07.25.14
Posted in News Roundup at 11:29 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Contents
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Desktop
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The Linux faithful have mixed opinions on the success of Google’s Linux- and Chrome browser based Chrome OS. The lightweight OS came along years after Fedora, Ubuntu and other Linux distros, and shares relatively little of their mainstream Linux codebase. Some dismiss it as a limited, browser-only platform — a complaint often applied to Firefox OS — while others warn that Google is co-opting and subjugating Linux, a process already begun with Android.
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Google is all geared up to push Chromebooks to students in the US. They have uploaded a new ad on YouTube targeting students. The video titled Chromebook: For Students shows student lockers and a very clear text ‘everything a student needs in a laptop’.
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Server
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With the rise of containers as an alternative to virtual machines in Linux environments, IT organizations that make that shift will need a way to potentially manage thousands of containers. Looking to become one of the vendors that not only supplies those Linux containers but also manages them, Docker today announced it has acquired Orchard Laboratories Ltd.
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Kernel Space
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Fresh off the release of ACPI 5.1 by the UEFI Forum, Linux developers are updating their support against this latest revision to the Advanced Configuration and Power Interface. In particular, ACPI 5.1 is supposed to help out ARM.
While accessing the ACPI/UEFI specifications still require jumping through some hoops, the ACPI 5.1 update is reported to fix major gaps in supporting ACPI on ARM. Hanjun Guo has already laid out patches for providing Linux ARM64 support compliant with the ACPI 5.1 specification. ACPI 5.1 has “major changes” to the MADT, FADT, GTDT, and _DSD for bettering up this non-x86 platform support.
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Eric Searcy is the IT Infrastructure Manager at the Linux Foundation. Here he tells us how he got started as a sysadmin and at the Linux Foundation, describes his typical day at work, and shares his favorite sysadmin tools, among other things.
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Aric Gardner is a Linux Foundation SysAdmin who works on the OpenDaylight collaborative project. Here he tells the story of how became a sysadmin, shares his specialty in scripting and automation, and describes a typical day at work, among other things.
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Graphics Stack
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While the Radeon R9 290 series is now mature in the marketplace, the open-source Linux driver support has lagged. The Hawaii support had been broken for months (no working 3D on the open-source driver, but will work under the Catalyst Linux driver) and the few open-source AMD developers weren’t tasked with fixing it over not being sure why it wasn’t working and having no immediate business cases for fixing the support. Fortunately, with a bug comment made tonight, it seems things might be in order.
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Applications
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I’ve gotten a little tired of typing out ls vimwiki/ | shuf -n1 all the time, and that’s usually proof positive that it’s time to give it an alias. So it’s in my .bashrc now as “tokolosi,” and here’s what the little demon dragged home today:
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The Calibre software provides some important functions for its users, like the ability to read, edit, and manage eBooks. The developer has issued a new update and the new version brings a few major features.
Even if people mostly use Calibre for converting eBooks from one format to another or as a reader, the application is also capable of editing books as well. This new function was implemented recently and the developer is still adding features and fixes for it.
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Photocrumbs has served well as a working name for my spare-time coding project. But the time has come to give my forgetful photo publishing PHP script a proper name. It took me a while to come up with a good name. I wanted a short and catchy name that reflects my deep interest in Japan. While trawling the web, I stumbled across the Japanese white-eye bird called mejiro in Japanese. It’s small, it’s cute, and it has a short name that sounds unmistakably Japanese — in other words, exactly the name I was looking for. So here it is, Photocrumbs is now Mejiro.
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Instructionals/Technical
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Games
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A while ago, we’ve announced our plans to add Linux support as one of the features of our digital platform, with 100 games on the launch day sometime this fall. We’ve put much time and effort into this project and now we’ve found ourselves with over 50 titles, classic and new, prepared for distribution, site infrastructure ready, support team trained and standing by, and absolutely no reason to wait until October or November. We’re still aiming to have at least 100 Linux games in the coming months, but we’ve decided not to delay the launch just for the sake of having a nice-looking number to show off to the press. It’s not about them, after all, it’s about you. So, one of the most popular site feature requests on our community wishlist is granted today: Linux support has officially arrived on GOG.com!
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“The year of the Linux desktop” is a phrase people have tossed around with increasing irony since the nineties, but it was never going to arrive explosively. Linux has slowly grown and spread into homes through friendly distributions like Ubuntu and Mint, installed as easy and safer alternatives to Windows or to freshen up old duffers (my netbook is Minty fresh now). Games have followed.
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If you have been following our coverage of the gaming scene, then you might remember us speculating on the possibility of Good Old Games (GOG.com) going to introduce Linux games. A few days following that article, GOG actually confirmed that they did indeed plan on getting Linux as another platform where they would introduce games regularly and promised about a 100 games by fall of this year. Now it seems that GOG managed to push their worker elves and the penguin folks hard enough that they are ready to release about 50 of the promised games for Linux.
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The game is set to release on Linux, Mac, Windows, Xbox One, PS4 & Wii U simultaneously. More information can be found over at the Project Tools website, along with the different game packages.
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Desktop Environments/WMs
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K Desktop Environment/KDE SC/Qt
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I’m sorry to bring bad news, but after trying to fight some last minute bugs in the new Gmail resource today, I realized that pushing the resource into KDE Applications 4.14 was too hurried, and so I decided not to ship it in KDE Applications 4.14. I know many of you are really excited about the Gmail integration, but there are far too many issues that cannot be solved this late in 4.14 cycle. And since this will probably be the last 4.x release, shipping something that does not perform as expected and cannot be fixed properly would only be disappointing and discouraging to users. In my original post I explained that I was working on the Gmail integration to provide user experience as close as possible to native Gmail web interface so that people are not tempted to switch away from KMail to Gmail. But with the current state of the resource, the effect would be exactly the opposite. And if the resource cannot fulfil it’s purpose, then there’s no point in offering it to users.
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With the Plasma 5.0 release out the door, we can lift our heads a bit and look forward, instead of just looking at what’s directly ahead of us, and make that work by fixing bug after bug. One of the important topics which we have (kind of) excluded from Plasma’s recent 5.0 release is support for Wayland. The reason is that much of the work that has gone into renovating our graphics stack was also needed in preparation for Wayland support in Plasma. In order to support Wayland systems properly, we needed to lift the software stack to Qt5, make X11 dependencies in our underlying libraries, Frameworks 5 optional. This part is pretty much done. We now need to ready support for non-X11 systems in our workspace components, the window manager and compositor, and the workspace shell.
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KDE’s Sebastian Kügler has provided an update regarding KDE Frameworks 5 and Plasma 5 support for Wayland as an alternative to running on an X11/X.Org Server.
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The work on revisiting and expanding the Human Interface Guideline on tooltips has begun. If there’s something that has always bothered you about how tooltips in KDE Applications and Plasma look and feel consider to join in. The work is still in its early stages, so now would be the best time to voice your concerns. [https://forum.kde.org/viewtopic.php?f=285&t=121892]
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Cutelyst uWSGI plugin now has support for –thread, which will create a QThread to process a request, however I strongly discourage its usage in Cutelyst, the performance is ~7% inferior and a crash in your code will break other requests, and as of now ASYNC mode is not supported in threaded mode due to a limitation in uWSGI request queue.
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from today on, the master branch of kate.git is KF5 based.
That means, for the next KDE applications release after 4.14, Kate will use the awesome KF5 stuff!
The KTextEditor framework is already in a good shape and most active KatePart development is since months pure KF5 based.
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GNOME Desktop/GTK
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GUADEC 2014 is almost upon us, and we are talking to the three keynote speakers who are lined up for this year’s conference. Nathan Wills – LWN editor, typeface designer and author – is one of these keynote speakers. His talk, titled Should We Teach The Robot To Kill, addresses issues relating to Free Software and the automative industry. We caught up with him to find out a bit more about this fascinating subject, as well as his views on Free Software conferences.
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We’re halfway through 2014, and a handful of Linux distributions have already made a big splash in the community. Which distributions are the best ones for this year? Let’s take a look.
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Kali Linux 1.0.8, a more mature, secure, and enterprise-ready version of BackTrack Linux, has been announced by Offensive Security and brings support for EFI systems, among other updates and changes.
The developers of Kali Linux 1.0.8 took advantage of this version change and decided to make other improvements to the operating system, although you will need a user account to see exactly what has been modified.
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In today’s news feeds is MakeUseOf.com’s top five Linux distributions for 2014. One of their picks is said to vulnerable to attack and the proof has been posted. In other news, GOG.com has rolled out support for 50 DRM-free Linux games. And finally tonight, Fedora 21 has been delayed.
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Red Hat Family
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Oracle sees continued potential for growth as it rolls out its latest Linux distribution release.
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Fedora
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Fedora is a big project, and it’s hard to follow it all. This series highlights interesting happenings in five different areas every week. It isn’t comprehensive news coverage — just quick summaries with links to each. Here are the five things for July 22nd, 2014:
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Debian Family
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Derivatives
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Canonical/Ubuntu
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Canonical is working on the upcoming Ubuntu 14.04 (Utopic Unicorn), but its developers are also trying to improve some technologies that haven’t made it just yet to the desktop version, such as Unity 8 and the Mir display server.
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Canonical has revealed details in a security notice about an acpi-support vulnerability in Ubuntu 12.04 LTS (Precise Pangolin) operating system that has been found and corrected.
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The Ubuntu team is pleased to announce the release of Ubuntu 14.04.1 LTS…
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The first stable point release update to the Long Term Support Ubuntu 14.04 is now available.
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Canonical is working in parallel at both the desktop and the mobile versions of Ubuntu, Ubuntu Touch already using Unity 8 and Mir as default, since the development branch was based on Ubuntu 13.10.
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Recently, the developers have implemented the Kernel 3.16 RC3 as default on the unstable branch of Ubuntu 14.10, scheduled for release on the 23rd of October, 2014.
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Over the past two years we’ve come to really grow fond of the design of the Raspberry Pi. It’s almost iconic in a way, and we don’t think we’re the only ones to believe this: as you can have see with the Banana Pi review on the previous page the layout is almost identical to the standard model B.
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TinyGreenPC launched a Raspberry Pi and Linux based digital signage player that runs on just 7 Watts, and offers optional WiFi and an OPS interface.
The Pi Media Player is one of the most power-efficient signage players on the market, according to TinyGreenPC, a subsidiary of UK-based embedded manufacturer and distributor AndersDX. It helps that the 7 Watt, Raspian Linux-enabled signage player runs on a Raspberry Pi.
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Three Bulgarian engineers who co-founded a firm called StorPool – which builds a virtual SAN using the aggregated storage of Linux KVM servers – are aiming to expand the reach of their three-year-old project.
Boyan Ivanov, CEO, Boyan Krosnov, chief product officer, and Yank Yankulov, the chief tech officer, started the firm in November 2011 with $261,600 seed funding. In February this year they raised an undisclosed amount of cash in an A-round. We’d guess it’s in the $1m – $2.5m area.
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Phones
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Android
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Disney movies have the uncanny ability to make us laugh, cry, and dance with joy at the same time. Whether you are a young kid or an adult, these films have a special place in many people’s hearts. Apart from winning many Oscars, these movies have garnered fans across all generations. From overbearing grandmas to unapologetically brash kids, Disney movies are so irresistible that they can make anyone laugh or cry. That’s why today we have for you a list of some of the best Android apps out there that are made for Disney fans.
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About 10 years ago, when I got my first mobile phone, I hardly knew anything about its operating system or its processor. Even its screen size didn’t matter. I was just happy to have a ‘mobile’ phone.
Today, the mobile phone paradigm has shifted from feature phones to smart phones. When people consider purchasing a new mobile phone, they examine its operating system, its configuration, and its screen size. Increased attention to these details can be attributed to technological advancements—and, more importantly, to the slew of new mobile operating systems available today. In this highly competitive market, Android has obtained about 80 percent of the global market share, making it the clear leader among mobile operating systems.
What makes Android so popular? Why has the mobile market swung toward Android lately? Let’s take a quick look at how Android has achieved this, as well as the role of open source in the Android story.
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OnePlus have developed quite a buzz over the last few months with the release of their first device the OnePlus One. Part of the allure is the incredibly low asking price of $300 – which is typically half the cost of its on-spec rivals. However another feature which has greatly attracted attention is the OnePlus One comes with CyanogenMod (CM) custom ROM as stock out of the box.
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Events
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Web Browsers
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Chrome
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Today Google announced Chrome Beta has received a relatively major update. Chrome Beta is the testing version of Chrome. To all purposes it is the same as Chrome although the Beta version incorporates all the small tweaks and experimental aspects Google are testing. By using the Beta version the user gets a first glimpse at features which quite likely will be available on the standard Chrome and also provides Google with the necessary test data.
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Mozilla
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Mozilla recently released Firefox version 31, and now this updated version of the Fedora default web browser is available for download in Fedora 20.
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SaaS/Big Data
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SAP may not be on every individual user’s radar, but the company is a giant global force in running enterrprise back-end systems, new forays into the cloud and other new platforms, and managing enterprise class applications. Now, SAP has announced that it is committing to Cloud Foundry and OpenStack, providing a clear path forward for an open cloud ecosystem.
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Yesterday, we released ownCloud 7. You might have read that somewhere on the internet – it was widely announced and broadly picked up. If you do not have ownCloud yet, you really should try it now, and if you are one of the people happily using ownCloud for a while, update soon!
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Oracle/Java/LibreOffice
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The Document Foundation has announced that the second Release Candidate version of LibreOffice 4.2.6 is now available for download and that users can test it.
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Education
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In the world of the Internet, where everything is so easily available, it seems like all technology is a benefit to online learners. For those who aren’t able to use the available traditional resources for various reasons, open source technology specifically is a huge boon. Let me share my seven-year journey of using open source and how it helped me add more value to both my personal and professional lives.
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Business
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Semi-Open Source
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Nginx, the lead commercial sponsor behind the open-source Nginx Web server, is out today with a new release of its Nginx Plus server. The Nginx Plus r4 release provides users with new security and load balancing features.
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BSD
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After more than a half-year in development and working on tens of thousands of lines of code, Pkg 1.3.0 has been released by FreeBSD developers.
Pkg 1.3.0 introduces a new solver to automatically handle conflicts and dynamically discover them, pkg install can now install local files and resolve their dependencies via remote repositories, sandboxing of the code has happened, improved portability of the code took place, the pkg API has been simplified, improvements to the multi-repository mode, and a ton of other changes and fixes took place.
More on the pkg 1.3.0 release for improved package management on FreeBSD can be found via this mailing list post.
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FSF/FSFE/GNU/SFLC
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In some ways we have actually made improvements to the Unix Philosophy with Richard Stallman’s GPL. We also have a mostly standardized graphical system with the X Window System. I can’t find any overt references to sharing of source code from the early days of Bell Labs but it clearly did happen even if it was de facto
rather than de jure.
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We are pleased to announce the next alpha release of GNU Guix, version 0.7.
This release is an important milestone for the project since it is the first to provide an image to install the GNU system from a USB stick.
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Public Services/Government
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The United Kingdom recently made an announcement about its decision to adopt the Open Document Format (ODF) as its in-house standard for all new documents. And now, Microsoft has lost another important fight in yet another European city.
Toulouse, France’s fourth largest city, has ditched Microsoft Office in favor of LibreOffice.
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Licensing
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Karen Sandler is a veteran of the free and open source software world. Having completed an engineering degree, she has worked as a lawyer for the Software Freedom Law Center, was Executive Director of the GNOME Foundation, and recently accepted a position as Executive Director of the Software Freedom Conservancy. I interviewed Karen via email to ask her about her background and insight into various issues in the free and open source world.
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Openness/Sharing
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Recently I had the opportunity to watch a soccer game (football to the majority of the world). This game was one of the most amazing displays of team effort I’ve ever had the privilege of watching. (Here’s an obligatory link if you don’t know to which game I refer). Almost every score was predicated with a series of passes and touches by various players. There was a level of unselfish play and team spirit I don’t often see when observing professional sports.
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Benetech started out in the 90s without even understanding the meaning of the term open source. They just “needed an easy way to interface with different voice synthesizers” to develop readers for people who are blind and “shared the code to be helpful.”
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Programming
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PHP 5.5.15, an HTML-embedded scripting language with syntax borrowed from C, Java, and Perl, with a couple of unique PHP-specific features thrown in, has been released and it’s now available for download.
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The battle started when a government-hired crew tore down the metal cross atop the one-room church in this village surrounded by rice paddies last month.
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Science
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As the world celebrates the 45th anniversary of the Apollo 11 mission, a revelation has come to fore that during the Cold War race to the moon between the US and the former USSR, the former had “kidnapped” a Soviet mooncraft in the 60s called Lunik, studied it in detail and returned it intact.
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Security
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Personally, while I still think the DHS is an unlikely sponsor for this project — the National Security Agency (NSA) or NIST seem like its more natural home — I think the SWAMP sounds like a very useful one-stop for anyone wanting to double-check their pre-production code for errors before release.
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Defence/Police/Secrecy/Aggression
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Judicial Watch announced today that on June 17, 2014, it filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit against the United States Department of Defense (DOD) to obtain records of communications relating to its May 2, 2011, FOIA request for bin Laden death photographs and videos (Judicial Watch v U.S. Department of Defense (No. 1:14-cv-01027)).
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The birth of the armed-drone program underscores two central ironies. First, the weapon that the U.S. deployed so eagerly after 9/11 was a hot potato that it juggled around internally beforehand. (Indeed, the George W. Bush administration devoted most of its lone pre-9/11 cabinet-level meeting on al Qaeda—convened on Sept. 4, 2001—to wrangling about the drone program.) Second, for a program now so widely criticized in the Muslim world for killing civilians, pre-9/11 policy makers were actually driven toward armed drones because the more traditional alternatives involved unacceptable risks of collateral damage.
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The UK, which has carried out over 300 drone strikes in the country, has consistently stated it is aware of only one incident in which non-combatants died: a March 2011 strike that killed four farmers. In December 2013, three months after the Watapur strike, then defence secretary Philip Hammond reiterated this claim in a Guardian op-ed.
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On the afternoon of September 7 last year, in the Watapur region of Afghanistan’s Kunar province, a farmer named Miya Jan heard a buzzing overhead. He looked up to see a drone, he told the Los Angeles Times, and minutes later, he heard an explosion.
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Afghanistan has been targeted by more drone strikes than any other country in the world, yet almost nothing is known about where those attacks took place, or who they killed.
A new study by the Bureau’s drones team, published today, examines the official opaqueness that surrounds drone operations and explores how outside organisations – such as the Bureau – might be able to lift this veil of secrecy.
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An 80-year-old local Navy veteran is facing a potential year in prison if convicted of charges stemming from his involvement in an anti-drone protest at a New York Air Force base in April.
Andrew Schoerke, of Shaftsbury, is a retired U.S. Navy captain and a member of Veterans for Peace Will Miller Green Mountain Chapter. On April 28 he was part of a group of 300 protesters at the Hancock Field Air National Guard Base which shares space with the Syracuse Hancock International Airport in Syracuse, New York.
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On July 10, 2014, in New York State, Judge David Gideon sentenced Mary Anne Grady Flores to a year in prison and fined her $1,000 for photographing a peaceful demonstration at the U.S. Air National Guard’s 174th Attack Wing at Hancock Field (near Syracuse) where weaponized Reaper drones are remotely piloted in lethal flights over Afghanistan. – See more at: http://www.progressive.org/news/2014/07/187788/grandmother-gets-year-prison-taking-picture%E2%80%A8#sthash.34Km49MC.dpuf
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On July 10, 2014, in New York State, Judge David Gideon sentenced Mary Anne Grady Flores to a year in prison and fined her $1,000 for photographing a peaceful demonstration at the U.S. Air National Guard’s 174th Attack Wing at Hancock Field (near Syracuse) where weaponized Reaper drones are remotely piloted in lethal flights over Afghanistan. Dozens have been sentenced, previously, for peaceful protest there. But uniquely, the court convicted her under laws meant to punish stalkers, deciding that by taking pictures outside the heavily guarded base she violated a previous order of protection not to stalk or harass the commanding officer.
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“Do you honestly believe that this land is yours because God said so?”
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The supporters of CUFI moved up the convention center escalators and took their seats for a plenary session. Onstage were the first guests, all recognizable from Fox News—Weekly Standard editor-in-chief Bill Kristol, onetime CIA director James Woolsey, and the Council on Foreign Relations fellow Elliott Abrams, a presidentially pardoned veteran of foreign policy disasters on two continents. Sitting right next to them was John Hagee, the burly Christian Zionist pastor who founded CUFI in 2006 He leaned into a microphone, passionately explaining why supporters of Israel should not be tricked by casualty reports.
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Iraq’s security forces have killed at least 75 civilians and wounded hundreds of others in indiscriminate air strikes on four cities since June 6, according to Human Rights Watch. The New York-based human rights watchdog says it documented 17 airstrikes, the majority in the first half of July, in which barrel bombs were used.
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More than 50 former Israeli soldiers have refused to serve in the nation’s reserve force, citing regret over their part in a military they said plays a central role in oppressing Palestinians, the Washington Post reported on Wednesday.
“We found that troops who operate in the occupied territories aren’t the only ones enforcing the mechanisms of control over Palestinian lives. In truth, the entire military is implicated. For that reason, we now refuse to participate in our reserve duties, and we support all those who resist being called to service,” the soldiers wrote in a petition posted online and first reported by the newspaper.
While some Israelis have refused to serve in the Palestinian territories of the West Bank, the military’s structure is such that serving in any capacity forces one to play a role in the conflict, said the soldiers, most of whom are women who would have been exempted from combat.
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In a campaign to improve its image abroad, the Israeli government plans to provide scholarships to hundreds of students at its seven universities in exchange for their making pro-Israel Facebook posts and tweets to foreign audiences.
The students making the posts will not reveal online that they are funded by the Israeli government, according to correspondence about the plan revealed in the Haaretz newspaper.
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Former Defense Secretary Robert Gates says he’s worried there’s a perception of the United States “disengaging” from global affairs.
Gates, who also once headed the CIA, says he recognizes the ocean-to-ocean diplomacy the Obama administration has been carrying out in the Mideast and Eastern Europe and other world hot spots like Africa.
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“Rise of the Politics of Fear”: “The first part of the series explains the origin of Islamism and Neo-Conservatism. At the same time in the United States, a group of disillusioned liberals, including Irving Kristol and Paul Wolfowitz, look to the political thinking of Leo Strauss after the perceived failure of President Johnson’s “Great Society”.
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“I think Russia saved us in Syria. If we had rushed in surface-to-air missiles to the Syrian opposition and they were then stolen by ISIS and they were now shooting down civilian airliners it would have been a different story,” Baer said.
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Environment/Energy/Wildlife
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Since the political crisis erupted in Yemen in 2011, the country has begun to move towards democracy. Many challenges remain in the country, wracked by civil unrest and widespread water and food insecurity, says Bishow Parajuli, the UN World Food Programme’s representative in Yemen.
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Plans for a cable car attraction and a shopping and entertainment complex mean the Grand Canyon is facing the biggest threat in its history, the US National Parks Service claims
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Finance
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Bernard Madoff’s massive Ponzi scheme relied on reams of fake trading documents to fool regulators for decades.
Now he may be the victim of a forgery himself, after a U.S. judge on Wednesday denied a bizarre motion supposedly filed by Madoff that claimed the U.S. int
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PR/AstroTurf/Lobbying
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Democratic congressman Jim Himes was on C-SPAN early this morning, and was on the receiving end of an angry complaint by a Republican caller over basically everything that anyone has ever said negatively about the Obama administration in the past four-plus years. Himes’ response? Suggesting this person maybe not watch so much Fox News.
The caller, Bob, went on a rant about issues from Benghazi, the NSA, Fast & Furious, Syria, Obamacare, the EPA, the government shutdown, Eric Holder, Van Jones, et cetera, et cetera. He concluded, “Any other president would have been laughed out of office right now.”
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Most members and staffers of the US House of Representatives won’t be able to edit pages on Wikipedia for more than a week. Administrators of the popular Web encyclopedia have imposed a 10-day ban on the IP address connected to Congress’ lower house.
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Privacy
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Apple has “inadvertently admitted” to creating a “backdoor” in iOS, according to a new post by a forensics scientist, iOS author and former hacker, who this week created a stir when he posted a presentation laying out his case.
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Privacy has always been one big issue when it came to using smartphones, but no one knew precisely why. Many of us feared social networks and apps that required private information and payed less attention to the actual device and its OS system. It would seem Apple’s iOS features a so called “backdoor” that allows agencies like the NSA to have almost complete access to every iOS running device. Forensic scientist and writer Jonathan Zdziarski, presented some slides at the HOPE conference in New York, in which he proved that, in general, the iPhones are well secured, specially the iPhone 5S that runs iOS 7, but they will never be protected from the government or Apple itself.
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APPLE has shed some light on the diagnostic capabilities in its iOS operating system, in a response allegations that it purposefully installed a “backdoor” on its mobile devices.
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A US researcher has mounted a very strong case that Apple has deliberately left security holes in iOS. Apple’s response is underwhelming.
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A key government document obtained by The Intercept confirms that the Obama administration does not require “concrete facts” or “irrefutable evidence” to brand Americans or foreigners as suspected terrorists.
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The 166-page “sensitive security information” document that details how the government decides whether someone should be on a terrorist watchlist has been leaked to the press.
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The Intercept on Wednesday published the U.S. government’s 166-page rulebook that guides the creation of its famous internal “terrorist watchlist.”
Both the Bush and Obama administrations have resisted spelling out how individuals, including its own citizens, wind up on the list, or how they can be removed. The registry supplies the names for the no-fly list that has grounded many a confused traveler, and includes thousands of names of those who are merely suspected of possibly having ties to others who may themselves be suspected of ties to terrorism.
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“Immediate family of suspected terrorists,” according to Scahill and Devereaux, such as “their spouses, children, parents or siblings,” may be placed on a list “without any suspicion that they themselves are engaged in terrorist activity.”
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As Jeremy Scahill and Ryan Devereaux point out in their analysis, the document is positively Kafkaesque, allowing agencies to add you to the watchlist if you are suspected of associating with a person who is suspected of being under suspicion of being a terrorist — and “terrorist” has been redefined to include “people who damage government property,” and people who seek to “influence government policy through intimidation.”
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As writers and artists, we join PEN American Center in urging Congress to act to end mass surveillance. We recognize the need for strong protections for U.S. national security, and acknowledge that such measures will sometimes entail difficult tradeoffs. However, the NSA’s shockingly broad and indiscriminate surveillance programs threaten our most cherished democratic ideals and violate our constitutional and international human rights to free expression and privacy. The Washington Post’s recent report that nine out of 10 individuals whose communications are being intercepted are not the intended targets of investigation underscores the total lack of proportionality of NSA mass surveillance, and the need for reform.
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Canadian government officials requested subscriber information from telecoms at least 1.13 million times per year between 2006 and 2008, according to documents obtained by e-commerce law expert Michael Geist.
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In early April, Sen. Charles E. Grassley summoned FBI officials to his Capitol Hill office. He said he wanted them to explain how a program designed to uncover internal security threats would at the same time protect whistleblowers who wanted to report wrongdoing within the bureau.
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Civil rights group Liberty is representing MPs Tom Watson and David Davis in a fresh case challenging the UK government’s recently passed Data Retention and Investigatory Powers (DRIP) bill.
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After recent comments in Moscow by Edward Snowden about the extent to which private telecoms data is used by the UK and US governments, you might have expected British lawmakers to think twice about the Data Retention and Investigatory Powers bill.
