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03.01.16

If This is (Really) the End of SCO, Don’t Forget Who Funded and Supported SCO’s 13-Year-Long Attacks on Linux

Posted in GNU/Linux, Kernel, Microsoft, SCO at 12:39 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

Microsoft loves Linux SCO

Microsoft SCO
See Lawrence R. Goldfarb (Wikipedia)

Summary: An important reminder of the role Microsoft played in SCO’s massive (multi-billion), never-ending attacks on the legitimacy and the cost of Linux

IS the SCO saga “over”? That’s what they told us half a decade ago, yet today’s (and yesterday’s) headlines [1-4] suggest this is definitely it, no matter what happens next. Novell was actually “over” a long time before SCO was truly “over” (“don’t make me over,” it perpetually insists and shouts at the judges, like Dianne Warwick while throwing her now-famous fit at Burt Bacharach and Hal David), unless one counts the “Novell” brand which was carried forward, or abandoned efforts/teams such as Mono/Ximian, which based on this news from Phoronix is already being used for E.E.E. (this time involving Vulkan), shortly after Microsoft tied the knot. Don’t ever forget Microsoft’s true colours. The company hates GNU/Linux with a great passion; it just tries to hide it while working to undermine GNU/Linux. █

Related/contextual items from the news:

  1. Win for Open Source: SCO Court Case against Linux Hits End of Road

    The case was opened in 2003, when SCO filed a $1B claim against IBM. The suit alleged that IBM had inserted some code from Unix, over which SCO claimed ownership, into the Linux kernel.

  2. SCO vs. IBM looks like it’s over for good

    The long-running SCO vs. IBM case looks like it might just be over.

    A new filing (PDF) scooped up by the good folks at Groklaw sees both SCO and IBM agree to sign off on two recent decisions in which SCO’s arguments advancing its claims to own parts of Unix were slapped down by the US District Court.

    As The Register reads the PDF we’ve linked to above, and our informal legal counsel concurs, the new document describes IBM and SCO both signing off on the recent court orders. Those orders left SCO without a legal argument to stand on.

    The new filing also points out that SCO remains bankrupt and has “has de minimis financial resources beyond the value of the claims on which the Court has granted summary judgment for IBM.”

    Or in plain English, SCO is broke and the only asset it possess of any value is its claims against IBM, and now it doesn’t even have those because it just lost a court case about them. That leaves SCO in no position to carry on.

    “Accordingly,” the new filing continues, “the disposition of SCO’s appeal is the practical course most likely to conserve both judicial and private resources.” That’s the legal sense of “disposition”, by the way, so what the document’s saying is that SCO giving up its appeal is most likely to stop the courts spending any more time or energy on this matter. Courts don’t like wasting resources. So this is both parties explaining that wrapping things up now is a desirable thing.

  3. Gentoo Choice, Awful Fedora 24, Debian Firefox

    Today in Linux news the Ubuntu ZFS controversy isn’t quite settled after all. Fedora’s Adam Williamson today blogged, ” Lots of stuff is busted. We are aware of this, and fixing it. Hold onto your hats.” Richard Freeman reminded folks the systemd disagreements aren’t over either and Debian has finally stopped renaming Firefox to Iceweasel. Dedoimedo said today that Mepis derivative MX-15 is on the “highway to rad” and Christine Hall signed SCO’s death warrant.

  4. SCO Is Undeniably and Reliably Dead

    It appears as if SCO’s case against IBM, which began as a blustering tornado back in 2003, finally died with a whimper last week. The death notice came in the form of what is essentially a one page agreement between SCO and IBM which calls “for certification of the entry of final judgment on the Court’s orders concerning all of SCO’s claims….”

Links 1/3/2016: Firefox OS in Panasonic Ultra HD TVs, Raspberry Pi 3

Posted in News Roundup at 11:42 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

GNOME bluefish

Contents

GNU/Linux

Free Software/Open Source

  • How to choose the right brand architecture for your open source project

    Most people who start an open source software project aren’t sitting around waiting for someone to discuss brand architecture models with them, but many of them do have long term goals for their project that include eventually seeing it becoming a paid product or even the basis of a company built around servicing and supporting the project code.

  • Open Source Evolution: From Making Better Code to Making Better Business

    Today, open-source software is thriving in the Cloud, with a whole new generation of projects – such as Docker, Heroku, Open Stack and others. Cumulatively, GNU is still the leading license, but MIT, Apache and other licenses are among the top licenses used in open-source projects.

  • Top Open Source Creativity Apps

    There is a common belief among non-Linux users that there aren’t any good creative applications from the open source camp. In truth, this is absolutely false. The key is knowing which applications are needed to complete a specific task. In this article, I’ll share my recommendations for the top open source creativity apps.

  • 6 essential non-coding careers in open source

    When I started working in open source software in 1999, it was a small part of what I did. My company, SGI, wanted to start shipping Linux-based servers, and my task was to create a process for commercializing Linux. Today we’ve reached a point where open source software is in almost every area of technology. And while we often still think of it as code and developers, a whole ecosystem has evolved around open source—one that includes many full-time careers. These roles are much needed as open source matures, and they allow more of us who believe in the power of collaborative development to get involved.

    To help those looking to get involved in open source professionally, here’s a look at some of the most popular and emerging roles.

  • OPNFV Delivers Second Release of Open Source Network Functions Virtualization Platform
  • OPNFV puts out second release of open source NFV platform, Brahmaputra
  • Alluxio: Open Source Tech Making Baidu’s Data Centers Faster

    Running a successful internet business without using the data you accumulate to your advantage is clearly impossible in this day and age. Until about one year ago, Baidu, the web company behind the largest Chinese-language search engine and the country’s answer to Google, had a major technology problem on its hands.

    The queries Baidu product managers ran against its databases took hours to complete because of the huge amount of data stored in the company’s data centers. Baidu needed a solution, and its engineers were given the goal of creating an ad-hoc query engine that would manage petabytes of data and finish queries in 30 seconds or less.

  • 6 more must-have open source apps for Windows, Mac, and Linux

    In this follow up article, here are some more of the best open source and free apps I’ve found for my heterogeneous environment.

  • Hortonworks seeks salvation in proprietary software

    Three years ago Hortonworks led a chorus of open source Kumbaya as it sought to differentiate itself in the rapidly growing Hadoop market. Today, Hortonworks has significantly changed its tune, embracing proprietary software as a way to improve its financials.

  • Documentation should be concise, consistent, and simple

    “Words mean things” is one of my favorite expressions. I often use it in jest, but it’s an important consideration when writing documentation. I’m normally one to sling words around with great artistic flair, but when it comes to writing technical documentation, I’ve become more deliberate in my wording.

  • Web Browsers

  • SaaS/Big Data

  • Databases

  • Oracle/Java/LibreOffice

    • native gtk3 menubar in libreoffice

      For comparison here’s the (not utterly awful) emulated look prior to this. You can compare the spacing of elements in the menubar, menu separator rendering, distance of checkmarks to the following text, the display of the short cuts in different font attributes with different positioning, and menu entry line spacing.

    • LibreOffice Now Has GTK3-Native Menus

      There’s even more progress now to report on with LibreOffice’s GTK3 tool-kit support.

      LibreOffice has been making lots of progress with their GTK3 tool-kit support to better integrate the open-source office suite on modern Linux desktops and is also needed for running LibreOffice on Wayland. A few days ago we reported on GTK3 native context menus for LibreOffice while the latest to mention now are native menu bars.

    • LibreOffice Is Getting GTK3 Native Menus

  • CMS

    • Acquia adapting to future needs as web trends change

      The Boston-based open source firm Acquia is dabbling in several technologies to ensure that, down the road, it stays as big a player in the market as it is now.

      Acquia uses the Drupal content management system to build websites for companies around the world and has produced and powered roughly 12 per cent of all Drupal implementations, according to Chris Stone, the head of engineering and chief product officer.

  • Pseudo-/Semi-Open Source (Openwashing)

  • Funding

  • BSD

    • Video: 30 Years of Minix
    • Haiku in 2016

      About once a year I like to put aside Linux distributions, and the various flavours of BSD, to look at Haiku. As the Haiku website tells us, “Haiku is an open source operating system that specifically targets personal computing. Inspired by the BeOS, Haiku is fast, simple to use, easy to learn and yet very powerful.”

  • FSF/FSFE/GNU/SFLC

  • Public Services/Government

    • UK open source drive ‘encourages citizens participation’

      The push by the UK government to use more free and open source software for its eGovernment services is helping to get citizens more involved, says Bernard Tyers, a user experience researcher working for the UK’s Home Office. “Everyone can see how the design and research process works, and users are helping to test our prototypes.”

    • Consultations launched for local authority common digital standard

      The views of council staff and other stakeholders are being sought for a draft Local Government Digital Service Standard devised to encourage use of common services and data registers between different authorities based on a similar approach used in Whitehall.

      With support from the Government Digital Service (GDS), a group of councils working as part of the LocalGov Digital network has been working to finalise guidelines for a common approach to service transformation and design.

    • Digital service standard set to mandate data reuse

      Last week, PublicTechnology reported that the new Local Government Digital Service Standard emerged from discussions held earlier this month at the offices of the Government Digital Service.

      Publication of the draft standard covering transactional services has been coordinated by digital practitioner network LocalGov Digital, and based on the existing central government standard could be adapted for councils.

    • Councils urged to use agile, open source and platforms

      LocalGovDigital publishes draft version of Digital Service Standard for local government

  • Licensing

    • Is SFLC Shooting Open Source in the Foot?

      The academic article by SFLC about ZFS is troubling and may unintentionally shoot free software licensing in the foot.

      When I was at Sun (as part of the team that released the Java Programming Language by starting the OpenJDK project) I often heard community concerns about the CDDL license. At the time the big complaint was about the “Choice of Venue” clause.

      I got involved because Sun had developed many essential Java libraries and distributed them under CDDL. The community requested a more permissive license and I was able to convince internal project leaders (and Sun’s lawyers) to make a licensing change for a handful of these projects. And there was much rejoicing.

      Based on my experience in helping Java to become open source I came to appreciate the legal hacks on copyright which make open source possible. It’s the free software license which uses copyright to enable sharing (vs. the default of disabling sharing).

    • The VMware Hearing and the Long Road Ahead

      On last Thursday, Christoph Hellwig and his legal counsel attended a hearing in Hellwig’s VMware case that Conservancy currently funds. Harald Welte, world famous for his GPL enforcement work in the early 2000s, also attended as an observer and wrote an excellent summary. I’d like to highlight a few parts of his summary, in the context of Conservancy’s past litigation experience regarding the GPL.

      First of all, in great contrast to the cases here in the USA, the Court acknowledged fully the level of public interest and importance of the case. Judges who have presided over Conservancy’s GPL enforcement cases USA federal court take all matters before them quite seriously. However, in our hearings, the federal judges preferred to ignore entirely the public policy implications regarding copyleft; they focused only on the copyright infringement and claims related to it. Usually, appeals courts in the USA are the first to broadly consider larger policy questions. There are definitely some advantages to the first Court showing interest in the public policy concerns.

  • Openness/Sharing

    • BrewDog’s open-source revolution is at the vanguard of postcapitalism

      Fast forward to now, and a very interesting thing just happened. BrewDog, the Scottish-based brewery whose beer outlets are spreading rapidly across the globe, just open-sourced its recipe collection. In a cheeky press release, its founders quipped: “Oh, and if you are from one of the global beer mega corporations and you are reading this, your computer will spontaneously combust, James Bond style, any second now.”

    • ‘Platform car’ is driving open-source design
    • The innovators: Skeleton car that is driving open-source design

      The OSVehicle units consist of parts that can be easily swapped without throwing away other working parts, which expands the vehicle’s lifespan, said Yuki. Its core unit contains the most complex parts of a vehicle, which means it is stable and ready to use, she added. Loddo compares it to the Android operating system for mobile phones, where developers can freely access the software as a base on which to build apps.

    • Open Hardware

      • Open Source Hardware is an opportunity for Synthetic Biology research – the DocuBricks approach by Tobias Wenzel

        There is a lesson to be learned from the incompleteness of commercial assembly-set documentations: Open Source Hardware is more than an assembly instruction. It is also about documenting design files and decisions along its functionality and in a modular fashion, complete with testing and calibration instructions. A good documentation enables the project to grow and improve without the doing of the inventor. Only in this way most projects can enfold their benefit well to society and technology companies. To be sure, documenting a hardware project is not easy and requires time. For this reason a handful scientists at the University of Cambridge (including the author), all with a background in technology and biology, recently started the DocuBricks initiative. DocuBricks is an open source and free software that makes documenting hardware and usage procedures easier. The name is a reference to modularity in the same way as Lego or BioBricks. As the name suggests, the editor part of the software guides the user through a modular documentation structure with relevant fields in a standardised, yet general format. The user can create a hierarchy of documentation bricks, explaining their function, implementation and assembly while referring to a parts library. The result is a XML document and a folder with construction and media files that is displayed with the viewer part of the software (a style sheet and script to enable interactivity).

