03.17.14

Man With Plenty of UEFI Experience Struggles to Disable Restricted Boot to Install and Run GNU/Linux

Posted in GNU/Linux at 2:42 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

Summary: Another story about the pains of restricted boot and why it matters a lot right now

TECHRIGHTS is actively and ferociously against UEFI for various reasons including security (bad security), patents, and anti-competitive aspects. The technical merits (positives) of UEFI are outweighed by the negatives and for most people there are no positives at all because they don’t access servers directly. They don’t need to worry about remote booting and other such advanced features, which are commonly needed when one runs Windows (it gets sort of jammed or refuses to shut down).

There is this new article from Jamie, the UEFI explorer (whom UEFI Forum approached to appease). “My UEFI experience so far has been limited to only two laptop OEMs,” he explains, “HP/Compaq and Acer. I found the former to be relatively difficult to work with (see the recent Compaq and earlier HP Pavilion posts), but the latter to be reasonably easy (see Aspire One 725 post), especially after installing the latest BIOS updates.”

When it comes to ASUS, see just what he is having to go through: “I tried a variety of them, including Esc, F9, F10 and F12, all to no avail. I checked the BIOS configuration (at least that was on F2) to see if there was something I needed to enable there to get Boot Select, ala the Acer Aspire One, but I didn’t find anything like that.

“However, in the process of getting into the BIOS setup I did notice that the ASUS POST sequence seems very quick, so there is really a very small time slot in which you can press F2 before it is too late, and you are doomed to boot Windows and then shut down and try again.

“Armed with this knowledge, I tried again to get into Boot Select and this time found that if I was fast enough, Esc would get me there.

“Also while blundering around in the BIOS setup I saw that there is an option to Enable/Disable Secure Boot, but I did not see anything about Legacy Boot there: I wonder if this system doesn’t support Legacy Boot.”

This would be enough to discourage the majority of people from even exploring GNU/Linux. They would essentially give up on it without really trying it. They would blame “Linux”.

Now that some large companies migrate their computers from Windows XP to GNU/Linux (I know of a few who don’t publicly announce it) the issue is very sensitive. It is bad enough that some media monopolies and oligopolies make life miserable for GNU/Linux users (see new examples in [1]), we don’t need hardware and software companies doing the same (Intel and Microsoft for the most part). People want to move away from Windows (many options exist [2]) and if we don’t pursue this at antitrust level, then computing will enter a dark age, like that of DRM. It’s wasteful and unfair. █

Related/contextual items from the news:

1. Time Warner’s Live Chat Doesn’t Speak Linux

   I know for an absolute fact that Time Warner’s backbone is made up of Linux and Unix servers. And they want to tell me that I need a Windows system to access their online chat support?

2. Lubuntu might be the best Linux distro for Windows XP users

   Microsoft will soon end official support for Windows XP, and OMG! Ubuntu! thinks that Lubuntu could be the perfect replacement. Lubuntu is a lightweight spin of Ubuntu that provides a more traditional desktop environment and might work well for Windows XP users.

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Open Source Think Tank is Still Not About Open Source

Posted in Deception, Free/Libre Software, Microsoft at 1:22 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

Think tanks

Summary: Open Source continues to be invaded by proprietary software interests, this time with another so-called “think tank”

NOW THAT Black Duck is pushing out its press releases (yes, same old garbage again; garbage in, garbage out), we kindly ask readers to pay attention to what we wrote about Black Duck’s "Open Source Think Tank". Like many so-called “think tanks”, it is not what it appears to be as backers include foes of Open Source, which means that Microsoft FUD and other controversial views (like calling proprietary “open”) should definitely be expected. Black Duck has strong connections with Microsoft (more so than Duck Duck Go), so this should not be too surprising. Don’t let them duck under criticism because they are trying to gain credibility for their own agenda, which includes proprietary software and software patents.

Speaking of deception, there is a strange article in Forbes today (the press glorifying the wealthy) which says that “Tier3 Compete With Microsoft And Amazon” using “Open Source As A Recruiting Tool”. Well, this has nothing to do with Open Source, it is some Seattle-flavoured spin about Microsoft and Amazon. Here is the context in which the article presents “Open Source”. It says: “Which is where open source comes in – Tier3 is trying to fill a new cloud development center they’re building in Seattle, and one of the ways they’re doing it is by a deep involvement in a bunch of different open source project – the company incubated the Iron Foundry project, an initiative that built .NET support on top of the Cloud Foundry PaaS and now they’re doing it again with ElasticLINQ.”