A yarn attributed to Sean McBride recounts an interview from the 1950s when, while serving as Irish Foreign Minister, a journalist asked him: “What about the role of British Intelligence in Dublin?”
“If the British had some intelligence, that’d be great,” replied the man who once led Amnesty International.
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A vulnerability broker published a video demonstrating one of several flaws it has found in the privacy-focused Tails operating system, which is used by those seeking to make their Web browser harder to trace.
Exodus Intelligence of Austin, Texas, said its short clip shows how the real IP address of a Tails user can be revealed using the flaw. The company said it hoped publicizing its findings would serve as a warning to users about putting “unconditional trust” in a software platform.
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Putting aside certain rhetorical devices that have cropped up in this debate, like name-calling or guilt-by-association, let’s examine some of Shava’s points to see if we can take the conversation in a constructive direction.
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The co-creator of a system designed to make internet users unidentifiable says he is tackling a “bug” that threatened to undermine the facility.
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Max Schrems’s case against the Irish Data Protection Commissioner is likely to have profound implications
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Whether you think NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden is a hero or a traitor, you have to admit: The guy knows how to keep his information secure.
The fact that Snowden isn’t sitting in Guantanamo right now with ankle cuffs and a bag over his head demonstrates his ability to avoid detection.
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Dutch intelligence services can receive bulk data that might have been obtained by the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) through mass data interception programs, even though collecting data that way is illegal for the Dutch services, the Hague District Court ruled Wednesday.
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The Dutch intelligence services AIVD/MIVD may exchange information with the US NSA…
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John Napier Tye, a former State Department official, says Americans’ data remains vulnerable until executive order that provides NSA with a path to collect data is reformed
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An independent privacy watchdog agency announced Wednesday that it will turn its focus to the largest and most complex of U.S. electronic surveillance regimes: signals intelligence collection under Executive Order 12333.
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A deal between the Senate and the Obama administration on NSA reform legislation may be in sight. The Privacy and Civil Liberties Board will get an earful from privacy advocates today. The House passed a bill to reauthorize the satellite TV law STELA, but the Senate has more ambitious plans for the must-pass legislation. Yahoo pays a visit to the FCC to talk about net neutrality.
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Angela Merkel’s old mobile phone is an icon of our time. A Nokia 6210 Slide – it was accessed and monitored by the US spy agency the National Security Agency.
The US monopoly over much of the world’s information and communication technologies gave the NSA – piggybacking on a complicit private sector – one-click instant access to her policy musings and personal whims.
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But Dark Mail takes the extra step of cloaking your email’s metadata, which includes the subject line and the ‘To’ and ‘From’ fields. That way, spies can’t easily identify who’s sending emails.
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Since the Snowden revelations, it has become clear that email as a basic internet protocol is essentially insecure, and other options — texting, messaging apps, and the like — are not much better.
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Gigglebit is Siliconrepublic’s daily dose of the funny and fantastic in science and tech, to help start your day on a lighter note.
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I arrived in Berlin last week, hoping to see something rare: A country that is prosperous, well-governed and even happy, if only because it had just been crowned champion of the football World Cup.
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The decision comes in response to Snowden’s NSA revelations, and follows two recent cases of German officials accused of spying for the U.S.
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Germany will monitor US and UK agents as part of its long discussed counter-espionage ’360 degree view’ plan, shifting its focus from China, Russia, and Iran, according to local media.
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Germany’s intelligence services have been instructed to add the US embassy in Berlin to its list of surveillance targets in retaliation for US spying on the German government and communication.
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Tensions between the U.S. and Germany over American intelligence gathering could have a decisive impact on whether the European Union adopts harsher sanctions on Russia.
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Willie contends, “Here’s the big, big consequence. The U.S. is basically telling Europe you have two choices here. Join us with the war against Russia.
Join us with the sanctions against Russia. Join us in constant war and conflicts, isolation and destruction to your economy and denial of your energy supply and removal of contracts. Join us with this war and sanctions because we’d really like you to keep the dollar regime going.
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We’re all too familiar with the bulk collection of cellphone metadata—information on whom you contact and when—that Edward Snowden revealed. However, Executive Order 12333 from 1981 (thanks, President Reagan) allows the NSA to collect the actual content from phone calls and Internet communications if they are amassed from outside U.S. borders. John Napier Tye, former section chief for Internet freedom in the State Department’s Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor, recently wrote about this issue in The Washington Post.
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Bitcoin is safe, except when it is not. It can become not safe when the devices that hold them are compromised. Just as bitcoins stored on an exchange are only as secure as that exchange, bitcoins stored on your computer or cell phone are only as secure as those devices.
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Advertisers really want to track you. Your browsing history is one of the best clues as to what ads you are most likely to see. Perhaps more nefariously, advanced tracking methods can help other entities (like the NSA) know what privacy-oriented web surfers are doing on the web.
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Russian President Vladimir Putin has authorized a new law that forces Internet companies conducting business in the country’s borders to store Russian citizens’ data there, further tightening the government’s grip on Russians’ online activity.
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House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi opposed ending bulk collection of telephone records by the NSA in 2013, and in 2014 tells President Obama that no Congressional approval is needed in order to take action in Iraq.
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The NSA sits at the nexus of violations of both the Fourth and Fifth Amendments with a legal dodge called Parallel Construction.
Parallel Construction is a technique used by law enforcement to hide the fact that evidence in a criminal case originated with the NSA. In its simplest form, the NSA collects information showing say a Mr. Anderson committed a crime. This happens most commonly in drug cases. The conclusive information is passed to the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA), who then works backwards from the conclusion to create an independent, “legal” body of evidence to use against Mr. Anderson.
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Given the importance of the privacy rights established in the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the EU, which include an explicit right to the protection of personal data, the EU institutions’ actions were appropriate. The treaties that underpin the EU’s authority further emphasise that the Union’s international relations must be “guided by” basic democratic principles and respect for human-rights laws.
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No-nonsense German police on July 10 searched the home and office of a military employee who is accused of passing sensitive secrets to the U.S. government. Just before this event, there was an announcement that a member of German BND intelligence has been arrested, accused of selling an estimated two hundred documents to the CIA. They reportedly contained details of investigations by a German parliamentary panel into the vast electronic surveillance of European populations by the NSA, which included hacking Chancellor Merkel’s cell phone.
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The new system, called OpenPDS, protects your privacy while still letting apps access information they need to work.
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Move over Edward Snowden, there’s a new surveillance whistleblower on the scene. His name is John Napier Tye and he’s warning Americans about illegal spying. John Tye claims he filed a complaint with the State Department before leaving. In other words, he’s no leaker like Edward Snowden.
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Bill Binney worked at the National Security Agency nearly three decades as one of its leading crypto-mathematicians. He then became one of its leading whistleblowers.
Now 70 and on crutches, both legs lost to diabetes, Binney recalls the July morning seven years ago when a dozen gun-wielding FBI agents burst through the front door of his home, at the end of a cul-de-sac a 10-minute drive from NSA headquarters in Fort Meade, Md.
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So Google reminds us that it has invested heavily in security, including encrypting data as it moves between datacentres, and is now looking towards securing stuff by other people on the Internet.
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People don’t tend to vote on foreign policy. But reflecting on the crises in Ukraine, Gaza, Syria and Iraq that followed him as he headed to the West Coast for a fundraising swing, President Barack Obama acknowledged that they’re adding to an anxiety that’s feeding cynicism that could hurt his party in the midterms.
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Given recent German indignation about the National Security Agency, it has been easy to overlook the fact that for decades the German government has cooperated extensively with the NSA on surveillance activities. But after a high-level meeting in Berlin this week, this long-standing but veiled cooperation may have a firmer legal and political base.
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You’ve probably heard about Tor. Technically speaking, it is a global mesh of nodes, also known as relays, which encrypt and bounce traffic between client computers and servers on the Internet. That encryption and bouncing of traffic is done in such a way, that it is practically impossible to know who visited a web site or used a network service in general. To put it simply, anytime I choose to surf the web using Tor it’s impossible for the administrators of the sites I visit to know my real IP address. Even if they get subpoenaed, they are just unable to provide the real addresses of the clients who reached them through Tor.
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Civil Rights
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Europe’s top human rights court ruled Poland violated the rights of two terror suspects by allowing the CIA to secretly imprison them on Polish soil from 2002-2003 and facilitating the conditions under which they were subject to torture.
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Europe’s top human-rights court ruled Thursday that Poland allowed the CIA to detain two terrorism suspects at a secret prison on its territory where they were exposed to “torture and inhuman or degrading treatment.”
[...]
The court ordered Poland to pay $175,000 to Zubaydah and $135,000 to Nashiri.
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Europe’s top human rights court condemned Poland on Thursday for hosting secret CIA prisons, saying Warsaw knowingly abetted unlawful imprisonment and torture of two Guantanamo-bound detainees.
The European Court of Human Rights ruled in favour of a Palestinian and a Saudi national locked up in a US “black site” for several months in Poland in 2002-2003 before being transferred to Guantanamo Bay, where they are still being held.
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In the first rulings of their kind, the European Court of Human Rights found Poland liable for enabling the CIA torture of two suspected terrorists in a forest north of Warsaw, and letting them be sent to Guantanamo Bay to potentially face a “flagrantly unfair trial” by military commission.
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Europe’s top human rights court has ruled that Poland violated the European Convention on Human Rights by allowing the CIA to imprison and torture two alleged terrorists on Polish soil.
The court in Strasbourg, France, said that Poland failed to stop the “torture and inhuman or degrading treatment” of Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri and Abu Zubaydah, who were taken to Poland in 2002.
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A US man was left gasping for air for almost two hours after his lethal injection execution went wrong, leading to calls for the return of the firing squad.
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A heartbroken woman is suing the city of St. Clair Shores and police after officers shot her dog dead in November. The encounter was filmed by the cops’ dashboard camera.
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Governments are a key offender, he stresses, advising use of HTTPS and OpenPGP to block software-based security threats
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Former Prime Minister Bruce Golding, while eschewing extrajudicial killings, says the United States lacks the moral authority to cite human-rights abuses as reasons to withdraw support from the Jamaican security forces. Golding complained that the US has a long history of carrying out heinous actions against other countries, and the drone strikes which are aerial vehicles remotely controlled by CIA operatives are tantamount to extrajudicial killings.
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The truth about renditions and detentions at the island of Diego Garcia has to be revealed.
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Intellectual Monopolies
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Copyrights
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There are many ways to tackle the issue of online piracy and Louisiana State University has decided on its approach. At the bottom end, offenders will experience a temporary Internet disconnection, with repeat offenders receiving fines and potentially career-damaging notes on their education records.
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A leading YouTube entrepreneur is facing legal action for alleged copyright infringement in her videos.
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The British government has now decriminialised the piracy of films, music and games – meaning that users caught downloading and sharing pirated material will no longer be fined or prosecuted.
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In a blatant act of democracy that would make Mussolini spin in his grave, the UK government reluctantly conceded that if everybody does it, it probably shouldn’t be a crime.
Instead, as a nod to the intellectual monopoly gangsters, those dastardly “pirates” (i.e. everyone) will receive four spam letters a year from the Content® manufacturing industry, in a futile attempt to convince the rigidly bored audience to pay for Hollywood’s increasingly derivative and uninspiring garbage.
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Send this to a friend
07.24.14
Posted in News Roundup at 7:58 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Contents
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Earlier this month, Home Depot began selling MakerBot’s Linux-based 3D printers in a handful of stores across the U.S. after a 3-month trial run online. The big box pilot is not only testing consumer appetite for 3D printing hardware, but also the viability of open source design among a general population of consumers.
Together with the Replicator printers’ relatively small size and price tag, MakerBot’s design software and online Thingiverse community lower the barrier to creation and sharing for thousands of professionals and hobbyists alike. As a result, the MakerBot open source design community has quickly grown – though not without some difficulties.
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Desktop
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If Google have not had their hands full with the official announcement of the soon-to-be released Android L, as well as Android TV, Auto and Wear it now seems Chrome OS is also on the agenda to receive a full overhaul.
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Schools purchased more than 1 million Chromebooks — budget laptops that run Chrome OS — in the second quarter of 2014, Google announced on Monday.
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Schools bought more than 1 million Chromebooks in the second quarter of 2014. Today’s guest blogger, David Andrade, the CIO for the Bridgeport Public Schools district, which serves 23,000 students in Connecticut, shares why they selected Chromebooks. Learn more about going Google and follow our Google for Education Google+ page to see a selection of tips from David.
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Chromebook sales have risen sharply over the past several months, according to a recent report from research firm NPD. Chromebook sales in the commercial channel increased 250 percent compared with the prior year and accounted for 35 percent of all U.S. channel notebook sales during the January-May period. Chromebooks, in other words, were extremely popular during the period and continue to be so. Exactly why and how Chromebooks have been achieving such sales success, however, are not so readily known. When the devices, which run Google’s Chrome OS Web-based operating system, were first announced, many market observers believed that they had little chance of winning a significant share of the PC market. And that seemed to hold true in the first couple of years after Chromebooks hit the market in mid-2011. But the latest data shows that Chromebook sales are adding to the competitive headwinds that Windows notebooks are experiencing these days. This eWEEK slide show looks at the impact that rising Chromebook sales is having on the U.S. PC market.
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Google’s (NASDAQ:GOOGL) Chrome operating system has grown to become a legitimate third platform in the personal computer market behind Microsoft’s (NASDAQ:MSFT) Windows and Apple’s (NASDAQ:AAPL) Mac OS, new data show.
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Server
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If all goes according to plan the QEMU 2.1 release will happen next week but before that can happen some last-minute testing is encouraged with the new release of QEMU 2.1-rc3.
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The council of the German city of Munich continues to support the city’s open source IT strategy, and opposes the newly elected mayor and a deputy mayor, reports Heise, a German IT news site. CSU party members of the deputy mayor shrug off his negative comments as “an irrelevant individual opinion”.
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The open source engine Docker announced Wednesday that it has acquired London-based Orchard Laboratories, makers of the Orchard and Fig applications. Financial details of the deal were not disclosed.
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Kernel Space
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Bjorn Helgaas, the PCI subsystem maintainer for the Linux kernel, sent in a very early Linux 3.17 kernel merge window pull request due to being on holiday the next few weeks.
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The large set of 22 patches for supporting the EXT4 file-system on non-volatile DIMM memory is now up to its eighth revision.
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Once in a while someone points out a POSIX violation in Linux. Often the answer is to fix the violation, but sometimes Linus Torvalds decides that the POSIX behavior is broken, in which case they keep the Linux behavior, but they might build an additional POSIX compatibility layer, even if that layer is slower and less efficient.
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For now, the kernel patches are not that big to make the Linux godfather too unhappy, but Linus Torvalds has announced that he will keep an eye on the development process and he will call the developers names, if things go on the wrong way.
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Improvements to the CPUfreq ondemand governor could lead to faster performance in low to medium workloads with the Linux 3.17 kernel while also consuming less power overall.
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Graphics Stack
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Intel has introduced BPTC texture compression support to Mesa and specifically their Intel HD Graphics driver along with the Mesa software rasterizer.
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Libinput, the input library designed for use by Wayland compositors and other environments for having common input device handling on Linux, is out with a significant update.
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As the first part of an upcoming series of tests benchmarking the latest open-source and closed-source Linux graphics drivers for AMD Radeon and NVIDIA GeForce hardware, here’s some benchmark results for several recent Radeon GPUs when tested on the current Git version of the Linux 3.16 kernel and a recent Mesa 10.3-devel snapshot.
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Just hours after Intel added BPTC texture compression support to Mesa and their DRI driver, frequent Nouveau contributor Ilia Mirkin added BPTC support to Gallium3D and wired it up for the “NVC0″ Fermi/Kepler Gallium3D open-source NVIDIA driver.
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As brought up in the discussion following yesterday’s article about Intel adding BPTC support to their Mesa driver, several Phoronix readers are filled with happiness over Mesa nearly support not just for the OpenGL 4.0 specification but also OpenGL 4.1 and 4.2 aren’t far out of reach.
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One month ago Linux developer Eric Anholt left Intel to work at Broadcom. Eric, a long-time contributor to the open-source Linux graphics stack, is now tasked at Broadcom with developing a DRM driver and Mesa/Gallium3D driver for Broadcom’s “VC4″ graphics hardware, which is found within the Raspberry Pi.
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Chris Wilson announced the release this morning of the xf86-video-intel 2.99.913 driver as the latest development version in the nearly year-long process of releasing xf86-video-intel 3.0.
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Benchmarks
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For those wondering about the modern performance cost of using KVM on Ubuntu Linux for virtualizing a guest OS, here are some simple benchmarks comparing Ubuntu 14.10 in its current development stage with the Linux 3.16 versus running the same software stack while virtualized with KVM and using virt-manager.
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Applications
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QEMU, a generic open source emulator and virtualizer that can run OSes and programs made for a different machine, is now at version 2.1.0 RC3 and is getting much closer to a final release.
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GitLab, a fast, secure, and stable solution based on Ruby on Rails & Gitolite and distributed under the MIT License, is now at version 7.1 and is ready for download.
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Cantata 1.4.0 can be compiled with KDE support or as a pure Qt4 application. It’s been a few months since the previous release and quite a few changes have been made in the meantime.
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The open source Xen Project believes it has made it easier than ever to “compile your own cloud” with the release of MirageOS v2.0, which simplifies and optimizes deployment of cloud-based apps running on the Xen virtualization hypervisor.
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The open source Xen Project believes it has made it easier than ever to “compile your own cloud” with the release of MirageOS v2.0, which simplifies and optimizes deployment of cloud-based apps running on the Xen virtualization hypervisor.
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While NetworkManager has already supported the IPv6 protocol for some months now, several IPv6-related improvements were pushed to its code-base on Wednesday.
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Proprietary
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Instructionals/Technical
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Games
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Valve has been poaching Linux developers for years and there’s no sign of them slowing down, but in fact are still hiring.
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While the Unigine Engine sadly hasn’t fully rode the Linux gaming wave with there still being very few games powered by this visually stunning engine that has supported Linux for many years, they are at least finding commercial success in other areas — namely around simulation and industrial licenses. One of the company’s recent endeavors is with a driving simulator.
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An upcoming MMO in the Warhammer series is set to gain a Linux version thanks to comments made from the lead developer.
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Desktop Environments/WMs
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K Desktop Environment/KDE SC/Qt
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Today in Linux news, Bruce Byfield says the best Linux desktop continues to be KDE’s Plasma. Steven Ovadia at My Linux Rig snagged a short interview with Jack Wallen. eWeek has nine reasons Linux rules on supercomputers. And venture capitalist Sonatype says most companies don’t audit Open Source software components they’re using for vulnerabilities and security flaws.
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One of the most disliked features of the early KDE SC 4 releases was the developers’ attempt to establish the semantic desktop. The tools to further this goal are Nepomuk and Akonadi. While Nepomuk tries to interconnect meta data from different desktop applications, Akonadi is a service that stores and retrieves data from PIM applications like mail, calendar and contacts. Together, they pave the road to allow users to find data, structured and connected by tags, ratings and comments, covering different file formats. On top of that, Strigi performs the indexing that enables users to find data with simple search terms in KDE’s file manager Dolphin.
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There are two versions of Netrunner available. This article looks at the Standard Release which is based on Kubuntu 14.04. The other version is a rolling release based on Manjaro.
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The K Desktop Environment (KDE) is among the most popular and long-lived open-source desktop environments for Linux and Unix users. Dating back to 1996, KDE is one of the earliest Linux desktop environments, predating the GNOME desktop environment, which got started in 1999. KDE has gone through multiple evolutions, the most recent being KDE Plasma 5, which was officially released on July 15. With the Plasma 5 desktop, KDE is providing users with both under-the-hood enhancements and user-facing improvements. Plasma 5 is powered by the open-source Qt 5 cross-platform user interface framework. Hardware acceleration for graphics is now supported with the OpenGL graphics API. With Qt 5 and OpenGL, Plasma 5 is able to provide users with not only improved graphics performance, but also a more fluid user experience. Plus, the new Kickoff application launcher enables users to rapidly find and access applications and content on a system. KDE as a desktop environment is available on multiple Linux distributions, including Ubuntu, KaOS and openSUSE. In this slide show, eWEEK examines some of the key features of KDE Plasma 5.
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On February, I wrote a blog post entitled “Leveraging the Power of Choice“, in which I described an idea I had discussed with Àlex Fiestas about making it easy for users to choose between different Plasmoids for the same task (e.g. different application launchers, task managers, clocks, …). At the time of my writing the blog post, Marco Martin already had ideas about how to implement the feature, though he said that he wouldn’t have time to implement it before the Plasma 5.0 release. Shortly after Plasma 5.0 was released, Marco started implementation as promised. We decided it would make sense to start a thread in the VDG forum to collect ideas for the UI’s design. Together with several other forum users (most notably rumangerst and andreas_k) we fleshed out the design, which currently looks like this:
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GNOME Desktop/GTK
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New releases of the GNOME Shell and Mutter are available today in preparation for the GNOME 3.13.4 development milestone this week.
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Black Lab Linux 5.1 Alpha 2, a distribution that aims to rival Mac OS X and Microsoft Windows, is now ready for testing.
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Quelitu, a multilingual operating system based on Ubuntu 14.04 LTS and Lubuntu LTS, which aims to power antique computers and to replace all the recent Windows releases, is now at version 14.04.
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This move includes updates or rebuilds of the packages that are related to xorg, the linux kernel and graphics drivers, as well as various other packages that were updated in the meantime and are made available now. In total, more than 400 packages are moving to stable.
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OpenELEC, an embedded operating system built specifically to run XBMC, the open source entertainment media hub, has advanced to version 4.2 Beta 2 and is available for download and testing.
OpenELEC devs usually wait until a new version of XBMC Gotham is officially released, but this time they have jumped the gun a little and they’ve released an update for their distro. Interestingly enough, it’s based on XBMC 13.2 Gotham Beta 2, but regular users will have to wait for the official announcement on that one.
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Screenshots
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Red Hat Family
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In case you didn’t hear already, Oracle announced the release of Oracle Linux 7 as the latest version of its Linux OS cloned from the open-source Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 code-base.
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Oracle has supported Linux almost from day one. But it wasn’t until 2006, when Larry Ellison got into a disagreement with Red Hat, that Oracle decided it had to have its “own” Linux distribution — a Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) clone, Oracle Linux. It’s eight years later, and Oracle is still copying RHEL with its release of Oracle Linux 7.
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For each new Red Hat Enterprise Linux release, a new version of Oracle Linux is never far behind, and RHEL 7 is no exception.
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Today in Linux news, Oracle Linux 7 was released today. Softpedia.com reports that Tails now features a “Windows 8 camouflage mode.” MakeUseOf.com has five reasons to love Deepin and LinuxUser & Developer has a review of the Banana Pi. This and more in tonight’s Linux news review.
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The move seems odd at first glance since the Mountain View startup fashions itself as the “number one” pure-play provider of software and services for OpenStack, a community-led project aimed at establishing a common standard for cloud environments. That goal runs counter to Oracle’s vertically integrated platform approach, which consists primarily of homegrown components. To make matters more confusing, Oracle recently introduced its own distribution of the free platform that competes directly with that offered by Mirantis.
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To provide customers and partners with an opportunity to review their cloud frameworks and experience how they can deliver cloud innovation within their organizations
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Fedora
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Users of Fedora 21/Rawhide, Arch Linux, or other bleeding edge distributions where DRI3 is in play with the Intel Linux graphics driver, be forewarned about possible regressions.
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The elections for the Fedora Engineering Steering Committee (FESCo) Summer 2014 Special Election have concluded, and the results are shown below.
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Beginning in 2011, Red Hat began providing assistance to the fledgling Fedora ARM distribution. I was Red Hat’s project manager for this initiative. Back then it was a humble secondary architecture under the stewardship of Seneca College. Seneca was working on an OS distribution for the Raspberry Pi, a promising educational tool. Red Hat partnered with Seneca, provided resources to advance development and helped build a community, the open source way. Though Linux had been used on ARM for many years, kernel ports tended to exist in different source trees. Likewise, many userspace packages had been written without multi-core, thread-safe ARM code, so there was a lot of work to be done.
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Due to many of the Fedora 21 changes/features not being ready in time, the release schedule has been pushed back by three weeks.
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Debian Family
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I used to be quite the Linux enthusiast, trying new distributions almost daily, keeping up to date with news and software versions, just generally participating in the whole scene, though as a technical know-nothing really. I kinda got tired of it after a while and decided to settle on one distribution that would be low on bandwidth needs, extremely stable, and able to do all the things, admittedly a rather limited array of things, that I need it to do. I had been playing with Debian GNU/Linux’s Wheezy iteration (yes, they use “Toy Story” character names) since late 2011, when it was still the “testing” version, and noticed after a year or so that it was in a frozen state, largely set for final release, which ultimately happened, in typical molasses-slow Debian fashion, in early May of 2013. So I guess I’ve been using it as my one and only OS for the better part of two years, rarely if ever booting into any of the dozen or so other distributions I still have installed or into Windows 7. I have it fine tuned to my liking and it does every single thing I need it to do. It’s been reliable and stable, exactly as expected.
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Derivatives
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Canonical/Ubuntu
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Canonical, the parent company of Ubuntu, for long pursued a single dream — that of acheiving a unified family of experiences on smartphones, tablets, PCs, and TVs through one operating system and one interface, Unity, which will adopt to the connected device. As Mark Shuttleworth, Canonical and Ubuntu’s founder said at last year’s OSCon, “Convergence is the core story. Each device is great, but they should be part of one family. On any device you’ll know what you’re doing. One device should be able to give you all the experiences you can get from any one of them.”
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Linaro is growing fast so I am currently focused on management and development processes. Together with the technical leads and the project managers, my goal is to keep high levels of efficiency within the Group while growing, keeping the Free Software culture that has made Linaro so successful.
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Does the first of the true Raspberry Pi clones have what it takes to come out from the shadow of its highly-successful inspiration?
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Phones
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Sailfish OS is a new venture by ex-nokia employees which aims to bring a new independent partner friendly mobile operating system to wireless devices. However, as the mobile ecosystem today is quite fragmented, a new OS brings in a lot of work for developers to port the new OS in their existing devices. The Sailfish OS team knew this problem and have come out with a Hardware Adaptation Dev kit which will help developers to port and run Sailfish OS on any device capable of running Cyanogen Mod 10.1.x.
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Android
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I have no doubt that the next generation of premium smartphones and tablets will be based on 64-bit processors. To provide the power and features needed for new features such as UltraHD video, LTE-Advanced, and 3D products (such as Google’s Tango), mobile devices will need a big boost in processing power.
New 64-bit SOCs such as Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 805 processor are expected to begin shipping this year, and the first products are expected to be commercially available in the first quarter of 2005, just in time for the Mobile World Congress 2015 in Barcelona.
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Taking photos with an Android phone can be a very satisfying endeavor. Or it can be a study in frustration and ruined photo opportunities. Why? Because while all Android devices are powered by Google’s GOOGL +0.33% OS, phone makers are free to develop their own camera apps, adopting or omitting photo features as they see fit. Simply put, some companies do this better than others. One of the best ways to improve your photography experience then, is to use a third party camera app instead of the one that came installed on your phone.
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Sub-notebooks/Tablets
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There are also a number of other Linux-based tablets out there which do not rely on Android. Most any tablet computer which is capable of running an x86 version of a Windows operating system, for example, can be upgraded to a Linux distribution of your choice, with a number of graphic interface options available. Some distributions are now targeting other architectures as well.
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The Android 4.4.3-based Nvidia Shield Tablet won early praise with its Tegra K1 SoC, Kepler-based graphics, new stylus, and WiFi Direct gaming controller.