      • Kicad hacking – Intra-sheet links and ERC

        I spent time looking at gEDA and Eagle when I wanted to get back into hardware hacking for my own ends; but neither did I really click with. On the other hand, a mere 10 minutes with Kicad and I knew I had found the tool I wanted to work with long-term.

      • Open-Source System 3D Prints from Custom Powders

        An open-source laser sintering printer has been used to print intricate 3D objects from powdered plastics and biomaterials. The system costs a fraction of equivalent commercial systems and could give researchers a DIY technique for working with their own specialized materials.

  • Programming

  • Standards/Consortia

Leftovers

  • GitHubber wants to revive the first Unix in a PDP-7 emulator

    An IT lecturer from the Australian state of Queensland wants to revive the very first Unix – the version written by Ken Thompson on a Digital Equipment Corporation PDP-7.

    While the PDP-11 is probably the most famous of the series – a genuine watershed in computer history, and a successful system that sold 600,000 units in its 20-year life on the market – the PDP-7 has its own place in history.

    Its most enduring contribution to the life of the sysadmin: it was the machine that then Bell Labs engineer Ken Thompson wrote the first Unix on, in assembly language, in 1969. As the Linux Information Project notes, it was also DEC’s first system to use a mass-storage-based operating system.

    That’s what Warren Toomey is working to re-create in this project.

  • Science

    • Footage of possible meteor in Scotland

      Footage has been recorded of what appears to be a meteor in the sky over Scotland.

      Police received a large number of calls after a big, bright flash was seen.

      People took to social media to report seeing a blue, white or green light, with some saying they also heard a rumbling sound.

      Driving instructor Bill Addison, from Buckie in Moray, recorded what appeared to be a meteor shooting across the sky on his dashboard camera.

      Mike Fleming captured similar footage on the road between Dunecht and Castle Fraser in Aberdeenshire.

      The “flash” was also caught on a security camera at Woodend, Lumphanan, Aberdeenshire, which was sent in by Craig Lindsay.

  • Health/Nutrition

    • Thousands of NHS nursing and doctor posts lie vacant
    • The Rising Threat of Religious Hospitals Denying Women Medical Care

      Imagine you are 20 weeks pregnant, only halfway through your pregnancy, when you start to miscarry. It’s the middle of the night; you call an ambulance and are rushed to the hospital. The hospital admits you and consults with a specialist who concludes that the only option is to induce labor and complete the miscarriage — either way, the fetus will not survive. But without induction of labor you could die too.

      But instead of acting quickly to save your life, the hospital admits you and watches you get sicker and sicker. For 10 hours, the hospital will do nothing to complete the miscarriage, even though the hospital knows that every moment the miscarriage drags on increases your risk of contracting a life-threatening infection, which you ultimately do.

    • Calls Grow for Wendy’s to Join Fair Food Program as Coalition Plans Major Protest of Fast-Food Giant

      It ensures farmworkers access to shade and water, increased pay, as well as freedom from sexual harassment and forced labor. Although fast-food giants like McDonald’s and Subway have signed Fair Food Agreements, Wendy’s has refused—instead opting for their own “Supplier Code of Conduct,” which activists say is less stringent and has no enforcement mechanisms.

  • Security

    • Security updates for Monday
    • Peer-Seeking Webcam Reveals the Security Dangers of Internet Things

      Last week security blogger Brian Krebs revealed that a popular internet-enabled security camera “secretly and constantly connects into a vast peer-to-peer network run by the Chinese manufacturer of the hardware.”

    • Joomla Sites Join WordPress As TeslaCrypt Ransomware Target

      Exploit kits infecting thousands of WordPress websites are setting their sights on the open-source content management system Joomla in a new campaign spotted by a researcher at the SANS Institute’s Internet Storm Center.

      “The group behind the WordPress ‘admedia’ campaign is now apparently targeting Joomla sites,” said Brad Duncan, security researcher at Rackspace. “We are starting to see the same traffic characteristics in infections that are associated with Joomla sites – as we did with the WordPress campaign,” Duncan said.

    • Most software already has a “golden key” backdoor: the system update

      In 2014 when The Washington Post Editorial Board wrote “with all their wizardry, perhaps Apple and Google could invent a kind of secure golden key they would retain and use only when a court has approved a search warrant,” the Internet ridiculed them. Many people painstakingly explained that even if there were somehow wide agreement about who would be the “right” people and governments to hold such an all-powerful capability, it would ultimately be impossible to ensure that such power wouldn’t fall in to the “wrong” hands.

  • Defence/Police/Secrecy/Aggression

    • Texas Academics Told to Avoid ‘Sensitive Topics’ to Prevent Angering Armed Students

      Here’s another swanky benefit of our out-of-control gun culture: university professors should be aware that their students might shoot them.

    • Kerry Phones Serbian PM Over Diplomats Killed in U.S. Libya Strike

      So, those American airstrikes recently in Libya, the ones for freedom and to defeat ISIS and banish Ant Man to hell? Yeah, darn it, they also killed two Serbian diplomats. But don’t worry, America’s own secretary of state John Kerry personally called the Serbian prime minister to say “Sorry, our bad, dude.”

    • Saudis lobby MEPs before arms embargo vote over Yemen

      Riyadh engaged in concerted effort to persuade European parliament not to pass amendment calling for EU sanctions because of bombing campaign

    • The Dulles Brothers and Their Legacy of Perpetual War

      I was intrigued by the 2015 release of David Talbot’s The Devil’s Chessboard: Allen Dulles, the CIA, and the Rise of America’s Secret Government. But it also reminded me of a 2014 book I had been wanting to read titled The Brothers: John Foster Dulles, Allen Dulles, and Their Secret World War by Stephen Kinzer. Since the earlier book covered both important brothers — the younger Allen who was Director of Central Intelligence and the elder John Foster who was Secretary of State — I decided to go with Kinzer.

      As it turned out, I was so fascinated by Kinzer’s discussion of the Dulleses that after finishing The Brothers, I dove right into Talbot’s The Devil’s Chessboard. I am so glad that I did. While there is some unavoidable overlap, reading the two books in quick succession is not at all redundant. In fact, they are such splendid complements of each other, that one almost wonders if the two authors coordinated.

  • Transparency Reporting

    • Freedom Of Information Act To Remain: Here Are Eight Things We Wouldn’t Have Known Without It

      A decision not to charge for Freedom of Information (FoI) requests has been hailed as a “victory for journalism”.

      The government revealed on Tuesday that there will be no legal changes to the FoI Act after a review of the legislation found it was “working well”.

    • Freedom of Information charges ruled out after review

      Freedom of Information requests – used by campaigners and journalists to ask questions of public bodies – are to remain free of charge, a minister says.

      Following a review of the law, Cabinet Office minister Matt Hancock said the FoI Act was “working well”.

      The FoI Commission was asked to examine it amid concerns within government that “sensitive information” was being inadequately protected.

      Its report said FoI had helped “change the culture of the public sector”.

      Mr Hancock said there would be no wholesale changes to the FoI Act.

    • Spain updates compendium of eGovernment rules

      The Spanish government has published an update of its Law on Electronic Administration. Two chapters have been added, on “Transparency and Access to POublic Information” and on “Electronic Judicial Administration”.

  • Environment/Energy/Wildlife

    • Coral bleaching in Qld is the ‘worst in 15 years’

      The worst coral bleaching in more than 15 years has hit Lizard Island off far north Queensland, scientists say, prompting fears about other northern parts of the Great Barrier Reef.

      Lyle Vail, who runs the Lizard Island Research Station north of Cairns, said the majority of the reef flat surrounding the island was showing signs of bleaching.

      “We do notice a bit of minor bleaching most summers but this year is exceptional – it’s the worst since 2002 – that year was quite bad,” he said.

  • Finance

    • CETA Legal Review Completed, Now Off To Parliaments And Governments For Approval

      The European Union and Canada have jointly announced the finalisation of the legal review for Canada-European Union Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA).

      The agreement, which originally was signed by the negotiators in 2014, was re-negotiated to address strong concerns with regard to the investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) procedures.

    • Restaurants Demand State Freeze Servers’ Wage

      As an example, New York state’s hourly minimum wage for tipped workers rose from $5.00 to $7.50 on January 1 (standard, non-tipped, minimum wage is $9.00 an hour in the state), much to the dismay of the New York State Restaurant Association. The restaurant owners lobbying group sent a letter to NY Governor Andrew Cuomo demanding that he freeze the tipped wage for five years. This letter comes just weeks after the National Restaurant Association filed an appeal with the state Supreme Court, claiming that Cuomo’s plan to raise the minimum wage further by 2018 is part of a longstanding pattern of discrimination “against the hard working men and women that own New York’s restaurants.”

    • WaPo Factcheck Adds Confusion, Not Clarity, on Social Security

      In short, President Bush’s proposal for replacing a portion of the traditional Social Security system did offer a substantial bonanza for Wall Street in a way that was not true of President Clinton’s proposal for investing the trust fund. Secretary Clinton was not wrong to make this distinction, even if some of her comments were not entirely accurate, as Kessler points out.

    • EU referendum: Peter Mandelson breaks silence to warn over effects of Brexit

      British exporters would face trade tariffs of up to 20 per cent on goods such as cars, whisky, pharmaceuticals and fashion sold around the world if the UK pulled out of the European Union, the former Trade Commissioner Lord Mandelson will warn on Tuesday.

      In his first intervention in the referendum debate, the Labour peer will claim that the UK could not only lose access to the single European market but could also lose the EU’s preferential trading status in foreign markets.

  • PR/AstroTurf/Lobbying

    • This terrifying Rupert Murdoch quote is possibly the best reason to stay in the EU yet

      Are you on the fence about Brexit? Do you feel akin to Boris (pre-blatant leadership bid) dithering and mulling your decision over, considering what suits your personal circumstance?

      We think we may have something that’ll sway it for you.

      As you are no doubt aware, although media mogul Rupert Murdoch hasn’t declared which side he stands on in the referendum, there have been a few subtle hints as to his position.

    • Scalia Dined at the Great Trough of Corruption

      Antonin Scalia was the longest-tenured justice on the current Supreme Court, and a great friend to conservatives in his opinions. It turns out he also ate his share at the great trough of American corruption.

    • Antonin Scalia: The Billion-Dollar Supreme Court Justice

      Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia was worth billions of dollars to corporate America, if a Dow Chemical settlement made public Friday is any indication.

      Dow was in the midst of appealing a $1.06 billion class-action antitrust ruling, after a jury found that it had conspired with other chemical companies to fix prices for urethane, a material used in furniture and appliances.

      But because of Scalia’s death and the sudden unlikelihood of finding five votes on the Supreme Court to overturn the case, Dow decided to settle for $835 million, the bulk of the original award.

    • Donald Trump’s Appeal to White Nationalism

      AFTER TWO DECADES of studying the inner workings of extremist groups in the United States, Brian Levin, a professor at California State University in San Bernardino, has developed a routine for attending Ku Klux Klan rallies. He’ll tape an interview or two, collect whatever literature is available, see if he can spot any notable figures, and make a count of the demographics on hand. The aim, Levin says, is to maintain a degree of anonymity. That was the plan Saturday afternoon when he showed up to Pearson Park in Anaheim, California, for a demonstration by the local chapter of a Klan faction known as the Loyal White Knights.

    • Will it be Trump or Goldman Sachs?

      It’s largely a choice of style, not substance, dirty business as usual continuing no matter who succeeds Obama. Still, Snowden has a point.

      Hillary Clinton, like husband Bill, got super-rich through speechmaking, lucrative book deals and other Big Money handouts.

      Lots came from Wall Street and other corporate supporters – a rogue’s gallery of crony capitalist interests buying influence.

      Her public financial disclosures show she earned $2,935,000 from 12 speeches to Wall Street banks alone from 2013 – 2015, five for $225,000 (her usual fee).

    • Why Did It Take an Activist to Bring ‘Superpredators’ Into the Campaign?

      The fact that it took Black Lives Matter activist Ashley Williams to bring “superpredators” into 2016 presidential campaign coverage (AlterNet, 2/24/16) truly demonstrates the malfeasance of the corporate press.

    • Hillary Clinton Still Haunted by Discredited Rhetoric on “Superpredators”

      Hillary Clinton is relying on support from black voters to help her carry South Carolina in the Democratic primary on Saturday, but at a fundraiser in Charleston on Wednesday night, she found herself confronted by a young black activist demanding an apology.

