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03.03.16

In the EPO’s Official Photo Op, “Only One of the Faces is Actually FFPE-EPO”

Posted in Deception, Europe, Patents at 8:28 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

What’s not in the photo op says more than what’s in it

MoU signed with FFPE

Yellow unions
Source: Wikipedia on yellow unions

Summary: Why there are legitimate reasons to believe that FFPE-EPO is essentially being used as a yellow union, in order to help crush SUEPO and incite the media against SUEPO

THE EPO is having a propaganda day today. The rebuttals we wrote yesterday [1, 2] and so far today [1, 2] are just the tip of the iceberg. It would be interesting to know what role — if any — the Washington-based FTI Consulting plays in this propaganda. It does, after all, receive nearly 80,000 euros per month from the EPO for propaganda.

Merpel has published an article titled “EPO deal with trade union – not what it seems” in which she wrote:

In fact, as today’s announcement makes clear, the union that has signed the MoU is FFPE-EPO. What is the significance of this? Well, FFPE-EPO exists only in the Hague office of the EPO, and is believed to have about 70 members, whereas SUEPO has about 3400 (about half of the EPO staff, and increasing over recent years). While any union recognition is to be welcomed, the concern is that the EPO is trying to present this as showing that all is well, when in fact, with the overwhelmingly larger union, the disciplinary sanctions remain against the officials and there is no sign that a dialogue is possible at all. The social situation remains in a toxic state, and, under the current management, seems likely to stay that way.

The reports of the Board 28 meeting from last month suggested that perhaps the Administrative Council meeting this month on 16/17 March might be a turning point. Merpel still hopes that it will be, and that today’s announcement will not be used to suggest that the social and industrial issues within the EPO’s workforce area already being resolved.

Among the early comments we see:

Indeed the Union is a little unlikely. First it is only open to staff in The Hague (so isn’t an ‘EPO’ Union per se) and was originally set up for Dutch members of staff (they felt unfairly treated with regard to not being eligible for expat benefits so may also include other Hague staff not eligible for expat rights). Secondly, even Dutch colleagues are in the dark and the public pages of their website were last updated in 2008. If the committee hasn’t changed in more than 7 years then they must be popular. On the other hand they have no elected staff representatives despite the voting rules having been changed (unilaterally by BB) to prevent block voting of Suepo members. Their support seems minimal.

Next Tuesday there is an office-wide strike vote. Staff are not allowed to campaign for it and any communication is limited to 50 people (although nobody would dare to send even one – Emails with the word Suepo are blocked too). I guess next Tuesday we and the Administrative Council will see any fruits of this MoU.

One person asks: “Has anyone seen the MoU?”

We are going to publish it later. We received some leaked material.

“It seems only one of the faces is actually FFPE-EPO, all the rest are either EPO management or FFPE-European Council, which is a different branch of the FFPR organization.”
      –AnonymousAnother person uses sarcasm with reversal and says: “It is indeed most pleasing to see that the status of the EPO has finally been recognised by the FFPE.”

“If you need a larger Photo to identify the miscreants,” wrote a person to us, there is one at the EPO’s Web site. [via this press release which targets the media]

This person added: “It seems only one of the faces is actually FFPE-EPO, all the rest are either EPO management or FFPE-European Council, which is a different branch of the FFPR organization.”

This in itself is interesting (if true). The image metadata (above) says: “EPO signs MoU with trade union FFPE-EPO (From left to right: EPO Vice-President DG5 Raimund Lutz; FFPE Vice-Chair Aldert De Haan, EPO Vice-President DG2 Alberto Casado; President FFPE European Council Simon Coates, EPO Vice-President DG4 Željko Topić; EPO President Benoît Battistelli, EPO Principal Director Human Resources Elodie Bergot, Federal President FFPE Council of Europe John Parsons, FFPE-EPO Chair Samuel van der Bijl, President FFPE European Commission Pierre-Philippe Bacri, EPO Vice-President DG1 Guillaume Minnoye.”

Only one person, Samuel van der Bijl, is from FFPE-EPO, so this is probably true.

One other new comment states:

The President recently dismissed two leading SUEPO officials. I wonder how much commitment is behind the FFPE-EPO signatures, considering these circumstances

And once again we see the EPO publish information which is incomplete, to say the least. The publication should include the relevant facts – see comment #1: about 70 members, only in The hague. The EPO should not be able to claim immunity for such publications.

SUEPO and interested third parties should be given the possibility to challenge this and other publications, as is the case for newspaper articles etc. The EPO itself is not shy to place such request, e.g. to Techrights.

We can’t help but wonder if Battistelli and those loyal to him deal with a union which they themselves created or at least groomed/propped up for their own selfish purposes. One person wrote to us and said: “Just wanted to share my thought that FFPE unions Actionszenen remind me a lot of AUB, a “Union” set up and funded by Siemens. Timing of The MoU is too much of a “coincidence”. Would really like to know what Team Battistelli have or promised them…”

Looking into the Siemens example (also in Germany), here’s what we have: “In his first public comments since the scandal broke in February, Mr Schelsky is quoted as saying: “I was supposed to build up an umbrella organisation with the money. And that is what I did . . . I was secretly employed as a lobbyist for Siemens. There was a clear order from the top of the company.”

‘Mr Schelsky’s comments further raise the pressure on Siemens and its management. Siemens is suspected of helping finance the AUB to build a counterweight to its main IG Metall union. The AUB affair is separate from a financially far bigger bribery investigation into several divisions of Siemens.

“Siemens is suspected of helping finance the AUB to build a counterweight to its main IG Metall union. The AUB affair is separate from a financially far bigger bribery investigation into several divisions of Siemens.”
      –CorpWatch“Siemens declined to comment on Mr Schelsky’s claims but said it was co-operating with authorities in both cases to clear up the matter as quickly as possible. It has recently lost both its chief executive and chairman as a result of the scandals. Both deny any wrongdoing. Johannes Feldmayer, a management board member, is a suspect in the AUB affair and was briefly remanded in custody earlier this year. He is currently on leave from Siemens at his own request and his contract will not be renewed at the end of the year.”

Siemens is close to the EPO (the President and the EPO even pose for photos together — some of which we used here before!) and the EPO recently appointed to head of communications the person whom Siemens had allegedly hired from Transparency International to help address the bribery scandal purely by public perception (reputation laundering).

We are not suggesting that this is enough evidence with which to paint FFPE bogus/yellow union, but we just want to give readers food for thought. Organisations such as the EPO don’t have a reputation for ethics and as we showed here over the years (usually in relation to Microsoft), corrupt officials often end up calling bribes “financial assistance” or “marketing help” (euphemisms). This can sometimes happen in the case of pseudo-unions that are propped up while the other ones are viciously crushed using witchhunts, defamation, mental torture and so on. █

3/3 is EPO Propaganda Day: Techrights to Respond and Alert the Media About Misinformation

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

A few people who work for the EPO aren’t necessarily “staff union”

The Register on EPO

Summary: A quick overview of the EPO’s current PR strategy and some examples of misleading early coverage that it yields

A LOT of last night I spent writing to journalists about the latest lies from the EPO, which no doubt will try hard to mislead them today. We already know the modus operandi.

Today we are going to write a great deal of substantiative responses to the EPO. It’s not always enough to point out that the EPO is lying to journalists and warn about the EPO's spokespeople. The EPO, without a doubt, will try to distract the media from German TV coverage using two bits of propaganda which we already debunked in a hurry yesterday [1, 2]. Well, they speak about “results” (EPO link) and even pay for PRESS RELEASES about it. What a waste of money! Not to mention this secret contract with FTI Consulting…

“Well, they speak about “results” and even pay for PRESS RELEASES about it. What a waste of money!”“Filings & applications at the @EPOorg higher than ever in 2015,” EPO wrote in Twitter, but don’t ask them how they counted. Actually, the PR team would not even know…

Well, that’s just one of several patterns of propaganda. Another one we wrote about a short while ago (defaming and shooting of the messengers when it comes to their prominent critics) and the main one pertains to unions.

“EPO management signs recognition deal with trade union,” IAM wrote last night, “but not SUEPO – the principal one.”

That’s correct. By some estimates, SUEPO has more than 2 orders of magnitude more (if not 3 orders of magnitude more) members. Who does the EPO think it’s kidding?

As WIPR has just put it, after checking what FFPE-EPO really is:

The FFPE-EPO is a much smaller union compared to the Staff Union of the European Patent Office (SUEPO), which has yet to be recognised.

According to sources within the unions, the FFPE-EPO has around 70 members who all work in The Hague office, while SUEPO is estimated to have more than 3,000 members across all of the EPO’s offices.

We believe that it’s a lot less than 70 and we have publicly asked for leaks that prove it.

Remember when Siemens created fake unions after a MASSIVE bribery scandal? We are going to inform or remind readers of that in our next post.

“Remember when Siemens created fake unions after a MASSIVE bribery scandal?”We’re a little disappointed to see The Register being the first to swallow the bait and do an article about it (albeit tongue-in-cheek), noting: “Matters will now come to a head at a full meeting of the Administrative Council in Munich later this month, and the EPO executive team are clearly hoping to use the signing of an MoU with the FFPE-EPO to deflect criticism.”

“EPO signs deal with staff union it isn’t locked in death spiral with,” wrote The Register in Twitter.

As someone put it in IP Kat:

The Register published a later story with the memorable sub-headline “Olive branch may be more of a stunned snake”, suggesting that SUEPO may not be as keen to sign as they had previously reported. There’s now yet another story reporting (like the story here) that FFPE have signed.

