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11.03.14

Links 3/11/2014: Linux 3.18 RC3, OpenStack Event

Posted in News Roundup at 4:34 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

GNOME bluefish

Contents

GNU/Linux

  • Video: Ken Starks & Ruth Suehle’s Keynotes at OLF

    Here at FOSS Force we’re proud to be associated with Ken Starks. We’re proud because of the great articles he writes advocating Linux. We’re also extremely proud that he was chosen to be a keynote speaker at this year’s Ohio LinuxFest. But most of all, we’re proud because of his big heart, which he expresses through his work through Reglue, the nonprofit he founded in 2005 to give Linux computers, and training on how to use them, to financially disadvantaged school children in and around the Austin, Texas area where he lives.

  • Desktop

    • Homegrown developers look to unseat Microsoft’s dominant OS

      After tinkering with the term “de-Microsofting,” Ni Guangnan decided instead to go with “de-Windowsify.” “We call this a de-Windowsifying movement,” he said.

      Speaking last Saturday at a temporary office in a residential neighborhood in Zhongguancun, Beijing’s answer to Silicon Valley, the 75-year-old computer science professor and member of the Chinese Academy of Engineering talked about his ambitious project to bring together all of China’s homegrown operating system (OS) developers in an alliance to replace Microsoft Windows in one to two years.

    • Attacking Lock-in In China
    • The Linux desktop-a-week review: ChromeOS

      This is not a review of ChromeOS. Nor is it a discussion of the viability of using a Chromebook as your primary computer.

      No, sir. We’re simply going to be looking at ChromeOS as a Desktop Environment from a usability perspective, and how it compares to the other Linux Desktop Environments I have reviewed in my “Desktop-a-week” series thus far.

  • Server

    • POWER ON!

      I’m really excited to have joined the OpenPOWER Foundation as an individual member (The first Ubuntu member even) just yesterday. I have already started contributing to projects and joined a workgroup of the foundation where I hope to offer my experience around software and hardware.

  • Kernel Space

  • Applications

  • Desktop Environments/WMs

    • K Desktop Environment/KDE SC/Qt

      • Habemus Maintainer!

        14 years ago, I started creating an image viewer. Back then it felt like a good project to get started with graphical application development for my newly installed Linux system. Little did I know… In 14 years Gwenview went through one toolkit change (GTK+1.2 to Qt2/KDE2), got ported to Qt3/KDE3, moved from SourceForge CVS to KDE Extragear, got ported to Qt4/KDE4, became the default image viewer of KDE4 and finally got ported to Qt5/KF5.

        [...]

        You may be aware I spend most of my free time these days on some other project. I am not completely out of Qt and KDE development however: I have a number of small side projects, many of them Qt-based, to which I want to give a bit more visibility. Stay tuned for more announcements.

      • DWD – an FAQ for questions around the Web

        DWDs are not CSDs, and all theming and drawing is handled by the window manager and decoration. In addition, applications only export the structure of their widgets, they do not pre-draw or draw the widgets themselves. Applications would have little or no say in how their decorations look, just like traditional SSDs.

      • More Information On The KDE Dynamic Window Decoration Plans

        Published last month were the plans by KDE developers to create Dynamic Window Decorations (DWD) as a hybrid between client-side and server-side decorations. Here’s more information on this concept for improving window decorations.

      • Display Managers In Plasma 5

        The last blog posts about KDM/LightDM/SDDM/WhateverDM left things a bit on an exciting cliffhanger so I’ve been asked a few times what the current state is.

        The short summary is we recommend SDDM as the display manager for Plasma 5.

      • SDDM Is The Recommended Display Manager Of KDE Plasma 5

        SDDM has a relatively short history but is a lightweight, QML-based display manager. The first SDDM release was just in March of 2013. Besides interest from KDE developers, SDDM is also supported by the Hawaii/Maui desktop project.

    • GNOME Desktop/GTK

      • Cinnamon 2.4 Released In Beta Form

        The Cinnamon 2.4 Desktop Environment is now out ahead of its official debut with Linux Mint 17.1 later this month.

      • Cinnamon 2.4

        On behalf of the team and all the developers who contributed to this build, I am proud to announce the release of Cinnamon 2.4!

        This new version will be featured in Linux Mint 17.1 “Rebecca” planned for the end of November and in LMDE 2 “Betsy” planned for Spring 2015.

        Here’s a quick overview of some of the new things in Cinnamon 2.4.

      • Preview of Cinnamon 2.4. Features desktop slideshow

        A preview release of what will become Cinnamon 2.4 is now available for testing. The stable version will ship with Linux Mint 17.1, which will be released at the end of the month, but if you’re willing to take it for a spin and report any bugs you find, you can upgrade to it now.

      • Cinnamon 2.4 Brings A Smoother Experience, Improved Settings

        Cinnamon 2.4 was released recently and it comes with improved settings, a redesigned toolbar for Nemo along with various other changes which bring a smoother overall experience.

  • Distributions

    • How to Find the Best Linux Distribution for a Specific Task

      If you’re looking for a Linux distribution to handle a specific (even niche) task, there most certainly is a distribution ready to serve. From routers to desktops, from servers to multi-media…there’s a Linux for everything.

    • New Releases

      • Neptune 4.2 Release

        We are proud to announce the release of Neptune 4.2. This service release comes with a brand new kernel 3.16.3 (+bfq I/O Scheduler) which includes many driver updates and improvements in power saving functions. Our improved installer now offers you to install on uefi capable PCs and brings in a new option which allows you to disable sudo for your user during installation.

      • XBoard/Winboard 4.8.0 released

        XBoard is a graphical user interface for chess in all its major forms, including international chess, xiangqi (Chinese chess), shogi Japanese chess) and Makruk. Many variations of chess are also supported.

    • Screenshots

    • Ballnux/SUSE

      • Orchestrating Docker Containers on openSUSE

        A couple of weeks ago the 11th edition of SUSE’s hackweek took place. This year I decided to spend this time to look into the different orchestration and service discovery tools build around Docker.

    • Red Hat Family

      • Red Hat Cloud Infrastructure Version 5 Adds Advanced Systems Management for OpenStack Private Clouds

        Red Hat, Inc., the world’s leading provider of open source solutions, today announced the general availability of Red Hat Cloud Infrastructure Version 5, featuring the powerful systems management capabilities of Red Hat Satellite. Red Hat Cloud Infrastructure is a comprehensive solution that supports organizations on their journey from traditional datacenter virtualization to OpenStack-powered clouds. With Red Hat Cloud Infrastructure Version 5, users can now manage their virtualization and OpenStack environments simultaneously, via a single platform.

      • Duke, Red Hat top donors to Economic Development Partnership of NC

        Five companies contributed a combined $440,000 to help get the Economic Development Partnership of North Carolina off the ground.

      • Red Hat releases Cloud Infrastructure version 5, expands Wipro partnership

        Red Hat has launched version 5 of its Cloud Infrastructure package, which is intended for organizations that want to dabble in both OpenStack and traditional data center virtualization simultaneously.

        Red Hat Cloud Infrastructure (RHCI) version 5 debuted on Monday at the OpenStack Summit in Paris. As before, it bundles the Red Hat Enterprise Linux OpenStack infrastructure-as-a-service platform with the company’s virtualization platform and CloudForms, its tool for managing hybrid cloud setups.

      • Fedora

    • Debian Family

      • Elive 2.4.0 Beta Is a Combination of Debian and Enlightenment

        The developers have been hopping from one Beta version to another and it seems that it might take them forever to get to the final version, but they want to make sure that everything will work as it should for the users that will eventually try it.

      • Derivatives

        • Canonical/Ubuntu

          • Is an Intel Tablet with Ubuntu Linux OS in the Works?

            Lately, almost all of the headlines about Ubuntu Linux and Canonical have involved the cloud. But open source fans dreaming of an Ubuntu-powered Intel (INTC) x86 tablet may reason for excitement, if reports are accurate that the UT One Linux tablet will ship by this December.

          • Ubuntu 14.10 Utopic Unicorn review: deceptively simple

            For an operating system named after a magical creature, the release might strike some of you as somewhat overwhelmingly similar to the previous release, Trusty.

            It’s the same creepy default wallpaper (if there is a difference I failed to notice it), the Amazon icon remains firmly conspicuous in the launcher despite protests and there is the same old universal purple shade.

          • Certified Ubuntu images coming to Google Cloud Platform

            Mobile advertising and social data tied up like ribbons to holiday tech story packages are starting to fall like autumn leaves, but the cloud will partially hover over the spotlight for the first half of the month.

          • Ubuntu Community Will Resist the Switch to Unity 8

            Ubuntu developers are working to bring the new Unity 8 to the desktop flavor of the distribution and it will take a while, but users are not really mentally prepared for the change. It will be different from Unity 7, which is the version currently in use, and not many people will be happy.

          • Flavours and Variants

  • Devices/Embedded

    • Open Source Remote Control lets you pilot just about any drone

      Drones and other remotely piloted vehicles are inherently limited by their controls; you frequently have to switch controllers when you switch vehicles, and you can usually forget about customization. You might not have to worry if the Open Source Remote Control (OSRC) project gets off the ground, however. The long-in-development peripheral uses a mix of modular hardware and Linux-based software that lets you steer just about any unmanned machine. On top of a programmable interface, you can swap in new wireless modules and shoulder switches to either accommodate new drones or improve existing controls. You can also attach a 4.8-inch touchscreen module (typically for a first-person view), use cellular networks or even share one vehicle between multiple operators — handy if you’re at a flying club or shooting a movie.

    • Free courseware posted for Yocto on BeagleBone

      Free Electrons has posted free training materials on building an embedded Linux project using Yocto Project and OpenEmbedded on a BeagleBone Black.

      The Linux Foundation’s Yocto Project has been largely supported and influenced by Intel, but it has long since evolved into a phenomenon of its own that is as at home on ARM, PowerPC, and MIPS targets as it is on x86. In fact, for its latest training course on Yocto Project and the associated OpenEmbedded build environment, Free Electrons turned to the ARM-based BeagleBone Black single board computer as the target device. The course shows how to boot root filesystems built with the Yocto Project, as well as run and debug the custom applications compiled with it.

    • Phones

      • Android

        • Android 5.0 Lollipop may make bloatware a thing of the past

          Buying a phone from service providers is one of the things we dread the most. If you want a good deal on a new Android phone, you usually have to sign a two-year contract. But the issues don’t stop there; carrier-branded phones never get software updates as fast as unlocked phones do, and they are always weighed down with additional software that no one really cares about. We wouldn’t complain much about bloatware if service providers only included the apps you need to manage your account or check your visual voicemail, but most phones have anywhere from 5 to 20 additional apps (most of which are available through Google Play) pre-installed into the system partition, making it impossible to uninstall them.

        • How Will Google Respond as Android’s Market Share Peaks?

          For the quarter that ended in September, Apple held 12 percent market share, while Windows Phone and BlackBerry commanded 3 percent and 1 percent.

        • Google’s Android Begins to Top Out

          Android ran 84% of smartphones shipped globally in the third quarter, according to research firm Strategy Analytics, down slightly from 85% in the second quarter.

Free Software/Open Source

Leftovers

  • Hardware

    • Intel paying up after allegedly ‘manipulating’ benchmarks 15 years ago

      Once upon a time, Intel’s processors didn’t dominate AMD. In fact, AMD’s Athlon processors were mighty competitive, enough so that Intel allegedly “manipulated” its Pentium 4 benchmark scores in the early 2000s to mask the performance gap. Intel denies those claims, but nevertheless, you’re probably feeling pretty taken advantage of right now.

  • Security

  • Defence/Police/Secrecy/Aggression

    • Syrian rebels armed and trained by US surrender to al-Qaeda

      Two of the main rebel groups receiving weapons from the United States to fight both the regime and jihadist groups in Syria have surrendered to al-Qaeda.

      The US and its allies were relying on Harakat Hazm and the Syrian Revolutionary Front to become part of a ground force that would attack the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (Isil).

      For the last six months the Hazm movement, and the SRF through them, had been receiving heavy weapons from the US-led coalition, including GRAD rockets and TOW anti-tank missiles.

    • Addicted to Intervention

      American consciousness by capturing the Iraqi cities of Tikrit and Mosul in June, many US elites blamed a lack of US intervention. The US should have kept troops in Iraq, they said, and intervened in Syria’s civil war. This analysis, coming from both conservatives and liberals, went virtually unchallenged by journalists whose response to the latest US wars has been a depressing replay of the coverage of more than a decade ago. Few lessons seem to have been learned.

    • Drone-Strike Feminism

      Using the oppression of women to sell another Iraq War

  • Environment/Energy/Wildlife

    • The Climate-Change Solution No One Will Talk About

      The equation seems fairly simple: The more the world’s population rises, the greater the strain on dwindling resources and the greater the impact on the environment.

      The solution? Well, that’s a little trickier to talk about.

      Public-health discussions will regularly include mentions of voluntary family planning as a way to reduce unwanted pregnancies and births. But, said Jason Bremner of the Population Reference Bureau, those policies can also pay dividends for the environment.

  • Finance

  • PR/AstroTurf/Lobbying

    • Megadonations Follow Randa Ruling in Wisconsin

      A hole in Wisconsin’s campaign finance laws opened by federal judge Rudolph Randa in September is being exploited by out-of-state billionaires like Sheldon Adelson, blowing open the floodgates to huge checks for the state’s gubernatorial candidates in the final weeks and days of this hotly-contested race.

    • Koch-Tied Group Urges Stoners Not to Vote for Mary Burke

      The Koch-backed American Future Fund is running a series of web-only ads urging Wisconsin stoners not to vote for Democratic gubernatorial candidate Mary Burke, but instead to support the Libertarian Party candidate, Robert Burke.