So this is competing with Microsoft? Promoting .NET? And trying to label it “open source” just as Mono is doing? Seriously? This is beyond deceiving, it’s a lie and perhaps spin at best. Don’t let the meaning of Open Source go to waste; it’s already decoupled from Free software and companies like Microsoft try to ruin both labels, calling OOXML “open” and Windows “free” (as in gratis, to undermine Linux domination). Open Source needs Microsoft like Ukraine needs Russia. █

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03.16.14

Links 16/3/2014: Instructionals

Posted in News Roundup at 4:16 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

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Is Microsoft Paying Few Companies to Move Parked Domains to Windows, Thereby Gaming Netcraft Numbers?

Posted in Deception, FUD, Microsoft at 4:02 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

Gaming, not gaining

Summary: Media ignores the fact that Nobis and GoDaddy (many millions of parked domains) is why Netcraft shows gains for Microsoft

TECHRIGHTS spent a considerable amount of time explaining why Netcraft statistics are not accurate (e.g. site ranks, which can be rigged by even a single person). It’s not purely Netcraft’s fault and it’s not an isolated case. They’re a small entity which is easy to game and Microsoft sure likes gaming statistics. It sometimes makes it look like Netcraft promotes Microsoft, but the reality is quite different. To repeat what we quoted half a decade ago:

“It’s part of a continuing behavior pattern by Microsoft that I think it’s fair to call “dirty fighting.” GoDaddy was using Apache (I assume on Linux) because it was a great technical solution. They didn’t switch to IIS on Windows Server 2003 for any technical reason. The switch was accompanied by a press release by GoDaddy, containing Microsoft promotional language. Now, I’ve changed many servers from one thing to another, but I’ve never made a press release about it. GoDaddy wouldn’t be doing that unless Microsoft had offered them something valuable in return. There has been talk in the domain business that Microsoft has been offering the large domain registries a wad of cash to switch their parked sites. There is no other reason to do this than to influence the Netcraft figures.”

–Bruce Perens

For those who have now seen the disinformation yet (same as above, but this time involving Nobis, not just the horrible, Internet-hostile giant GoDaddy), there exist Microsoft-friendly sites with deceiving headlines that hardly tell the story as it is, citing this automatically-produced summary from Netcraft. Bending the rules of exploiting a weakness in them, Microsoft seems to be doing it again. To quote Muktware: “If we look at Microsoft’s recent gain which gives them 32.8% of the market, comes solely from one player Nobis. Since it’s not a gradual market shift from Apache to IIS, we can’t see it as a trend. Last year Microsoft made similar gain when GoDaddy moved around 9 million sites to Microsoft server.

“So what it looks like is the ‘created’ gain is coming from Microsoft’s deal with big players instead of a trend in the market where clients are deliberately switching from Apache to Microsoft severs.”

People in comments and forums seem unprepared to point this out, so even on a Sunday night we wanted to get the word out. The real competition to Apache right now is Google’s hosting (Apache-based) and nginx, which gains in the BSD camp [1,2] and even attracts some interest from the GPL community [3]. Microsoft’s market share has been consistently declining for years, so it seems probable that Microsoft pays Nobis in some way or another in order to change perceptions. Don’t let them get away with it. █

Related/contextual items from the news:

1. OpenBSD replacing Apache web server with nginx

   In a move that surprises no one at this point,
   OpenBSD is in the process of pulling the Apache 1.3.x web server it has been maintaining on its own for what seems like forever and replacing it with the hot web server of the 2010s — nginx.

2. Heads Up: Apache Removed from Base

3. Build Faster WordPress Sites with Nginx – In 3 Lines!

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Richard Stallman on Google+ and Twitter

Posted in TechBytes Video at 3:40 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

Direct download as Ogg

Summary: Dr. Richard Stallman, the Free Software Foundation’s founder, talks about so-called ‘social’ media sites other than Facebook

Made entirely using Free/libre software, heavily compressed for performance on the Web at quality’s expense

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Watching Abuses of Power: Police, Secret Agencies, Militarism, Surveillance, and Censorship

Posted in News Roundup at 8:02 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

Police

• Alleged victims’ fury at failure to ban undercover police seduction tactics

  Eight women who say they were duped into forming long-term sexual relationships with undercover policemen have attacked the government’s failure to ban such behaviour in a newly published code of conduct.

