• Distributions
• Devices/Embedded

Linux Format on Google Play Magazines

Sorry for the lack of updates. We’re manically trying to finish 1.5 issues before Christmas. But we just wanted to let you know that, to coincide with the launch of Google Magazines in the UK, Linux Format is now available on Google’s magazine store – £4.99 per issue, £3.99 with a rolling subscription or £44.99 for the year. As always, DVD images are freely downloadable from http://www.linuxformat.com/archives. Issue 166 (the zombie one) should also be available on the Ubuntu Software Centre.

Video: What a Year for Linux

It’s also hard to ignore that this holiday season’s most popular gifts, like the Chromebook and Amazon’s Kindle HD, are all powered by Linux.

Part of the reason Linux is experiencing so much success is because of the network effect created by its collaborative development enviornment: Embedded engineers work on power savings for their devices; that same code is then used in the data center to lower power bills. The defense industry improves the real time capabilities of the Linux kernel and automakers benefit and add to it. Also, because Linux has no branding restrictions, Android (of the Kindle or a Chromebook) can be Linux without you knowing its Linux. This freedom allows companies to innovate at a pace that is simply unmatched.

Desktop

• $299 version of Acer’s C7 Chromebook kind of defeats the purpose

  When we reviewed Acer’s $199 C7 Chromebook, we didn’t think it was perfect, but we were willing to overlook many minor flaws in the face of its $199 asking price. Today, Slashgear unearthed an upgraded model—there’s an Acer product page that lists a $299 version of the C7 with a larger battery, 4GB of RAM instead of 2GB, and a 500GB hard drive instead of a 320GB model.

Kernel Space

• Linus Torvalds To 386: “I’m Not Sentimental, Good Riddance.”

• Linux Ends Support for Intel Corporation (NASDAQ:INTC)’s 32-bit 386 Processors

• GCC Developers Look At Dropping i386 Support

• Torvalds Kicks Original Linux PC Into Dustbin of History

  On Wednesday, he severed a final tie with that box. He accepted a patch from developer Ingo Molnar that dropped support for Intel’s old 386 microprocessors, the brains of the DX33 system that Torvalds had purchased all those years ago. After a 15-year run, Intel stopped shipping 386 processors in late 2007.

  In his notes explaining the patch, Molnar said that the patch “zaps quite a bit of complexity from the kernel” and that it has caused extra work for Linux kernel developers over the years.

• Linux 3.7 Now Supports New ARM Processor

• Loongson Hardware Is Still A Tough Find

  While the Loongson MIPS64 CPUs have been available for a while now as a Linux-friendly chip, they are still tough to find in the western countries. New benchmarks reveal that the ARM SoCs are becoming a much more compelling offer for those caring about performance.

• Cypress Trackpad Linux Driver Still Aiming For Mainline

• AMD Puts Out APP SDK 2.8, CodeXL 1.0

• ACPI Power Management Gets Improved In Linux 3.8

  The ACPI and power management updates targeting the Linux 3.8 kernel were already submitted to Linus Torvalds this morning. There’s a whole lot of new work to look forward to when it comes to power management in this next kernel.

• The Staging Pull Goes In For The Linux 3.8 Kernel

• zswap: compressed swap caching

  Zswap is a lightweight compressed cache for swap pages. It takes pages that are in the process of being swapped out and attempts to compress them into a dynamically allocated RAM-based memory pool. If this process is successful, the writeback to the swap device is deferred and, in many cases, avoided completely. This results in a significant I/O reduction and performance gains for systems that are swapping. The results of a kernel building benchmark indicate a runtime reduction of 53% and an I/O reduction 76% with zswap vs normal swapping with a kernel build under heavy memory pressure (see Performance section for more).

• AMD’s A-Sync DMA Code Makes For Fast Performance

• V4L2 Support For DMA-BUF Will Come In Linux 3.8

• Linux Version 3.7 Released

• Linux drops support for Intel’s 386 processors

• Linux 3.8 will drop support for Intel 386 chips

• Linux 3.7 adds major new ARM processor support

• Debian, Ubuntu and Arch Linux triple boot

• Graphics Stack

  • Intel Still Hacking On Atomic Mode-Setting / Flipping

  • Gallium3D Driver Comes For Intel Sandy/Ivy Bridge

    In prior years there was the i965g driver that was developed independent of Intel and was targeting an open-source Gallium3D driver for Intel’s newer chipsets. But unlike the i915g that was developed similar in nature, the i965g driver really never reached a working state and was ultimately removed. There is now a brand new “i965g” Gallium3D driver that is targeting support for Intel Sandy Bridge “Gen6″ graphics and newer.

  • AMD Catalyst 12.12 For Linux Released

  • NVIDIA 313.09 Linux Driver Packs New Features

    NVIDIA has released their first binary Linux graphics driver beta in the 313.xx series. The NVIDIA 313.09 Beta has bug-fixes plus new features to make for an exciting Linux gaming experience.

    The release highlights for the just-released NVIDIA 313.09 Linux beta include display reprobing upon VT switching to X, unofficial GLX protocol support for new extensions, cursor bug-fixes, support for the GLX_EXT_buffer_age extension, improving the performance of glDrawPixels() command by up to 450%, a libnvidia-encode.so library fix, improving the performance of OpenGL frame-buffer object binds with Xinerama by up to 2000~3000%, and fixing performance issues when using some versions of HyperMesh with Quadro GPUs.

  • X Input 2.3: Pointer Barrier Events, Barrier Releases

    As written about last week, X Input 2.3 is being worked on for hopeful inclusion into X.Org Server 1.14.

    The big features to the X Input 2.3 update are pointer barrier events and barrier releases. This X Input update once again was largely developed by Peter Hutterer at Red Hat. For going through these new input features for the X.Org Server, he’s written a blog post describing pointer barrier events and barrier releases.

  • Freedreno Gallium3D Driver Begins To Work

  • Marek Further Improves Radeon Mesa Performance

    With a patch sent to the Mesa development list on Monday, Marek Olšák has made another significant performance improvement to the commonly used R600 Gallium3D driver for AMD Radeon graphics cards.

Applications

• 15 Greatest Open Source Terminal Applications Of 2012

  Linux on the desktop is making great progress. However, the real beauty of Linux and Unix like operating system lies beneath the surface at the command prompt. nixCraft picks his best open source terminal applications of 2012.

• Instructionals/Technical

  • A Quick Guide to Linux File Permissions

  • Fixing My CD/DVD Drive on Kubuntu 12.04

  • Linux Mint 14 / Ubuntu 12.10 Slow Wifi with Ath9k Drivers + Solution

  • MSIEXEC parameters

  • How to clone and share a Git repository over SSH

  • Installing SugarCRM Community Edition On Fedora 17

• Wine

  • Announcing CrossOver 12.0.0!

    I am delighted to announce that CodeWeavers has just released
    CrossOver 12 for both Mac OS X and Linux.

  • CrossOver 12 Released

    Today, the software company CodeWeavers has released a new version of the Windows emulation software CrossOver for Linux and Mac OS X. The new version is based on Wine 1.5.15 and now has a better integration with the desktop systems Unity and Gnome 3 and has a better support for transparent windows with an activated compositing manager.

• Games

  • Linux Games: Spirits the modern version of lemmings

    Perhaps someone is old enough to remember the original Lemmings game, a puzzle-platformer video game developed by DMA Design and published by Psygnosis in 1991. Originally developed for the Amiga, Lemmings was one of the most popular video games of its era, the basic objective of the game is to guide a group of humanoid lemmings through a number of obstacles to a designated exit. In order to save the required number of lemmings to win, one must determine how to assign a limited number of eight different skills to specific lemmings that allow the selected lemming to alter the landscape, to affect the behavior of other lemmings, or to clear obstacles in order to create a safe passage for the rest of the lemmings.

  • Baldur’s Gate Enhanced Edition Is Coming To Linux

    Back in August I wrote that a Linux port of the Baldur’s Gate Enhanced Edition game was being considered. There’s now word that a native Linux port of this game is indeed coming.

    The year 2013 is looking to be the year of Linux gaming and Baldur’s Gate Enhanced Edition of Overhaul Games will be among the native Linux titles. Baldur’s Gate Enhanced Edition is a remake of the original Baldur’s Gate role-playing game and its Baldur’s Gate Tales of the Sword Coast expansion. The game was released last month for Windows while the Mac OS X port is expected this month.

  • Valve Has A Christmas Present For Linux Gamers

    Valve is becoming quite comfortable with the state of their Linux activities so beginning next week will be a more “open” beta program. If you’re a Linux gamer who wasn’t yet selected to be part of the beta program, you should be able to gain access in time for the holidays. Help them test out their Linux ports to ensure the Valve Linux-based game console will be a great success.

  • Cultures : Northland now available on Desura, another may follow

Desktop Environments

• K Desktop Environment/KDE SC/Qt

  • Amarok 2.7 Beta To Be Released Soon, Try Statistics Synchronization!

  • Why Kolab Groupware uses Submission

    Kolab Groupware has a strong focus on security, and data integrity – not just your own mailbox but the flow of traffic between you and your peers as well.

    Please allow me to take the opportunity to explain to you some of the background of what Kolab Groupware does, and why. In this blog post, I’m zooming in on our use of the submission port (587).

  • 15 years of KDE e.V. – Behind the Scenes

    As reported here two weeks ago, KDE e.V. has grown up since it was founded 15 years ago on November 27, 1997. From a body handling a few thousand euros for the yearly KDE meetings governed by a dozen members, it has evolved into a lean execution machine supporting many large and small events each year, taking care of legal matters, promotion, community management and more. KDE e.V. now has a dedicated employee and many members. Today, we take you on a virtual tour around Blue Gear Headquarters, to show you what’s going on at the German registered non-profit association and how it affects the KDE community world wide.

  • Qt 5.0 RC 2 released

    We are happy to announce that the second release candidate for Qt 5.0 has just been released.

Distributions

• LuninuX OS 12.10 Screenshots

• The Brightest Distro Stars of 2012

  “By taking Linux away from the devs and instituting real quality control and making it truly UI-centric and consistent, Google has managed to do in a couple of years what dozens of distros absolutely failed to do in a couple of decades,” said Slashdot blogger hairyfeet, “and that was bring a Linux-based OS out of the nerds’ basements and into the home of Joe and Sally Average.”

• New Releases

  • GParted Live 0.14.1-1 Stable Release

• Gentoo Family

  • Who Needs Ubuntu? Steam for Linux Running Under Gentoo

    In the post I made last week about some of the system requirements Valve has been applying to select Linux titles on Steam, I mentioned that I’ve been curious to know how running the official Steam client would fare on other distros. After all, Linux is Linux at the core, so where there’s a will, there should be a way.

    Well, sitting around with a bit of time on my hands late last night, I decided to fool around and see if I couldn’t get the client to run under Gentoo. Believe it or not, a guide exists on making it happen, and it’s a good one. However, the one thing to bear in mind is that because few Gentoo installs are exactly alike, you may have immediate luck getting Steam to work or none at all. You’re likely to need updated packages, and you’re even more likely to run into some trial and error. C’est la Gentoo.

• Red Hat Family

  • CPU Scaling On DragonFlyBSD, Ubuntu, CentOS/RHEL

  • Fedora

    • Fedora Needs Help Testing Out NetworkManager

• Debian Family

  • Debian Linux vs. Debian kFreeBSD With Squeeze & Wheezy

    This is far from the first time doing benchmarking of Debian GNU/kFreeBSD, the port of the Debian operating system that pairs the GNU user-land with the FreeBSD kernel rather than the Linux kernel. The last time doing Debian GNU/kFreeBSD benchmarks extensively was back in July so new tests were warranted of 6.0.6 Squeeze and using the latest Debian testing bi-weekly images. The Debian testing ISOs used of Debian GNU/Linux and Debian GNU/kFreeBSD were dated from 3 December 2012. This testing not only shows how the Linux versus FreeBSD kernel performance compares with a similar user-land but how the Debian performance has progressed in moving from 6.0 Squeeze to 7.0 Wheezy.

  • Derivatives

    • Canonical/Ubuntu

      • New Dash Icons Proposed for Ubuntu 13.04

      • Welcome to the new Ubuntu shopping centre

        A post on the official blog of Canonical, the compnay behind the GNU/Linux distribution, said that version 12.10 had taken “another important step towards fulfilling its intended purpose of being an online, global search tool that helps users find anything, instantly, right from their home environment”.

        This would be extended in 13.04 with the use of “smart scopes” – daemons capable of presenting local or remote information within the Dash (seen above with theresults of a search for the word Beatles) which is the search window for Ubuntu’s Unity interface. These “scopes” would be category-wise; depending on the search term a particular “scope” would be triggered.

        “For example, a search for “The Beatles” is likely to trigger the Music and Video scopes, showing results that will contain local and online sources – with the online sources querying your personal cloud as well as other free and commercial sources like YouTube, Last.fm, Amazon, etc,” said the post, written by Cristian Parrino, vice-president for online services at Canonical.

      • Ubuntu 13.04 Desktop Comparison: 6 Desktops, 5 Driver/GPU Combinations

        In this article are benchmarks of six different desktops (Unity, GNOME Shell, GNOME Classic, KDE Plasma, Xfce, and LXDE) on five different GPU/driver configurations (Radeon, Catalyst, Intel, NVIDIA, and Nouveau) running the very latest Ubuntu 13.04 “Raring Ringtail” development packages to look at the latest state of the Ubuntu Linux gaming OpenGL performance.

      • Flavours and Variants

        • KDE Plasma, Applications 4.10 Beta 2

Devices/Embedded

• Phones

  • Android

    • New YotaPhone will feature LCD screen on one side, E-Ink on the other

    • 6.3-inch Samsung Galaxy Note 3 tipped for 2013

      Samsung‘s stylus-enabled “phablets” are set to get even bigger, sources in South Korea claim, with the Galaxy Note III tipped to have a whopping 6.3-inch display when it arrives in 2013. The growing smartphone stepped up to a 5.5-inch display in its second-generation, from the 5.3-inches of the original Galaxy Note, but according to whispers to the Korea Times, Samsung plans to maximize display real-estate with a new OLED model for the new year.

