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02.18.15

Links 18/2/2015: Linux Report, FlightGear 3.4

Posted in News Roundup at 8:47 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

GNOME bluefish

Contents

GNU/Linux

Free Software/Open Source

  • Twitter’s Aurora and How it Relates to Google’s Borg (Part 1)

    The information jobs for the remainder of the 21st century will not be managed by operating systems. Today, we perceive Twitter as one of a very few examples of services that run at “Internet scale” — at a scale so large that the size of its domain is meaningless. Yet Twitter is actually an example of what one day, within most of our lifetimes, will be considered an everyday job, the sort of thing you expect networks of clustered servers numbering in the tens of thousands to do.

  • Playing the Markets: ClusterK Launches Cloud Scheduler, Open Source GATK Pipeline

    At least that’s how Dmitry Pushkarev sees it. His new company, ClusterK, is releasing its genomics pipeline to illustrate how complex workflows like the Broad Institute’s GATK can be run efficiently—and much faster—on the cloud. The pipeline breaks the GATK pipeline into thousands of different tasks, each taking 10-20 minutes, which can be run in parallel. “It allows the entire workflow to be distributed across dozens of compute nodes,” Pushkarev says, and results are returned much faster.

  • HP Goes Open Source For Haven Predictive Analytics

    HP has released a product that checks off many of the boxes on the hot-technology list for 2015: big data, business intelligence, predictive analytics, and open source.

  • 11 ways to get involved with Humanitarian FOSS

    HFOSS organizers need to make is easier to help people get involved. One recommendation that I have is a simple navigator that asks people what they want to do or what they want to give. The aggregator would then help match them to tasks and communities. Think of it as a global Match.com for giving. We would give love to open source organizations, corporations, nonprofits, community-based organizations, and citizens. Truly, this is all hands on deck to make it possible for anyone and any organization to connect. We could tailor it with the code to help people choose their own adventure based on topic, time, location, and their learning/doing/giving path. Really, we need to dream big more and build it.

  • Why An Open-Source Pro Sees His Next Act In Security

    Zack Urlocker was just named COO of Duo Security, a Benchmark and Google Ventures-backed security company that aims to make two-factor authentication omnipresent and painless. Is this Urlocker’s next unicorn? After all, as SVP of products and marketing at MySQL, he helped to drive a $1 billion sale by Sun. Later, he went on to run operations at pre-IPO Zendesk (now worth $2 billion).

  • Where the corporate and the upstream world meet…. or collide

    From the corporate world I frequently hear how hard it is to predict and track what upstream developers do. On the other side, developers that work part or full time upstream frequently underestimate the need for communicating what they do in a way that enable others (or themselves) to provide deadlines and effort estimations. Upstream and product “time lines” and cultures often differ too much to be compatible under the same environment.

  • Events

  • Web Browsers

    • Mozilla

  • SaaS/Big Data

    • Big data vendors back open source tools

      IBM, GE, Teradata, Infosys, VMware, Pivotal, SAS and others will develop on and test out Apache Hadoop open source tools

    • Making MapR’s Data-Centric Platform More Elastic with Mesos and Yarn

      MapR has a new release today that provides some perspectives on the influences that are shaping new data-centric architectures. In particular, it shows the importance of Yarn, Mesos and the continued value that Docker plays as the need increases for developing new patterns that reflect the forces of data gravity and container density.

    • OpenStack Earns Plug-in Replacement for Amazon EC2 API

      All the way back in 2013, the folks at Cloudscaling were adamant that the future of OpenStack depended on embracing Amazon Web Services (AWS), and there has continued to be much debate on the topic. Eucalyptus Systems, among other open cloud players, proved that by integrating Amazon’s command interfaces exactly, many users would react positively.

    • New MapR Distribution Including Hadoop Supports More Big Data Applications

      This week, there are a lot of interesting big data announcements coming out of Strata + Hadoop World. MapR Technologies, Inc. has announced at Strata + Hadoop World the latest release of the MapR Distribution including Hadoop, which, the company notes, “has new features that accelerate the data-centric enterprise by supporting applications on globally-distributed, big data.” The company’s new MapR Distribution including Hadoop, version 4.1, features interesting table replication features and more.