A high-resolution picture of Bergot and other EPO tyrants (such as Battistelli and his right-hand bulldog) was included in this article.

The EPO is throwing in there the latest propaganda already; even into an article which deals with unions! To quote The Register‘s closing paragraph:

“The EPO has taken significant steps in the past few years to modernise its internal structures and increase efficiency, while further improving its patent quality,” it argues. “These cover such diverse areas as co-operation with the member states, the EPO’s IT infrastructure, and human resources policy. The 2015 annual results show that the reforms are paying off: the number of products (such as searches and examinations) delivered by EPO patent examiners grew by 14 per cent in 2015, to 365,000, and the EPO published more than 68,000 granted patents, an increase of nearly 6 per cent over 2014 and the highest number ever.”

“It’s just a distraction, akin to the talking points thrown at German television when asked to comment about human rights violations, abuses against staff, etc.”This is nonsense. Huge nonsense. It also has nothing whatsoever to do with the unions. It’s just a distraction, akin to the talking points thrown at German television when asked to comment about human rights violations, abuses against staff, etc.

There are two patterns of EPO propaganda today: “results” and “unions”. Good journalists will fact-check before repeating what the EPO asks them to repeat. Later today Techrights will publish a rebuttal to these several different arms of EPO propaganda — one about “results” (bogus) and another about FFPE (not the same thing). This post isn’t yet an in-depth rebuttal (which requires showing new material). Stay tuned for more… █

EPO Media Strategy: Call the Whistleblowers Nazis and Criminals

Posted in Europe, Patents at 7:06 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

Godwin's law
Source: Godwin’s law

Summary: A look at some of the lowest possible levels of smears against those who put at risk an abusive management inside the European Patent Office (EPO) — abusive enough to cause staff to commit suicide

THE EPO has got a war inside of it. It’s a war between staff and the clique of Battistelli, which is most of the top-level management following a multi-year coup.

A new article by Katja Riedel (we need a translation) builds on top of yesterday's radio, television and newspaper coverage in Germany. A lot of people commented on last night’s TV programme, which I too watched (it can be streamed for the next few days at Bayerischer Rundfunk‘s Web site). As one new comment put it:

This evening on Bayerischer Rundfunk, Kontrovers news magazine, from about 11min 56secs in the programme

http://www.br.de/mediathek/video/sendungen/kontrovers/kontrovers112.html

An in depth report (in German) on the social problems at the EPO lasting 20 minutes. Too long to translate but it certainly appears difficult for the EPO to defend. The EPO provided statements but no interviews. The programme interlaced the statements with (necessarily anonymous) case studies. Even a doctor would not appear on camera in case it would let any patient be identified.
The programme will be available online for about 5 days from 02.03.16.

The TV programme and other coverage from Germany has helped reinforce the correlation between EPO suicides and Battistelli with his ‘Gestapo’, the I.U. 3/3 is an EPO propaganda day (more on that later), so we need to write a lot of rebuttals today. As one comment put it yesterday, an EPO worker “committed suicide after having been subjected to an investigation by the infamous Investigation Unit.” Here is the comment in full:

There was a very critical news story on the Bavarian television this evening on the social conflicts at the EPO:

http://www.br.de/nachrichten/europaeisches-patentamt-muenchen-vorwuerfe-100.html.

Most interestingly, the report starts with an interview of the brother of one staff member who committed suicide after having been subjected to an investigation by the infamous Investigation Unit.
No later than yesterday, in his public audition by members of the French Parliament Mr. Battistelli had justified the fact that no independent enquiry had been conducted in any of the recent suicides at the EPO with the argument that the families themselves had not claimed that there was any relationship whatsoever between the suicides and the EPO …

Battistelli is of course blaming his victims, even those whom he illegally suspended or dismissed. He not only can be seen comparing his opposition to "Nazis" but also to criminals. Oh, the hypocrisy. Battistelli needs to watch out and be careful what he says or else staff will sue him for defamation. Telling utter nonsense to French politicians isn’t acceptable and as this comment put it yesterday:

Curioser and curioser: so, criminal proceedings are open against staff representatives? On the basis of German law, I gather? I thought that German law (on human rights or data protection, for instance) was “inapplicable” in Eponia? Or is it applicable when it suits Benito Battistelli’s purposes?

One asks: “Could anyone cast some light here?”

Here is more information, for those who don’t understand French:

Dear Inspector Gadget, I think that you are confused or rather that BB’s babble may have confused you.

The latest allegation raised by BB in front of the French Parliamentary Committee implied or insinuated that the dismissed staff representatives had been somehow involved or implicated in the sending of messages with “Nazi symbols” to German members of staff.

As far as I could decipher BB’s babble, this does not mean that anyone is being accused of being a Nazi (in this particular case !) but rather that people have allegedly thrown “Nazi insults” at others.

According to BB such actions are in breach of German law and have resulted in the filing of a criminal complaint. It seems that national law is still respected by BB when it suits his purposes.

So far nobody has been able to obtain any information as to whether or not such a complaint actually exists and if so who is named in it as the accused.
It is quite possible that the EPO did indeed file a complaint against “persons unknown” but in the absence of tangible evidence leading to the identification of the perpetrator(s), the State Prosecutor would probably close the file.

And finally there’s this:

In this public declaration, made on 1 March 2016 in front of members of the French parliament, Mr Battistelli clearly justifies the dismissal of the SUEPO officials by accusing these of having uttered nazy insults against other EPO staff members, for which a criminal complaint has been filed.

This is too much for me.

As we are going to show later today (this afternoon), there is even worse propaganda right now. Battistelli is fighting for survival and bamboozling journalists with the PR team; this appears to be the latest media strategy, aided by massive budget. █

Links 3/3/2016: GNU/Linux in Estonian Schools, Shippable 4.0

Posted in News Roundup at 6:27 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

GNOME bluefish

Contents

GNU/Linux

  • To Appreciate a Life

    The most useful meanings outlive the words, people and media that carry them. On a Linux Journal Geek Cruise in 2005, I asked Andrew Morton, the Linux kernel maintainer, if he thought Linux would be around a hundred years in the future. He said yes, and that most work on the kernel in 2105 would still be “stamping out bugs”.

    A decade into that century, with Linux more meaningful than ever to our whole networked civilization, I find myself wondering how long the world it maintains will last, and if the world would be lucky to still have Linux, doing what it has always done, and much more—or if the world has come to depend on other ways of computing. No way to know, and few if any of us reading this will be around to find out.

  • Desktop

    • Is It Time For Desktop Linux To Focus On Niche Applications And Stop Obsessing About Flashy GUIs?

      More and more of our life is going to be spent on smaller devices such as phones and so developers would be far better spending their time creating decent web applications and mobile phone applications.

      If you are going to develop for the desktop operating system then you are better focusing on applications that people really need for the desktop.

      Kudos to the Ubuntu developers. The convergence looks really good.

    • Estonian schools piloting open source software

      Schools in Estonia’s capital Tallinn are piloting a new program, gradually moving to PC workstations running on free and open source software. Students, teachers, school administration and kindergartens’ staff members are using LibreOffice, Ubuntu-Linux and other open source tools, saving millions of dollars on software fees.

  • Server

    • Shippable 4.0 Sets Sail with Improved Docker Integration

      The first thing users will notice about Shippable v4.0 is its increased flexibility. Developers can use the tools and platforms they’re working with currently to automate their build and deployment pipelines.

      “When you want to change tools or languages, move to a new technology like microservices or containers, or expand your deployment environment, you don’t have to start over again rebuilding your app delivery pipeline,” said Shippable CEO Avi Cavale.

      Recreating one’s system from the ground up can be a headache, one which Shippable hopes to curb with its improvements made to version 4.0 of the platform.

  • Kernel Space

    • Thunderbolt 3′s lightning-fast speeds hit Linux PCs

      The PC maker is building driver support for Thunderbolt 3 and USB Type-C into the XPS 13 Developer Edition, wrote a Dell employee in a company forum.

      Thunderbolt 3 is a connector technology that can hook up PCs to external peripherals like storage and monitors. It’s like USB, but four times faster. A 4K movie could be transferred from an external storage device to a PC in 30 seconds.

      Linux PCs will be a lot more capable with Thunderbolt 3. Users will be able to connect two 4K monitors simultaneously, connect to external graphics cards and establish a peer-to-peer network with other Linux PCs.

    • Companies that Support Linux: Apprenda

      Last fall, Apprenda — an enterprise platform as a service (PaaS) provider — joined the Linux Foundation and the Open Container Initiative. And, just this week, the company announced it has joined Kubernetes, a container management system developed by Google.

      According to the blog post, Apprenda plans to incorporate Kubernetes into its current architecture, stating “over the course of the next few product releases, we’ll be merging Kubernetes, the open-source container orchestration system from Google, into our architecture and joining the Kubernetes community.”

      As part of our series on companies that support Linux, we talked with Chris Gaun, Director of Strategy at Apprenda, to learn more about the company’s new direction and open source commitment.

    • If You Use An ASUS Motherboard & Hit A Linux Issue, Hopefully It’s On This List
    • Dell is bringing Thunderbolt 3 support to Linux systems

      The Dell XPS 13 is one of our favorite laptops, but that’s only if Windows is your operating system of choice. Mac users have a whole brand just for their computers, but Linux aficionados are typically left out in the cold. There’s good news today though, as the XPS Developer Edition, which runs a custom Ubuntu image, will bring support for Thunderbolt 3 to the platform with the Skylake update, according to chatter on the Dell forums, as pointed out by PCWorld.

