, SOC
LUND Jacob, Denmark, SOC
MAHOUX Philippe, Belgium, SOC
MAIJ Marit, Netherlands, SOC
MARKOVIĆ Milica, Bosnia and Herzegovina, SOC
MARTINEL Martine, France, SOC
_________
1.
SOC: Socialist Group
EPP/CD: Group of the European People’s Party
ALDE: Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe
EC: European Conservatives Group
UEL: Group of the Unified European Left
NR: Representatives not belonging to a Political Group
Doc. 13836 Written declaration
MAURY PASQUIER Liliane, Switzerland, SOC
MEALE Alan, United Kingdom, SOC
MESTERHÁZY Attila, Hungary, SOC
MULIĆ Melita, Croatia, SOC
NACHTMANNOVÁ Oľga, Slovak Republic, SOC
NEGUTA Andrei, Republic of Moldova, SOC
NICOLETTI Michele, Italy, SOC
OBRADOVIĆ Žarko, Serbia, SOC
OHLSSON Carina, Sweden, SOC
PÂSLARU Florin Costin, Romania, SOC
PETRÁK Ľubomir, Slovak Republic, SOC
QUÉRÉ Catherine, France, SOC
RAWERT Mechthild, Germany, SOC
ROCHEBLOINE François, France, EPP/CD
RODRÍGUEZ Soraya, Spain, SOC
ROSEIRA Maria de Belém, Portugal, SOC
ROUQUET René, France, SOC
SÁEZ Àlex, Spain, SOC
SCHENNACH Stefan, Austria, SOC
SCHMIDT Frithjof, Germany, SOC
SCHWABE Frank, Germany, SOC
SEKULIĆ Predrag, Montenegro, SOC
SIMENSEN Kåre, Norway, SOC
STRIK Tineke, Netherlands, SOC
SUTTER Petra, De, Belgium, SOC
TAKTAKISHVILI Chiora, Georgia, ALDE
TOMLINSON John E., United Kingdom, SOC
VĖSAITĖ Birutė, Lithuania, SOC
VORUZ Eric, Switzerland, SOC
VRIES Klaas, de, Netherlands, SOC
VUČKOVIĆ Nataša, Serbia, SOC
XUCLÀ Jordi, Spain, ALDE
_____________________________
Total = 82
The latest item on IP Kat beat us to it. Merpel writes: “Altogether more than 100 parliamentarians from 32 countries have now expressed their anxieties and concerns regarding the persistent erosion of fundamental rights experienced by EPO staff over the past year and a half at the hands of the current regime, which presumably still enjoys the substantial support of the Administrative Council which has notional control of the organisation.”
Merpel also found this political intervention in the European Parliament:
The European Patent Office (EPO) was set up forty years ago. It currently employs about seven thousand highly qualified people, most of whom work at its offices in Germany (Munich) and the Netherlands (Ryswick). In 2014 alone, it received 274 000 patent applications from companies all over the world. Its budget of EUR 2 000 million makes it the second largest European institution after the Commission.
There have been a huge number of complaints about the EPO. Cases of staff suffering from depression (including four suicides since 2012), a climate of intimidation caused by the creation of an internal investigation unit, and restrictions on the right to strike have been reported by the trade union, SUEPO, which is now banned from EPO premises. Among other things, the union is complaining about management’s plan to lower the cost of registering patents at the price of employees’ health.
Is the Commission aware of this situation and what is being done to investigate it? Also, what are the grounds for the immunity granted to the European Patent Office, which allegedly derives from the fact that it is extraterritorial, thus making it impossible for any legal action to be taken to protect workers’ rights?
Over at IP Kat there are some interesting comments from what appears to be EPO staff. The first:
During this time in a Galaxy far away ….
The Administrative Council just extended for 3 years VP5 (Raimund Lutz) the man who finds everything perfectly legal (when national courts and parliamentaries don’t)…
AND
VP1 (who will be 70 at the end of his mandate whereas max. pension age at EPO is 67….
AND
Battistelli starts his new mandate with secret salarial conditions …
AND
the AC did not bother to comment on the on-going spying on staff reps/unionists nor on public spying
All is fine in Eponia !!
Second comment speaks of betrayal:
Many years ago I gave a promise to the Office, and with it to the general public of Europe, that I would examine patents and only grant those with a high probability of validity as far as I could establish. In return for this the office made a promise to look after me. We had an agreement, which I considered to be binding. I have kept my promise so far and I intend to keep my promise. Unfortunately this is not made easier by the fact the some people in the Office have decided to withdraw the promise made by the office to me by changing the whole substance of my working conditions without my agreement. If I am to keep my promise, this must be tolerated, however, since there is no functioning legal system which will tell them to stop, so I have no defence. None the less, I intend to keep my promise, since I believe, and all the evidence I’ve seen confirms, that valid patents are important for the general public and the whole patent system.
It would be really nice if someone could persuade the office to revert to keeping it’s promise. I do hope these initiatives are a step along the way.