    • Pivotal goes all-in with open source in Big Data Suite

      Bowing to customer pressure, enterprise software and services vendor Pivotal will release as open source the remainder of its software suite for analyzing data.

  • Oracle/Java/LibreOffice

    • LibreOffice 4.4 review – Finally, it rocks

      LibreOffice is the flagship office suite for Linux. It’s also quite popular with Windows users. As a free, open-source and cross-platform solution, LibreOffice allows people to enjoy the world of writing, spreadsheets, presentations and alike without having to spend hefty sums of money. The only problem till now was that it didn’t quite work as advertised. Microsoft Office support was, for the lack of a better word, lacking.

      Version 4.4 is out, and it promises a great deal. A simplified interface, new looks, much improved proprietary file format support. Sounds exciting, and as someone who has lambasted LibreOffice for this very reason in the past, I felt compelled to give this new edition its due rightful try. On top of Plasma 5 no less. So let’s see.

  • Funding

    • Should Linux distro developers expect to be paid for their work?

      I wrote a column a while back called “Distro developers need dollars” where I included links to distro donation pages. My thought then was that it was a good idea for distro developers to get financial support from users whenever possible. I still feel that way, however, there’s a flip side to that idea too.

  • BSD

  • Openness/Sharing

    • ONF launches open source SDN community, website

      The Open Networking Foundation (ONF) has announced the launch of a new open source software community and code repository at OpenSourceSDN.org. The foundation said the new site is designed to be a resource for those looking to commercially deploy open SDN (Software-Defined Networking) solutions, free from vendor lock-in.

    • ONF Aims to Be Open-Source SDN Glue
    • ONF Launches Open Source Community

    • Open Data

      • OpenStreetMap finally gives directions; gets routing support

        OpenStreetMap has been for almost 11 years and at long last routing has arrived on the main website. The functionality is actually provided by 3rd parties including OSRM, MapQuest and GraphHopper. One shortcoming of the new map implementation is that you cannot add multiple destinations to your journey. Nonetheless the new update is a huge one for the open source map software.

      • Cities open-source fiscal data via OpenGov

        The OpenGov platform has been gaining traction as a tool for governments to demonstrate their transparency by providing better access to government spending data in a user-friendly, digital format.

    • Open Access/Content

      • Cultural knowledge needs to be more open

        Subha Panigrahi is an educator and open source activist based in Bangalore, India. He is currently works at the Centre for Internet and Society’s Access To Knowledge program where he builds partnership with universities, language researchers, and GLAM organizations. Their goal is to bring more scholarly and encyclopedic content under free licenses. During his work at the Wikimedia Foundation’s India Program, Subha was involved in designing community sustaining and new contributor cultivation models.

    • Open Hardware

  • Standards/Consortia

    • Premier Li Keqiang Discusses Views on Standardization Reform

      On February 11 at the State Council Executive Meeting in Beijing, Premier Li Keqiang confirmed the final framework agenda for China’s standardization reform. According to a report on the State Council website, the key target of reform is improving China’s economic performance and enhancing the overall competitiveness of China’s products and services.

    • HTTP/2 & HPACK Specifications Approved

      The HTTP/2 and HPACK specifications have been formally approved by the IESG.

Leftovers

  • Vanilla Ice arrested in Florida home burglary

    The ‘90s rapper known as Vanilla Ice has been arrested and charged with burglary and grand theft for allegedly stealing an array of items from a vacant Florida home.

    Lantana police told TMZ that furniture, a pool heater, bicycles and other items were stolen from the property in the 100 block of N. Atlantic Drive.

  • Health/Nutrition

    • Toxic exposure is causing a pandemic of brain disorders in kids

      The numbers are startling. According to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, about 1.8 million more children in the US were diagnosed with developmental disabilities between 2006 and 2008 than a decade earlier. During this time, the prevalence of autism climbed nearly 300%, while that of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder increased 33%. CDC figures also show that 10 to 15% of all babies born in the US have some type of neurobehavorial development disorder. Still more are affected by neurological disorders that don’t rise to the level of clinical diagnosis.