    • Graphics Stack

      • OpenSWR High Performance Software Rasterizer Lands In Mesa

        Intel’s OpenSWR high-performance software rasterizer that’s an alternative to LLVMpipe has landed in mainline Mesa.

        OpenSWR is a performant software rasterizer developed by Intel that in their workloads is much faster than using LLVMpipe for rendering OpenGL on x86 CPUs. If this is your first time hearing about OpenSWR, read our earlier articles on the matter: Intel Is Making A High-Performance Software Rasterizer For Mesa and OpenSWR High-Performance Software Rasterizer Revised For Mesa.

      • AMD Sends Out Big Patch Series For HSA/OpenCL Interop Support

        AMD’s Marek Olšák sent out a set of 26 patches this morning for preparing the RadeonSI Gallium3D driver to have interoperability support between OpenGL and HSA/OpenCL.

      • AMD Publishes OpenVX AMDOVX Open-Source Beta

        The latest fruits of AMD’s GPUOpen initiative is the open-sourcing of a beta of AMDOVX.

    • Benchmarks

      • Linux 4.1 Through Linux 4.5 Kernel Benchmarks On An Intel Xeon E3 v5

        For your viewing pleasure to get our March 2016 Linux benchmarking started is a Linux 4.1 through Linux 4.5 kernel benchmark comparison when testing with a 4GHz Intel Xeon E3 v5 Skylake CPU and using a RadeonSI-supported graphics card and SSD for storage.

        Used for today’s kernel benchmark comparison was the new Xeon E3-1280 v5 with 3.7GHz base clock frequency and 4.0GHz turbo frequency, MSI C236A Workstation motherboard, 16GB of DDR4 system memory, 120GB Samsung 850 EVO SSD, and Radeon R7 370 graphics card. Thanks to MSI for making this motherboard and CPU testing possible.

      • Clear Linux vs. Ubuntu 16.04 On The Xeon E3-1280 v5 Skylake Workstation

        With Clear Linux continuing to outperform other Linux distributions on Intel hardware, I was curious to see how the Intel OTC Linux distribution was performing when trying it with one of the new Xeon CPUs at our disposal for testing.

        For some quick Clear Linux vs. Ubuntu 16.04 LTS development benchmarks I compared some of the original benchmarks for the Xeon E3-1280 v5 to that of a fresh install of Clear Linux 6470 as the latest build of this rolling-release-like distribution at the time of testing.

  • Applications

  • Desktop Environments/WMs

    • K Desktop Environment/KDE SC/Qt

      • Plasma 5.6 Beta

        Wednesday, 02 March 2016. Today KDE releases a beta update to its desktop software, Plasma 5.6.

        This release of Plasma brings many improvements to the task manager, KRunner, activities, and Wayland support as well as a much more refined look and feel.

      • February KWin/Wayland update: all about input

        I haven’t blogged for quite some time about the progress on KWin/Wayland and had a few people requesting an update. As we are now approaching a feature freeze and I have most of the things I wanted to do for Plasma 5.6 done, it’s time to blog again. I use this also as a public service announcement: thanks to Let’s Encrypt my blog is also available through an encrypted connection.

      • So what is Kube? (and who is Sink?)

        Michael first blogged about Kube, but we apparently missed to properly introduce the Project. Let me fix that for you Wink

        Kube is a modern groupware client, built to be effective and efficient on a variety of platforms and form-factors. It is built on top of a high-performance data access layer and Qt Quick to provide an exceptional user experience with minimal resource usage. Kube is based on the lessons learned from KDE Kontact and Akonadi, building on the strengths and replacing the weak points.

        Kube is further developed in coordination with Roundcube Next, to achieve a consistent user experience across the two interfaces and to ensure that we can collaborate while building the UX.

      • Will the Addons Weather widget be revived for Plasma 5.6?

        If you are deep in coding mode and cannot afford to turn your head or even your eyes to look through the window at outside to check the current weather… or if you are deep down below ground plumbing at your black hole farming machine and now preparing your way home and are unsure whether to put on a rain jacket or the sunglasses… what is there to help you? A widget on your computer telling you about the weather, right.

        Plasma5 so far was missing the port of the weather widgets which were part of the Plasma Addons package with the older Plasma. While there are nice Plasma5 weather widgets on kde-apps.org (1, 2) I wanted the weather widget back I was used to.

      • KDE Makes the Desktop Practical Again

        Before the KDE 4.1 release in 2008, Aaron Seigo announced the end of desktop icons. He was being provocative, because what he was really announcing was the end of being restricted to a single icon set. Instead, KDE Plasma began supporting multiple desktops, and with them several ways to swap sets of icons in and out. These changes have received little publicity, but they are ideal for quickly customizing a desktop for a specialized task.

        You do not have to use these features. However, if you choose to explore them, you can apply them not only to the main desktop, but also to any activities, or even any virtual workspaces, so long as you first select from the main menu System Settings > Workspace Behavior > Virtual Desktop > Different Widgets for each desktop. It’s all a matter of which combination of customizations you prefer: a default desktop, folder views, multiple desktop folders, or a single desktop folder with filters.

      • KDE Plasma 5.6 Is Getting Ready With More Wayland Improvements

        KDE’s Martin Gräßlin has provided a status update concerning KWin/Wayland support with the latest KDE stack.

        Martin Gräßlin has been spending most of his time recently focusing upon the KDE input support for Wayland and better supporting libinput. There’s been a lot of code clean-ups and bug fixes as well as bringing input features closer to parity between X11 and Wayland.

      • KDE Plasma 5.6 Beta Released

        The KDE community has banded together to release the Plasma 5.6 beta today.

        KDE Plasma 5.6 is bringing improvements to the default Breeze theme as well as to the light and dark versions, task manager improvements, smoother widgets, a weather widget has finally returned to Plasma 5, and plenty of Wayland improvements. Plasma 5.6 has also been prepping Plymouth boot screen and GRUB boot-loader screens designed around the Breeze theme in aiming to complete the KDE computing experience.

      • Tumbleweed gets KDE app store

        Since the last update on openSUSE Tumbleweed, there have been five snapshots and some of those snapshots have brought some interesting new packages.

        The 20160225 snapshot allows Tumbleweed users to add a package called ‘discover‘, which is the KDE software installer, implemented as an app store like application.

      • KDE Plasma 5.6 Beta Brings New Light Breeze Theme, Wayland Support, More

        KDE Plasma 5.6 Beta has been announced by the KDE community, marking the start of a new development cycle for the desktop.

        The new KDE Plasma 5.x branch wasn’t all that well received by users when it was initially launched, but the developers continued to improve upon it. This latest 5.6 Beta release shows just how far the project has come. The progress made by the developers is astounding, and it looks like they are still making significant changes.

    • GNOME Desktop/GTK

      • A little teaser for future Maps

        We’ve just entered the UI and string freeze for 3.20, we have a lot of new stuff coming up for Maps in 3.20 that I’m really excited about to see ”out the door”.

        One thing that I’ve been wanting in Maps for a while is support for transit routing (for using public transportation options) in addition to our current ”turn-based” routing for car, bicycle, and walking powered by GraphHopper.

      • GNOME Maps 3.20 to Integrate Lots of New Features

        GNOME Maps 3.20 looks like it’s going to be a great release and developers have added quite a few new features.

        When GNOME Maps was upgraded from 3.16 to 3.18, the jump wasn’t all that obvious. Just a couple of new major features were added. On the other hand, the developers are now preparing for GNOME 3.20, and there’s a lot more interesting stuff going on.

  • Distributions

    • New Releases

    • PCLinuxOS/Mageia/Mandriva Family

      • The March 2016 Issue of the PCLinuxOS Magazine

        The PCLinuxOS Magazine staff is pleased to announce the release of the March 2016 issue. With the exception of a brief period in 2009, The PCLinuxOS Magazine has been published on a monthly basis since September, 2006. The PCLinuxOS Magazine is a product of the PCLinuxOS community, published by volunteers from the community. The magazine is lead by Paul Arnote, Chief Editor, and Assistant Editor Meemaw. The PCLinuxOS Magazine is released under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-Share-Alike 3.0 Unported license, and some rights are reserved.

    • Gentoo Family

      • Sabayon 16.3 Monthly Release Available To Download

        Sabayon is a free, open source and Gentoo based Linux distribution. It aims to provide the easy to use, simple and yet powerful Linux operating system. Sabayon team has made the monthly release Sabayon 16.3 available to download with bug fixes and applications updates.
        Sabayon is a Gentoo based Linux distribution. It is available in all popular flavors, KDE, GNOME, Xfce and MATE. So if you are wanting to try this distribution then you can install Sabayon in your favorite flavor.

    • Red Hat Family

    • Debian Family

      • Last week ‘flu by

        My first chore was to set up VPN access to the development resources (source control, wiki, etc.). I sandboxed the proprietary VPN client in a VM with a systemd unit to run it at boot, so I can control it by starting and stopping that VM. I then set to work on unpacking and exploring the SoC vendor’s evaluation module (EVM), starting by looking at serial output – of which there was none. Nothing on the LCD panel or network port either. A frustrating day.

      • Derivatives

        • Canonical/Ubuntu

          • Canonical and Intel Train Companies on the Use of Snappy Ubuntu Core and IoT

            Canonical and Intel continue to further their partnership in the IoT business, and the two companies have just recently completed a training session for developers at the Taipei Intel Technology Training Center.

          • Flavours and Variants

            • Linux Mint Devs Explain Timeline of Website Hack

              The Linux Mint team is recovering from the website attack in February that seriously affected their credibility. The lead developer of the project, Clement Lefebvre explained in great detail everything that happened.