• Ex-cop who fatally shot moviegoer for texting turns out to also have been texting

Torture and Drones

• Former CIA official calls for release of report on CIA’s post-9/11 interrogations

• CIA has a lot of explaining to do

• Ruth Marcus: The CIA as its own worst enemy

  Watching Sen. Dianne Feinstein tear into the Central Intelligence Agency on the Senate floor the other day brought to mind a 1970s-era television commercial about a margarine supposedly indistinguishable from butter.

  “Chiffon’s so delicious, it fooled even you, Mother Nature,” says the narrator.

• CIA Intimidation, Obstruction and Spying on US Congress: Obama’s “High Crimes and Misdemeanors”

  The portrait that emerges is of an intelligence agency that operates outside of all legal constraints, rejects any genuine congressional oversight, and functions as a law unto itself.

• Lawmaker ‘taken aback’ by CIA’s tough response to spying allegations

  Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), a member of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, said Sen. Dianne Feinstein’s (D-Calif.) spying charges are “very serious” and warned that Brennan’s aggressive reaction risks undermining the relationship between Congress and the CIA.

• Eugene Robinson: The CIA is out of line

• Unsettled legacy of torture looms over CIA-Congress feud

• Time for CIA’s Brennan to Go

  More than five years into his presidency, Barack Obama has yet to undertake a major reform of U.S. intelligence, even letting CIA Director John Brennan, who was implicated in Bush-Cheney abuses, block reports on those offenses. That must change, says ex-CIA analyst Melvin A. Goodman.

• The CIA’s Poisonous Tree

  The old Washington adage that the cover-up is worse than the crime may not apply when it comes to the revelations this week that the Central Intelligence Agency interfered with a Senate torture investigation. It’s not that the cover-up isn’t serious. It is extremely serious—as Senator Dianne Feinstein said, the CIA may have violated the separation of powers, the Fourth Amendment, and a prohibition on spying inside the United States. It’s just that in this case, the underlying crimes are still worse: the dispute arises because the Senate Intelligence Committee, which Feinstein chairs, has written an as-yet-secret 6,300 page report on the CIA’s use of torture and disappearance—among the gravest crimes the world recognizes—against al-Qaeda suspects in the “war on terror.”

• CIA spying on Congress: ‘Undercover’ officer duped JFK investigators in ’78

  The scandal started quietly last week when Sen. Mark Udall wrote a letter to President Obama, alleging that the CIA had taken “unprecedented action” against investigators who wrote the Senate Intelligence Committee’s still-classified report on the U.S. torture program.

• The Senator vs. The C.I.A.

  Feinstein called them the Panetta Review, in reference to the former C.I.A. director Leon Panetta, who left the agency in 2011. The documents were prepared by C.I.A. officers, and although their contents are secret, their subject matter is clear and vitally important: the true history of the brutal interrogation of about a hundred Al Qaeda leaders and suspects at offshore C.I.A. “black sites” between roughly 2002 and 2006, on orders of the Bush Administration. The interrogations included the use of “enhanced interrogation techniques,” such as waterboarding, which constituted torture in the judgment of the Red Cross and many other authorities. Feinstein suggested that the Panetta Review may illuminate still disputed issues; namely, whether the program produced significant intelligence, whether the C.I.A. lied to Congress about it, and how cruel and degrading the black sites really were.

• CIA’s nemesis: Dianne Feinstein – renowned campaigner against gun ownership and for gay rights

• SEN. FEINSTEIN (D-CA): Obama White House Ordered CIA to Spy on Congress, an Impeachable Offense

• Is Obama A Phony On Torture?

• The Torture Cover-Up

  It emerges from the USA that 9,000 documents proving direct involvement of the White House in cases of brutal torture are being withheld from the Senate Committee by the Obama administration

• Senate sets up departure of top CIA lawyer by lifting block on successor

  Confirmation of Caroline Krass had been put on hold by Senate to gain leverage against CIA in procuring post-9/11 documents

  [...]

  Krass had already cleared the Senate committee, but Udall put her on hold to gain leverage for the committee in its struggle for access to CIA documents relevant to its extensive study of the agency’s post-9/11 interrogation, rendition and detention program, which involved torture.

  [...]

  Eatinger, a longtime agency lawyer with counter-terrorism experience, was cited on Monday by the panel’s chairwoman, Dianne Feinstein of California, in her seminal speech lashing out at the CIA. Without naming him, Feinstein indicated he was instrumental in the agency’s now-abandoned torture practices, and had been cited over 1,600 times in the classified Senate torture investigation.