    • Direct Democracy Tackles Fracking, GMOs, Pesticides on Election Day

      These ballot measures reflect “model” legislation pushed by the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), as the Center for Media and Democracy, which publishes PRWatch, has reported.

    • Stonewalled: Sharyl Attkisson’s Failed Attempt To Rehabilitate Her Bogus Reporting

      Attkisson resigned this year after two decades at CBS and promptly launched a media tour attacking her former employer for supposedly protecting the Obama administration from her reporting. Her new book has been published and promoted by conservative interests, who clearly see this narrative as a confirmation of their worldview that the “liberal” media is biased against them.

    • The ALEC Problem Is Even Worse Than John Oliver Thinks

      HBO’s John Oliver did what many others in the media have not by shining a spotlight on the shadowy influence of the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC). But ALEC’s latest initiative, which has its sights set on molding county and municipal governments, has deeper aspirations than even Oliver’s show explored — and has been almost entirely ignored by the media.

  • Censorship

    • Moscow’s fringe ‘Doc’ theatre faces ‘censorship’ with eviction

      Russia has been discouraging public celebrations of Halloween as part of a campaign against western influence.

      But that did not stop Teatr.Doc from staging a bitingly satirical “Night of the Living Dead” on Friday night in what may be one of the last ever productions at the tiny basement theatre in central Moscow famous for innovative and uncompromising work.

      In a move that has shaken the international theatrical community, the Moscow authorities have ordered Teatr.Doc to vacate the basement on grounds that it had violated property regulations.

    • Catherine Rampell: Theater censorship is alive and well

      The community leaders of Maiden, it turns out — to one vignette in particular. Remember that scene with the falling-down gag? There’s no sex, or kissing, or even allusions to lust. But the gravity-prone characters are both men, which was incendiary enough to lead the principal to cancel the production, citing “sexually explicit overtones and multiple sexual innuendoes.”

    • Anti-Censorship Play Receives Surprise Approval From Lebanon’s Censors

      A play that examines Lebanon’s censorship system has been approved by the country’s office in charge of artistic permits, a decision that could point towards a more open future for the country’s writers and performers.

    • Jerry Springer creator Richard Thomas hits out at censorship in the arts

      Jerry Springer the Opera creator Richard Thomas has become the latest industry figure to speak out about the importance of freedom of speech within the arts, claiming organisations funded by the taxpayer have a particular responsibility to take risks.

    • ‘Anarcho-Capitalist’ Stefan Molyneux Sued For Abusing The DMCA

      A few months ago, we wrote about the strange saga of self-described “anarcho-capitalist” Stefan Molyneux more or less admitting that he and a colleague named Michael DeMarco had filed questionable DMCA notices in response to some critical YouTube videos. DeMarco and Molyneux defended the use of the DMCA by arguing that the videos involved doxxing some Molyneux supporters.

    • Cleveland Plain Dealer Owner Demands Takedown Of Unflattering Video Featuring Candidate It Endorsed In Governor’s Race
    • Northeast Ohio Media Group threatens website for posting editorial board video clip

      The Northeast Ohio Media Group last week posted a video of Ohio Gov. John Kasich and challenger Ed FitzGerald meeting with the editorial board, then took it down without explanation and replaced it with an audio recording.

    • Chelsea Handler Slams Instagram for Removing Her Topless Photo

      Instagram did take the photo down, as per their guidelines, prompting this response from Handler: “If a man posts a photo of his nipples, it’s ok, but not a woman? Are we in 1825?”

      After her first photo was removed, Handler reposted the pic again only for Instagram to remove it again.

    • As Facebook reinstates banned breastfeeding photograph, FEMAIL asks: Is there one rule for celebrity mothers and another for normal women?

      Earlier this week, actress Alyssa Milano posted a tender snap on her Instagram page of herself breastfeeding her one-month-old baby girl Elizabella.

      The 41-year-old was the picture of maternal bliss in the black and white snap, joining the many other proud celebrity mothers who have chosen to share the intimate moment with friends and fans through social media.

      The responses to this, like most A-list breastfeeding photographs, has been overwhelming positive. One follower wrote: ‘Such a beautiful photo! Thank you for sharing this sweet moment with us, and thank you for helping to normalize breastfeeding!’

    • Instagram feed to feature 15 second video-ads

      Instagram a popular social networking service that allows users to share photos and videos will now support video advertisements also. The company has reportedly allowed a few advertisers including Disney, Banana Republic, Lancome, Activision and CW to run a 15 second ad video.

    • Senator Wyden Attacks CIA Redaction Demands As ‘Unprecedented’

      It’s well known that CIA’s been stalling over the release of the officially declassified 480 page “executive summary” of the 6,300 page CIA torture report, put together by staffers of the Senate Intelligence Committee over many years at a cost of $40 million. It’s known that the report is somewhat devastating to the CIA and the CIA isn’t happy about it (at all). Originally, the CIA suggested redactions that made the report incomprehensible, even as James Clapper said it was “just 15%” that was redacted.

    • If GOP Takes Senate Next Week, Expect The CIA Torture Report To Disappear

      We’ve heard some mumbling about one of the main reasons that the CIA has been dragging its feet on declassifying the executive summary of the CIA torture report that the Senate Intelligence Committee put together: it knows there’s a decent chance that the Republicans will win the Senate next week, and suddenly the report may disappear from view. As you may recall, the Intelligence Committee (with support from GOP Senators) voted to declassify the 480 page executive summary of the 6,300 page report (which the Senate spent $40 million putting together). Multiple leaks concerning the report have suggested that it’s devastating and details how terrible the CIA’s torture program was, how it was completely ineffective and how the CIA lied about it all.

  • Privacy

  • Civil Rights

  • Internet/Net Neutrality

    • Hungary internet tax cancelled after mass protests

      Hungary has decided to shelve a proposed tax on internet data traffic after mass protests against the plan.

      “This tax in its current form cannot be introduced,” Prime Minister Viktor Orban said on Friday.

    • After Protests Continue, Hungary Dumps Stupid Internet Tax Idea

      Earlier this week, we wrote about widespread demonstrations against a monumentally stupid plan by the Hungarian government to tax internet usage on a per-gigabyte-downloaded plan. The protests caused the government to “modify” the plan and put a cap on how much tax would be charged, but that seemed to do little to stop the complaints — and thus, the government is shelving the plan entirely, with Prime Minister Viktor Orban announcing that the “tax in its current form cannot be introduced.” Of course, that leaves open the possibility of it coming back in “another” form. But perhaps Orban is learning not to take on the internet.

    • FCC Tests The Waters On A ‘Hybrid’ Net Neutrality Solution That Almost Everyone Hates

      Gautham Nagesh at the Wall Street Journal (who was also the first to reveal many of the details of Tom Wheeler’s original net neutrality proposal) had a story last night confirming the buzz over the last few weeks that Wheeler is now exploring a new set of “hybrid” net neutrality rules that appear, on their face, to take parts of the plans that consumer groups want and parts of what the broadband players want… and comes out, in the end, with a plan that almost no one wants. There is something to the old saying that a good compromise leaves everyone a little unhappy, but it appears that the rules being contemplated right now might leave nearly everyone really unhappy. It’s not clear that’s a good result.

    • MPAA Lobbies Lawmakers on Internet Tax and Net Neutrality

      Every year the MPAA spends millions of dollars in Washington to guarantee their anti-piracy interests are secured. In the most recent quarter the Hollywood group added several of its topics to the agenda of U.S. lawmakers, including Internet tax and net neutrality.

  • Intellectual Monopolies

    • Copyrights

      • Copyright Monopoly Enforcement Gets To Trump Human Rights, Yet Again

        Australia’s administration has introduced a Data Retention bill, learning nothing from the court rulings that declare the practice to be in violation of fundamental rights. They plan to log everybody’s correspondence and movements – with the idea of using that data to enforce the copyright monopoly.

      • Embedding Is Not Copyright Infringement, EU Court Rules
      • Europe’s New Digital Commissioner Explores Imposing An EU-Wide ‘Google Tax’

        When Google is taking intellectual works from within the EU and using them, then the EU has to protect those works and demand a tax from Google.

        Coming from the person who is charged with reforming European copyright, this does not augur well. If Oettinger really thinks that such a tax is the way forward for copyright in the digital age, he is evidently as clueless about the Internet as everyone feared he was, after telling the European Parliament that celebrities storing nude pictures online are stupid.

      • Spain Passes Much-Debated Intellectual Property Law

        After more than a year in the works, Spain passed on Thursday its Intellectual Property Law, with its hotly debated, so-called Google tax that allows for fines on aggregators that show snippets of content without paying for it.

      • Spain Passes Copyright Law; Demands Payment For Snippets And Linking To Infringing Content

        Apparently ignoring just how badly this worked out for publishers in Germany, the Spanish Parliament has passed a law to fine aggregators and search engines for using snippets or linking to infringing content. As plenty of folks have described, the bill is clearly just a Google tax. As we had discussed, the proposed bill would be a disaster for digital commons/open access projects. There had been some thought that the proposed bill might be delayed because of a referral to the EU Court of Justice on a related issue, but apparently that didn’t happen. Either way, it looks like the bill kept the ridiculous “inalienable right” to being paid for snippets — meaning that Creative Commons-type licenses may not even be allowed, and people won’t even be allowed to offer up their content for free. That’s ridiculous.

11.02.14

Links 2/11/2014: Dual-screen Android, OpenBSD 5.6 Released

Posted in News Roundup at 2:04 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

GNOME bluefish

Contents

GNU/Linux

Free Software/Open Source

  • Jonathan Moneymaker on Altamira’s Open Source Push and $1B Air Force Intell Contract Spot

    ExecutiveBiz: Where can Open Source help agencies manage some of those budget challenges?

    Jonathan Moneymaker: In our National Security market Open Source is an idea whose time has come. Gone are the days of questions around quality, scalability, or security. The value is really in speed and flexibility. In many cases deploying open source solutions enable us to start at a 80-90% or higher solution then integrate or customize that framework to a specific mission set that is able to adapt as fast as the threats our customers are combatting.

    In terms of scalability or security, we designed in parallel to our customer’s roadmaps building on Accumulo, the AWS infrastructure and ensuring capabilities such as our big data and visualization platform, Lumify, are fully ICITE compliant. By doing so, it gives our customers the speed to mission required and every dollar spent goes directly into mission capability delivering budgetary relief that they have been looking for from costly traditional proprietary licensing models.

  • 450,000 open source big data connector customers served

    TIBCO stages its annual global convention next week – what used to be called TUCON is now called TIBCO NOW.

  • Events

  • Web Browsers

  • SaaS/Big Data

    • Convirture Adds OpenStack Cloud Backup Tool

      A lot of people back up their data to the cloud. But how do you back up the cloud itself? Convirture, the company that until now has specialized in cloud and virtualization management solutions, hopes to answer this question with a new backup and disaster recovery solution for the OpenStack open source cloud operating system running on the KVM hypverisor.

    • Mirantis Previews OpenStack Juno Cloud Platform

      Mirantis, the “pure-play” OpenStack vendor, is gearing up for the release of version 6.0 of its open source cloud computing platform, which will be based on OpenStack Juno and include the latest Hadoop big data and network functions virtualization (NFV) features, the company said in details of the new release.

  • CMS

  • BSD

    • OpenBSD 5.6 Released

      We are pleased to announce the official release of OpenBSD 5.6. This is our 36th release on CD-ROM (and 37th via FTP/HTTP). We remain proud of OpenBSD’s record of more than ten years with only two remote holes in the default install.

  • FSF/FSFE/GNU/SFLC

    • Free-software pioneer says it’s all about liberty

      When it comes to code that runs a computer or a program, Richard Stallman believes it should be free.

      Not only at no cost to the user, but unshackled and independent. To Stallman, it is a matter of liberty, not price.

      “We say free software as in ‘free speech’ not ‘free beer,’” Stallman said.

      The computer programmer and activist shared his views, which earned him the MacArthur “Genius Grant,” during a presentation at Weber State University on Thursday.

    • GCC’s JIT Compiler Support Moves A Step Closer To Mainline

      Red Hat’s David Malcolm remains committed to landing his just-in-time (JIT) compiler support for GCC.

  • Project Releases

  • Public Services/Government

    • Open Source Project Could Replace Traditional Passports With Bitcoin Tech

      To those who are only marginally familiar with bitcoin, the world’s leading digital cryptocurrency, the idea of adapting the tech into a type of globally accessible passport may seem odd. But Christopher Ellis, a hacker that specializes in privacy and decentralized security, sees them as a natural fit.

    • DoD EHR Contract: Open Source Vs. Commercial

      VistA is the electronic health records system created by the Veterans Administration, which became open source because as the result of taxpayer funded work it was covered under the Freedom of Information Act and was obtained by outside companies seeking to leverage it for their own projects. The VA and the DoD flirted with using VistA as part of a common open source EHR that would cover members of the military from the first day of active duty into their lives as veterans. But whether because of organizational or technical reasons, that joint technical project broke down.

Leftovers

  • Fall of the Berlin Wall 25th Anniversary: Pictorial History of the Wall and Famous Escapes

    This year sees the 25th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. From 1961 to 1989, the city of Berlin was divided by the most visible sign of the Cold War: a barrier more than 140km (87 miles) long.

  • Poppy seller burned in aerosol attack in Manchester

    A 15-year-old Army cadet who was selling poppies for Remembrance Day suffered burns to his face in an attack with a lit aerosol can.

    The boy, who was wearing his uniform, was at a bus stop near Manchester Art Gallery at 18:00 GMT on Saturday when he was attacked.

  • Defence/Police/Secrecy/Aggression

    • FRESH DRONE HIT IN NWA LEAVES FOUR MORE DEAD

      Once again making open mockery of the territorial integrity of Pakistan , the American CIA operated planes struck in the North Waziristan agency Thursday morning killing at least four people. The foreign office has strongly condemned the fresh drone hit in NWA where the Pakistan Army led security forces are already conducting an effective surgery against the insurgents for the last more than four months and made substantial gains in curbing the terrorism. Unconfirmed reports say those kill in Thursday’s missiles hit, include two foreign militants.