      As video of the protest shows, the activist, Ashley Williams, interrupted Clinton’s remarks about criminal justice at the private event by unfurling a banner with the phrase “we have to bring them to heel.” Those words — language that has been taken as an offensive and racist characterization of young black teens as unruly animals — were used by the former first lady at a campaign rally for Bill Clinton in New Hampshire in January 1996.

  • Censorship

    • Fighting the phrase “Polish death camps” with education, not censorship

      However, where a line has to be drawn is when governments threaten to infringe upon the freedom of academic historians. And this appears to be the direction in which Poland’s government is heading, following two announcements made over the last week. Either one on its own would be worrying enough, but taken together they raise the spectre of concerted government interference in historical research.

    • Ridiculous Censorship

      Self-censorship during the final night of Putri Indonesia pageant show in a private TV station last week is really out of the proportion.

      During the show, the TV station decided to completely blur the torsos of contestants who donned the body-hugging Javanese kebaya dress.

    • China silences property mogul on social media after criticism of president

      The Chinese government has deleted the popular social media accounts of property mogul Ren Zhiqiang after he publicly criticized President Xi Jinping.

      On Sunday, the Cyberspace Administration of China ordered Chinese technology companies Sina and Tencent to shut down Ren’s microblog accounts on their platforms.

    • China’s Censorship Clampdown Stirs a Pushback

      A high-profile clash between China’s censors and an influential businessman with a huge social-media following marks a further tightening of a clampdown on public discourse under President Xi Jinping—one that is starting to generate unexpected pushback.

    • Chinese internet watchdog bans former tycoon Ren Ziqiang’s microblog
    • China’s ‘Donald Trump’ is latest victim of government crackdown
    • South Korea Embraces Ridiculous Right To Be Forgotten As Well

      I’m still in a position where I don’t understand this at all. If the information is somehow false or “illegal” I can understand the desire to remove it. But I have a lot more trouble understanding the ability to remove truthful and legal information just because someone doesn’t like it. This kind of system will always be abused to just censor perfectly reasonable and often useful information, just because it exposes something someone doesn’t like. It’s disappointing that South Korea appears to be embracing such a head in the sand approach to information.

    • White House Asked Google & Facebook To Change Their Algorithms To Fight ISIS; Both Said No

      Earlier this year, we wrote about how ridiculous the federal government’s view of Silicon Valley seemed to be, in that they had this weird belief that by nerding a little harder, we could somehow “disrupt” ISIS. The thinking seemed confused, and somewhat typical of people who don’t understand technology or how Silicon Valley works. It’s “magic wand” thinking. People who don’t understand technology tend to view technology as a sort of magic — and thus, they assume it can do anything. And, right now, a bunch of those people in the White House want that magic wand to make ISIS disappear from the Internet.

      Buzzfeed’s Sheera Frenkel has a great detailed report looking “inside” the administration’s attempt to have Silicon Valley help in the fight against ISIS. The main focus of a (not very secret) meeting held on Wednesday seemed to be entirely about fighting ISIS propaganda with American propaganda. As if that ever works. And, from the sound of it, the meeting was equally clueless about why ISIS propaganda is effective, while American propaganda flops.

    • Inside The Obama Administration’s Attempt To Bring Tech Companies Into The Fight Against ISIS

      They flew in from New York, San Francisco, and Los Angeles to hole up in a windowless D.C. conference room for nearly five hours on Wednesday — representatives of the country’s top tech and entertainment companies brainstorming with U.S. counterterrorism officials to tackle one tough question: how to stop the spread of ISIS online.

    • Obama Administration Asked Facebook And Google To Change Their Algorithms To Fight ISIS

      On 24th February, White House invited the biggest names in the tech world to discuss the plans to defeat ISIS online. However, the meeting only reflected the flawed approach of Obama administration that went on to ask Facebook and Google to change their algorithms to hide pro-ISIS stuff.

    • Chinese censors clamp down on popular online videos

      China’s dour censors have long maintained a lengthy naughty list, and used it to keep the country’s television sets unsullied by anything deemed to “lack positive thoughts and meaning.”

      Now, the Chinese Communist Party under President Xi Jinping has vowed to apply the same rules online, slamming shut an era of looser rules for Internet video, amid a sweeping campaign to reassert strict new controls over the country’s cultural life – a campaign motivated in part by fears that speech must be controlled lest a slowing economy sow dangerous unhappiness.

    • I Resign: The Writing Center’s Mission is to Teach Writing, Not Ideology

      I wish I could continue to work at the Writing Center because I feel that it’s important for all students, whether black or white, on financial aid or not, conservative or liberal, to have a place to review and strengthen their writing. Unfortunately, the Writing Center no longer seems to be that place. Until the Writing Center can return to its apolitical mission and forsake its acceptance and appeasement of political harassment, I regret that I must resign my position as a Writing Fellow.

    • Debate is good, but can it be imposed?

      The rise of campus censorship has helped reinvigorate a discussion about free speech across society.

    • The Latest Hillary Clinton Conspiracy Theory Doesn’t Make Sense
    • Is Twitter Censoring Hashtags Critical of Hillary Clinton?
    • Nintendo urged to FIRE feminist employee at centre of furious child pornography censorship row

      In her long essay, Rapp described people who possess child pornography as “simple possessors” or “mere possessors”, even though this is a serious crime.

      Her thesis jumps between discussing child pornography featuring “real children” and fictionalised depictions of sickening acts, meaning it often appears unclear what she is actually discussing.

      However, the content of the essay has provoked a furious response among many of the people who have read it.

      Rapp wrote: “Criminalising the the possession of a type of media – whether violent video games… controversial political or religious texts, or child pornography – is tantamount to criminalising thought, and should be above countries like the U.S. and Japan who have such strong freedom of speech protections.”

  • Privacy

    • Snooper’s charter to extend police access to hack phones and access internet data

      Latest version of investigatory powers bill will allow police to hack people’s computers and view browsing history

    • Sensing Public Support Waning, UK Fast Tracks Snooper’s Charter

      For some time now, we’ve been covering the UK’s plan — led by Home Secretary Theresa May — to pass a new Snooper’s Charter that would increase surveillance powers greatly in the UK. There’s been a growing amount of criticism of the plan in the UK, so rather than respond to it, May has simply moved to fast track the bill, officially called the Investigatory Powers Bill. The bill will officially be “published” today on March 1, and then will likely be voted on before the end of April.

    • The New EU-US Data Sharing Pact Still Allows Mass Surveillance

      A controversial, over decade-old arrangement used to transfer data of European citizens to US companies such as Facebook appears soon to be replaced: The draft text of the EU-US Privacy Shield, the data regulation pact rushed through to substitute the contentious Safe Harbour agreement, was published on Monday.

      Safe Harbour has faced renewed scrutiny since the 2013 Snowden revelations, and a new agreement has been anticipated for months. But surveillance law experts, as well as Max Schrems, who brought on challenges against Safe Harbour in the first place, say that the EU-US Privacy Shield doesn’t solve key privacy problems, and that it still facilitates mass surveillance.

    • GCHQ spy back at work after Plenty of Fish date rape claim

      Two women claim police did not believe that a spy working at the UK eavesdropping headquarters GCHQ raped them. The first woman claims the 28-year-old man – who they allege still works for the secretive agency – raped her in 2010 after they struck up a relationship on the matchmaking website Plenty of Fish.

      The second claimant, who also worked for GCHQ, which is in Gloucestershire, said the same man attacked her in 2012. In both cases, the man – who cannot be named for legal reasons – was given a harassment warning.

    • Encryption still a low priority for too many cloud users

      The vast majority of organisations plan to store confidential or sensitive data in the cloud by 2018, but despite that being just two years away, only a third have already set out an encryption plan which can be described as consistently applied across the entirety of the enterprise.

      According to the 2016 Global Encryption and Key Management Trends Study, more than half of global organisations are already transferring sensitive or confidential information to the cloud, with 56 percent of respondents stating that this already forms part of their data storage strategy, whether or not that data is encrypted or made unreadable via some other mechanism.

    • Next moves for the IPB: Split, Delay or Publish?

      Last week we heard three parliamentary committees’ criticisms of the Investigatory Powers Bill (IPB). All in all they had 123 recommendations about changes that need to be made to the Bill. So what’s next for this huge surveillance Bill?

    • The push-me-pull-yous of public policy: surveillance and freedom of information

      Surveillance and freedom of information are the push-me-pull-yous of public policy.

    • Declassified letter from 2002 defends warrantless taps

      A previously classified letter defending President George W. Bush’s controversial warrantless wiretap program deployed in the aftermath of the Sept. 11 attacks sought to justify the strategy as “the most effective method’’ to defend the country from additional assaults.

    • 2002 Letter Lays Out Bush’s Legal Authority For Conducting Surveillance After 9/11
    • Revealed: How The Bush Administration Argued Legal Loopholes for NSA Snooping
    • Classified 2002 Letter on NSA Eavesdropping Is Made Public
    • Apple Wins Big: Court Rejects FBI’s Argument For Hacking Drug Dealer’s iPhone
    • Former CIA Agent Barry Eisler Turned Writer on Imagining/Predicting Gov’t Surveillance
    • Apple to Court: FBI’s Failure Should Not Force Apple to Undermine Global Security
    • Voter Privacy: What You Need to Know About Your Digital Trail During the 2016 Election
    • Judge In Different Apple Case Says That All Writs Act Doesn’t Mean Apple Needs To Help Feds Break Into Phone
    • Spy continues to work at GCHQ despite rape allegations

      A GCHQ spy accused of rape by two women is still working at the secretive security agency because the police “did not properly investigate” the women’s claims, one of the alleged victims has said.

      The first alleged victim, who met the 28-year-old security officer through the dating website Plenty of Fish in 2010, said police ignored her claims twice, even after a second victim, a woman who worked with him at the GCHQ offices in Gloucestershire, came forward in 2013, the Mirror reports.

    • ACLU Sounds Alarm As Obama Administration Plans Quiet NSA Expansion

      Civil liberties advocates slammed reports on Friday that the Obama administration is poised to authorize the National Security Agency (NSA) to share more of its private intercepted communications with other U.S. intelligence agencies without expanding privacy protections.

      “Before we allow them to spread that information further in the government, we need to have a serious conversation about how to protect Americans’ information,” Alex Abdo, a staff attorney with the ACLU’s Speech, Privacy and Technology Project, told the New YorkTimes.

      The change would loosen restrictions on access to the communications that are collected in mass data sweeps, including emails and phone calls, the Times reported, citing “officials familiar with the deliberations.”

    • Apple Wins Major Court Victory Against FBI in a Case Similar to San Bernardino

      Apple scored a major legal victory in its ongoing battle against the FBI on Monday when a federal magistrate judge in New York rejected the U.S. government’s request as part of a drug case to force the company to help it extract data from a locked iPhone. The ruling from U.S. Magistrate Judge James Orenstein was issued as part of the criminal case against Jun Feng, who pleaded guilty in October to drug charges. It is a significant boost to Apple’s well-publicized campaign to resist the FBI’s similar efforts in the case of the San Bernardino killers.

    • Want To Report A Dangerous Drug Dealer? Just Enter Your Personal Info Into The DEA’s Unsecured Webform

      Chris Soghoian, the ACLU’s chief technologist, has decided to troll the DEA. His complaint is valid, though. The problem is, how do you troll the DEA when it’s almost impossible to find the contact info of the person you want to speak to? Just like the FBI has more options at its disposal than simply demanding Apple help it beat down an iPhone’s front door, Soghoian was able to route around the DEA’s unforthcoming attitude.

    • FBI Claims It Has No Record Of Why It Deleted Its Recommendation To Encrypt Phones

      Then, last year, I noticed that the page had been deleted. Seemed curious, so I sent in a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) to the FBI to better understand why that page had magically been deleted, just at the time it seemed to contradict the FBI Director’s statements about encryption.

    • Courts, DOJ: Using Tor Doesn’t Give You A Greater Expectation Of Privacy

      In this month alone, we’ve had two federal judges and the DOJ state that there’s no expectation of privacy in IP addresses. This would normally be something covered by the Third Party Doctrine — where an IP address is part of the records retained by ISPs, and therefore, can be accessed with subpoenas rather than warrants.

      The twist, though, is that all of these statements were made in reference to people who made an active effort to obscure their IP addresses by using Tor.

    • Privacy Advocates Blast Plan to Expand NSA Data Sharing

      The Obama administration plans to increase the amount of private communications the National Security Agency can share with other government agencies without first adding privacy protections, according to a report published last week in The New York Times.