            • Linux Mint: The right way to react to a security breach

              The Linux Mint developers have posted a summary of their reaction to the recent compromise of their distribution image. It provides an excellent example of what to do in such a situation.

            • Mint Recovery, Tumbleweed Updates, Charlie Brown Ubuntu

              Today in Linux news Clement Lefebvre today said that things are back up and running over in Mintland with more security measures in place. Douglas DeMaio posted of the latest Tumbleweeds news including new KDE app store and Jack Wallen asked, “Why’s everybody all pickin’ on Ubuntu?” The Free Software Foundation said to ‘read the fine manual’ in answer to the ZFS GPL question and another security vulnerability involving SSLv2 was announced.

            • FAQ: What the heck happened to Linux Mint?

              Apparently, a hacker going by the handle “Peace.” Peace gave an interview to ZDNet reporter Zach Whittaker, in which he or she explained that the idea was mainly just to get access to as many computers as possible, possibly for a botnet. Peace first gained access to the site in January, via a security vulnerability in a WordPress plugin.

  • Devices/Embedded

Free Software/Open Source

  • ReactOS – Fake Or Potential Windows Alternative? Review And Extended Test Drive Of Latest Release

    After 10 years of development was released the new major release of ReactOS, this event was highlighted in the most biggest tech resources. But I’m not interested in just talk about release notes from “crazy Russian developers”, more interested is technical opportunities and possibilities.
    Which architecture use React OS now, which hardware are supported, why users and developers might find it interesting, the degree of compatibility with Microsoft Windows? Is there a Windows-based copy with Unix-style? For these and other questions you can find the answers in this article (or ask new questions in comments).

  • FOSS History in Retrospect: 3 Generations of Open Source Coders and Users

    It’s 2016, and open source is everywhere you look. The norms, forms and faces of open source have changed so much, in fact, that they seem to signal the rise of a new generation of open source programmers. Here’s why.

    Lest I ruin anyone’s day by appearing to spread falsehoods on the Internet, I will note that the idea of generations is a construct. I realize there is no actual line separating one so-called generation of people from another. I also realize that most of the people who wrote the first free or open source programs several decades ago are still around and coding.

  • Navigating OPNFV’s Brahmaputra Release

    What we’ve seen with Brahmaputra is key stakeholders collaborating across the industry and a marked increase in community engagement overall. For example, 35 projects were involved in the Brahmaputra release, compared to just five in Arno. That’s a six-fold increase in just ten months! Even more telling is the more than 140 developers involved in the release—which means we’ve seen developer participation in OPNFV as a whole increase five-fold since August of 2015.

  • OPNFV Promises More Powerful Platform
  • OPNFV Project offers second platform release
  • OPNFV Matures with New Release of Open Source NFV Platform
  • Better Intel Skylake & Galileo Support Arrives For Coreboot

    Coreboot received some new Intel feature work yesterday for improving the state of initializing some newer hardware with this open-source alternative to proprietary UEFI/BIOS.

  • Open Source Initiative Welcomes Internet Systems Consortium as Newest Affiliate Member

    The Open Source Initiative® (OSI) is honored to announce ISC (Internet Systems Consortium), the organization behind the ongoing development and distribution of the most used name server software, BIND, has joined the OSI as an Affiliate Member. Founded in 1994, ISC plays a critical role supporting the fundamental architecture of the Internet, driving standards for the Domain Name System (DNS). ISC provides leadership both in standards development and software for the Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP) and is an active contributor to the Internet Engineering Task Force.

  • Open source, open borders

    Over the past two decades open source has gone from a fringe interest to a mainstay of the technology industry. The importance of open source code and prominent issues like security flaws in major open source projects have led to open source foundations becoming more and more important, which means the decisions they make matter.

    The foundations are not just for fundraising and patent protection, although Ghost notes: “As a non-profit, no individual stands to gain if we pay more tax or less tax. The foundation either has more, or less money to spend on its mission to create free, open source software — that’s all.”

  • Log Analytics Tools: Open Source vs. Commercial

    In this article, I’m going to relay my own experience and that of other engineers at Search Technologies with log analytics tools–Splunk and Elasticsearch, Logstash, and Kibana (ELK) in the Elastic stack. As every article says, you’ll have to decide what works best for you.

  • Events

  • Web Browsers

    • Mozilla

      • Update on Connected Devices Innovation Process: Four Projects Move Forward

        The Internet of Things is changing the world around us, with new use cases, experiences and technologies emerging every day. As we continue to experiment in this space, we wanted to take a moment to share more details around our approach, process and current projects we’re testing.

      • Moving towards WebVR 1.0

        Consumer VR is at our doorsteps, and it’s sparking the imagination of developers and content creators everywhere. As such it’s no surprise that interest in WebVR is booming. Publications like the LA Times have used WebVR to explore the landscape of Mars, and a doctor was able to save the life of a little girl by taking advantage of Sketchfab’s VR features. The creativity and the passion of the WebVR community has been incredible!

      • Mozilla Releases Proposal For WebVR 1.0 API

        Mozilla’s Virtual Reality team working in conjunction with the Google Chrome team is ready to release a proposal for a new web API for handling VR devices: meet the WebVR 1.0 proposal.

  • SaaS/Big Data

    • Hyperglance Bridges Cloud Worlds with AWS and OpenStack Focus

      Many people on the cloud computing scene will characterize Amazon Web Services as the proprietary platform that rules the roost, while OpenStack gets the nod among open platforms. There are new ways to leverage both platforms, though. Hyperglance Ltd. has announced Hyperglance 4.0 to bring together Amazon Web Services (AWS) and OpenStack cloud infrastructure, including Nagios alerts, into what it is billing as “an interactive, easy to use, 3D topology console within a single browser tab view.”

  • Healthcare

    • MITRE shares an open source FHIR testing tool

      Quina, speaking at the Federal Health IT Pavilion at HIMSS16, demonstrated Crucible, a tool that was created to help developers identify errors in FHIR applications. Funding from MITRE Corp. has made it possible for the software to be offered as an open-source project with an Apache license. Using the web interface at ProjectCrucible.org, a developer can run 228 test suites that include over 2,000 tests of the FHIR specification.

  • FSF/FSFE/GNU/SFLC

  • Openness/Sharing

Leftovers

  • Windows 10 May Delete Important Programs Without Your Permission

    After installing a major update or newer builds, users are reporting issues of losing programs in Windows 10.

  • Health/Nutrition

    • Uganda In Clinical Trials For Ebola Vaccine

      The US National Institutes of Health (NIH) and GSK each own intellectual property that underlies this vaccine candidate. GSK is also the manufacturer of the vaccine.

    • Canada Welcomes USAians

      I love my local hospital. They provide quick, courteous service 24×7. We are also ~30million people in a country larger than yours so we won’t crowd you at all.

    • When did most Americans search for ‘move to Canada’?

      As sure as “Results Wednesday” follows Super Tuesday, Americans were reacting to the outcome of the voting by searching on Google for how to move to Canada.

  • Security

    • Why Linux Distros Look Insecure Even Though They’re Not

      The Linux distro is also likely to tell you about bugs as soon as they are discovered instead of waiting for an arbitrary day like “Patch Humpday” or a press conference where they also announce some sort of positive news — “Now includes NSA-supplied encryption back door for added security!” — or some other new feature they’re proud of.

      When it comes to bugs, hacks, and security breaches, FOSS is typically “no waiting” when it comes to telling users about program flaws.

    • Open-source code from Mars rover used in espionage campaign targeting Indian government

      Two open-source code libraries used in the development of the historic Mars rover have been exploited by cybercriminals and moulded into an effective espionage tool that is being used to target high-level officials in the Indian government.

      First exposed by security researchers at Palo Alto Networks, the malware, now dubbed Rover, was found in a malicious phishing email received by India’s ambassador to Afghanistan that was made to look like it was sent from India’s defence minister which, if opened, would have installed a slew of vicious exploits on the computer system.

      Upon analysis, the experts found the malware, which contained code that attacked a flaw in Office XP, boasted a range of spying features including the ability to hijack computer files, launch a keylogger, take screenshots and even record audio and video in real-time. All of the data compromised would be sent straight to the malware creator’s command and control (C&C) server.

    • Open Source Code Of Mars Rover Being Used To Create Malware To Target Indian Government

      Last year on December 24, 2015, a potential online target was identified which was delivered via an email to a high profile Indian diplomat, an Ambassador to Afghanistan. The email was spoofed and crafted as if it was sent by the current defence minister of India, Mr. Manohar Parikar. The mail commended the Ambassador to Afghanistan on his contributions and success.

    • Report: 3.5 Million HTTPS Servers Vulnerable to DROWN

      A report released Tuesday on the DROWN vulnerability raises concerns about possible attacks that could expose encrypted communications. DROWN is a serious vulnerability that affects HTTPS and other services using SSL version 2, according to the team of security researchers who compiled the report. The protocols affected are some of the essential cryptographic protocols for Internet security. An attack could decrypt secure HTTPS communications, such as passwords or credit card numbers, within minutes.

    • OpenSSL update fixes Drown vulnerability
    • HTTPS DROWN flaw: Security bods’ hearts sink as tatty protocols wash away web crypto

      DROWN (aka Decrypting RSA with Obsolete and Weakened eNcryption) is a serious design flaw that affects HTTPS websites and other network services that rely on SSL and TLS – which are core cryptographic protocols for internet security. As previously reported, about a third of all HTTPS servers are vulnerable to attack, the computer scientists behind the discovery of the issue warn.