    • Why Are We Still Waiting for Answers on Drones?

      Mamana’s son, Rafiq ur Rehman, is a 39-year-old primary-school teacher. He and his two children, Zubair, 13, and Nabila, 9, were the first family members of a U.S. drone strike victim ever to speak to Members of Congress. Rafiq explained that he and his family were educators, not terrorists. He wanted to know why his family was targeted by the U.S. military. Zubair, a teenager, recalled how he “watched a U.S. drone kill my grandmother.” He described why he now fears blue skies: “Because drones do not fly when the skies are gray.” Nabila was picking okra with her grandmother for a religious holiday meal, when day became night. “I saw from the sky a drone and I hear a dum-dum noise. Everything was dark and I couldn’t see anything, but I heard a scream.”

    • GROUNDED Tells Compelling Story of Drone Pilot

      The lesson for me from the play and the quilts is that there are many different victims of drone warfare – and that it’s time for the US to reconsider this policy. Congress needs to reassert its control over US war-making and insist on ending this drone program. Of those who speak for us in Congress, Senator Schumer is only one who has not acted to demand that Congress be the decider over what is now becoming an undeclared and endless war policy – in Syria, Iraq, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Somalia and Yemen.

    • US intervention via drone attacks condemned

      Islamabad- Pakistan has strongly condemned the recent US drone attack in South Waziristan.

    • Matters of jurisdiction: High court seeks petitioner’s assistance in case against drone strikes

      The Peshawar High Court (PHC) on Thursday directed a petitioner to help it determine whether the judiciary had the authority to deliberate on a case against US drone strikes. The court issued these instructions in light of a Supreme Court judgment last year which declared the apex court could not decide on matters of foreign affairs.

    • Drones, Pakistan’s worst kept secret

      The current surge in drone strikes in FATA has reignited the infamous ‘drone debate’ and ‘Pakistan’s tacit agreement’ on intelligence sharing with the United States.

    • Pakistan terms US drone strike ‘unnecessary’

      Drone attacks are widely unpopular across Pakistan and the country has opposed the strikes several times in past considering it a violation of their territorial sovereignty. (end) sbk.ibi

    • My Daughter and I Were Arrested Today By Military Police Guarding Worlds Most Hated Weapon

      It was a familiar and warm exchange of greetings and spirited talk. The small group of activists I was with had called out to the military gate guards with a question concerning the spider web like substance that seemed to be everywhere around the base; on cars, vegetation telephone poles, fences, floating in the air and across the land. Men with sidearms and radios in camo fatigues approached us.

      It was just then getting dark with the officer-in-charge and us each on our legal side of the white line that marked base property and certain arrest should we cross it. With U2s and fighter jets flying around overhead, the officer in charge cheerfully insisted we were looking at spider webs. He then asked if we intended to cross the line at which we answered “not tonight”

    • WATCH: Anti-drone protest held at a Gwynedd airfield

      Peace protesters placed photographs of children injured in drone attacks in the Middle East on the fence of a Gwynedd airfield.

      Cymdeithas y Cymod (Fellowship of Reconciliation) members were responding to news that Llanbedr Airfield will start flight tests of Remotely Piloted Aircraft or drones in early 2015.

      Around 25 people took part in the protest yesterday.

      Peace campaigner Anna Jane Evans said: “We are worried Wales is being used more and more as a practice ground for killing.

    • Naming The Dead: One Group’s Struggle To Record Deaths From U.S. Drone Strikes In Pakistan

      Last year, the Bureau of Investigative Journalism in London embarked upon an ambitious effort to record the names of people reportedly killed by U.S. drone strikes in Pakistan. The project, called Naming the Dead, aims to acknowledge those who have lost their lives in the strikes and to create more transparency about a counterterrorism program shrouded in secrecy.

      The CIA has conducted hundreds of drone strikes targeting militants in Pakistan’s tribal regions since June 2004. U.S. officials have lauded the program for its effectiveness and precision, and it has become an essential pillar of the administration’s counterterrorism policy. Yet despite promises by President Barack Obama to make the program more transparent and apply the highest possible standards to avoid civilian casualties, the administration has, so far, continued its secretive practices.

    • Former CIA Analyst Ray McGovern Arrested While Trying to Attend David Petraeus Event in New York

      Former CIA analyst and activist Ray McGovern was arrested as he attempted to attend an event in New York City featuring former CIA director and retired military general, David Petraeus. He was charged with resisting arrest, criminal trespass and disorderly conduct.

    • Former CIA Agent, Peace Activist Ray McGovern Arrested And ‘Brutalized’ By NYPD

      Ray McGovern, a retired CIA agent turned peace activist, was arrested by the New York Police Department before McGovern could attend a speech by David Petraeus. Witnesses say McGovern was “yelling in pain” as he was being detained.

      Former CIA director David Petraeus, retired U.S. Army Lt. Colonel John Nagl, and author Max Boot were slated to give a speech on American Foreign Policy at the 92nd Street Y on the Upper East Side in New York. The anti-war group “The World Can’t Wait” said McGovern was arrested “at protest of speech.”

    • Former CIA analyst arrested after trying to crash event with David Petraeus

      A former CIA analyst turned anti-war activist was arrested right after attempting to crash a discussion about foreign policy with retired Army Gen. and former CIA Director David Petraeus — even although he claims he purchased the $45 ticket. Ray McGovern,…

    • The Nazis Next Door: Eric Lichtblau on How the CIA & FBI Secretly Sheltered Nazi War Criminals

      Investigative reporter Eric Lichtblau’s new book unveils the secret history of how the United States became a safe haven for thousands of Nazi war criminals. Many of them were brought here after World War II by the CIA and got support from then FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover. Lichtblau first broke the story in 2010, based on newly declassified documents. Now, after interviews with dozens of agents for the first time, he has published his new book, “The Nazis Next Door: How America Became a Safe Haven for Hitler’s Men.”

    • US to train and arm Syrian rebels, despite CIA report that the method seldom works
    • Amazon-CIA Partnership Critics Launch Ad Campaign, Includes Billboard In Front Of Amazon HQ

      Amazon’s $600 million contract with the CIA related to cloud computing services has caused alarm throughout the civil liberties community. The terms of the deal have not been disclosed raising concern that the CIA could be using its access to Amazon’s massive data to conduct intelligence work rather than simply storing data. In light of the ongoing domestic spying scandal regarding the NSA, fewer and fewer people are willing to take government assurances on protecting the public’s privacy.

    • Contras and Drugs, Three Decades Later

      Thus began the Iran-Contra scandal. The Contras were an irregular military formation put together by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in 1981 to overthrow the leftist Sandinista government of Nicaragua. The war they provoked caused tens of thousands of deaths and devastating damage to Nicaragua’s economy.

    • Feds get subpoenas in CIA leak case

      Federal prosecutors obtained 100 blank subpoenas last week for use in the upcoming trial of a CIA officer accused of leaking top-secret information to New York Times reporter James Risen.

      The move clears the way for the Justice Department to proceed with a new review of whether Risen should be subpoenaed to testify at the trial of Jeffrey Sterling, the CIA employee accused of disclosing details of a CIA effort to set back Iran’s nuclear program.

    • Ex-CIA Officer Writes Book on Assassinations, Gets Threat on His Life

      Former CIA operative Bob Baer’s newest book on assassinations hasn’t even been released yet, and he told MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” federal officials have already told him there’s a threat on his life.

      Read Latest Breaking News from Newsmax.com http://www.Newsmax.com/Newsfront/CIA-Book-Bob-Baer-FBI/2014/10/27/id/603354/#ixzz3HvRbCqLm
      Urgent: Should Obamacare Be Repealed? Vote Here Now!

    • Of men and mercenaries

      Be it war, counterterrorism, securing Africa’s natural resources or fighting ebola, this former US Navy SEAL, now a billionaire, is the ultimate Mr Fix-It when it comes to the world of what used to be known as mercenarism.

      Today, that word, “mercenarism”, with its dogs-of-war and soldiers-of-fortune connotations, is frowned upon by the likes of men like Prince, who much prefer the less lurid acronym of PMSCs – private military and security companies – to describe their line of business.

    • Transparency for thee, but not for me?

      While Attorney General Eric Holder is calling for the Senate and the Obama Administration to lay bare the alleged abuse of detainees in Central Intelligence Agency custody, his Justice Department is going to unusual lengths to impose a complete black-out on details about the investigations he supervised into those same incidents.

    • Gormley: What we know about transparency and torture

      For politicians, “Transparency and accountability!” is one of those uncommonly generous and dark-horse-sympathetic political slogans: the kind that parties of any ideology can plagiarize but that underdogs can most easily claim as their own (at least while they remain underdogs).

  • Finance

  • PR/AstroTurf/Lobbying

    • USA Today: Still Not Too Late to Attack Gary Webb

      The chatter around Kill the Messenger, the film based on the life of investigative reporter Gary Webb, has mostly faded. But this week USA Today ran a column that mangled the basic facts of Webb’s reporting.

    • Facebook Wants You to Vote on Tuesday. Here’s How It Messed With Your Feed in 2012.

      Yet the process by which Facebook has developed this tool—what the firm calls the “voter megaphone”—has not been very transparent, raising questions about its use and Facebook’s ability to influence elections. Moreover, while Facebook has been developing and promoting this tool, it has also been quietly conducting experiments on how the company’s actions can affect the voting behavior of its users.

      In particular, Facebook has studied how changes in the news feed seen by its users—the constant drip-drip-drip of information shared by friends that is heart of their Facebook experience—can affect their level of interest in politics and their likelihood of voting. For one such experiment, conducted in the three months prior to Election Day in 2012, Facebook increased the amount of hard news stories at the top of the feeds of 1.9 million users. According to one Facebook data scientist, that change—which users were not alerted to—measurably increased civic engagement and voter turnout.

    • CMD Asks for Federal Criminal Investigation of Wisconsin Club for Growth

      The Center for Media and Democracy has asked Wisconsin’s U.S. Attorneys to investigate Wisconsin Club for Growth for allegedly making false statements on tax filings and conspiring to defraud the United States, federal crimes arising from WiCFG claiming to spend $0 in political activity in 2011 and 2012 while spending almost $20 million influencing elections.

  • Censorship

  • Privacy

    • Ex-spy teaching espionage at A&M’s Bush school

      Tenet had a request from former President George H.W. Bush, who served as CIA director from 1976 to 1977. Olson says Bush was always a “strong advocate” of intelligence, and wanted it to be taught at A&M’s new school of government and public service that bore his name. Olson’s move to Marquette was two weeks away, but the idea of “helping build a program of intelligence and national security” was too appealing, he said.

    • UK court backs security ban on anonymised telephone calls system

      A UK court has upheld the Government’s right to ban commercial marketing of a money-saving telephone service on security grounds because it could provide anonymity for callers. The service uses “GSM gateways” that can reduce call charges by rerouting calls through mobile phone SIM cards – but it also allows users to make anonymous calls, potentially avoiding government surveillance.

      The Court of Appeal refused to award companies damages for a government licensing system that in effect bans the GSM gateway services they offered and largely halted their business.

    • What We Can Learn From The Adobe E-Reader Mess

      Earlier this month we wrote about potential malicious behavior in Adobe’s e-reader software, “Digital Editions.” There were several independent reports claiming that Adobe’s software was sending back to Adobe–in the clear–a list of books read in the software. There were also independent reports that the program was sending back lists of books on an attached e-reader, even if those books had never been opened in ADE itself – in other words, collecting information not just about the book you are reading now, but your electronic library.

    • Facebook, hidden services, and https certs

      In terms of both design and security, hidden services still need some love. We have plans for improved designs (see Tor proposal 224) but we don’t have enough funding and developers to make it happen. We’ve been talking to some Facebook engineers this week about hidden service reliability and scalability, and we’re excited that Facebook is thinking of putting development effort into helping improve hidden services.

    • Taunton Students Suspended After Posing With Airsoft Rifles On Facebook

      Two high school students in Taunton have been suspended after they posted a photo of themselves holding Airsoft rifles. Thousands of people have leapt to their defense online, but their school isn’t backing down.

      The Airsoft rifles look dangerous, but they shoot plastic pellets. Tito Velez, 15, often competes with a team as a hobby.

    • NSA Phone Surveillance Faces Fresh Court Test

      The National Security Agency’s collection of Americans’ phone records will face a fresh test this coming week when a Washington, D.C., appeals-court panel hears arguments over the surveillance program.

    • Brazil Builds Internet Cable To Portugal To Avoid NSA Surveillance

      Brazil is building a cable across the Atlantic to escape the reach of the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA). The move is one of many ways the Brazilian government is breaking ties with American technology companies — but it won’t come cheap.

    • Obama congratulates Brazil president (and NSA critic)
    • Focus on NSA Surveillance Limits Turns to Courts

      While Congress mulls how to curtail the NSA’s collection of Americans’ telephone records, impatient civil liberties groups are looking to legal challenges already underway in the courts to limit government surveillance powers.

    • U.S. Rep. Holt discusses NSA spying, Ebola quarantine at ACLU forum in Princeton

      With little more than two months before he closes the book on a 16-year Congressional career, U.S. Rep. Rush Holt (D-12th Dist.) discussed the challenges in store when it comes to preserving civil liberties in the 21st century.

    • In NSA Bills, the Devil Is in the Details

      This is a longstanding issue that’s been brought up by lots of people lots of times. It’s not some minor subtlety. If the government decides to look for “all calls from the 213 area code,” that’s not necessarily bulk collection even though it would amass millions of records. It would be up to a judge to decide.

      [...]