• US responds to Guantánamo Bay and NSA criticisms made by UN committee

  The US has put up its defence at the United Nations in Geneva over charges that it is guilty of widespread human rights violations, claiming that the military commissions at Guantanámo Bay meet – and exceed – fair trial standards and that agencies engaging in mass surveillance are subject to “rigorous oversight”.

• Human Rights Committee Reviews The Report Of The United States

• US criticised by UN for human rights failings on NSA, guns and drones

  Geneva panel share deep concerns over US record on host of different subjects, including racial inequality and Guantánamo

• Report: UK Guilty Of Complicity In Israeli Field Testing Of Drones On Gaza Refugees (Video)

  One report says the UK is guilty of ‘complicity in Israeli crimes against’ Palestinians after field-testing a drone on refugees in Gaza. Another report calls for independent investigations into attacks that kill civilians.

• Demilitarize McGill blockades site of campus drone research

  On the heels of the disclosure of access to information (ATI) requests that revealed that researchers at the Aerospace Mechatronics Laboratory at McGill have received over $500,000 in contracts from the Defence Research and Development Canada centre in Suffield since 2004, Demilitarize McGill took action the morning of March 14 to blockade the Laboratory.

• U.S. troops tread lightly in African training mission

  The U.S. fast-tracked the sale of 12 Reaper drones to France last year, the first two of which started operating in Niger in January alongside U.S. drones that are already in operation.

• Washington’s Back-to-the-Future Military Policies in Africa: A New Model for Expeditionary Warfare

  Under the moniker Juniper Micron, the U.S. military supported France’s effort, airlifting its soldiers and materiel into Mali, flying refueling missions in support of its airpower, and providing “intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance” (ISR) through drone operations out of Base Aerienne 101 at Diori Hamani International Airport in Niamey, the capital of neighboring Niger. The U.S. Army Africa AFISMA document also makes reference to the deployment to Chad of an ISR liaison team with communications support. Despite repeated pledges that it would put no boots on the ground in troubled Mali, in the spring of 2013, the Pentagon sent a small contingent to the U.S. Embassy in Bamako and others to support French and MINUSMA troops.

• Washington’s Back-to-the-Future

• Protesters rally against drones at Des Moines air base

  Protesters from across the country rallied in Des Moines on Saturday against the U.S. military’s drone warfare.

• Protestors Rally Against Drone Warfare

  Earlier this week, it was announced the Air National Guard Base would turn into a drone command center. The announcement has been getting people riled up.

  “The drone situation has gotten completely out of hand and there are too many thousands of innocent people getting killed by them,” said Gilbert Landolt, President of the Des Moines Chapter of Veterans for Peace.

• Ohio high school uses drone simulations for course

  A southwestern Ohio high school is using a course involving drone simulations to spark students’ interest in technology careers.

• Op-ed: Utah legislators stood up for Fourth Amendment

  Senate Bill 167 requires law enforcement officers to obtain a warrant before using drones. Like HB 128, it requires the deletion of data that does not pertain to a suspect. Importantly, given the emergence and adoption of this potentially invasive technology, this bill requires police agencies to report drone use to lawmakers, and the public at large, so we can all understand their prevalence and practical application.

• Obama: The Willing Executioner

  According to a newly-released Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll, Barack Obama’s job-approval ratings have dipped to a new low of 41 percent with a full 54 percent of respondents saying they “disapproved” of the job he’s doing. Obama’s handling of the economy, health care and foreign policy were particular areas of concern for most respondents. On health care, Obama is seen as having strengthened the for-profit insurance industry with little benefit for ordinary working people. The survey also showed “the lowest-ever approval” for the president’s handling of foreign policy. And, on the economy, the results were even more shocking; a full 57% of the people polled “believe the U.S. is still in a recession” while “65 percent think the country is on the wrong track”. Widespread disappointment in Obama’s performance has weakened his support among blacks, Hispanics and women, traditionally, the most loyal groups in the Party’s base.

• World Has No Idea How U.S. Decides on Wars

  People from Yemen and Pakistan and elsewhere have told me, and have testified in the U.S. Congress, that they have a hard time convincing their neighbors that everyone in the United States doesn’t hate them. There are buzzing killer robots flying over their houses night and day and every now and then blowing a bunch of people up with a missile with very little rhyme or reason that anyone nearby can decipher. They don’t know where to go or not go, what to do or not do, to be safe or keep their children safe. Their children have instinctively taken to crouching and covering their heads just like U.S. children in the 1950s were taught to do as supposed protection from Soviet nuclear weapons.

Militarism

• Why is the CIA Fighting Release of Documents Relating to 4 Planes that Went Missing in 1980?