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In our most recent The VAR Guy poll, we asked you whether you thought open source would take on a larger role in cloud computing. Based on reader responses, it looks as though open source has a bright future in the cloud computing sphere.
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Open source hardware has truly changed my life. It allowed me to launch my own business. “How so,” you might ask? Well, let’s take a little stroll down memory lane, shall we?
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Do you love free and open source software? Would you like to help make it better, but don’t have the technical skills to know where you can jump in and help out? Here is a fantastic opportunity!
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Matt Asay is dead wrong to call the current era of the software industry “post open source,” as he did in InfoWorld last week. We are currently in the open source age, enjoying all the practical flexibility that open sources licenses bring. What may be confusing him is that people are no longer obsessed with arguing about software freedom — they take it as given.
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Company officials want to bring the benefits of networking innovation from Google and Facebook to the broader enterprise space.
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Certainly, the Internet of Thing goes beyond connected television, surveillance cameras, smart gadgets and wearable technology. And as the adoption of the Internet of Things increases and becomes widespread in several different markets, issues on its lack of interoperability and integration cost have been raised along with its consistent escalating growth. Nonetheless, innovators from all over the world try to create different solutions such as Hypercat, in an attempt to bridge these gaps. At the IoT 2014 Conference held in Singapore, Juha Lindfors, Co-founder of OpenRemote USA, spoke about a case study on Open Source Approaches to IoT Solutions. During the presentation¹, Linfords pointed out three points that prove the value of this openness in ensuring the success for the IoT – Interoperability, Integration and Ecosystem.
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Like many of the great games programmers from the 1980s, when open source software entrepreneur Freddy Mahhumane describes his background formal education doesn’t really play much of a part in it.
“I wasn’t good at much at school,” he says, “Except for computers and programming.”
Born in Mpumalanga, Mahhumane moved to Gauteng at the age of six and lived variously in Kempton Park and Thembisa while he was growing up. Sitting in front of a group of business hopefuls at the inaugural Startup Grind Johannesburg, he sounds almost embarrassed by the trappings of success.
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Events
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Web Browsers
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Mozilla
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Mozilla is proving the Web is a powerful gaming platform by creating new technologies and developer tools that enable game creators to port their popular titles to the Web. One of the trailblazers using these technologies is Trendy Entertainment, which is leveraging Emscripten and asm.js to bring its highly popular Dungeon Defenders title to the Web. Trendy announced today it will release a version of Dungeon Defenders Eternity featuring the same visuals and gameplay as the native desktop version, but available on the Web at near native speeds. Later today, the full game will be available to buy on Steam.
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Canonical has published details about a number of Firefox vulnerabilities in its Ubuntu 14.04 LTS and Ubuntu 12.04 LTS operating systems, and release a new version of the Internet browser in the repositories.
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As you may know, both Firefox 31.0 and Thunderbird 31.0 have been added to the default repositories of Ubuntu 14.04 Trusty Tahr and derivative systems.
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The details were unclear back in late June, but it looked like Mozilla may have been playing some role in delivering a competitor to Google’s popular Chromecast dongle, with Mozilla’s based on the Firefox OS platform. The rumors abated shortly after they arose, but some people missed the fact that Mozilla confirmed the news in a recent blog post, noting the following: “Mozilla is working with Panasonic to develop next generation SmartTVs running Firefox OS, and Abitcool will launch an HDMI streaming device later this year that allows the user to fling content from compatible mobile or Web apps to an HDTV.”
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Among others, it comes with an enhanced search bar, allowing the users to carry targeted searches in the search engines directly from the new Favorites tab, the users now get access to the most visited websites by clicking on the thumbnails, some features for developers have been implemented and the memory management of the browser has been improved.
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SaaS/Big Data
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Enterprise adoption of OpenStack is taking off, and value-added security solutions for the open source cloud computing operating system are close behind. This week, Catbird announced version 6.0 of its cloud security platform, which it describes as the channel’s first “security policy automation for private and hybrid cloud environments.”
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The best cloud is the one that you own. Once ownCloud was founded I never used public cloud offered and hosted by a company to keep my files. I do use Dropbox and Google Drive, but the primary purpose is to share files with a set of people. With each release ownCloud is becoming a very serious contender to these commercial offerings when it comes to file storage, syncing and sharing. OwnCloud Documents are already an impressive alternative to Google Docs and offer full ODF support which is missing from Google Docs.
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The seventh version of ownCloud has been released this morning with some interesting new features for this personal, open-source cloud software.
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Oracle/Java/LibreOffice
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Toulouse, France’s fourth largest city, has saved 1 million euro by migrating all its desktops to LibreOffice, an open source suite of office productivity tools. “Free software and open source in general is now an established part of the city’s comprehensive digital policy, and the open model promotes economic development and employment in the region”, according to a study published by the Open Source Observatory and Repository today.
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CMS
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Businesses working in web development are invited to Sunderland Software Centre to learn more about how they could benefit from using Drupal
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Education
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Working on open source puts CS students at the heart of the software industry. Open source enables everyone involved to work in development and create new infrastructure and designs without being forced to start from scratch. And unlike in school, where a project might just be theoretical, or relevant only in context of the class, an open-source contribution makes immediate impact on the ecosystem.
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Business
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Semi-Open Source
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Well, this is surprising. SAP had been pushing forward with bringing its enterprise software suite to the cloud for some time. But no one expected to see SAP really putting its muscle behind the open source cloud and that’s exactly what they’re doing.
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Colosa has rolled out a new version of its open source business-process management (BPM) and workflow platform, ProcessMaker, which is available in the form of both a cloud-based software-as-a-service (SaaS) offering and a software download that users can install directly on their bare-metal or virtual servers.
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Funding
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Though organizations that produce nonprofit software have long been granted tax-exempt status, the Internal Revenue Service recently denied it to two applicants. One had waited more than four years for a determination—and found the reasons for denial alarming.
[...]
The report comes a few months after OpenStack Foundation was denied a nonprofit 501(c)(6) designation. (A 501(c)(3) designation is generally set aside for groups with charitable, literary, or educational goals; a 501(c)(6) generally applies to business groups.)
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PredictionIO, the open source machine learning platform, has received a big boost with the announcement of $2.5 million in seed funding, which it plans to use to make its automated data interpretation and prediction platform widely available to open source developers.
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FSF/FSFE/GNU/SFLC
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GNU IceCat is the GNU version of the Firefox browser, a lot of people know this browser but it seems few used. It is a free software like Mozilla Firefox but Icecat main advantage is the ethical one because does not distribute and recommend non-free software as plug-ins and addons.
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Public Services/Government
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Europe should encourage the market for free source software solutions, using public procurement and by making open standards mandatory, recommends a French parliamentary committee. Using free software is strategic as it increases IT security, reduces economic dependencies and fights rent-seeking by closed source software vendors. To avoid straining innovation, the committee also advises against European patents on software.
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The ECI Register lists all Open Initiatives. Each Initiative promotion site provides a link “vote” that point to an OCS in production. The ECI Register provides also detailed information about how to launch an Initiative and the requirements to prepare your Online Collection System.
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Openness/Sharing
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In a shocking move last month, Tesla “open sourced” its patents, while more recently, pharmaceutical companies have adopted aggressive patent lawsuits reminiscent of the tech industry.
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Open Data
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In a deal centered on combining NoSQL data storage with cognitive, natural-language Big Data discovery and analytics, FoundationDB and DataRPM have announced a partnership that will bring their platforms together.
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The EU has just issued a tender document for what is likely to be the world’s biggest Open Data project.
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Open Access/Content
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Aimed at providing teachers with educational materials by making them open and competitive, OpenCurriculum, which launched in Pittsburgh, curates and organizes material from sites such as teacher blogs and lesson material publishers. Teachers can create lesson plans and more through OpenCurriculum.org.
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Today I was proud to receive the Open Access Advocate Award from BioMed Central – recognising those who have promoted open science through their work.
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Open Hardware
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Open Garden is an Arduino-based DIY kit that has everything you need to create a connected, automated garden. It’s a product of Cooking Hacks, the online IoT component store and open source hobbyist community run by Libelium (See our interview with Alicia Asín Pérez the CEO and co-founder here).
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Open-source means that a program, firmware, or hardware is free to the public, with the encouragement to improve the product, so long as they don’t sell the improved/updated version and continue the openness. While this seems counter-intuitive to making money, many companies have found success in the model – I would argue that manufacturers could see a new market open up from business models like this.
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Small, child-like Poppy robot takes two days to assemble and program from open-source, off-the-shelf and additive manufactured components.
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Programming
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Cisco is putting substantial resources behind its DevNet developer effort, which is supported at the highest levels of the company.
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A C-like language with all the OO trimmings, garbage collection, strong data types, and excellent string processing makes a powerful tool for Web programming.
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Security
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Developers of Tor software believe they’ve identified a weakness that was scheduled to be revealed at the Black Hat security conference next month that could be used to de-anonymize Tor users.
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Defence/Police/Secrecy/Aggression
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The Boycott Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement is about to come out with a smartphone app that will help people carry out boycotts against Israel, according to the International Business Times. The beta version of this app is slated to be ready in the near future.
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The whole point of such efforts is to look like they are unofficial, just everyday people chatting online…
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Some lives matter more than others, apparently.
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When the Navy shot down Iran Air 655 over the Persian Gulf in 1988, killing all 290 people on board (Extra!, 7/88), the Times editorial (7/5/88) insisted that “while horrifying, it was nonetheless an accident. On present evidence, it’s hard to see what the Navy could have done to avoid it.”
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Environment/Energy/Wildlife
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New Study Shows Americans Have “The Highest Amount Of Doubt About The Conventional Wisdom Of Climate”
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Finance
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The Detroit Water Project, a platform to help donors pay the delinquent water bills of people in Detroit, started with a Twitter conversation.
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PR/AstroTurf/Lobbying
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For months, supporters of Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker have insisted the John Doe criminal probe into his 2012 campaign is “baseless,” because the alleged coordination under investigation did not involve ads that expressly told viewers to elect Walker or vote against his opponent. As long as an ad doesn’t include such express advocacy, Walker and his allies have claimed, it is beyond the reach of Wisconsin campaign finance law.
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Censorship
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A few weeks ago, an anonymous internet user was able to acquire and subsequently extract a website blacklist used by Germany’s Federal Department of Media Harmful to Young Children (Bundesprüfstelle für jugendgefährdende Medien [BPjM]). This un-hashed list was posted to the user’s Neocities blog, along with some analysis of the blacklist’s contents and a rundown on the minimal protective efforts used for the list.
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The vast majority of new broadband customers in the UK are opting out of “child friendly” filters when prompted to install them by service providers.
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Privacy
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You’ve installed apt-transport-tor to help prevent targeted attacks on your system. Great! Now you want to build Debian packages using cowbuilder, and you notice these are still using plain HTTP.
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The Tails operating system is one of the most trusted platforms in cryptography, favored by Edward Snowden and booted up more than 11,000 times per day in May. But according to the security firm Exodus Intelligence, the program may not be as secure as many thought. The company says they’ve discovered an undisclosed vulnerability that will let attackers deanonymize Tails computers and even execute code remotely, potentially exposing users to malware attacks. Exodus is currently working with Tails to patch the bug, and expects to hand over a full report on the exploit next week.
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Hot startups don’t often stake their reputation for innovation on how well their technology works with Microsoft Office, but that’s exactly what Dropbox is doing today. The file-syncing service, one of the most valuable venture-backed private companies on the planet, is rolling out several Office-related features for businesses, including full-text search of Word, Excel, and PowerPoint documents, among other file types, and the ability for multiple users to simultaneously edit Office documents via Dropbox.
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Civil Rights
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In particular, Human Rights Watch examines the extent and impact of law enforcement’s use of terrorism informants, who can both steer people into attempted acts of violence and chill religious or civic behaviour in the communities they penetrate.
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The Obama administration has quietly approved a substantial expansion of the terrorist watchlist system, authorizing a secret process that requires neither “concrete facts” nor “irrefutable evidence” to designate an American or foreigner as a terrorist, according to a key government document obtained by The Intercept.
The “March 2013 Watchlisting Guidance,” a 166-page document issued last year by the National Counterterrorism Center, spells out the government’s secret rules for putting individuals on its main terrorist database, as well as the no fly list and the selectee list, which triggers enhanced screening at airports and border crossings. The new guidelines allow individuals to be designated as representatives of terror organizations without any evidence they are actually connected to such organizations, and it gives a single White House official the unilateral authority to place “entire categories” of people the government is tracking onto the no fly and selectee lists. It broadens the authority of government officials to “nominate” people to the watchlists based on what is vaguely described as “fragmentary information.” It also allows for dead people to be watchlisted.
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Three months ago, the conversation about Nigeria’s kidnapped girls was electric online. Now, much of the digital chatter around the girls has faded. On April 15, more than 200 girls were taken from their school in Chibok by the extremist group Boko Haram. Nearly 60 girls have managed to escape their captors since then, but the majority of them are still being held.
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Internet/Net Neutrality
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When a call to cancel Comcast service descended into “a stunning display of hysteria and desperation,” pretty much everyone who listened to a recording of the phone call agreed: it was painful to listen to.
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Intellectual Monopolies
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Copyrights
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Last year Adobe announced a shift away from boxed products in favor of a cloud-based subscription model. Now the U.S.-based company says that not only does it have more than 2.3 million cloud subscribers, but it has also seen a drop in piracy. Exactly how much is “hard to measure” but Adobe products still lead the way with pirates.
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In many parts of the developing world, students face barriers to access academic materials. Libraries are often inadequate, and schools and universities are often unable to pay dues for expensive, specialized databases. For these students, the Internet is a vital tool and resource to access materials that are otherwise unavailable to them. Yet despite the opportunities enabled by the Internet, there are still major risks to accessing and sharing academic resources online.
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Lawsuit-happy porn studio beats a “poor sap” whose pleas of ignorance fail.
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Megaupload’s legal team has asked the federal court of Virginia to place the cases filed by the music and movie companies on hold till April next year. The request comes after the extradition hearings of Kim Dotcom and his colleagues were postponed in New Zealand.
Permalink
Send this to a friend
07.22.14
Posted in News Roundup at 5:47 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Contents
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Russia’s parliament is preparing new rules in a bid to cut its reliance on foreign technology suppliers after U.S. sanctions against some of the country’s largest companies, a move that could hurt sales at vendors such as Microsoft Corp. (MSFT) and International Business Machines Corp. (IBM)
The State Duma, Russia’s lower house of parliament, is drafting a bill to require government agencies and state-run enterprises to give preference to local providers of software and hardware, according to a document from the commission for strategic information systems obtained by Bloomberg News. The paper addresses criteria for tender processes such as favoring products that don’t have imported, licensed components.
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GNU/Linux has been in the pipe for a while but US sanctions on Russia may bring GNU/Linux to the front burner. I can see them also accelerating trade I can see them also accelerating trade with China. If China ramps up production of computers with GNU/Linux to serve the Russian market, China will be better positioned to help out every other country squirming under the weight of Wintel and NSA probing the world’s IT.
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As long as there have been jobs, there have been people sitting in pubs complaining about them. The Linux Format team had been meeting in The Salamander in Bath to do just that since long before I joined. It was a safe place that served good ale, and it provided a safe, warm place to moan over a pint. But there’s only so much moaning you can do before you have to quit, which, being men of action, is what we did.
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Desktop
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NPD reveals that Chromebook sales are exploding and Microsoft is starting to get worried.
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Google has shown off a candidate for a new Chrome OS user interface.
Dubbed “Athena”, the new UI appeared fully grown from the head, and Google+ page, of Googler François Beaufort.
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If Google have not had their hands full with the official announcement of the soon-to-be released Android L, as well as Android TV, Auto and Wear it now seems Chrome OS is also on the agenda to receive a full overhaul.
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Server
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The latest TOP500 List of the fastest supercomputers in the world helped many in the technology community understand what open-source aficionados have known for years: Linux has quickly become the operating system of choice in the high-performance computing (HPC) market, growing from relative obscurity 15 years ago to powering 97 percent of the fastest computers in the world. But its appeal is found in more than cost or choice. Here are a few of the main reasons Linux has grown to own the lion’s share of the fastest supercomputers in the world. Although the United States remains the top country in terms of overall systems, with 233, this is down from 265 on the November 2013 list. The number of Chinese systems on the list rose from 63 to 76, giving the Asian nation nearly as many supercomputers as the United Kingdom, with 30; France, with 27; and Germany, with 23—combined. Japan also increased its showing, up to 30 from 28 on the previous list. HP has the lead in systems and now has 182 systems (36 percent), compared to IBM, with 176 systems (35 percent). HP had 196 systems (39 percent) six months ago, and IBM had 164 systems (33 percent) six months ago. In the system category, Cray remains third with 10 percent (50 systems).
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Kernel Space
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Linus Torvalds has released Linux 3.16-rc6, which is a ‘bigger’ than rc5, with a note that he will start getting grumpy if he notices that people aren’t serious about trying to calm things down this late in the release cycle.
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The latest version of the stable Linux kernel, 3.14.13, has been announced by Greg Kroah-Hartman, marking the release of another update in this branch.
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Clint Savage is a system administrator for the Linux Foundation’s Collaborative Projects. Here he discusses the new technologies he’s been digging into lately, his favorite part of the job, and fond memories of a weeklong hackfest with his coworkers.
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The Bang-bang thermal governor remains under discussion on the kernel mailing list after patches for it originally appeared a few months back. Bang-bang will hopefully be ready for an upcoming kernel release (Linux 3.17?) and the latest technical discussion about it can be found via the LKML archives.
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Graphics Stack
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Mesa, an open source implementation of the OpenGL specification and a system for rendering interactive 3D graphics, is now at version 10.2.4.
Mesa 10.2.4 is the next iteration in the series and implements the OpenGL 3.3 API. This means that some drivers might not support the specifications for the latest Mesa. This build integrates quite a few fixes and changes and it’s one of the biggest releases in the last few months.
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Aside from upstream work to the GLAMOR acceleration code itself that’s now part of the X.Org Server, Keith Packard has been working on the GLAMOR hook-up for the xf86-video-intel DDX driver.
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Earlier this month AMD published an open-source HSA Linux driver for exploiting the potential of their much-promoted Heterogeneous System Architecture. This driver, now known as the “AMDKFD” driver, is up to its second revision and continues being analyzed by developers on the mailing list.
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Sebastian Dröge has announced the immediate release of the GStreamer 1.4 stable series that adds on new features over the existing GStreamer 1.x stable branches while still keeping up to its promise of 1.x API/ABI stability.
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Benchmarks
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Those wishing to see the Raspberry Pi B+ performance benchmarks with a Debian Linux host, the results are available from 1407220-BY-1407183GL47. To see how the results compare against your own Linux systems, with the Phoronix Test Suite you simply need to run phoronix-test-suite benchmark 1407220-BY-1407183GL47 to conduct a quick, fully-automated, side-by-side performance comparison.
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Applications
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The Xen Project has announced the release of Mirage OS 2.0, which they describe as “the industry’s first software framework that unifies cloud and embedded deployments behind a safe, secure programming language, allowing developers to seamlessly build systems that span both embedded devices and public cloud services.”
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In addition, GnuTLS is now offered as an alternative to OpenSSL, persistent camera configuration has been implemented, and users can now switch video sources during a call.
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With so many flavors of Linux and the awesome apps in their repositories, finding the right app for getting things done can be tough. In our annual Lifehacker Pack for Linux, we’re highlighting the must-have downloads for better productivity, communication, media management, and more.
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Vuze, a BitTorrent client previously known as Azureus, which is built on Java, has been upgraded to version 5.3.0.1 Beta 46 and is now ready for testing.
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VueScan 9.4.35, an easy-to-use replacement for the software that usually comes with scanners and that supports most flatbed scanners, printer/scanners, and film scanners, has been released and is now available for download.
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No matter how much I love Plex, there’s still nothing that comes close to XBMC for usability when it comes to watching your network media on a television. I’ve probably written a dozen articles on Plex during the last few years, so you know that’s tough for me to admit. Still, no matter how many Plex-enabled devices I might buy (Roku, Amazon Fire TV, phones, tablets, Web browsers), I run XBMC on all my televisions. The interface, when coupled with a back-end MySQL database, is just unbeatable.
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Instructionals/Technical
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Games
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We’ve never been shy about our love for open source games. But, we recognize that explaining how open source principles like sharing, transparency, and rapid prototyping apply to both digital and non-digital gaming activities can be difficult.
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Out There is like a Choose Your Own Adventure version of FTL. Originally developed for iOS and Android, it sees you drifting in a spaceship in an unexplored galaxy which changes with every playthrough. Your fuel and oxygen supplies are finite, your hull is not particularly strong and you have to travel from solar system to solar system attempting to find your way home.
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I’m a begrudging Linux user, specifically Ubuntu. It’s the result of being too cheap to buy software like Photoshop and too ethical to just steal it like everybody else. As a result I get to enjoy all the benefits of free software, including the attempts to develop the “perfect” portable console, like the DragonBox Pyra.
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Toxic Bunny HD, a 2D platformer developed and published by Celestial Games on Steam, will receive a Linux version soon.
The game was released on the Steam for Windows service a few days ago, and now the developers are considering a port for the Linux platform as well. The information about a Linux version hasn’t been confirmed, but it’s still interesting to see it pop up so soon after the official launch.
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Today in Linux news, Geary 0.7.0 was recently released despite the programmers’ troubles with the IRS. Debian released an update the 6.0 branch of their old stable Linux distribution. A new Duke Nukem enhanced compilation game has hit beta. “GCC 5.0 is expected next year” and Linus is getting grumpy! And finally today, two new Mint 17 reviews round out the Linux news on this Monday July 21.
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CRYENGINE, a game engine developed by Crytek, was announced for Linux a short while ago and it looks like the activity in the Steam database is picking up, but the future of this great technology hangs in the balance.
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Desktop Environments/WMs
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The developer of Evolve OS, Ikey Doherty, has made a new desktop environment called Budgie Desktop and released a new version of it.
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K Desktop Environment/KDE SC/Qt
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Qt is already a dominant technology in may industries such as IVI systems in cars, recently we covered Dropbox’s switch to Qt. Google has also joined the Qtness (cuteness). The company published VoltAir, a single and multi-player game, on Google Play Store. It’s an open source game which is built using Qt.
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From ratpoison to Unity, I must have tried just about every Linux desktop environment available. The best Linux desktop, in my view: my main computer continues to run KDE’s Plasma. No other alternative can match its design philosophy, configurability, or its innovations on the classical desktop.
Nor am I alone in my preferences. At a time when the Linux desktop offers six main alternatives (Cinnamon, GNOME, KDE Plasma, LXDE, Mate, Unity and Xfce), KDE Plasma consistently tops reader polls with an average of 35-40 percent. In such a diverse market, these figures indicate a broad appeal that other Linux desktop alternatives can’t match.
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Let’s picture the scenario we had a few days ago where there were lots of projects with three “live” branches, i.e. KDE/4.13, KDE/4.14 and master.
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GNOME Desktop/GTK
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The GNOME developers behind the Nautilus project (now known as Files) have announced that version 3.13.2 is now available for download and testing.
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All the 4MLinux operating systems have really small sizes, but the Rescue Edition is actually bigger than most of the other flavors. There is a very good reason for that size and it all has to do with the integrated packages. The OS could have been a little bit smaller, but the developer would have been forced to remove some important applications.
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I think Zorin OS 9 Core is a decent system, and those who it is aimed for, literally Windows migrants, will find everything they want in this operating system.
As this is an LTS edition, it will be supported for a long time. It means you can install it on your computer and forget about upgrade problems, as well as forget about the Microsoft empire.
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New Releases
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“UberStudent is developed by a professional educator who specializes in academic success strategies, post-secondary literacy instruction, and educational technology. It has been designed around a core academic skills approach to student success—the research and writing, reading, studying, and self-management skills that are essential to all students,” reads the official website.
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Slackware Family
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Red Hat Family
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Red Hat’s Inktank Ceph Enterprise 1.2 delivers new levels of flexibility and cost advantages through powerful features such as erasure coding and cache tiering
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This article is based on a talk I gave at DockerCon this year. It will discuss Docker container security, where we are currently, and where we are headed.
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Fedora
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The Anaconda OS installer used by Fedora, RHEL and their derivatives have been many times criticized for its memory requirements being bigger than memory requirements of the installed OS. Maybe a big surprise for users who don’t see too deep into the issue, no surprise for people who really understand what’s going on in the OS installation and how it all works. The basic truth (some call it an issue) about OS installation is that the installer cannot write to physical storage of the machine before user tells it to do so. However, since the OS installation is quite a complex process and since it has to be based on the components from the OS itself there are many things that have to be stored somewhere for the installer to work. The only space for data that for sure doesn’t contain any data the installer shouldn’t overwrite or leave some garbage in is RAM.
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Debian Family
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I keep Debian stable at work for my desktop and servers (well, some of them are still in oldstable, thanks LTS team!!), and I have testing in a laptop that I use as clonezilla/drbl server (but I had issues, next week I’ll put some time on them and I’ll write here my findings, and report bugs, if any).
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A new Linux distribution is looking to overcome the limitations of Debian on ARM, by running both Linux apps and Android apps in native mode.
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Developers at TurnKey Linux have come out with a new Debian based distro for Bitcoin lovers. Named as BitKey, this distro boots from a read-only CD or a USB drive and allows you to check your bitcoin wallet, sign and do transactions over a secure network.
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Derivatives
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Canonical/Ubuntu
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While we maybe living in a post-PC era, there is no denying the fact that the desktop OS still matters. Mac OS X is an operating system that is still ahead of Ubuntu when it comes to the race towards the number one desktop. Apple knows that, and that is why they seem to have put a lot of work in making Mac OS X 10.10 “Yosemite” as good as their mobile operating system, which is iOS. The goal here is convergence. Apple wants to build an ecosystem in which the desktop, the mobile, and the wearable operating systems work seamlessly together in harmony. This is the same thing Microsoft is aiming for and so is Google. And yes, Shuttleworth’s brainchild Ubuntu is shooting for the same thing by working really hard on the next iteration of the open-source OS. But, with all these efforts, can Canonical match up with its competition?
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Canonical’s Rick Spencer, the VP of Engineering, has done away with the “Community Manager” role in favor of a new “Community Team Manager” position that’s now filled by Canonical’s David Planella. Additionally, the rest of the community team (Michael Hall, Daniel Holback, and Nicholas Skaggs) now all carry the title as community managers.
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Ubuntu Touch – also known as Ubuntu for devices or Ubuntu Phone – is a mobile operating system which is currently in beta. However, if you own a supported Android device, you can try it out right now. Here’s how to install Ubuntu for devices.
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Flavours and Variants
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There are features (on the installer) that need to be implemented and several rough edges on the desktop that calls for more polishing, but in general, this is one desktop distribution that I think you should, at least, take for a test drive.
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The open-source software revolution is coming to the car. Most in-vehicle infotainment systems sold today use proprietary software, with the underlying code tightly controlled by automakers and by a few major software providers, such as Microsoft Corp. and Ottawa-based QNX Software Systems. Now the auto industry is exploring open-source operating systems such as Linux more seriously than ever, hoping that sharing the work and making code available to all will lead to more rapid development cycles, lower costs and happier drivers.
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Phones
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Mobile devices have edged out PCs when it comes to Chinese online browsing, an official government agency in the People’s Republic said on Monday.
For the first time more Chinese folk are plugging into the internet using phones or tablets, the China Internet Network Information Center (CNNIC) said (PDF in Chinese), according to a Reuters report here.
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Ballnux
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Android 4.4.2 KitKat update continues for a number of Samsung devices including Galaxy Note 2.