      If and when we get close to Congress actually considering bills to rein in the NSA—about which I’m only modestly optimistic in the first place—this is going to be a key thing to keep an eye on. As the ACLU and the EFF and others keep reminding us, reining in the NSA isn’t a simple matter of “ending” their bulk collection program. The devil is truly in the details, and tiny changes in wording can literally mean the difference between something that works and something that’s useless. Or maybe even worse than useless. As Pohlman points out, if you choose the right words, the NSA could end up having a freer hand than they do today. This is something to pay close attention to.

    • NSA-APPROVED SAMSUNG KNOX STORES PINS IN PLAINTEXT
    • Before the NSA, there was the USPS

      That man, Leslie James Pickering, is a bookstore owner in Buffalo. More than a decade ago, however, Pickering was formerly a spokesman for the Earth Liberation Front, an environmental group deemed “eco-terrorists” by the FBI—and the presumed cause of his surveillance.

    • Fascism, American-Style

      On November 4, 1952 the NSA was created by a Presidential Executive Order signed by then president Harry Truman. Earlier that year, in January 1952, Truman’s state of the union address focused on the Korean War, the global Soviet-Communist threat, the “Iran oil situation”, and the need to increase the production of US military equipment for use by American forces, and for transfer to Western European Allies. Truman called on Americans to seek guidance in the God of Peace even as a brutal shadow war was being waged by the United States to eliminate popularly elected “leftist” governments.

    • Pentagon’s plans for a spy service to rival the CIA have been pared back

      The Pentagon has scaled back its plan to assemble an overseas spy service that could have rivaled the CIA in size, backing away from a project that faced opposition from lawmakers who questioned its purpose and cost, current and former U.S. officials said.

    • Does the CIA want Republicans to win the midterms?

      Will we ever see the Senate’s 6,000 page report on CIA torture without someone leaking it? A leak always been the most likely resolution for the transparency-seeking public, but, in this case, it’s increasingly looking like the only one.

    • If the Republicans Win Big on Tuesday, So Will the CIA
    • You’ll Probably Never Know Why The CIA Spied On The Senate

      The document is known as the “Panetta Review,” and senators contend it backs up damning conclusions in their still-classified report on the CIA’s post-9/11 enhanced interrogation program. Senate investigators uncovered the internal CIA document in their years-long probe, and the agency was so concerned that it alleged the investigators had broken the law in obtaining the review. CIA agents, in turn, searched Senate computers.

    • EFF files brief in response to Jewel v. NSA opposition

      The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) filed a new brief in response to a government opposition against a summary judgment motion.

    • Obama appeals ruling on NSA disclosure

      Not satisfied with a Bay Area judge’s ruling that allowed the government to withhold a series of documents about its telephone surveillance program, the Obama administration filed an appeal Monday over the one document that the judge ordered disclosed.

    • The NSA’s culture of paternalism must be fixed

      Not only did this explanation finally clarify what had previously been to me a very confusing idea, it also confirmed what I had already come to suspect: namely, that high-ranking officials from the NSA possess a paternalistic and condescending attitude toward the American people. The fundamental premise of Hayden’s argument is that the American people are like children, who must not only be protected from external threats, but also from themselves.

    • Former NSA Official Warns Companies Against Cyber-Retaliation or ‘Hacking Back’

      Private companies should not use the law of talion, taking revenge over the entities, which are suspected to be hacking them, warned Joel Brenner, a former senior counsel at the NSA and and head of US counterintelligence under the Director of National Intelligence.

    • Does Hillary Clinton Oppose NSA Spying? Nobody Knows (Except Maybe the NSA)

      National Journal raises an interesting question about the presumed candidacy of Hillary Clinton: Where does she fall on NSA spying and the mass surveillance state?

    • Members of the Deep State exchange high-fives, celebrating our passivity

      On 6 June 2013 the Guardian and Washington Post published the first in the latest round of revelations about the NSA’s surveillance programs. Amidst the outpouring of brave rhetoric about the need to change, I predicted that nothing would happen. Rather, our passivity would encourage the leaders of the national security state (aka the Deep State). After 17 months it’s clear I was right

  • Civil Rights

  • Internet/Net Neutrality

    • Mobile Providers: No One Has Complained* About Our Service, So Net Neutrality Shouldn’t Apply To Us

      As we’ve pointed out in the past, the wireless providers, led by lobbying group CTIA, are desperate not to have the FCC include wireless broadband in whatever new net neutrality/open internet rules it releases. However, Tom Wheeler has been hinting that he’s had enough of wireless providers screwing over the American public. The head of CTIA, Meredith Attwell Baker (famous for jumping from an FCC commissioner job to head Comcast lobbyist just months after she approved Comcast’s merger with NBC Universal), has written an absolutely hilarious opinion piece at Wireless Week insisting that everyone loves their wireless providers, so there’s no need whatsoever to apply any net neutrality rules.

    • Does the FCC really not get it about the Internet?

      [I am posting below a short essay by my friend and colleague Brett Frischmann of Cardozo Law School concerning the “net neutrality” rules now being considered by the FCC. I’ve stayed largely away from the whole net neutrality debate over the years — too much inside [FCC] baseball for my taste — but Brett’s been in the middle of it for some time, and I think he draws attention below to a simple, but very profound, problem at the heart of the approach the agency is taking: the distinction it is drawing between “edge providers” (suppliers of content) and “end users” (recipients of content). One can hardly imagine a more inappropriate distinction one could draw on the Internet that we now have, so much of whose power has come from its “end-to-end” design: all senders are recipients, all recipients are senders, and all IP addresses are equal. But I’ll let Brett fill in more of the details./DGP]

    • FCC chief set for panto horse net neutrality settlement

      THE NET NEUTRALITY DEBATE looks set to be settled soon with a neither-fish-nor-flesh solution designed to appease everyone and please no one.

      According to sources close to Tim Wheeler, chairman of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), and chief architect of the deal that no one wants except the cable industry, the Shill in Chief is expected to announce that the FCC will take on greater responsibility for broadband management.

    • Net Neutrality May Extend Phone Regulations to Broadband

      Public advocacy groups said they are making progress in talks with U.S. regulators to apply utility-style rules to ensure broadband providers treat Web traffic fairly.

      “The baseline of what we can expect has gone up,” Chris Riley, senior policy engineer with browser maker Mozilla, said in a blog post yesterday. Likely outcomes are that the Federal Communications Commission will use powers crafted last century for telephone companies to devise net neutrality rules, he said.

  • Intellectual Monopolies

11.01.14

SCOTUS Decision Affects Not Only Patent Trolls

Posted in Deception, Patents at 8:15 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

Summary: Unified Patents — not just Lex Machina — claims a sharp drop in patent lawsuits and patent boosters try to characterise this as a trend pertaining to patent trolls even though it is about software patents, irrespective of the nature of their ‘holder’

CONTRARY to claims that come from lawyers (patent profiteers), the SCOTUS determination not only affects patent trolls; it truly affects software patents, which many trolls just happen to use the most.

“Claims of decrease in litigation now come not just from one source.”Claims of decrease in litigation now come not just from one source. It was Lex Machina (headed by Mark Lemley, the famed Professor of Law) that initially claimed a sharp drop in patent lawsuits following the SCOTUS ruling that achieved so much more than the previous software patents decision (the Bilski case).

Patent maximalists portray this only as a loss for patent trolls: [via]

Further evidence of a dramatic slowdown in patent litigation activity in the United States is provided today in data published by Unified Patents, the entity whose business is based on helping SMEs fight frivolous patent suits. According to the research, which covers the third quarter of this year (June to September), there was a 23% drop in the number of suits filed compared to the second quarter, and a 27% year-on-year reduction.

Unified Patents is another, separate source of data and its findings are similar to those of Lex Machina. Still, the problem is that the patent maximalists paint is as a matter regarding patent trolls, even though it is about litigation in general (including from giant troll-like entities, e.g. Microsoft).

One might make a guess here and assert that patent lawyers are very, very worried that they might be losing business. █

How to Complain About the EPO to National Delegations in Europe: Part IX

Posted in Europe, Patents at 7:49 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

Berlin views

Summary: Contact details for national delegations to whom complaints can and should be made regarding irregularities and bad behaviour at the European Patent Office (EPO)

DAYS ago we covered some of the latest abuses at the EPO, which is no stranger to scandals. The EPO is hardly accountable, it eliminated oversight, and it is wasting billions of euros of taxpayers’ money all across Europe in order to protect corporations (at taxpayers’ expense) using patents, including patents of rogue, wide scope, potentially software patents and monopolies on genetics/life too.

To reduce oversight even further the EPO has made it harder to lodge complaints from the public. “There used to be e-mail addresses for the national delegations on the AC website,” tells us a source, “but Battistelli disabled these last year due to alleged “abuse” (i.e. he basically wanted to prevent members of the public from directly contacting their delegations).”

Thanks to some digging, today we can provide a list of E-mail addresses for the heads of delegation, for those among our readers who are interested in lodging a complaint electronically. We are also trying to compile a list of the competent Ministries, but this is hard to keep up to date as it is subjected to changes whenever there is an election. We will give some addresses at the bottom. These hardly change over time.

In case our regular readers or anybody else might be interested in complaining, here is a list of E-mail addresses for EPO Administrative Council members and their deputies (from the national IPOs). We also include a list with information about the Ministries that supervise the national IPOs. This listing is not complete, but it has details of the Ministries for about 18 of the more significant EPO member states (total member states around 38 at the last count). This information is in the public domain so we are free to distribute it.

There used to be email addresses for the AC delegations provided on the official EPO website but Battistelli had these removed allegedly due to “abuse”. Let’s not Battistelli to get away with even more of his abuses. According to our sources of information, people had been using these addresses to send in submissions about the controversial if not corrupt Topić, so it could be that Battistelli wanted to put a stop to that.

LIST OF EMAIL ADDRESSES FOR ADMINISTRATIVE COUNCIL DELEGATES (& DEPUTIES) FROM NATIONAL INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY OFFICES OF EPO CONTRACTING STATES

STATUS: 14 September 2014

Official website of the EPO’s Administrative Council:

http://www.epo.org/about-us/organisation/administrative-council/representatives.html

See also: http://www.wipo.int/directory/en/urls.jsp

ALBANIA: elvin.lako@dppm.gov.al

elvanda.mece@dppm.gov.al

mailinf@dppm.gov.al

AUSTRIA: friedrich.roedler@patentamt.at

andrea.scheichl@patentamt.at

info@patentamt.at

BELGIUM: jerome.debrulle@economie.fgov.be

geoffrey.bailleux@mineco.fgov.be

BULGARIA: vbabaleva@bpo.bg

tnaydenova@bpo.bg

bpo@bpo.bg

CROATIA: ljiljana.kuterovac@dziv.hr

CYPRUS: skokkinos@drcor.mcit.gov.cy

eeleftheriou@drcor.mcit.gov.cy

CZECH REPUBLIC: jkratochvil@upv.cz

skopecka@upv.cz

posta@upv.cz

DENMARK: jko@dkpto.dk

arj@dkpto.dk

mlr@dkpto.dk

knj@dkpto.dk

pbp@dkpto.dk

pvs@dkpto.dk

ESTONIA: Matti.Paets@epa.ee

Margus.Viher@epa.ee

FINLAND: rauni.hagman@prh.fi

jorma.hanski@prh.fi

FRANCE: ylapierre@inpi.fr

fclaireau@inpi.fr

contact@inpi.fr

GERMANY: ernst-ch@bmj.bund.de

info@dpma.de

GREECE: ssta@obi.gr

kmar@obi.gr

info@obi.gr

HUNGARY: miklos.bendzsel@hipo.gov.hu

mihaly.ficsor@hipo.gov.hu

elnokseg@hipo.gov.hu

ICELAND: borghildur@els.is

elfa@els.is

IRELAND: gerard.barrett@patentsoffice.ie

ITALY: mauro.masi@consap.it

loredana.gulino@mise.gov.it

LATVIA: guntis.ramans@lrpv.gov.lv

sandris.laganovskis@lrpv.gov.lv

valde@lrpv.lv

LIECHTENSTEIN: Sabine.Monauni@llv.li

Esther.Schindler@llv.li

ute.hammermann@avw.llv.li

info@avw.llv.li

LITHUANIA: rimvydas.naujokas@vpb.gov.lt

zilvinas.danys@vpb.gov.lt

LUXEMBOURG: lex.kaufhold@eco.etat.lu

claude.sahl@eco.etat.lu

MACEDONIA: safet.emruli@ippo.gov.mk

irenaj@ippo.gov.mk

MALTA: godwin.warr@gov.mt

michelle.bonello@gov.mt

MONACO: ekheng@gouv.mc

expansion@gouv.mc

mcpi@gouv.mc

NETHERLANDS: derk-jan.degroot@agentschapnl.nl

p.h.m.vanbeukering@minez.nl

NORWAY: pfo@patentstyret.no

jsa@patentstyret.no

POLAND: aadamczak@uprp.pl

ematysiak@uprp.pl

glachowicz@uprp.pl

PORTUGAL: leonor.trindade@inpi.pt

marco.dinis@inpi.pt

ROMANIA: ionel.muscalu@osim.ro

alexandru.strenc@osim.ro

office@osim.ro

SAN MARINO: silvia.rossi.ubm@pa.sm

b.cinquantini@ngpatent.it

SERBIA: btotic@zis.gov.rs

bbilenkati@zis.gov.rs

zis@zis.gov.rs

SLOVAKIA: lubos.knoth@indprop.gov.sk

lukrecia.marcokova@indprop.gov.sk

urad@indprop.gov.sk

SLOVENIA: Vesna.StankovicJuricic@uil-sipo.si

Ales.orazem@uil-sipo.si

h.zalaznik@uil-sipo.si

sipo@uil-sipo.si

SPAIN: patricia.garcia-escudero@oepm.es

pedro.cartagena@oepm.es

SWEDEN: susanne.sivborg@prv.se

per.holmstrand@prv.se

SWITZERLAND: roland.grossenbacher@ipi.ch

christian.bock@metas.ch

info@ipi.ch

TURKEY: habip.asan@turkpatent.gov.tr

akocer@turkpatent.gov.tr

info@turkpatent.gov.tr

U.K.: john.alty@ipo.gov.uk

sean.dennehey@ipo.gov.uk

Just for information, the last quarterly meeting of the EPO’s Administrative Council (AC) was scheduled to take place on the 15th October in Munich and the next one is scheduled to take place in December, also in Munich. This means that the more publicity that this stuff attracts in advance of that latter meeting, the more political pressure will be on the AC to react. To date it seems that they have decided to ignore the matter and make no public statement, probably in the hope that the problem would go away of its own accord. Here is the full list [PDF] of contacts again, with additional details:

COMPETENT MINISTRIES FOR NATIONAL INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY OFFICES OF SELECTED EPO CONTRACTING STATES

STATUS: 14 September 2014

For other states refer to: http://www.wipo.int/directory/en/

BENELUX

[Order of details:]

State
Patent Office
Competent Ministry
Current Minister
Email contact

Belgium

L’Office belge de la Propriété intellectuelle (OPRI)
SPF Economie, P.M.E., Classes moyennes et Energie
City Atrium C
Rue du Progrès, 50
B-1210 Brussels, BELGIUM
Ms. Sabine Laruelle

http://www.laruelle.belgium.be/fr/equipe-et-contact

http://www.sabinelaruelle.be/homepage

info@laruelle.fgov.be

Netherlands

NL Octrooicentrum
Ministerie van Economische Zaken
Bezuidenhoutseweg 73
postbus 20401
NL- 2500 EK, Den Haag
NEDERLANDS
Mr. Henk Kamp

http://www.rijksoverheid.nl/regering/bewindspersonen/henk-kamp

Assistant:
b.becker@minez.nl
Spokespersons:
b.visser@minez.nl
P.vanStrien@minez.nl
t.d.vanes@minez.nl

Luxembourg

Office de la propriété intellectuelle
Ministère de l’Economie et du Commerce extérieur
19-21, boulevard Royal
L-2914 Luxembourg
LUXEMBOURG
Mr. Etienne Schneider

http://www.eco.public.lu/ministere/ministre/index.html

etienne.schneider@eco.etat.lu
minister@eco.etat.lu
Secretary:
catherine.lammar@eco.etat.lu

UK

Intellectual Property Office
Department for
Business Innovation & Skills
1 Victoria Street
London SW1H 0ET
UNITED KINGDOM
Dr. Vince Cable

https://www.gov.uk/government/people/vince-cable

enquiries@bis.gsi.gov.uk
cablev@parliament.uk

Ireland

Irish Patents Office
Department of
Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation,
23 Kildare Street, Dublin 2
IRELAND
Mr. Richard Bruton

http://www.djei.ie/corporate/ministersoffice/richardbruton.htm

minister@djei.ie

France

Institut National de la Propriété Industrielle (INPI)
Ministère de l’Économie,
des Finances et
du Commerce extérieur
139, rue de Bercy
F-75572 Paris Cedex 12
FRANCE
Mr. Emmanuel Macron

http://www.economie.gouv.fr/le-ministere/emmanuel-macron

Italy

Ufficio Italiano Brevetti e Marchi
(UIBM)
Ministero dello Sviluppo Economico
Uffici del Ministro
Via Veneto 33
IT-00187 Roma
ITALIA
Ms. Federica Guidi

http://www.sviluppoeconomico.gov.it/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&idmenu=3315

segreteria.ministro@mise.gov.it

Spain

Oficina Española de Patentes y Marcas
(OEPM)
Ministerio de Industria,
Energía y Turismo
Pº de la Castellana 160.
ES-28046 Madrid
ESPAÑA
Dr. José Manuel Soria López

http://www.minetur.gob.es/es-ES/Ministro/Biografia/Paginas/CV_Ministro.aspx

secretaria.ministro@mityc.es

Germany

Deutsches Marken- und Patentamt (DPMA)
Bundesministerium der Justiz (BMJ)
Mohrenstraße 37
D-10117 Berlin
DEUTSCHLAND
Mr. Heiko Maas

http://www.bmjv.de/DE/Ministerium/Hausleitung/Minister/_node.html

mail@heiko-maas.de
poststelle@bmj.bund.de

Switzerland

Eidgenössisches Institut für Geistiges Eigentum
Eidgenössischen Justiz- und Polizeidepartement (EJPD)
Bundeshaus West
CH-3003 Bern
SCHWEIZ
Ms. Simonetta Sommaruga

http://www.ejpd.admin.ch/ejpd/de/home/ueber-uns/dv.html

simonetta.sommaruga@gs-ejpd.admin.ch
simonetta.sommaruga@parl.ch

Liechtenstein

Eidgenössisches Institut für Geistiges Eigentum
Ministerium für Inneres,
Justiz und Wirtschaft
Postfach 684
9490 Vaduz
LIECHTENSTEIN
Dr. Thomas Zwiefelhofer

http://www.regierung.li/ministerien/wirtschaft/mitarbeitende-kontakt/

thomas@zwiefelhofer.net
Assistant:
Simon.Biedermann@regierung.li

Austria

Österreichisches Patentamt
Bundesministerium für Verkehr, Innovation und Technologie (BMVIT)
Radetzkystraße 2
A-1030 Wien
ÖSTERREICH
Mr. Alois Stöger

http://www.bmvit.gv.at/

alois.stoeger@spoe.at

Hungary

Hungarian Intellectual Property Office
Ministry of Public Administration
and Justice
Kossuth Lajos tér 2-4.
HU-1055 Budapest
HUNGARY
Dr. Tibor Navracsics

http://www.kormany.hu/en/ministry-of-public-administration-and-justice/the-minister

info@kim.gov.hu
intcomm@me.gov.hu

Denmark

Danish Patent and Trademark Office (DKPTO)
Ministry for Business and Growth
Slotsholmsgade 10-12
DK-1216 København K
DENMARK
Mr. Henrik Sass Larsen

http://www.evm.dk/english/the-minister

evm@evm.dk
Press Secretary
smn@evm.dk

Sweden

Swedish Patent and Registration Office
Ministry of Justice
Rosenbad 4
SE-103 33 Stockholm
SWEDEN
Ms. Beatrice Ask

http://www.government.se/sb/d/7567

beatrice.ask@gov.se
Justitiedepartementet.registrator@regeringskansliet.se

Finland

National Board of Patents and Registration of Finland (NBPR)
Ministry of Employment
and the Economy
P.O. Box 32
FI-00023 GOVERNMENT
FINLAND
Mr. Jan Vapaavuori
Minister of Economic Affairs

http://www.tem.fi/index.phtml?l=en&s=2297

jan.vapaavuori@tem.fi
Secretary:
jonna.sjogren@tem.fi

Norway

The Norwegian Industrial Property Office (NIPO)
Ministry of Trade and Industry
P.O.Box 8114 Dep.,
N-0030 Oslo
NORWAY
Monica Mæland, Minister of Trade and Industry

http://www.regjeringen.no/en/dep/nfd/about-the-ministry/minister-of-trade-and-industry-monica-ma.html?id=742948

postmottak@nfd.dep.no

Iceland

Icelandic Patent Office
Ministry of Industries and Innovation
Skulagotu 4
150 Reykjavík
Iceland
Ragnheiður Elín Árnadóttir
Minister of Industry and Commerce

http://eng.atvinnuvegaraduneyti.is/ministers/nr/6748

rea@althingi.is
postur@anr.is

To our dear European readers: If you have not been following our 2-month, 9-part series to date, now is a good time to familiarise yourself with it and issue an E-mail/letter to your local representatives. They ought to be informed of what goes on inside the secretive EPO. They can react to it and rectify matters. █

Microsoft Still Engages in Criminal Activities Against Linux, Openwashing Efforts Continue Nonetheless

Posted in Courtroom, GNU/Linux, Google, Microsoft at 5:48 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

Novell coupons

Image from Wikimedia

Summary: Microsoft collusion with patent extortion (as in the early days of the Microsoft-Novell deal) continues to this date, reveals Samsung

MICROSOFT must be in a state of panic. It does irrational things, like a stranded criminal. Microsoft's lie about 'loving' Linux was facing sheer resistance from FOSS luminaries because the lie is just outrageous beyond words]. It is the very inversion of the truth and it is as ridiculous as saying that BP loves Shell and Shell loves BP, to give just one hypothetical example. It makes no sense at all, so why does Microsoft bother trying?

This new article titled “Samsung says Microsoft deal invites ‘charges of collusion’: filing” has been rather fascinating. Microsoft is apparently ‘loving’ Linux so much that it colludes against it. Well, will Nadella go to prison? Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer perhaps? What silly questions! Rich people don’t get sent to prison for rich people’s (white-collar) crimes. Microsoft pretends to “love” Linux while quite clearly attacking it, still. Android uses the Linux kernel, just as a reminder.

“This is beyond extortion. It’s an antitrust violation and even collusion/corruption.”To quote the article: “Samsung said its collaboration with Microsoft on Windows phones raised antitrust problems once Microsoft completed its acquisition of Nokia’s handset business, according to a court filing.”

So here we have a criminal company using collusion and abuses under the guise and cover of NDAs. As SJVN put it in his blog: “Samsung fires another shot at Microsoft in Android patent battle”

SJVN’s argument is that “[t]his move came as no surprise to lawyers who’ve been following the case. One intellectual property (IP) attorney whose firm is covering the case closely said that Samsung is simply adding another argument to their contention that their existing Microsoft Android patent deal is invalid on business contract grounds.

“According to Reuters, Samsung said it agreed to pay Microsoft Android patent license royalties in 2011, but the deal also stated that Samsung would develop Windows phones and share confidential business information with Microsoft. If Samsung were to sell a certain number of Windows phones, then Microsoft would reduce the Android royalty payments.”

This is beyond extortion. It’s an antitrust violation and even collusion/corruption. Will criminal charges be brought against anyone? Will anyone in government bother trying to press charges? Not likely.

As Mr. Pogson put it the other day, Windows is in very serious trouble and therefore Microsoft is too. GNU/Linux, on the other hand, keeps growing, especially in smaller devices such as phones and tablet, notably owing to Android. To quote Pogson’s conclusion:

So, XP is dead, “7” is dying, “8” is a zombie, and “10” is vapourware with nowhere to call home. M$ continues layoffs. POOF! It all falls down. In the meantime Google and the OEMs will crank out many millions of ChromeBooks. Canonical, Linpus, RedHat, Suse… and the OEMs will crank out many millions of GNU/Linux PCs. Several OEMs will crank out many millions of GNU/Linux thin clients. Android/Linux will reverberate with another billion or so units of small cheap computers(tablets, smartphones). This looks like good news to me.

Yes, well, Microsoft too realises that Linux is winning, so it is left with either the option to demonise it or to monetise it, e.g. through hosting or patent extortion. In a sense, Microsoft needs Linux more than Linux needs Microsoft. Linux needs none of Microsoft. All that Microsoft does is commit crimes against Linux, so Linux proponents can only hope for total elimination of Microsoft.

There are layoffs at Microsoft, as Pogson pointed out, and this includes salespeople. To quote Value Walk: “According to knowledgeable sources who spoke to Business Insider on Friday, October 31st, Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) is laying off its entire global advertising sales team. The reduction in force comes as the ad sales positions have become largely redundant as individual divisions are handling their own ad sales today.”

Here again we see that these layoffs were not about Nokia. Microsoft tried hard to paint that sort of picture to save face.

When it comes to Microsoft, the more layoffs, the merrier. This company destoryed many jobs using its crimes and these sorts of crimes clearly continue to this date. In a sense, GNU and Linux won’t be safe until Microsoft is totally gone. █

Microsoft Openwashing and Hatred of GNU/Linux

Posted in Deception, Free/Libre Software, Microsoft at 5:23 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

Summary: Microsoft’s outrageous claim that it really “loves” that which it is constantly attacking gets rejected by Free/Open Source software (FOSS) luminaries; the Microsoft-friendly media continues the charm offensive nonetheless

THE CONTAGIOUS NEWS HEADLINES may still repeat and endlessly tell us all about Microsoft's lies -- something along the lines of Microsoft 'loving' Linux when it is perfectly clear that Microsoft as a whole is not 'loving' Linux but hating is with a great passion.

Here in Techrights we are not gullible enough to repeat these lies, unlike Microsoft propaganda sites, e.g. this nonsense from Microsoft MVP Rob Trent, pretending that Microsoft supports Linux. Simon Phipps, the OSI’s President, is not gullible enough either. After debating with him in Twitter he came up with this article titled “Microsoft ‘loves’ Linux? Then stop attacking open source”. It states:

According to Satya Nadella, Microsoft loves Linux. He said as much, complete with pictures — and his team backs him up. In itself, it’s a remarkable statement.

Nadella’s predecessor, Steve Ballmer, described open source in the darkest terms, characterizing it (with the GNU GPL) as a commercial cancer and never retracting the slur. In many ways, that dark prophecy has come true for Microsoft, which has seen its rent-seeking business model steadily eroded by open source. Though it still has a cash cow to milk, Microsoft’s monopolies no longer frighten anyone.

[...]

Microsoft carries a much greater burden of mistrust, arising from two decades of attacks on open source in general and Linux in particular, which makes its challenge even more formidable. Seasonally appropriate, the Halloween Documents show Microsoft’s former internal thinking. It planned both business strategies and tactical dirty tricks to destroy the reputation of open source. While their public statements made no secret of the contempt with which it held open source, the Halloween Documents disclosed a depth of treachery that few suspected prior to their publication.