      The plan would ease restrictions on the amount of intercepted email and telephone intelligence the NSA gathers, including bulk collection of satellite communications, phone data between foreigners, and messages from overseas that U.S. allies provide, according to the report, which cited unnamed officials familiar with the deliberations.

      The move represents a major expansion of surveillance and data sharing authority and has been a longstanding concern of privacy groups, according to Marc Rotenberg, president of the Electronic Privacy Information Center.

      “There are significant privacy implications that EPIC will examine in detail,” he told the E-Commerce Times.

    • CIA And NSA Directors Blame The Media For Terrorists Using Encryption

      When it comes to the conversation that’s going on about the use of encryption, CIA director John Brennan and NSA Deputy Director Rick Ledgett have acquitted themselves rather poorly on a regular basis. It’s been an ongoing source of frustration to see the aftermath of the Paris terrorist attacks in particular devolve into a discussion on encryption, despite all evidence suggesting that those attacks weren’t planned using any kind of encryption at all. That didn’t keep Brennan from claiming that the CIA was unable to keep attacks from occurring due to encryption, nor has it stopped the calls from intelligence officials for even more data collection, despite the fact that those same officials have proven to be soft targets for hackers themselves. Ledgett, meanwhile, has proven to be an adversary of the free press, cheering on the destruction of computers from The Guardian.

    • European Pact Legalizes Facebook, Google, Amazon Data Transfers

      Privacy advocates railed Monday after the European Union unveiled a 128-page framework for trans-Atlantic data transfers that, the advocates said, amounts to little more than “10 layers of lipstick on a pig.” The document outlines the specifics of the EU-U.S. Privacy Shield, which replaces the 15-year-old Safe Harbor agreement struck down in October in a case that pitted Austrian grad student Max Schrems against Facebook[ticker symb=FB]. Schrems alleged Facebook misused Europeans’ data in cooperation with a National Security Agency program. Facebook has denied the allegation. U.S. spying tactics fell under scrutiny in 2013 after former NSA contractor Edward Snowden released thousands of classified documents allegedly detailing mass surveillance by the government.

    • ‘Privacy shield’ – the new deal governing how Europe’s user data is sent to the US
    • Privacy Shield doomed from get-go? NSA bulk surveillance waved through

      The European Commission has published details of its transatlantic “Privacy Shield” agreement, which is designed to ensure that personal information of citizens is protected to EU standards when it is sent to the US—even though it would appear that the NSA will continue to carry out bulk collection of data under the new pact.

      The new deal replaces the earlier Safe Harbour framework, which was struck down by the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) following a complaint by privacy activist Max Schrems.

      An accompanying Privacy Shield FAQ released by Brussels’ officials explained that there are four main elements. According to the commission, the new agreement will “contain effective supervision mechanisms to ensure that companies respect their obligations, including sanctions or exclusion if they do not comply.”

    • System Updates: Governments Can Hack Most Software Using This “Golden Key” Backdoor

      When you read the headlines like “FBI is forcing Apple to create a backdoor in their products”, what you are really reading is that the FBI is forcing iPhone-maker to use the “pre-existing software update backdoor” present in iPhones. Surprisingly, a backdoor already exists in most software in the form of system updates and the US government is looking to exploit the same.

    • Leaked! Details Of The New Congressional Commission To Take On The Encryption Issue

      Back in December, we wrote about plans by Rep. Mike McCaul and Senator Mark Warner to put together a “commission” to figure out what to do about the encryption “issue.” In his speech, McCaul did at least say that “providing a backdoor into everybody’s iPhone was not going to be a very good strategy” since it would open things up to hackers, but at the very same time, he kept saying that we had to somehow stop bad people (terrorists, criminals, child predators) from using encryption. He also keeps insisting that the Paris attackers used encryption, despite lots of evidence to the contrary. So it’s not entirely clear what the point of this Commission is, other than to chase down some mythical solution that doesn’t exist.

      The basic problem is this: to have real security you need strong encryption. And if you have strong encryption, people who are both good and bad can use it. So either you undermine strong encryption for everyone — harming the vast majority of good people out there — or you allow strong encryption, meaning that some bad people can use it. The only way to have strong encryption but not allow the bad guys to use it is to have a technology distinguish who is “bad” from who is “good.” I’m pretty sure that’s impossible because there’s no universal standard for what makes a “bad” or “good” person, and definitely not one that can be implemented in device hardware or software. So a commission seems like a waste of time.

    • NSA Spying, Privacy and the Fourth Amendment: The Views of U.S. Presidential Candidates

      Sanders, who voted against the Patriot Act and the U.S.A. Freedom Act, stated in a Time article last year: “Do we really want to live in a country where the NSA gathers data on virtually every single phone call in the United States – including as many as 5 billion cellphone records per day? I don’t.”

      Arguing against the U.S.A. Freedom Act in 2015, Sanders wrote: “Do we really want our government to collect our emails, see our text messages, know everyone’s Internet browsing history, monitor bank and credit card transactions, keep tabs on people’s social networks? I don’t.”

      “The Intercept” (theintercept.com) funded by billionaire Pierre Omidyar teamed with Glenn Greenwald, Laura Poitras, and former Nation writer Jeremy Scahill, has become the custodian of Snowden’s immense archive of classified documents, which it continues to mine for stories.

      Edward Snowden is living in asylum in Russia and currently in negotiations with the U.S. Justice Department. In February, he told a libertarian forum he will return home if he is guaranteed a “fair trial” and “can make a public interest defense of why this was done and allow a jury to decide.”

    • The Most Important Passages From Apple’s Challenge to the FBI

      GovtOS. That’s what Apple Inc. calls the newest product in its pipeline. It’s not the brainchild of the gadget masters in Cupertino but rather an iPhone operating system conceived by some buttoned-down folks in Washington, D.C. Unlike the latest iPhone or iPad, it wasn’t revealed on a stage before thousands of the faithful. Instead, it was unveiled in a stark response to the Obama administration’s attempt to force the computer maker to assist in a terrorism probe. And, Apple has warned, it may someday lead to every American being made an unwilling assistant to law enforcement.

    • ‘I’d move heaven and Earth’ to access Lavrov’s emails – former head of NSA and CIA

      Privacy seems less and less attainable these days, as foreign spy agencies target top political figures. The former director of both the NSA and CIA told US Today that he’d “move heaven and Earth” to access Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov’s email.

      Retired four-star general Michael Hayden, the only person who has ever served as both the director of the NSA and CIA, made the comments while criticizing former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s use of a private server for emails.

    • Spy who used Plenty of Fish dating site is accused of rape by two women but is still working for GCHQ because ‘police did not take their claims seriously’

      A spy accused of rape by two women, including one he met on dating website Plenty of Fish, is still working at GCHQ amid allegations police did ‘not take their claims seriously’.

      Both alleged victims say police ignored their claims about the national security expert, who is still working at the top secret intelligence headquarters in Gloucestershire.

      Details of the case emerged in a civil court hearing in which it was revealed that the worker had once been dismissed by GCHQ managers after child porn was discovered on his computer.

    • Spy accused of rape still working for GCHQ because ‘police did not properly investigate’ claims, alleged victim says

      A secret service official accused of rape by two different women he has had relationships with is described him as ‘untouchable’

  • Civil Rights

    • Panel: Poland’s constitutional crisis endangers democracy

      An international human rights commission says a crisis affecting the functioning of Poland’s Constitutional Tribunal has endangered the rule of law, democracy and human rights.

    • Council of Europe criticises Poland’s court changes – report

      The Council of Europe’s advisory body has said reforms of Poland’s constitutional court pose a danger to the rule of law in the European Union member state, dealing another blow to the eurosceptic Warsaw government’s legal changes.

      Poland asked the Council’s Venice Commission to comment on the legal changes after parliament overruled appointments made to the tribunal by the previous government, causing uncertainty over its proceedings.

    • Police Shoot 17-Year-Old Teenager For Refusing To Drop Broomstick

      On Saturday night, two Salt Lake City officers shot a black teenager in his torso because he refused orders to drop his weapon — a broomstick. The shooting, which left the teen in critical condition, led to clashes between protesters and police.

      The Salt Lake City Police Department says the shooting occurred when two officers saw two men, including 17-year-old Abdi Mohamed, attacking another man with metal objects. In the officers’ version of events, Mohamed refused to drop his weapon and moved to attack the victim, prompting the officers to open fire.

    • Virginia Senate Committee Approves Bill to Withhold Public Employee Information

      The legislation was passed by the General Laws and Technology Committee whose rationale was to protect the private information of public employees from possible hackers.

    • Virginia Senate Votes To Exempt Police Officers’ Information From FOIA Responses

      Way to go, Virginia. In a time when police accountability is (finally!) a mainstream media topic, the Virginia state legislature is having none of it.

    • Federal Judge Says Third Party Doctrine A Perfectly ‘Good Law;’ No Warrants Needed To Obtain Cell Location Records

      Back in December, a Connecticut state court ruled that tracking people in near-real time with cell site location info required the use of a warrant. Three months later, a Connecticut federal court has ruled law enforcement can obtain CSLI without a warrant, in bulk and for extended periods of time. While the opinion doesn’t address the use of subpoenas and CSLI as a makeshift Stingray (for real-time tracking), it does come down firmly on the side of the government’s interpretation of the Third Party Doctrine.

    • Freed from Detention in Bahrain, U.S. Journalist Describes Interrogation & Ongoing Crackdown

      We continue our exclusive interview with one of four U.S. journalists who were detained in the Gulf state of Bahrain and released Sunday after an international outcry. Anna Therese Day and her camera crew were in Bahrain during protests marking the anniversary of the kingdom’s February 2011 uprising. She describes their interrogation and the ongoing crackdown on journalists and human rights advocates in Bahrain.

    • Only In America: An Indiscreet Selfie Can Put A Kid In Prison

      Did you know that if you are an American under 18 years old and you use your cell phone to send a nude “selfie” of yourself to a friend, you can be convicted of manufacturing and distributing “child pornography” and sent to prison? In case you are too old to be in the loop, a “selfie” is a photo that one makes of oneself.

      This is how expansively prosecutors, whose main purpose in life is to ruin as many people as possible, interpret laws passed to protect children from sexual exploitation.

    • When Immigration Detention Becomes a Death Sentence

      New report shows ICE is not holding immigration detention facilities accountable for medical neglect.

      On an April morning in 2012, at about 5:24 a.m., a guard inside the Denver Contract Detention Facility initiated a Code Blue emergency because he saw a detainee in medical distress. Minutes later, nursing staff arrived and found 46-year-old Evalin-Ali Mandza lying on the bed in his cell, holding his chest, and complaining of severe chest pain. He was having a heart attack.

      Denver Contract Detention Facility (DCDF) is one of approximately 250 detention facilities around the country that hold immigrants with pending deportation proceedings. It is operated by GEO Group, Inc. — a private prison company with annual revenues of nearly $1.7 billion — under a contract with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), the federal agency responsible for detaining and deporting undocumented immigrants.

      After moving Mr. Mandza out of his cell, a nurse attempted to take an electrocardiogram. However, she was unable to get a reading because she had not been trained on the EKG machine and did not know how to use it. She then performed the wrong test. Once the nurse performed the correct test, she was unable to interpret the results because she had not been trained on this either.

    • Victory! State Department Will Try to Fix Wassenaar Arrangement

      Regular readers of this blog will likely be familiar with the Wassenaar Arrangement, a 41-nation agreement intended to regulate the export of certain “dual-use” technologies, such as guns and fissile material. In December 2013, the list of controlled technologies was amended to include surveillance systems for the first time and the participating countries have slowly been rolling out their implementations ever since. Today, news outlets in Washington DC are reporting that the State Department has finally agreed to try to renegotiate the language of the Wassenaar Arrangement to eliminate the 2013 changes.

  • DRM

    • Digital Rights Management Faces “Big Data,” Multiple-Rightsholder Challenges

      Managing copyright in digital musical works can be difficult because there are multiple rights holders and no standards for exchanging the massive amounts of data involved. Digital rights management services LyricFind and Rumblefish are among organisations working to streamline access to online content, company chiefs say.

  • Intellectual Monopolies

    • UNITAID Report On Delinking R&D Costs From Medicines Prices

      Delinkage of research and development costs from medicines prices could “vastly expand” access to medicines by drastically dropping costs of the knowledge component of health products, innovative medicines R&D facility UNITAID says in a new report.

      The report, entitled: “An economic perspective on delinking the cost of R&D from the price of medicines,” [pdf] was published on 26 February. The report summary from UNITAID is available here.

    • Re:Route – A Ready Reckoner Of Alternative R&D Models For Health

      The student-driven project, funded by Open Society Foundations, is a qualitative review of the alternative R&D initiatives around the world, in time for the United Nations High Level Panel on Access to Medicines dialogue next month.