Samsung Galaxy Note 2 was launched in August of 2012 and was initially powered by Android 4.1 Jelly Bean
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They say all good things come to those who wait and it seems like the G3 was quite worth the wait after all. With a launch price of Rs 47,990 for the 16GB version, the G3 is here for to satiate your flagship hunger. Here’s our review of LG’s flagship after a week’s usage.
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Android
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NVIDIA announced this morning their new Shield Tablet and Shield Controller. The new Shield Tablet is a $299 Android tablet that’s great for gaming and is mighty powerful with using the Tegra K1 SoC.
With being powered by the Tegra K1, the CPU and graphics performance is mighty powerful for the tablet with its Kepler-based GPU and four Cortex-A15 processor cores. The Shield Tablet has an 8-inch, 1920 x 1200 display and the WiFi version with 16GB of storage is going to sell for $299 USD.
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Smartwatches are still a fairly new category. Google revealed its big Android Wear initiative at its I/O developer conference in June. The company is hoping to do for smartwatches what Android proper did for smartphones. Rumors suggest Apple is also working on a smartwatch of its own, but the company hasn’t announced anything yet.
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As businesses look beyond BlackBerry for smartphone security, Samsung and Google step up to the plate. Knox integration is coming in Android L.
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Electric Objects has achieved Kickstarter funding for its Android-based EO1, a wall-mounted, 23-inch HD signage computer for displaying digital art.
New York City based Electric Objects is one of several companies reinvigorating the wall-mounted digital picture frame form-factor with more affordable prices, smartphone access, and other modern amenities. Like Framed, which is based on Windows Embedded, Electric Objects’s EO1 picture frame has easily surpassed its Kickstarter funding goals. There are still 17 days left, however, to get in on discounted pricing, including $299 for a May 2015 release, or $499 (the eventual retail price) for a wooden-framed version, or a beta test model due in Jan. 2015.
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Linux.com is teaming up with The New Stack to do a survey about what you think are the most popular open source cloud projects.
The next-generation of the enterprise is being built now with open cloud technologies. Your choices will help identify and recognize the most popular open source projects that are defining the new way to build and manage applications and systems.
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The Electronic Frontier Foundation has announced the release of Privacy Badger beta. This comes roughly three months after the alpha version was released.
Privacy Badger is a browser add-on for Firefox and Chrome that’s designed to stop “advertisers and other third-party trackers from secretly tracking where you go and what pages you look at on the web.” And it’s designed to require zero configuration to use. Just install and forget it!
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The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) is an organization fighting against illegal surveillance programs in the courts. It also contributes to a open and secure internet by funding the development of software like HTTPS Everywhere and Privacy Badger.
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The Electronic Frontier Foundation is today announcing a new Open Wireless Router initiative today at the HOPE X conference.
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Scott Wilson agrees that open source matters because of open code, but just as important is the process in which the code is made. Open development of code is in the social nature of many programmers, hackers, documentors, and project managers. So, what is it about open development?
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The active talk of Open Source Technologies took root in Uganda during the mid 90s when a few enthusiasts started experimenting with the use of software like Linux which was in its infancy back then.
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Fans of the typewriter remain a vehement group. They view the typewriter as something really special, a tool which makes the connection between languages. One of the attractions of a typewriter is that it offers a distraction-free alternative of modern day methods for producing a document. They challenge the writer to concentrate on what really matters – the content. They force the writer to think.
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But open source has of course progressed and been adopted widely albeit in more ‘back office’ circles. It is hard to talk about the growth of big data analytics applications without mentioning Hadoop, while the rise of NoSQL databases has flourished such that even Facebook recently announced its own Paxos algorithm-based project called Apollo.
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It was such a challenge for the initial Open Source promoters to break through onto the corporate scene and later the Government. The rampant piracy of software that existed then (and still exists) made most software consumers disregard the issues that were being raised by the Open Source Software community against the blind adoption of proprietary systems.
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Events
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I’ll be presenting an updated version of my Crash Course on Open Source Cloud Computing presentation at OSCON 2014. I have some new material on Docker and SDN along with the latest updates on cloud software. Here’s the official excerpt:
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Hadoop is steadily making its way into many enterprises, thanks to its ability to surface unique insights from very large data sets. It power and success as an open source platform are a direct result of the fact that it can perform analytics that go beyond what traditional analytics platforms are capable of. All of this came to the fore at the Hadoop Summit held recently in San Jose, California.
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Web Browsers
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Choosing the best Linux browser for your needs requires just a bit of homework: Web browsers for the Linux desktop have evolved over the years, just as they have for other popular desktop platforms. With this evolution, both good and bad revelations have been discovered. Revelations from new functionality, to broken extensions, and so forth. In this article, I’ll serve as your guide through these murky waters to help you discover the best in Linux browsers.
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Chrome
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If you’ve been wondering why the battery life on your Windows laptop or tablet seems so lousy, your Chrome web browser might be to blame – and it may have been sapping your system’s juice for years.
A documented bug in the source code for the Chromium open source project seems to account for the mysterious power drain that some users of Google’s web browser have been experiencing.
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If you’re a regular user of the Google Chrome browser, you probably know that the nightly builds and beta channel versions often incorporate cutting-edge features that you can’t get in the stable release. These features also often foreshadow what will soon arrive in the stable release.
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Mozilla
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Mozilla has officially released Thunderbird 31.0, an email and RSS client, for all the available platforms, and the developers have actually made a number of improvements to the application.
The first version has been released in the Thunderbird 31.x branch, but unlike some of the previous updates, this one actually brings something interesting. It’s been a while since Thunderbird received any real improvements, but that’s not exactly Mozilla’s fault.
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The Firefox 31 web-browser is out this morning with new features.
New to Firefox 31 is improved download security by trying to block known malware (based upon Google’s functionality in Chrome), a search box has been added to the new tab page, a new certificate verification library, HTML5 WebVTT support for video playback with subtitles, and various developer-focused improvements.
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SaaS/Big Data
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Two recent, excellent, blog posts have touched on a topic I’ve been wrestling with since May’s OpenStack Summit: What is the role of the Product Management function, if any, in the OpenStack development process?
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Databases
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Firebird 2.5.3, a relational database offering many ANSI SQL standard features that runs on Linux, Windows, and a variety of Unix platforms, has been released after a long hiatus.
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BSD
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We’ve known for a while that LLVM 3.5 has been under plans for a release in August now with just being days away from the start of the month, we have a better idea for the release schedule.
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FSF/FSFE/GNU/SFLC
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Hello. I am a rising Third Year law student at SMU Dedman School of Law in Dallas, TX. I am working hard to master the technical aspects of law, electronics, and software. My current interests involve protecting individuals and investigating new technology, particularly in the communications field by utilizing licenses for authorship, art, and inventions. Prior to law school, I attained a bachelor’s degree in History at the University of Texas at Dallas.
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This release contains a major change in central parts of the code and should be considered beta quality. As always it passes the testsuite, so most functionality clearly works.
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Public Services/Government
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Over 170 primary schools and secondary schools in Geneva are switching to Ubuntu for PCs used by teachers and students, which were earlier using a proprietary software. The move has been successfully completed for all the primary schools. For the rest 20 secondary schools, the migration is expected to be completed by the next academic year.
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Openness/Sharing
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Open Data
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Big data. It’s one of the most pervasive buzzwords in today’s technology world. But it’s impossible to deny how deeply data touches all aspects of not just our lives but also business and industry. The amount of data collected about everything is staggering—a typical transatlantic flight generates 30 terabytes of data about the engines alone!
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Open Access/Content
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Colleges and faculty seeking a streamlined way to develop higher education syllabi may want to become test pilots in an open source project under development at Utah State University’s Center for Innovative Design & Instruction. A team led by Product Development Manager George Joeckel III is creating Salsa, a Web-based application that instructors can use to create “styled & accessible learning service agreements.”
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Programming
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Debate is currently raging in the open-source PHP community over what the number will be for the version of PHP that will succeed the current PHP 5.x series.
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Recently I was updating my dotfiles, because I wanted to ensure that media-players were “always on top”, when launched, as this suits the way I work.
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GNU Compiler Collection developers are beginning to come to a consensus that GCC 5.0 will be released in 2015.
While GCC 4.10 is the current release under development since the GCC 4.9 debut this spring, GCC 4.10 will likely be relabeled as GCC 5.0. There’s a fresh thread on the GCC mailing list that talks about GCC version bikeshedding.
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Recently I’ve been looking over the Zooniverse citizen science project and its source code on github, partly because it’s interesting as a user and partly because I thought writing an Android app for Galaxy Zoo would be a good learning exercise and something useful to open source.
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Science
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We’re at a particularly hyper-partisan moment in our country. As such, one would think the existence of a scientific consensus on a policy issue would offer the mainstream media a welcome oasis from the mirage of social media myths and the desert of dueling soundbites that all too often crowd out informed comment. Using such a consensus as a no bullshit baseline, an objective journalist could more honestly explore opposing arguments, measure them against evidence, and judge their veracity. This is no small thing, because if modern journalism is to continue to live up to its Constitutional promise, it can’t merely be about telling the who, what,whenand where of the world anymore, it must go beyond that to explain the how and why.
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Recently declassified documents from the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) present a clearer picture of the all-encompassing and wide reaching efforts to win the Cold War’s Space Race.
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Health/Nutrition
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If your kid was born in Indiana after 1991, chances are his or her blood and DNA is one of an estimated 2.25-million specimens currently stored in an undisclosed state warehouse.
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Security
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Defence/Police/Secrecy/Aggression
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We are still reeling today. Territory that was once within the multi-ethnic, multi-state, multi-religious Ottoman Empire is again engulfed in conflict and war, stretching from Libya to Palestine-Israel, Syria, and Iraq. The Balkan region remains sullen and politically divided, with Bosnia and Herzegovina unable to institute an effective central government and Serbia deeply jolted by the 1999 NATO bombing and the contentious independence of Kosovo in 2008, over its bitter opposition.
The former Russian Empire is in growing turmoil as well, a kind of delayed reaction to the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, with Russia attacking Ukraine and violence continuing to erupt in Georgia, Moldova, and elsewhere. In East Asia, tensions between China and Japan ― echoes of the last century ― are a growing danger.
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It is probably safe to assume that most Americans do not think of their country as an empire. As a conservative in my younger years, I might have even labeled the suggestion as anti-American, rationalizing to myself: Sure, we may have strategic military bases around the world and we may use force at times, but it is only for benevolent purposes. We get the bad guys, give the country back to the good guys, and we leave. The US does not try to rule the world.
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The increasing use in recent years of unmanned aerial vehicles, known as UAVs or drones, has spurred innovation and provoked concern. UAVs, which the U.S. Air Force now calls RPAs, or remotely piloted aircraft — a reminder that humans control them — can fly in places where the risk to a pilot would be too great to justify a manned mission. It is the use of armed UAVs to carry out what the U.S. government calls “targeted killings” on foreign soil of individuals believed to pose a serious terrorist threat to the United States that has spurred criticism, concern and debate, in the U.S. and abroad.
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The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) is using armed drones to search out and kill people considered enemies of the United States. This operation is being carried out without any congressional oversight — but one congressman plans to do something about that.
Representative Ted Yoho (R-Fla.) has introduced the Drone Reform Act (H.R. 5091). The bill is aimed at returning authority for the deadly unmanned aerial devices to the Pentagon.
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Why are so many children dying in Gaza? The answer is surprisingly simple.
According to the CIA World Factbook, about half of the Strip’s population is under the age of 18. The median age in Gaza is just 18 and a few months. With the elder population amounting to an almost-negligible percentage, young children are easily the most vulnerable.
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With hundreds of largely civilian Palestinians dead, Israel’s attempts at crippling Hamas in the Gaza Strip have resulted in grim headlines and news broadcasts around the world. Regardless of whether or not Israel is winning on the ground in Gaza, it is slipping in its worldwide battle for hearts and minds.
It stands to reason, then, that friendly intellectuals are stepping forward to present their justifications for Israel’s actions. Harvard Law professor Alan Dershowitz, for example, toured a Hamas tunnel and dined with Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu before describing him as “a reluctant warrior,” echoing Israel’s official position that Hamas is forcing the Israeli Defense Forces to bomb civilian areas.
Unfortunately, some of these defenses invite rather unflattering comparisons.
In today’s Wall Street Journal, Thane Rosenbaum, a senior fellow at New York University’s law school, outlines what he sees as Israel’s “moral dilemma” of whether or not to strike suspected Hamas targets also populated by civilians.
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The horrors of war and conflict have been overwhelming this past week. Four boys, aged 9 to 12, all cousins, were killed in Israeli bombings in Gaza just minutes after they were playing on the beach, thinking that the sandy shores were safer than their streets.
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The video emerged on Monday. It appears to show a man searching for his family amid the rubble of Gaza, apparently during a ceasefire. He is shot by a sniper. For a while he lies there, moving awkwardly. Then he is shot again.
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The drones usually deliver targeted assassination ordnance; small rockets that explode in confined spaces – like front rooms or cars. If they hit cars, they can kill the occupants in the front seats while leaving the back-seat passengers with minor injuries and burst eardrums. Drones also deliver the ‘knocks on the roof’.
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More than 560 Palestinians have been killed in the 14-day battle with Israel. Burying the bodies has become more difficult and dangerous with each passing day.
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The Israeli campaign is “legally and morally legitimate, and they probably need a couple more days to achieve that which they set out to accomplish,” Hayden, a retired Air Force general, said Tuesday.
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The mayhem began in the early hours of Sunday morning in Shejaiya, an eastern neighborhood of Gaza City, where Israeli forces battled with Hamas militants. Terrified civilians fled, sometimes past the bodies of those struck down in earlier artillery barrages. By dusk it was clear that Sunday was the deadliest single day for the Palestinians in the latest conflict and the deadliest for the Israeli military in years.
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Massive demonstrations have taken place all over the UK against the continuing massacre in Gaza. There appears for the last three decades, to be a massive gulf between the attitude of the population of the United Kingdom towards the continuing genocide of the Palestinians, and the attitude of the political class across all mainstream political parties.
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After leaving the British diplomatic service because of my commitment to Human Rights, and horror at their abuse by the US and UK in the “War on Terror”, I applied for a job at Human Rights Watch. I travelled to New York for a job interview, which was chaired by Kenneth Roth. Rather to my surprise, it revolved almost entirely around Israel, and whether I would agree with the proposition that Palestinian terrorist attacks on Israelis were a major threat to human rights, which HRW should work against.
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33,000 feet is 1000 feet above the restricted flight altitude (see image below). The request of the Ukrainian air traffic control authorities was implemented.
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The U.S. media’s Ukraine bias has been obvious, siding with the Kiev regime and bashing ethnic Russian rebels and Russia’s President Putin. But now – with the scramble to blame Putin for the Malaysia Airlines shoot-down – the shoddy journalism has grown truly dangerous, says Robert Parry.
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The footage shows that one of the members of self-defense troops suddenly saw a teddy bear which apparently belonged to a child who was among the 298 passenger on board the Malaysian jet.
“We want those bastards to see whom they shot down,” the man said, “Do you see?” meaning that there were innocent children who died in the crash.
Then he carefully put the toy back to a heap of other items that used to belong to the passengers. After that he took off his cap and marked himself with a sign of the cross paying the tribute to the memory of the victims of the catastrophe.
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Pro-Russian forces have removed large parts of MH17, and then substituted or altered them before returning to the site. This is extraordinarily important.
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The immediate cause of the MH17 disaster was a missile shot by pro-Russian forces who mistook it for one of the military aircraft they had been regularly shooting down. It is a terrible tragedy – and tragically not unique. There have been several such events in my lifetime, including the USS Vincennes incident and the Soviet downing of a Korean airliner.
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Finance
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New Labour has officially voted to support austerity, benefit cuts, government spending cuts, Trident missiles and rail privatisation, and done so without serious internal opposition.
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The Blairs seem to crave money because it is there. As the gap between the wealthy few and the rest widens, their fortune is hard to justify
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After noting that “in the latest NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll, 63 percent of respondents said the US is on the wrong track,” Altman insists that “despite the pessimistic mood, America is experiencing a profound comeback.”
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PR/AstroTurf/Lobbying
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Newly-obtained documents show that the billionaire Koch brothers’ political giving is much more expansive than has previously been known.
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Social media and policy are both fields in which great promises provoke even greater fears. Every claim that the Web 2.0 is a voice for democratic levelling of hierarchies is countered by alarm over unwarranted governmental surveillance; with every use of social media for grassroots political change comes yet another revelation about the NSA. The moral ambiguity inherent in those situations isn’t helped by the sheer information overload and multitude of ‘experts’ confronting new entrants to any debate.
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Censorship
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Last year, the website Extortion Letter Info (ELI) was slapped with an extraordinary “gag order” forcing it to remove more than 2,000 posts related to Linda Ellis, a writer who has a long record of sending copyright demand letters over “The Dash,” a poem Ellis claims she composed in 1996.
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Privacy
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A presentation on a low-budget method to unmask users of a popular online privacy tool, TOR, will no longer go ahead at the Black Hat security conference early next month.
The talk was nixed by the legal counsel with Carnegie Mellon’s Software Engineering Institute after a finding that materials from researcher Alexander Volynkin were not approved for public release, according to a notice on the conference’s website.
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There’s some buzz in security circles today after it came out that a session at the upcoming Black Hat Conference entitled “You Don’t Have to be the NSA to Break Tor: Deanonymizing Users on a Budget” by Michael McCord and Alexander Volynkin (both of whom work for Carnegie-Mellon University and CERT) had been pulled from the conference at the request of CMU.
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All the critical material in an 81-page 2011 FISC opinion on NSA surveillance has been declassified and made public, a federal judge ruled, rejecting the Electronic Frontier Foundation’s request for an unredacted copy.
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Boring Carnegie-Mellon University lawyers have scuppered one of the most hotly anticipated talks at the Black Hat conference – which would have explained how $3,000 of kit could unmask Tor hidden services and user IP addresses.
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On 10 July 2014, the UK Government announced emergency legislation in the form of the Data Retention and Investigations Powers Bill (“the Bill”), which would require communications service providers (“CSPs”) to retain communications data for up to 12 months. This was the result of a European Court of Justice decision declaring European Directive 2006/24/EC incompatible with Articles 7 and 8 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union. The Directive was introduced in the wake of the 2004 and 2005 terrorist attacks to allow governments to prevent future attacks.
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Bill Binney worked at the National Security Agency nearly three decades as one of its leading crypto-mathematicians. He then became one of its leading whistleblowers.
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Last October, President Dilma Rousseff was to be the first Brazilian leader to attend a White House state dinner in two decades. Instead, angered by revelations that her phone calls and email had been intercepted by the National Security Agency (NSA), she became the first leader to cancel a state dinner hosted by a U.S. president, lambasting U.S. surveillance as a violation of international law and a “totally unacceptable” infringement of Brazil’s sovereignty.
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A new chapter in the U.S.-Germany spying scandal drastically threatens the United States’ relationship with Germany. As U.S. and German leaders bicker over intelligence collection practices, they are ignoring the most costly casualty — a landmark U.S.-EU trade deal slated to boost the transatlantic economy out of its post-recession doldrums.
After two German officials were arrested on charges of spying for the United States, Germany ordered the CIA station chief in Berlin to leave the country. This story ripped open painful wounds from the NSA-spying scandal that had barely begun to scab over, when leaked documents revealed that the United States had spied on German citizens and tapped German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s personal phone.
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We’ve written a few times about Executive Order 12333, which we’ve described as “the NSA’s biggest loophole.” It’s the unchecked power, created entirely via executive order, for the NSA to do anything it wants to spy on anyone — including Americans — so long as that data is collected overseas. Remember how the NSA had hacked into Google and Yahoo’s datacenters? That was done overseas under EO 12333, allowing them to do whatever they wanted with that information — content and metadata — with no oversight at all. For all the talk about how the NSA is bounded by oversight from “all three branches” of government, that’s clearly not the case. Everything happening under EO 12333 is mostly considered to be only controlled by the Executive branch, which created the order in the first place. There are no reports to Congress about it, and even Dianne Feinstein has admitted that the Intelligence Committee doesn’t touch any of the surveillance done under EO 12333.
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Stingrays and other cell surveillance tools have been used in the U.S. for years without the knowledge of the public or even defense attorneys and judges.
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A federal judge in New York has ordered a search warrant that allows law enforcement to search through a Gmail account as part of a criminal investigation.
The court decision is likely to spark a new chapter of debate in the saga of privacy rights and data collection of individual Internet users. The judge allowed the search of email from users under investigation of crimes that include money laundering.
Other judges reportedly hold a different point of view than Magistrate Judge Gabriel W. Gorenstein regarding the issue. Up until this point, warrants haven’t been issued for a search through private citizens’ email to collect data in a criminal investigation.
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Prompted by Snowden leaks, the office of the director of national intelligence is attempting damage control by promising new programs meant to promote “diversity and tolerance.”
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It almost seems as if President Obama has run into nothing but trouble overseas, facing criticism over electronic eavesdropping, drone strikes and his handling of regional conflicts. Yet the image of the president, and of the United States, have suffered little harm, according to a Pew Global Attitudes survey.
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John Napier Tye, a former State Department section chief for Internet freedom, is calling on the government to answer questions related to a recent op-ed published by the Washington Post.
Tye specifically calls the NSA’s surveillance operations abroad conducted under Executive Order 12333, a threat to American democracy, saying that the executive order in question “authorizes collection of the content of communications, not just metadata, even for U.S. persons.” Executive Order 12333 was signed by President Ronald Reagan on December 4, 1981 and established guidelines for intelligence community activities taken abroad, including the collection of signals intelligence for surveillance purposes.
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#NIMROD Kamer, a London-based satirist and journalist, brought his individual reporting style to Nassau this month to investigate the story that the United States National Security Agency (NSA) is listening and recording all cellular phone calls made in the Bahamas.
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Yo is surprisingly popular and growing fast; last week the company received another $1.5 million in venture capital after getting an initial $1m last month. The ultimate goal is to build out an entire Yo network to try and rethink how notifications work. It’s a particularly good example of the tech industry building a seemingly-ridiculous solution to a small problem that contains the germ of a much bigger idea within it. Yo might succeed or it might fail, but for the moment it’s pretty fun to play with.
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In October 1998 in a bid to gain the release of Israeli spy Jonathan Pollard, an Israeli team led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu threatened to blackmail President Bill Clinton with tapes of Clinton and then-intern Monica Lewinsky. When Clinton brought Israel’s request for Pollard’s release to CIA Director George Tenet, Tenet threatened to resign on the spot should Clinton cave and release Pollard. Clinton ultimately declined the Israeli request, though he would consider it once again before the end of his term.
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Former National Security Agency (NSA) contractor-turned-whistleblower Edward Snowden has asked a Swiss lawyer to explore the possibility of the United States fugitive coming to Switzerland.
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Time for many professionals to upgrade their information security
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British intelligence is permitted to go further in surveillance than similar agencies in other Western countries, according to former NSA contractor Edward Snowden, who spoke of GCHQ’s lack of oversight in a recent interview to the Guardian.
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One of the architects of the National Security Agency’s eavesdropping technology told a radio host today the Internal Revenue Service, or IRS, has “direct access” to the NSA’s domestic spying data and was likely using it to target the tea party.
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Edward Snowden says that U.S. surveillance failed to stop the men suspected of planting bombs at the 2013 Boston Marathon even though Russia provided them with intelligence.
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Chinese telecom and smartphone manufacturer Huawei has reported revenue rising 19 per cent in the first half of the year with sales jumping to 135.8bn yuan (£12.8bn or $21.9bn).
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A former Obama administration official calls attention to unaccountable mass surveillance conducted under a 1981 executive order.
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With Australian Security Intelligence Organisation chief David Irvine this morning insisting to a Senate committee that data retention — under “active consideration” by the government — was crucial to intelligence-gathering and Australians had nothing to fear from it, it’s time for a clarifier on exactly what data retention is and the concerns it raises.
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Over the weekend, two of the most famous whistleblowers in U.S. history, Edward Snowden and Pentagon papers leaker Daniel Ellsberg, sat down at the HopeX hacker conference in New York to discuss how technology can empower dissent and protect your privacy.
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Daniel Ellsberg and Edward Snowden, whose leaks of classified documents rocked the public and exposed the US government’s illegal activities four decades apart, both appealed to hackers and security pros attending the HOPE X hackers conference in New York on Saturday to continue to thwart government access to citizen data and create a safer environment for whistleblowers to make their revelations.
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A former State Department executive came forward on July 18 to warn against how the United States government is using an executive order issued by President Ronald Reagan to collect data from Americans, especially when they are located outside US borders. And, even though President Barack Obama’s administration has waged an unprecedented war on whistleblowers, he does not believe he will be one of the victims. But is he already?
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It is crucial in today’s security climate to begin classifying data and networks in a new way, based not just on levels of sensitivity but on shelf life and the realities of our evolving computing landscape.
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But fingerprints are unusually hard to block: They can’t be prevented by using standard Web browser privacy settings or using anti-tracking tools such as AdBlock Plus.
The researchers found canvas fingerprinting computer code, primarily written by a company called AddThis, on 5 percent of the top 100,000 websites. Most of the code was on websites that use AddThis’ social media sharing tools. Other fingerprinters include the German digital marketer Ligatus and the Canadian dating site Plentyoffish. (A list of all the websites on which researchers found the code is here).
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In a world of always-on connectivity, Internet of Everything and Internet of Things, where most devices now have an embedded computer, the risk posed by hackers tampering with them cannot be overlooked.
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During a nearly 90-minute discussion at the Hackers on Planet Earth Conference (HOPE) on Saturday, in which Snowden participated via Google Hangouts, the whistle blower said he wants to work on tools that help people better protect their privacy.
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apt-transport-tor 0.2.1 should now be on your preferred unstable Debian mirror. It will let you download Debian packages through Tor.
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Why is it critical to have a close watch and what is so outrageous about this agenda?
“data flows… including financial services”. Please learn more about the SWIFT scandal to get an idea why this is unacceptable.
Why would European governments consider “requirements to use local network infrastructure or local servers”? Why wouldn’t Estonia like its egovernment services to be hosted in Russia?
The data flow debate relates to the recent surveillance scandals, and the post-snowden world. Having your data on European servers won’t help against criminal actions of partner countries. What it does achieve is data governance by your jurisdiction and preventing undesirable lawful access of a foreign government – as in the SWIFT scandal. There the US government dared to spy on the most toxic European data you could imagine, financial and stock market transaction data collected by the SWIFT processing agency, data mirrored on US servers. The US President B. Obama openly discussed the data flow topic with the Export Council and we hear from IBM that thankfully “Froman got it tied down in the trade agreement.”, that is TTIP.
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But don’t panic – Apple’s backdoor is not totally open for all, guru tells us
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A SECURITY EXPERT has bravely revealed that Apple has purposefully included backdoors in its iOS mobile operating system that could be exploited by law enforcement and intelligence agencies such as the US National Security Agency (NSA).
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Using the hidden services that bypass the encrypted backup protection don’t require the use of developer mode and many of them have been present in iOS for five years. Zdziarski, who designed many of the initial methods for acquiring forensic data from iOS devices, said there also is a packet capture tool present on every iOS device that has the ability to dump all of the inbound and outbound HTTP data and runs in the background without and notification to the user.
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Snowden is not sitting silently on the sidelines in Russia and continues to participate actively in the debate about privacy in the modern world.
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When it comes to same-sex marriage, last year’s Supreme Court ruling that the federal government must recognize legally married gay and lesbian couples has led to a string of lower court decisions striking down state marriage bans.
It’s “the gift that keeps on giving,” says Roberta Kaplan, the lawyer who won the case on behalf of New York widow Edie Windsor.