    • More details emerge about high-end ZTE Grand S

    • Google Chairman Says Android Winning Mobile War With Apple: Tech

      Google Inc. (GOOG)’s Android is extending its lead over Apple Inc. (AAPL) in the mobile-software market at a rate that compares with Microsoft Corp. (MSFT)’s expansion in desktop software in the 1990s, Google Chairman Eric Schmidt said.

    • The real threat that Samsung poses to Apple

      The problem that Apple is facing right now has nothing to do with their designs being copied. There is a long history of copying in the tech industry; patents being deployed in lawsuits by giants often signify desperation more than anything else. Rather, the problem that Apple faces is that it now is going up against at least one competitor that has been a beneficiary of the scale that Apple has achieved on the business side. Samsung has clearly demonstrated that, like Asus, it was not satisfied being a low-margin ODM — of doing all the menial work while somebody else made the big bucks. Suing Samsung over Android patents isn’t going to change that — if Google’s operating system gets too expensive to use, there’ll be a switch made to Microsoft. Or to another operating system altogether. It doesn’t really matter, because design in the smartphone space has been commoditized. It’s good enough. Manufacturers are now creating performance that most consumers aren’t able to absorb. Instead, as we’ve moved into a world where performance is now “good enough”, the world has flipped into one where it’s the business side — operational scale — that matters most.

    • OwnCloud Android App Review

      onwCloud is one of the most important open source projects today, considering the invasion of ‘storage/data syncing’ cloud in our day-to-day life. This invasion is also posing a new threat to our privacy and ownership of our data, especially when there are players like Microsoft. It was quite shocking when Microsoft blocked access to a user’s account on finding some nude/semi-nude images in his SkyDrive folder. What was Microsoft doing in a ‘private’ as the user claims folder? Don’t confuse SkyDrive as your ‘private’ cloud where you can store whatever data you want. It’s not like a bank. The last think I would want is Microsoft peeping inside my SkyDrive folders. So, I would strongly recommend not to touch the SkyDrive even with a stick.

• Sub-notebooks/Tablets

  • In-depth review: Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1

    I recently spent a month using Samsung’s new Galaxy Note 10.1 tablet, running Android 4.0. Let’s find out what the tablet’s “Note” rather than “Tab” designation means, and how it compares to its less-expensive sibling, the Galaxy Tab 10.1, and to Google’s Nexus 10.

Migration to open source—a personal experience

The term open source (OS) arose in late 90’s; although, much of modern internet infrastructure predated and evolved from active code sharing between researchers after the dawn of modern computing age. It is difficult to trace its origins due to space constraints, but suffice to say that it arose out of ambiguity in “fair use doctrines”, with significant access barriers for community to examine source code or modify it. Interestingly, these ideas have spawned crowd sourcing for open source hardware, notably robotics and influenced scientific publishing for open access traditionally encumbered by copyright protection. Over the time, several unique and hybrid models of licensing have evolved for implementation.

The most talented youth choose open source tools

At my public library job, all day long I help people use the library’s public access computers. At the end of a long day’s work, I enjoy kicking back and listening to some YouTube music videos. One way I do this is to search YouTube for new Bob Dylan cover songs. I search YouTube for: Bob Dylan cover, this week.

Imagine my happy surprise to come across this fabulous multitrack video of Knockin on Heaven’s Door. But wait a second, is that a Tux penguin poster hanging on the wall behind this musician? Indeed it is. Hmmm, was that poster placed there intentionally, or was it just an accident?

Apache web server, more than “a patchy web server”

The Apache Software Foundation (ASF) is readying itself for the 25th outing of its ApacheCon North America official conference, training and expo event.

The foundation describes its remit and status as a group of “all-volunteer developers, stewards and incubators” of what amounts to nearly 150 open source projects and initiatives inside Apache.

Events

• ApacheCon North America Announces Schedule

• Qt Developer Days 2012 Videos Released

• Videos Of Qt Developer Days Berlin 2012

• 25th ApacheCon North America Conference Series Announced

Web Browsers

• Mozilla

  • Hack This Game

    Today, we’re proud to invite game designers, developers and enthusiasts everywhere to take part in this year’s Game On competition. We’re looking for your ideas and playable protoypes for gaming experiences that push the limits of what open Web technologies can do.

  • Mozilla announces Game On Competition

  • Firefox introduces improved private browsing

    A new Firefox feature is being added to the Nightly Builds, with oft requested private browsing mode used by many other browsers to eventually reach the release version

SaaS

• EMC Sees OpenStack As Much Like Linux

  It seems that nearly every tech titan under the sun is throwing its support at OpenStack. EMC is the latest giant to do so, now that it is an official, corporate-level sponsor of OpenStack. Since it owns most of VMware, when VMware recently joined OpenStack it became obvious that EMC would become a sponsor, too. In commenting on the arrangement, EMC officials are likening OpenStack development to Linux development. That’s an apt analogy, and it also tells us how important support and proper documentation and training are going to become in the future of OpenStack.

• Dell commits to open-source software for its future clouds

Databases

• Couchbase 2.0 Advances Open Source NoSQL Database

CMS

• WordPress 3.5 Elvin Drums Along Open Source CMS

  That’s right I called WordPress a CMS (Content Management System) and not a blogging platform. With WordPress 3.5, officially released on Tuesday, the CMS moves forward with some incremental features.

  I’m a user of both self-hosted as well WordPress.com sites so I’ve noticed some of the WordPress 3.5 changes roll out over the last several weeks. WordPress tends to dogfood releases on the hosted WordPress.com platform first before making the full release generally available.

Business

• Open Source BI Considerations and Implications

  To prepare for software selection and to put all of the pieces together in terms of business and technical open source business intelligence implementation requirements, the following checklists will help you identify the tasks and considerations involved in planning your OSBI implementation.

BSD

• The Grinch That Delayed FreeBSD 9.1

  Originally the plan for FreeBSD 9.1 was to release it in mid-September, but the first release candidate was one month late along with the RC2 and RC3 releases. The plan was then updated to release FreeBSD 9.1 at the end of October, but that too passed. The latest schedule set the RELEASE announcement as going out on 12 November, but that clearly didn’t work either.

Project Releases

• Blender 2.65 Arrives – Most Stable Yet

• [ANNOUNCE] PulseAudio 2.99.3 (3.0 RC3)

• First Orion 2.0 Milestone rises

  The first milestone in the development of the browser-based IDE Eclipse Orion 2.0 has been released. A major focus in the development of Orion 2.0 is to bring node.js support to the IDE and while these are described as “large scale efforts” for future builds, the developers have decided to share a prototype of a node-based Orion server. Orionode, the prototype server, is a single user deployment of Orion running on node.js. “Having all the client and server tools written in the same language also raises some new possibilities and makes the Orion architecture very flexible” say the developers, but they note that the project is not ready for prime time yet.

Licensing

• What management should know about open source software

Openness/Sharing

• Open Hardware

  • Robotics Hacker Erects Open Source ‘Lego for Adults’

    Jasen Wang once bought a home robotics kit. He had studied aircraft design in college and spent years at an electrics engineering outfit, but he still found the instructions completely incomprehensible. And the pieces were flimsy. And after he broke two of them, he gave up entirely.

Programming

• Why PHP Development Shows an Upward Trend in Open Source Development

• REBOL 3 open source code arrives

  The latest version of Carl Sassenrath’s REBOL language has been published as open source, marking a major change in how the novel language is made available to the public. REBOL, a previously proprietary language developed by Sassenrath, the primary developer of AmigaOS, was first released in 1997 and is oriented towards task-specific language dialects or domain-specific languages to be used in processing. It has a number of “dialects” for purposes such as data exchange (load), programming (do), pattern matching (parse), function and object definition (make), and GUIs (layout or display). These dialects work together with a free-form syntax to provide an intriguing language, but one which has never become mainstream.

• Sauce Labs Gives Open Source Projects Free Access to Testing Cloud

  Sauce Labs Inc., the leading provider of web application testing infrastructure for software developers, today announced Sauce Free Open Source Software accounts (Open Sauce), a new program offering open source developers free unlimited use of the Sauce Labs cloud for testing web applications.

Science

• Values of science at odds with desire to turn it into a commercial product

  Scientific software tools have long lived in the conflict zone between open source ideals and proprietary exploitation. The values of science (openness, transparency, and free exchange) are at odds with the desires of individuals and organizations to transition scientific tools to a commercial product. This has been a problem in neuropsychology and neuroscience for decades, and extends outside the bounds of software.

Security

• Security Hole in Samsung Smart TVs Could Allow Remote Spying

  The company that made headlines in October for publicizing zero day holes in SCADA products now says it has uncovered a remotely exploitable security hole in Samsung Smart TVs. If left unpatched, the vulnerability could allow hackers to make off with owners’ social media credentials and even to spy on those watching the TV using compatible video cameras and microphones.

• Like a Hot Knife Through Butter

  More or less recently, an interesting line of attacks against software has been revisited, namely Hash-DoS, or, in a nutshell, exploiting weak hash functions used in a hash table implementation to trigger a denial-of-service.

  To the best of my knowledge, this problematic has been exposed as early as in 1998 in Phrack by Solar Designer, then variants have been discussed by Crosby and Wallach at USENIX 2003, formally defining algorithmic complexity attacks, by Klink and Wälde during 28c3 in 2011, applying the idea on PHP, Python, Java, Ruby, etc. and more recently by Aumasson, Bernstein and Bosslet (see their slides at Appsec Forum 2012, and their upcoming talk at 29c3), showing that the proposed solutions, essentially randomizing the hash function, were not always as effective as expected.

• A hash-based DOS attack on Btrfs

Defence/Police/Aggression

• Judge in 9/11 trial OKs audio delays, censor at Guantánamo

• Paul Gordon: It’s time for the CIA to tell the truth in the Olson case

  Dr. Frank Olson’s death is one of the more sordid events of those days when many then-Camp Detrick decisions were made by a Special Operations Division that joined with the CIA on biowarfare. The small Frederick group had the highest security clearance.

  [...]

  An autopsy revealed visible bruises caused by blunt force but few cuts.

• City Council to consider banning drones

  Berkeley City Council is expected to vote Tuesday on a recommendation to adopt a resolution proclaiming Berkeley a “No Drone Zone.”

  If approved, the resolution, drafted by the city’s Peace and Justice Commission, will attempt to ban the unmanned aerial vehicles from Berkeley airspace and prevent city agencies from purchasing, borrowing, leasing, testing or otherwise using drones over the city. However, the resolution provides certain exemptions, including for some hobbyist use.

• Police flying unmanned drones in Halton skies

• The Pentagon Hopes To Arm Drones With Laser Weapons Inside Five Years

• The collateral damage of drones

• Drones increasingly used for surveillance in U.S.

• Drones To Get Aircraft Carrier Test

• European court of human rights finds against CIA abuse

• US: Release Report that Addresses CIA Torture

• Senate CIA Torture Report Adopted, Provides Factual, Comprehensive Review of U.S. Torture Program

• CIA Torture Report Approved By Senate Intelligence Committee

• CIA ‘tortured and sodomised’ terror suspect, human rights court rules

• Historic ruling on Europe’s role in CIA renditions

• Crazed NY Killer Says He Was CIA Operative “Ordered to Kill Jews”

  The demented suspect accused of gunning down three Brooklyn shopkeepers execution-style told cops he was a CIA operative ordered to kills Jews by Arab men, according to court documents.

• Paul Gordon: It’s time for the CIA to tell the truth in the Olson case

• Disgraced CIA Head Named ‘Most Fascinating’ Person of 2012?

• NDAA Indefinite Detention Opponents File Supreme Court Emergency Motion

• President Obama to Veto NDAA Over Guantanamo Restrictions?

  The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) is asking all Americans who value civil liberties to urge President Obama to veto the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2013 (NDAA), which restricts his authority to transfer or prosecute detainees held at Guantanamo or to close the facility.

• Supreme Court asked to strike down NDAA’s indefinite detention clause

• How NDAA impacts Americans’ human, civil rights and martial law

• NDAA Nullification Bill passes Michigan House 107-0

  Saturday, Rep. Tom McMillin discussed his joy that his bill led to the Michigan House of Representatives unanimously voting Saturday in favor of House bill 5768, a bill opposing NDAA indefinite detention, denial of due process, and prohibiting the state government from participating.

• EDITORIAL: Drones over America

  In February, lawmakers on Capitol Hill passed the FAA Modernization and Reform Act of 2012, which instructs the Federal Aviation Administration to compile rules allowing more drones to take to the skies, including for commercial purposes. The agency has forecast there could be as many as 30,000 airborne spies by 2020. The devices frequently carry high-resolution cameras capable of reading license plates, which, in combination with facial-recognition software, could recognize and track individuals, according to a recent Congressional Research Service report.

  [...]

  The agency has forecast there could be as many as 30,000 airborne spies by 2020.

• America’s covert drone war is out of control

  What is worse? Locking somebody up for years, without trial, while you try to find proof he is a terrorist? Or killing somebody whose name you don’t even know because his pattern of behaviour suggests to you that he is a terrorist?

• The mass torture of drone strikes

• Drones’ Body Count Reveals ‘Double Tap’ Kills

  The CIA or military drone “double tap” does more than ensure targeted militants or terrorists in Pakistan or Afghanistan end up dead — much evidence suggests that the practice also kills civilians who rush to help after the first strike. Such casualties become very apparent in a personal project by NYU student Josh Begley to tweet every reported U.S. drone strike since 2002.