    • Copyrights

      • Microsoft Sues Pirating Comcast Subscriber

        Microsoft has filed a complaint at a federal court in Washington accusing a Comcast subscriber of activating various pirated copies of its software. The account was identified by Microsoft’s in-house cyberforensics team which logs suspicious “activation patterns.”

      • Pirate radio playlist

        One of the UK’s most interesting historical legacies in music does not involve the actual bands that made up the British Invasion, but rather the people who played these band’s records illegally.

      • FBI Busts Movie Industry Insider for DVD Screener Leaks

        A 31-year old man from Lancaster has been arrested following an FBI investigation into several leaked DVD-screeners. The man, who worked in the entertainment industry, pleaded guilty to uploading screener copies of The Revenant and The Peanuts Movie to the private BitTorrent tracker Pass The Popcorn.

02.29.16

Why the US Political Debate About Patent ‘Reform’ is Still Deficient and the Legal System Probably Broken Beyond Repair

Posted in America, Patents at 9:37 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

When the Establishment serves Power rather than Justice

Trump with supporters
Photo credit: Evan Guest, licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license.

Summary: As the number of patents granted by the USPTO doubles (in just a few years), lawsuits leap through the roof, small businesses are severely harmed, and the political debate, the corporate media, the patent office and so on are all controlled by predators whose interests align with patent lawyers, patent lobbyists and their large clients (multinationals)

THE USPTO is the world’s most dominant patent system. It issues patents on software even though it’s becoming much harder a thing to enforce in a court of law, especially after Alice. Patent lawyers are still trying to undo or reverse Alice because it hit them where it hurts: patent scope.

Longing for Scalia/GOP Influence

Pro-patents (or patent maximalism) Web sites bemoan what they call “Change Inventorship on Issued U.S. Patent” and even long for corporations-leaning Justices like Scalia (see this new article by Louis Carbonneau), who died earlier this month, leaving SCOTUS more liberal (or leftist) than before.

“Patent lawyers are still trying to undo or reverse Alice because it hit them where it hurts: patent scope.”As of last week, we have begun seeing the debate about patents resurfacing in US politics, even if it’s the same old misguided debate about “patent trolls” rather than about patent scope. Here is the latest lobbying by patent maxlmalists (for USPTO lenience and greed). It says: “The U.S. government has a bad history of taking money from the USPTO. Since 1991, $1 billion has been skimmed from the office’s budget during the appropriations process and diverted to unrelated agencies. This isn’t taxpayer money, but fees paid to the USPTO by patent and trademark applicants (i.e., inventors and brand owners).”

Yeah, whatever…

“It has made a killing by doubling the number of granted patents (innovation did not double at all).”So now USPTO is the poor victim? It has made a killing by doubling the number of granted patents (innovation did not double at all).

“All these conclusions came together,” wrote a respected patents blog the other day, “to confirm a finding that Colvin had intent-to-defraud the USPTO.”

Foxes and Hen Houses

Well, generally speaking, the problem with the USPTO is that it’s run by a lot of lawyers and thus it serves lawyers. The examiners there, who are mostly qualified scientists with practical experience, don’t have much of a say. It more or less mirrors what happens in the EPO in the policy/scope sense. “Join free IP Seminar “Overcoming Alice in Electronic Signal Processing”, March 10, Munich,” wrote European patent lawyers the other day.

“Patent lawyers have a twisted view on things, where laws and rules are seen as obstacles to leap over rather than something that should be respected and obeyed.”Well, “Overcoming Alice” is like “Overcoming the law,” or simply getting around the rules. Patent lawyers have a twisted view on things, where laws and rules are seen as obstacles to leap over rather than something that should be respected and obeyed.

Watch this this article by Nicholas Landau (Bradley Arant Boult Cummings LLP). After the Alice decision at SCOTUS level (2014) the patent lawyers still struggle as they try to convince the public that software patents are legitimate and potent. They are not. That’s ill advice. “Due to the rapidly shifting requirement for subject matter eligibility,” says the author, “some patent examiners seem to believe that, when it comes to software inventions, they are entitled to assume the invention is not patent eligible subject matter under § 101, and it is the applicant’s duty to prove otherwise.”

Well, “some patent examiners seem to believe…”

“Not too long ago Apple managed to bamboozle EPO examiners into granting it software patents, only to have them invalidated in a court (several times in fact).”So much for respect to examiners. They’re viewed as naive and misguided by patent lawyers.

Apple’s Bogus Software Patents

Not too long ago Apple managed to bamboozle EPO examiners into granting it software patents, only to have them invalidated in a court (several times in fact). These were invalidated only after the defendants had spent millions (in legal fees) and years in the courts defending Android/Linux. See this new article (among many on the subject) titled “Appeals Court Dumps Apple’s Slide To Unlock Patent, Tosses Massive Jury Award Against Samsung In The Trash”. To quote this non-mainstream/non-conformist piece from TechDirt: “Apple may have been able to convince a jury that Samsung violated a bunch of its patents, on concepts like “slide to unlock,” but apparently the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) disagrees. Despite the court’s reputation for regularly expanding the power of patents (and getting smacked around by the Supreme Court for doing so), CAFC has sided with Samsung and tossed out a jury’s $120 million award and with it some Apple patents — including “slide to unlock.”

“This is the outcome of the infamous “thermonuclear war,” to quote the megalomaniac Steve Jobs, who simple could not stand competition.”This is a software patents — a callback functionality on a mock-up/design/UI.

This is the outcome of the infamous “thermonuclear war,” to quote the megalomaniac Steve Jobs, who simple could not stand competition. Watch what people think of this misguided war. Even former Apple proponents are upset at Apple right now. Who is this good for anyway? Patent lawyers of course. As many people consider Apple to be anything but a patent troll (even if it does no manufacturing, mostly branding and design), it ought to be clear that the problem does not boil down only to patent trolls. We wrote about this very recently

More Patent Litigation for Happier (Richer) Patent Lawyers

See this new article from IP Watch. It says: “The United States worked hard over the last five years to reduce patent infringement suits. Congress enacted patent reform, the courts handed down important anti-patentee rulings, and the US Patent and Trademark Office began a campaign of energetically rejecting patents and patent claims. Despite all this, from 2014 to 2015, new patent infringement suits increased 18 percent and the number of defendants sued for patent infringement increased 21 percent. What went wrong?”

“It is an epidemic of feuds which software patents are a large cause of and patent lawyers are beneficiaries of.”MIP also looked into litigation figures from 2015 and any way one looks at it, there’s more litigation, which is hardly a positive development. It is an epidemic of feuds which software patents are a large cause of and patent lawyers are beneficiaries of.

Excessive Focus on Patent Trolls, Not Patent Scope

When it comes to US public policy, only “trolls” are currently mentioned as the problem. Matt Levy (CCIA) focuses on patent trolls, as usual, not on software patents, noting that “Tyler, TX Brags About Its “Friendliness” to Patent Trolls”. Here is what patents do to small companies, as put in the words of United for Patent Reform the other day: “In 2014, 62% of companies sued by patent trolls had revenues <$100M. Ask Congress to protect #smallbiz & #fixpatents http://bit.ly/1FgqNiT ”

“Even when cases are dismissed the legal costs can rarely be recovered by the damaged defendant (except in rare cases, like NewEgg’s recent win).”Remember that this is a matter of life or death to them. To successfully shoot down a patent it can cost millions of dollars. Even when cases are dismissed the legal costs can rarely be recovered by the damaged defendant (except in rare cases, like NewEgg’s recent win). To quote another new tweet: “Patent trolls sued 4000+ companies in 2015, incl. homebuilders & other #smallbiz. Congress needs to #fixpatents”

But not only trolls are the problem. Nevertheless, all the debate is about them. See for instance this new article titled “Bill Designed to Subdue “Patent Trolls” Loses Momentum”. To quote:

Nearly a year after it was reintroduced and met with widespread support from House Republicans, the Innovation Act, designed to subdue “patent trolls,” has lost momentum after various businesses, universities, and conservative groups deemed it harmful to innovators.

Before the bill died in the Senate, the Innovation Act passed the House in 2013 after a substantial bipartisan vote of 325–91. A new bill reintroducing the Innovation Act, H.R. 9, which was formulated last July, has since passed the Judiciary Committee with a 24–8 vote.

Why not tackle the sorts of patents which patent trolls are using? They are not going after some utility companies over use of particular screw and pipe designs. They almost always use software patents. Therein lies the problem. Here is a new press release that says “Knowledge Group’s webcast entitled: “Emerging Issues: Patent Trolls and Deceptive Tactics – Impacts and Implications Explored!””

“What about large companies that act like patent trolls and extort/blackmail small companies similarly?”What about patent scope? Not noteworthy? What about large companies that act like patent trolls and extort/blackmail small companies similarly? The patent propaganda alliance (“Innovation Alliance”) has released this misleading statement on the matter, without even stating who’s funding it anyway. It’s patent maximalists. The patent propaganda alliance pretends to represent SMEs with tweets such as CPIP’s. It says: “Great to see recognition of importance of patents to startups at today’s hearing!” Well, neither entity cares about startups. These are just patent maximalists and they pretend to speak for small businesses, just like Microsoft’s ACT does.

“Get the facts straight,” Gary Shapiro (president and CEO of Consumer Technology Association) wrote the other day. “Patent trolls drain $1.5B a week from the economy…”

Here is his article, “Patent trolls drain US economy,” which says: “To preserve our nation’s entrepreneurial spirit and grow our innovation economy, patent trolls must be driven back under the bridge where they belong. Letting them run amok is, well, patent nonsense.”

“Well, they should work hard to abolish software patents in the US, as that too would contribute a lot to trolls’ demise.”The Consumer Technology Association (CTA) even issued a press release to express opposition to patent trolls, but what about patent scope? Not a word.

Another new article, “What retailers can do about patent trolls,” was published the other day by Beth Provenzano. “We’ve been talking about patent reform for a while,” she wrote, “and for good reason. The number of patent disputes reached a record high last year, and retailers are often the targets of “patent trolls” — companies that own patents for technologies they didn’t invent and don’t use.”

“All that these things are doing is patent tax collection, like a vigilante knocking on every door to collect money for the vigilante that’s supposedly intended to protect from the patent Mafia.”Well, they should work hard to abolish software patents in the US, as that too would contribute a lot to trolls’ demise.

Protection Money and the Vigilante Non-Solution

The solutions proposed by patent maximalists are not solutions but merely additions to the problem. ‘Protection money’ and vigilantes in the patent world don’t make anyone any safer (overall), but this is what IAM is proposing in this article. To quote: “As a network designed to provide coverage from patent suits, Freedom has some obvious parallels with the License on Transfer Network (LOTNet). LOTNet was launched in 2014 by a group of operating companies led by Google. Those that join agree that if they transfer any patents to an NPE then the other members of the network automatically receive a licence to those patents. This is in large part because the vast majority of NPE lawsuits involve patents developed and filed by operating companies.”

There is actually one such patent vigilante that calls itself “Freedom”? All that these things are doing is patent tax collection, like a vigilante knocking on every door to collect money for the vigilante that’s supposedly intended to protect from the patent Mafia. Therein lies exacerbation of the issues/problem, but then again, when you’re a patent lawyer, it’s “mo’ problems, mo’ money.” █

After Alice, Patent Trial and Appeal Board is Invalidating Software Patents and Other Abstract Patents

Posted in America, Europe, Patents at 8:00 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

PTAB

Summary: A quick look at the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) and why patent lawyers, patent trolls (who typically use software patents) and other patent aggressors are afraid of it, more so after Alice (a landmark 2014 case against abstract software patents)

THOSE who are not patent lawyers might not know that PTAB, according to Wikipedia, “was formed on September 16, 2012 as one part of the America Invents Act.”

“Patent lawyers, suffice to say, are growing nervous and comparing PTAB to all sorts of terrible things.”That was less than a couple of years before Alice, which effectively killed many software patents in the US (and shed doubt on the rest). The EPO too has boards of appeal, even though Battistelli seems to be trying to crush them (the unfilled open positions strategy, as the BBC reported on earlier today — the latest round of Tories versus NHS), possibly because of the UPC (some speculations insinuate this). At the same time he opens the door to software patents, which the boards have historically been relatively sceptical/critical of.

According to this new article from the EFF: “Today EFF filed our response brief in the appeal of our successful challenge to Personal Audio’s podcasting patent. Back in April 2015, the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) ruled in our favor and invalidated all of the patent claims we challenged. Personal Audio appealed this decision to the Federal Circuit.”