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However, in a landmark decision by Judge Richard J. Leon of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, in a case filed by Freedom Watch Inc. for me and my clients Charles and Mary Strange, the court found that the NSA’s surveillance programs have proven essentially worthless in combating terrorism. Instead, their “almost Orwellian” tyranny over American citizens appears to be the real purpose, at least in practice. The Stranges had a family member, an NSA cryptologist, who, among 30 others, died at the hands of Taliban terrorists in a mysteriously unexplained helicopter crash with 17 Navy SEALs shortly after the capture and assassination of Osama bin Laden.
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Civil Rights
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A Libyan dissident is to appeal to three of Britain’s most senior judges to reject a high court ruling in favour of the government that he cannot sue MI6 for its role in abducting and secretly flying him to Tripoli, where Muammar Gaddafi’s security forces tortured him.
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A former Libyan Islamist commander who says he suffered years of torture by Muammar Gaddafi’s henchmen after British and US spies handed him over to Libya appealed on Monday against a ruling blocking legal action against the British government.
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Government is seeking ‘impunity from its own courts,’ says lawyer of victims.
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Ahead of a legal intervention by Amnesty International and others in the rendition case of the Libyan national Abdul-Hakim Belhaj, Amnesty International is warning that the UK government is “scraping the legal barrel” with its arguments in the case.
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Today’s demonstration of post-brutality scrambling is brought to you by the California Highway Patrol. First off, we’ll take a look at the “alleged” brutality, which looks incredibly similar to non-alleged brutality. (Apologies for the watermark the person who recorded the incident slapped all over the video.)
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The official in the United Kingdom, who is tasked with reviewing terrorism legislation, has released a report warning about the breadth of terrorism laws and how they could be used to criminalize journalism.
Citing the case of David Miranda, journalist Glenn Greenwald’s husband who was detained at Heathrow Airport under the UK’s Terrorism Act of 2000 last year, David Anderson QC recommended changing the definition of terrorism in the law.
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The definition of terrorism in current UK law is too broad and should be narrowed to avoid “catching” journalists, bloggers and hate criminals, a top lawyer said today.
David Anderson QC, who is Britain’s independent reviewer of terrorism legislation, argued during an interview on the BBC’s Radio 4 Today programme this morning that the word “influence” should be removed to prevent the wrong type of offences being caught up in terror law.
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UK anti-terrorism laws are so broadly drawn they are in danger of catching journalists, bloggers, and those it was “never intended to cover” the counter-terrorism watchdog has said.
David Anderson QC has called on the Government to revisit its definition of terrorism in his annual report published today as the UK’s independent reviewer of terrorism legislation.
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When news recently broke of NSA spying on prominent Muslim Americans, most people were far from shocked. If anything, it was expected. After all, these individuals have Muslim names, either advocate on behalf of the Muslim community or speak on Islamic-related issues, and have some sort of connection to ‘that part of the world.’ Unlike previous NSA spying revelations that generated extreme outrage across the board, this latest development appeared to impact only, you know, ‘those people’ (though the larger implications are much greater).
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Criminal prosecution is likely to be expanded on Americans involved in recruiting and supervising activities of German officials spying for the US intelligence, Germany’s Justice Minister Heiko Maas told Welt am Sonntag.
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Internet/Net Neutrality
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Microsoft was tying up PC companies as partners, making it a condition of receiving Windows that they also swallow IE. If it owned the PC makers, it owned the web, or so Microsoft believed. Netscape was trying to figure out how to get around Microsoft while also attempting to become more than “just” a browser-maker.
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If you think your company has nothing to fear from ‘slow lane’ Internet, think again
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Activists and tech companies fended off efforts in the U.S. in the 1990s to ban Internet encryption or give the government ways around it, but an even bigger battle over cryptography is brewing now, according to Sascha Meinrath, director of X-Lab, a digital civil-rights think tank launched earlier this year. One of the most contested issues in that battle will be net neutrality, Meinrath said.
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The net neutrality debate has been underway for many years now, but more recently it has entered the mainstream. The main arguments in favor of preserving net neutrality — that it creates a level playing field that allows innovation, and prevents deep-pocketed incumbents from using their financial resources to relegate less well-endowed startups to the Internet slow lane — are familiar enough. But PC World points us to a fascinating paper by Sascha D. Meinrath and Sean Vitka in the journal “Critical Studies in Media Communication” that offers a new and extremely important reason for defending net neutrality: that without it, it will be hard to fight back against blanket surveillance through the wider use of encryption (pdf).
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DRM
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While cloud computing platforms make headlines every day now, including leading open source platforms such as OpenStack, it’s still true that cloud computing is a young science. There is a premium on reliable, mature tools for the cloud, and a real need for tools that can usher in better security. Also, it’s true that Amazon Web Services (AWS) is still the 800-pound gorilla in the cloud.
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Intellectual Monopolies
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Copyrights
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The “Digital Economy Act lite” programme of sending spam “education” emails announced under a voluntary agreement between copyright industry bodies and ISPs is to roll out.
The four big ISPs – BT, TalkTalk, Virgin and Sky – are set to surveil their customers and send out emails under the scheme called Voluntary Copyright Alert Programme (Vcap).
The controversial Digital Economy Act, forced through in the dying days of the Gordon Brown Government set out a similar scheme, but it has not been enacted.
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One of the most common (and false) arguments against sharing culture is that “the artist has a right to get paid when you enjoy something”. This is totally false.
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Send this to a friend
07.20.14
Posted in News Roundup at 4:53 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Contents
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Kernel Space
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As part of an ongoing video series from The Linux Foundation you can now nosey at the desk and work ethic of Linus Torvalds, the creator of Linux. In the short 4 minute clip you’ll learn what he keeps on his desk, what he gets up to between kernel releases and witness him use a contraption called the ‘zombie shuffling desk‘.
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It doesn’t matter how organised — or cluttered — your workspace is, if it makes you productive, that’s all that matters. Not that it stops one from wondering if greats, such as Linux creator Linus Torvalds, operate in the equivalent of clean rooms as they go about making the world a better place. Well, it turns out Torvalds isn’t exactly stressed about keeping his home office in a state of perfection, as this video shows.
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Graphics Stack
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Samuel Pitoiset has shared another blog post on his excellent work for reverse-engineering NVIDIA hardware performance counters and implementing the functionality within the open-source Nouveau driver.
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Applications
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Geary, a lightweight email program designed around conversations and built for the GNOME desktop by the Yorba software group, is now at version 0.7.0.
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I never really thought about a bookmark manager for the console; the browsers that I use these days — specifically elinks or Pale Moon — have onboard bookmarking systems already.
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Instructionals/Technical
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Wine or Emulation
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Wine 1.7.22 is a new development version of the software that has been announced and its makers have implemented quite a few changes and improvements, not to mention various fixes for a huge number of Windows applications.
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Games
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The Leadwerks developers have overcome some issues they faced that prevented the Linux version of Leadwerks appearing on Steam.
So, this is good news for any game developers waiting on it, as you will have an easy way to get it and keep it up to date when it hits Steam.
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While Leadwerks has been out for Linux and Leadwerks is in the Ubuntu Store, it hasn’t been on Steam for Linux up to this point. Barring this Kickstart-funded Linux game engine port from being on Steam came down to a technical requirement — GCC mandating 16-bit ABI alignment. After help from Valve and Blitz Research, that issue has been overcome so Leadwerks will soon be released on Steam.
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The history of Linux in gaming is quite poor, but this year so many changes happened in this area that we might be able to review top commercial video games very soon. By commercial I mean those created by most significant gaming companies like Ubisoft or Bethesda, and not indie video games. Even though real gaming in Linux based operating systems got a boost this year, emulators were everywhere to be found, for most known video game consoles.
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The Duke Nukem 3D: Megaton Edition game is a modest feature and graphics re-make of the Duke Nukem 3D: Atomic Edition, Duke It Out In D.C., Duke Caribbean: Life’s a Beach, and Duke: Nuclear Winter titles. The Windows version has been out for a while on Steam while the Linux version is still evolving.
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Desktop Environments/WMs
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K Desktop Environment/KDE SC/Qt
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I’ve begun prototyping a system for green processes in Qt applications. I’m not yet at the code-writing stage, but the API is definitely taking shape and a design is starting to emerge. It’s a spare-time project for me, so is progressing at a reasonable but not extremely fast pace.
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When we want to remove kdelibs4support there is a class which is used by all kde application: KDialog.
Each time that we wanted to create a dialog we used it.
So it’s necessary to have a script to help us to port to QDialog now that KDialog is deprecated.
When we port to QDialog, we need to add a QDialogButtonBox and mainwidget (if necessary)
As in kdepim there is a lot of KDialog I created a script for it.
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Developing a new project is usually done in two phases: first, the most important features are added, and the feature list of the project quickly grows. Then, the features need to be polished, bugs fixed, and the overall usability of the project improves slowly. This second phase is often considered less interesting than the first one, but personally, I like to fix small annoyances. Fixing them makes the difference between an experimental project and one that can be reliably used by real users.
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Being done as part of a Google Summer of Code project this year is porting KDE’s Plasma Active to their newer technology stack.
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GNOME Desktop/GTK
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GTK+ 3.13.4, a multi-platform toolkit for creating graphical user interfaces that provide a complete set of widgets, suitable for projects ranging from small one-off tools to complete application suites, is now available for download and testing.
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Arch Family
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Debian Family
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This tenth point update is actually a very important one because it’s the last one in the life of this branch of the Debian distribution, which was released back in February 2011. The developers have announced that no more major updates will be made for Debian 6.x “Squeeze, but there are also some good news.
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Derivatives
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Canonical/Ubuntu
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“This is the FINAL reminder to make sure you have retrieved all your data from Ubuntu One filesync, as we will be deleting all the content permanently on 31st July 2014. After that date, we will no longer be able to retrieve any of your files.”
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The Raspberry Pi foundation has recently released a new version of its really small and adaptable computer, this week. This is the third model of the device, which includes USB ports for input devices (keyboard and mouse), an SD card slot, an Ethernet port and an HDMI port to enable connection to a monitor or a TV.
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Michael Mozrek gave a presentation recently about his work as the project lead on the DragonBox Pyra, the slated replacement to the Open Pandora handheld Linux game system.
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Phones
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Mobile operating systems are kind of like comic book heros or horror movie villains — just when you think they’re gone for good, they come back with a new bag of tricks. Thus is the case of Sailfish OS, a challenger that’s on the verge of launching a high volume product to the burgeoning Indian market.
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Local smartphone makers Micromax, Karbonn, Lava and Intex have eaten into market shares of multinationals Nokia and BlackBerry, though South Korea’s Samsung still leads the market. Now the four are eyeing Russia.
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Ballnux
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Google is growing increasingly worried that Samsung, its largest licensee, is working to undermine its own strategy for Android, while Samsung and the rest of the industry is concerned that Google has become a “bully,” according to a new report by The Information.
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Android
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If you’re familiar with CyanogenMod (CM) or simply part of any of CM’s social network you will be well aware of the CM’s Theme Store. For those of you who don’t know this is simply a CM powered theme generator which allows users to instantly change the theme, fonts, and color-scheme for the UI. Some themes are available for free while most charge a small amount to download and install. These are lightweight items for your device and simply change the aesthetic appearance completely.
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Ironically, in the world of mobile, there’s more than just one One. HTC, for one, has several Ones, and not forgetting the OnePlus One. One? One.
Room for One more? How about Android One? Launched at this year’s Google I/O, it’s aimed squarely at emerging markets, and we’re hearing that the first handset might land as early as October.
While Android Silver will see Google working closely with its best mates at the high end of the spectrum, the aim of Android One is to make a decent phone that’s truly affordable for every Tom, Dick, Harry, Sanjay, Raj and Mukul across the world.
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The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) has announced the release of the alpha version of an Open Wireless Router firmware. It was officially announced at the HOPE X (Hackers on Planet Earth) conference in New York City.
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Mårten Mickos, CEO of Eucalyptus Systems, argues that when companies lock in to their own design and customizations, it’s as harmful as when they lock in to a vendor. Mickos explains why he thinks using standardized open source products is the best way to avoid both types of lock-in.
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BSD
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Public Services/Government
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All primary and secondary public schools in the Swiss Canton of Geneva are switching to using Ubuntu GNU/Linux for the PCs used by teachers and students. The switch has been completed by all of the 170 primary public schools, and the migration of the canton’s 20 secondary schools is planned for the next school year. Ubuntu GNU/Linux offers powerful services to the teachers, is easier to maintain, faster, safer and more stable than the decade-old proprietary operating system it is replacing, the canton’s school IT department concludes, based on several four-year long pilots.
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Openness/Sharing
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Open Hardware
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The Makeblock kit is all about assembling building blocks in three major parts: putting together the Arduino caddy, constructing a chassis for it and finally programming it via Arduino IDE.
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Health/Nutrition
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Back in March of last year, we were somewhat disturbed by UPS agreeing to forfeit $40 million to the US government for shipping drugs from “illegal internet pharmacies.” Not that such drugs or pharmacies should be legal (that’s a whole different discussion), but it’s insane to pin the blame for the shipments on the shipping company, whose sole job is to get packages from point A to point B. In fact, we don’t want shipping companies to be liable for what’s in packages, because then they have not just the incentive, but the mandate to snoop through all our packages.
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Defence/Police/Secrecy/Aggression
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It will likely take some time to determine who downed the Malaysia Airlines Boeing-777 over eastern Ukraine on Thursday, killing all 298 people onboard. Initial speculation is that someone with a missile battery mistook the plane as a military aircraft, but the precise motive may be even harder to discern.
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President Obama and the State Department’s “anti-diplomats” are fanning flames of anger against Russia after the shoot-down of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 over Ukraine. But some U.S. intelligence analysts doubt the popular “blame-the-Russians” scenario, reports Robert Parry.
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On Saturday, Russian deputy foreign minister Sergei Ryabkov said the US administration sought to pin the blame on separatists and Russia without waiting for the results of an investigation. “The statements of representatives of the US administration are evidence of a deep political aberration of Washington’s perception of what is going on in Ukraine,” he told Russian news agencies. “At least, that is how the relevant statements can be interpreted,” he said. “Despite an obvious and indisputable nature of the arguments provided by rebels and Moscow, the US administration is pushing its own agenda,” he said. Meanwhile, a rebel leader appealed to Russia for help with worsening conditions at the crash site of a Malaysian airliner, accusing the Ukrainian government of preventing experts from arriving and allowing bodies to rot.
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Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17 that was blown out of the sky while flying across eastern Ukraine, was not a sole casualty of warfare.
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Stinger man-portable missiles may also threaten the U.S. Army crews of Apache helicopter gunships recently dispatched to Baghdad to secure the airport and defend the U.S. embassy. Intelligence reports say that the Islamic State organization, also known as ISIS, has likely captured U.S.-made Stingers. In seizing major cities such as Mosul and Tikrit, and overrunning four Iraqi army divisions, Islamic State fighters have reportedly taken control of two major weapons depots, where Stingers were likely stored along with other sophisticated U.S.-manufactured armaments.
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On May 1, 1960, a U-2 spy plane operated by the CIA took off from an airbase in Peshawar, Pakistan. The existence of the U-2 was a secret. It had an unusual appearance created by its long, slender wings. These wings gave it the ability to fly at heights beyond 70,000 feet to the edge of the stratosphere, way above any other airplanes.
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Ricardo and Lugo flew back to Trinidad and checked in at the then Holiday Inn in Port of Spain. There, that said evening, that local police under Randolph Burroughs arrested them and found incriminating evidence that linked them to anti-Castro CIA operative Luis Carriles.
It turned out that the CIA, and possibly higher officials in Washington, were aware of the plot to blow up the Cubana plane. Even worse, Washington helped Carriles escape and evade prosecution in Venezuela and/or Cuba (Ricardo and Lugo were jailed in Caracas).
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Yuval Diskin, who served as director of Israel’s Shin Bet security service from 2005 to 2011, posted some rather blunt observations on his Facebook page this morning regarding the tit-for-tat murders of teenagers, the Palestinian rioting in East Jerusalem and the Triangle (the Arab population center south of Haifa) and what he fears is coming down the pike.
It strikes me that he’s probably saying a lot of what IDF chief of staff Benny Gantz was thinking at this week’s security cabinet meeting, when Gantz’s far more restrained comments led to a tongue-lashing from Naftali Bennett. In other words, this is how the current meltdown looks to much of the top Israeli military and intelligence brass. It’s what they’ve been saying privately while in uniform and publicly after retiring (and occasionally even while still in uniform). I’ve taken the liberty of translating Diskin’s Hebrew into English.
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In an online offensive against Israel, the global hacker group took down hundreds of Israeli websites including that of Tel Aviv Police Department, which is still not available, at the time of writing this report
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The munitions are not prohibited under international humanitarian law, but according to B’Tselem, “other rules of humanitarian law render their use in the Gaza Strip illegal. One of the most fundamental principles is the obligation to distinguish between those who are involved and those who are not involved in the fighting, and to avoid to the extent possible injury to those who are not involved. Deriving from this principle is the prohibition of the use of an imprecise weapon which is likely to result in civilian injuries.”
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Dubai- Israel’s Ambassador to the US Ron Dermer landed himself in hot water Thursday when Palestine activists posted a barrage of sarcastic questions to his Twitter Q&A #AskDermer thread. The Q&A was held amid escalating violence between Israel and Hamas forces in Gaza. The hashtag, which was used more than 20,000 times, included questions that were harshly critical of Israel’s strategy in Gaza. Many tweets by activists were snarky, and others were angry. Eli Clifton wrote: IDF says houses, hospitals, schools and mosques are weapons depots. What were the “human shields” shielding on the beach? #AskDermer US Dept of Drone War wrote: A Palestinian walks into a bar. Do you A) Blow up the bar, B) Blow up the person’s home, or C) Kill 4 random kids on a beach? #AskDermer
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In their most audacious attack Saturday, Hamas fighters dressed in Israeli army uniforms slipped from central Gaza into Israel through a tunnel and attacked an Israeli army patrol, killing two soldiers and injuring two others. The army returned fire, killing one militant and forcing the rest back through the tunnel into the Palestinian territory.
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Eight Palestinian militants emerged from a tunnel some 300 yards inside Israel on Saturday morning, armed with automatic weapons and wearing Israeli military uniforms, the Israeli military said. The gunmen fired a rocket-propelled grenade at two Israeli military jeeps on patrol, starting a battle that killed two Israeli officers and one of the militants, according to the military. The rest then retreated underground, back to Gaza.
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As Israel continued its deadly assault on the Gaza Strip, Hamas militants sneaked into the country on Saturday and killed two soldiers, delivering the worst blow to the Israeli military on its side of the Gaza border in years.
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Pakistan has condemned the US drone strike in North Waziristan in which 15 suspected militants were reportedly killed early Saturday, saying these strikes would have a negative impact on its efforts to bring peace and stability in the country and the region.
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When LIRR workers and the MTA reached an agreement to avoid the strike that would have begun on Sunday, it seemed that Mayor de Blasio and his family would be able to leave for their ten-day Italian vacation on Friday, as scheduled. But on Friday evening, De Blasio’s office announced that the mayor would remain in New York until Saturday “to attend to City business.” According to the New York Times, the mayor wanted to “spend more time making calls to elected officials, community leaders and members of the clergy, and talking to the police” about Eric Garner, the 43-year-old Staten Island man who went into cardiac arrest and died after NYPD officers put him in a chokehold on Thursday. Anyone who has seen the cell phone video of five cops piling onto an unarmed Garner can probably understand why De Blasio felt the need to at least briefly postpone his trip.
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Even the educated are not immune to these feelings. Consider, for instance, New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman, a well-paid speaker and author, respected by many as an expert in international affairs. Yet, in an interview with Charlie Rose on May 29, 2003, Friedman justified his support of the U.S. invasion of Iraq on the grounds that if we killed enough Iraqis, Arab terrorists would give up believing they can attack us without repercussions. He concluded by saying that “they” needed to see “American boys and girls going from house to house from Basra to Baghdad” and telling people to “suck on this!”
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In the nineteen-eighties, the C.I.A. handed out Stinger surface-to-air missiles to the mujahideen
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President Bill Clinton’s advisers carefully considered how to explain the president’s military action against Iraq in 1998 as the House was debating his impeachment, according to records from the Clinton White House that were released Friday. The documents also touched upon al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden, consideration of military action in Haiti in 1994 and preparations for Supreme Court nomination hearings.
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The latest batch shows Mr Clinton asked his national security aides whether the CIA overstated bin Laden’s role in the August 1998 bombing of the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania.
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By expelling the CIA station chief in Berlin recently, Germany hoped to jolt the United States into paying attention. Germans are outraged by reports that American spies may have been working inside their security services. Chancellor Angela Merkel has said that hostile operations like this “contradict everything that I understand to be a trusting cooperation between friendly partners.”
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A specialist on German foreign policy at the European Council on Foreign Relations has described the US as a “weak superpower” whose spying methods and surveillance on other countries is solely driven by a feeling of insecurity.
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Finance
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The 13 U.S. states that raised their minimum wages at the beginning of this year are adding jobs at a faster pace than those that did not, providing some counter-intuitive fuel to the debate over what impact a higher minimum has on hiring trends.
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The finding comes from a recent investigation by Christoph Lakner, a consultant at the World Bank, and Branko Milanovic, senior scholar at the Luxembourg Income Study Center. And while such a framing may sound startling at first, it should be intuitive upon reflection. The economic surges of China, India and some other nations have been among the most egalitarian developments in history.
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Whether I was working as a barista or a paralegal, the story was the same: My employers wanted me to keep my mouth shut about money.
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When the water trucks arrived near Arlyssa Heard’s home on the west side of Detroit at the end of June, the 42-year-old single mother of two said it felt like the entire neighborhood was being taken over. “There were water trucks literally circling up and down blocks. I’d never seen so many in my life,” she says. “It’s like they were the police hunting down a criminal.”
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Censorship
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The UK government has launched the ‘Friendly Wi-Fi’ licensing scheme – an effort to make harmful and pornographic content inaccessible through public Wi-Fi networks.
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As Spain struggles with its continuing online piracy problems, a local court has issued an order for several file-sharing sites to be unblocked by ISPs. The decision overturns a ruling in May which required the service providers to censor torrent and download sites on copyright infringement grounds.
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The Court of Rome has issued a nation-wide block of two dozen sites that facilitated the distribution of pirated movies. Among the blocked domains is Kim Dotcom’s cloud hosting service Mega, Firedrive (formerly known as Putlocker), and even Russia’s largest email provider Mail.ru.
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Privacy
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If you care about digital rights you should be horrified by DRIP. The UK’s new Data Retention and Investigatory Powers law was rushed through parliament just before MPs go on holiday, with very little debate.
The law forces communications companies to store all our data for up to 12 months so that the security services can snoop on them should they so wish. Companies were already doing this before, but then an April ruling by the European Court of Justice stated that the mass data collection interferes with “fundamental rights to respect for private life and to the protection of personal data”. DRIP — which went from draft to law in just over a week — reinstates the legal framework for spying on this personal data. If that’s not bad enough, DRIP attempts to extend the territorial reach of the UK’s powers to mandate the interception of communications across the globe. Any foreign firms holding data relating to UK citizens can be served a warrant to hand over information. This means that companies beyond the jurisdiction of the UK’s Data Protection Act must also store UK citizens data. How will this be safeguarded?
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Following on the news that Ed Snowden told the Guardian how NSA employees routinely passed around pictures they had intercepted of “extremely attractive” people who were naked, the NSA has issued one of its typical non-denial denials.
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Mann said that in the wake of 2010 Stuxnet computer worm, which attacked Iran’s nuclear program, he became fascinated with what was happening in the world of cyber-crime and cyber-espionage.
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ProtonMail and Subrosa are two separate communications services that’s attempting to offer users a platform for secure, encrypted communication. They are trying to offer what’s come to be known as zero knowledge (also zero access) Cloud data service, that is, the service provider cannot read your data.
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Tor is an anonymizing network that’s designed to protect you by “bouncing your communications around a distributed network of relays run by volunteers all around the world: it prevents somebody watching your Internet connection from learning what sites you visit, and it prevents the sites you visit from learning your physical location.”
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Like Snowden, Drake does not fit the bill of your typical hacker icon.
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The tenth Hackers on Planet Earth (HOPE X) conference has been organized around supporting dissenters, especially how to support hackers or hacktivists who are targeted by the government.
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The Jefferson Parish Sheriff’s Office appears to be the first agency in the state to use an unmanned aerial drone for law enforcement purposes.
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The term ”collateral damage” was once primarily used to describe the victims within a conflict, such as those who died in war who were not soldiers but who still lost their lives. One side attacks a target and, in pursuing its aims, inflicts casualties and damage as a consequence of the attack. There is no intention within the action, but still it occurs. This is war. And war is hell.
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“We have the power,” says Arab American Association of New York Executive Director and community civil rights activist Linda Sarsour in the promotional video. “We have the power. We have the capability and the opportunity here to change the way our society views our community to create a society that accepts our children and allows them to be proud of who they are as Arab-Americans and/or Muslim-Americans.”
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Jonathan Zdziarski’s paper about backdoors, attack points and surveillance mechanisms built into iOS is quite, quite interesting.
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Internet Party leader Kim Dotcom says that he will announce a political bombshell capable of toppling the Prime Minister on September 15 – five days before the general election.
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Kim Dotcom has revealed more details today on his “Moment of Truth” event, scheduled for five days before the September 20 election.
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Internet Party founder Kim Dotcom says he has enlisted heavy-hitting US journalist Glenn Greenwald, who blew open secrets about mass spying by the US Government, to help embarrass Prime Minister John Key immediately before the election.
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Edward Snowden, a former US spy agency contractor who leaked details of major US surveillance programs, called on supporters at a hacking conference to spur development of easy-to-use technologies to subvert government surveillance programs around the globe.
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Edward Snowden, a former U.S. spy agency contractor who leaked details of major U.S. surveillance programs, called on supporters at a hacking conference to spur development of easy-to-use technologies to subvert government surveillance programs around the globe.
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Dropbox is a very popular cloud storage service, but NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden is no fan. In a recent interview with The Guardian, Snowden called Dropbox a “targeted, wannabe PRISM partner” that is “very hostile to privacy.”
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So is national security any better now? We can’t “see” security anymore in the age of computers and passwords and all kinds of encrypted things. I sure could see the guy in front of me with the red light. It was a little awkward but effective. I was probably the least threatening person ever to walk the halls of the NSA, but they still kept an actual, physical eye on me all the time. I wonder what it means that, before we started to color code our level of threat, such a non-threatening consultant as myself would have required an escort at all times, and yet now, living at a time of more serious threat, a consultant like Snowden gets unlimited access to everything. Maybe the real threat is complacency and those pesky unintended consequences.
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Although he is “probably three steps from death” considering his way of living, former NSA contractor Edward Snowden is quite happy and leading a “pretty open life” and not feeling any “oppressive surveillance” in Russia, he told The Guardian.
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Civil Rights
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Jason Casella also said that he is pleased that Emmett is the first city in the state to block provisions associated with the National Defense Authorization Act.
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Florida Governor Rick Scott really knows how to pick a fundraiser. Last month, he was scheduled to attend a $10,000-a-plate event at the home of a real estate developer who’d done prison time on tax charges. Hours after Mother Jones disclosed the event, Scott canceled it. Now, on July 21, Scott will headline a $10,000 per person fundraiser at the Boca Raton home of another deep pocketed donor who is the CEO of a private prison company that’s profiting handsomely over the immigration crisis at the Mexican border.