Today Microsoft has a major business unit asking its new CEO to declare love for Linux. That public stance is extremely welcome. But how can we know the current internal thinking? I asked Microsoft for an interview to discuss its love for Linux, as well as the potential of joining OIN. The response: “Unfortunately, we are unable to accommodate your request at this time.”

Phipps uses a similar analogy to the one I used last month (and the one he used in Twitter). He says: “The evidence suggests Microsoft “loves” Linux the same way abusive partners “love” their spouses — a deep need in one area of the relationship that changes nothing elsewhere.”

“OK,” says our reader iophk about the above, “but ESR’s home of the Halloween Documents is better than Wikipedia any day.”

Sam Dean, who typically helps the Nadella-washing and openwashing of Microsoft, correctly asks
http://ostatic.com/blog/does-microsofts-new-love-for-open-source-extend-beyond-the-cloud-team” title=”Does Microsoft’s New Love for Open Source Extend Beyond the Cloud Team?”>”Does Microsoft’s New Love for Open Source Extend Beyond the Cloud Team?” (love of extortion, profit and control over GNU/Linux)

He refers to Phipps article and says: “Simon Phipps, who is one of the world’s leading experts on all things open source, has examined Microsoft’s purported change of heart in a new column for InfoWorld. And, on a timely note, Phipps even reminds us of “The Halloween Documents”–a series of confidential Microsoft memoranda on potential strategies relating to open source and Linux that got leaked in 1998.

“It’s worth remembering The Halloween Documents and the far reaching impact that the leaking of them had. As just one example of their influence, one of the memos was reportedly sent to the attention of senior vice-president Paul Maritz, and the memo characterized Linux as a giant threat to Microsoft’s operating system dominance. Maritz, of course, went on to run VMware for several years, so Microsoft’s historical opposition to open source likely didn’t stay confined to its own walls.”

Finally he ends this post about Microsoft with a sceptical, cautious view: “But the cloud computing division doesn’t define Microsoft. The company needs to change its stance on open source from the top down, and while Satya Nadella appears to have respect for open source, his vision statement never mentions open source or Linux, which Phipps says is “slightly strange considering their centrality to his future, but a good sign in as much as nothing bad is said.”

“In a response to my recent post asking whether Microsoft’s stance has truly changed, one reader sent the following succinct response: “Yeah, no. This is the ‘embrace’ stage of Microsoft’s classic strategy.” That, too, could be true.”

Susan Linton, who works with Sam Dean, asked, “didn’t we hear all this changing of heart stuff before?”

Microsoft clearly does not love GNU/Linux. Anyone who believes it for a second says a lot about oneself. Here, for example, is a new example from a current Microsoft employee, Mr. Perlow. Ridiculously enough, he works for the CBS-owned ZDNet at the same time that he works for Microsoft] (not the only such example that makes ZDNet an utter joke which also takes money from the backdoors provider Cisco to post a pure ad as an ‘article’). As one can see in Perlow’s latest article, there is bashing of WordPress & Drupal, using ‘security’, even though Perlow’s employer, Microsoft, releases widely-used software with perpetual back doors. That’s just one new example of hypocritical FOSS bashing from Microsoft staff, so who can possibly pretend that Microsoft has changed?

To say that Microsoft likes FOSS one would usually have to simply lie. Here is an ugly example of a lie from fedscoop.com. It is appalling openwashing by a site that claims to be ‘news’, trying to pretend that Microsoft proprietary spyware is “open source”. Complete nonsense in this article (part of a Microsoft propaganda campaign) says: “Microsoft is quickly emerging as a major leader for open source.”

Really?! What is this, a joke? The headline says “Microsoft helping government embrace open source programming”. So yes, it’s a joke. fedscoop.com is scooping up Microsoft’s propaganda and some fools may actually swallow it. This is completely disconnected from the truth; it’s when white means black and vice verse. Any complete nonsense that says Microsoft is “a major leader for open source” must be part of a propaganda campaign. Or maybe written by Microsoft partners/proxies.

The Microsoft-funded The Register has another disturbing news piece that goes along the lines of “Open XML”, trying to pretend Office is “open” and that proprietary Office formats are “open”. Richard Chirgwin from The Register is now openwashing Office 365 (surveillance plus proprietary software) using the classic APIs spin that we wrote about in 2009 and again in 2010. O’Reilly used this openwashing strategy, assisting Microsoft’s propaganda after getting paid by Microsoft.

Here is a new example which follows the openwashing strategy of Facebook. A Microsoft-friendly site ended up openwashing a surveillance platform of Microsoft, resorting to gross misuse of the brand “Open Source” as it relates to putting together hardware.

“In the City of Love, Microsoft Courts Open Source,” says one final example, but perhaps by “courts” it means “embraces” to extend and then extinguish. The article contains the famous new lie: “Last week, at a Microsoft event promoting its cloud business and future, Ballmer’s successor, Satya Nadella, came out and said it: “Microsoft loves Linux.” He followed this up with an interview in Wired magazine, where he said now is the time to put old battles behind.”

Yes, that is the same Microsoft which uses racketing, extortion and blackmail against GNU/Linux and FOSS. It is bribing its way into pretence of friendship, e.g. by paying conference organisers and media/sites. While the lies continue to saturate the media those who are not influenced by money or partnerships can fortunately still discern truth from fiction. Some actors out there are in the business of reality distortion. █

10.31.14

Links 31/10/2014: Rubin Leaves Google, Neelie Kroes Ends EU Career

Posted in News Roundup at 5:33 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

GNOME bluefish

Contents

GNU/Linux

  • Sad News! ;-)

    So, XP is dead, “7” is dying, “8” is a zombie, and “10” is vapourware with nowhere to call home. M$ continues layoffs. POOF! It all falls down. In the meantime Google and the OEMs will crank out many millions of ChromeBooks. Canonical, Linpus, RedHat, Suse… and the OEMs will crank out many millions of GNU/Linux PCs. Several OEMs will crank out many millions of GNU/Linux thin clients. Android/Linux will reverberate with another billion or so units of small cheap computers(tablets, smartphones). This looks like good news to me.

  • Desktop

  • Server

  • Kernel Space

  • Applications

  • Desktop Environments/WMs

    • Desktop Linux users beware: the boss thinks you need to be managed

      Desktop Linux users beware: IT has noticed you and decided it;s time you were properly managed.

      So says VMware, which yesterday at its vForum event in China let it be know that it will deliver a desktop virtualisation (VDI) solution for Linux desktops.

    • K Desktop Environment/KDE SC/Qt

      • Window and Desktop Switcher moved to Look’n’Feel Package

        Today we did an important change in how KWin will distribute its assets in the upcoming 5.2 release. When we started our thoughts about the Look’n’Feel Package and how we want to have meta themes for the complete Plasma workspace we also wanted to have this for the Window and Desktop switcher provided by KWin. So the structure of the Look’n’Feel Package already has all the pieces for including the Window and Desktop Switcher, but it was not used. Now we finally addressed this for the 5.2 release and moved the default switcher into the Look’n’Feel Package and KWin can locate the switchers from the Look’n’Feel Package.

    • GNOME Desktop/GTK

      • GTK+ 3.16′s New GtkGLArea Widget Gets Improved

        Earlier this month GTK+ 3.16 development code gained native OpenGL support. This GTK+ OpenGL support involved adding support for wrapping an OpenGL context for native windows with GLX on X11 and EGL on Wayland to use OpenGL to paint everything. A GtkGLArea widget was also added for providing OpenGL drawing access within GTK+ applications. The GtkGLArea has already seen some more improvements to better GTK’s OpenGL support.

      • Recent improvements in libnice

        For the past several months, Olivier Crête and I have been working on a project using libnice at Collabora, which is now coming to a close. Through the project we’ve managed to add a number of large, new features to libnice, and implement hundreds (no exaggeration) of cleanups and bug fixes. All of this work was done upstream, and is available in libnice 0.1.8, released recently! GLib has also gained a number of networking fixes, API additions and documentation improvements.

  • Distributions

    • Reviews

      • Quick Look: Puppy Linux 6.0

        Puppy Linux 6.0 is a lightweight Linux distribution that can easily be run off a USB stick, SD card or live disc. This version has been dubbed “Tahrpup” by the Puppy Linux developers, and it is based on Ubuntu 14.04. It also uses Linux kernel 3.14.20.

      • Security-Minded Qubes OS Will Satisfy Your Yen for Xen

        It has advanced far beyond the primitive proof of concept demonstrated more than four years ago. Release 2 (beta), which arrived in late September, is a powerful desktop OS.

        Qubes succeeds in seamless integrating security by isolation into the user experience. However, comparing Qubes to a typical Linux distro is akin to comparing the Linux OS to Unix.

    • New Releases

      • Black Lab Education Desktop 6.0.1 to Be Supported Until 2022

        There are numerous Linux distributions that are oriented towards education, but you can never have too many in a domain such as this one. It’s based on the Black Lab Professional Desktop, which is a very good and powerful solution. Interestingly enough, Black Lab Linux is actually based on Ubuntu, and the latest one uses the 14.04.1 base (Trusty Tahr).

    • Arch Family

    • Red Hat Family

    • Debian Family

      • Derivatives

        • Canonical/Ubuntu

          • Atom-based Ubuntu Touch tablet specs leaked

            Specs have been leaked for a 10.1-inch Ubuntu Touch tablet called “UT One” that runs on an Intel Atom Z3735D SoC, with shipments expected in December.

          • The Wide World of Canonical

            I thought perhaps it was a one-off mistake made by a marketing department flunky who perhaps had too much Red Bull while writing a press release. Being the responsible company that Canonical/Ubuntu is, and being the good FOSS community member that it portrays itself to be, I assumed they’d fix the error right away and make sure that ludicrous hyperbole was not the order of the day.
            Would that be asking too much?

            Perhaps. Sadly, a company that claims to be a FOSS leader can’t be bothered with getting simple facts correct. An ad on LinkedIn posted a week ago today makes the same claim for a job in London. You can click on the photo to the right and read, “It is used by over 20 million people in 240 countries in 80 languages.”

          • NVIDIA’s Linux Driver On Ubuntu 14.10 Can Deliver Better OpenGL Performance Than Windows 8.1

            The same Intel Core i7 4770K system used for yesterday’s Windows vs. Linux graphics benchmarks were used when benchmarking the GeForce GTX 780 Ti, 970, and 980 graphics cards. Windows 8.1 Pro x64 had all available system updates at the time and was running the NVIDIA 344.48 WHQL binary driver that was their latest release at the time of testing. When running Ubuntu 14.10 x86_64 on the system with its Linux 3.16 kernel, the NVIDIA 343.22 driver was used. The 343.22 driver was the latest publicly available proprietary Linux driver at the time of testing and their first to support the GTX 970/980 under Linux. All of the same hardware was used under each operating system and each OS was with its software default settings as were the driver settings.

          • The First Vivid-Based Ubuntu Touch Image Has Been Released

            As I have previously announced, the Ubuntu Touch development branch is based on Ubuntu 15.04 Vivid Vervet, while the Ubuntu RTM branch is still using Ubuntu 14.10 Utopic Unicorn as code base, because it has already received stability improvements and will by default on the first Ubuntu powered Meizu phone. Currently, all the new features are implemented on the Ubuntu-Devel branch, the RTM one receiving only fixes.

  • Devices/Embedded

    • Linux accessory adds web access to dumb cameras

      Lumera Labs is aiming to Kickstarter an open source Linux camera attachment for one-click transfers to the cloud via WiFi, plus GPS tagging, HDR, and 3D.

    • Phones

      • Tizen

      • Android

        • Google’s surprise Nexus 6 preorders anger some Android users

          The Nexus 6 is Google’s biggest phone, and judging by the initial reaction from Android users, it may end up being its best-selling phone ever. Creating the Nexus 6 was a bold move by Google and it has resulted in pandemonium as Google’s initial supplies of the phone were quickly depleted by enthusiastic buyers. However, Google gave no warning about Nexus 6 preorders and that has angered some Android users who tried to buy it.

        • Nexus 6 Pre-Orders Were A Joke

          Today, the Nexus 6 went up for pre-order on the Google Play Store for a grand total of five minutes by my count. No warning, no announcements, no broadcasts from the Nexus Twitter account, no excitement from Sundar Pichai or any other Android leaders, nothing. I, like many of you, had no idea that pre-orders had even started. And by the time I tried to go order, it was too late. Sold out, gone. Nexus 4 all over again.

        • Download APKs From Google Play To Your Computer With Google Play Downloader

          Google Play Downloader is a simple open source application which can be used to download APKs from Google Play to your computer.

        • Android creator Andy Rubin is leaving Google

          The move is, perhaps, not a total surprise. Last March, Rubin left the Android group and was replaced by Sundar Pichai. His latest project, as detailed in a lengthy New York Times report in December, was creating robots for a project outside of the company’s Google X lab, something that dovetailed with Google’s shopping spree of robotics companies. In 2012, there were also rumors abound that Rubin planned to leave for a stealth-mode startup called CloudCar, though they were vehemently denied.

Free Software/Open Source

  • We All Work For Open Source Companies Now

    But here’s another, equally salient fact: Every company on the planet must embrace open source to varying degrees, including vendors that make their money selling proprietary software or services.

  • New Projects from the Ever-Protean World of Open Source

    In my previous column, I pointed out that free software was now so successful, and in so many fields, that people might wonder whether there’s anything left to do. The question was rhetorical, of course, of course: the ingenuity of the open source community means that people there will always find new and exciting projects. And not just the big one that I suggested of baking strong crypto into all our communication tools. There are countless other novel uses for open source, as these three very different examples below indicate.

  • Events

    • Ohio LinuxFest 2014 – A Look At Tomorrow

      I went to the Ohio Linux Fest this year to give the closing keynote address to somewhere around 300 folks. And trust me…this will show up later so you’ll know what I mean…the last two minutes of my keynote were the best part. Wait for it…soon.