  • Defence/Police/Secrecy/Aggression

    • What Putin Learned From Reagan

      There was a great power that was worried about its longtime rival’s efforts to undermine it. Its leaders thought the rival power was stronger and trying to throw its weight around all over the world. In fact, this longtime rival was now interfering in places the declining state had long regarded as its own backyard. To protect this traditional sphere of influence, the worried great power had long maintained one-sided relationships with its neighbors, many of them led by corrupt and brutal oligarchs who stayed in power because they were subservient to the powerful neighbor’s whims.

    • Jeb Bungles Facts, Pronunciation in His Big National Security Speech

      Further, Bush misrepresented the strength of ISIS, saying they have some 200,000 men, which is far greater than U.S. intelligence community’s estimates. Last week National Counterterrorism Center Director Nicholas Rasmussen pegged the fighting strength of ISIS at between 20,000 and 31,500.

  • Transparency Reporting

    • What’s the Difference Between a Leaker and a Whistleblower?

      Last month, WikiLeaks wrote an open letter to former Google CEO Eric Schmidt admonishing the tech giant for waiting over two and a half years to reveal that it gave the Department of Justice the emails and other data of three Wikileaks staffers. Google was finally successful in overturning the gag order in December, which was when the staffers in question – Sarah Harrison, Kristinn Hrafnsson and Joseph Farrell – were made aware of the investigation into their activities.

    • Headline: Despite Moral Victory, Whistleblower Matt DeHart To Be Deported In ‘Very Short Order’

      Adrian Humphreys of the National Post, who last year wrote an award-winning 5 part investigative piece on Matt DeHart’s case, reports: “The decision by the Immigration and Refugee Board (IRB) offered him a moral victory — finding no ‘credible or trustworthy evidence’ he committed the child pornography offences alleged by the government — but extended him no protection, denying him refugee status, which would have allowed him to remain in Canada.” — See full story here.

    • Collective Privacy and the Anonymous Archipelago

      The sea is rising and our remaining hills are few and far between. This is not a discussion of climate change despite its perils. This a discussion of the anonymous archipelago in the global sea of surveillance and our loss of collective privacy. While our individual privacy is in grave danger today, there are still countermeasures to protect our thoughts and words from hostile eyes and ears. It cannot listen to yet the voice in our heads nor can they follow everyone at all times. It cannot yet steal the ideas from our minds nor can they accurately predict our intentions short of our overt behavior. They do not yet have this power, but they will try. They will try because we have ceded to them our right to collective privacy.

    • The Dos And Don’ts Of Discussing Transgender Health Care

      When Private Chelsea Manning – the former soldier currently serving a 35-year prison term for leaking thousands of classified documents – came out as transgender in August 2013, major media outlets proved just how ill-prepared they were to cover transgender stories. Both Fox News and CNN repeatedly misgendered Manning, disregarding GLAAD’s Media Reference Guide, which calls on news organizations to refer to transgender people by their preferred gender pronouns.

  • Environment/Energy/Wildlife

  • Finance

    • Borrowing a Climate Denial Trick to Erase Rising Inequality

      Or maybe people think inequality hasn’t stopped rising because it hasn’t. The problem with Leonardt’s argument is that it’s cherry-picking: If you start from 2007, which was the height of a financial and real-estate bubble that mostly benefited the wealthy, then of course the income of the wealthy won’t return to where it was; a bubble is by definition unsustainable. (If the recovery amounts to reinflating the bubble, as some observers fear, that would be bad news for the elite as well as for the rest of us.)

      [...]

      Leonhardt can sometimes be an effective debunker of conservative spin, but the trick of starting your measurement of inequality from an unrepresentative peak is reminiscent of the chicanery of Wall Street Journal editorial page editor Robert Barkley, who wrote an entire book, The Seven Fat Years, based on manipulating the timeframe of economic comparisons.

    • Fox Host Reframes Income Inequality Report To Throw A Pity Party For The Rich

      Of course, income inequality is still at historically troubling rates, and could potential even worsen, as the Times repeatedly noted.