  A federal judge has told the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and other federal offices to continue looking for records pertaining to the disappearance of four transport planes in 1980.

  The case was brought before Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly by plaintiff Stephen Whitaker, who has attempted to obtain information about four DC-3 aircraft, one of which was flown by his father, Harold William Whitaker.

  Stephen Whitaker filed Freedom of Information Act requests with the CIA, as well as the Department of Defense and the State Department, to learn if they possessed records that might explain what happened to the DC-3s.

• ‘US Troops Out Now’: Philippine Protesters Push Against Base Expansion

• Libya steps further into chaos

  The burning of the General National Congress Sunday — though not the first attack on the body — could portend the complete collapse of Libya’s beleaguered political process, writes Kamel Abdallah

• Gaza reporting: the importance of balance and timing

  The New Zealand Herald (14 March) published two stories of violence over Gaza with the headlines ‘Israeli warplanes strike back in Gaza’ and ‘Rockets strike Israel, jeopardising truce talk’. Those headlines and the general tone of reporting gave the impression that the Israeli military action was simply a response to unprovoked Palestinian aggression. The actual record of the balance and timing of violence over the Gaza Strip reveals a different reality.

  This month, before the actions reported in those stories, there were no Palestinian missile attacks on Israel for the first four days, whereas Israel attacked Gaza on each of the first three. These attacks included Israeli drone strikes that killed two Palestinians in Beit Hanun and wounded twochildren – one of them critically. In those first three days, Israeli artillery fired upon North Beit Lahiya, Abasan al-Kabira and Khuza’a.

Ukraine

• On the U.S. Government’s Hypocritical Demand That Russia Respect Sovereignty And International Law

• Villagers near Crimean border find themselves on tense new frontline

• Two die as Ukraine braces for Crimea breakaway vote

  One pro-Russia protester and a passerby were killed when Ukrainian nationalists opened fire on a group of men trying to storm their headquarters in the city late on Friday, police sources said.

• Crimea goes to the polls for a referendum on breaking away from Ukraine to join Russia

• Talks On Crimea Fail as Referendum Vote Nears

  The United States and Russia failed Friday to resolve a Cold-War-style standoff sparked by Moscow’s military intervention in Crimea, as the clock ticks down to the region’s vote on splitting from Ukraine.

• Order subversion: New Ukraine leader is an agent of NATO

  Next partner on Jazenjuks site is none other than the Chatham House – better known as the Royal Institute of International Affairs ( RIIA ), the British counterpart of the American imperialists Network Council on Foreign Relations . Get paid the projects of the Chatham House , among others, Rockefeller , Bill Gates, NATO, the EU and the German Konrad Adenauer Foundation . A beautiful Sauhaufen , one is tempted to say. All militarists , imperialists and rebels .

• War propaganda in the German media

  It was Hitler’s propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels who coined the phrase: “If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it.” Goebbels’ words came to mind when reading the German newspapers on Monday.

  [...]

  The claim that Russia or Putin himself are the aggressors in Ukraine turns reality on its head. The reality is that the United States and Germany have deliberately fomented the crisis in Ukraine to provoke a confrontation with Russia. They have overthrown the elected government of Viktor Yanukovych with the aid of fascist gangs and brought to power a right-wing nationalist regime that is completely subordinate to the dictates of Washington and NATO.

Privacy

• Top Democrat on House intelligence panel offers new NSA reform plan

  Top Democrat on House intelligence committee says details are still being worked on but proposal would end bulk collection

• Google encrypts search text in China

  Google has started to encrypt searches made by people in China.

  The move is widely seen as a way for users of the search engine to avoid official scrutiny of where they go online, reports the Washington Post.

• Google starts encrypting search data to protect users from NSA snooping

  INTERNET SEARCH ENGINE GIANT Google has started encrypting its search data to protect users from surveillance by state intelligence outfits like the US National Security Agency (NSA) as well as hackers.

• How to stop NSA spying through your webcam

  You already know that laptops, desktop computers, tablets and mobile phones are all at risk of being hacked. But did you know that intruders might use the built-in camera to take surreptitious pictures and videos of you and your surroundings or hijack your microphone to eavesdrop on conversations?

  The latest story from the Edward Snowden leaks yesterday drives home that the NSA and its spy partners possess specialised tools for doing exactly that. According to The Intercept, the NSA uses a plug-in called GUMFISH to take over cameras on infected machines and snap photos.