We covered this at the time (April 2015, just under a year after Alice) and we were pleased with the outcome. Patent lawyers, suffice to say, are growing nervous and comparing PTAB to all sorts of terrible things.

“Watch what a tragedy this has become for business method and software patents.”Consider this MIP article titled “PTAB taking a harder line on CBM institution”. It says: “More covered business method petitions are now being denied institution by the Patent Trial and Appeal Board than granted, with the Board seemingly narrowing what qualifies as a CBM patent” (that’s good, but not for patent lawyers).

Also new from MIP is this article titled “Institutional change: PTAB issues to watch in 2016″. To quote: “PTAB petition filing has increased every year since the post-grant proceedings became available in September 2012. According to figures from Docket Navigator, a record 1,797 petitions were filed last year, up 7% on the 1,677 filed in 2014. Inter partes review (IPR) petitions accounted for 92% of the filing last year.”

Watch what a tragedy this has become for business method and software patents. It’s about time. Let the patent lawyers squirm, twist the facts, and whine… █

The Latest Failed Push for Software Patents in India Shows That People’s Resistance Still is Effective

Posted in Asia, Deception, Law, Patents at 7:08 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

While patent lawyers try to create “confusion” about the law in India

MIP confusion
Confusion? Not at all. No software patents.

Summary: One final post about India’s ban on software patents and patent lawyers’ denial or obfuscation of this simple fact (along the same lines of US patent lawyers post-Alice)

THE decade-long (at least) fight over software patents in India recently came to an end again. The foreign lobbyists lost again. It’s mostly a multinational thing (Microsoft, IBM…) and the resistance comes from the Indian population, as was the case with "free basics" (neocolonialism). Look how upset IBM is, time after time.

As The Wire put it the other day: “Multinational software companies are naturally displeased with the Indian patent office’s new guidelines disallowing patents for computer programs.”

“There’s no confusion about it. It’s the law.”IBM’s latest response is quite telling. We wrote a great deal about IBM’s role in the patenting of software in the US and efforts to make it so in Europe and New Zealand too. The above article is one of about two dozen English articles we’ve found about the latest news (here are a couple more which we didn’t cite before [1, 2]). There are of course also some articles from patent lawyers and their biased media. MIP, for example, said in its headline that “Confusion reigns over patenting of computer programs”. Actually, “patenting of computer programs” is not allowed in India. There’s no confusion about it. It’s the law.

Watch how patent lawyers in India (probably working for foreign companies such as IBM or Microsoft) worry and express concerns out in public, even though it’s clear that the Indian population does not agree with them.

“People in India sure need to know who’s who and thereafter discern between innovators and parasites.”We recently saw Singh & Associates writing: “What is the date of grant of patent or in other words on which date the patent is deemed to be granted. This seems to be a simple question with the simple answer, but that is not the case. In this regard, Hon’ble Delhi High Court heard a bunch of petitions where all of the petitions had this common question of ascertaining date of grant of patent. In general sense patent is said to be granted when it is approved by the Controller of Patents and no further objections are in its way. The said petitions raised the question of date of Patent in context to validity of a pre-grant opposition as introduced by the Patent Amendment Act, 2005.”

Well, patent lawyers in India are always looking for business. The more patents get filed, the more money they make. The more patent litigation, the better (for them).

People in India sure need to know who’s who and thereafter discern between innovators and parasites. █

Update on Civil Complaints and Criminal Complaints Against EPO Vice-President Željko Topić in Lufthansa/Airplus Case

Posted in Europe, Patents at 6:13 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

Topić on the left, wearing shades in the shade

SIPO article

Summary: Some much-needed transparency in the cases (some among many) against Željko Topić, who is now crushing staff unions at the European Patent Office (EPO)

Benoît Battistelli’s right-hand man, Željko Topić, was said to have faced “a dozen serious criminal charges,” but the exact number may not be known to anyone other than Topić and his highly expensive lawyers whom we mentioned here before. When dealing with EPO scandals, there are many different kinds of scandals. It’s not some singular scandal but a large number thereof. The same applies to Topić in Croatia. One of the scandals which we wrote about several times in the past involved German airliner Lufthansa. This is the most detailed explanation published here thus far.

“For your information,” a reader told us, there is a new article titled “ŽUPANIJSKI SUD ISTRAGU PROTIV ŽELJKA TOPIĆA PROGLASIO NEDOPUŠTENOM” (TOPIĆA being Topić). “The report appeared on the Web site of the Croatian news portal tjedno.hr on 23 February,” said our the reader.

Might anyone among our readers be able to get a quick translation? Our understanding, based on a source, is that this update from Croatia says: “Is everybody equal before the law?”

“According to the report,” the reader told us, “in proceedings before the Municipal Criminal Court of Zagreb, the presiding judge Zoran Luburić dismissed two criminal complaints against Željko Topić as “inadmissible”.

“Mr. Frgačić has filed both criminal and civil complaints against Topić in relation to the Lufthansa/Airplus dispute.”
      –Anonymous“It seems that the plaintiff in these cases was Mr. Rikard Frgačić who according to our information has lodged an appeal against the decisions of the Criminal Court.

“The Judge Mr. Luburić apparently rejected the criminal complaints against Topić on the grounds that the matter relates to the Lufthansa/Airplus trademark dispute which is still pending before the SIPO following a decision of the Administrative Court to send Mr. Frgačić’s case back to the SIPO for re-examination.

“Mr. Frgačić has filed both criminal and civil complaints against Topić in relation to the Lufthansa/Airplus dispute.

“So, the matter is still open in civil proceedings. As far as the criminal proceedings are concerned, as mentioned above, Mr. Frgačić has filed appeals against Mr. Luburić’s decisions to dismiss his criminal complaints.”

“So, the matter is still open in civil proceedings. As far as the criminal proceedings are concerned, as mentioned above, Mr. Frgačić has filed appeals against Mr. Luburić’s decisions to dismiss his criminal complaints.”
      –AnonymousIt’s this kind of cases that led us to actually speaking to the familiar parties directly.

“Mr. Frgačić might be able to provide you with more details about the recent court decisions,” our source noted. We have been in touch with Topić’s victims for over a year and also spoke to Frgačić more than usual lately. The EPO won’t tell its staff anything about it, but Topić is still under a barrage of legal cases, some of them more severe than others. Criminal cases are numerous. We are going to do our best to keep readers abreast of developments in this area, as too few people out there can comprehend Croatian. Lack of information — a vacuum that no doubt the EPO benefits from — only serves Mr. Topić right now. To prove his innocence he will have to win a lot of court cases, some of which he repeatedly loses (and then appeals because he can afford it — unlike his victims — supported by a massive salary from the EPO). █

02.28.16

The Simple Truth About What Xamarin Was All Along to Microsoft, Just Like Ximian and Novell (Post-Patent Deal)

Posted in Microsoft, Mono, Novell at 7:38 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

“Now [Novell is] little better than a branch of Microsoft”

–LinuxToday Managing Editor

Big caterpillar

Summary: A longer and more detailed analysis of Microsoft’s official takeover of the Mono team (and by extension a so-called ‘company’, whose finances are secret but are linkable back to Microsoft through Ignition Partners)

THERE is a sense of relief now that Microsoft has ‘collected’ its moles; they’re back home (or at the ‘base’) where they belong. Our latest post on this matter (we covered it shortly after this became publicly known, hence composed in somewhat of a rush) is quite a few days old. That post, which focused on Xamarin‘s role and duties for Microsoft, was a little tongue-in-cheek, and it probably lacked context which those who are unfamiliar with these matters may truly need.

“After Novell had purchased Ximian this move was characterised by a Novell executive as a “red carpet” (to a Microsoft deal).”Techrights has spent nearly a decade writing about Novell, which was the previous incubator or ‘host’ (in a sort of embryonic sense) of Mono (see this Wiki page for a detailed chronology). After Novell had purchased Ximian this move was characterised by a Novell executive as a “red carpet” (to a Microsoft deal). See this complete transcript from 10 years ago. A lot of people don’t remember this; nor do they remember the significant role which Miguel de Icaza personally played in Microsoft and Novell coming to their patent deal — a subject which we wrote about many times before (de Icaza’s role was noted by Novell dissenters almost a decade ago).

Michael Meeks (formerly of Novell) wrote the other day: “Pleased to see Miguel & Nat exit to Microsoft” (direct quote).

“It’s like both of them were engaged to Microsoft for a decade but only officially celebrated in a wedding ceremony (and tied the knot as the saying goes) last week.”Nat had worked for Microsoft before he worked for Novell and Miguel too had visited Microsoft and loved them. For Meeks, as their former colleague (at Novell), it’s easy to sympathise, but did they ever “exit”? They were always there. They have only just made it official. It’s like both of them were engaged to Microsoft for a decade but only officially celebrated in a wedding ceremony (and tied the knot as the saying goes) last week.

The news about Microsoft buying Xamarin was mostly covered by the Microsoft side and Microsoft boosters, not FOSS or GNU/Linux sites. This in itself is rather telling and revealing. Oh, how things have changed! Here’s Microsoft’s Mouth and the Microsoft-friendly Tim Anderson covering this, the latter noting: “Remember the Nokia devices acquisition? That went well. Not”

“Microsoft now intends to use Xamarin to further its E.E.E. (embrace, extend, extinguish) agenda inside Android.”Nokia was another case of Microsoft moles, notably Elop. It was designed to tear apart Linux and Nokia.

Microsoft now intends to use Xamarin to further its E.E.E. (embrace, extend, extinguish) agenda inside Android. Why? Because other such efforts, including the Cyanogen plan, are evidently failing. There’s no headway. As Anderson put it in a separate article:

Microsoft has officially scrapped its Android to Windows 10 bridge, codenamed Astoria, but is forging ahead with its Objective C Windows compiler and tools for porting iOS applications.

The Android announcement was expected, as the project was apparently abandoned some months back, but the new post from Windows Developer Platform VP Kevin Gallo adds some background.

Right now Microsoft uses Miguel de Icaza to make developers defect to Windows. When Xamarin was its own company, backed by people from Microsoft, it didn’t quite work out. People — and developers in particular — just weren’t foolish enough. “De Icaza told me in the past that he’s rich,” Stephane Rodriguez told us 9 years ago, so we know that Microsoft pays such moles enough to make them do almost anything. Xamarin was an attempt to infiltrate the development world on behalf of Microsoft. Based on lack of press coverage, we very much doubt it was financially sustainable without all the VC money from Microsoft folks, who were understandably trying to keep it afloat.

“Right now Microsoft uses Miguel de Icaza to make developers defect to Windows.”Overlapping the announcement of the Xamarin takeover was this important news covered in articles such as “Microsoft confirms: Android-on-Windows Astoria tech is gone”, “Microsoft’s plan to port Android apps to Windows is dead”, “Microsoft Confirms Android-To-Windows Tool ‘Project Astoria’ Is Dead”, and “Microsoft is ditching Android app ports for Windows Phone”.

Miguel de Icaza was perhaps Microsoft’s Plan B, much like Elop inside Nokia. As one Microsoft apologist put it the other day (in his headline), “Microsoft: Use Xamarin to port Android apps to Windows” (sounds like the same thing as above, except the above just got axed).

“Miguel de Icaza was perhaps Microsoft’s Plan B, much like Elop inside Nokia.”Microsoft propagandists such as Simon Bisson sure are happy for Miguel de Icaza and other Microsoft saboteurs, whose goal wasn’t to help either GNU/Linux or Free software but to advance Microsoft’s interests and financial gain. “Embrace, extend, eat” is how this article from The Register summed it up (in its seminal report about the takeover). “Strangely patents were not mentioned,” iophk wrote to us, alluding to this analogous report from Wired. To quote: “Given the number of startups that have been purchased by larger companies primarily for their engineering talent, not their products—a strategy called “acquihiring”—developers may worry that Xamarin’s technology could go away after this acquisition. Microsoft insists this isn’t the case. “This is definitely not an acquihire,” says Scott Guthrie, the executive vice president of the Microsoft’s cloud and enterprise group. “There are more than 300 people on the Xamarin team. We very much view this acquisition as an opportunity to take what they’ve built and make it a core part of our strategy.””

It seems quote possible that Microsoft is just “acquihiring” in this case, as we noted in our first post about it. However, let’s not forget that VC money for Xamarin came from former Microsoft staff (Ignition Partners), so if anyone pockets the money here, then it’s them (that’s like Microsoft giving money back… to Microsoft people). Groomed by Microsoft for over a decade, Xamarin is probably the last incarnation of what was Ximian, then Novell, and later Xamarin. Now it’s called what it really is: Microsoft.

“We were right about Mono, Miguel de Icaza, and Xamarin, just as we were right about Novell and Nokia in the patent sense.”According to this report from the New YoRk Times, “Microsoft announced on Wednesday that it was buying Xamarin, a company that helps software developers write applications for mobile devices. The price was not disclosed, but is believed to be more than $300 million.”