    • Security advisories for Wednesday
    • DROWN Security Flaw Is Bad, But It’s Not Heartbleed or OpenSSL’s Fault

      For the second time in as many years, HTTPS encryption has turned out to have a huge flaw. This time, it’s called DROWN, and it affects more than 11 million servers that use the open source OpenSSL library. But that doesn’t make it another Heartbleed, and it doesn’t mean it’s time to give up on OpenSSL entirely.

    • DROWN Attack on TLS – Everything You Need To Know
    • Timely delivery of security updates
    • “Hack The Pentagon” — US Government’s Bug Bounty Program Invites Hackers And Coders

      This program is an initiative of the US Department of Defense’s new division Defense Digital Service (DDS) that’s led by former Microsoft executive Chris Lynch. Mr. Lynch says that he’s using his industry contacts to invite security experts and coders to participate.

    • John McAfee unlocks an iPhone and does not eat a shoe

      SHOE CONSERVATIONISTS should be glad that colourful security character John McAfee has lived up to his word and managed to unlock an iPhone.

    • Fedora Safe from DROWNing Attack

      If you are familiar with security , you likely saw the disclosure yesterday of the openssl v2 vulnerability given the sensational name “Drown”. Good news if you use Fedora (and it’s updated — Update with 20160229 ISOs) you don’t need to worry about a 0 day vuln fix. Openssl-1.0.2g IS the patched version and is on all Fedora Infrastructure and openssl that is shipped in fedora DEFAULTS to having the v2 AND v3 protocols not built-in “Compiled without openSSLv2/v3 support”.

    • Fedora Security Team FAD 2016

      In a couple of weeks (March 11th) the Fedora Security Team will be meeting in Washington, D.C. to hack on training, security fixes, and other issues. All Fedora contributors are welcome to stop by if you’re in the area.

  • Defence/Police/Secrecy/Aggression

    • US Military Launches Cyber Attacks on ISIS In Iraq, And Announces It

      This is the first time when the US has announced an open cyber attack. The cyber attack on ISIS will focus on recapturing the city of Mosul in Northern Iraq from ISIS. The electronic infrastructure of Iraq was set by the US during the reconstruction of Iraq and the US is going to capitalize on those electronics with the cyber attacks.

    • U.S. Military Contractors Return In Droves to Iraq

      America’s mercenaries smell the blood (and the money) and are returning to Iraq.

      Mercs are a great thing for the U.S. government, in that they aren’t counted as “troops,” or as “boots on the ground,” even while they are both. The Defense Department can disavow any mischief the contractors get up like, such as murdering civilians, and keep the headcount low and the body count low when things are going well, or bad. It only costs money, and that America has a bottomless pool of, as long as it being spent on something violent abroad instead of helping Americans at home (which is socialism, sonny.)

  • Environment/Energy/Wildlife

    • The worst drought in 900 years helped spark Syria’s civil war

      The drought that played a role in triggering the catastrophic Syrian Civil War was the worst such climate event in at least the past 900 years, according to a new study published this week.

      The study bolsters the conclusions from other research that found that because of human-made global warming, the drought was made three times more likely to occur, and that it was one of a number of factors that led to the outbreak of hostilities in 2011.

    • BHP Billiton-owned mining company agrees to pay $8.5bn to Brazil Government over 2015 dam collapse

      Millions of cubic metres of mining waste burst from a dam at the iron ore mine, causing what is considered to be Brazil’s worst environmental disaster.

    • Leonardo DiCaprio does a whole lot more than just talk about climate change

      Until his Academy Award acceptance speech on Sunday night, The Revenant star Leonardo DiCaprio had for years slipped under the radar as one of the most committed climate and oceans advocates in Hollywood.

      Instead, the public image that stuck was one of a talented, hard-partying star who seemed to be constantly surrounded by a coterie of models.

    • Climate Change Fuels Boko Haram

      Boko Haram, Nigeria’s homegrown Islamist terror group, continues to rampage across the country with growing impunity. Since its emergence in 2009, the group has killed 20,000 people and forced over 2.5 million Nigerians from their homes.

      Its expansion has been aided by growing ties with more established terrorist networks, especially al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), providing the group with “training and material support” according to the UN Security Council. Last year, Boko Haram pledged allegiance to the Islamic State (ISIS), active in parts of Iraq and Syria.

    • Climate deniers lose key talking point as satellites show temperatures hit all-time highs

      February was the warmest month in the satellite record of atmospheric temperatures, according to new data. This is just the first domino to fall during what will likely prove to be the warmest, or one of the warmest, months on record as more data trickles in on conditions during February.

      The satellite data deals a setback to climate deniers that frequently cite the satellite record of atmospheric temperatures as evidence that human-caused global warming either doesn’t exist or is far smaller than scientists claim.

    • Mosul dam engineers warn it could fail at any time, killing 1m people

      Iraqi engineers involved in building the Mosul dam 30 years ago have warned that the risk of its imminent collapse and the consequent death toll could be even worse than reported.

      They pointed out that pressure on the dam’s compromised structure was building up rapidly as winter snows melted and more water flowed into the reservoir, bringing it up to its maximum capacity, while the sluice gates normally used to relieve that pressure were jammed shut.

  • Finance

    • TPP Is Obama’s Top Trade Priority For 2016

      Passage of the Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement is the Obama administration’s top trade priority this year, the Office of the United States Trade Representative said in its annual trade agenda released today. The agenda highlights intellectual property protection but also says all the right things on copyright limitations and exceptions, safe harbor for internet service providers, promotion of generic medicines, and the ability of countries to use flexibilities under international trade law.

  • PR/AstroTurf/Lobbying

    • Clinton Politics Made Simple

      Hillary summed up the psychological trick of the faux egalitarianism in a simple sentence:
      “If we broke up the big banks tomorrow … will that end racism? Will that end sexism? Will that end discrimination against the LGBT community?”. It is brilliant rhetoric, a masterpiece of sophistry. Of course breaking up the banks will not directly end these other evils. But neither would ending those things end the appalling level of wealth inequality. It comes directly back to my opening question of whether multi-billionaires are OK as long as they are appropriately representative of black, female and LGBT.

    • Hillary Lost My Vote in Honduras

      I am one of the many young women who to the consternation of so many pundits is just not Ready for Hillary in 2016. And it’s not because I am a bad feminist, it’s because I am judging Hillary Clinton, just as she has asked to be judged, on her record and her foreign policy credentials. I spent nearly five years in Central America working as a cross-border solidarity activist and I now work with immigrants in Massachusetts who have fled the violence in that region. So, I might have been moved by Clinton’s recent pledge to “campaign for human rights” and take on immigration reform. But I have seen first-hand how Clinton failed on that front when top military commanders in Honduras (all men, of course) overthrew its democratically elected president Manual Zelaya in 2009.

    • Why Bernie Sanders is No Jeremy Corbyn

      But attaching the label of “movement” to the Sanders’ campaign mistakes appearance for reality. Sanders’ rallies have certainly attracted large crowds – even larger than those of Obama in 2008. But a crowd is not a movement.

    • NYT Works Hard to Present Primary Race as More Boring Than It Is

      Something you often see in media analysis is that campaign reporters have a bias toward the horserace—that is, because they want an audience, they have an incentive to present electoral races as more interesting and competitive than they actually are.

      It’s completely untrue. The fact is, when real politics are at stake, corporate media often go out of their way to make races seem as boring as possible—to declare them over long before most citizens have had a chance to vote.

    • The Trump Campaign: Bad for America, but Good for CBS

      oonves noted that the election has been a boost for ratings—“We had a debate a couple of weeks ago, it was 14 million people on a Saturday night.

  • Censorship

  • Privacy

    • Different Brazilian Judge Orders Facebook Exec Released After Arrest

      A bit of a follow up to yesterday’s story about Brazilian law enforcement arresting Facebook vice president for Latin America, Diego Dzodan, because Whatsapp (a Facebook subsidiary) refused to help in a drug trafficking case. This was a ridiculous move by almost any measure: (1) While Whatsapp is a Facebook subsidiary, it’s operated independently, so arresting a Facebook exec is like arresting an investor for what one of its companies does; (2) Whatsapp uses strong end-to-end encryption from Open Whisper Systems, the folks who make the gold standard encrypted communication system Signal Private Messenger, meaning that it’s impossible for Whatsapp or Facebook to decrypt messages; and (3) jailing unrelated executives over issues like that is just insane.

    • The UK’s Proposed Spy Law Would Force Apple to Secretly Hack its Phones Too

      The FBI’s demand that Apple craft new software to bypass iOS’s security protections has ignited a worldwide debate about a government’s ability to force tech companies to sabotage their own security. One repeated question has been: will other countries, like China, demand the same powers?

    • A Texas City Rescinds “No Cost” License Plate Reader Deal For Being “Big-Brotherish”

      At the beginning of the year, the City of Kyle, Texas, approved a controversial agreement to install automated license plate recognition (ALPR) technology in its police vehicles. The devices would come at no cost to the city’s budget; instead, police would also be outfitted with credit card readers and use ALPR to catch drivers with outstanding court fees, also known as capias warrants.

      With each card swipe, an added 25% surcharge would go to Vigilant Solutions, the company providing the system. As an added bonus the company would also get to keep all the data on innocent drivers collected by the license plate readers—indefinitely.

      But before the license plate readers could even be installed, the Kyle city council voted 6-1 to rescind the order. The reason: public and media outcry over how the system would turn police into debt collectors and data miners.

      “It’s a little Big Brother-ish for me. It’s a little too invasive for me,” Councilmember Daphne Tenorio said at the February 16 hearing. “I’m uncomfortable with it…Because my husband’s in IT, I see what happens and, for me, personally I can’t justify it.”