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Here are the facts: Debra Harrell works at McDonald’s in North Augusta, South Carolina. For most of the summer, her daughter had stayed there with her, playing on a laptop that Harrell had scrounged up the money to purchase. (McDonald’s has free WiFi.) Sadly, the Harrell home was robbed and the laptop stolen, so the girl asked her mother if she could be dropped off at the park to play instead.
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Internet/Net Neutrality
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During her time at Comcast, Bruce attended an all-day training session, on a Sunday, four times a year. At the training session, 40 people would be lectured by a trainer who would give “pep talks” about the importance of retaining customers and making sales. In addition to managing calls, Bruce also worked at the counter, where she was instructed to try to convince customers to keep their service, even as they were returning cable gear following a processed cancellation.
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This Netflix video streams at 375 kbps (or 0.375 mbps – 0.5% of the speed I pay for) at the fastest. I was shocked. Then I decided to try connecting to a VPN service to compare.
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Intellectual Monopolies
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Copyrights
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Earlier this week it was reported how the RIAA had decided to turn the licensing thumbscrews on a site offering decades-old radio archives for download. Now another archival site, one that pays thousands of dollars in license fees to BMI, ASCAP and SoundExchange yet makes not a cent, is now in the RIAA spotlight.
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Mega.co.nz, the cloud storage company founded by Kim Dotcom, has announced its intention to go public with a backdoor listing on the New Zealand stock exchange. The deal, worth a cool NZ$210m ($179m), will be actioned via a reverse takeover of a local investment shell company.
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Google’s Chrome browser has started to block downloads of the popular BitTorrent client uTorrent. Those who attempt to download the software are told that it’s malicious and harmful, hinting that the website might have been hacked.
Permalink
Send this to a friend
07.19.14
Posted in News Roundup at 4:54 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Contents
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For right now they have ported this unified Linux distribution to an MK808 mini-PC stick. At VolksPC.org isn’t too much more information right now, but the page explains, “Many desktop distributions such as Debian are already available for ARM and x86. But Debian ARM does not support YouTube playback and because of a lack of drivers, HD video playback is just not possible. Android, on the other hand, does this very well and also has many applications not available on Debian. So we created a unified distribution that allows both Android and Debian LXDE/XFCE applications to run simultaneously at native speeds. On ARM, our distribution is based on a modified ARMHF Debian Wheezy rootfs.”
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Tiny, low-powered PCs with ARM-based processors like the MK802 or Tronsmart Vega S89 usually ship with Android software that lets you stream videos, play games, or surf the web on a TV. But many of these little devices can also run other Linux-based operating systems such as Ubuntu, Debian, or Fedora.
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Server
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Docker is making Linux containers a lightweight alternative to hypervisors; network engineers must be prepared. Find out what you need to know about Docker networking.
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Kernel Space
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I was working at McGill University InfoSec at the time, and was also active with Fedora Project — which is how my name showed up on the list of candidates. The Linux Foundation was looking for a systems administrator with a strong background in IT security — who would also be a good fit for a decentralized team of passionate open-source advocates. I’m extremely glad I was a good fit for the position, as I can’t imagine receiving as much satisfaction from any other job.
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Work being done by Samsung and other Linux stakeholders is bringing the Address Sanitizer capabilities found in GCC as being useful for detecting potential memory issues within the Linux kernel.
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Six researchers (including Julia Lawall of the Coccinelle project) have just released a paper [PDF] (abstract) that looks at the faults in the 2.6 kernel.
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Graphics Stack
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With the Linux 3.16 kernel just being a few weeks away from its debut, Intel’s Open-Source Technology Center has out another batch of changes being queued up for drm-next to enter with Linux 3.17.
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Intel developers have added support for VP8 video encoding to the open-source Video Acceleration API.
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Applications
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Zabbix, an enterprise-class open-source distributed monitoring solution released under the GPL (free of charge for both commercial and non-commercial use), has finally reached version 2.2.5.
The Zabbix monitoring solution has been separated into multiple branches, and this is the most advanced one that you can find. The developers actually maintain numerous other stable versions as well, but if you want the most features, this is what you need to get.
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Instructionals/Technical
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Games
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At the end of last year, the European Commission told Google and Apple to address issues around in-app purchases (IAP) – particularly as they mislead unsupervised kids into unwittingly racking up huge bills for their parents to pay.
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A forum goer of GOG and occasional GamingOnLinux commenter of the name shmerl has been campaigning for this to happen, starting a wishlist item and a forum thread on GOG for users to vote and comment on the matter.
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Valve pushed down the SteamOS update 123 to their Alchemist Beta channel this week.
Besides pulling in updated upstream packages from the Debian 7.6 base, there’s a fix for situations where applying updates would require multiple reboots. Additionally, the SteamOS Compositor has been fixed for addressing corruption on the first time a overlay or notification is rendered to the screen. Most of the package updates in alchemist_beta 123 involve security fixes and/or minor upstream package updates.
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Desktop Environments/WMs
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K Desktop Environment/KDE SC/Qt
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Previously we had just one class to handle Geogebra files- KigFilterGeogebra class which inherited from both KigFilter and QAbstractXMLReceiver class. The problem that created was that if we extended the class to read tools, a lot of complicacy was introduced in the functions. Then we separated the QAbstractXMLReceiver part of the KigFlterGeogebra class and moved it to a new class – GeogebraTransformer class which reads the transformed XML file and generates the object-tree of the document. Both The GogebraFilter and the GeogebraToolFilter classes use an instance of this Transformer class to get the object-tree. This way the code duplicacy issue was solved and also simplified the Filter classes.
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Barcelona Free Software Users & Hackers are having a Barcelona Free Software Users & Hackers mañana, see you there!
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The Konversation team has started porting the application to Frameworks 5 earlier this month, getting things to build and run on top of KDE’s next-generation libraries.
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Yesterday I blogged about why Breeze is not the default window decoration in KWin 5.0. The blog post touched a little bit the problems with our decoration API. In short: it’s QWidget based and that doesn’t fit our needs any more. It uses a QWidget as an X11 window. At the same time KWin intercepts the rendering and also input handling, redirects it and forwards it. So why use a QWidget at all? Also using a QWidget is quite a memory waste in the Qt5 world. The QWindow behind the QWidget uses a QXcbShmImage with the same size as the window. As explained in yesterdays blog post the window has the size of the managed window plus the decoration. So for a maximized window we hold an image of the size of the complete window while we just need the titlebar strip. We can do better 
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As I continue to work to kdepim* KF5, I need more scripts.
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This week KDE released updates for its Applications and Development Platform, the third and last in a series of monthly stabilization updates to the 4.13 series. This release also includes an updated Plasma Workspaces 4.11.11. Both releases contain only bugfixes and translation updates, providing a safe and pleasant update for everyone. Beneath these releases KDE announced the second beta of the 4.14 versions of Applications and Development Platform. With API, dependency and feature freezes in place, the focus is now on fixing bugs and further polishing. Your assistance is requested!
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The KDE Project developers have just released a second beta of Applications and Platform 4.14, getting this last version a little closer to the final build.
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In today’s open source roundup: Amazon launches a Netflix for ebooks subscription service. Plus: A KDE skeptic likes the Plasma 5 desktop, and what’s the best Linux distro for game development?
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Savoir-faire Linux is proud to announce the immediate availability of SFLPhone 1.4.0. This release finally enables video by default. We have refactored the video implementation to be much more robust against a variety of conditions and made the configuration more flexible. It is also now possible to stream a variety of file types and even share your screen. Other interesting features include support for the JACK audio system used by audio industry professionals and hobbyists. Thanks to improvements in audio buffering, latency and resampling, audio quality is noticeably better. The KDE client now has much better Akonadi support. It can now act as a KAddressBook replacement for most phone related scenarios. There will probably be one final KDE4 release before officially making the switch to KF5. The SFLPhone-KDE logic backend, libqtsflphone, has been compatible with Qt5 for over a year, some of the UI dialogs have yet to be ported. As for SFLPhone in general, we plan to merge work that has been done in parallel for a while now to make the daemon more modular, easier to build, more secure and more portable to other operating systems.
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Hello, this is my fourth report for my GSoC. This week I have ported the Panel for Plasma Active. The UI of the Active Panel has not changed much. As you can notice some of the Plasmoids are missing because they have not been ported yet (like the Homescreen Plasmoid), but there is no missing functionality from the Panel. Also the notification icons are invisible while they are inactive, as this is the expected behavior.
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GNOME Desktop/GTK
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In accessibility problem is sometimes (not always, of course) is something the affected user cannot contribute to the solution for themselves. When that happens in a meritoracy this can essentially mean, those users are not in a position to allow them to be able to get their needs heard, unless their views are actively sought, of course.
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CRUX, a lightweight and optimized Linux distribution targeted at experienced Linux users, which is reflected in a straightforward tar.gz-based package system, is now at version 3.1.
It’s been more than a year since the release of CRUX 3.0 and nothing too spectacular has happened in the meantime. The developers have upgraded a number of packages and other components, but the rest is pretty much the same…
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Presenting a nice assortment of lightweight yet fully-functional Linux distros for all occasions. All of these are full distros that do not depend on cloud services; four for x86 and two, count ‘em, two for ARM hardware.
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New Releases
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The OpenELEC developers have managed to quickly release a new version of their Linux distribution based on the XBMC Gotham 13.2 Beta 1, which is only a week old. This multimedia hub is used on its own, but it can also be implemented in an operating system.
The distribution is based on the latest XBMC version, which means that its developers are constantly implementing all the bleeding edge features and changes from that software.
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Arch Family
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Slackware Family
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On July 16 1993, Patrick Volkerding announced the availability of Slackware 1.00 on comp.os.linux usenet and since then, Slackware has become one of the oldest Linux distribution that are still actively maintained up to now.
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Today in Linux news is a belated Happy Birthday to the oldest living Linux distribution. Matt Asay says we’re living in a “post-open source world.” Jack Wallen says KDE Plasma 5 is “fast but not furious” and Carla Schroder shares a list of six lightweight distros.
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Red Hat Family
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Two months ago Red Hat Inc. bought a company called Inktank, which makes the Ceph Enterprise open source object and block storage software for public and private clouds.
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Fedora
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I looked back in the archives and found out that I’ve been running Fedora on this particular laptop (HP Pavilion g6-2210us) for a year and two months.
Since this el-cheapo, about-$400 AMD laptop is NOT a top-of-the-line Intel-running Thinkpad, it hasn’t gotten anywhere near the same level of love from the Linux kernel and driver developers.
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Since we deployed Ask Fedora, we’ve seen a healthy rise in its usage. Unfortunately, I haven’t statistics to show for this. I still need to figure out how I can get some. In this post, I’ll introduce Ask Fedora for the benefit of those still unaware of it and then write a little about how you can help us help yourself and our users via this Q&A forum.
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Debian Family
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Let’s face reality: I cannot find the time to properly maintain Perl6 related packages for Debian. Given the recent surge of popularity of rakudo, it would be a shame to let these packages rot.
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Derivatives
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Canonical/Ubuntu
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Yes, some may argue that Android is molded from Linux Kernel, but the ability to be able to run bash scripts purely in a Linux environment that is not adulterated and polluted with non-Linux features is truly a tech Shangri-La for hardcore Linux lovers.
This helplessness in getting our wish fulfilled for a Linux tablet has many of us desperately digging for a solution that could satiate our thirst for Linux.
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Flavours and Variants
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Today I am going to be reviewing Linux Mint 17 with the Cinnamon desktop environment which is the best that Linux Mint has to offer.
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“In the last five to six years I began working with 3D printers and CNC machines. I started to build stuff, such as furniture and gadgets, and my first Raspberry Pi project was the Pi Snap Box. It’s the size of a mini-PC and is a box you put on the wall with one button on it. If you press the button, it takes three photos. It posts the first photo to a Facebook account for whoever the box belongs to. So for example, if you hang it up in a hairdresser’s salon and get your hair done all nicely, people could then see the good results on the hairdresser’s Facebook page.
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The Arbor Linux Shield combines a V-Solution COM running Linux on an Atheros AR9331 with a baseboard that can act as a Linux SBC or as an Arduino shield.
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DIY and gadget fans alike love the Raspberry Pi. Now, they’ll have more to love with the new Raspberry Pi B+.
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Phones
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Tizen, the follow on Operating System (OS) from MeeGo, is aimed at various profiles, not only mobile, just like MeeGo was. With that in mind a User Interface (UI) must be scalable and themeable to support these diverse profiles. Daniel Juyung Seo, who is a software engineer from Samsung, will be presenting at OSCON at 11:30am 23rd July a session entitled “The Art of Tizen UI Theme Technology in Various Profiles”. There will also be a stand at OSCON with demonstrations about the Tizen SDK.
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Ballnux
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New York’s Meatpacking District will soon be the home to a major new Samsung office in the city. Morris Adjmi’s new office block at 837 Washington St. was reportedly the subject of a bidding war between Facebook, Google, Samsung, and Ferrari, but the Korean technology giant won out. The building sits opposite the High Line and just around the corner from startup incubator Betaworks. The 837 Washington building will play “a central role in developing, attracting, and retaining some of the best talent in New York City,” Samsung tells The Wall Street Journal.
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The Tizen Samsung Z (SM-910F) Smartphone did make an appearance at the recent Tizen Developer Summit Russia 2014, and eager Russian developers were able to get their hands on some Tizen Smartphone goodness.
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Android
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Blackphone has finally started shipping to consumers who have pre-ordered the device. For those of you who haven’t already heard the name Blackphone, it is a device born out of the partnership between Geeksphone, a Spanish manufacturer, and Silent Circle, a security company. Blackphone runs a special version of Android dubbed PrivatOS. Its manufacturers claim that it is ideal of IT employees, public figures, executives and anyone who does not want to compromise on their privacy and security. However, in reality, the device is primarily aimed at consumers who may not require high-end security.
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Over the past 24 hours early reports have emerged suggesting CyanogenMod (CM) are working on a rival application to Google Now. The so-called ‘CM Home’ looks very similar to Now adopting what appears to be an assortment of card-based information panels which read various snippets of information such as local weather, time, things-to-do and so on.
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Google announced 1.1 release of LiquidFun, an open-source 2D physics engine including fluid simulation. The engine opens new possibilities to both game developers and UI designers, says Google. LiquidFun now officially supports iOS in addition to Android, Linux, and OS X.
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So what does this mean for the networking world? Open Daylight (run by the Linux Foundation) enables organizations to download an “open source networking platform” to run their networks. This is the Hydrogen release, which comes in basic, virtualization, and service provider editions. I’m sure there have been a lot of downloads to test the software and to play with it in an IT sandbox, but I have not heard of anyone using it in production (but would be happy to talk to anyone who is).
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Events
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Web Browsers
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Do you ever take a step back and look at how central the web is to your life? For some people, it’s an always connected, ever present adjunct to their actual consciousness. Futurists like Ray Kurzweil even predict that we will eventually effectively merge with the web and other technology tools, giving us almost superhuman abilities to instantly access information.
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Chrome
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Android smartphones and tablets are great devices for many tasks, but sometimes you just wish you had a bigger screen to see the videos and other content that you are viewing. Now you can do just that, using Google’s $35 Chromecast dongle, which has just been upgraded to push Android content from your small devices to your television screen.
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Mozilla
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Firefox OS has “unlocked the mobile ecosystem” and is quickly expanding across a broad range of devices and product categories in Europe, Latin America and Asia Pacific, according to a new post from Mozilla. There are those who have questioned whether Firefox OS is finding an enthusiastic audience, but many people questioned Android when it first arrived, too.
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SaaS/Big Data
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The deal could be worth tens of millions of dollars as Oracle digs deeper into the cloud.
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Databases
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PhpMyAdmin, the popular tool written in PHP and intended to handle the administration of MySQL databases, is now at version 4.2.6.
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Low overhead, low maintenance technology for geographically distributed databases supports up to 48 nodes
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Oracle/Java/LibreOffice
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BREAKING NEWS: MICROSOFT RELEASES ITS OFFICE SUITE FOR LINUX
Take a few seconds to consider how you would feel, then maybe be kind enough to hear my view.
So it’s great? Microsoft’s flagship product now available to those who in the past had only LO, Abiword etc to chose from. Now you can run natively on your Linux box that which Windows users have been for years.
Bad idea? Yes completely, here’s why. Let me just add before someone mentions it, yes I know Microsoft produces code for the Kernel. Have I an issue? No, because in that respect it is as part of a team of developers who all have various quality checks and testing – kernel devs don’t mindlessly accept all code and say “cheers mate” as they paste it in with a text editor. The process I’d suggest is more complex and even if Microsoft wanted to (which I’m sure it wouldn’t) there’s little chance of anything “naughty” going on there. So for me, Microsoft contributions are welcomed, if with a little surprise at myself saying that.
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Funding
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PredictionIO has quietly raised $2.5 million in funding to make machine learning accessible to developers. Dubbing itself “the MySQL of prediction,” the company’s Open Source Machine Learning Server is already empowering hundreds of applications and more than 4,000 developers.
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FSF/FSFE/GNU/SFLC
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Released the middle of last month was Google’s Go 1.3 programming language. Updated Go 1.3 code is now landing within the GNU Compiler Collection.
Go 1.3 offers many changes and improvements throughout, Godoc static analysis support, GC supports Native Client execution sandbox on 32-bit/64-bit x86 architectures, and experimental support for new operating systems. Those unfamiliar with last month’s release of Go 1.3 can read more via the release notes. There’s also other commentary about the Go 1.3 language update via the Go Blog.
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Public Services/Government
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The Kerala Legislative Assembly (Niyamsabha) has shifted to free and open software, following the expiry of support period to Windows XP.
It has also started producing all its documentation, both digital and printed materials, using the free and open source office suite LibreOffice from yesterday (July 17, 2014).
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Licensing
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We’ve been watching with great interest this week as the travails of FOSS organizations with the US Internal Revenue Service have become a hot topic. When our client, Jim Nelson of Yorba, discussed blogging about the IRS rejection of Yorba’s application for 501c3 status with us, we hoped but did not expect that the situation, to which we had discreetly called community and company attention for years, would finally receive some. We’re very glad that’s now happening. Unfortunately, it’s really too late. Because of the long delays in determination imposed by the IRS in its increasingly anti-FOSS positioning, neither the full consequences of the IRS’s present position nor the state of our legal technology in response can be seen from the materials currently under discussion.
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Openness/Sharing
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New Jersey’s WFMU.FM is a legendary freeform non-commercial radio station that embodies community from its supportive listeners to its wide-ranging programming. WFMU recently embarked on a new community adventure with their decision to develop an open source version of their currently proprietary CMS (content management system). The new CMS is called Audience Engine and its designed not only to manage content and build community, but to support fundraising.
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Open Data
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Standards/Consortia
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Health/Nutrition
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Why should law enforcement agencies do their own footwork when they can simply threaten others into doing it for them? Specifically, why should the United States government trouble itself with enforcing its silly rules against you and I purchasing our medicine over the Internet when it can hold package delivery services liable for delivering our orders from point A to point B. It’s deputization, the hard way, and cargo delivery giant FedEx is on the receiving end as Uncle Sam looks to conscript assistance for its prohibition efforts.
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Security
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Defence/Police/Secrecy/Aggression
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Some Russian officials blame the United States for everything. Earlier this year Vladimir Putin, stung by online criticism of his policies, said the whole internet was an ongoing CIA project. His underlings see US money behind any criticism they face from Russian non-government organisations, and as the driver behind revolutions that reduced their influence in Ukraine and Georgia.
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When a New York Times article cast doubt on the accusation Usama bin Laden had a hand in the 1998 bombings of African embassies, President Clinton questioned his own CIA, according to a note he scrawled to his national security adviser.
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President Bill Clinton’s advisers carefully considered how to explain the president’s military action against Iraq in 1998 as the House was debating his impeachment, according to records from the Clinton White House that were released Friday.
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The latest batch shows Clinton asked his national security aides whether the CIA overstated bin Laden’s role in the August 1998 bombing of the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. Clinton made the query after reading a The New York Times story.
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Fifteen militants were killed early Saturday morning when an American drone struck a compound in the Pakistani tribal region of North Waziristan, according to local residents and a security official. It was the fourth known drone strike in the region since Pakistan launched a military operation there last month.
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This is the second major US drone strike in three days, after a Wednesday strike killed 20 people, mostly ethnic Uzbeks, who Pakistan claimed were likely members of the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan.
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According to sources, the attack took place at around 3 a.m. when an unmanned aircraft targeted a compound with eight missiles in Dattakhel area of the tribal region, killing all the 11people inside.
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A United States citizen was briefly arrested at Islamabad airport on Friday for attempting to board a plane carrying ammunition, Pakistan officials said, in the second such case since May.
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A US Army major was stopped from boarding a flight on the charge of having a magazine loaded with 15 bullets at Benazir Bhutto Islamabad International Airport (BBIIAP) on Friday.
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The United States has begun building a case linking pro-Russian separatists to the shocking downing of the Malaysia Airlines jet in Ukraine.
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Use of surface-to-air missiles by extra-military personnel to shoot down civilian aircraft may be an emerging threat to the United States, a terrorism expert said.
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CIA and U.S. Special Forces helping train Somali army
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But that was before information was everywhere and people couldn’t just tap a phone and get the real dope. Really? Then get this: today, the percentage of Americans who believe in a deep JFK assassination conspiracy is not lower, but higher, at 62%.
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Japan is becoming similarly frustrated with the U.S. It is rearming like crazy to confront an aggressive China. Both Asian powers apparently assume that Obama won’t guarantee the security of the Japanese as America had in the past.
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Five years after the Soviets shot down Korean Air Flight 007, the US Navy created an international incident of its own. On July 3, 1988, the USS Vincennes destroyed an Iranian Airbus A300 that was on its way from Bandar Abbas to Dubai. Nearly 300 people — most of whom were Iranian and on their way to Mecca — were killed in the crash, including 66 children.
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As usual, the mainstream U.S. media is rushing to judgment over the crash of a Malaysian airliner in war-torn eastern Ukraine, but the history of U.S. government’s deceptions might be reason to pause and let a careful investigation uncover the facts, says ex-CIA analyst Ray McGovern.
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President Barack Obama delivered an unmistakable warning to Russia and Moscow-backed Ukrainian separatists on Thursday not to tamper with the crash site of a Malaysia Airlines passenger jet apparently shot down over rebel-controlled territory.
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Gazans have been building tunnels to the Sinai desert for years for smuggling. In this war, they dug out new tunnels to send fighters into Israel. That’s what the Israelis are trying to destroy.
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Hamas seized control of Gaza seven years ago. Its reign has been disastrous. Unemployment and poverty are around 40 percent. The government is bankrupt. Israel’s control of Gaza’s borders has played a huge role in that. But Hamas has done everything possible to tighten Israel’s grip and delegitimize Palestinian resistance.
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Nine members of a single family, including four children, were buried in the northern Gaza Strip on Saturday, killed by an Israeli artillery shell that hit their home Friday night, as artillery and small arms fire echoed nearby from clashes between Hamas militants and Israeli forces, reports The New York Times.
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“Evacuate,” said the voice at the other end the line. It was 8.50pm, just over 90 minutes before Israel would confirm it had launched a ground operation in the Gaza Strip. The hospital was at risk.
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The Israeli military destroys el-Wafa hospital in the Gaza Strip, Foreign Affairs Correspondent Jonathan Miller hears, as he witnesses another strike on a 4-storey block elsewhere in Gaza.
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Yet many Western governments, with Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott joining in, are exploiting this tragedy and using it to escalate rhetoric and tensions with Russia, raising the prospect of the war expanding.
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Finance
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Latin America’s ties with China are far more recent than those with Russia. They are also much more important (see chart). Chinese trade with the region has grown more than 20-fold in this century; China has become a big investor and lender. There are some tensions. Brazil frets that China imports only raw materials while undercutting its often-uncompetitive manufacturers in third markets. Chinese mining and oil firms are slowly adapting to social and environmental concerns.
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“This is good news for Lithuania, Baltic states and the stability of Europe,” said parliamentary rapporteur Werner Langen [official profile] who praised Lithuania’s improving economy which meets all criteria for euro eligibility. Lithuania joins fellow Baltic States Latvia (2014) and Estonia (2011) in adopting the euro.
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PR/AstroTurf/Lobbying
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Censorship
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Buzzing through the social media sphere yesterday was the story about how a proposed new bill would see potential whistleblowers facing up to 10 years in prison for leaks.
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It’s not clear why NBC’s talented foreign correspondent Ayman Mohyeldin, who witnessed the killing of four Palestinian cousins in Gaza on Wednesday, was removed from his post later that day, then reinstated tonight.
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NBC is facing questions over its decision to pull veteran news correspondent Ayman Mohyeldin out of Gaza just after he personally witnessed the Israeli military’s killing of four Palestinian boys on a Gaza beach. Mohyeldin was kicking a soccer ball around with the boys just minutes before they died. He is a longtime reporter in the region. In his coverage, he reports on the Gaza conflict in the context of the Israeli occupation, sparking criticism from some supporters of the Israeli offensive. Back in 2008 and 2009, when he worked for Al Jazeera, Mohyeldin and his colleague Sherine Tadros were the only foreign journalists on the ground in Gaza as Israel killed 1,400 people in what it called “Operation Cast Lead.” We speak to Glenn Greenwald of The Intercept, who has revealed that the decision to pull Mohyeldin from Gaza and remove him from reporting on the situation came from NBC executive David Verdi. Greenwald also comments on the broader picture of the coverage of the Israel/Palestine conflict in the U.S. media.
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Privacy
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Recently we’ve seen a number of disturbing stories come to light that underline just how important this campaign is. It can sometimes be difficult for everyday Canadians to see privacy as an issue that impacts their everyday lives — when in fact the human consequences of privacy breaches can be immense.
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Eighty-three percent of Americans believe police should obtain a warrant before searching the contents of a suspect’s cell phone, according to the results of a recent survey.
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It seems then that latest ‘emergency’ national security legislation, the Data Retention and Investigatory Powers or DRIP (If people are actually spending time putting these acronyms together they should probably stop now…), lives up to and exceeds its namesake. Yes it’s annoying, and like the slow passage of water erodes what it is passing through. With DRIP it is both trust and our liberties.
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Measures to significantly reform the National Security Agency have the support of Ohio’s senators.
Both Sens. Sherrod Brown (D) and Rob Portman (R) said they favor reform of the spy agency, which has been criticized for collecting information on millions of Americans.
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The Senate Appropriations Committee passed a defense spending bill Thursday that would cut defense IT funding by a half-billion dollars and reduce President Obama’s military budget requests by $1.4 billion overall.
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America’s brand is especially important, especially now. And yet it’s taken a self-inflicted hit in at least two key areas — surveillance and drones — according to a new Pew Research Center report released this week.
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EFF has filed the final brief in its dispute with the government over evidence preservation in Jewel v. NSA, one of our ongoing lawsuits against mass surveillance. As the brief explains, the government has admitted to destroying years of evidence of its mass spying, and this destruction continues today. In fact, at an emergency hearing in June, the government claimed that it was incapable of complying with a court order to preserve evidence relating to the mass interception of Internet communications it is conducting under Section 702 of the FISA Amendments Act.
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Why stop at spying and the NSA? This particular sentence fits just about any situation. Any question will do. For instance, why does the United States spend more on “defense” than the rest of the world combined? Answer: See above.
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The question of whether the oversight of the federal government’s surveillance activities is effective came to a head on Capitol Hill on Friday as former National Security Agency general counsel Stewart Baker and representatives of technology industry and civil liberties interests butted heads.