• Facebook’s Zuckerberg buttonholes Obama, rages against NSA dragnet spying

  Mark Zuckerberg is furious with US President Barack Obama, who – metaphorically, at least – clasped his hands over his ears and repeatedly said to himself “I can’t hear you” when the Facebook boss tried to grumble about spies spying on people.

• Editorial: NSA raises risks for social media

  Indeed, at an appearance at the recent South by Southwest festival, Google executive chairman Eric Schmidt likened NSA’s surveillance programs to hacking by the Chinese government.

• Wikipedia’s Wales: NSA’s Not Going to Win in Fight

  Wikipedia Co-Founder Jimmy Wales discusses NSA surveillance and internet transparency. He speaks with Francine Lacqua and Guy Johnson on Bloomberg Television’s “Market Makers.”

• NSA mimics criminals in bid to infect millions of computers, report says

• Friends in High Places Support NSA Call-Tracking Lawsuit

  One week after the ACLU filed the first appellate brief challenging the government’s bulk collection of Americans’ phone records under Section 215 of the Patriot Act, we’re getting a little help from our friends. Yesterday, seven prominent and diverse organizations filed friend-of-the-court briefs in support of our challenge, which is now before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in New York.

• Who is winning the ‘crypto-war’?

  Ladar Levison sits exhausted, slumped on a sofa with his dog Princess on his lap. He is surrounded by boxes after he moved into a new house in the suburbs of Dallas, Texas, the previous day.

• NSA About Attorney-Client Privilege Concerns: We’ll Probably Grab Your Communications But We’ll Try Not To ‘Listen In’

  A couple of weeks back we covered the American Bar Association asking for assurance from the NSA that attorney-client communications, even those involving foreign clients, would remain out of the agency’s reach. This was prompted by a leak that showed the NSA had given an Australian intelligence agency the go-ahead to intercept communications between a US law firm and its Indonesian clients.

• IBM denies sharing customers data with US government

  International Business Machines Corp has not relinquished its customers’ data to the U.S. government and would challenge any orders to do so, the company said in a blog post on Friday.

• The Servile State

  BBC News about the call of Tim Berners Lee for a Bill of Rights to protect internet freedom, and astonishingly they managed not to mention NSA, GHCQ or government surveillance at any point.

• Tim Berners-Lee: ‘We should have ways of protecting people like Snowden’

  Tim Berners-Lee thinks the internet deserves its own bill of rights. Twenty-five years after writing a draft proposal about what would later become the world wide web – and one day after describing his proposal of an internet ‘Magna Carta’ to the Guardian’s Jemima Kiss – Berners-Lee took his idea to an interested audience: the denizens of Reddit’s Ask Me Anything section.

• Should the NSA revelations win the Pulitzer Prize?

  One of the biggest stories in journalism last year had to do with the revelations from Edward Snowden about the extent of the National Security Administration’s surveillance program, which includes harvesting data from the cell phones and internet usage of non-accused American citizens as well as foreigners and their leaders.

• Edward Snowden looms over Pulitzer Prizes

  Next month, the trustees who oversee America’s most distinguished journalistic award could face their toughest decision in at least four decades.

• Snowden might receive Pulitzer Prize for NSA surveillance revelations

  The issue is very complicated. Honoring the NSA reporting in the coveted category of Public Service would be perceived as a political act, with the Pulitzer committee invoking its prestige on behalf of one side in a bitter national argument. In effect, it would be a rebuttal to prominent establishment voices in both parties who say that Snowden’s revelations, and the decision by journalists to publish them, were the exact opposite of a public service. The Justice Department is charging Snowden with three felonies. Former Vice President Dick Cheney has called him “a traitor.”

• Pulitzer Prize board to clash over awarding Snowden reporters

• Mark Zuckerberg Says The US Has Become A Threat To, Rather Than A Champion For, The Internet

  Better late than never: it appears that Mark Zuckberberg is finally really pissed off about the NSA surveillance efforts. This comes in the wake of the recent reports that the NSA sought to build a malware empire by setting up a bogus Facebook server to intercept traffic and fool users. While there have been indications that Facebook hasn’t been happy about all of this, Zuckerberg has taken to his Facebook page to really dig in, noting that he’d even called President Obama to express his thoughts on the matter.

• Google cuts Drive storage rates, offers 1TB for mere $9.99; but not for Linux

• Niemoeller Redux

  First they came for the Muslims, but I was not a Muslim so did not speak up.

• Getty Images Allows Free Embedding, but at What Cost to Privacy?