• Constitution should guide police use of drones

• Florida state senator wants to limit drone use by police

  Drones are used by our military to spy on or even kill terrorists, but one Republican Florida lawmaker says we need to be careful on how we use them here in the United States.

• DARPA contracts Nvidia to make drones smarter

• Triple agent! Poisoned Russian spy Alexander Litvinenko was working for British AND Spanish intelligence, says wife

• McChrystal Working for UAE-Owned Arms Brokerage

  The firm is among the defense procurement companies owned by the Emirates Advanced Investments group, which is close to the ruling family of the United Arab Emirates. But unlike the other companies in the network, such as Abu Dhabi-based C4 Advanced Solutions, Knowledge International is incorporated in the United States.

Cablegate

• Julian Assange and Wikileaks

• Assange plans 2013 from embassy refuge

• The Trials of Bradley Manning

  Manning turns 25, in prison, Dec. 17, which is also the second anniversary of the day a young Tunisian set himself on fire in protest of his country’s corrupt government, sparking the Arab Spring. A year ago, as Time magazine named the protester as the “Person of the Year,” legendary Pentagon Papers whistle-blower Daniel Ellsberg offered praise that rings true today: “The Time magazine cover gives protester, an anonymous protester, as ‘Person of the Year,’ but it is possible to put a face and a name to that picture of ‘Person of the Year.’ And the American face I would put on that is Private Bradley Manning.”

• Julian Assange plans to run for Senate seat in Australia

• Julian Assange wants to run for office

• Assange confirms bid for Senate seat

• Julian Assange wants to start a WikiLeaks party and run for office

• Julian Assange Eyes Australian Senate Run In 2013

• Assange wants to run for Aussie senate as head of WikiLeaks Party

• Julian Assange Wants to Run for Senate (in Australia)

• WikiLeaks suspect treated as ‘zoo animal’

Finance

• Republican and Democratic “Remedies” Ensure More Crises, but Alternatives That Work Are Taboo

  Capitalism’s cyclical convulsions into recession/depression provoke three alternative government policy responses. The first, say Plan A, has the government do little or nothing. Corporations and the rich mostly prefer it. They believe government intervention to be counterproductive and unnecessary because private capitalism best heals itself. They also fear universal suffrage. Majorities might vote for politicians to undo the unequal income and wealth distributions produced by capitalist economies. By minimizing government interventions, Plan A protects private capitalist systems. Thus, Bush repeated in 2007-2008: The downturn was limited, would be shallow and short and would “self-correct.” European business and political leaders agreed. They were all wrong.

• 9 Greedy CEOs Trying to Shred the Safety Net While Pigging Out on Corporate Welfare

  A gang of brazen CEOs has joined forces to promote economically disastrous and socially irresponsible austerity policies. Many of those same CEOs were bailed out by the American taxpayer after a Wall Street-driven financial crash. Instead of a thank-you, they are showing their appreciation in the form of a coordinated effort to rob Americans of hard-earned retirements, decent medical care and relief for the poorest.

  Using the excuse of a phony, manufactured crisis known as the “fiscal cliff” – which isn’t a crisis at all, as economist James K. Galbraith has succinctly explained — they are gearing up to pull the wool over the public’s eyes by cutting Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. The CEOs are part of the Fix the Debt campaign run by the
  -backed Center for a Responsible Federal Budget, which plans to unleash tens of millions pushing for a deficit reduction deal that favors the rich.

PR/AstroTurf/Lobbying

• From Capitol Hill, Rep. Hank Johnson Highlights ALEC Connection to MI Right to Work Law

  U.S. Rep. Hank Johnson (D-GA) took to the floor of the House of Representatives Wednesday night to criticize the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) for pushing “Right to Work” in Michigan, describing it as politically motivated “crush-the-union legislation” and noting the identical language between the ALEC model and Michigan’s law.

Privacy

• Lebanese Internal Security Force Requests Facebook Passwords, Text Messages Of All Citizens In The Country

  Here at Techdirt, we’re used to seeing national security agencies make overly broad requests for personal data, often under the premise that the crime (or crimes) committed justifies these fishing expeditions that are as “targeted” as dropping a nuke into the ocean and keeping everything that floats to the surface. Vague assurances are usually given that any data not considered “relevant” will be discarded or ignored and, as such, couldn’t possibly be considered a violation of privacy.

  The Lebanese Internal Security Force looks like it might take the prize for Most Overreaching Data Request.

• Facebook voting is gone, but privacy issues just get worse

Civil Rights

• Open Source Developer Bassel Khartabil Moved to Syrian Military Prison

  EFF has been calling since July for the immediate release of open source software engineer and Creative Commons volunteer Bassel Khartabil, detained in Syria since March of this year. Many other groups and thousands of individuals have professed support for Bassel, expressing deep concerns to the Syrian authorities and signing onto a letter of support.

• NDAA Indefinite Detention Opponents File Supreme Court Emergency Motion

• Number of jailed journalists sets global record

  Worldwide tally reaches highest point since CPJ began surveys in 1990. Governments use charges of terrorism, other anti-state offenses to silence critical voices. Turkey is the world’s worst jailer. A CPJ special report

• Lords says yes to Section 5 reform

  As Baroness Smith of Basildon noted: “it is nearly a year since the Government launched their consultation on public order policing and whether the word “insulting” should be removed from Section 5 of the Public Order Act. In the Committee on this Bill-a good five months after the close of the consultation-the Minister said that he hoped that at Report stage, the Government “will be able to put forward the Government’s considered view to the House”. Since then, the Government had a further five months to come to a decision, and yet-unless the Minister is going to make an announcement this evening-even at this stage, we still have not had a public announcement from the Government about their position, or about the findings and evidence from the consultation which your Lordships’ House has asked for.”

  However, Lord Taylor responded for the Government: “the Government strongly holds the view that the word “insulting” should be retained in Section 5 of the Public Order Act. The Government have a responsibility to protect the public so that communities and law-abiding citizens can live in peace and security. The police must have the powers they need to meet this responsibility.”

Internet/Net Neutrality

• How we can get fast broadband for all

  In its editorial last week, European Voice asked me to identify myself and what I stand for. I am delighted to have that opportunity.

  My goal is to get every European digital: improving the lives of young and old. Europe must be equipped with the right legal frameworks and broadband networks to enable huge new digital opportunities, and give us a much-needed growth boost.

  A modernised copyright system is indeed one essential element, benefiting both creators and consumers. So I am delighted that over the coming year, Michel Barnier, Androulla Vassilliou and I will be working hand in hand on the most urgent issues.

DRM

• Wii U’s restrictive DRM is a baffling throwback

  The new Nintendo Network ID system that debuted on the Wii U is a sign of progress for a company that has, historically, not shown a lot of savvy in setting up its online systems. The Wii U lets users connect up to 12 separate Nintendo Network IDs to a single system and use those IDs to easily connect with online friends and strangers. The new Wii U eShop includes many retail games for download on the same day they reach stores, and does away with the “Wii Points” virtual currency that characterized Nintendo’s previous console. The company has even promised to roll out a cloud save feature sometime next year.

Intellectual Monopolies

• Trademarks

  • Apple’s Classic Mac Startup Chime is now a Registered Trademark

• Copyrights

  • Infographic: People Will Pay To Support Creators, Even When Free Is An Option

    Back when we first launched the Insider Shop, we made two PDF ebooks available at any price you choose: Mike’s Approaching Infinity (on new business models and the economics of abundance) and our Sky Is Rising report on the state of the entertainment industries. More recently, we launched three fiction titles by our own Tim Geigner—Digilife, Echelon and Midwasteland—also available on a pay-what-you-want basis. They were an instant hit, and we’re in the process of preparing new ePub versions.

  • Voltage Pictures Thinks Canada’s New Copyright Law Opens The Door For More Trolling

    You may recall Voltage Pictures not because it once made a movie that won the Oscar for Best Picture (Hurt Locker), but because it was basically the first Hollywood studio to embrace copyright trolling. This is the company whose boss, Nicolas Chartier, once said that anyone who criticizes his company for copyright trolling is a moron and a thief (and that was in response to a rather friendly and polite email to Chartier suggesting that copyright trolling might hurt the company’s reputation in the long run). While some of its earlier efforts to sue thousands of people at once (in once case it sued nearly 25,000 people in one shot) have run into difficulties, Voltage just won’t quit. A quick check of the records shows that it’s still been filing new lawsuits in the US (among smaller groups) and trying to make the case for proper joinder by using the “swarm” theory: that if all the IP addresses are a part of the same swarm, they’re all connected in the legal issue (of course, they miss the fact that this would likely also mean that the total sum that could be collected would be split among all defendants).

  • Porn trolling firm dogged by identity theft allegations

    Prenda Law, the ethically challenged law firm that specializes in mass pornographic copyright lawsuits, is facing growing pressure to answer questions about allegations of identity theft. Last week, we reported on a Minnesota federal court filing by Alan Cooper, a former caretaker for Prenda’s John Steele. Cooper has accused Prenda of naming him as the CEO, without his knowledge or consent, of two shell companies that have been filing mass copyright lawsuits around the country.

  • DMCA Copyright Takedowns To Google Increased 10x In Just The Past Six Months

    they were receiving approximately 250,000 DMCA takedowns a week. Today, it’s up to 2.5 million per week. That’s in just six months. Because that’s insane, I’m going to repeat it: in just six months, the number of DMCA takedowns that Google receives has increased by a factor of 10 from 250,000 per week to 2.5 million.

  • Supreme Court Asked to Review $222K Landmark File-Sharing Case

  • Verizon Determined to Expose BitTorrent Copyright Trolls

    It’s now apparent that Verizon is fed up with the avalanche of mass-BitTorrent lawsuits and is determined to put an end to copyright trolls’ extortion-like practices. The Internet provider is asking a Texas court to grant discovery so it can expose how these companies operate. According to Verizon, copyright trolling practices don’t belong in court and the ISP equates the companies involved with “schoolyard bullies who push and shove until firm opposition is met when they shrink away.”

• Distributions
• Devices/Embedded

Push to develop open source software

On December 11, Linux released a new version of its operating system (OS). The explosion of web platforms and business is in part due to Linux and the push to develop open source software.

Chromebooks for classrooms: $99 for the holidays

For many students and teachers, the hassles of traditional computing often prevent them from making the most of technology in the classroom. Schools that have adopted Chromebooks, however, have been able to bring the web’s vast educational resources—whether it’s conducting real-time research or collaborating on group projects—right into the classroom. Chromebooks are fast, easily sharable, and require almost no maintenance. Today more than 1,000 schools have adopted Chromebooks in classrooms, including some school districts like Richland School District Two (S.C.), Leyden High School District (Ill.), and Council Bluffs School District (Iowa) who have deployed Chromebooks to tens of thousands of students.

Most Popular Linux Downloads and Posts of 2012

Kernel Space

• Linux 3.7 ARMs for the Future

  Linux has long been about more than just x86. With the new Linux 3.7 kernel, the open source operating system is improving its multi-architecture support with a significant improvement to the way that ARM support and development is handled.

• XFS File-System Gets Fixed Up In Linux 3.8 Kernel

• 64-bit ARM/AArch64 Continues To Bake In Linux 3.8

  ARM Holdings has more improvements for their ARMv8 AArch64 architecture with the Linux 3.8 kernel that just officially entered the first stages of development.

• Linux kernel dumps 386 chip support

  Linus Torvalds has announced the Linux kernel no longer supports Intel’s 80386 processors.

• Linux drops support for Intel’s 386 processors

• Linux Kills Support For Intel’s 386 Processors

• Linux 3.7 released, bringing generic ARM support with it

• Linux Kernel 3.7 goes 64-bit for ARM

• EMC joins OpenStack, likens it to Linux development

• Graphics Stack

  • Radeon HyperZ R300g Performance

  • Freedreno GPU Driver Still Being Actively Developed

    While there hasn’t been much to report on with the open-source Freedreno driver in recent months — a reverse-engineered attempt at creating a free 3D driver for Qualcomm’s Adreno/Snapdragon graphics processor — it’s still being developed with new Git commits continuing to be common.

  • Intel Still Sorting Out Haswell On Linux

    Intel should finally have Haswell graphics support on Linux in shape with the Linux 3.8 kernel after earlier admitting they screwed up, not all areas of the open-source GPU driver support are polished ahead of the big Haswell CPU launch in 2013.

  • Gallium3D LLVMpipe Isn’t Yet Fit For ARM

  • OpenGL Transform Feedback For LLVMpipe

  • DarkTable 1.1 Supports OpenCL For Images

  • Gallium3D UBO/TBO Support Emerges – More GL 3.x

    In addition to pushing OpenGL transform feedback for Gallium3D’s LLVMpipe, David Airlie has released a new patch-set for Uniform Buffer Objects (UBOs) and Texture Buffer Objects (TBOs) within Mesa’s Gallium3D infrastructure.

  • X Input 2.3 Patches Bring Pointer Barrier Events

  • Marek Takes On MSAA Gallium3D Improvements

  • X.Org Server 1.14 Feature Window Closing

  • Lima GPU Driver Faces Changes, Advancements

  • Nouveau Lights Up The GK106 Kepler

    Red Hat’s Ben Skeggs pushed out new code this morning into the Nouveau DRM driver repository. In addition to some video BIOS work and other changes, initial support for the NVIDIA GK106 GPU was pushed into this reverse-engineered open-source driver.

  • A Deep Look Into GPUs & Linux Graphics Drivers

    Martin Peres, the developer who has been a longstanding contributor to the Nouveau graphics driver project, delivered two presentations at a recent French Linux event where he provided an introduction to graphics processors and the Linux graphics driver stack. The second talk focused upon GPUs and Linux drivers in much greater detail.