    • Swiss prosecutor searches HSBC premises, opens criminal inquiry

      Geneva’s public prosecutor searched the premises of HSBC Holdings PLC in Geneva on Wednesday and said it had opened a criminal inquiry into allegations of aggravated money laundering.

      “A search is currently underway in the premises of the bank, led by Attorney General Olivier Jornot and the prosecutor Yves Bertossa,” Geneva’s prosecutor said in a statement.

      HSBC, Europe’s biggest bank, apologised to customers and investors on Sunday for past practices at its Swiss private bank following allegations that it helped hundreds of clients dodge taxes.

    • HSBC: Swiss bank searched as officials launch money-laundering inquiry

      Investigation into suspected ‘aggravated money laundering’ comes after Belgium and France begin scrutinising tax affairs of Europe’s biggest bank

    • Swiss police raid HSBC Geneva office in money laundering probe

      The Swiss subsidiary of HSBC was searched on Wednesday by officials after prosecutors in Geneva said they are opening a money laundering investigation into the bank’s alleged illegal tax activity.

      The premises of HSBC Private Bank (Suisse) were searched by authorities, AP reported, and the investigation could possibly extend beyond the bank to any clients participating in money laundering.

  • PR/AstroTurf/Lobbying

  • Censorship

    • UKIP drama sparks 1,000 complaints to Ofcom and Channel 4

      The First 100 Days featured actress Priyanga Burford as the party’s only Asian woman MP, who is elected for Romford in an imagined landslide making Mr Farage Prime Minister.

    • Telegraph’s Peter Oborne says he feels ‘sick’ over alleged failings of paper’s HSBC coverage

      Former Telegraph journalist Peter Oborne has said that “poor editorial judgement” has been exercised at the newspaper he stepped down from.

      Following his announcement that he had resigned from his position as The Telegraph’s chief political commentator, Oborne appeared in a strongly-worded interview on BBC Radio 4, where he repeated his comments that the paper had “failed” its readers in its alleged underreporting of the HSBC scandal.

    • Peter Oborne demands inquiry into Telegraph guidelines over HSBC

      The Daily Telegraph’s former chief political commentator, Peter Oborne, has called for an independent inquiry into the paper’s editorial guidelines over its lack of coverage of the HSBC tax story, which he described as a “fraud on its readers”.

    • Peter Oborne may be a maverick but his Telegraph revelations are dynamite

      In September 2013, Peter Oborne wrote a piece in the Daily Telegraph in praise of Ed Miliband, calling him a brave and adroit leader. I remarked at the time that he was a columnist renowned for going against the grain of the newspaper for which he writes.

      It is to his credit that he did so and was to the Telegraph’s credit that it hired him and published him for five years. He never subscribed to the paper’s large-C Conservative line on many subjects.

    • Gauging media freedom

      THE report released on Thursday by Reporters Sans Frontières reminds us that politics around the world today has inevitably taken a heavy toll on media freedoms, squeezing both the public’s right to know and journalists’ duty to inform.

      “Press freedom … is in retreat in all five continents,” said the RSF 2015 World Press Freedom Index.

      The head of the RSF told the media that the deterioration is linked to a range of factors, “with information wars and actions by non-state groups acting as news despots”.

  • Privacy

    • US spy agency (probably NSA) has its virus installed on hard drive firmware

      New research done by Russian cyber-security firm, Kaspersky, suggests that the NSA (although not confirmed by Kaspersky) has spyware deeply embedded into hard drives from manufacturers including Western Digital, Seagate, Toshiba and others, covering much of what’s on the market. The software embedded in the hard drives is part of a group of spyware which Kaspersky found out about.

    • UK Police Forces Have Secret Facial Recognition Database Of 18 Million People, Many Innocent

      The UK already has a pretty awful reputation when it comes to surveillance, what with millions of CCTV cameras, DRIPA and two recent attempts to shove the Snooper’s Charter through Parliament without scrutiny. So perhaps it should come as no surprise to discover that UK police forces have created a giant facial recognition database that includes hundreds of thousands of innocent people….

    • ‘Innocent people’ on police photos database

      Police forces in England and Wales have uploaded up to 18 million “mugshots” to a facial recognition database – despite a court ruling it could be unlawful.