      The February meeting was the city’s mulligan. Councilmembers grilled Vigilant Vice President of Sales Joe Harzewski with hard questions that should’ve been raised the first time around, such as what data is collected, where is the data stored, how long is it stored, how is it shared, and how is it protected.

    • State AG: We Have A Warrant Requirement For Stingrays; State Police: FILE(S) NOT FOUND

      This is a problem. It’s not that the state police chose to withhold the information, as it has with several other Stingray-related documents requested by the News Journal and the local ACLU. It’s that it says no records exist. This means the warrants the Attorney General says police must use are not being used.

      What do appear to be used by Delaware State Police are vague pen register orders that hide from judges and defendants the technology actually being used to obtain this phone data. Public defender John Daniello had one such document turned over to him by the police — one that apparently was used to deploy Harris Technology’s cellphone-tracking technology.

    • The revised Investigatory Powers Bill: what has changed

      A revised version of the Investigatory Powers Bill was published today, less than three weeks after critical reports by the Intelligence and Security Committee and the Joint Committee, which had scrutinised the Bill. Together with the Science & Technology Committee, they made 123 recommendations. On first reading, it appears that the revised Bill has made minor revisions not the full redraft that many, including ORG, have called for.

    • Stop rushing the Investigatory Powers Bill through Parliament

      Open Rights Group has responded to the publication of the Investigatory Powers Bill.

    • NSA can still spy under new ‘Privacy Shield’ agreement with Europe

      The United States and the European Union are about to reach a new privacy agreement intended to replace the old Safe Harbor agreement that came under intense scrutiny after the Snowden leaks revealed the scope of NSA’s data collection operations.

      The new Privacy Shield was published in full a few days ago, showing the principles that would govern the exchange of digital information between EU consumers and U.S. companies. However, the new agreement also has provisions that explain how and when the NSA can continue bulk data collection in the region.

    • FBI director says bureau asked NSA for help cracking San Bernardino shooter’s iPhone
    • FBI director implies that the NSA was unable to hack San Bernardino shooter’s iPhone
    • The FBI Says It Asked the NSA to Hack the San Bernardino Shootr’s iPhone. The NSA Couldn’t Do It.
    • NSA Chief Exhorts Tech Industry to Join Effort to Bolster Security

      NSA director makes plea to tech industry to partner on security; DROWN vulnerability hits SSL/TLS, but it’s no Heartbleed; EMC, leaving HDDs behind, unveils several new flash arrays; and there’s more.

    • Where is the Tort? Something seems to be missing in the Investigatory Powers Bill

      This provision means a person can sue another person for unlawful interception, rather than just rely on the government to prosecute. It was, in this way, a directly enforceable privacy right. (It was a tort used, I understand, in phone and computer hacking claims.)

      But the Bill does not (seem to) have this tortuous protection for individuals, even though Part 1 of the Bill is supposedly protecting privacy. (If it somewhere else in the vast Bill, I cannot find it. Please correct me if I am wrong.)

      If this is correct, and the tort is being repealed, then why is the government removing this civil law right, leaving the individual only with criminal law protection under what will be the new Act – which in turn needs the prior consent of the Director of Public Prosecutions?

    • Honest, Guv, I Didn’t See Nuffin’

      It is not only that I do not believe they could fail to notice. It is that anyone with that level of frequent access to the Prime Minister, other ministers and Royal family would be checked out by the security services. He would not have experienced full positive vetting (now called direct vetting), but a level of vetting would have been carried out on Savile himself. And many of his friends were subject to frequent direct vetting and it is impossible that a picture of Savile would not have built up tangentially. MI5, Special Branch (now also renamed) and GCHQ have tens of thousands of employees. What do you think these people do all day?

    • With Arrival Of New DA, The DEA’s ‘Likely Illegal’ Wiretap Warrants More Legal, Less Prolific

      The DEA’s South California wiretap kingdom is crumbling. Run almost solely through a single, very obliging judge and approved by an assortment of DA’s office underlings, the wiretap warrants were so toxic the DOJ wouldn’t touch them. Local prosecutors would, however, but now they’re finding their cases falling apart.

      The likely illegal wiretap program skirted guidelines meant to prevent exactly this sort of abuse. In response to the FBI’s abuse of wiretaps to surveil civil rights leaders (including Martin Luther King Jr.) during the 1960s, the DOJ stated warrants had to be signed off by the top prosecutor in the area they were deployed: in this case, Riverside District Attorney Paul Zellerbach. Zellerbach delegated when he shouldn’t have, compounding other problems, like the DEA’s use of a county judge for warrant requests, rather than a federal judge.

    • Former Google CEO Schmidt to head new Pentagon innovation board

      Eric Schmidt, the former chief executive officer of Google, will head a new Pentagon advisory board aimed at bringing Silicon Valley innovation and best practices to the U.S. military, Defense Secretary Ash Carter said on Wednesday.

      Carter unveiled the new Defense Innovation Advisory Board with Schmidt during the annual RSA cyber security conference in San Francisco, saying it would give the Pentagon access to “the brightest technical minds focused on innovation.”

      Schmidt, now the executive chairman of Alphabet Inc (GOOGL.O), the parent company of Google, said the board would help bridge what he called a clear gap between how the U.S. military and the technology industry operate.

    • “Privacy is Surveillance” – Part 1 of the Investigatory Powers Bill

      You will see that “Part 1” of the Bill is called “General Privacy Provisions”.

    • EFF Director Cindy Cohn On Why You Should Support Techdirt’s Encryption Crowdfunding Campaign

      This time around the issues surrounding encryption are much bigger than they were 20 years ago and reach far beyond the technical community. More than ever we need media and analysis that won’t be confused or misled, that will follow stories past the headlines and scare tactics and that will help the much wider range of people affected by this debate understand what’s at stake. Luckily, Techdirt is up for the task and all they need is a little help from their audience to get there. I hope you will help.

    • Congress Seems Pretty Angry About The FBI’s Belief That The Courts Can Force Apple To Help It Get Into iPhones

      Congressional hearings involving law enforcement and intelligence folks tend to be fawning affairs, with most of Congress willing to accept whatever these guys have to say. Sure, you’ll always have a few people critical of certain aspects, but generally speaking, Congress is especially friendly to the FBI, NSA, CIA, etc. So it must have come as a bit of a shock to FBI Director James Comey that during a long House Judiciary Committee hearing yesterday, they seemed pretty pissed off at Comey’s belief that the courts should force Apple to help him open up encrypted iPhones.

    • Rogers: Silicon Valley can benefit from CYBERCOM outreach

      Rogers tried to lighten the mood as he took the stage by calling it “an interesting panel to follow” as the NSA director.

    • NSA seeks to combine offense and defense in its spy efforts

      The NSA has two key missions: foreign intelligence-gathering and information assurance. One mission helps the other, as intelligence gathered by one side can be used by the other team to improve how government networks and private sector networks are protected. The NSA will pull together its offensive and defensive capabilities as part of the NSA21, or NSA in the 21st century, plan, said Michael Rogers, commander of the United States Cyber Command and director of the NSA, at the RSA Conference on Tuesday.

    • RSA 2016: cyber chief says US will fall short of recruiting goals
    • U.S. Spy Chief Expects More Power Grid Attacks Like One In Ukraine

      The head of the U.S. National Security Agency has warned that hackers will inevitably attack U.S. infrastructure in an attempt to cause a power failure like the one in Ukraine last year.

      Admiral Michael Rogers told a cybersecurity conference in San Francisco that it is a “matter of when, not if” a foreign state launches a cyberattack on U.S. targets.

      “An actor penetrated the Ukrainian power grid and brought large segments of it offline in a very well-crafted attack that both focused on knocking the system down but also focused on how was the provider likely to respond to that outage,” Rogers said.

    • NSA asks Silicon Valley to help fight cybercrime, terrorism

      The NSA is too big and slow to effectively fight ingenious cyber attacks without the help of Silicon Valley tech expertise, so it’s time to patch up relations between the two, the head of the NSA told a gathering of tens of thousands at RSA Conference 2016.

    • Apple formally appeals judge’s iPhone unlocking order

      Just in case its motion to vacate wasn’t enough, Apple late Tuesday filed an appeal of a California judge’s order requiring it to help the FBI defeat the password protection on the iPhone of one of the San Bernardino mass shooters.

      Apple’s lawyers filed the appeal “in an abundance of caution,” to cover the possibility that an appeal is the most appropriate way to oppose Magistrate Judge Sheri Pym’s Feb. 16 order, they said in a court filing.

      An appeal and a motion to vacate have similar goals, but attack a judge’s order in different ways. A motion to vacate asks a judge to withdraw her previous order; in this case, Apple asked Pym to reverse her Feb. 16 decision.

  • Civil Rights

    • Pennsylvania bishops hid sex abuse by ‘monster’ priest for 40 years, jury finds

      His alleged victims were humiliated, abused, raped and kept quiet. They were supposed to be able to trust him.

      Monsignor Francis McCaa spent nearly 40 years in the ministry, and for 25 of them, he was a serial abuser of young boys in his care, some as young as eight years old, according to a scathing report by a Pennsylvania state investigative grand jury.

      “Father Francis McCaa was a monster,” the grand jury found on Tuesday, after investigating the sexual misconduct of dozens of clergy in the Altoona–Johnstown diocese in Pennsylvania. The report was largely spurred by the discovery of a secret diocesan archive detailing administrative action around sex abuse, uncovered in August through a search warrant.

    • My School Requires All Girls to Wear Skirts. I’m Fighting for My Right to Wear Pants.