  • Intel Merges ETC2 Texture Compression In Mesa

Applications

• Fotoxx Is a Bright Photo Editing Adolescent but Its Future Is Iffy

  Fotoxx is not well known, but its obscurity is not necessarily a bad thing. It is very capable at editing and managing photo collections. What might be a problem is future development. It seems the developer has abandoned it out of frustration over the difficulty of packaging it into various Linux distro formats. So you must rely on other software centers to download Fotoxx if your distro’s repository does not include it.

• Instructionals/Technical

  • How to clone and share a Git repository over SSH

• Wine

  • Wine 1.5.19 Has Performance Improvements, More C++

• Games

  • Return to Castle Wolfenstein on GNU/Linux

    Like most iD titles, RTCW was ultimately released under the GPL, and is thus available as a GNU/Linux native game. Installing it under Gentoo is as simple as “emerge games-fps/rtcw”, but unfortunately the game itself no longer works in modern GNU/Linux systems. This is only to be expected with proprietary software that becomes abandoned, and would affect the operation of that software on any OS, but naturally it doesn’t have to be that way with Free Software, which can be revived at any time, even years later.

Desktop Environments

• K Desktop Environment/KDE SC/Qt

  • A New Build Of Qt 5.0 Surfaces For Testing

    Digia has put out a new Qt 5.0 package for those interested in testing out this major tool-kit update that will hopefully be released before month’s end.

    Just days after releasing Qt 4.8.4 with 170+ improvements and sharing they hope to release Qt 5.0 by the end of the year, a new version of the Norwegian tool-kit is available for testing.

  • Qt 5.0 Release Candidate – Final In About One Week

  • Season of Giving

    For KDE, giving is always in season. In 2012, KDE community members all over the world met and collaborated with a strong desire to produce the best software possible. They’ve spent countless hours delivering new features, while supporting existing versions with timely releases and bugfixes. Working with students in programs such as the Google Summer of Code, Google Code-In and the Season of KDE, KDE mentors gave time and guidance towards developing new technical talent. Truly, the KDE Community thrives by giving all year round.

Distributions

• CPU Scaling On DragonFlyBSD, Ubuntu, CentOS/RHEL

• New Releases

  • Toorox 11.2012 Screenshots

  • 6 Linux Distros Born in 2012

• Debian Family

  • Running Debian With The Linux x32 ABI

    /li>

  • Derivatives

    • Canonical/Ubuntu

      • Coming in Ubuntu 13.04: Purchases from the Desktop

      • Ubuntu Accomplishments 13.04 Update

Devices/Embedded

• Phones

  • Android

    • Sony’s 2013 flagships tipped, Q4 might see a quad-core Cortex-A15 beast with a huge battery

      Sony already rose to prominence among Android manufactures this year, snatching the 2nd place from HTC, with just the almighty Samsung before it. If the rumored Sony Yuga/Odin flagships for the first half of next year are any indication, it might also carry this trend into 2013.

    • Pantech Vega IM-A860 leaks, yet another Full HD quad-core beast

      …Full HD smartphones are set to become the norm rather than the exception in a short while

    • Former Apple evangelist Guy Kawasaki says ‘real men use Android’

      One of the more prolific Apple figures of the 1980′s, Guy Kawasaki, loves his Android smartphones and tablets. So much so, in fact, he no longer uses Apple mobile devices.

    • Fortune Exclusive: Larry Page on Google

      The press-shy Google CEO talks about mobile computing, his tussles with Apple — and the future of search.

    • Android Won. Windows Lost. Now what? The Battle of the Century is Decided. Microsoft relegated to ever smaller PC corner as Google conquers the world

      Android Won. Windows Lost. Now what? We have passed the tipping point now, the balance has tipped and can’t be flipped. The Platform of the Century will power cameras, credit cards, cellphones, computers, consoles, clocks – and collect consumer insights on our consumption.. Ok. The numbers for Q3 are in, inwhat I anticipated to be the “smartphone bloodbath” three years ago, that would last long into this new decade. That was then, when the battle was joined, and since have called and the battle of the century, the battle for the pocket, the battle for the platform to control the digital destiny of humanity.. that battle, the biggest race of all time – has been won. Already? But we barely got to know you? Yes.

    • Apple’s First Professional Fanboy Has Ditched The iPhone

      Guy Kawasaki, former chief evangelist at Apple, has jumped ship from iOS to Android.

      In an interview with Dan Lyons of ReadWrite, Kawasaki said that he’s a diehard Android fan.

      Kawasaki switched to a phone running Google’s mobile operating system about a year ago so that he could use a 4G LTE network.

      [...]

      Even after Apple released the iPhone 5, Kawasaki stuck with Android because he thinks “Android is better.”

    • Motorola Mobility Ceasing Operations In South Korea.

    • Hulu Plus for Android rolls out children’s section

• Sub-notebooks/Tablets

  • The PengPod Linux Tablet Is Becoming A Reality

    The PengPod tablet, which allows for dual-booting Google’s Android and Ubuntu/Linaro on an ARM-based tablet, is becoming a reality after it was successfully crowd-funded.

    While the PengPod calls itself the “true Linux tablet” and it’s interesting that it will support both Android and Ubuntu/Linaro, it isn’t too interesting from just a end-user who just wants a compelling Linux tablet. The PengPod isn’t shipping until early next year and the hardware inside is already dated by the latest-generation Android/Linux tablets on the market.

  • Fuhu’s nabi XD is a quad-core 10.1-inch tablet for tweens

Irish City Adopts Open Source Business Server

The city of Limerick, Ireland, is known for a lot of things: the infamous “broken treaty” of 1691, Gaelic sports and the eponymous form of poetry. Now, the town is also aspiring to become a model for deploying open source in government. It completed the latest move in that process this week with the adoption of the Zentyal Small Business Server and Zarafa groupware suite.

Limerick is hardly the first local administration in Europe to consider moving to open source software solutions. Plenty of other municipalities and larger government organizations have made similar migrations. The French ministry of police, for example, has adopted Ubuntu, and the city of Munich, Germany, is in the midst of a long-term effort, called LiMux, to migrate fully to open source platforms.

Global open-source vendors gain new leg up in selling to US agencies, thanks to favorable Talend ruling

Open-source provider Talend has received a favorable advisory ruling from the U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agency concerning the government’s ability to purchase open-source software, opening the way for all software vendors to increase their share of business with US federal agencies.

OpenKit to release open-source social mobile gaming services with no lock-in for developers

Road Kill Data Tracks Animal Migration Patterns via Open Source App

Representing women in STEAM and open source

The figures for female developers in open source are not much different at 2-5%.

Events

• ApacheCon North America Announces “Open Source Community Leadership Drives Enterprise-Grade Innovation”

• ApacheCon North America moves south for 2013

  The Apache Software Foundation (ASF) has announced the program and dates for its annual ApacheCon North America conference. The main conference will take place between 26 and 28 February 2013 in Portland, Oregon under the general theme of “Open Source Community Leadership Drives Enterprise-Grade Innovation”. The two days before the start of the main conference will be filled with training as well as barcamp and hackathon style events, beginning on 24 February. After the main conference, sprints and workshops will be held until 2 March when the event officially concludes.

Web Browsers

• Mozilla

  • Firefox OS Simulator Hits Version 1.0

    Although it is still calling it a technical preview, Mozilla has delivered an official version 1.0 of its Firefox OS simulator, and promises that it will run on many more systems, including Linux systems that previously had problems with it. Mozilla has been making some noise about its entry into the mobile OS business, and has smartphone partners lined up to deliver phones running Firefox OS in emerging and developing markets. Here are more details on version 1.0 of the simulator.

Databases

• Couchbase 2.0 Advances Open Source NoSQL Database

CMS

• WordPress 3.5 brings new theme and media workflow

Healthcare

• VistA e-prescribing module is now open source

  Oroville Hospital in California has made the e-prescribing module it created for the Veterans Health Information Systems and Technology Architecture (VistA) open source, making it available for free to any private organization that uses VistA.

Business

• Asahi Technologies Announces the Launch of Open Source Implementation Services for Small Businesses in New York.

  Open source technologies play a vital role in helping small businesses achieve desired capabilities at minimal cost. To help SMBs implement open source software in their environment, Asahi Technologies has launched cost effective open source implementation services in New York.

• Semi-Open Source

  • ForgeRock aim to bring open source stack concept to IAM

    With ‘a new approach to identity management’, the UK recently saw the launch of ForgeRock.

Project Releases

• QEMU 1.3.0 Picks Up Many New Features

• Blender 2.65 Fixes 200+ Bugs, Couple New Features

• White Source Releases New Jenkins Integration

  White Source, the leading provider of SaaS Open Source Lifecycle Management solutions, announced today the release of a new Jenkins integration.

Public Services/Government

• Open source’s fortunes in Poland could be about to change, thanks to education

  Open source has had a mixed reception in Poland’s public sector, with some government agencies actively blocking efforts to increase uptake of the software. But the situation could be set for a reversal, after changes in the education sector.

Openness/Sharing

• Open Access/Content

  • OA and the UK Humanities & Social Sciences: Wrong risks and missed opportunities

    Someone once said to me that the best way to get researchers to be serious about the issue of modernising scholarly communications was to let the scholarly monograph business go to the wall as an object lesson to everyone else. After the last couple of weeks I’m beginning to think the same might be said of the UK Humanities and Social Sciences literature. I get that people are worried, even scared. I can also see some are stirring up mud behind the scenes to get academics and editors angry. But the problem is that people are focussing on the wrong problems and missing the significant opportunities to rejuvenate H&SS in the UK.

• Open Hardware

  • The Arduino Esplora Is An Open-Source Controller Packed With Inputs

  • Arduino Esplora, the first open source gaming pad!

    Meet the Arduino Esplora, an open source Arduino Leonardo based gaming pad that can be used in DIY Gaming projects, to control robots or just about any other project where a hand held controller is needed. Sporting an Atmega32U4 AVR microcontroller with 16 MHz crystal oscillator and a micro USB connection capable of acting as a USB client device, like a mouse or a keyboard.

Programming

• ARM Cortex-A15 GCC Compiler Tuning Performance

• Dropbox Hires Away Google’s Guido Van Rossum, The Father Of Python

  The original open source software “Benevolent Dictator For Life” and author of Python, Guido van Rossum, is leaving Google to join Dropbox, the startup will announce later today. Van Rossum was a software engineer at Google since 2005, and should be a huge help as Dropbox is built on Python. He’s the latest big hire by the cloud storage startup that’s capitalizing on its 100 million-user milestone.

• LLVM Developers’ Meeting 2012 Videos Posted

Standards/Consortia

• Intel Proposes Tool To Auto-Convert Code To C++11

  An Intel developer has proposed a migration tool based upon LLVM’s Clang tooling library to auto-convert C++ code to take advantage of new C++11 features in an automated manner.

  Edwin Vane of Intel Canada has called for comments on his proposal to develop a Clang-based tool using the LibTooling library for automatically transforming C++ code-bases to take advantage of modern C++11 features without needing any manual code rewriting.

I saw that shortly after I had posted the link

Security

• Metasploit Goes Phishing

  The Metasploit penetration testing framework has always been about finding ways to exploit IT, in an effort to improve defense. The new Metasploit 4.5 release from security vendor Rapid7 goes a step further than its predecessors, offering a new phishing engine and updated exploit modules.

  “The phishing engine is part of a larger Social Engineering module that supports a wide range of client-side exploitation and security assessment capabilities,” said HD Moore, chief architect of Metasploit and chief security officer for Rapid7.

Defence/Police/Aggression

• YOUR CIVIL LIBERTIES: Drones and the NDAA act. Why Obama needs the NDAA

• Keep eye on drones

  …more than 100 federal, state and local government entities to fly drones within U.S. airspace.

• FBI organizes almost all terror plots in the US

  The Federal Bureau of Investigation employs upwards of 15,000 undercover agents today, ten times what they had on the roster back in 1975.

• The DIY Armed Drone

  The video is pretty scary.

• Picture 2012: An Israeli Drone at a Swiss Air Base

  Azerbaijan, for example, cut a $1.4 billion arms deal with Israel in February; dozens of drones were included in the package.

• Ron Paul and Dennis Kucinich try to force release of drone data

• US congress to vote on drone attacks tomorrow

• Josh Begley Tweets Entire History of U.S. Drone Attacks

  Drone strikes have increased exponentially under President Obama, yet the program remains shrouded in secrecy.

• America’s drone war is out of control

  …unnamed suspects are targeted, based on their pattern of behavior.

• Civilian deaths cause by US terror drone hits spur UN concerns

• Paul, Kucinich Demand Holder Provide Legal Justification for Drone Deaths

• Counting the casualties of Barack Obama’s drone wars

• Thirteen anti-drone protesters to be tried in DeWitt court

  The 13 will defend themselves without using attorneys.

• NATO drone crash in Helmand province of Afghanistan

• Drone bill draws concerns

  Negron said drone surveillance is “Orwellian” and “Big Brother at its worst,” but he said the bill’s terrorism exception is reasonable. He plans to add another exception allowing for drone use with a search warrant.

  If law enforcement believes nefarious activity is afoot and it has probable cause, it could get a warrant from a judge for a set amount of time, Negron said.

• Julian Assange: The Fugitive

  Julian Assange has been trapped in Ecuador’s embassy in London for six months. Will he ever come out? He spoke to Philip Dorling.

  [...]

  But Assange clearly finds his circumstances oppressive.

• Ecuadorian Embassy! Thurs 20th December 6.30! See ya there! Solidarity, Songs, Speech!

• U.S. Court of Appeals Rejects CIA’s Motion to Squash Lawsuit on Bay of Pigs History

• Slugger George Will Strikes Out in His Column on Drones

  Even someone convinced that we need some sort of drone war ought to be alarmed at the specific one being waged.

• Homeland Security increasingly lending drones to local police

  Far from the battlefields of Afghanistan, a Predator drone was summoned into action last year to spy on a North Dakota farmer who allegedly refused to return a half dozen of his neighbor’s cows that had strayed onto his pastures.
  The farmer had become engaged in a standoff with the Grand Forks police SWAT team and the sheriff’s department. So the local authorities decided to call on their friends at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to deploy a multimillion dollar, unarmed drone to surveil the farmer and his family.