      They include photos of people never charged, or others cleared of an offence, and were uploaded without Home Office approval, Newsnight has learned.

    • Researchers Find ‘Astonishing’ Malware Linked to NSA Spying

      Security researchers have uncovered highly sophisticated malware that is linked to a secret National Security Agency hacking operation exposed by The Intercept last year.

      Russian security firm Kaspersky published a report Monday documenting the malware, which it said had been used to infect thousands of computer systems and steal data in 30 countries around the world. Among the targets were a series of unnamed governments; telecom, energy and aerospace companies; as well as Islamic scholars and media organizations.

      Kaspersky did not name the NSA as the author of the malware. However, Reuters reported later on Monday that the agency had created the technology, citing anonymous former U.S. intelligence officials.

      Kaspersky’s researchers noted that the newly found malware is similar to Stuxnet, a covert tool reportedly created by the U.S. government to sabotage Iranian nuclear systems. The researchers also identified a series of code names that they found contained within the samples of malware, including STRAIGHTACID, STRAITSHOOTER and GROK.

    • Thousands Join Legal Fight Against UK Surveillance — And You Can, Too

      On Monday, London-based human rights group Privacy International launched an initiative enabling anyone across the world to challenge covert spying operations involving Government Communications Headquarters, or GCHQ, the National Security Agency’s British counterpart.

      The campaign was made possible following a historic court ruling earlier this month that deemed intelligence sharing between GCHQ and the NSA to have been unlawful because of the extreme secrecy shrouding it.

    • If the NSA has been hacking everything, how has nobody seen them coming?

      As the Snowden leaks continue to dribble out, it has become increasingly obvious that most nations planning for “cyber-war” have been merely sharpening knives for what looks like an almighty gunfight.

    • From Moscow, With Aloha: A Recap of Snowden’s Talk in Hawaii (VIDEO)

      Edward Snowden, the NSA whistleblower on the run, spoke at ACLU Hawaii’s First Amendment Conference live Saturday, via a video link from Moscow, Russia.

    • Google Calls FBI’s Plan to Expand Hacking Power a ‘Monumental’ Constitutional Threat

      Google is warning that the government’s quiet plan to expand the FBI’s authority to remotely access computer files amounts to a “monumental” constitutional concern.

      The search giant submitted public comments earlier this week opposing a Justice Department proposal that would grant judges more leeway in how they can approve search warrants for electronic data.

    • Government concedes polices on lawyer-client snooping were unlawful

      The UK Government has today conceded that its policies governing the ability of intelligence agencies to spy on lawyer-client communications were unlawful, in response to a case brought by two victims of an MI6-orchestrated ‘rendition’ operation.

      Abdul-hakim Belhaj and Fatima Boudchar were tortured and rendered to Libya in 2004 in a joint MI6-CIA operation. They filed a case in 2013 with the Investigatory Powers Tribunal (IPT) concerning alleged eavesdropping by UK intelligence services on their confidential communications with their lawyers.

    • UK admits unlawfully monitoring legally privileged communications

      The regime under which UK intelligence agencies, including MI5 and MI6, have been monitoring conversations between lawyers and their clients for the past five years is unlawful, the British government has admitted.

      The admission that the activities of the security services have failed to comply fully with human rights laws in a second major area – this time highly sensitive legally privileged communications – is a severe embarrassment for the government.

  • Civil Rights

    • THE CONTOURS OF THE AMERICAN EMPIRE

      No country on the planet is untouched by the United States government. In fact, the US has the most powerful military on Earth and arguably the most powerful military in the history of the world. There is no more important “affair of the state” during the life of a nation than its participation in war. Yet instead of defending the country, the United States government often uses the military, the CIA, and a variety of international organizations to intervene in foreign affairs on behalf of powerful US based multinational corporations often to the detriment of the great majority of the people in the United States and billions of people around the world.

    • JUSTICE FOR SALE – PART 3: GREED BREED’S CORRUPTION

      This is the third article (see PART 1 & PART 2) in a five part series examining the US legal system. The series collectively argues that corporate media and political rhetoric have made Americans acquiescent toward corruption in the US legal system. This piece examines how public ambivalence toward a justice system which operates for profit not public good has created a breeding ground for corruption.