      I am like a lot of eighth grade students. I try to do my best in class. I like sports and playing outside, and I regularly go to Bible classes. I also believe in standing up for myself and others. So last year, along with some friends, I created a petition to ask my school to change its policy that says girls have to wear skirts to school or risk being punished.

    • President Obama, When It Comes to Human Rights, We Need More Action, Not Words

      The Obama administration record on torture and detention undermines its rhetoric.

      The Obama administration this week made new pledges and commitments to protect “human rights and fundamental freedoms” to the United Nations in advance of the U.S. re-election to the U.N. Human Rights Council. Yet while the U.S. has used its first six years of HRC membership to advance human rights overseas, its participation has had little direct bearing on human rights at home. Lack of accountability for torture and cooperation with U.N. human rights experts are just two examples of such double standards.

      When he took office, President Obama promised to disavow many of the disastrous Bush administration policies, including by closing Guantánamo and ending the use of torture. Obama also promised to reassert U.S. global leadership on human rights by joining the HRC later that year.

      While the president issued an executive order on his second day in office ending the CIA’s secret detention and torture program, he declined to support any meaningful measures of accountability for crimes that had taken place. His policy of “looking forward rather than backward,” as well as his administration’s continuing fight against transparency and any attempts to reveal the whole truth about Bush administration torture policies, will undoubtedly stain his human rights legacy.

  • Internet/Net Neutrality

    • 5G Wireless Hype Overshadows Fact Nobody Actually Knows What 5G Is Yet

      At the Mobile World Congress convention in Spain last week, one of the most well-hyped products in convention history was something that doesn’t technically exist. Fifth generation wireless (5G) was all the rage at the show, with multiple carriers promising they were in various stages of bringing the new ultra-fast wireless standard to consumers. The problem is that while engineers have a general idea of some of the technologies that may be included in the final standard when approved, nobody actually knows what 5G is yet. And when it does finally get solidified, it’s likely to be 2020 or later before actual launches occur.

    • Afraid Of Upsetting The Cable Industry, Roku Won’t Support FCC Quest For Increased Set Top Box Competition

      But, because Roku believes it’s first in line for the cable industry’s affections, it appears to be backing away from an initiative that would likely be good for the entire sector (investment by Viacom, 21st Century Fox, and UK cable operator Sky might be shaping Roku’s thinking as well). After all, why support broader, healthy competition when you believe you’ve got the inside track? Well, because should the FCC’s gambit actually work, Roku (which people forget began as a brain child of Netflix) stands to gain a much larger chunk of this suddenly-open market than it will from remaining mute.

  • DRM

    • Join us this Thursday to fight an unjust DRM law

      We’ll be hand-delivering a comment against the the part of the DMCA (Digital Millenium Copyright Act) that makes circumvention of DRM a crime, even when done for important reasons like security research or accessibility. Our comment is co-signed by more than 1,000 people, but the Copyright Office won’t let us submit it online without proprietary software.

  • Intellectual Monopolies

    • USTR Strikes IP Deal With Honduras On Generic Cheese, Signal Piracy

      The government of Honduras has committed to a work plan for protecting intellectual property rights that includes recognition of food names considered generic by the United States such as “parmesano” (parmesan), provolone and bologna, the Office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR) announced today. Other commitments include signal piracy related to cable and satellite, and a customs trademark registry.

    • Trademarks

      • Canadian Smoke Shop Owner Demonstrates How To Turn Trademark Infringement Into Jail Time

        Lots of brands seem to feel trademark infringement should be greeted with the full brunt force of the law — even though it’s rarely anything more than a civil offense. Counterfeited goods are their own issue, with Good Guy ICE on hand to run interference for major studios, the NFL and anyone else with a significant amount of lobbying power. Counterfeiters can end up in jail, but entities that do nothing more than use a trademarked name/logo without permission or in a “confusing” fashion? Not so much.

        There are exceptions, of course. And caveats. But that’s exactly what happened in Canada. Jail time for trademark infringement. Richard Stobbe of IPblog.ca has more details.

    • Copyrights

      • President Barack Obama will speak at the South by Southwest interactive festival this year

        No, that’s not some hipster band. It’s the 44th president of the United States. President Barack Obama will be the first sitting president to speak at the annual music, film and interactive media gathering, which drew more than 80,000 attendees last year.

      • UK government launches initiative against online adblocking, compares it to piracy

        With the rise of users employing adblocking technology in the last 18 months, the conflict between online publishers and users has been mostly left as a problem for the market to resolve organically. However today the UK’s culture secretary John Whittingdale has announced that the British government intends to ‘do something’ on the issue, describing the practice as a ‘modern day protection racket’, and comparing it to piracy.

      • The Murky Waters of International Copyright Law

        Copyright is too often used to stifle speech and restrict common sense uses of creative works, from books, to films, textbooks, images, and music. That’s why we need exceptions and limitations to copyright, to serve as a safety valve against these kinds of abuse. Fair use is the most robust framework to permit uses of copyrighted material without permission from the creator or rightsholders. The United States is particularly known for having a strong, court-tested fair use regime, enabling all kinds of uses and innovation to thrive on the Internet.

        Even though it has been so critical in the U.S. however, fair use is not strictly integrated into international law—nor, for that matter, any of the trade agreements the U.S. itself has negotiated with other countries. Most relevantly, the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade agreement carries a framework for governments to enact exceptions and limitations in their laws. That could be enough to justify the introduction of fair use in all the participating countries, but it’s far from a straightforward obligation unlike any of the pro-rightsholder restrictions that the agreement contains otherwise.

03.02.16

Team Battistelli Uses FFPE to Give an Illusion of EPO Peace With ‘Unions’ and Justify/Support a Now-Famous Lie

Posted in Deception, Europe, Patents at 3:23 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

FFPE represents EPO workers like Daniel Domscheit-Berg (OpenLeaks) represents Wikileaks

Daniel Domscheit-Berg
Photo credit: Andreas Gaufer, licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license.

Summary: The European Patent Office’s current management, which may soon get dismissed, is putting together a little show that gives the impression of peace with trade unions

HILARIOUS or outrageous it may be, depending on one’s mood. The latest publicity stunt from Team Battistelli (not the same as the EPO, which they merely exploit for their own agenda of power and money) is like something out of the propaganda books. Battistelli and his circle smile in their suits next to a bunch of what Soviets would call “useful idiots”; this isn’t ‘the’ union but a tiny group which claims to be one. FFPE is the Daniel Domscheit-Berg of the EPO’s staff. Only under intense pressure from colleagues it expressed solidarity with SUEPO, but those who look closely enough will see how Battistelli et al view and exploit FFPE [2, 2]. FFPE members cannot claim to be passive participants; they know too well how their complicity in this PR stunt would be used against SUEPO and by extension against EPO staff as a whole.

“FFPE members cannot claim to be passive participants; they know too well how their complicity in this PR stunt would be used against SUEPO and by extension against EPO staff as a whole.”Team Battistelli now truly leaves a misleading mess, ensuring that no external observer like a journalist can make sense of things. Battistelli is just trying to mislead media about unions, pretending there is peace. Tomorrow he will try "results", exploiting lack of critical skills and an inability to properly scrutinise the claims. What gives? How much is Battistelli willing to lie to the world in his desperate effort to save his job?

Pathetic. Truly pathetic. More so than Battistelli calling people whom he views as opposition "Nazis". One thing is clear now. Team Battistelli won’t give up with a fight (a dirty fight) that includes lying to journalists, lying to staff, fake letters of ‘support’ etc. Evil all the way. “As for the author of the pathetic letter in support of the President and his management style,” said one comment earlier today, “the information you received from your source is highly likely to be correct because the named PD was indeed assistant of Mr Minnoye prior to her appointment as PD (a well calculated step) and she is a typical product of the BB’s regime, always aligned with those in power. You know the classical kind of person: “lêche….”. This kind of person would do anything in order to please the boss.”

“Team Battistelli won’t give up with a fight (a dirty fight) that includes lying to journalists, lying to staff, fake letters of ‘support’ etc.”It’s not surprising that some people out there, especially people whom the EPO is now willing to recruit and also promote, play ball for the tyrants. They’re being groomed as a reward for their docility. “That IS hilarious,” wrote to us one person [1, 2]. “It’s so fake they even didn’t photoshop some union faces in that picture. As there should be in such “deals” [...] If you groom people for being leeches and backstabbers at your service, what do you think they’d do for you once you need them?”

“You can even see the strings,” another person remarked about the photo. For those willing to take the risk of clicking an epo.org link, here it is. The totally Orwellian nonsense contained just one tiny photo (11 people in full body size with just 264 pixels across, 172 top to bottom). Well, the photo is so tiny that I can hardly even recognise a handful, and those whom I can recognise I already know too well not to recognise even with just 10-20 RGB pixels making up their faces.

“FFPE has about 4 people in it…”
      –AnonymousThis is what’s known as “Photo op”, which Wikipedia defines as “short for photograph opportunity (photo opportunity), is an arranged opportunity to take a photograph of a politician, a celebrity, or a notable event.”

Wikipedia correctly notes that this “term has acquired a negative connotation, referring to a carefully planned pseudo-event, often masqueraded as news. It is associated with politicians who perform tasks such as planting trees, picking up litter, and visiting senior citizens, often during election cycles, with the intent of photographers catching the events on film, generating positive publicity.”

One reader asked us earlier today: “Have you seen the EPO homepage???”

People are starting to notice, no doubt…

“FFPE has about 4 people in it,” told us this reader. “FFPE only exists in The Hague.”