Read more: http://www.nationallawjournal.com/legaltimes/id=1202663815775/Debating-the-Efficacy-of-NSA-Surveillance-Oversight#ixzz37v3f4wEE
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In his latest interview with the Guardian, Edward Snowden says that professionals with obligations of confidentiality, such as doctors, lawyers, accountants and journalists, should take the extra step to keep their communications safe.
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Apple’s new futuristic $5 billion headquarters, now under construction in Cupertino, California, bears a serious resemblance to the headquarters of Britain’s top spy agency, GCHQ.
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In a lengthy interview with the Guardian, NSA whistle blower Edward Snowden spoke with editor Alan Rusbridger about his extraordinary rise to infamy. Currently in exile in Russia, he talked about how he disseminated documents about the activities of the NSA to numerous countries: “Once you start splitting them over jurisdictions and things like that it becomes much more difficult to subvert their intentions. Nobody could stop it”. He remains defiant. He may be an outlaw but “it’s been vindicating to see the reaction from lawmakers, judges, public bodies around the world, civil liberties activists who have said it’s true that we have a right to at least know the broad outlines of what our government’s doing in our name and what it’s doing against us”.
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Speaking in a video interview with Guardian editor Alan Rusbridger, Snowden said that while Google can’t “task a drone to drop a bomb on your house”, some form of protection should be in place for those who interact with the company.
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But the U.S. also needs to learn a larger lesson: Alliances, even long-standing ones, need careful tending. They can’t be taken for granted.
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He doesn’t drink, he’s reading Dostoevsky and, no, he doesn’t wear a disguise. A year after blowing the whistle on the NSA, America’s most wanted talks frankly about his life as a hero-pariah – and why the world remains ‘more dangerous than Orwell imagined’.
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Dropbox is a very popular cloud storage service, but NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden is no fan. In a recent interview with The Guardian, Snowden called Dropbox a “targeted, wannabe PRISM partner” that is “very hostile to privacy.”
Snowden also isn’t happy about Dropbox’s decision in April to add former U.S. Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice to its Board of Directors. Snowden called Rice “probably the most anti-privacy official you can imagine.”
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The justice system would never allow Snowden to present a real defense at trial. That’s just one reason to give him amnesty
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An 85-year-old photographer in California is claiming in a lawsuit against the Obama Administration that he was falsely targeted by the FBI after taking pictures of the Rainbow Swash, a piece of artwork on a 140-foot tall storage tank in Boston. To the average person, the idea that the FBI or any federal agency would so carelessly classify people as exhibiting ‘suspicious behavior’ is probably pretty crazy. But to anyone who knows the history of the Suspicious Activity Reporting program, it’s just another example of the Orwellian nature of United States counter-terrorism efforts.
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According to newly revealed documents, British spy agency GCHQ is manipulating online discussions, infiltrating the computers of specific targets, purposely destroying reputations, altering the results of online polls, and using Twitter, Facebook and YouTube for propaganda and espionage purposes. If people don’t start getting outraged about this now, the governments of the western world are going to see it as a green light to do even more. Eventually, it might get so bad that we won’t be able to trust much of anything that we see on the Internet.
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Russian media outlets reported this week that education officials had asked teachers in the central region of Kirov to avoid using Gmail or any foreign-based cloud service at school. They also told students not to use foreign search engines on school computers.
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Civil Rights
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As tens of thousands of children cross the U.S. border fleeing violence in their native Central American home countries, we look at the historical roots of the crisis. The United States has a long and sadly bloody history of destabilizing democratic governments in Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador — the very countries that are now the sources of this latest migration wave. This week saw the first planeload of children deported to Honduras since President Obama vowed to speed up the removal of more than 57,000 youth who have fled to the United States from Central America in recent months. The group of 38 deportees included 21 children between the ages of 18 months and 15 years, along with 17 female family members. White House spokesman Josh Earnest said the experience of Cordova and others should demonstrate to Central Americans that “they will not be welcomed to this country with open arms.”
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No one’s immune from careless document handling, not when a government’s in charge! The ongoing war of words over the Internal Revenue Service’s lackluster data retention continues, with the agency claiming emails relevant to a House investigation all simply vanished during a series of coincidental computer crashes. That these should have been backed up to hard copy (as IRS policy dictates) and backed up further by servers elsewhere has been the topic of conversation for a few weeks now, but all the posturing in the world isn’t going to bring these emails back.
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The Foreign Office was accused of a cover-up after ministers admitted there were ”limited records” of flights landing and taking off on Diego Garcia in 2002, adding they understood they were ”incomplete due to water damage”.
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ZunZuneo’s organizers wanted the social network to grow slowly to avoid detection by the Cuban government. They hoped the network would reach critical mass so that dissidents could organize “smart mobs” — mass gatherings called at a moment’s notice — that could trigger political demonstrations, or “renegotiate the balance of power between the state and society.” At its peak, ZunZuneo drew in more than 68,000 Cubans, according to USAID, before it mysteriously disappeared in 2012.
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Eric Garner, 43, had just broken up a fight in the borough’s Tompkinsville neighborhood when he was approached by several police officers, said two witnesses in telephone interviews with The Times. Police said the officers approached Garner on Thursday afternoon to question him about the possible sale of illegal cigarettes.
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The military can arrest and detain American citizens. In refusing to hear Hedges v. Obama (2014), a legal challenge to the indefinite detention provision of the National Defense Authorization Act of 2012 (NDAA), the Supreme Court affirmed that the president and the U.S. military can arrest and indefinitely detain individuals, including American citizens.
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Send this to a friend
07.18.14
Posted in News Roundup at 8:21 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Contents
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Spencer Hunley is an autistic professional, former Vice Chair of the Kansas City Mayor’s Committee for People with Disabilities, and current board member of the Autism Society of the Heartland & ASAN’s Kansas City chapter. In August, Spencer will be giving a talk, Universal Tux: Accessibility For Our Future Selves, at LinuxCon in Chicago. He also gave a talk, Maximizing Accessibility: Engaging People with Disabilities In The Linux Community, at LinuxCon North America 2013.
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Desktop
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Microsoft knows this, which is why it has misguidedly destroyed its consumer desktop and replaced it with the hideous Windows 8. Linux users with Gnome 3 could have told them that the remaining desktop users don’t want a dumbed down desktop experience. But while Microsoft indignantly fixes its desktop at glacial speed, now has become an ideal time to woo weary Windows escapees.
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Not that this saving happened over night. The city first began to seek an open-source antidote to its Microsoft dependence in 2003. With some 1.5 million citizens, thousands of employees, and tens of thousands of government workstations to consider, its initial shopping list was suitably strict, spanning everything from avoiding vendor lock-in and receiving regular hardware support updates to having access to a wide array of free applications.
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Server
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When was the last time you compiled a kernel? For many of the latest generation of Linux admins, the answer is really simple: never. I am one of those, provided we don’t count a few times I tried it just for fun, then couldn’t see why I would need a custom kernel and went back to my out-of-the-box kernel.
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Audiocasts/Shows
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Kernel Space
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Experience with Linux is an important thing – a track record of tinkering and involvement in the open source world. Working in drivers, embedded Linux, etc. At this point companies are desperate for Linux talent. The most important thing to show is you’ve gotten hands-on with bits of the kernel, whichever ones are interesting to you personally. Time spent as a site reliability engineer or working in a DevOps environment is particularly attractive to employers these days, as are well rounded sys admin skills. Even if you just run Linux as your primary operating system and know how to tinker with your machine, you’re ahead of many candidates.
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Have you ever wondered what the workspace of the world’s most famous developer looks like? Well wonder no more. Linux creator Linus Torvalds invites you into his home office in this first-ever, personal tour of his workspace. It also includes behind the scenes laughs and footage, as well as a closer look at what he keeps on his desk and what he does between kernel releases. He also demonstrates how he uses his “zombie shuffling desk” (his walking desk) while working on the world’s most ubiquitous software.
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Linus Torvalds keeps a pretty low profile in the Portland area, but the creator of the open source Linux computer operating system retains a very high profile in the world of computing.
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There is so much news today I’m not sure which to highlight first. Linux.com has a look at Linus Torvalds’ home office and a new paper describes fresh malware “Mayhem.” X.Org Server 1.16 and GCC 4.9.1 have been released and the Plasma 5.1 development cycle has been officially kicked off. All this and some openSUSE, Ubuntu and Fedora tidbits here in tonight’s Linux news.
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Graphics Stack
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Nouveau’s NVC0 Gallium3D driver for supporting NVIDIA “Fermi” hardware and newer has picked up support for indirect drawing.
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Luc’s latest blog post points out several interesting responses by Jem Davies of ARM MPD, responsible for the Mali T-Series graphics hardware, and the recent Q&A he did with AnAndTech. In response to asking about open-source drivers, Davies commented, “I really do understand your frustration and I’m sorry that this makes life harder for you and similar developers. We are genuinely not against Open Source, as I hope I’ve tried to explain. I myself spent a long time working on the Linux kernel in the past and I wish I could give you a simple answer. Unfortunately, it is a genuinely complex problem, with a lot of trade-offs and judgements to be made as well as economic and legal issues. Ultimately I cannot easily reduce this to an answer here, and probably not to one that will satisfy you. Rest assured that you are not being ignored. However, as a relatively small company with a business model that is Partner driven, the resources that we have, need to be applied to projects in ways that meet Partner requirements.”
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The X.Org Server 1.16 release has almost 35,000 lines of new/changed code, per Keith’s notes. X.Org Server 1.16 is one of the more exciting releases in recent times and represents about six months of development work. X.Org Server 1.17 is now on the table for late this year or early 2015. X.Org Server 1.16 is codenamed Marionberry Pie.
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Only hours after the release of X.Org Server 1.16, pull requests are already coming in for the X.Org Server 1.17 development code.
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Benchmarks
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Here’s our first benchmarks of the Intel Pentium G3258 using Ubuntu Linux.
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Applications
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Calibre is mostly used as an eBook converter and reader, but the developer added the option to edit books just a few months ago. Since then, numerous changes and improvements have been made to this particular feature and it looks like there is a lot of work left to do.
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For those not familiar with Pushbullet, this is a service that lets you easily send files, links, notes, lists, etc. from your iOS or Android device to your desktop or the other way around. It can be used via Chrome / Firefox extensions and for Windows there’s also a desktop app. Because there was no native Linux app, Lorenzo from Atareao.es created an Ubuntu AppIndicator (and a Nautilus extension as a companion for the AppIndicator) to easily use Pushbullet in Ubuntu.
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Git 2.0.2, a free and open source distributed version control system designed to handle everything from small to very large projects with speed and efficiency, has been officially released.
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Proprietary
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Dropbox is a very popular Cloud storage services, but is it good for the privacy-conscious?
According to Edward Snowden, it’s not.
In an interviewed published on GuardianNews, Snowden described Dropbox as “hostile to privacy.”
So what are the better alternatives. Snowden recommended Cloud storage services with zero-knowledge as a key feature.
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Users with multiple machines no longer need to install the FastX client on each machine or pay for more than one copy of the software. After installing FastX onto the USB drive, the product will run from the memory stick. With a few clicks, users are logged into their remote Linux server and either start a new remote Linux desktop session or resume one they launched earlier from another PC.
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Instructionals/Technical
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Games
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OpenMW 0.31 implements a large number of game features from saving fog of war state to implementing murder crime to follower fast travel. When it comes to bug fixes, there’s over 135 reported bug-fixes.
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The Beta version of SteamOS, a Debian-based distribution developed by Valve to be used in its hybrid PC / console, has been updated yet again and a number of packages have been added and upgraded.
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We recently ran an article wondering what happened to Torchlight Linux, as it seemed to be forgotten about, so be sure to read up on it.
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Desktop Environments/WMs
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The first alpha of a new modular Qt5 desktop environment called ‘Moonlight‘ has been made available for testing.
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K Desktop Environment/KDE SC/Qt
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The KDE Project developers have released the third maintenance version for Applications, Platform and Plasma Workspaces, bringing some new, much needed fixes.
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With the KDE 4.0 release we had the issue that everything was one big blob: the libraries, the desktop and the applications, all inter-dependent.
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So, as of tonight, all but three tier 1 modules from kf5 are built in meta-kf5. The ones remaining are KApiDox, which does not really apply, and KConfig and Sonnet, which both needs to be part built for the native host environment, and part cross compiled. So, any Yocto hackers out there, please have a look at the issues linked to from the meta-kf5 status page.
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I’ve just merged the dev branch to the master, and soon you will see the new features inside digiKam 4.2.0
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We had a fun two hour meeting in #plasma yesterday to decide on the tasks for the next release. It’s due out in October and there’s plenty of missing features that need to be added before Plasma 5 is ready for the non-geek.
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This week we finally released Plasma 5.0 including KWin 5.0 and also a new design called “Breeze”. While Breeze provides a window decoration, KWin still defaults to Oxygen and that’s for a good reason. As I had been asked quite often why that’s the case and on the other side got lots of feedback from disappointed users using the Breeze decoration I think it’s needed to explain in a blog post the technical background.
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Linux distributions tend to use two different types of release cycles: standard releases and rolling releases. Some people swear by rolling releases to have the latest software, while others like standard releases for being more stable and tested.
This isn’t an option you change in your current Linux distribution — instead, it’s a choice the Linux distribution itself makes. Some distributions release regular standard releases and use a rolling release cycle for their unstable development release.
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New Releases
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SparkyLinux 3.4.1 LXDE, e18, Razor-Qt, MATE, Xfce, Base (Openbox) and GameOver x86_64 is ready to go.
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Clonezilla Live, a Linux distribution based on DRBL, Partclone, and udpcast that allows users to do bare metal backup and recovery, is now at version 2.2.3-28 and is ready for testing.
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Robolinux is best known for a feature called Stealth VM Software that allows uses to create a clone of a Windows operating system, with all the installed programs and updates. This would allow potential users to switch to a Linux environment and continue to use their favorite Windows-only applications, although there is a performance penalty.
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Screenshots
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Arch Family
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Users can install the under-development version of KDE Frameworks 5 side by side with KDE 4 from the Beta 2 stage. To make this possible the packages are installed under /usr instead of /opt/kf5 as it used to be on the Arch User Repository (AUR) previously. Till date the only exception was the kactivities component because both KDE Frameworks and KDE 4 ship a kactivitymanagerd binary. To make them co-install now both the packages from KDE4 and KDE Frameworks install a kactivities virtual package on the same system under the /usr directory. The packages are grouped into two parts: kf5 and kf5-aids (PortingAids).
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The Netbook Edition uses a lightened and customised Xfce environment. Screen real estate is optimised with the use of a single vertical panel that includes DockBarX (via a plug-in) and through a modified version of Xfwm4 (Xfce’s window manager), based on xfwm4-titleless-dev, further patched for default-maximized support.
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Slackware Family
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It was on this day in 1993 that Patrick Volkerding announced the Slackware 1.00 release that was inspired by the Softlanding Linux System.
Slackware remains kicking after 21 years of guidance by its leader Patrick Volkerding. The most recent release of Slackware is version 14.1 that took place late last year with the Linux 3.10 kernel — a long way from the initial Slackware 1.00 release that used the pre-1.0 Linux kernel (0.99.11).
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Slackware had just turned five when I first discovered it and, by extension, Linux. It was the first Linux distribution that I’d ever used and it was a wonderful platform to learn on. Made even better by the fact that Patrick was quick to respond to emails asking for support, and provided gentle guidance to updating XFree86 so that I could actually use X on my blazing fast Pentium 133MHz machine with eight whopping megabytes of RAM.
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Red Hat Family
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Only months after acquiring Inktank, Ceph’s parent company, Red Hat has released the next version of this open source, distributed storage system.
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Red Hat has released Inktank Ceph Storage 1.2, which brings new performance and management features to the open source distributed storage system for the cloud.
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Fedora
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In aiming towards an on-time release of Fedora 21, developers have spun the first test candidate for the upcoming development release.
Per the official release schedule, Fedora 21 is expected to see its alpha release on 5 August while next week (22 July) is the software string freeze and the alpha change deadline. Following that alpha release is a planned Fedora 21 Beta on 9 September, final change deadline on 30 September, and hopes to ship Fedora 21 final on 14 October.
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Debian Family
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While Spotify was a major Debian user with running their thousands of back-end servers on the major Linux distribution, including being vocal about systemd on Debian, they have decided to switch over to Ubuntu.
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Derivatives
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The ISO images for the Cinnamon and MATE editions of Linux Mint 17 “Qiana” were updated and labelled “v2″. All the links were updated on the website and in the announcements to point to the new ISOs.
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Canonical/Ubuntu
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Ubuntu 13.10 (Saucy Salamander) reached end of life today. That means that if you use Ubuntu 13.10, you should upgrade to Ubuntu 14.04 LTS (Long Term Support). That’s because after July 17, 2014, “Ubuntu Security Notices will no longer include information or updated packages for Ubuntu 13.10″.
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Ubuntu 13.10 (Saucy Salamander) has reached the end of its nine-month journey and the distribution has now entered EOL (end of life).
Nothing is going to happen to you in the immediate future if you are using Ubuntu 13.10. EOL means that Ubuntu developers will no longer release security updates for the distribution, which also indicates that the OS will become increasingly insecure as time goes by. You will still be able to use it, but it won’t be as safe as possible.
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An MIT spinoff has launched an Indiegogo campaign for a $499, Linux-based “Jibo” robot billed as a social, self-learning companion for families.
Like SoftBank’s Aldeberan-built Pepper, the Jibo bot runs on Linux and is designed to communicate and interact with people in a social, human-like manner. While the $1,930 Pepper is dubbed an “emotional” robot, Jibo is referred to as a “social” robot, and sells for a modest $499, via its $100,000 Indiegogo campaign. The device is expected to ship to funders Dec. 2015, followed by a commercial launch in 2016.
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The OpenWRT project has released version 14.07 RC1 of its lightweight router and IoT oriented Linux distribution, adding IPv6 support and faster startup.
OpenWRT 14.07 (“Barrier Breaker”) was issued as a first release candidate (RC1), bringing full IPv6 support to the small-footprint GNU/Linux distribution. The router-oriented distro has become a favorite for home automation gizmos and other, frequently MIPS-based, Internet of Things (IoT) boards and devices, such as the Arduino Yún (pictured below-right).
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Mentor Graphics has released a heterogeneous multicore development platform for combining Linux, Nucleus, and bare metal OSes on a single multicore SoC.
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NI has introduced an embedded system development board which comes with Linux-based real-time operating system (RTOS) already integrated.
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Phones
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“While smartphone growth is beginning to fall, plenty of growth remains, with smartphone penetration of mobile subscribers under 30% worldwide,” commented Nick Spencer, senior practice director, ABI Research. “Most advanced and affluent markets already have 60%+ penetration, so the growth is driven by developing markets and the reduction in smartphone ASPs.”
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ABI Research says the 60% penetration of smartphones in the developed markets could be possible in the developing markets thanks to lowering prices… Wow! Just Wow! This makes “the PC revolution” seem like a rummage sale. Soon, more smartphones will ship per annum than legacy PCs extant.
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Remember back way back when, when there were several new OS platfoms coming and I said I thought Tizen was strongest bet? Well its been down hill ever since.
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Android
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MICROSOFT HAS ANNOUNCED that Nokia’s Android-powered X handset lineup is no more, with the firm instead planning to deliver the devices with its own Windows Phone mobile operating system.
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Nowadays, there’s only one reason why anyone could possibly want to venture into one of Britain’s God-awful town centres on a Friday or Saturday night: to watch the inevitable catfights that break out after Kylie and Traycee have had a few Jagermeisters too many.
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Via’s “Viega” is an IP65-ruggedized, 10.1-inch tablet that runs Android 4.2 on a Via dual-core SoC, providing 9-hour battery life and optional 3G and GPS.
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The default phone will only have support for wifi and will be available in three sizes: small, medium and large. If you want to have the features of a normal phone, you will need to buy different modules for connectivity, camera, touchscreen and others. The modules will be attached via magnets, to be easy to replace modules, without having to restart the phone.
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I currently count four calculator apps for Google’s wearable platform, and they’re all useless. You need pinpoint touch precision to enter each number, and none of the apps include a backspace key for when you inevitably mistype something. Using a calculator app on your phone would be faster and less frustrating.
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RFinder Android is already released with this capability; iPhone is waiting for Apple’s approval.
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It’s not easy to wade through the Google Play store to find open source apps, so we put together a quick guide to some nifty productivity, Internet, and game apps. Some are free, some cost a few bucks, and it’s always a good practice to slip a few dollars into the tip jars, because nothing says “thank you” better than cash money.
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Instead of Apple’s proprietary iOS software, the Wico clone reportedly runs a custom version of Android KitKat. Without Android, manufacturers couldn’t create a clone that worked well enough to be a threat, said tech analyst Rob Enderle. “Google remains the biggest threat Apple will ever face.” Owning an iPhone or iPad is a mark of prestige among Chinese citizens, but few can afford them.
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For those of you unfamiliar with Roboto, it is a typeface and part of the sans-serif typeface family. Roboto was original introduced by Google along with the release of Ice Cream Sandwich (ICS) operating system and has remained since. Roboto became free to download back in January 2012 from the Android Design website.
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Chinese Smartphone company Xiaomi is launching three devices in the India, fuelling the already hyper competitive budget smartphone market in the country. The first phone to launch is the Mi3 which is priced at Rs. 13,999, followed by Redmi Note at Rs. 9,999 and Redmi 1S at Rs. 6,999.
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Yesterday Google announced the launch of a new training tool Android Fundamentals on the Google developer’s blog. The course is aimed at assisting experienced programmers to switch over to Android by familiarising themselves with the Android SDK and Android Studio. This is unfortunately not for those completely new to programming but instead those who do possess some programming knowledge.
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Some Android applications will drain your smartphone or tablet of battery life, storage or bandwidth like a blood-sucking fiend. Here’s what’s what with the worst of the worst.
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Open Source Storage has a bit of a struggle on its hands. Despite having existed (kind of) for well over 10 years, the storage company is relatively unknown compared to incumbent players (NetApp and EMC for example) and newer storage industry disruptors (Inktank and StorSimple for example) alike. The company has had something of an on-again, off-again life as the GFC caused its early investors to back out and the company waited until this year to relaunch.
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Adobe and Google have teamed up to develop a new open source font that supports seven different languages.
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For users of libbluray for limited open-source Blu-Ray disc support, there’s some updates worth fetching.
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Events
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The LLVM Foundation has announced the annual LLVM Developers’ Meeting that occurs every year in Q3~Q4 in California.
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Web Browsers
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Earlier this year we wrote about Apple working on an LLVM-based JIT compiler for WebKit. This new JIT engine, called “Fourth Tier LLVM” (FTL), is enabled within the latest open-source code for this browser rendering engine and is faster than WebKit’s earlier JavaScript implementations.
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While you are reading this, the chances are you are using Chrome, Firefox, Safari, Opera or Internet Explorer (IE). That is because these tend to be the only choices on offer. Although each of the big browsers will try to convince you that you have a choice. The simple truth is you do not. You are confined to using these five main choices which generally-speaking are increasingly converging and becoming more alike with each update. That is until now!
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Chrome
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Google is out with a new version of its Chrome web browser, providing users with new features and security fixes for over two dozen vulnerabilities.
Among the user facing improvements in Chrome 36 is a new look for the Incognito mode. Chrome has had an incongito mode since Google first debuted the browser back in 2008. Incognito mode, which is sometime referred to as ‘Porn Mode’, enables a user to view websites without having those websites or cookies stored in the browser’s history.
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Having to keep track of your daily eating habits is quite a task. Oh, and there is those tedious workouts that you have to do. Being healthy is such a bore, isn’t it? Don’t worry, even the healthiest of people hate getting out of bed and going to the gym. Yep, that’s true. Fitness isn’t a pleasant experience, it’s hard work and yes, hard work for some people is boring.
As prolonged tech junkies, we are used to having shortcuts or little apps here and there that help us cut our job in half, in other words, keep us lazy. We have apps for self-diagnosing, for reserving our table at a restaurant, and even ordering the menu. Just press a button and your job is done.
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People who read my tweets and articles will know that I love my Chromebook. I’ve been very productive with it and I believe I am over the two month mark of having used it exclusively. Is it possible to live your online work/life with a Chromebook.
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Mozilla
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Rust, the programming language born at Mozilla for developing a “safe, concurrent, practical language” continues to evolve and experience greater adoption. Rust certainly seems to have a good future ahead of it as shared by the latest status update on the project, but a few more release cycles are needed at least before the Rust developers look toward version 1.0.
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Over the past 6 months since the last one of these updates was written, Rust has evolved significantly: the standard library was refactored to make Rust more convenient to use in embedded or bare-metal platforms, the language has been greatly simplified (moving most pointer types into libraries) and the package ecosystem has been thriving under a new package manager.
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Firefox OS has unlocked the mobile ecosystem and is quickly expanding across a broad range of devices and product categories in Europe, Latin America and Asia Pacific. Just one year after the first devices were launched, Firefox OS is now available on seven smartphones offered by five major operators in 15 countries, showing strong signs of ecosystem momentum and widespread industry adoption.
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Mozilla’s Firefox OS continues its slow march across the globe, with carriers set to begin shipping devices running the open source, browser-based smartphone platform in additional developed markets this week.
Spanish telecoms giant Telefónica has previously sold Firefox OS phones in Spain, but the bulk of its efforts have been focused on its subsidiaries in Spanish-speaking emerging markets, including Colombia, Mexico, Peru, Uruguay, and Venezuela.
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SaaS/Big Data
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What’s in a name? Quite a bit, actually. To ensure compatibility between products sharing the same name, it’s important that users can expect a core set of features to be consistent across different distributions. This is especially true with large projects like OpenStack which are made up of many interlocking components.
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Dell’s also done much to build confidence in OpenStack for enterprise cloud by teaming up with open-source software company Red Hat to resell its new private cloud deployments.
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Mirantis, which has been expanding its bets on the OpenStack cloud computing platform throughout 2014, is also deepening its bets on the enteprise. The company, which is already a member of Oracle PartnerNetwork (OPN), has announced that Oracle Linux and Oracle VM have been integrated Mirantis’ own OpenStack distribution, which will keep Mirantis and Oracle serving and supporting joint customers.
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Oracle/Java/LibreOffice
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LibreOffice from Collabora is the enterprise-ready build of the widely used Open Source office suite. The newly announced LibreOffice-from-Collabora 4.2 provides an enterprise-hardened build which can be maintained by patch updates for many years.
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CMS
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To keep students’ academic plans on track, the University of Washington developed open source software that integrates previously siloed administrative functions such as degree audit and articulation, student lifecycle and recruitment, registration and advising.
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WordPress 4.0 Beta 1 was released a couple of days ago and the list of changes is rather impressive.
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Funding
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The Yorba Foundation, a non-profit group that produces open source Linux desktop software, reported last week that it was denied tax-exempt 501(c)(3) status by the IRS. The group had waited nearly five years for a decision. The IRS stated that, because the software Yorba develops can be used commercially, the organization has a substantial non-exempt purpose and is disqualified from tax-exempt status. We think the IRS’ decision rests on a fundamental misunderstanding of open source software.
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PredictionIO, a startup that has crafted an open-source program to let developers add machine-learning smarts to their applications, might just be setting the tone for the next wave in data technology.
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BSD
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The GhostBSD team is pleased to announce the availability the third BETA build of the 4.0-RELEASE release cycle is available on SourceForge for the amd64 and i386 architectures. This is expected to be the final BETA build of the 4.0-RELEASE cycle.
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The final version of FreeBSD 9.3, an operating system for x86, ARM, IA-64, PowerPC, PC-98, and UltraSPARC architectures, has been released and is now available for download.