• This Time, Trust Anonymous WMD Claims–They’ve Got ‘Specific Intelligence’

• US uses rumours of chemical weapons to underpin threat of action in Syria

• U.S. Commandos’ New Landlord in Afghanistan: Blackwater

  U.S. Special Operations Forces have a brand new home in Afghanistan. It’s owned and operated by the security company formerly known as Blackwater, thanks to a no-bid deal worth $22 million.

• Former Thai PM charged over deadly crackdown on red-shirt protests

  The Thai authorities have charged the former prime minister Abhisit Vejjajiva over the use live ammunition that led to civilian deaths during a military crackdown on an anti-government protests in 2010.

• TSA: They Confiscate Your Personal Property And Then Sell It At A Profit

  [TS] confiscate your personal property, acquired for nothing, then sell it for a profit

• Retired Military Leaders Call on SSCI to Adopt CIA Torture Report

  Washington, DC – Twenty-six of the nation’s most respected retired military leaders today urged the U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (SSCI) to adopt a report on CIA interrogation and detention practices and to make it public with as few redactions as possible. The Committee is planning to vote on the report’s adoption tomorrow, December 13.

• Pressure on Barack Obama over CIA rendition of innocent car salesman

  America has never apologised for accidental rendition of Khalid el-Masri, a German car salesman of Lebanese birth who was arrested by Macedonian border guards in December 2003 and handed over to the CIA and flown to a detention centre in Afghanistan known as the “salt pit”.

• U.S. judge orders 9/11 suspects’ CIA experience kept secret

• Testimony on CIA’s treatment of 9/11 suspects at Guantanamo to remain secret

• Sept. 11 Judge Limits Disclosure of U.S. Sources, Methods

  The military judge overseeing the trial of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four others accused in the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks granted a U.S. government request to limit disclosure of classified information about “sources, methods and activities” used in fighting terrorism.

• Judge Rules Torture Testimony at Guantanamo Military Commission Can Be Censored

• Senate Unanimously Passes 2013 NDAA; Power to Arrest Americans Remains

  Just after 5:00 p.m. Tuesday, the Senate did it again. By a vote of 98-0 (two senators abstained) lawmakers in the upper chamber approved the Fiscal Year 2013 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA). Not a single senator objected to the passage once again of a law that purports to permit the president, supported by nothing more substantial than his own belief that the suspect poses a threat to national security, to deploy the U.S. military to arrest an American living in America.

• Sublime and Ridiculous Items on CNN

Environment/Energy/Wildlife

• Rare note of harmony at Doha as action agreed on black carbon

• Biodiversity offsetting will unleash a new spirit of destruction on the land

• South Korea drops plans to resume whaling

  Proposals to conduct ‘scientific’ whale hunts similar to those carried out by Japan provoked storm of international criticism

Finance

• Wall Street Bank Cuts 11,000 Jobs After Paying Ousted Executives $14 Million

• Former Defense Officials Call For Military Spending Cuts

  Former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Adm. Michael Mullen is going on the offensive once more, this time in pursuit of cuts to military spending.

  Mullen, who has previously called the national debt the “most significant threat to our national security,” is heading the new Coalition for Fiscal and National Security along with several other foreign policy luminaries. The group, operating out of the Peter G Peterson Foundation, is seeking to influence the debate surrounding the fiscal cliff by lending th

• Digital Rights Groups Shut Out of Secret TPP Negotiations

  Right now, EFF representatives in Auckland, New Zealand are being shut out of the 15th round of the Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement (TPP), a secretive, multi-national trade agreement that threatens to extend restrictive intellectual property (IP) laws across the globe. Hundreds of delegates and private representatives from the 11 participating nations are gathering at an Auckland casino to discuss this contentious trade agreement. EFF joins KEI, the Stop the Trap Coalition, Derechos Digitales and many other organizations representing public interest concerns to sound the alarm over the TPP’s intellectual property chapter.

• Secrecy the Standard as Canada Enters Trans Pacific Partnership Talks

  Despite growing opposition in Canada, the Canadian government has begun formal participation in the Trans Pacific Partnership negotiations, aimed at establishing one of the world’s most ambitious trade agreements. As nearly a dozen countries – including the United States, Australia, Brunei, Chile, Malaysia, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, Mexico and Vietnam – gathered in New Zealand last week for the 14th round of talks, skeptics here have already expressed doubts about the benefits of the proposed deal.

  Canada has free-trade agreements with the United States, Mexico, Chile and Peru, leaving just six countries – currently representing less than 1 per cent of Canadian exports – as the net gain. Moreover, the price of entry may be high, since leaked documents suggest the deal might require a major overhaul of Canadian agriculture, investment, intellectual property and culture protection rules.

• The Obscenely Rich Men Bent on Shredding the Safety Net

  The Campaign to Fix the Debt is a huge, and growing, coalition of powerful CEOs, politicians and policy makers on a mission to lower taxes for the rich and to cut Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid under the cover of concern about the national debt. The group was spawned in July 2012 by Erskine Bowles and Alan Simpson, architects of a misguided deficit reduction scheme in Washington back in 2010. By now, the “fixers” have collected a war chest of $43 million. Private equity billionaire Peter G. Peterson, longtime enemy of the social safety net, is a major supporter.

• Goldman Sachs’ Global Coup D’etat

  Steadily – and stealthily – Goldman Sachs is carrying out a global coup d’etat.

PR/AstroTurf/Lobbying

• Despite Super PACs Finding Limited Success in 2012, Money in Politics Will Escalate

  With final receipts tallied, spending on the 2012 federal elections has topped $6 billion, making it the most expensive election in the history of the world — and absent reform, election spending is certain to escalate in coming cycles.

Privacy

• Facebook nation — privacy loses to indifference

• They Know What You’re Shopping For

  Georgia resident Andy Morar is in the market for a BMW. So recently he sent a note to a showroom near Atlanta, using a form on the dealer’s website to provide his name and contact information.
  His note went to the dealership—but it also went, without his knowledge, to a company that tracks car shoppers online. In a flash, an analysis of the auto websites Mr. Morar had anonymously visited could be paired with his real name and studied by his local car dealer.

• Facebook blames policy changes on low user vote

  Despite claiming to offer its users some semblance of democracy, Facebook has made the changes it wants to its policies – blaming users themselves for not bothering to vote on a topic which received little promotion from the company.

  Last week, the site opened the polls to give its users the chance to vote on how Facebook handles people’s data, and, ironically, a plan to get rid of the site’s policy to let users vote in the first place. But it has now said that participation was not high enough to reach a consensus from its users.

• Get Ready for Ads that Follow You from One Device to the Next

  A former Google advertising scientist is behind a service that matches people across devices to serve more targeted advertisements, while promising to protect their privacy.

• Cops to Congress: We need logs of Americans’ text messages

• This is out of hand now: Apple attempts to trademark the LEAF

  Specifically, Apple wants to protect the leaf on its company logo. Apple applied for to the European Trademark Registry on 3 December, with the help of London lawyers from Edwards Wildman.

Civil Rights

• Soul and the city – words from graffiti artist Mohammed Ali

• Journalists attacked while covering protests in Egypt

  New York, December 7, 2012–CPJ condemns a series of attacks on journalists covering protests in Cairo over the proposed constitution and calls on authorities to investigate the assaults and bring an immediate end to the anti-press violence. At least five journalists were struck by rubber bullets, leaving one in critical condition, and several others were assaulted, according to news reports.

• State media regulation? Ask the reporters in Turkey’s jails how it works

  When journalists make trouble for the PM in Istanbul, the tax inspectors or counter-terrorism officials soon appear in the newsroom. So now almost no one makes trouble

• Speak Justice campaign fights impunity in press murders

  The tortured and decapitated body of 39-year-old María Elizabeth Macías Castro was found on a Saturday evening in September 2011. It had been dumped by the side of a road in Nuevo Laredo, a Mexican border town ravaged by the war on drugs. Macías, a freelance journalist, wrote about organized crime on social media under the pseudonym “The Girl from Laredo.” Her murder, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists, was the first in which a journalist was killed in direct relation for reporting published on social media. It remains unsolved.

• Washington state admits “sex trafficking” law is unconstitutional

  The state of Washington has abandoned its defense of legislation passed earlier this year that could have exposed website operators to legal liability if they inadvertently hosted advertisements for child prostitution. The Internet Archive, represented by the Electronic Frontier Foundation, challenged the legislation in June. They argued that the law was unconstitutionally broad and that it conflicted with Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, which grants website providers broad immunity against liability for hosting material posted by third parties.

• Julian Assange: Nabeel Rajab is a prisoner of conscience and he must be released

  “I last saw Nabeel Rajab, the President of the Bahrain Center for Human Rights, in March 2012. Nabeel flew to the United Kingdom, where I interviewed him for my television programme The World Tomorrow. While he had been on the plane, his house had been surrounded by armed police.

• Come along to our MP Lobby Day

  On Monday December 17 Open Rights Group will be at Parliament letting MPs know that the Comms Data Bill must go back to the drawing board and calling for a review of digital surveillance.

Internet/Net Neutrality

• UN internet regulation talks in Dubai threaten web freedom

• WCIT-12 leak shows Russia, China, others seek to define ‘government-controlled Internet’

  Leaked proposals from the U.N. WCIT-12 summit show Russia, China, and similar regimes are making a bid to define the Internet as a system of government-controlled networks

• Authoritarian regimes push for larger ITU role in DNS system

• U.S. ambassador on WCIT: Keep the Internet out of this conference

• UN proposal to grant all governments equal ‘rights’ in managing the Internet has been withdrawn

  In a key victory for the United States’ delegation at the ITU moot in Dubai, a proposal backed by Arab states, China, and Russia has been beaten back. Or, put another way, it has been pulled from discussion, rendering it over for the time being.

• US prepared to walk out of ITU talks over internet regulation

• WCIT – China And Russia Withdraw Bid For Greater Control Of Internet

• Verizon attack on Internet misguided

  According to Verizon’s third-quarter reports, net income rose 15%, to $1.59 billion (56 cents per share), up from $1.38 billion (49 cents a share) a year ago. According to Verizon Communications Inc., its wireless business reported record high margins and improved revenue and still on pace to meet its 2012 financial goals. SAN FRANCISCO – OCTOBER 04: A pedestrian walks by a Verizon Wireless retail store on October 4, 2010 in San Francisco, California. Verizon Wireless is set to give refunds to 15 million of its subscribers who complained of “mystery fees” on bills for services that they did not initiate. The total could end up being over $90 million in compensation.

Intellectual Monopolies

• Who’s Following Your Family?

• Copyrights

  • The British have no fight in them any more

    In the summer of 1981, I sneaked out of my parents’ home in Altrincham to sit on the wall of a churchyard and have a smoke. A police car roared up. The officer ordered me to get indoors and stay there. You will find this hard to believe, but I was an argumentative young man. I replied that the police had no right to order a British citizen to do anything when he was not committing a crime or – and I added this caveat carefully – giving the constabulary reasonable grounds to suspect that he might commit a crime.

  • Google Files Another Motion to Dismiss Viacom’s YouTube Lawsuit

    In the ongoing fight over whether YouTube owes Viacom billions of dollars for hosting copyrighted material, Google gets cute with a 1373-page filing.

  • Copyright clampdown

    How we use the internet and access to music, books, and films are at risk in the Trans Pacific Partnership negotiations, sector groups claim. Geoff Cumming hears their concerns

  • Oracle v. Google: Java API Copyrightability Put to the Test in Smartphone Technology Battle

• Distributions
• Devices/Embedded

For Shaadi.com, Ubuntu Scores Over Windows

For all CTOs and IT managers, bringing costs down and deploying easy-to-use technology is the biggest challenge. Shaadi.com has addressed this issue by relying on the open source model. Over a year, more than 50 per cent of the users in the company have migrated to Ubuntu from proprietary software.

Consequences of Dell Embracing Ubuntu

Desktop Linux for brand new computers has come a long way. Not too many years ago, consumers had fairly limited options in this space, but today we have more options than I could have ever imagined.

One company offering desktop Linux on new systems is Dell. After seeing mixed success with its first line of Ubuntu PCs, Dell dumped Ubuntu almost entirely. But now Ubuntu is back with Dell’s new ultrabook offering.

New PlayStation PSN Web Store blocks Linux computers

Sony again snubs Linux users with a PS3 by refusing access to the new SEN Web Store, with a generic error message giving no rhyme or reason

Top 5 Linux Predictions for 2013

Linux has grown its dominance on the list of the world’s fastest and most powerful supercomputers, now owning the top 10 positions and 93.8 percent of the OS share among the Top500 systems. That’s up from 91 percent two years ago. Based on the technology behind these top systems, there does not seem to be any slowing for Linux, certainly not in 2013.

GNU/Linux Desktop Predictions for 2013

Top Linux Trends 2012-2013

A Linux USB Loader with EFI Support [Mac Only]

SevenBits has written a new Mac Linux USB Loader tool that allows you to take an ISO of a Linux distribution and make it boot using EFI on Mac.

Server

• Fujitsu Selects Wind River Portfolio for RAID Next-Generation Disk Storage System

Kernel Space

• Linux 3.7

• Linux 3.7 arrives

• Linux Works Towards True CPU Hotplug Support

• An Overview Of The Linux 3.7 Kernel

  With the release of the Linux 3.7 kernel being imminent (it might even be out today), here’s an overview of the features and highlights of this 2012 holiday release of the Linux kernel.

• What’s new in Linux 3.7

  Linux 3.7 has more robust Intel and NVIDIA graphics drivers, support for ARM64, can handle NAT for IPv6 and has better Btrfs performance. These are just some of the enhancements in the latest version of the Linux kernel.