    • Paris: Chelsea fans push black man off Metro

      French police have opened an investigation after Ffans of Chelsea football club were filmed repeatedly pushing a black man off a Paris Metro train, before chanting “We’re racist and that’s the way we like it”.

    • UMass Amherst Will Accept Iranian Students into Science and Engineering Programs, Revising Approach to Admissions

      The University of Massachusetts Amherst today announced that it will accept Iranian students into science and engineering programs, developing individualized study plans to meet the requirements of federal sanctions law and address the impact on students. The decision to revise the university’s approach follows consultation with the State Department and outside counsel.

    • WATCH: The Surrender

      In August 2010, Stephen Kim, a highly-regarded intelligence analyst in the State Department, was indicted under the Espionage Act for divulging classified information to Fox News reporter James Rosen. If convicted at trial, he faced 10 to 15 years in prison.

      Kim allowed me to film his life in intimate detail from the period after his guilty plea early last year — he accepted a sentence of 13 months — until his surrender at a federal prison this past July. I watched him simultaneously disassemble the physical components of his life while he retraced the journey that brought him from speaking zero English as a young Korean immigrant, to the nation’s top universities, to the State Department and ultimately to the courtroom where he faced federal prosecution.

    • Destroyed by the Espionage Act

      Stephen Kim Spoke to a Reporter. Now He’s in Jail. This Is His Story.

    • Risen: Obama administration is greatest enemy of press freedom

      New York Times reporter James Risen slammed Attorney General Eric Holder in a series of tweets Tuesday evening, calling the Obama administration “The greatest enemy of press freedom in a generation.”

      “Eric Holder has been the nation’s top censorship officer, not the top law enforcement officer,” Risen tweeted. “Eric Holder has done the bidding of the intelligence community and the White House to damage press freedom in the United States.”

      Risen was tweeting in response to a speech Holder gave earlier on Tuesday at the National Press Club, where he defended the administration’s record on prosecuting leakers, saying they could have prosecuted far more than they actually did.

    • Jeffrey Sterling Moves for Acquittal Based on Government’s Expansive Interpretation of Spying

      At almost the same time, lawyers for Jeffrey Sterling moved for acquittal on all charges. As part of that, they made an argument very similar to the one I made: Jeffrey Sterling was convicted on three charges relating to the possession of a copy of a letter that appeared in Risen’s State of War that not only did the FBI admit they never found, but which Sterling had no possible way of possessing.

    • New DNI Guidance on Polygraph Testing Against Leaks

      Director of National Intelligence James R. Clapper issued guidance this month on polygraph testing for screening of intelligence community personnel. His instructions give particular emphasis to the use of the polygraph for combating unauthorized disclosures of classified information.

    • Eric Holder: Moratorium On Death Penalty ‘Would Be Appropriate’ Pending Supreme Court Decision

      Speaking at a luncheon at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C., Holder, noting that he was speaking in a personal capacity and not as a member of the administration, said the “inevitable” possibility of executing an innocent individual is what makes him oppose capital punishment.

    • Whistleblower: Government Lacks The ‘Guts’ To Charge U.S. Leaders With Torture

      The human rights abuses revealed in the executive summary of the Senate Intelligence Committee’s torture report released in December sparked global outrage, leaving some begging for senior officials from the George W. Bush administration to be held accountable. But CIA whistleblower John Kiriakou is certain the U.S. government will do nothing of the sort.

      Just two weeks after Kiriakou was released from prison after agreeing to a plea deal in which he admitted to violating one count of the Intelligence Identities Protection Act, he spoke with HuffPost Live’s Alyona Minkovski on Tuesday about where the accountability should lie.

    • Killing in Washington State Offers ‘Ferguson’ Moment for Hispanics

      Members of the Zambrano family began arriving here three decades ago, picking apples in nearby orchards. Over time they have become part of the fabric of this harvesting town, growing to more than 50 and settling in tiny candy-colored homes, some ringed by white picket fences.