As we often point out here, many of these figures are bogus. They’re more like accounting tricks that make both the buyer and the acquired entity look bigger than they really are; it surely fools an already-gullible media when sometimes all that happens is that shares move from place to place, i.e. no money exchanges hands at all.

“Microsoft came first; what’s why he was pushed away by FOSS people.”All in all, the whole thing proves we were right all along. We were right about Mono, Miguel de Icaza, and Xamarin, just as we were right about Novell and Nokia in the patent sense. Miguel de Icaza has, consistently over the years, served Microsoft’s agenda and now it’s payday again. He hardly ever truly worked for FOSS; Now he’s a Microsoft employee. Miguel de Icaza turned to Microsoft not because FOSS people pushed him away. Microsoft came first; what’s why he was pushed away by FOSS people. Bruce Byfield, a longtime Novell (and Mono) apologist, gets it all in reverse in his analysis which begins thusly:

Just before I settled down to write today, I read that Microsoft had acquired Xamarin, the company founded by Miguel de Icaza and Nat Friedman. To many, the news is the logical end to a story that has been unfolding for years now, and if the first cries of, “Traitors!” have not appeared on blogs and articles, then I expect they are only a matter of time.

Perhaps Byfield can finally admit that it was us who were right all along, not him. On de Icaza, one person told me the other day: “I remember him back in ‘the day’ on IRC. he was always considered a crazy compromizer.”

“In summary, Miguel gets money from Microsoft. Again.”He was always like that. He didn’t just magically turn out that way. In fact, a lot of this started when he tried to get hired by Microsoft, way back in the 1990s.

A decent article by Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols (SJVN) says: “In 2011, Attachmate laid off the Mono team. De Icaza then founded Xamarin with an eventual total of $82-million in venture capital to give it a home.”

“The future of APIs, patents and mobile-centric operating systems is at stake now.”Well, money from Microsoft veterans/retirees (for the most part). It was pretty much back then that Microsoft ‘bought’ de Icaza; it just left him as peripheral/external because it’s easier to use him as a proxy or mole that way.

In summary, Miguel gets money from Microsoft. Again. E.E.E. didn’t work out this time around, but Miguel had his safety net. Now his salaries will come directly from his longtime boss (at Novell too a lot of the money came from Microsoft).

This post is not a personal attack. But since many people out there are too timid to mention names and say things as they see them, someone probably has to. Anything else is self-censorship.

If any of the above is not accurate or not correct, please point out specifically what it is. We welcome an open debate on this. The future of APIs, patents and mobile-centric operating systems is at stake now. █

Links 28/2/2016: Raspberry Pi 3, Copyleft Fights

Posted in News Roundup at 5:52 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

GNOME bluefish

Contents

GNU/Linux

Free Software/Open Source

  • Manufacturers start to lock down Wi-Fi router firmware. Thanks, FCC.

    Curious. The FBI wants Apple to open up its own software while the FCC wants wireless router manufacturers to lock theirs down. And both demands are unacceptable, misguided, and will ultimately fail. Why? When it comes to the former, well, we don’t have time to wade through that quagmire, but as to the the latter, we have to go back to 2015 …

    [...]

    Why is this lockdown a bad idea? Because there are thousands of private users, academic researchers, and developers who rely on having wireless routers that are capable of modification. These modifications are to add functionality, fix bugs in the original product (all too common in consumer devices), and improve performance. However, the new FCC rules as written place a complex technical burden on manufacturers to comply and the only way to comply cheaply, is for the manufacturer to lock down their products completely rather than just the wireless components.

  • TP-LINK WiFi Router Firmware Locked Down Due to New FCC Rules

    Last year the FCC rules issues new rules that would prevent installing OpenWRT, DDWRT, or other firmware, but it went viral, and finally the commission launched a consultation with the community which ended by the FCC issued a statement “Clearing the Air on Wi-Fi Software Updates” last November, making the rules more accurate saying that the rules were now “narrowly-focused on modifications that would take a device out of compliance”.

  • Reading comprehension is a big problem in open-source

    Houston, we have a problem. Linux users can’t read good [sic]. Zoolander reference. Word. What am I on about, and where can you buy some of the stuff, you be asking? You can’t, it’s all au naturale, Dedoimedo freerange extract.

    To be serious, this topic is about the flow of information in the Linux world. After having a rather horrible autumn season of distro testing, I happened to come across commentary about my reviews on various forums and portal. It’s always when the negative is being discussed, because articles that praise products never ever get any reaction from the wider community. To put it bluntly, the message was not coming across.

  • Telecoms Band Together to Virtualize and Open Source their Network Stacks

    A group of telecommunication companies and their software providers have come together to bring Network Functions Virtualization to their data centers. NFV is an industry-developed framework to virtualize telecom networks.

    The group, formed under the umbrella of European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI) is called OSM, which stands for Open Source MANO. MANO, which stands for Management and Orchestration, is the part of the NFV framework consisting of orchestrator software, virtualized network functions manager (VNFM) and Virtualized Infrastructure Manager (VIM).

  • Oracle/Java/LibreOffice

  • CMS

  • BSD

    • BSDCan: OpenBSD presentations

      The event will be held on June 8-11th at the University of Ottawa in Canada.

    • The Release Of LLVM 3.8 Should Be Imminent

      While LLVM/Clang 3.8 was supposed to be released last week, its release got delayed but it looks like it should finally ship in the next few days.

      On Tuesday, LLVM release manager Hans Wennborg announced the release of LLVM 3.8 Release Candidate 3. He mentioned, “If there are no regressions from previous release candidates, this will be the last release candidate before the final release.”

    • FreeBSD 10.3 Is Almost Ready For Release

      The third beta of the upcoming FreeBSD 10.3 is now available for testing.

      FreeBSD 10.3 Beta 3 brings updated network drivers, improvements to the filemon device, Hyper-V fixes, a few new commands, and various other minor enhancements and corrections.

    • FreeBSD and ZFS

      For nearly seven years, FreeBSD has included a production quality ZFS implementation, making it one of the key features of the FreeBSD operating system. ZFS is a combined file system and volume manager. Decoupling physical media from logical volumes allows free space to be efficiently shared between all of the file systems. ZFS introduced unprecedented data integrity and reliability guarantees to storage on FreeBSD. ZFS supports varying levels of redundancy for tolerance of hardware failures and includes cryptographic checksums on all data to guard against corruption.

  • FSF/FSFE/GNU/SFLC

  • Project Releases

    • Cloud Explorer is back with v7.1

      Cloud Explorer is a open-source Amazon S3 client that works on any operating system. The program features a graphical or command line interface. Today I just released version 7.1 and hope that you give it a test drive. Feedback and uses cases are always encouraged.

  • Public Services/Government

    • Denmark to accelerate eHealth technology

      Danish public authorities are promoting the development and use of eHealth solutions. Increasing technology-use in healthcare, care for the elderly, social services and in education will “maintain or increase the quality of public welfare services while at the same time reducing public expenditure”, according to an English introduction to Denmark’s Strategy for Digital Welfare (2013-2020), published by the country’s Agency for Digitisation.

  • Licensing

    • Winning the copyleft fight

      Bradley Kuhn started off his linux.conf.au 2016 talk by stating a goal that, he hoped, he shared with the audience: a world where more (or most) software is free software. The community has one key strategy toward that goal: copyleft licensing. He was there to talk about whether that strategy is working, and what can be done to make it more effective; the picture he painted was not entirely rosy, but there is hope if software developers are willing to make some changes.

      Copyleft licensing is still an effective strategy, he said; that can be seen because we’ve had the chance to run a real-world parallel experiment — an opportunity that doesn’t come often. A lot of non-copyleft software has been written over the years; if proprietary forks of that software don’t exist, then it seems clear that there is no need for copyleft; we just have to look to see whether proprietary versions of non-copyleft software exist. But, he said, he has yet to find a non-trivial non-copyleft program that lacks proprietary forks; without copyleft, companies will indeed take free software and make it proprietary.

    • I’m Part of SFConservancy’s GPL Compliance Project for Linux

      I believe GPL enforcement in general, and specifically around the Linux kernel, is a good thing. Because of this, I am one of the Linux copyright holders who has signed an agreement for the Software Freedom Conservancy to enforce the GPL on my behalf. I’m also a financial supporter of Conservancy.

    • Welte: Report from the VMware GPL court hearing
    • Report from the VMware GPL court hearing

      Today, I took some time off to attend the court hearing in the GPL violation/infringement case that Christoph Hellwig has brought against VMware.

      I am not in any way legally involved in the lawsuit. However, as a fellow (former) Linux kernel developer myself, and a long-term Free Software community member who strongly believes in the copyleft model, I of course am very interested in this case – and of course in an outcome in favor of the plaintiff. Nevertheless, the below report tries to provide an un-biased account of what happened at the hearing today, and does not contain my own opinions on the matter. I can always write another blog post about that :)

      I blogged about this case before briefly, and there is a lot of information publicly discussed about the case, including the information published by the Software Freedom Conservancy (see the link above, the announcement and the associated FAQ.

    • I bought some awful light bulbs so you don’t have to

      Anyway. Next step was to start playing with the protocol, which meant finding the device on my network. I checked anything that had picked up a DHCP lease recently and nmapped them. The OS detection reported Linux, which wasn’t hugely surprising – there was no GPL notice or source code included with the box, but I’m way past the point of shock at that. It also reported that there was a telnet daemon running. I connected and got a login prompt. And then I typed admin as the username and admin as the password and got a root prompt. So, there’s that. The copy of Busybox included even came with tftp, so it was easy to get copies of tcpdump and strace on there to see what was up.

    • SFC: GPL Violations Related to Combining ZFS and Linux
    • The Linux Kernel, CDDL and Related Issues

      The license terms on the Linux kernel are those of GPLv2. This is the unanimous consensus of the extensive community of copyright holders. No other terms, or modifications of those terms, are represented in any document as the consensus position of the relevant parties.

    • Conservancy’s Executive Director Testifies in Favor of NYC Free and Open Source Software Acts
    • Match Donation Extended until March 1st

  • Openness/Sharing

  • Programming

    • Java finally gets microservices tools

      Lightbend, formerly known as Typesafe, is bringing microservices-based architectures to Java with its Lagom platform.

      Due in early March, Lagom is a microservices framework that lightens the burden of developing these microservices in Java. Built on the Scala functional language, open source Lagom acts as a development environment for managing microservices. APIs initially are provided for Java services, with Scala to follow.

    • documentation first

      I write documentation first and code second. I’ve mentioned this from time to time (previously, previously) but a reader pointed out that I’ve never really explained why I work that way.

      It’s a way to make my thinking more concrete without diving all the way into the complexities of the code right away. So sometimes, what I write down is design documentation, and sometimes it’s notes on a bug report[1], but if what I’m working on is user-visible, I start by writing down the end user documentation.

Leftovers

  • Science

    • These Chicago teens can’t graduate until they learn some compsci

      The Chicago Public Schools district has become the first in the nation to make computer science training a requirement for high school graduation.

      The district, the third-largest in the US, says that starting with next year’s freshman class (graduating in 2020), all students will be required to complete one credit in a computer science class as a core subject alongside other fields such as science, English and mathematics.

      “Making sure that our students are exposed to STEM and computer science opportunities early on is critical in building a pipeline to both college and career,” said Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel.

    • Kauppalehti: Finnish tire firm manipulated test results

      Finnish tire manufacturer Nokian Renkaat manipulated test results for years, according to a report on Friday in the business daily Kauppalehti. The company’s share price took a dive on the reports.

    • The left half – right half divide in human brains is a myth, scientist says

      The myth is thought to stem from social stigmatisation of left handed people and a misunderstood Noble Prize winning research project

  • Security

    • Thursday’s security updates
    • Friday’s security updates
    • Rewrite Everything In Rust

      I just read Dan Kaminsky’s post about the glibc DNS vulnerability and its terrifying implications. Unfortunately it’s just one of many, many, many critical software vulnerabilities that have made computer security a joke.

      It’s no secret that we have the technology to prevent most of these bugs. We have programming languages that practically guarantee important classes of bugs don’t happen. The problem is that so much of our software doesn’t use these languages. Until recently, there were good excuses for that; “safe” programming languages have generally been unsuitable for systems programming because they don’t give you complete control over resources, and they require complex runtime support that doesn’t fit in certain contexts (e.g. kernels).

      Rust is changing all that. We now have a language with desirable safety properties that offers the control you need for systems programming and does not impose a runtime. Its growing community shows that people enjoy programming in Rust. Servo shows that large, complex Rust applications can perform well.