• Linux 3.7 arrives, ARM developers rejoice

  Only months after the arrival of Linux 3.6, Linus Torvalds has released the next major Linux kernel update: 3.7. The time between releases wasn’t long, but this new version includes major improvements for ARM developers and network administrators. The 3.7 source code is now available for downloading.

  Programmers for ARM, the popular smartphone and tablet chip family, will be especially pleased with this release. ARM had been a problem child architecture for Linux. As Torvalds said in 2011, “Gaah. Guys, this whole ARM thing is a f**king pain in the ass.” Torvalds continued, “You need to stop stepping on each others toes. There is no way that your changes to those crazy clock-data files should constantly result in those annoying conflicts, just because different people in different ARM trees do some masturbatory renaming of some random device. Seriously.”

• Linux Kernel 3.6.10 Is Available for Download

• Freescale and others join Linux Foundation

  The Linux Foundation has announced five new members today including embedded processor maker Freescale. Freescale say that the Linux Foundation hosts important embedded work such as the Yocto Project and collaboration with OpenEmbedded, so its membership and an increase in contributions to the ecosystem is a natural move. Consultancy Amarula Solutions has also joined, bringing its “extensive experience in mainlining patches, drivers and machine-layer code in the Linux kernel” to the group, and is looking to collaborate more widely.

• New Linux Foundation Members involved with Telecoms

  The Linux Foundation has announced that new members have joined the foundation, which include Telecom and Web Storage firms

• New Members Join Linux Foundation, Prioritize Linux Investments for 2013

  The Linux Foundation, the nonprofit organization dedicated to accelerating the growth of Linux, today announced that Amarula Solutions, Freescale, SIM Technology Group, Superb Internet and Symphony Teleca are joining the organization.

  Linux has emerged as the dominant operating system in a variety of markets over the last decade. It has seen major advancements this year in its role for embedded development and cloud computing. An accelerated pace of development to support these areas is expected for 2013. The Linux Foundation’s newest members are joining the organization now to maximize their investments in Linux for these areas as they prepare for the New Year.

• There’s Another Linux Kernel Power Problem

  After last year discovering a major Linux kernel power regression that was widely debated until the Phoronix test automation software bisected the problem to get to the bottom of the situation, there’s more active power regressions today on the Linux desktop. As I’ve mentioned on Twitter and in other articles in weeks prior there’s a few regressions, but one of them for at least some notebooks is causing a very significant increase in power consumption. This situation that remains unresolved as of the Linux 3.7 kernel can cause the system to be going through about 20% more power.

• Graphics Stack

  • AMD Releases New Radeon Code: A-Sync DMA Engines

    A second update to the Radeon DRM driver has been released that will be pulled into the Linux 3.8 kernel. This second Direct Render Manager update for the Radeon kernel driver provides new code from AMD that was kept internally for months but is now permitted for open-sourcing.

Applications

• Proprietary

  • Novosoft Launches New Handy Backup along with Linux Solution

• Instructionals/Technical

  • How to Control Dash Search Results in Ubuntu

  • How to Change CPU Affinity of CPU Intensive Multithreaded Applications (Ubuntu)

  • Monitoring your server with tmux

  • du Know How Big Your Linux Files Are?

  • How to customize the GRUB 2 in Ubuntu

  • Web Served, part 4: Get your database on

  • Reditr Beta Arrives, DEB Package Makes Installation Super Easy in Ubuntu

  • Tags take Struts beyond the basics

  • The state of low-level, system programming

  • How to Change CPU Affinity of CPU Intensive Multithreaded Applications (Ubuntu)

  • How To Install XFCE On Linux Mint 14

  • Installing KVM Guests With virt-install On Ubuntu 12.10 Server

• Wine

  • Darling – Wine for Mac Apps

• Games

  • Valve confirms Steam Box coming in 2013, says it will compete with next-gen consoles

    Hot on the heels of the surprisingly-well-received Big Picture mode, Valve has confirmed that it will release a “Steam Box” video game console sometime in 2013.

  • Gabe Talks More About Valve’s Next-Gen Linux Console

    The Video Game Awards happened on Friday night in California. During the event, Gabe Newell of Valve commented a bit more on their next-generation console / living room PC plans. To no surprise, Linux plays a big role.

  • Valve’s New Games Hardware not as Open Source as Expected

  • Valve’s Linux Based Console May Arrive Next Year

    Earlier, there had been some rumors that Valve’s support for Linux has been due to the fact that they are going to ship their own Linux-based console. However, they were mostly rumors and we had no proof or evidence. Now, Gabe Newell has made some comments which show that Linux based console may be a reality soon. According to Kotaku.com, Valve’s next step is to get Steam Linux out of beta and to get Big Picture on that operating system, which would give Valve more flexibility when developing their own hardware.

  • Valve Confirms They are Working on a Steam Box

    Gabe Newell confirms the company is working on hardware to compete with next generation consoles.

  • Could Valve Join Ouya in the FOSS Game Platform Fray?

    A few weeks ago, we reported that after several years of slim pickings for Linux gamers, things really began to heat up on the Linux and open source gaming front. Valve, which has delivered very attractive game bundles through its Steam service on non-Linux platforms, has been driving lots of progress, and has delivered the beta version of Steam for Linux.

    Valve has also taken its Big Picture mode–a couch-friendly user interface for games and content consumption–out of beta testing. And now, there are reports that Big Picture mode and the Steam for Linux beta may be teamed up for a new type of gaming platform for living rooms everywhere.

  • ‘Legends of Aethereus’ Linux Version Ready, New Trailer Launched

  • Sidescroller Run Off: Bit.Trip Runner Vs Canabalt [Review]

    Amongst the mélange of Humble Indie Bundle titles are two side-scrollers with similar, yet unique takes on well-timed spacebar mashing: Canabalt and Bit.Trip Runner.

  • Corsix-TH Theme hospital open source engine updated!

  • Revenge of the Titans updates!

    Revenge of the Titans which is quite frankly an awesome game and my complete favourite from the Humble Bundles 2&3 has received an update which you can find either on your Humble Accounts if you purchased those bundles or via their own website of course which will enable you to use this new mode.

Desktop Environments

• K Desktop Environment/KDE SC/Qt

  • Time to refresh some air

  • Glow with the power of Awesome

    That reminded me of the fact I forgot to blog about the new version of Slim Glow that will be in 4.10.

    The most noticeable change is that the system tray icons, share-like-connect icons, and others are now based on the awesome Font Awesome by Dave Gandy (http://fortawesome.github.com/Font-Awesome)

  • KDE Welcomes Trojitá, Offers Multiple E-Mail Clients

Distributions

• Manjaro Linux Review – Linux Distro Reviews

• Bridge Linux 2012.12 Review: Arch Linux a bit simplified

  I haven’t tried out Arch Linux yet but I plan to do so next year. Mostly my experience is concentrated on Ubuntu, Fedora and their derivatives. Now with every passing release all these distributions are getting heavier and resource consuming. Puppy is a definite saving grace, no doubt. But, as an user I want to create my own lightweight all purpose operating system using Arch. Further, the rolling release of Arch is a definite advantage, once you set your system, you don’t need to re-install every alternate year.

• ZevenOS 5.0 Review: Is it better than Xubuntu 12.10?

  With Ubuntu 12.10 out, Ubuntu derivatives are releasing their final version as well. ZevenOS and OS4 are couple of such distros, both provide a cocktailed version of Xubuntu with some added benefits, of course. In this review I’ll provide insights of ZevenOS and in my next review will take on OS4. They offer more or less similar proposition and could have reviewed them together as well.

• OS4 OpenDesktop 13.1 Review: What’s the difference with ZevenOS?

  It is kind of a peculiar feeling to use Linux distros who look and feel very similar. I am talking of ZevenOS 5.0 and OS4 OpenDesktop 13.1. Both got released in 5 days apart and have striking similarities, at least at a high level. Same Xubuntu fork with a BeOS theme, it is difficult to distinguish them from each other.

• New Design for Slax.org, Preparing Final Release

  Just in time for the expected final release of Slax 7.0 on Monday after all this time the web site has had a makeover as well to serve as a visual reminder that a new age for Slax has truly arrived. This is the first release using KDE 4, and possibly Blackbox as low resource alternative, and also the first one since a sponsor was secured. Slax 7.0 will be available to order on 16 GB USB flash drive for $25.-, and there are now localized versions in the download section. There’s a new page with all relevant documentation to get you up and running, and the developer has moved his personal blog over.

• ROSA Desktop 2012 preview

  The first and last Release Candidate of ROSA Desktop 2012 was announced last week. This means, of course, that the stable edition will be hitting a download mirror near you very soon, likely before Xmas. ROSA Desktop, an end-user edition, is published by ROSA Laboratory, a Linux solutions provider based in Moscow, Russia, which also publishes ROSA Desktop Enterprise.

  In real terms, the difference between ROSA Desktop and ROSA Desktop Enterprise is that the former will ship and always have the latest and greatest editions of the Linux kernel and software, bleeding edge, if you like, while the later will ship with Debian-style stable versions of applications and the Linux kernel.

• DragonFlyBSD, CentOS, Ubuntu, Solaris Benchmarks

• New Releases

  • Webconverger 16.0

  • [LuninuX OS] Well, Hello… – Release 12.10 Stable

  • SMS version 2.0.2 Released!

  • Slax is revived after three years of silence

    After what the main developer calls “more than three years of silence”, the Slax project is back under active development and its developer has released version 7.0 of the small Linux distribution aimed at live usage. The project now sports a redesigned web site which will host a new module catalogue that will tie in with the Slax Software Center in future.

• PCLinuxOS/Mageia/Mandrake/Mandriva Family

  • OpenMandriva: It’s Almost a Done Deal

    Today Charles-H. Schulz blogged to share that “the statutes of the “OpenMandriva Association” have been sent to the French authorities and the incorporation process has thus started.” Schulz admits originally being skeptical that Mandriva would ever be truly open, that was until he spoke personally with Mandriva SA CEO Jean-Manuel Croset.

    Schulz continued by saying that the transition to the new community directed project and migrating all the infrastructure is “somewhere around 80%” complete and that none of it would have been possible without the commitment from Jean-Manuel Croset. He said, “It is not everyday you see an example of a community who gains its independence with the blessing and dedication of its former steward.”

  • OpenMandriva becoming fully independent

  • The December 2012 Issue of the PCLinuxOS Magazine

• Red Hat Family

  • Red Hat CEO Jim Whitehurst Opens Up

    Jim Whitehurst, the President and CEO of Red Hat has had an interesting career to date. He was a consultant for a number of years, joined Delta Air Lines right around September 11, 2001, and played a big role in securing the future of that company as its Chief Operating Officer, and now is the President and CEO of Red Hat (NYSE: RHT), the world’s first billion dollar open source company. Whitehurst and I recently spoke as part of my Forum on World Class IT podcast series, and hearing him compare his time at Delta to his current role at Red Hat struck me as an interesting case example in how older generation businesses and newer technology firms differ in terms of culture, hierarchy, collaboration, and the like.

  • Red Hat’s New OpenShift Enterprise looks to make PaaS an On-Premise Solution

    Red Hat, world leaders in open source solutions to provide high-performing cloud, virtualisation, storage, Linux® and middleware technologies, have launched OpenShift Enterprise, their new product designed specifically for installation as an on-premise solution within private, public and hybrid cloud data centre.

  • Red Hat Speeds Up Open Source Virtualization Race

  • Fedora

    • Bye bye, Miracle Beefy, Welcome Spherical Cow

      Every new Fedora release, is a good time to test and see new features, normally I start testing on Alfa, but now after installing it on a test machine did not have to much time to play with it.

      Another thing that change on my test is was I installed instead of using preupgrade, the main reason, Fedora 18 has a new installer so I wanted to see how good it was.

    • The Future Of Fedora Gets Debated, Again

      Being hotly discussed this weekend within the Fedora development camp is in regards to the future direction of the Linux distribution.

      Tomas Radej, a developer at Red Hat issuing a statement from the position of a Fedora contributor/community member rather than his employer, volleyed a long message on the Fedora devel list about “where are we going?”

• Debian Family

  • Derivatives

    • Canonical/Ubuntu

      • Ubuntu Weekly Newsletter Issue 295

      • Ubuntu One ‘Referral Space’ Goes AWOL

      • Coming in Ubuntu Linux 13.04: instant purchases from the desktop

      • Desktop Zoom, Animations in Ubuntu 12.04/12.10 Makes it Look Flashier, More Functional

      • Meet Ubuntu Linux 12.10 ‘Quantal Quetzal’: Pictures

      • Canonical will turn Ubuntu 13.04 into an Amazon shopping trolley

        SOFTWARE DEVELOPER Canonical is set to anger its longstanding users once again by saying that Ubuntu 13.04 will offer users the opportunity to shop at Amazon from their desktop.

        Canonical has done a very good job of alienating large parts of its user base in the past two years through its decision to push the Unity window manager and then foisting an opt-out system on them in which local system search terms are sent to Amazon. Now the firm has said it will offer users the chance to buy products from Amazon directly from the control panel on the Unity desktop, which is called the Dash.

      • Ubuntu 13.04 To Allow Purchases From the Dash

      • Shuttleworth: Ubuntu’s goal is one OS from phones to supercomputers

      • Canonical founder hopes Ubuntu on mobile devices will lure more desktop users

      • Kicking Off The Ubuntu Advocacy Developer Kit

        This content would make it easier for advocates to get going, instead of navigating the wealth of unorganized content on the wiki and variety of promotional materials. The ADK provides a set of curated content that gets someone up and running quickly.

      • Flavours and Variants

        • Elementary OS Luna Review

          I remember those days when the name elementary used to refer themes, now we are looking at a review of a distribution developed by the same team. I must note that this is the review of the beta release of elementary OS Luna. Any minor annoyances or rough edges will probably be fixed before the final release. That said, I have no idea when the final release of Luna will be available.