  Getty Images—among the world’s largest providers of stock and editorial photos—has announced a major change to the way it is offering its pictures for sites to use. Beginning this week, in addition to the traditional licensing options, people can embed images in their sites at no cost and with no watermarks, so long as they use the provided embed code and iframe.

• Don’t Put Your Trust in the Cloud

  In August 2011, the federal government announced plans to consolidate more than 100 different email systems used by over 300,000 employees into a single, outsourced email system. While the email transition is currently underway — Bell won the nearly $400 million contract last year — the decision quietly sparked a trade fight with the United States that placed the spotlight on the risks associated with hosting computer data outside the country.

• WhatsApp Flaw Opens Database Doors to Hackers

  It’s not clear what value hackers might find in perusing the chats of WhatsApp users, but that’s small comfort to those who’d rather not expose their private conversations. An Android developer presented a proof of concept showing how the deed could be done, but there’s no reason to believe that any thieves have penetrated the WhatsApp vault. It could mean a snag in Facebook’s acquisition deal.

• Openness and Privacy in Big Data

  Balancing openness and privacy is often a false division…

• Open Rights Group calls on UK government to end opposition to stronger European privacy rights

  Digital campaigners, the Open Rights Group, welcome today’s vote in the European Parliament to approve a Regulation on data protection. The Regulation will strengthen European citizens’ rights over their data.

• European Commission Must Listen to Parliament’s Call to Act Against Surveillance Programmes

  Today, the European Parliament passed an important resolution condemning the US and EU surveillance programmes. La Quadrature du Net welcomes this non-binding resolution as it calls for the suspension of both the “Safe Harbor” agreement and of the illegal mass surveillance programmes and reaffirms the importance of the protection of citizens’ fundamental right to privacy. Ahead of European elections, citizens should now act to ensure that privacy will be a major concern of the next legislative period so that this call is listened to by the European Commission.

• Major Loopholes Remain in European Parliament’s Data Protection Regulation

  Today the European Parliament adopted Jan Philipp Albrecht’s report on the General Data Protection Regulation at first reading. MEPs finally succeeded in resisting pressure by lobbyists, rejecting most of their harmful proposals. Although important improvements were adopted, the dangerous concepts of “legitimate interest” and “pseudonomyous data” remain and could make the final text ineffective in protecting citizens.

Censorship

• Russia Blocks Access to Major Independent News Sites

  Russia’s government has escalated its use of its Internet censorship law to target news sites, bloggers, and politicians under the slimmest excuse of preventing unauthorized protests and enforcing house arrest regulations. Today, the country’s ISPs have received orders to block a list of major news sites and system administrators have been instructed to take the servers providing the content offline.

• Britain is treating journalists as terrorists – believe me, I know

  Free speech and freedom of the press are under attack in the UK. I cannot return to England, my country, because of my journalistic work with NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden and at WikiLeaks. There are things I feel I cannot even write. For instance, if I were to say that I hoped my work at WikiLeaks would change government behaviour, this journalistic work could be considered a crime under the UK Terrorism Act of 2000.

  The act gives a definition of terrorism as an act or threat “designed to influence the government”, that “is made for the purpose of advancing a political, religious, racial or ideological cause” and that would pose a “serious risk” to the health or safety of a section of the public. UK government officials have continually asserted that this risk is present with the disclosure of any “classified” document.

• R.I.P FREE SPEECH: Protesters can now be charged $750 or 2 years gaol for attending protests in Victoria

  From September onwards the police in Victoria will have the power to ‘move on’ groups of people at their will, including those involved in peaceful protests and pickets. Those who refuse to comply with these orders can be issued with fines of $750, exclusion orders, and gaol terms of up to 2 years.

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Hardware Freedom Day is Done

Posted in News Roundup at 4:38 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

Summary: Hardware Freedom Day celebrated yesterday all around the world and the trend of open source 3D printing is worth noting

• Today is Hardware Freedom Day!

  For its second edition Hardware Freedom Day is happening with over 40 registered teams and one more sponsor in the name of LulzBot offering 8x3D printers for the event, product which has been RYF-certified by our partner the FSF. Canonical, Google and Linode are of course still part of our long term sponsors and we are trying to reward all our supporters as well. You can find more details on that by looking at the HFD website.

• Out in the Open: The Men Supercharging Neuroscience With Open Source Hardware

  The first Open Ephys projects include components for recording electrical signals in mice brains, and a software interface for collecting data. Unlike something along the lines of the open source brain scanning tool Open BCI, the Open Ephys tools are aimed at neuroscience researchers, not at engineers and game developers. Nonetheless, in building these contraptions, Siegle and Voigts have turned to many of the same tools used by other hardware hackers across the country, including the Arduino open source circuit board “We like Arduinos because lots of people know how to use them, and they’re easy to get your hands on,” Siegle says.