“The longer Team Battistelli stays, the worse things will get for everyone, jeopardising everybody’s jobs.”Well, we heard estimates of ~20 members at most, but they don’t want to say (despite queries), so it’s quite likely less. They’re close enough to the Battistelli-led circle that they hang out with Bergot, based on comments we saw. It’s called ‘controlled opposition’ in some circles. The “good boy”, i.e. FFPE, unlike the naughty boy (SUEPO) is how it works. Classic!

How can anyone not see what Battistelli is hoping to achieve here? Propaganda galore.

Rebuttal to the latest Team Battistelli lies (regarding results) will be published here tomorrow. Team Battistelli is quickly burning any remnant of reputation that the EPO ever earned. They hate the EPO so much — unlike SUEPO (loving enough and caring to suggest improvements) — that they lie to everyone and think that this will somehow stick. The longer Team Battistelli stays, the worse things will get for everyone, jeopardising everybody’s jobs. The sooner Battistelli and his goons leave, the quicker the EPO will get back on its feet and restabilise. The EPO cannot coexist with Europe (or the EU) when it not only has a conflict with public interests but also with its own workers’ interests and European law. █

German Television to Cover the EPO Scandals at 9 PM (CET) Tonight — Half an Hour From Now (Updated)

Posted in Europe, Patents at 2:24 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

German Media Redux: The last thing the top-level management wants is transparency inside the European Patent Office, especially after relative calm in German media [1, 2]

BR on EPO

Summary: There is finally quite a lot of German media coverage (radio, television, newspapers) about the truth inside the European Patent Office

TECHRIGHTS still has some work in progress when it comes to German media (more on that in the future). There’s also hope that someone will translate “Verwaltungsrat gegen Amtspräsident” for us. It’s getting a little out of date, but it turns out that it reached far and wide. “A new article by Thomas Magenheim-Hörmann was published on 29 February,” one reader told us yesterday. “The article appeared in the Münchner Merkur and various regional daily newspapers such as the Oberbayrisches Volksblatt.”

“V channels and newspapers may soon cover the EPO affairs a lot more than before, based on what we know and have heard.”German translations aren’t the main priority, however, nor is the pressure for German media to actually cover the developments at the EPO. TV channels and newspapers may soon cover the EPO affairs a lot more than before, based on what we know and have heard. Soon we will also have some videos to share.

Later tonight there will be a program on German television and now comes this preparatory article.

A lot of people are writing to us about it today (and even yesterday). “BR TV “Kontrovers”at 2100 tonight, German local time,” one person reminded us. Some people already sent some explanations and translations.

“Some people already sent some explanations and translations.”Regarding “Bavarian TV report tonight,” one reader told us, “in case you hadn’t already been made aware, there’s a documentary about the EPO on mainstream TV tonight (Bayerisches Fernsehen – it doesn’t get more mainstream than that). The programme will air tonight at 9pm local time.”

“Here’s the teaser. And here’s a translation of the teaser,” the reader added with the following preceding remark (we used a screenshot for fair use):

(not sure of the copyright on the photo. the credit is given as Photo: picture-alliance/dpa/Andreas Gebert on the BR website.)

When a dream job becomes a nightmare

A job at the European Patent Office is supposed to be highly lucrative; the pay is generous, and with minimal deductions. And yet, for some employees, the glass palace on the banks of the Isar is a golden cage. Kontrovers [documentary programme] takes a look behind the facade.

EPA in München | Bild: picture-alliance/dpa/Andreas Gebert

The European Patent Office exists to protect the rights of inventors. But many people are critical of its lack of protection for the rights of its own employees. Those responsible at the European Patent Office do not feel bound by fundamental principles of German employment law, such as the special status of employee representatives, pointing instead to its status a supranational organisation, above the German state. Is this really legitimate?

“For information,” added another reader, “German media reports about the EPO” are on their way, including the above from Bayrischer Rundfunk (BR). “This evening,” added this reader, “(2 March 2016 at 21:00 Central European Time) the Bavarian broadcaster Bayrischer Rundfunk will report in detail on the situation at the EPO in the current affairs program “BR Kontrovers”.”

“The program will hopefully be viewable online at the following link after transmission.”

“Some people already sent some explanations and translations.”TV programs in Dutch sure shifted/changed public opinion (we see this online). If Germany, where the population in considerably larger (bigger by more than an order of magnitude), the same thing can happen, there will be no turning back for Team Battistelli. Germany has a very strong position in EU political circles.

“A report was also broadcast today on Bavarian Radio,” our reader added, confirming what we later found out from Florian Müller (already mentioned this morning). “The text at the following link corresponds to the content of the audio broadcast” (we should note that this link is currently broken, so if anyone can find a working link, please let us know).

“A short 3 minute video clip from Bayrischer Rundfunk can be seen here,” added this reader (no point ripping it for local hosting if the full program will soon be made available even on television). “The video can be downloaded from this link,” our reader added, just in case someone wishes to keep a local copy for future reference. We will try to make sense of it all after the broadcasting. We’ll appreciate readers’ help with this. █

Update (21:51, same day): The TV program about the EPO (from less than two hours ago) is now online at this page. The EPO stuff starts at 11:56 (nearly 12 minutes from the start).

EPO at Boiling Point: Why Battistelli is Believed to be Paid About $2,000,000 Per Year and Who Created and Circulated a Letter in His Support

Posted in Europe, Patents, Rumour at 6:54 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

The EPO scandals keep piling up

Golden parachute with money
Reference: Golden parachute, defined as “an agreement between a company and an employee (usually upper executive) specifying that the employee will receive certain significant benefits if employment is terminated.” (like Microsoft’s Elop inside Nokia)
Photo credit: Money Crashers

Summary: More details (not just rumours) surface in the ongoing aftermath of the Battistelli regime, which is fighting to keep itself together

“Wow,” wrote Florian Müller this morning, “tonight (9 PM) even Bavarian state-owned TV will report on the EPO crisis.” He also said that “Bavarian state-owned radio (B5) just reporting on EPO labor dispute.”

We received several E-mails about it this morning (at least 3), as it has a profound impact on the legal community, not just EPO staff. We mentioned some of this before (prior E-mails we received about it) and today is an important day because German media coverage is starting to become a reality. It’s even on television and there are detailed programs on it, not just brief reports. To be frank, I am still pressuring some German publications behind the scenes, in order for them to do proper coverage of recent events; not sure if this will have an effect or not, but gradually we escalate the severity/tone and it appears to be working. We will say more about it in our next post.

“It’s even on television and there are detailed programs on it, not just brief reports.”Regarding Battistelli´s salary, told us one source, “I´ve said a long time ago that it´s supposed to be those 250-300k according to the scale (he acknowledged around 250k but I guess it´s a bit higher). The important part of his remuneration is the bonus, which was rumoured to be around 1.4-1.5 million. Together it would amount to the 1.8 million which multiplied by ten would give his alleged claim of 18 million for retiring.”

This is still the subject of an ongoing investigation here; we have a lot of data from many sources and we assure readers that once it becomes a confirmed fact (or leak) it’ll be a big scandal. Regarding the support letter (in support of Battistelli), our source told us: “Most of the directors refused to sign it. It was drafted by PD Roberta Romano-Goetsch at the instigation of VP Minnoye. I guess she couldn´t say no, having just been promoted. I hope it will surface one of these days.” █

UPC Anything But a Certainty With Battistelli on His Way Out, But Patent Lawyers Are Still in Denial

Posted in Europe, Patents at 6:30 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

And they compare secret (dark room) dealings to sunlight?

UPC

Summary: A look at some of the self-serving patent class and how it has covered the Unitary Patent Court (UPC) as of late

THE EPO is about to pretend that all is rosy at the EPO. That’s a lie. Then we have EPO-backed legislative laundering, notably the UPC, which many high-profile figures insist is a back door to software patents in Europe. Annsley “AmeriKat” Ward, who promoted software patents and the UPC for quite some time (several years), is leaving IP Kat for a UPC booster (a law firm which even sort of renamed itself for UPC ‘business’). Other sites of patent lawyers currently promote the UPC, which would completely mess up Europe’s economy — for lawyers’ gain of course (they would be the one to pocket the money from feuds). When will patent maximalists — some of whom are paid by Battistelli — finally realise that the king is dead (as the saying goes) and thus stop this whole UPC charade/PR? The whole ‘preparation’ of it is a sham that one might expect from a third-world country or a Banana Republic. There are no proper committees with a wide spectrum of stakeholders; usually it happens behind closed doors and it boils down to a conspiracy of lawyers scheming to make themselves richer. They’re stealing democracy. This must end, but first — as was the case with ACTA, TPP, TTIP and so on — the public needs to know that this is happening (currently it is being kept in the dark, all while this Trojan horse is being wheeled in).

“This must end, but first — as was the case with ACTA, TPP, TTIP and so on — the public needs to know that this is happening (currently it is being kept in the dark, all while this Trojan horse is being wheeled in).”We were all once told that patent offices are in the job/task (or ‘business’) of granting patents, and only after thorough examination; now inside the EPO we see lobbying, mental torture, and networks of nepotism which extend to UPC. Here is the EPO lobbying for the UPC again (despite the backlack), essentially promoting an antidemocratic (‘theft’ of democracy) process. Shame on the EPO. They link to this promotional UPC piece that’s so optimistic — enough to pretend that UPC is inevitable (in spite of Spanish opposition, Brexit and so on). “The Unitary Patent,” it says, “a unified patent system applicable across the European Union – has been in development since 2012 and will soon be lifting off” (no, not really, especially if Battistelli is on his way out, paving the way to another kind of reform). █

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