        • Linux Mint 14 OEM Has Been Released

          Clement Lefebvre proudly announced a minutes ago, December 10, the immediate availability for download of the OEM installation images of the recently released Linux Mint 14 operating system.

        • Linux Mint 14 OEM released!

        • Review: Linux Mint 14.1 “Nadia” MATE + GNOME 3/Cinnamon

          Wow. It’s been a really long time since I’ve had the time to sit down and do a review like this. The reason for that is because this semester has been incredibly busy in pretty much every way, and today was finally the last day to turn in problem sets and other assignments. Now, I can finally do this review.

        • Elementary OS 0.2 Luna Beta 1 Review

Devices/Embedded

• Raspberry Pi for Schools – The Free Software Column with Richard Hillesley

  The Raspberry Pi can be the affordable route to teaching schoolchildren the lost idea that computer programming can be fun

• 4 things I have learned since I was given a Raspberry PI

• Phones

  • Can HP’s webOS Rise from the Ashes?

    Forget Android and iOS—a team of enthusiasts plans to bring HP’s much-admired webOS back from the scrap heap.

  • Android

    • Android Candy: Never Plug In Your Phone Again!

      Last month, I showed you an awesome audiobook player app for Android, but I didn’t share my frustration in getting the audio files on to my phone. When I plugged my phone in to the computer, I couldn’t get the SD card to mount, no matter what settings I changed. It was very frustrating and forced me to come up with a better way. Enter: FolderSync.

    • LG Working On Optimus G2 with 5.5″ Full HD Display?

      The year 2012 has not been a good year for android manufacturers, with an exception of Samsung which hit success with high volume sales. While Samsung captued the largest smartphone market share, other manufactures failed to report profits.

      Surprisingly LG is on the path of turning things around. Everything changed for the South Korean company after the significant success of LG Optimus G and then the runaway hit of LG manufactured Google Flagship device Nexus 4, which still has a huge backorder.

    • Samsung Galaxy Camera gets an open-source bootloader

      There is certainly no shortage of dedicated devs and modders working on hacking Android-powered devices to make them more useful and customizable.

• Sub-notebooks/Tablets

  • Allwinner introduces dual and quad-core tablets

    The Allwinner A10 single-core chip has been a relatively popular chip with Chinese device makers due to its low price and decent performance.

    That’s the processor that powers the original MK802 Android 4.0 Mini PC and a number of other mini PCs. It’s proven popular with tinkerers, because Android isn’t the only supported operating system. Users have been installing Ubuntu and other Linux-based software on Allwinner A10 devices for months, and the PengPod line of tablets are expected to ship soon with a desktop Linux operating system preloaded.

  • 9 Android Tablet for Kids these Holidays

    That’s not to say LeapPad or similar tablets are any lesser in quality but Android tablets you get more flexibility and choice. Additionally, if you are doubtful if your toddler is big enough to handle a tablet or benefit from it completely you can get a cheap one and try it! Now let’s move on to the top nine Android based children tablet.

Open Source into 2013; 10 Predictions

Revamping the first open source groupware solution

Many heroes will remain unsung because there is no-one to tell their story. I first came across this story over eight years ago, and three years ago it became connected with my own. The hero in our story is an unlikely candidate for heroism: a public sector body in Germany, the German Federal Office for Information Security (BSI).

Samba Team Releases Samba 4.0 – 1st Free Software Active Directory Compatible Server

Do you remember when the Samba team won against Microsoft before the EU Commission, and they won the right to buy the documentation and use it like this? This result is part of that story, as the work was created using the official protocol documentation published by Microsoft. But times have changed, and Microsoft helped make this happen. That means it’s legal. So go ahead and use it. They even got a nice quotation from Microsoft for the press release.

Samba is one of 11 open source projects that leading software integrity vendor Coverity has certified as “secure” and has reached Coverity “Integrity Rung 2″ certification. What I like the best about the Samba team is that it’s proven to be a no-sellout zone. “If you want to become a member of the team then the first thing you should do is join the samba-technical mailing list and start contributing to the development of Samba,” it says on the site.

This is FOSS history, so it belongs right here in our archives. I lived that whole Samba-Microsoft saga, and it feels so right to see it bear such fruit. It’s what courts are for, and it’s why I am very grateful to the EU Commission, the Samba guys for not wimping out when everyone else did, and to the lawyers, especially Carlo Piana, for making it happen.

DSD releases resilient open source forensics tool

Security boffins within the Defence Signals Directorate have released an open source forensics tool that improves the process of “carving out” target data stored within other file formats.

Defence researchers create open source forensics tool

Open Source Software Used by Majority of Developers, Survey Reveals

The term “open source” was tossed around like any other tech buzzword some time ago. Many predicted the philosophy’s eventual demise or, at best, relegation to hobbyists. Few expected open source software to take hold in the enterprise, citing security concerns and lack of technical support beyond the community of developers itself. Now, however, open source has graduated from idealist’s dream to a ubiquitous presence in the toolkit of most software developers.

Ten to the dozen: number of developers using open source

The secret ingredient in open source

GraphBuilder is open sourced

Events

• OpenStack India Event

• Digit at Foss.in – India’s largest free and open source conference

  About a week ago, Foss.in, India’s largest free and open source conference completed another successful year in the running. If you weren’t there at the event, then read our day-by-day round up of the proceedings to catch-up.

• Inspirations from FOSS.in 2012

Web Browsers

• Chrome

  • Google Accidentally Transmits Self-Destruct Code to Army of Chrome Browsers

    The problems were short-lived, but widespread. Over at Hacker News — a news discussion site that tends to attract Silicon Valley’s most knowledgeable software developers — a long thread quickly filled up with dozens of crash reports. “My Chrome has been crashing every ten minutes for the last half hour,” wrote one poster.

    This may be a first. Bad webpage coding can often cause a browser to crash, but yesterday’s crash looks like something different: widespread crashing kicked off by a web service designed to help drive your browser.

    Think of it as the flip side of cloud computing. Google’s pitch has always been that its servers are easier to use and less error-prone than buggy desktop software. But the Sync problem shows that when Google goes down, it can not only keep you from getting your e-mail — it can knock desktop software such as a browser offline too.

  • Google Chrome May Be Set for Next-Gen Features in Working with Displays, TVs

    Next-generation browsers may be built to connect with external displays and devices in brand new ways, and there are signs that the Google Chrome team may lead some of these efforts. According to a new set of posts, Chrome may take on new protocols and an API for communicating with “first screen devices,” and more. Here are the details.

SaaS

• This CEO Is Creating The Next Billion Dollar Open Source Company

  As part, of UC Santa Barbara’s Distinguished Lecture Series, Eucalyptus Systems’ CEO, Marten Mickos shared his advice regarding what it takes to be a serially successful entrepreneur.

• In-Q-Tel an Investor in Big Data Open Source Provider Cloudera

  In-Q-Tel is investing in big data firm Cloudera as part of that company’s newest venture capital round, All Things D reports.

  Cloudera raised $65 million in its latest round from IQT, Accel Partners, Greylock Partners, Ignition Partners and Meritech Capital Partners.

• Is Cloud Computing Killing Open Source Software

  The best thing about open source software systems has always been the fact that it is freely available and any programmer or company can use it to develop its own version of that software. For the longest time they have been the best solution for people willing to go outside the box in order to get the best results in their respective IT departments. Of course these systems have never been without profit and it came from two sources that are now getting to be absolute because of the emergence of cloud computing and the level of affordability most of its components come from.

Databases

• What Is INDECT, And Why Is It Bad For The American People?

• Proposal to Allow Police Internet Monitoring Shot Down in UK Parliament

• The Police State Advances Daily: Warrantless, Sophisticated Audio Surveillance On Buses

• Big Brother’s Listening

• Public Buses Across Country Quietly Adding Microphones to Record Passenger Conversations

• No Warrant, No Problem: How The Government Can Still Get Your Digital Data

  Listening to your phone calls without a judge’s warrant is illegal if you’re a U.S. citizen. But police don’t need a warrant — which requires showing “probable cause” of a crime — to get just the numbers you called and when you called them, as well as incoming calls, from phone carriers. Instead, police can get courts to sign off on a subpoena, which only requires that the data they’re after is relevant to an investigation — a lesser standard of evidence.

Oracle/Java/LibreOffice

• Help improve LibreOffice 4.0 in a ‘test marathon’ this month

  If you’ve ever used free and open source software for any length of time, you’re probably already aware that much of the work done to develop, test, and maintain that software is accomplished by what’s typically a global community of developers and volunteers.

CMS

• Acquia flies flag for Drupal downunder

  Acquia has set its sights on accelerating adoption of the open source Drupal content management system by large organisations. The company, which was founded by the CMS’s creator, Dries Buytaert, opened a Sydney office last month and plans on expanding its sales and business development operations in Australia.

  Australia is already home to elements of Acquia’s tri-continental 24/7 support setup, and the company’s Asia Pacific regional director, Chris Harrop, said he plans to boost the company’s local headcount to about 15 over the next 12 months, bringing on board field sales and business development staff in Sydney.

• Senator Lundy to be DrupalCon Sydney headliner

• WordPress Reaches 3.5, Rides The Coltrane

Healthcare

• Why You Need Open Source for Health Exchange Success

  With the national election over there’s an expectation for greater bipartisanship between Republicans and Democrats, but in terms of programs with potential for cooperation, the Affordable Care Act (ACA) is one of the least likely. The ACA has been a significant point of contention between the parties, and despite the President’s reelection and therefore, the mandate to pursue ACA, it seems the conflict may continue, particularly around implementing a Health Insurance Exchange (HIX) website portal in each state. Luckily, open source may be the answer to overcoming some of the conflict.

BSD

• The Grinch That Delayed FreeBSD 9.1

  Originally the plan for FreeBSD 9.1 was to release it in mid-September, but the first release candidate was one month late along with the RC2 and RC3 releases. The plan was then updated to release FreeBSD 9.1 at the end of October, but that too passed. The latest schedule set the RELEASE announcement as going out on 12 November, but that clearly didn’t work either.

  It’s been more than one month since the last test release (FreeBSD 9.1-RC3) and there’s still no sign of an imminent release. Asked on the mailing list this weekend was Will we get a RELEASE-9.1 for Christmas? There’s FreeBSD stakeholders delaying new server rollouts until the FreeBSD 9.1 availability, but there’s been no clear communication from FreeBSD developers when the release will happen.

• FreeBSD veteran confident of reaching fund-raising goal

  Veteran BSD hacker Marshall Kirk McKusick has played down fears that the FreeBSD project will fall short of its target of raising $US500,000 through donations for this year.

• FreeBSD end-of-year fund raiser on target

FSF/FSFE/GNU/SFLC

• Free Software Leader Richard Stallman: Amazon Search Integration In Ubuntu Amounts To Spyware

  Free software leader Richard Stallman claims Ubuntu amounts to spyware with Amazon search integrated into the “dash” of its Unity interface. He is calling for developers to shun the open-source operating system.

• Ubuntu Community Manager apologises to Stallman

  Canonical has yet to make an official statement…

• Sorry RMS Says Jono Bacon

  On the issue that Stallamn raised Jono Bacon still maintains a view “that referring to the Ubuntu dash as malicious software that collects information about users without their knowledge (spyware) and as a result that Ubuntu should be shunned for “spying”, somewhat over-sensationalizes the issue”.

  It is good in part of Jono Bacon to come up with a apology but the post does not deal with concers that Stallman initially raised regarding user privacy. This post could mean that those question could remain unanswered.

• Linux Top 3:Ubuntu Roaring, RMS Not Impressed

• Ubuntu Community Manager apologises to Stallman

  Ubuntu Community Manager Jono Bacon has apologised to Richard Stallman for calling Stallman’s position on Ubuntu “childish”. Last week, Richard Stallman wrote an article describing Ubuntu 12.10′s Amazon Shopping Lens as spyware. In “Ubuntu Spyware: What to do”, Stallman said that the sending of search terms being entered into the desktop by users on to Canonical’s servers, where they are then searched for on Amazon, is simple surveillance and without the users’ consent. Even though the Amazon searching can be turned off, “the existence of that switch does not make the surveillance feature ok” because its default state is on, he says. Stallman called on the free software community to “remove Ubuntu from the distros you recommend” and said that “it behooves us to give Canonical whatever rebuff is needed to make it stop this”.

• [Mono booster/GNU hater:] Morals? Forbidding stuff?

  It isn’t freedom to have to choose for Richard Stallman’s world view. It isn’t ‘freedom’ to be called immoral just because you choose another ethic. It isn’t freedom when a single person or group with a single view on morality tries to forbid you something based on just their point of view.

  For example, Stallman has repeatedly said about Trusted Computing (which he in a childish way apparently calls Treacherous Computing) that it ‘should be illegal’ (that’s a quote from official FSF and GNU pages). I also recall Stallman trying to forbid blog posts about proprietary software (it was about VMWare) on planet-gnome (original thread here).

Project Releases

• Blender 2.65 Out, Brings New Features

  Popular video editing and 3d animation software Blender has recieved a new update.

• Suricata 1.3.5 Available!

• Smoke brings fire to Blender 2.65

Public Services/Government

• White House Steps Up Open Source Activities

  Web developers in the White House also collaborate with the open source community on Github, offering White House mobile apps. The White House website offers a page for developers interested in using their open source tools at whitehouse.gov/developers. Developers can also track the White House’s open source activity through the White House’s Github profile.

• Swiss City Mandates Use Of Open Source, Banishes Microsoft Officially

  In an overwhelming majority vote, the city council in Bern, Switzerland has moved to implement all future infrastructure with open source technologies. The “Party Motion”, as it is called in Switzerland, was submitted over a year ago, and has finally been realized. Plans to move forward with open source design, strategy and implementation should begin immediately.