• OpenKnit: Open source 3D knitter lets you digitally fabricate your clothes (Video)

  Cheap, disposable fashion is not only an environmental problem, but is also about companies giving their workers unfair wages and unsafe working environments. Various solutions to this widespread problem include shopping at thrift stores, clothing swaps, buying local and handmade, but making your own clothes can also be a way to ensure that your clothes are ethically made — by you.

• Stratasys Q4 strong, aims to take MakerBot, 3D printing mainstream

• Bone replacements and heart monitors spur health revolution in open source 3D printing

  The evolution of 3D printing has moved quickly and it is now poised to alter every aspect of our lives and health. Thousands of Europeans are enjoying 3D-printed metal orthopaedic implants to support or replace missing bones and, in the US, thousands more have benefited from 3D printing used by dentists. Most people that need hearing aids have custom 3D-printed devices comfortably resting in their ears now.

• 3D Printing’s Next Revolution: Linux

  3D printers may be trendy, but they are hardly new. One of the earliest of all is the RepRap project, which began back in 2005. As its name implies – it’s short for “replicating rapid” prototyper – RepRap is designed to be able to produce copies of itself, or at least most of its parts. Not only that, it is completely open source, both in terms of its hardware (which uses Arduino kit) and software.

  Because of its open nature it has gone on to form the basis of many other 3D-printing systems, including those from MakerBot.

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03.14.14

The Latest Patent FUD From Microsoft Florian Makes Android/Linux Look Expensive

Posted in Apple, GNU/Linux, Google, Microsoft, Patents at 5:04 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

Summary: The FUD machine of the Microsoft lobbyist is interjecting itself into the media again, despite clear warnings that were published for years

KNOWING THAT Microsoft Florian is a liar and ‘spammer’ (flooding journalists with identical E-mails) that’s employed for the smearing of Android, most journalists now ignore him and we rarely hear anything from him. A few months ago I visited his blog just to see if he was still ‘alive’ online as I had not heard of him for almost a year.

Joe Mullin, who is usually excellent when it comes to reporting on patents, perhaps fails to grasp Microsoft Florian’s poor record when it comes to covering events. He is a spinner, a deceiver, and he has been proven to be only an agenda pusher for several years now. He pretends to be things that he is not. That’s what he is good at, other than mass-mailing journalists so that they link to his nonsense. Pamela Jones would be tempted to reach out for her keyboard and log into Groklaw if she saw this.

No journalist — and it’s worth repeating — NO JOURNALIST should be taking it at face value what Microsoft Florian says, not without remembering who he works for. Microsoft Florian played a major role in the “Android is expenseive” PR campaign, making up or propping up fictitious figures. HTC already refuted the FUD from this lobbyist, who is paid by Android foes including Microsoft (they seem to be passing him material to publish, too).

“Yesterday,” writes Mullin, “Mueller published a hearing transcript from February 10 which featured each side’s lawyers arguing to limit or throw out the other side’s expert report.”

So this is just an argument, it’s not actually anything factual. It’s a wet dream of some lawyer. Mullin turned it into an incredible headline which then invited many comments. This is the manufacturing of “news” out of gossip. Mullin says: “New demand dwarfs licensing fees charged by Microsoft, and it will go to the jury.”

But wait, why assume that there are “fees charged by Microsoft”? Well, guess it’s Microsoft Florian again. As Mullin later mentions: “Microsoft patent licenses to Android phone makers have reportedly been in the $7.50 to $15 per phone range, with lower estimates hanging around $5 per phone. As Mueller points out in his post on the royalty demands, those fees are for a license to a wide portfolio of patents, not just five patents being hotly litigated in court.”

The key word here is “reportedly”. But reported by who? Microsoft Florian and some Microsoft-friendly analysts. We covered this before.

Mullin concludes as follows, prepetuating an ubsubtanitated myth: “It’s also possible to earn a lot of money by convincing Android OEMs to pay patent royalties, as Microsoft has shown. One analyst estimates Microsoft is getting $2 billion per year in patent payments over Android.”

Microsoft might not be paid anything, but people like Microsoft Florian, paid by Microsoft itself, helped create this fairy tail and given it some legs. So all that Mullin’s article does is basically reiterating speculations and making them look like facts.

Well done, Microsoft, for an effective deception and PR campaign. It is the “Android is expensive” strategy. █

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