  • SaaS/Big Data

    • Simplifying application development in the cloud

      Everett is also a core contributor to the Apache jclouds project, an open source tool designed to make it easier for developers to build applications which are able to reap the benefits of cloud computing while being agnostic to which cloud infrastructure project lies underneath.

    • PLUMgrid Delivers Suite of Tools for OpenStack Clouds

      This week, PLUMgrid, which specializes in virtual network infrastructure for OpenStack cloud deployments, announced the availability of its Open Networking Suite (ONS) version 2.0 with expanded support for OpenStack distributions and network functions. The company claims that “PLUMgrid ONS for OpenStack is the industry’s first software-only virtual networking suite that provides terabits of scale out performance, production-grade resiliency, and secure multi-tenancy for businesses to build agile cloud networks.”

  • CMS

    • Boycott Linux, Fedora Beta a Go, and Drupal Yikes

      The top story tonight is a highly critical flaw in Drupal 7 that may have allowed a lot of compromised websites. At tonight’s Go/No-Go meeting, Fedora 21 Beta was approved for next week. The folks at ROSA have released an LXDE version and LibreOffices 4.3.3 and 4.2.7 were released. Red Hat Software Collections 1.2 was released and Jack Wallen looks at the “science behind Ubuntu Unity’s popularity.”

    • Drupal Hack & WordPress Users

      The current situation being faced by Drupal users is evidence of just how determined the black hats are in their quest to find vulnerable sites and exploit them. According to Drupal, “Automated attacks began compromising Drupal 7 websites that were not patched or updated to Drupal 7.32 within hours of the announcement of” the vulnerability. On any site on any platform, paying attention to security is just as important as paying attention to content.

    • What you need to know about the Drupal vulnerability CVE-2014-3704

      For those that fall into the affected category we’re looking at 264,265 live sites that are currently running Drupal version 7, as a CMS at least, as of this writing. The advisory outlining this problem was originally posted on October 15th, 2014. Within 7 hours there were multiple exploits circulating in the wild. A safe assumption that if you are running an affected version that you were compromised unless you managed to have your site updated or patched before Oct 15th, 11pm UTC.

    • Drupal Users Had Seven Hours to Patch or Be Hacked

      Whenever a security exploit is fixed, users are advised to patch quickly to reduce the risk of attack. In the case of a recent open-source Drupal content management system (CMS) vulnerability, the window in which users needed to patch before being exploited has been quantified as being only seven hours.

  • Healthcare

    • How to train your doctor… to use open source

      The federal hospitals are running a system that was released in to the public domain called VistA, written in MUMPS. This is the same language that the $100 million software is written in! Except there is a huge difference in price. OSEHRA was founded to protect this software.

  • FSF/FSFE/GNU/SFLC

  • Openness/Sharing

  • Programming

    • Go 1.4 Beta Release Brings Big Runtime Changes

      Google’s Go language implementation is now in beta for the upcoming 1.4 major release.

      Go 1.4 is bringing Android ARM support, NaCL on ARM support, big changes to the Go runtime, minor performance improvements, changes to Go’s existing libraries, and a ton of other improvements.

    • Rocker: Run R in Docker containers

      Rocker is hosted on GitHub, with three containers already available in the repository – r-base, r-devel and rstudio. The last container (rstudio) provides R and an instance of RStudio Server. RStudio is an integrated development environment (IDE) for R.

  • Standards/Consortia

    • W3C Declares HTML5 Standard Complete

      More than four years ago, Steve Jobs declared war on Flash and heralded HTML5 as the way to go. You could be forgiven if you thought the HTML5 standard — the follow-up to 1997’s HTML 4 — has long been set in stone, given that developers, browser vendors and the press have been talking about it for years now. In reality, however, HTML5 was still in flux — until today. The W3C today published its Recommendation of HTML5 — the final version of the standard after years of adding features and making changes to it.

Leftovers

  • Farewell from Neelie Kroes

    Today is my last day in office at the European Commission.

    Over the years, I have met a lot of people – people who have inspired, encouraged, and energised.

    In fact over 5 years in digital policy there have almost been too many to thank. But that is what I would like to today.

  • Security

    • Google Accounts Now Support Security Keys

      People who use Gmail and other Google services now have an extra layer of security available when logging into Google accounts. The company today incorporated into these services the open Universal 2nd Factor (U2F) standard, a physical USB-based second factor sign-in component that only works after verifying the login site is truly a Google site.

    • Friday’s security updates
    • More Failures Of The Wintel Monopoly

      Of course, this damage could have been mitigated by promptly patching when M$ releases their “Patch Tuesday” updates or sooner in an emergency. That’s the point. Consumers are not IT-people. They don’t know about this stuff. They just know about the speed and convenience of PCs on the web. That other OS is supposed to be “easy to use” but that’s just PR in the ads. It’s also easy to lose all security, have the system slow to a halt or crash. Sometimes, M$ gets it wrong and the patches don’t work. Consumers eventually buy another machine or take the box in for repairs to get it working again.

      [...]

      Of course, one should patch GNU/Linux systems too, but they do very well unpatched. The great beauty of GNU/Linux for consumers is that there are hundreds of distros and the typical malware-artist can’t hack them all simultaneously whereas “the monopoly” is a single big fat target. So, better code, fewer malwares and diversity all work together to protect consumers whereas the salesmen running M$ seek to make life “easy” for both consumers and malware-writers. I choose freedom. I use Debian GNU/Linux.

  • Defence/Police/Secrecy/Aggression

    • The Ottawa Shootings — my RT interview

      Yes­ter­day I was asked to do an inter­view on RT in the imme­di­ate after­math of the Ott­awa shoot­ings. As I said, there needs to be a full forensic invest­ig­a­tion, and I would hope that the gov­ern­ment does not use this ter­rible crime as a pre­text for yet fur­ther erosion of con­sti­tu­tional rights and civil liber­ties. Calm heads and the rule of law need to pre­vail.

    • The war on drugs funds terrorism

      Here is a short excerpt from a panel dis­cus­sion I took part in after the Lon­don première of the new cult anti-prohibition film, “The Cul­ture High”. This is an amaz­ing film that pulls together so many big issues around the failed global 50 year policy of the war on drugs. I ser­i­ously recom­mend watch­ing it.

  • PR/AstroTurf/Lobbying

    • ALEC Tampers with Wisconsin Constitution

      On November 4, Wisconsin voters will decide if the state constitution should be amended to require that “revenues generated by use of the state transportation system be deposited into a transportation fund administered by a department of transportation for the exclusive purpose of funding Wisconsin’s transportation systems and to prohibit any transfers or lapses from this fund.” The ballot measure reflects model legislation pushed by the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) that is intended to prioritize road funding over all other types of transportation spending.

    • Media Cry Foul When Democrats Talk About Race

      epublicans are accusing Democrats of race-baiting? It sounds like the Times’ Jeremy Peters is making that accusation–isn’t that what “race-baiting” means, to “play on fears” with “racially charged messages”?

    • Rick Berman Exposed in New Audio; Hear His Tactics against Environmentalists and Workers Rights

      Rick Berman, the king of corporate front groups and propaganda, has been caught on tape detailing his attacks on public interest groups in the labor and environmental movements, including on efforts to increase the minimum wage for workers.

      As noted in a new story by Eric Lipton at The New York Times, Berman met with energy company executives at the posh Broadmoor Hotel earlier this year to raise money from them to attack groups representing citizens concerned about clean water, clean air, and the future of the planet. But Berman’s “win ugly” tactics apparently did not persuade all of his prospective clients for his lucrative business of creating tax-exempt non-profit front groups that then contract with his for-profit PR firm to give corporations cover for his attacks on their opponents. The way Berman profits from this arrangement has spawned a legal complaint to the IRS.

      An audio tape of Berman and his associate, Jack Hubbard, has been provided by a person at the Broadmoor event to the Center for Media and Democracy, which publishes PRWatch and has long tracked Berman’s deceptive PR operations.

    • Journalists need a point of view if they want to stay relevant

      If extreme polarization is now an enduring feature of American politics — not just a bug — how does that change the game for journalists? I have some ideas, but mainly I want to put that question on the table. “Conflict makes news,” it is often said. But when gridlock becomes the norm the conflicts are endless, infinite, predictable and just plain dull: in a way, the opposite of news. This dynamic has already ruined the Sunday talk shows. Who can stand that spectacle anymore?

    • How Facebook Could End Up Controlling Everything You Watch and Read Online

      How many of you are reading this because of a link you clicked on Facebook? In the online publishing industry (which WIRED obviously is part of), Facebook’s influence on site traffic—and therefore ad revenue—is difficult to overstate. Over the past year especially, “the homepage is dead” has become a standard line among media pundits. And more than anything else, it’s Facebook that killed it.

      Given that links appear to be more clickable when shared on Facebook, online publishers have scrambled to become savvy gamers of Facebook’s News Feed, seeking to divine the secret rules that push some stories higher than others. But all this genuflection at the altar of Facebook’s algorithms may be but a prelude to a more fundamental shift in how content is produced, shared, and consumed online. Instead of going to all this trouble to get people to click a link on Facebook that takes them somewhere else, the future of Internet content may be a world in which no video, article, or cat GIF gallery lives outside of Facebook at all.

  • Censorship

    • BBC refuses to include Green party in general election TV leader debates

      The BBC has rejected a demand from the Green party to be included in the proposed TV leader election debates, saying that it, unlike Ukip, has not demonstrated any substantial increase in support.

      The broadcasters have proposed three debates, one including Ukip, the Liberal Democrats, Labour and the Conservatives, a second involving the Lib Dems, Labour and the Conservatives, and finally one between Ed Miliband and David Cameron.

      The Green Party was infuriated that they had been excluded and won support in online petitions.

  • Privacy

    • GCHQ views data without a warrant, government admits

      British intelligence services can access raw material collected in bulk by the NSA and other foreign spy agencies without a warrant, the government has confirmed for the first time.

      GCHQ’s secret “arrangements” for accessing bulk material are revealed in documents submitted to the Investigatory Powers Tribunal, the UK surveillance watchdog, in response to a joint legal challenge by Privacy International, Liberty and Amnesty International. The legal action was launched in the wake of the Edward Snowden revelations published by the Guardian and other news organisations last year.

    • More RIPA Revelations

      Yet more evidence has come to light to show that the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000 (RIPA) is woefully out of date.

      It has been revealed that GCHQ, has the ability to request large amounts of un-analysed communications from foreign intelligence agencies without first obtaining a warrant. The documents, obtained in the course of a case brought before the Investigatory Powers Tribunal (IPT), show that the use of a warrant was not necessary if it is “not technically feasible” for GCHQ to obtain one.

    • Sony Xperia devices are sendng your data to China

      If you are using a Sony Xperia device running either Android 4.4.2 or 4.4.4 it’s advised (by me) that you install a custom ROM on your device. Several reports have appeared online that the stock firmware on these devices contains Baidu spyware that is discreetly sending data back to servers in China, you do not need to have installed any software on your phone as it’s bundled into the firmware.

    • Congress Still Has No Idea How Much the NSA Spies on Americans

      Adequate oversight is impossible when even diligent members of the Senate Intelligence Committee can’t get basic facts about surveillance.

    • 49 Orgs Call on Congress to Restore Whistleblower Rights for Intelligence Contractors

      Congress should quickly restore whistleblower rights for government contractors who work in the intelligence community (IC), 49 ideologically diverse organizations and the Make It Safe Coalition told lawmakers in a letter today.

    • Liberty exposes secret links between GCHQ and the NSA
    • The NSA Scandal May Have Just Gotten Even Worse

      The National Security Agency might not have only collected personal information belonging to millions of Americans. It may very well have shared it too – with at least one foreign government.

      A report released yesterday by the U.K.-based human rights organization Liberty reveals Britain’s intelligence agencies can access information which the NSA has already collected whenever and wherever it wants – and without a warrant.

    • Brazil-to-Portugal Cable Shapes Up as Anti-NSA Case Study

      Brazil is planning a $185 million project to lay fiber-optic cable across the Atlantic Ocean, which could entail buying gear from multiple vendors. What it won’t need: U.S.-made technology.

    • Brazil greenlights $200m internet cable to Europe in bid to outfox NSA

      Brazil is moving ahead with plans to build an “anti-NSA” internet cable to Europe, even though it won’t make the slightest difference to spying efforts.

      Francisco Ziober Filho, president of state-run telecoms company Telebras, announced earlier this week that the company will form a joint venture with Spain’s IslaLink to run the submarine connection between Fortaleza at the northern tip of Brazil and Lisbon, Portugal. Filho also strongly suggested that the cable will not include any equipment from US manufacturers – take that, NSA.

      Despite the rhetoric, however, one expert in cable infrastructure told The Register that not only does the cable not make economic sense but it amounts to little more than “a $185m propaganda statement” on the part of Brazilian president Dilma Rousseff.

    • How NSA Director Wants to Build an IoT Security Coalition

      Admiral Michael Rogers is preparing a coalition of government, military and commercial interests to fight a global cyber war if necessary.

    • NSA chief calls for more “permeable” barrier between state and tech corporations

      In two speeches this month, US National Security Agency (NSA) Director Admiral Mike Rogers called for a further integration between the NSA and major technology and communications companies.

    • National Journal: NSA Outsources Surveillance of Americans to British Intelligence
    • A Secret Policy Lets the UK Suck Up Any Bulk NSA Data It Wants
    • Court: UK spies get bulk access to U.S.’s NSA data
    • GCHQ Can Access Raw Data From NSA Without a Warrant, Secret Policies Disclose
    • Comforting the NSA and Afflicting Its Dissenters

      No serious defense of the surveillance state can ignores its anti-democratic abuses, its lawbreaking, and its record of punishing whistleblowers.