There are many more anonymous comments in there. The management of the EPO seems to have become besieged by an increasingly informed workforce, Parliament, and public. This can’t end well for Battistelli. His time is running out. █
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Posted in Site News at 8:12 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Summary: Some numbers to show what goes on in sites that do not share information about their visitors (unlike Windows-centric sites which target non-technical audiences)
THE common perception of GNU/Linux is that it is scarcely used, based on statistics gathered from privacy-hostile Web sites that share (or sell) access log data, embed spyware in all of their pages, and so on. Our sites are inherently different because of a reasonable — if not sometimes fanatic — appreciation of privacy at both ends (server and client). People who read technical sites know how to block ads, impede spurious scripts etc. These sites also actively avoid anything which is privacy-infringing, such as interactive ‘social’ media buttons (these let third parties spy on all visitors in all pages).
Techrights and Tux Machines attract the lion’s share our traffic (and server capacity). They both have dedicated servers. These are truly popular and some of the leaders in their respective areas. Techrights deals with threats to software freedom, whereas Tux Machines is about real-time news discovery and organisation (pertaining to Free software and GNU/Linux).
The Varnish layer, which protects both of these large sites (nearly 100,000 pages in each, necessitating a very large cache pool), handles somewhere between a gigabyte to 2.5 gigabytes of data per hour (depending on the time of day, usually somewhere in the middle of this range, on average).
The Apache layer, which now boasts 32 GB of RAM and sports many CPU cores, handled 1,324,232 hits for Techrights (ranked 6636th for traffic in Netcraft) in this past week and 1,065,606 for Tux Machines (ranked 6214th for traffic in Netcraft).
Based on VISITORS Web Log Analyzer, this is what we’ve had in Techrights:
Windows: (36.2%)
Linux: (31.8%)
Unknown: (e.g. bots/spiders): (23.0%)
Macintosh: (8.8%)
FreeBSD: (0.1%)
As a graph (charted with LibreOffice):
Tux Machines reveals a somewhat different pattern. Based on grepping/filtering the of past month’s log at the Apache back end (not Varnish, which would have been a more sensible but harder thing to do), presenting the top 3 only:
One month is as far as retention goes, so it’s not possible to show long-term trends (as before, based on Susan’s summary of data). Logs older than that are automatically deleted, as promised, for both sites — forever! We just need a small tail of data (temporarily) for DDOS prevention. █
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Posted in Free/Libre Software, Microsoft, Windows at 11:21 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
“Our products just aren’t engineered for security.”
–Brian Valentine, Microsoft executive
Summary: Remarks on the recent revelations about code and communication interceptions targeting insecurity firms and Microsoft’s claim that ‘transparency’ alone would be enough to assure security
RECENT reports about state surveillance on anti-malware/virus software (which could not detect Stuxnet, for example, making this more like snake oil) have led to the claim that Microsoft Windows cannot be made secure, not even with additional ‘security’ software. “Security by obscurity” does not work when the state can see everything and also sponsors the world’s biggest (and best funded) cybercrime operations. Windows is simply not designed to be secure and security is not the goal as the underlying design serves to prove. As Pogson put it this week:
Given That Other OS is just about everywhere and is helpless without anti-malware software, the NSA and others have studied the anti-malware software to exploit it as a back door to TOOS… Ironic, isn’t it?
Microsoft and security don’t belong in the same sentence. As FOSS Force reminds us, this NSA ally with worst of spyware uses the “transparency centers” [1] sham that we wrote about earlier this month. They are replacing software freedom with “transparency” nonsense. They pretend that “transparency” somehow improves security. It doesn’t.
The only way to perpetually and universally verify (by audit) the security of software, or pressure its maker/distributor to pursue genuine security at all times, is to ensure the software is Free software. Microsoft’s longtime employee (on and off for years at a time) and occasional mole inside FOSS [1, 2, 3, 4] says that Free software has not won and even uses a picture of a pig to prove it or at least make his case (crass, but typical of him). Don’t let these people shape the consensus; after the NSA leaks a lot of semi-technical people can easily understand that Free software is the only way to go. Secrecy, like secret (proprietary) code, is as trustworthy as politicians. It’s time for proprietary software to go. Backbone infrastructure sure is heading towards Free software-only (as a matter of policy), as several consortia already serve to demonstrate. It’s going to be a harsh reality for Microsoft. █
Related/contextual items from the news:
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Poor Microsoft. The beleaguered company just can’t catch a break. We’ve already told you about how Snowden’s revelations have forced the pride of Redmond to spend who knows how many millions opening two “transparency centers” to allow government IT experts to pore through source code to prove there’s no back doors baked into Windows or other Microsoft products. Trouble is, while its engineers have been busy plastering over all traces of old back doors, they’ve left a side door standing wide open, waiting to be exploited.
[...]
The spooks have been reverse engineering. They’ve been dismantling Karpersky’s software, searching for weaknesses. They’ve been mining sensitive data by monitoring the email chatter between Kaspersky client and server software. In other words, while IT security folks outside the U.S. have been keeping a wary eye on their Windows servers while trusting their antivirus to be a tool to help them secure the unsecurable…well, their antivirus software has been being a Trojan in the truly Homeric sense of the word.
[...]
In the meantime, Windows becomes less safe by the minute for corporations and governments hoping to keep private data private. I’m certain that Red Hat, SUSE, and even Ubuntu are taking advantage.
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