    • Forthcoming OpenSSL releases
    • Improvements on Manjaro Security Updates
    • What is Glibc bug: Things To Know About It
    • IRS Cyberattack Total is More Than Twice Previously Disclosed

      Cyberattacks on taxpayer accounts affected more people than previously reported, the Internal Revenue Service said Friday.

      The IRS statement, originally reported by Dow Jones, revealed tax data for about 700,000 households might have been stolen: Specifically, a government review found potential access to about 390,000 more accounts than previously disclosed.

      In August, the IRS said that the number of potential victims stood at more than 334,000 — more than twice the initial estimate of more than 100,000.

    • Protect your file server from the Locky trojan
    • Google’s Project Shield defends small websites from DDoS bombardment

      If you want to apply, there’s an online form to fill in here which asks for the details of your site, and poses a few other questions about security and whether you’ve been hit by DDoS in the past. Note that you’ll need to set up a Google account if you don’t already have one.

    • 90 Percent of All SSL VPNs Use Insecure or Outdated Encryption

      Information security firm High-Tech Bridge has conducted a study of SSL VPNs (Virtual Private Networks) and discovered that nine out of ten such servers don’t provide the security they should be offering, mainly because they are using insecure or outdated encryption.

  • Defence/Police/Secrecy/Aggression

    • Mini-World War Underway in Syria: The Players

      Various Kurdish forces working with Washington and/or Moscow are taking advantage of the chaos to extend Kurdish territories, in Syria, Iraq and odd bits of Turkey. The Islamic State has snatched land while all the focus was on the other groups, and still holds substantial territory in Syria and Iraq. The Saudis have threatened to invade Syria with ground troops, which the Iranians say they will respond to militarily.

    • Court Considers Releasing Key Documents Governing Secretive Targeted Killing Program

      Yesterday, in one of the three ACLU cases challenging the extreme secrecy shrouding the government’s targeted killing program, a federal judge in New York ordered the government to turn over, for the court’s review and possible release, three crucial documents containing the law and policy that govern the program. The full order is not yet public because, as the judge wrote, she is giving the government “time to vet opinions and orders for classification issues that might escape the notice of a reader of news media in which information that the Government considers to be classified routinely appears.”

  • Finance

  • Censorship

    • Chelsea Manning denied EFF articles because US Army cares about copyright

      Apparently the US Army is interested in a zealous interpretation of copyright protection, too.

      According to the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a Chelsea Manning supporter recently attempted to mail Manning a series of printed EFF articles about prisoner rights. Those materials were withheld and not delivered to her because, according to the EFF, the correspondence contained “printed Internet materials, including email, of a volume exceeding five pages per day or the distribution of which may violate U.S. copyright laws.”

    • Did Twitter’s Exec Censor #WhichHillary in advance of Key Primaries? Twitter users speak out

      Considering the nature of Twitter’s algorithm, it may just be a coincidence that Twitter suspended activist account @GuerrillaDems, at the same time that its massively popular hashtags #WhichHillary & #WhichHillaryCensored were suddenly absent from many users’ trending lists. Twitter now says that the suspension of @GuerrillaDems was a mistake.

      It is entirely natural, and important, for users to be suspicious here. We don’t know whether it was intentional removal, or algorithmic coincidence. However, it is a fact that this past Sunday, Clinton held a political event headlined by Twitter CEO Omid Kordestani. It is also a fact that Clinton’s staff has exerted pressure on members of the media in the past, using its “muscular” influence to promote a certain narrative at the Atlantic, and suggesting experts to rebut Julian Assange during his interview with 60 Minutes. These relationships tend to be mutually beneficial — a journalist gets a scoop — a large media outlet gets favorable treatment by regulatory agencies — in exchange for promoting a certain narrative. It is also no secret that the Clintons have earned $153 million over the past 15 years in legal political graft, much of that coming from the same companies they helped deregulate in the 1990’s. If you would like to know why our media giants are grateful to the Clintons, read up on the Telecommunications Act of 1996.

    • Zuckerberg on refugee crisis: ‘Hate speech has no place on Facebook’

      Speaking in Berlin, Facebook boss calls Germany’s handling of European refugee crisis ‘inspiring’ and says site must do more to tackle anti-migrant hate speech

    • Zuckerberg Vows to Police Hate Speech in German Charm Offensive

      Facebook Inc.Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg vowed to rid his site of hate speech against migrants and lauded Germany’s leadership in the refugee crisis as part of an effort to win over those critical of the social media site’s handling of the matter.

      “We’ve recognized how sensitive this is, especially with the migrant crisis here,” Zuckerberg said to thunderous applause at a town hall event in Berlin on Friday carried live on German cable news channels. “We hear the message loud and clear and we’re committed to doing better, there’s not a place for this kind of content on Facebook.”

    • Someone At UMich Reported A Snow Penis As A ‘Bias Incident’

      Big Member On Campus — is causing a flurry of controversy.

      A University of Michigan dorm official reported a snow penis as a bias incident, according to the student publication The Michigan Review.

      The frosty phallus was erected in a field this week outside a residence hall after a snowfall, apparently leaving the hall director cold. Hall directors are paid non-students who carry some authority.

    • Site-blocking will make internet access more expensive – little else

      oday Laurie has a guest post at iTWire and looks forward to your comments or those of the content creators and distributors. This posting does not necessarily represent the views of iTWire.

      Last week both Village Roadshow and Foxtel finally launched court actions under the eight months old Copyright Amendment (Online Infringement) Act designed to deal with Internet “piracy”.

      The first thing that needs pointing out is that downloading video and audio content over the Internet is a not a crime as such. It is, however, in breach of the intellectual property rights of the producers and distributors.

  • Privacy

    • EFF Urges Appeals Court to Allow Wikimedia and Others to Fight NSA Surveillance

      San Francisco – The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) urged the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit Wednesday to permit Wikimedia and other groups to continue their lawsuit against the NSA over illegal Internet surveillance. A ruling in favor of the plaintiffs in Wikimedia v. NSA would follow the lead of the Ninth Circuit, which allowed EFF’s Jewel v. NSA to go forward despite years of stalling attempts by the government.

    • The Government’s Decades-Long Battle for Backdoors in Encryption

      The FBI wants to crack open a mass shooter’s iPhone, and Apple has refused to cooperate. It’s a story for the 21st century, but the roots go back a whole generation earlier, to the 1990s when the FBI and other law enforcement agencies were trying to curb the then-new encryption technologies and create back door access for themselves.

    • Finland to boost its information security industry

      The Finnish government should help to create a competitive information security industry, recommends a report by a task-force at the Ministry of Transport and Communications. The country should attract investments in this area, assess rules and regulations, and make information security a common digital component.

    • More GOP presidential hopefuls now side with the FBI in iPhone crypto fight

      The now five candidates vying for the GOP presidential nomination discussed everything from immigration, health care, and the Middle East during their latest debate, sponsored by CNN/Telemundo and held in Houston on Thursday evening. But what caught our attention was the candidates’ discourse about the Apple-FBI encryption legal fight.

      CNN moderators Wolf Blitzer and Dana Bash actually initiated the topic. Blitzer first mentioned how Apple responded to the FBI’s court order earlier in the day with a formal motion to vacate. Bash then addressed the topic to Florida Senator Marco Rubio, referencing his defense of Apple last week during a GOP candidate town hall in South Carolina.

    • Tens of Thousands Protest Netflix’s Expanding VPN-Blockade

      Netflix is continuing to expand its VPN and proxy crackdown, affecting VPN ‘pirates’ but also those who use such services for privacy reasons. The VPN crackdown is meeting fierce resistance from privacy activists and concerned users, with tens of thousands calling upon the streaming service to reverse its broad VPN ban.

    • Netflix overblocking non-exit Tor relays

      tl;dr: Even paying customers sharing IPs with non-exit Tor relays are now
      blocked from accessing Netflix

      Hello everyone !

      After two very fruitless attempts to get the issue silently resolved through
      proper Netflix support channels, the time has come to make this public. As
      some of you have probably already read in the news, Netflix recently
      announced a crackdown on what they call “VPN Pirates” and what I call
      “paying customers using the same benefits of globalization that global
      companies like Netflix (ab)use for their taxes”.

    • Tor Project Accuses CloudFlare of Mass Surveillance, Sabotaging Tor Traffic

      Tensions are rising between Tor Project administrators and CloudFlare, a CDN and DDoS mitigation service that’s apparently making the life of Tor users a living hell.

      The issue, raised by a Tor Project member, revolves around a series of measures that CloudFlare implemented to fight malicious traffic coming from the Tor network. These measures are also affecting legitimate Tor users.

      The way CloudFlare deals with Tor users is by flagging Tor exit nodes and showing a CAPTCHA challenge before allowing them to continue to their desired website.

    • German government to use Trojan spyware to monitor citizens

  • Civil Rights

    • The U.S. has Gone F&*%ing Mad

      Do you know how a properly functioning society would react to an event like San Bernardino? I do — because I’ve had the misfortune of living through such an event. On the 28th of April, 1996, a gunman equipped with an AR-15 assault rifle — the same kind that the San Bernardino shooters used — opened fire in Port Arthur, in Australia. 35 people were killed and 23 were wounded. It remains one of the world’s deadliest shootings by a single person.

      Within months, the country’s governing party led a bipartisan effort to prevent such a tragedy from ever happening again.

      They didn’t do it by focusing on creating backdoors into phones.

    • Liverpool police pelted with stones as right-wing ‘infidels’ clash with anti-fascists (PHOTOS)

      Members of an extreme right-wing group and a rival anti-fascist movement have brought chaos to the center of Liverpool, with Merseyside police forced to intervene in violent street skirmishes

    • Former CIA Director: Trump’s foreign policy “would be in violation of all international laws of armed combat”

      “Real Time” host Bill Maher interviewed former NSA and CIA Director, General Michael Hayden.

      Regarding his thoughts on a President Trump, Hayden said, “I would be incredibly concerned if a President Trump governed in a way that was consistent with the language that candidate Trump expressed during the campaign.”

      Asked to elaborate on what he meant by “language,” Hayden cited Trump’s comments on “waterboarding and a whole lot more — because they deserve it” and killing the terrorists’ families.

      “If he were to order that once in government, the American armed forces would refuse to act,” Hayden added. “That would be in violation of all international laws of armed combat.”

    • Ex-CIA, NSA Head: If ‘President Trump’ Implements Certain Campaign Promises, U.S. Military ‘Would Refuse to Act’

      The former head of the CIA and NSA said that if Donald Trump is elected president and follows through on certain campaign promises, the U.S. military would “refuse to act.”

      “I would be incredibly concerned if a President Trump governed in a way that was consistent with the language that candidate Trump expressed during the campaign,” Michael Hayden told “Real Time” host Bill Maher on Friday night.

    • Stand Up For Whistleblowers — Our Liberty Depends On Them

      The inhumane criminal organization that goes under the name of the United States Government has violated its laws and international laws by refusing to punish torturers and war criminals, instead punishing only those who expose the evil and illegal deeds of the United States government.

      After blowing the whistle on torture and domestic surveillance by the George W. Bush administration, former CIA officer John Kiriakou and former NSA executive Thomas Drake were prosecuted under the Espionage Act — by the same Obama Justice Department that has refused to prosecute a single torturer or any official who ordered illegal mass surveillance.

    • Virginia Wisely Rejects Secret Police

      It’s a frightening, Orwellian scenario that some legislators in Virginia thought was a good idea. Fortunately, a state House of Delegates subcommittee blocked the bill on Thursday, which would have allowed even more government information to be hidden away under the state’s F-rated open government laws.

  • Internet/Net Neutrality

    • Germany to fund broadband for underserved areas

      Germany’s Federal Ministry of Transport and Digital Infrastructure (BMVI) is making available funds to bring fast Internet to underserved areas. Municipalities and rural districts (Landkreise) can initially apply for up to EUR 50,000 to plan expansion projects and to complete applications for federal funding of these projects. Approved projects will be funded up to a maximum of EUR 15 million.

  • Intellectual Monopolies

    • Copyrights

      • Content ID and the Rise of the Machines

        In 2007, Google built Content ID, a technology that lets rightsholders submit large databases of video and audio fingerprints and have YouTube continually scan new uploads for potential matches to those fingerprints. Since then, a handful of other user-generated content platforms have implemented copyright bots of their own that scan uploads for potential matches.

      • Pirates Spend Much More Money on Music, Study Shows

        A new study has shown that music piracy is still rampant in the United States with 57 million people between the ages of 13 and 50 accessing music through unauthorized sources. Interestingly, however, these pirates also spend significantly more money on CDs and paid downloads, more than their counterparts who only consume legally.

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