    • FBI Seeks New Powers To Hack And Spy

      The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is seeking more powers to hack into a suspect computer no matter where it is located, and carry out surveillance.

    • New NSA Documents Shine More Light into Black Box of Executive Order 12333

      Today, we’re releasing a new set of documents concerning Executive Order 12333 that we — alongside the Media Freedom and Information Access Clinic at Yale Law School — obtained in an ongoing Freedom of Information Act lawsuit. EO 12333 hasn’t received much public attention to date, but the government’s prior disclosures in our suit have shown that the executive order in fact governs most of the NSA’s surveillance. In the NSA’s own words, EO 12333 is “the primary source of the NSA’s foreign intelligence-gathering authority.”

    • Cricket Revealed As Mobile ISP That Was Blocking Encrypted Emails

      A few weeks ago, we wrote about how VPN company Golden Frog had quietly revealed in an FCC filing that an unnamed mobile broadband provider had been (even more) quietly blocking people from sending encrypted emails — basically blocking users from making use of STARTTLS encryption. The Washington Post has now revealed that the mobile operator in question was Cricket — a subsidiary of AT&T, and that it stopped blocking such encryption a few days after our post was published.

    • Mobile ISP Cricket was thwarting encrypted emails, researchers find

      Some customers of popular prepaid-mobile company Cricket were unable to send or receive encrypted e-mails for many months, according to security researchers, raising concerns that consumers may find that protecting their privacy is not always in their hands.

    • Swedish regulator orders ISP to retain customer data despite death of EU directive

      The Swedish Telecoms Regulator PTS has threatened Kista-based ISP Bahnhof to continue storing records of its customer communications, even though the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) ruled the 2006 Data Retention Directive invalid [PDF] in April of this year.

    • Vermont’s Automatic License Plate Readers: 7.9 Million Plates Captured, Five Crimes Solved

      The sales pitch for automatic license plate readers is how great they are at helping cops solve crimes. From hunting down stolen cars to tracking pedophiles across jurisdictions, ALPRs supposedly make policing a breeze by gathering millions of time/date/location records every single day and making it all available to any law enforcement agency willing to buy the software and pay the licensing fees.

    • License Plate Scanners Raise Privacy Concerns, But Do They Help Police?

      Over the past five years, law enforcement agencies in Vermont have invested more than $1 million in technology that gathers millions of data points every year about the whereabouts of vehicles across the state.

    • Amazon-CIA $600 Million Deal Facing Scrutiny: “What’s the CIA Doing on Amazon’s Cloud?”

      A billboard challenging Amazon to fully disclose the terms of its $600 million contract to provide cloud computing services for the Central Intelligence Agency has been unveiled at a busy intersection near Amazon’s Seattle headquarters.

    • FBI’s Use Of ‘Sneak And Peek’ Warrants Still Steadily Increasing, Still Has Nearly Nothing To Do With Fighting Terrorism

      Another tool supposedly “crucial” to the War on Terror is just another lowly footsoldier in the War on Drugs. Some long-delayed reports on Section 213 “sneak and peek” warrants have finally been released by the US government, providing more detail on the constantly-expanding use of delayed-notification warrants by the FBI.

    • Government Authority Intended for Terrorism is Used for Other Purposes

      The Patriot Act continues to wreak its havoc on civil liberties. Section 213 was included in the Patriot Act over the protests of privacy advocates and granted law enforcement the power to conduct a search while delaying notice to the suspect of the search. Known as a “sneak and peek” warrant, law enforcement was adamant Section 213 was needed to protect against terrorism. But the latest government report detailing the numbers of “sneak and peek” warrants reveals that out of a total of over 11,000 sneak and peek requests, only 51 were used for terrorism. Yet again, terrorism concerns appear to be trampling our civil liberties.

  • Civil Rights

  • Internet/Net Neutrality

  • Intellectual Monopolies

    • New Zealand’s Trade Minister Admits They Keep TPP Documents Secret To Avoid ‘Public Debate’

      A couple years ago, then US Trade Representative Ron Kirk explained why the negotiating text of trade agreements like the TPP needed to be kept secret: because if the public debated it, the agreement probably wouldn’t be approved. He used, as an example, a failed trade agreement where the text had been public. Beyond the “small sample size” problem of this explanation, the much more troubling aspect is the obvious question of recognizing that if public debate would kill the agreement, perhaps it’s the agreement that’s the problem and not the public.

    • Response to EU Ombudsman’s Consultation on TTIP Transparency

      The EU Ombudsman is running a consultation on how to improve the transparency of the TTIP negotiations. This shouldn’t be hard, since there is currently vanishingly small openness about these secret talks.

    • Trademarks

      • Pizzeria Attempts To Trademark The Flavor Of Pizza. Yes, Seriously.

        Trademark, while generally one of the better forms of intellectual property as used in practice and in purpose, can certainly still be abused. It can also fall victim to an ever-growing ownership culture that seems to have invaded the American mind like some kind of brain-eating amoeba. And that’s how we’ve arrived here today, a day in which I get to tell you about how there is currently a trademark dispute over the flavor of pizza.

    • Copyrights

The EPO Is More Corrupt Under Battistelli Than Under Alison Brimelow: Part VIII

Posted in Europe, Law, Patents at 6:22 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

The huge scandal that the corporate media seemingly refuses to cover

Alison Brimelow

Summary: After Brimelow (shown above), with all her flaws and her scandals, an even worse President is installed who then abolishes oversight and seemingly brings his old friends to the EPO, creating a sort of subculture that is impenetrable to outsiders

THE EPO is no stranger to scandals (including some involving Alison Brimelow, as we noted before). We have covered them for years, but these days we are stunned by the degree of inherent corruption inside the EPO (this is the eighth part among many). The chin drops to the floor when one realises the lack of oversight. With no oversight comes great abuse, as revelations about the CIA and NSA, for example, serve to show.

Weeks ago we showed how EPO oversight got dismantled (related original documents are here) and below again is a quick walk-through (original documents):

  • CA-140-08-EN – 2008 – Audit Committee: possible models
  • CA-32-09-EN – 2009 – EPO Audit Committee: draft terms of reference
  • CA-33-09-EN – 2009 – Draft decision setting up an Audit Committee
  • CA-D9-09-EN – 2009 – Establishing an Audit Committee of the Administrative Council
  • CA-100-11-EN – 2011 – Internal appeal against CA/D 4/11
  • CA-D4-11-EN – 2011 – Decision of the Administrative Council
  • CA-55-11-EN – 2011 – Disbanding the Audit Committee

Today we would like to tell the much longer story of the EPO’s Audit Committee. “In 2008,” tells us an anonymous source, “possible models for an “Audit Committee” were discussed in the proposal document CA/140/08 presented to the Administrative Council.”

Quoting the relevant document: “The present document follows on from the governance workshop in Ljubljana on 7-8 May 2008, the results of which were summarised in CA/62/08 dated 30.05.08.

One of the priorities emerging from the workshop was “Audit Committee and independence of Internal Audit”. The present document outlines in detail the compelling case for an Audit Committee. Three models are analysed and assessed. The Budget and Finance Committee and the Administrative Council are requested to give their opinion. Thereafter the Office will submit a proposal for the terms of reference of the Audit Committee.”

That was quite a long while back.

CA/140/08, as above, noted the following problems with the existing “Internal Audit” (emphasis added):

B. PROBLEMS RELATED TO INTERNAL AUDIT

a) Independence of IA

22. At the EPO, the internal audit function is separated from operational areas.

IA reports directly to the President and should remain a tool in the hands of the President.

This notwithstanding, an independent mechanism (such as an audit committee) would provide further assurance of the correct functioning of IA, particularly in view of the fact that even at the highest management level situations can occur that call for the independence of IA.

Such an independent mechanism should exist:

• to ensure that IA is equipped with a sufficient budget and resources for the adequate performance of the audit work;

• to prevent any undue limitation of the status of IA within the framework of its audit mission;

• to prevent any unjustified deletion of the proposed audit plan;

• to review the appointment, transfer and dismissal of the head of internal audit and internal auditors;

• to ensure that the supervision of IA does not rely entirely on the President.

As we have shown in previous parts, the President, Battistelli, seems to have gone out of control and is now acting like a tyrant with executive orders, potentially also appointing friends of his for positions of power.

“In June 2009,” explained our source, “the then-EPO President Alison Brimelow (former Director of the UK-IPO) presented the AC with the proposal documents CA/32/09 (“EPO Audit Committee: draft terms of reference”) and CA/33/09 (“Draft decision setting up an Audit Committee”).”

CA/33/09 (available above) proposed the establishment of an Audit Committee as a subsidiary body of the Administrative Council and said:

The present document is based on consultations between the Office and the Board of Auditors and presents a draft decision based on the outlines of the terms of reference for an EPO Audit Committee (cf. CA/32/09) as a subsidiary body of the Administrative Council pursuant to Article 14 of the Rules of Procedure of the Administrative Council of the European Patent Organisation.

CA/33/09 was approved by the AC in June 2009 as decision CA/D9/09.

Now, here is the best bit. At that point in time, Battistelli, Director of the French INPI, was the Chairman of the AC. Yes, no kidding. In July 2010, Battistelli was appointed to succeed Alison Brimelow as EPO President!

In May 2011, in his new role as EPO President he submitted a proposal to the AC to abolish the Audit Committee “for reasons of efficiency”. See CA/55/11, “Disbanding the Audit Committee”, which says: “The present document proposes that the Administrative Council’s June 2009 decision establishing an Audit Committee (CA/D 9/09) be repealed for reasons of efficiency.”

CA/55/11 was approved by the AC in June 2011 as decision CA/D4/11. The decision of the AC to abolish its Audit Committee was appealed by EPO staff representatives (see CA/100/11) and this appeal is currently pending before the Administrative Tribunal of the ILO (ILO-AT) in Geneva.

The letter from the Chairman of the Audit Committee is worth reading. CA/100/11, in pages 13 and 14, states (emphasis added): “The role of the Audit Committee is not an overlap with the internal and external audit but a key component of a balanced auditing and governance structure of the Office as it is in most international organisations.”

What a colossal mess.

A further parallel “thread” to this story concerns the EPO’s external audit mechanism, the so-called “Board of Auditors” which is established under Article 49 EPC. According to Article 49(1) EPC: “The income and expenditure account and a balance sheet of the Organisation shall be examined by auditors whose independence is beyond doubt, appointed by the Administrative Council for a period of five years, which shall be renewable or extensible.”

Again, what an utter joke!

The most-recently appointed member of the EPO’s three-man “Board of Auditors” is Mr. Frederic Angermann.

To quote this page from the EPO (under Munich, 13 December 2013, the 138th meeting of the Administrative Council of the European Patent Organisation):

The Council appointed Frédéric Angermann, Senior Auditor at the French Court of Auditors, as member of the Board of Auditors, with effect from 1 January 2014. Mr Angermann will succeed Michel Camoin, to whom the Council paid tribute.

Under the heading Legal and International Affairs, the Council heard the status report on latest developments concerning the Unitary patent, given by the Head of the Lithuanian delegation, representing the country holding the EU presidency for the second half of 2013. The chairman of the Select Committee (set up by the 25 EPC contracting states participating in the enhanced co-operation on unitary patent protection to supervise the EPO’s activities related to the tasks entrusted to it in the context of unitary protection) reported then on the committee’s 5th and 6th meetings (see Communiqué on the 6th meeting of the Select Committee, to be published shortly on this website). The Council thereby noted that a number of EPC contracting states not taking part in the enhanced co-operation had been granted observer status on the Select Committee. Other EPC contracting states not taking part in the enhanced co-operation will henceforth also be automatically granted observer status upon request.

What the EPO communique doesn’t tell us is that Angermann was previously a senior official at the French INPI. Battistelli must know him. This cannot be treated as merely a coincidence. In other words, he previously worked under Battistelli who was the Director of the French INPI, just prior to his EPO appointment.

Now refer back to Article 49(1) EPC: “auditors whose independence is beyond doubt”

Everyone can see the problem here. It doesn’t take a genius to see that Battistelli may be bringing in cronies.

In summary, the Audit Committee which was established in 2009 as an independent subsidiary body of the EPO’s Administrative Council (and thus independent from the EPO President) was subsequently abolished in 2011 “for reasons of efficiency” (by Battistelli) after barely two years of existence.

The Audit Committee was established by the AC under Battistelli’s chairmanship of that body and the proposal for abolition came from Battistelli in his new role as EPO President (where he would have been subject to the oversight of the Audit Committee).

The consequence of this abolition was to return to the “status quo” prior to CA/140/08: Internal Audit at the EPO is once again completely under the control of the EPO President (i.e. in the hands of one person).

Apart from this, one of the EPO’s external auditors appointed under Article 49 EPC has a previous close professional connection to Battistelli.

All of this indicates that there is no effective independent internal audit mechanism at the EPO. Battistelli killed it.

Furthermore, the integrity of the external audit mechanism under Article 49 EPC has been compromised by Battistelli’s cronyism.

When you consider that the annual budget of the organisation is around 2 billion euros, that should be a cause for public concern. There is no excess of money in Europe right now (Britain is furious this month over demands for a payment of an extra £1.7 billion to the EU) while staff at the EPO is grossly overpaid with virtually no oversight, as we showed in previous parts and demonstrated with strong exhibits of authority.

As readers can see, especially if they follow European media, this is another story that the mainstream media has completely ignored. Unbelievable perhaps, but more likely there is fear of covering it, if not some certain complicity (depending on the media owners).

Once again, German journalists have been fully informed about these matters but haven’t written a single line about them despite the fact that according to the German Press Codex [PDF], “accurate informing of the public” is supposed to be one of the overriding principles of the Press (see preamble to Section 1). Perhaps the German media is preoccupied with other agenda. █

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