    • The Secret Squirrels Pitching “Countering Violent Extremism”

      For the record, I believe our country needs some kind of program to divert wayward young men — of whatever race, religion, and ideology — rather than ensnaring them in stings that will result in a wasted life.

      Mind you, the government is going about it with the Muslim community badly. In part, that’s because the US doesn’t have much positive ideology to offer anymore, especially to those who identify in whatever way with those we’ve spent millions villainizing. In part, that’s because we’d have to revamp FBI before we started this CVE stuff, starting with the emphasis on terrorist conviction numbers as the prime measure of success. You’ll never succeed with a program if people’s primary job measure is the opposite.

      Finally, and most obviously, you have to start by building trust, which will necessarily require a transition time between when you primarily rely on dragnets and informants to that time when you can rely on community partners (it will also require an acceptance that you won’t stop all attacks, regardless of which method you use).

    • Parliamentary Resolution On Condemning Torture by the CIA post 911

      This is for the courageous whistleblower John Kiriakou. He was the first U.S. government official to confirm in December 2007 that waterboarding was used to interrogate Al Qaeda prisoners, which he described as torture. On October 22, 2012, Kiriakou pleaded guilty to disclosing classified information about a fellow CIA officer that connected the covert operative to a specific operation. He was the first person to pass classified information to a reporter, although the reporter did not publish the name of the operative.[6] He was sentenced to 30 months in prison on January 25, 2013, and served his term from February 28, 2013 until 3 February 2015 at the low-security Federal correctional facility in Loretto, Pennsylvania.[7]

    • An Imprisoned CIA Whistleblower Breaks His Silence

  • Internet/Net Neutrality

    • Internet.org app raises net neutrality fears and how to remedy the problem

      In countries where Internet access is widespread there’s active conversations going on regarding net neutrality as more and more users tax ISP’s infrastructures thanks to heavy data usage. The fear surrounding a tiered Internet is that people will lose access to some sites and therefore lose out on information. Facebook’s attempt to provide some sites for free in India also raises net neutrality issues, rather than included sites being democratically chosen by it’s users, they’ve been pre-selected by Facebook.

    • In Russia, Yandex Files Antitrust Complaint Against Google Over Search On Android Devices

      More antitrust woe for Google on the international front. Search giant Yandex, often described as the “Google of Russia”, has filed a request with Russia’s antimonopoly regulator to investigate Google over possible violations of Russia’s antitrust laws.

  • Intellectual Monopolies

    • Guardian Live: What is TTIP and how does it affect us?

      London’s Conway Hall was the venue for a Guardian Membership event held this week to debate the pros and cons of TTIP. The discussion was chaired by Guardian economics editor Larry Elliott and the panel comprised Claude Moraes, Labour MEP; Owen Tudor, head of European Union and International Relations, TUC; John Hilary, executive director of charity War on Want; and Vicky Pryce, chief economic adviser at the Centre for Economics and Business Research. There was also a room full of impassioned Guardian members. So what did we learn?

    • Copyrights

      • Pirate Bay Caught Up In a Hosting Whac-A-Mole

        The Pirate Bay has been back online for more than two weeks but thus far it’s been rough sailing. The notorious torrent site has had to jump from hosting service to hosting service just to stay online and is still looking for a safe haven. At the same time, scammers keep hounding the site with fake files and malicious links.

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    Another example of UPC promotion from within the EPO (a committee dedicated to UPC promotion), in spite of everything we know about opposition to the UPC from small businesses (not the imaginary ones which Team UPC claims to speak 'on behalf' of)

  10. Video: French State Secretary for Digital Economy Speaks Out Against Benoît Battistelli at Battistelli's PR Event

    Uploaded by SUEPO earlier today was the above video, which shows how last year's party (actually 2015) was spoiled for Battistelli by the French State Secretary for Digital Economy, Axelle Lemaire, echoing the French government's concern about union busting etc. at the EPO (only to be rudely censored by Battistelli's 'media partner')

  11. When EPO Vice-President, Who Will Resign Soon, Made a Mockery of the EPO

    Leaked letter from Willy Minnoye/management to the people who are supposed to oversee EPO management

  12. No Separation of Powers or Justice at the EPO: Reign of Terror by Battistelli Explained in Letter to the Administrative Council