Openness/Sharing

• Open Hardware

  • RuuviTracker: Open Source GPS tracking system

    The new project aims to develop a new GSM/GPS-enabled tracking system for a wide variety of uses. On the hardware side, the project aims to develop an affordable, water-proof, robust, high-quality and state-of-the-art device, capable of operating in temperatures as low as -40C.

  • Arduino launches Esplora open source controller

    Tinkerers take note, because Arduino has launched its new Esplora controller, which just so happens to be customizable and open source. The Esplora is derived from the Arduino Leonardo, but unlike its predecessors, it comes equipped with a number of sensors and buttons out of the box. That means it should be at least relatively easy to just jump in once your Esplora arrives.

  • Burrito Bomber: open source hardware-based drone autonomously delivers Mexican food

  • Making it real with 3D printing

    With a 3D printer that costs less than $3,000, you can start your own mini manufacturing operation — and use open source software to create surprisingly complex designs

Programming

• Python creator Guido van Rossum joins Dropbox

  Dropbox has announced that Python creator Guido van Rossum will be joining the company. According to a tweet by van Rossum, he has already quit his job at Google and will be starting at the company behind the popular synchronisation software in January. Van Rossum says he is “leaving Google as the best of friends” in a later tweet, where he shared a link to his redecorated office.

IOS 6 Wi-Fi problems keep hanging on

Security

• 25-GPU cluster cracks every standard Windows password in [less than] 6 hours

  A password-cracking expert has unveiled a computer cluster that can cycle through as many as 350 billion guesses per second. It’s an almost unprecedented speed that can try every possible Windows passcode in the typical enterprise in less than six hours.

Defence/Police/Aggression

• Assange looks to contest Senate election

  WIKILEAKS publisher Julian Assange has confirmed his intention to run as a Senate candidate in the 2013 federal election and will announce the formation of a WikiLeaks political party early next year.

• People Who Edited Al Qaeda Out of CIA Benghazi Talking Points Predict Islamic Terrorism Will End By 2030, Warn of Christian Terrorists

• United States: The NSA And Cybersecurity

  NSA also has an interest in being able to compromise the software running on servers and end-user devices at the “edges”…

• Indefinite Detention and the NDAA: The rise of America’s imperial presidency

• The NDAA and Cybersecurity

• George Will on Drones, Assassination, and Targeted Killing

  Is “targeted killing” just a polite, antiseptic phrase for assassination?

• Understanding the NDAA, a US law that makes it possible to indefinitely detain people without charge or trial

• Britain to probe use of spy drones by untrained pilots

• Leaked probe exposes drone war ‘chaos’

• UK Minister covers up drone operations

• California law enforcement moves to buy drones, draws controversy

• US detains Afghan teenagers: UN

• ‘NYT’ Public Editor Again Hits Paper Over Coverage of Bradley Manning Hearing

  If any news outlet should feel a responsibility to cover the ongoing hearing in the case of Bradley Manning, accused of leaking countless US government and military documents (and an infamous video) via WikiLeaks to the worldwide media—it would seem to be The New York Times.

• REPORT: The US Is Openly Sending Heavy Weapons From Libya To Syrian Rebels

  The Obama administration has decided to launch a covert operation to send heavy weapons to Syrian rebels, Christina Lamb of The Sunday Times of London reports.
  Diplomatic sources told the Sunday Times that the U.S. “bought weapons from the stockpiles of Libya’s former dictator Muammar Gaddafi.”

• Did CIA and State Department Run Illegal Arms Trafficking in Benghazi?

  New details have emerged that shed light on the chaos that embroiled the Benghazi mission on 9/11/2012 that led to the murder of Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three other Americans at the hands of the very anti-Qaddafi rebels that Stevens formally liaised with for the CIA.

  It wasn’t a secret that Ambassador Christopher Stevens played a key role in Libya’s “Arab Spring.” During the course of the revolution that ultimately toppled Muammar Qaddafi, Stevens’ built a relationship with the Libyan rebels and it’s this experience that made him the frontrunner for the Libyan ambassadorship. Stevens’ history of working with Libyan radicals provided the perfect opportunity for the Obama administration to covertly move newly purchased weapons from Libya’s freedom fighters to Syrian insurgents via ships through Turkey.

• Moral issue: are drones worse than torture?

• Review: ‘The Secret Drone War’

  This is a long overdue documentary, in half an hour, the BBC’s ‘Panorama’ team ventures into the hinterland of American drone strikes, and puts a human face to this so-called war.

• Homeland’s Anti-Drone Message Hits Obama at Home

  However Homeland ends its amazing second season next week, I’m already anticipating its real-life cliffhanger: How does President Obama react to Brody assassinating the vice president for killing scores of children by drone?

• The threat of drones ushering in ‘invisible wars’

• US drones killing civilians in Afghanistan

• The ethics of American drone strikes

• Rachel Marsden: When terrorists ‘killed’ in drone strikes aren’t really dead

  Is “killed by a drone strike” the new “alive and well”? If you pay close enough attention, it makes you wonder what’s really going on.

• Drones propel hate in Pakistan for the U.S.

  Israel’s use of military force is scrutinized, while the U.S.’s use of armed drones in Pakistan barely registers. But these drones and their civilian casualties are strengthening Pakistani and Taliban extreme Islamism and anti-Americanism – this international footprint is how the U.S. is being judged.

• Student Tweets Entire History of US Drone Strikes

• Obama May Need The NDAA To Justify Widespread Use Of Drones

  We’ve covered how President Obama needs the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) to justify detention powers he has used for the past four years, but there’s another reason he needs it: drones.
  At the heart of both issues is the Authorization for the Use of Military Force (AUMF), which gives the president authority “to use all necessary and appropriate force against those … [who] aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001 or harbored such organizations or persons.”

• Exclusive: UK military in talks to help Syria rebels

• New York Times Bradley Manning Coverage Continues To Be Criticized

• Key Details on Bradley Manning’s Confinement Were Kept from Army Commander Who Visited Regularly

  A company commander in Pfc. Bradley Manning’s Army chain of command, who made multiple visits to see Manning while he was imprisoned at Quantico Marine Brig, took the stand as a government witness today to provide testimony on Manning’s treatment. He did not initially appear to have any notion that Manning was mistreated while he was held there, but in the final moments of his testimony he indicated he did not agree with some of the decisions. He also had not been informed of the fact that mental health officers were recommending Manning be taken off prevention of injury (POI) status. And when he finished testifying, he stood up and walked over to shake Manning’s hand.

• Latif Letter About Guantanamo Speaks From the Grave: “I Am Being Pushed Toward Death Every Moment”

  On September 8, Latif was found “motionless and unresponsive” by guards in a cell in the very same Camp 5 cellblock he had cited in his letter. Two months later, the military produced a report that said he committed suicide.

  The mystery surrounding the death of the eldest son of a Yemeni merchant who, by all accounts, did not belong at the offshore prison for suspected terrorists, is underscored by the almost prophetic nature of this singular letter.

• Bradley Manning: a tale of liberty lost in America

Environment/Energy/Wildlife

• Germany’s Wind Power Revolution in the Doldrums

  The construction of offshore wind parks in the North Sea has hit a snag with a vital link to the onshore power grid hopelessly behind schedule. The delays have some reconsidering the ability of wind power to propel Germany into the post-nuclear era.

PR/AstroTurf/Lobbying

• ALEC’s So-Called “Right to Work” Bill as Political Revenge in Michigan

  As concerned workers come together across Michigan in protest, partisan politicians are poised to make one of the strongholds for America’s blue-collar worker rights into a so-called “Right to Work” (RTW) state — in accordance with the ALEC blueprint to change to state laws at the behest of some of the biggest corporations in the world. Yet, 42 corporations, including General Motors, have distanced themselves from ALEC this year after ALEC’s role in controversial and divisive legislation was exposed.

• Michigan Passes “Right to Work” Containing Verbatim Language from ALEC Model Bill

Privacy

• You’re not anonymous. I know your name, email, and company.

• Public Buses That Listen To Passengers’ Conversations Have Been Around For Five Years

  The Daily had an interesting report this week — picked up by Wired — about “government officials quietly installing sophisticated audio surveillance systems on public buses across the country to eavesdrop on passengers.” I know what you’re thinking: “Woo! More epic bus fight scenes that come with audio.”

• WikiLeaks editor denounces mass internet surveillance and US attacks on democratic rights

  “The Internet,” Assange declares in the introduction, “has led to revolutions across the world but a crackdown is now in full swing. As whole societies move online, mass surveillance programs are being deployed globally. Our civilization has reached a crossroads.”
  In line with the Obama administration’s campaign against WikiLeaks, most of the mainstream media has largely ignored the book. Others, such as the American television network CNN, have brushed aside the book’s themes while claiming that Assange’s principled defence of press freedom is hypocritical. CNN journalist Erin Burnett, who hosts the network’s prime time nightly news program—“Erin Burnett: OutFront”—attempted this approach in late November.

• Facebook privacy poll closes (turns out you didn’t care about privacy)

• CIA’s venture arm backs mobile banking, NFC developer

  In-Q-Tel, the technology investment arm of the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), will invest in Tyfone, a small developer of mobile banking, identity management and near-field communication systems.

  The size of the investment was not disclosed.

• Once Again With Feeling: You Have Absolutely No Privacy Online

Civil Rights

• Not so noble: EU’s Peace Prize win sparks debate over legitimacy

• Congratulations. Tell No One.

  An inspiration for the hero of Zero Dark Thirty, a CIA agent who was celebrated with a prestigious award for helping to track down Osama Bin Laden, seemingly has had a less glorious career in the mission’s aftermath, according to the Washington Post. A former CIA official says she bashed her fellow honorees over email, essentially telling them, “You guys tried to obstruct me. You fought me. Only I deserve the award.” How does the CIA give awards to secret agents?

• Senate kills Pentagon’s ‘alternative CIA’

• Judge Mulls Whether to Keep Alive Former CIA Officer’s Suit

  A former covert CIA officer who claims the agency disseminated false information about him, thwarting an employment opportunity with a defense contractor, could get a chance to further probe his allegations.

  A federal trial judge in Washington said at a recent hearing in the case that he was inclined to allow the officer—identified in court papers only as “Peter B.”—the opportunity to conduct limited discovery in his lawsuit.

• San Francisco District Attorney subpoenas Twitter feeds in Columbus Day riot case

  Twitter says it “provides a voice for liberty around the globe” — an image the microblogging service promoted during the populist uprisings of the Arab Spring. But it remains to be seen how it reacts to activist controversies right here at home.

Internet/Net Neutrality

• Revealed: ITU’s deep packet snooping standard leaks online

• WCIT – China And Russia Withdraw Bid For Greater Control Of Internet

  Controversial proposals handed to the ITU on Friday have now been withdrawn

• Committee says no to draft Communications Data Bill

  The draft Communications Data Bill has today been roundly criticised by the committee of MPs and Peers, who make clear that the draft Bill is not fit for purpose and unacceptable in its current form. The report makes clear tinkering and minor changes are nowhere near enough – this draft bill is unacceptable to Parliament and if there is to be legislation, it is back to the drawing board for the Home Office.

• Joint Committee slams Home Office’s Snoopers’ Charter

• Snoopers Charter Report Summary

  A non-partisan, well-informed cross-Parliamentary committee has found the draft Communications Data Bill is so badly – almost abusively – drafted that it must not be allowed to proceed without substantial revision. Here’s my summary.

• EU bringing positive momentum – update on WCIT conference in Dubai

  The EU is bringing a positive momentum. Some examples are debates on roaming, transparency, accessibility, and energy efficiency. These are issues of interest and importance not just to European citizens, but to all those who would be affected by a new ITR treaty. And what is new at this conference is that Europe speaks with one voice, thanks to a joint decision Member States took before going to Dubai, based on a European Commission proposal.

  On other issues the EU has suggested compromises that have been rejected.

• EU Parliament Calls For Action Against Net Access Restrictions

  Today, the EU Parliament adopted two important resolutions underlining its commitment to protecting and promoting rights and freedoms on the Internet, especially on the issue of Net neutrality. La Quadrature du Net welcomes this vote by EU lawmakers, and urges the EU Commission as well as Member States to follow suit by enacting legislation to protect freedoms online and foster democracy as well as innovation.

Intellectual Monopolies

• Copyrights

  • Who Ever Thought APIs Were Copyrightable, Anyway?

    Back in the summer, there was a widely covered story about Judge Alsup’s decision regarding copyrightablity in the Oracle v. Google case. Oracle has appealed the verdict so presumably this will enter the news again at some point. I’d been meaning to write a blog post about it since it happened, and also Karen Sandler and I had been planning an audcast to talk about it.

  • Top 10 articles celebrating Creative Commons’ very uncommon last 10 years

    To a lot of people all over the world, Creative Commons is more than a license. The organization and their mission is a shining copyleft-light for work rendered by artists, designers, writers, and the list goes on. Here at Opensource.com all of our original content is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License (CC-BY-SA) which means that you are welcome to share (copy, distribute, and transmit the work), to remix (to adapt the work), or to make commercial use of the work. And many of our contributors choose to attribute thier work under the same license. Why?

  • How Do You Find Usenet Files?

  • Jammie Thomas asks Supreme Court to take file-sharing case

    Acting on her promise, Jammie Thomas-Rasset has finally fought her music uploading case all the way to the Supreme Court. Her lawyers announced today that they have filed an official petition asking the Supreme Court to review her long-running case, which has moved up through the courts over the past five years.

    In 2007, the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) accused Thomas-Rasset of copyright infringement for sharing 1,700 copyrighted songs — the equivalent of 150 CDs. But the RIAA whittled down the number to 24. A jury heard the evidence against her and rendered a $222,000 verdict.

  • Antivirus guru John McAfee sells rights for movie about his life

    Currently fighting deportation efforts in Guatemala, the antivirus-software pioneer sells life-story rights to a Montreal-based TV production company.