    In violation of international labour laws, Team Battistelli marches on and engages in a union-busting race against the clock, relying on immunity to keep this gravy train rolling before an inevitable crash

  13. FFPE-EPO is a Zombie (if Not Dead) Yellow Union Whose Only de Facto Purpose Has Been Attacking the EPO's Staff Union

    A new year's reminder that the EPO has only one legitimate union, the Staff Union of the EPO (SUEPO), whereas FFPE-EPO serves virtually no purpose other than to attack SUEPO, more so after signing a deal with the devil (Battistelli)

  14. EPO Select Committee is Wrong About the Unitary Patent (UPC)

    The UPC is neither desirable nor practical, especially now that the EPO lowers patent quality; but does the Select Committee understand that?

  15. Links 1/1/2017: KDE Plasma 5.9 Coming, PelicanHPC 4.1

    Links for the day

  16. 2016: The Year EPO Staff Went on Strike, Possibly “Biggest Ever Strike in the History of the EPO.”

    A look back at a key event inside the EPO, which marked somewhat of a breaking point for Team Battistelli

  17. Open EPO Letter Bemoans Battistelli's Antisocial Autocracy Disguised/Camouflaged Under the Misleading Term “Social Democracy”

    Orwellian misuse of terms by the EPO, which keeps using the term "social democracy" whilst actually pushing further and further towards a totalitarian regime led by 'King' Battistelli

  18. EPO's Central Staff Committee Complains About Battistelli's Bodyguards Fetish and Corruption of the Media

    Even the EPO's Central Staff Committee (not SUEPO) understands that Battistelli brings waste and disgrace to the Office

  19. Translation of French Texts About Battistelli and His Awful Perception of Omnipotence

    The paradigm of totalitarian control, inability to admit mistakes and tendency to lie all the time is backfiring on the EPO rather than making it stronger

  20. 2016 in Review and Plans for 2017

    A look back and a quick look at the road ahead, as 2016 comes to an end

  21. Links 31/12/2016: Firefox 52 Improves Privacy, Tizen Comes to Middle East

    Links for the day

  22. Korea's Challenge of Abusive Patents, China's Race to the Bottom, and the United States' Gradual Improvement

    An outline of recent stories about patents, where patent quality is key, reflecting upon the population's interests rather than the interests of few very powerful corporations

  23. German Justice Minister Heiko Maas, Who Flagrantly Ignores Serious EPO Abuses, Helps Battistelli's Agenda ('Reform') With the UPC

    The role played by Heiko Maas in the UPC, which would harm businesses and people all across Europe, is becoming clearer and hence his motivation/desire to keep Team Battistelli in tact, in spite of endless abuses on German soil

  24. Links 30/12/2016: KDE for FreeBSD, Automotive Grade Linux UCB 3.0

    Links for the day

  25. Software Patents Continue to Collapse, But IBM, Watchtroll and David Kappos Continue to Deny and Antagonise It

    The latest facts and figures about software patents, compared to the spinmeisters' creed which they profit from (because they are in the litigation business)

  26. 2016 Was a Terrible Year for Patent Trolls and 2017 Will Probably be a Lot Worse for Them

    The US Supreme Court (SCOTUS) is planning to weigh in on a case which will quite likely drive patent trolls out of the Eastern District of Texas, where all the courts that are notoriously friendly towards them reside

  27. Fitbit’s Decision to Drop Patent Case Against Jawbone Shows Decreased Potency of Abstract Patents, Not Jawbone’s Weakness

    The scope of patents in the United States is rapidly tightening (meaning, fewer patents are deemed acceptable by the courts) and Fitbit’s patent case is the latest case to bite the dust

  28. The EPO Under Benoît Battistelli Makes the Mafia Look Like Rookies

    Pretending there is a violent, physical threat that is imminent, Paranoid in Chief Benoît Battistelli is alleged to have pursued weapons on EPO premises

  29. Links 29/12/2016: OpenELEC 7.0, Android Wear 2.0 Smartwatches Coming

    Links for the day

  30. Links 28/12/2016: OpenVPN 2.4, SeaMonkey 2.46

    Links for the day

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