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As expected, FreeBSD 9.3 made it out on schedule today with this new release carrying a few new features, numerous updated packages, and other improvements for those not yet riding FreeBSD 10.
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FSF/FSFE/GNU/SFLC
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Jakub Jelinek of Red Hat announced this morning the GCC 4.9.1 release that has many bug-fixes and other minor improvements to GNU Compiler Collection 4.9 that was released in April with many improvements and features. More than 88 regressions and serious bugs were fixed in GCC 4.9.1 while a new feature now supported is OpenMP 4.0 support for Fortran, to complement the GCC 4.9.0 OMP 4.0 support for the C and C++ languages.
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The first thing I notice is a different terminology. An executable is called system and a set of classes is refereed as universe. The classes can be grouped in clusters into the universe. And the routines (operations) of a class, and its attributes, are called features. The routines are divided in functions or queries (which return a value) and procedures (which do not return a value). As opposed to C language, where we need a function named main, on Eiffel we can designate any procedure to start the execution.
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Public Services/Government
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Public administrations across Europe continue to discriminate in their IT calls for tender by asking for specific brands and products, concludes OpenForum Europe, and organisation advocating for an open, competitive ICT market. “Thousands of small IT firms are excluded from competing in the public procurement process by restrictions such as the naming of trademarks in calls for tender”, said Graham Taylor, OFE’s CEO, in a press statement.
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Microsoft is a commercial venture so it is reasonable for them to sell their products, which they do via licensing per unit. The NHS has about 100,000 computers, so it pays a considerable amount and also has a lot of work to do each time there’s a required update for any of their server technologies or desktop computers. While it needs some technical tweaking, Windows is sold as something that comes out of the box and should work. Designed to work with a wide range of different types of systems, the one size that fits (almost) all computers is a bonus for many technical managers.
But it hasn’t been problem-free. Most hospitals still have thousands of PCs running Windows XP which stopped being supported earlier this year.
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The Kerala Legislative Assembly has made a significant transition to the free software platform for recording its voluminous business.
The Speaker’s announcement to this effect a couple of days ago represented a milestone not just for the IT Department of the Niyama Sabha, but also for the International Centre for Free and Open Source Software (Icfoss) based here, the larger free software community, and free software enterprises in Kerala.
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Openness/Sharing
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Blogger Eliot Higgins launched Bellingcat on July 14 – it’s an open-source site for investigative journalism. Bellingcat aims to bring journalists together to share tech tools, and also to be a learning platform.
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He has always wanted to be an inventor, and I spoke with him about what it’s like to work as a technology consultant in the San Francisco Bay Area. In this interview, Thomas tells me more about how Project Gado came to life, how the Gado community evolved, and how open source is applied to everything.
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John Schloendorn is distributing “open source” plasmids, giving away proteins that normally cost biotech startups thousands of dollars per milligram, ready to be inserted into bacteria and reproduced at will, without any royalties.
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Open Data
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The head of one of Australia’s biggest insurance companies has called for a completely open approach to disaster risk data, saying it is the only way to ensure communities are fully prepared for catastrophes.
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Open Access/Content
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One of the fundamental tenets of the open source movement is the freely available access of knowledge. There has been a growing scene of educators, institutions, and organizations that see open access to knowledge as not being limited to that of source code. For several groups and universities this has been a focal point for the future of worldwide education.
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Open Hardware
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Intel plans to launch its second generation of the open-source computer Galileo Gen2 this August for around $60 to counter the popular $25 Raspberry Pi PC.
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Intel announced an updated, slightly larger “Galileo Gen 2″ version of its Arduino-compatible Galileo SBC, and expects to start shipping it in August.
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Programming
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Typesafe this month marked the five-year anniversary of Akka, its open-source run-time toolkit for concurrency and scalability on the Java Virtual Machine (JVM).
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Standards/Consortia
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The AllSeen Alliance, which is one of several open-source consortiums working to develop standards for the Internet of things, is adding eight new members to a lineup that includes such tech heavyweights as Microsoft, Qualcomm, Cisco Systems and Symantec.
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Red Bend Software is a community member of the AllSeen Alliance and a leader in mobile software management. More than 2 billion Red Bend-enabled devices use the company’s software and services for firmware over-the-air (FOTA) updating, application management, device management, device analytics and mobile virtualization. Customers include more than 100 leading manufacturers, mobile operators, semiconductor vendors and automotive companies worldwide.
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This blog exclusively broke the news that Juncker was much more friendly to Scottish independence, and that was a major reason for Cameron’s bitter opposition.
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Security
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A new malware that runs on UNIX-like servers even with restricted privileges has already infected machines in Australia and is actively hunting for more targets, a new research paper has shown.
Three researchers from Russian web provider Yandex – Andrej Kovalev, Konstantin Ostrashkevich and Evgeny Sidorov – said in the technical analysis of the malware, published on security and anti-virus specialist publication Virus Bulletin, that Mayhem functions like a traditional Windows bot.
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Defence/Police/Secrecy/Aggression
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What is particularly ghoulish is the false grief, what I might call the triumphalist shroud waving, of those seeking gleefully to blame the side they do not support in the Ukrainian conflict. In the current total absence of evidence, this is abominable behaviour.
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Jimmy Carter: “The Rest of the World, Almost Unanimously, Looks at America as the Number 1 Warmonger”
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Who is the true patriot, Hillary Clinton or Edward Snowden? The question comes up because Clinton has gone all out in attacking Snowden as a means of burnishing her hawkish credentials, eliciting Glenn Greenwald’s comment that she is “like a neocon, practically.”
On July 4 in England, Clinton boasted that two years ago she had favored a proposal by a top British General to train 100,000 “moderate” rebels to overthrow the Assad regime in Syria, but Obama had turned her down. The American Thatcher? In that same interview with the Guardian she also managed to get in yet another shot against Snowden for taking refuge in Russia “apparently under Putin’s protection,” unless, she taunted, “he wishes to return knowing he would be held accountable.”
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Jordan, where the Central Intelligence Agency has been covertly training Syrian rebels for more than a year, is reluctant to host an expanded program in what is likely to be a significant step back for Barack Obama.
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The CIA is currently providing training and arms to the Syrian militants in Jordan.
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There are not “charges” that civilians are killed in those strikes; such deaths are well-documented. The Bureau of Investigative Journalism, which tracks drone strikes in several countries, estimates that drones have killed at least 400 civilians in Pakistan alone. According to a recent UN report, there were 45 civilians killed by drone strikes in Afghanistan in 2013.
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The problem is that Cordesman is on the record as advocating the option of brutality against Palestinian civilians. Back in 2000, Cordesman authored a CSIS report–condemned at the time by an Amnesty International spokesperson–that recommended “excessive force” to control Palestinians and ensure the implementation of a potential peace agreement (Extra!, 1/01).
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“Obama has had a very tense relationship with Netanyahu, so he is not as automatic in his support of Israel, but there are still plenty of conflicting considerations especially with the events in Egypt and Iraq.”
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Killing and destruction are gathering pace, but neither side is winning
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Ayelet Shaked of the ultra-nationalist Jewish Home party called for the slaughter of Palestinian mothers who she said give birth to “little snakes.” “They have to die and their houses should be demolished so that they cannot bear any more terrorists,” Shaked said.
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Nowadays, Special Forces are used ad nauseam in shadow wars to avoid full engagements and still get the bad guys. And yet the American drone campaign is considered the lesser of two evils. It kills terrorists abroad, we’re told, and keeps boots off the ground.
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A British academic and expert in international studies says the biggest threat of drone technology is its potential use by terrorists and other non-state actors with “malign intent”.
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A favorite line of Official Washington goes: “Perception is reality!” — a misguided notion that makes the U.S. mainstream media particularly vulnerable to “perception management.” And no one does that better than the Israelis when justifying the slaughter of Palestinians, as Danny Schechter notes.
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There is a terrible irony in Israel’s current assault on Gaza. More than 200 Palestinians have died in an onslaught supposedly aimed at weakening Hamas and degrading its capacity to fire rockets into Israel. It was Israel itself, however, that helped Hamas to power in Gaza. For more than thirty years,from the 1960s to the 1990s, successive Israeli governments viewed radical Islamism as a useful tool with which to counter the influence of the secular Palestine Liberation Organization (of which Yasser Arafat’s Fatah was the principal component) and to sow discord within Palestinian ranks.
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Tunnels had long been used by Hamas and others to smuggle weapons, fuel, and goods into Gaza from Egypt before the Hamas-friendly Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi was deposed and the Egyptian army shut most of the tunnels down last year. Nevertheless, Hamas and other terrorist groups in Gaza have also launched cross-border attacks through tunnels, but generally with little success.
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As I write this I can hear the waves of the Mediterranean shift and gently crash at Gaza’s shore. The sky is clear, the moon is bright and if not for the loud buzzing of an Israeli drone it would be soothing.
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Israel says it is considering a new ceasefire proposal from Egypt that would take effect on Friday. There is no word yet from Hamas, which rejected the last proposal on the grounds its leaders were never consulted and the terms would have allowed for the continued siege of Gaza and for Israeli bombardment at will. The news of a fresh proposal comes just as a five-hour humanitarian pause has ended. The United Nations asked for the break to let Gazans receive supplies and repair damage following 10 days of Israeli bombings. On Wednesday, an Israeli gunboat shelled a beach, killing four boys who were playing. The boys were all between the ages of nine and 11 and from the same extended family. Seven other adults and children were wounded in the strike. The scene was witnessed by several international journalists, including our guest Tyler Hicks, a Pulitzer Prize-winning staff photographer at The New York Times. We are also joined from Gaza City by Democracy Now! correspondent Sharif Abdel Kouddous, who has interviewed family members of the young victims.
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The Israel Defense Forces shot down their second Hamas-supplied drone in less than a week as it was flying over the skies of Ashkelon in southern Israel. According to Israel’s Channel 2 News, a Patriot surface-to-air missile (SAM) shot down the UAV.
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But go back even further and you might be surprised to learn that at one point, there were even budding ties between the CIA and Saddam. In 1988, during a war between Iraq and Iran, the U.S. helped Iraq carry out a devastating chemical attack by sharing intelligence information with the country.
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Today, the architects of the Iraq War scramble to rewrite history. In a June 17 Wall Street Journal op-ed, Liz and Dick Cheney, shifting the blame, condemned Obama: “Rarely has a U.S. president been so wrong about so much at the expense of so many.”
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Cheney was among those from the administration who were speaking out publicly about WMD’s in Iraq. In August 2002, Cheney told a VFW convention, “Right now, Iraq is expanding and improving facilities that were used for the production of biological weapons.” Of course, there were no WMD’s in Iraq. The administration had misled the American people.
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“I was convinced we had to disarm Saddam Hussein of weapons of mass destruction,” he said July 14. “I was uncertain about the vote. I was 60 percent in favor of it and 40 percent opposed to it. I was uncertain if [President George W.] Bush [and his] administration were telling the truth about the weapons of mass destruction. But, I concluded, if you can’t trust the president and his top national security team to tell the truth to Congress and the American people about a matter of war and peace, then who can you trust?”
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Former Prime Minister Bruce Golding has come out swinging against the United States, declaring that nation lacks the moral authority to cite human-rights abuses as reasons to withdraw support to the Jamaican security forces.
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On Wednesday, Golding slammed the United States (US) government while speaking on Power 106 FM radio talk show, ‘Cliff Hughes On-line’, declaring the US lacked the moral authority to cite human-rights abuses as reasons to withdraw support to the Jamaican security forces.
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All Slain Dubbed ‘Suspected Militants’
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A suspected American drone attack killed over a dozen militants in Pakistan’s North Waziristan region on Wednesday, officials said, as the Pakistani military intensified its assault on insurgents in the region where 450 Islamist ultras have been killed so far.
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General Atomics has a new cockpit for their MQ-1 Predators and MQ-9 Reapers, two of the most common hunt-and-kill drones used by the USAF, capable of destroying basically any ground — and some air — targets. It looks like a dream gaming setup. Heck, it even includes a gamepad (check out that guy’s lap.)
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Drone warfare makes some people squirm for the ethical issues it raises, but right now drones are still controlled by human beings. The upcoming technology, though, would make them autonomous, allowing them to make their own “decisions” about whether or not to kill. To meet the moral objections in giving machines the option to kill human beings, some techies are proposing tacking on separate software they are calling “ethical governors” that could automatically run the decisions through international law protocols before going lethal.
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Drones fuel ‘blowback’ and undermine core principles of American identity.
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Transparency Reporting
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Most of the Stockholm hearing into the Assange case yesterday was held in secret.
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Decision by Stockholm judge condemns WikiLeaks founder to remain in Ecuador embassy in London
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Wikileaks has demanded that Danish authorities investigate whether laws were broken when the FBI met with Icelandic citizen Sigurður Þórðarson, aka Siggi ‘the hacker,’ in the country on three occasions, following meetings in Iceland in early 2013.
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Julian Assange has hit back at Attorney General George Brandis for saying the Wikileaks founder should be “man enough” to face Swedish sexual assault allegations.
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Environment/Energy/Wildlife
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The government has unveiled federal terrorism charges against two animal rights activists accused of helping to free minks and foxes from fur farms in rural Illinois. In newly unsealed indictments, the prosecutors accuse Tyler Lang and Kevin Olliff of freeing about 2,000 mink from their cages on a fur farm and then removing parts of the fence surrounding the property so the mink could escape. The activists are also accused of spray-painting “Liberation is Love” on the farm’s walls. Lang and Olliff have been indicted under the controversial Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act (AETA), with each count carrying a maximum penalty of five years in prison and a $250,000 fine. We are joined by reporter Will Potter, who covers animal rights and environmental issues at GreenIstheNewRed.com. “It really doesn’t matter how you feel about animal rights groups or about these alleged crimes of stealing animals,” Potter says of the AETA, which he argues is too broad while criminalizing protests and civil disobedience. “This is really about a corporate campaign to demonize their opposition and to use terrorism resources to shut down a movement.” Potter also discusses his wildly successful Kickstarter campaign to purchase a drone for use in photographing abuses at factory farms.
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Finance
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In a new Pew poll, more than three quarters of self-described conservatives believe “poor people have it easy because they can get government benefits without doing anything.”
In reality, most of America’s poor work hard, often in two or more jobs.
The real non-workers are the wealthy who inherit their fortunes. And their ranks are growing.
In fact, we’re on the cusp of the largest inter-generational wealth transfer in history.
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A Connecticut state trooper has pleaded guilty to charges he stole cash and jewelry from a dying accident victim.
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Five major countries under the leadership of India had announced setting up of a new global bank which would pose a challenge to the institutions like the World Bank and the IMF.
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PR/AstroTurf/Lobbying
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A survey of major cable news discussion programs shows a stunning lack of diversity among the guests.
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We know — Coulter hates soccer. With the World Cup over, here’s what her ludicrous column might rail against next
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Censorship
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As published by STV, we found a number of Scottish websites blocked by different filters provided by ISPs and mobile operators, apparently by mistake, without of course informing the website owners. Here is the list.
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On 10 July, the Working Group on Information Exchange and Data Protection (DAPIX), in charge of the General Data Protection Regulation, worked on the regulation’s Article 17, the “Right to be forgotten and erasure”. In this framework, the legislator must consider the harm to freedom of expression and information, harm which the law currently makes possible, and provide citizens with procedures that safeguard that freedom.
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Privacy
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Whistleblower says NSA revelations mean those with duty to protect confidentiality must urgently upgrade security
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Australian journalists could face prosecution and up to 10 years in prison for reporting Snowden-style revelations about special intelligence operations, according to a new bill proposed by Australia’s attorney general George Brandis.
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George Brandis’s new spying laws will include measure to criminalise media reporting of Snowden-style leaks
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Aussie journalists will face prison time if they leak out sensitive information according to a brand new security law. If those in the media report Snowden-like revelations about particular spy missions they could face prosecution from the Australian government as stated by top criminal lawyers.
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The Electronic Freedom Foundation (EFF), the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and the American Civil Liberties Union of Idaho have announced they will join Anna Smith’s legal team in her challenge of the government’s bulk collection of the telephone records of millions of innocent Americans.
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The top U.N. human rights official suggested on Wednesday the United States should abandon its efforts to prosecute Edward Snowden, saying his revelations of massive state surveillance had been in the public interest.
U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay credited Snowden, a former U.S. National Security Agency contractor, with opening a global debate which has led to calls for the curtailing of state powers to snoop on citizens online and store their data.
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File-storage startup Box is making its service work more seamlessly with Microsoft Office, the king of workplace documents and a major Box rival. Box also is removing file-storage limits for its paying business customers.
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One of the most shocking discoveries from Edward Snowden’s disclosures was that GCHQ, the British intelligence agency, is tapping undersea cables to harvest the communications of people from all around the world. This top-secret programme, nicknamed Tempora, sucks up petabytes of data from tapped cables off the coast of Cornwall and is capable of storing the entirety of the metadata travelling through cross-Atlantic links for 30 days, and the content of communications for three. If it is authorised by law at all, it is on the basis of highly tenuous interpretations that run afoul of human rights; this very week the Government finds itself having to justify these interpretations in the Investigatory Powers Tribunal.
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Yesterday the House of Commons passed a law called DRIP, which forces communications companies to store all of your data for up to 12 months for use by the security services. Today it goes to the House of Lords, which is also expected to pass the bill.
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While the UK government is attempting to establish a completely locked down digital communications network, the UN finds that prospect “disturbing”.
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The World Wide Web seems to have become a dangerous place for ordinary Web users after ex-NSA contractor Edward Snowden’s whistleblowing revelations. If you’re on the Internet, you’re under NSA survellienace—regardless of the fact whether you are in the U.S. or not.
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A group of 35 civil society organizations, companies, and security experts have asked President Obama to pledge to veto the controversial cybersecurity bill S. 2588, the Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act (“CISA”) of 2014. These privacy and Internet freedom groups fear that the bill invades the privacy and civil liberties of users.
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Despite Barack Obama’s promises during the 2008 campaign to reform the U.S. intelligence community, he has continued to tolerate its abuses, enable its excessive secrecy and indulge its bone-headedness, as ex-CIA analyst Melvin A. Goodman explains.
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As an Illinois senator running for president in 2008, Barack Obama promised there would be no more “wiretaps without warrants” under his administration. He abandoned that position even before he was elected to the White House, voting for legislation that amended the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) to let the National Security Agency (NSA) collect Americans’ international communications without a warrant.
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With all the attention focused on Edward Snowden, the world forgets that he is not the first NSA whistle-blower. Nor might Snowden be the last. William Binney blew the whistle first following the 9-11 attacks on the United States and a third whistle-blower is probably leaking new information to the media.
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Both strategically and economically, some European countries are being forced to move away from the Anglo-American (British Empire) faction because of the sheer insanity of the latter’s policy. Relations with Russia is a case in point. As of July 3, the German, French and Russian foreign ministers have begun direct diplomatic talks with their Ukrainian counterpart, without the participation of the U.S. State Department.
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The German Chaos Computer Club said Wednesday that it has added to its legal complaint about U.S. spying on German citizens evidence that the NSA allegedly snooped on at least one of its Tor servers.
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Former executive editor of The New York Times, Jill Abramson, spoke of being “fired” from the paper in May, and also her belief that the Obama White House is the most secretive administration she ever dealt with in her career.
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The former executive editor of the New York Times says Washington often played the terrorism card to spike stories
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Jill Abramson, who made headlines when she became the first female executive editor of the New York Times – and again when she was unexpectedly fired after only two and a half years on the job – has spoken out about her situation in an article to be published in Cosmopolitan magazine in September.
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The authors later describe the collection programs, PRISM and Upstream, and state “most of the people caught up in these programs are not the targets and would not lawfully qualify as such.” Readers instantly recognize the action described as spying, a term the authors avoid. Further, they make no mention of the lack of an uproar in Congress about this massive surveillance and violation of the 4th Amendment. This is so because the majority of congressional members have an important function: to serve privilege and power.
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When developers of the TrueCrypt disk encryption program warned the open source project was insecure, it left users hanging. Fortunately, there are TrueCrypt alternatives.
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The question for the UK to answer is not whether data can contribute to policing but whether it is justified to retain data of innocent people on a blanket basis. The charge that Jack Straw and Lord Howard made in Parliament was that civil libertarians who asked for “targeted” retention were asking the police to be “clairvoyant” as they would have to know in advance whether somebody would commit a crime and become of interest. That is the argument for blanket retention in a nutshell. We don’t know who the criminals will be so we will keep all of the data all of the time.
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But in doing so they won’t have had the final word. You’ve already shown them the growing public opposition to mass surveillance. There was incredible action from supporters: 4458 of you wrote to your MPs with even more phoning up on the day of the vote. Together we helped 49 MPs rebel against the Data Retention and Investigatory Powers Bill. It may have passed, but thanks to you they know that we do not agree.
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When is a snoopers’ charter not a snooping charter? When David Cameron and his stooge Nick Clegg call it the data retention and investigation powers bill (Surveillance bill rushed through in a day, 16 July).
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Russia will reopen its electronic spying center in Cuba as the island once again assists its old ally in its renewed dispute with the United States, reports the EFE news agency.
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The Russian government and Cuba have agreed to reopen a massive Soviet-era spy base on the outskirts of Havana, according to the Russian newspaper Kommersant.
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Former National Security Agency employee Edward Snowden exposed thousands of classified government documents to major media outlets in June of last year.
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‘Deep differences’ between Berlin and Washington over US double agents
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US secret services have recruited more than a dozen officials in various German government ministries to work as spies, with some of them working for the CIA for many years, a German tabloid reported on Sunday.
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As American fans chanted “U-S-A! U-S-A! U-S-A!” the Germans countered with, “N-S-A! N-S-A! N-S-A!”
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The United States has badly underestimated the level of anger in Germany over its spying operations and the damage could be long-lasting if Washington fails to ease off, former US officials said Wednesday.
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How is Germany supposed to react to the U.S. spying activities that have come to light recently? The political opposition seems to think the answer is simple: Expel all U.S. intelligence agents! Allow whistle-blower Edward Snowden asylum! Immediately halt all negotiations regarding the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP)! Stop all cooperation with U.S. intelligence services!
But things are not that easy for those who actually have to govern. On the one hand, the German government is under pressure to act in a way to not be seen by its own citizens as the powerless appendage of the Americans. On the other, it has to protect Germany’s very real interests.
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Pakistan, unlike Germany, abstains from ousting CIA Station Chief from the country on spying charges
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All in all, much ado about nothing; the NSA was not unilaterally scooping and scanning all Internet content and Microsoft was not part of a larger surveillance scheme. For those accustomed to believing what the Wall Street Journal said — remember the bogus story of Saddam Hussein’s agent meeting with one of the 9/11 attackers? — everything was as it should be.
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Former NSA contractor Edward Snowden wants professionals to utilize data protection and encryption to communicate, and is reportedly working on some type of “encryption tools” to help protect sources. Remaining in Russia, with his asylum status extended, it’s mainly unknown what the American has been doing with his spare time.
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Internet mogul Kim Dotcom is now thinking about suing New Zealand’s spy agency for “illegal; surveillance.” According to reports, the Independent Police Conduct Authority (IPCA) has found the police were justified in not pursuing any of the Government Communications Security Bureau (GCSB) officers for an illegal spying operation.
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When the House passed the USA Freedom Act (H.R. 3361) in May, both Members and the administration announced that it would end bulk collection of metadata about Americans’ communications. The administration is now urging Congress to pass the bill as soon as it can and Senators are now considering revisions to specific language in the House-passed bill.
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The new LED bulbs will have the ability to read your license plate, listen in to your conversation, monitor your movements, detect the weather and even sniff out a dirty bomb, claims CBS. This raises questions about privacy.
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“Chilling” is the word lawyers use to describe governmental behavior that does not directly interfere with constitutionally protected freedoms, but rather tends to deter folks from exercising them. Classic examples of “chilling” occurred in the 1970s, when FBI agents and U.S. Army soldiers, in business suits with badges displayed or in full uniform, showed up at anti-war rallies and proceeded to photograph and tape record protesters. When an umbrella group of protesters sued the government, the Supreme Court dismissed the case, ruling that the protesters lacked standing — meaning, because they could not show that they were actually harmed, they could not invoke the federal courts for redress.
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When earlier this year, the European Court of Justice threw out the EU’s data retention directive on the grounds that it was not fit for purpose and grossly disproportionate to needs – in effect, imposing surveillance on the entire European population without justification – the UK had a problem.
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The European Court of Justice properly overturned a European Union directive that would have forced telecommunications companies to store data on all of their customers for as long as two years. In response, British Prime Minister David Cameron is countermanding the spirit of the ruling and doubling down on the failed policies of mass surveillance.
Mr. Cameron plans to rush an “emergency data plan” through Parliament. It would require British companies to continue to store the time, date, location, and recipient of every telephone call, email, and text message sent by British citizens for a year.
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In the wake of Ed Snowden’s revelations there’s been a litany of calls for the widespread adoption of online anonymity tools. One such technology is Tor, which employs a network of Internet relays to hinder the process of attribution. Though advocates openly claim that “Tor still works” skepticism is warranted. In fact, anyone risking incarceration in the face of a leveraged intelligence outfit like the NSA would be ill-advised to put all of their eggs in the Tor basket. This is a reality which certain privacy advocates have been soft-pedaling.
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With paranoia over NSA surveillance reaching a fever pitch, foreign governments are making a reasonable plea: bring our data home.
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Edward Snowden should be shielded from prosecution because the world needs people willing to expose violations of human rights, says the UN’s High Commissioner for Human rights Navi Pillay.
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In a new hard-hitting draft report, Navi Pillay, the United Nation’s High Commissioner for Human Rights, has thrown the weight of the U.N. General Assembly behind the idea that digital privacy is a human right, and one under attack amid disclosures of surveillance by “signals intelligence agencies,” not only the United States’ National Security Agency but the United Kingdom’s General Communications Headquarters.
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UN high commissioner for human rights Navi Pillay has suggested former NSA contractor Edward Snowden should not face prosecution for leaking top secret material.
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The Electronic Frontier Foundation, the American Civil Liberties Union and the ACLU of Idaho have joined Anna Smith’s legal team in her challenge of the government’s bulk collection of telephone records.
Smith, an emergency neonatal nurse and pregnant mother of two in North Idaho, filed her suit against President Barack Obama and several U.S. intelligence agencies shortly after the government confirmed revelations that the National Security Agency was conducting bulk collection of telephone records under a section of the Patriot Act.
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A civil society coalition has called for the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) group of countries to provide a new global Internet Governance model that ensures human rights, as well as equity and social justice.
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Surveillance reformers on Capitol Hill are up against a wall — and short on time.
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The House Armed Services Committee has come up with a creative approach to look for emails from embattled former Internal Revenue Service (IRS) official Lois Lerner that were apparently lost in a computer crash: they’re asking the National Security Agency (NSA) and the Defense Department.
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NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden believes his revelations were so important that he could endure a life in chains in US detention.
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Snowden“If I end up in chains in Guantanamo I can live with that,” Edward Snowden, the former intelligence contractor-turned-privacy advocate, told the Guardian newspaper during a recent interview released in part by the paper on Thursday.
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Workers for the National Security Agency regularly share private, intimate photos swiped from communications streams, Edward Snowden said.
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The NSA’s spokesperson didn’t explicitly deny that it happens in a response to an inquiry about Snowden’s claim, but said such activity wouldn’t be tolerated. “NSA is a professional foreign-intelligence organization with a highly trained workforce, including brave and dedicated men and women from our armed forces,” said spokesperson Vanee Vines by email. “As we have said before, the agency has zero tolerance for willful violations of the agency’s authorities or professional standards, and would respond as appropriate to any credible allegations of misconduct.”
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Civil Rights
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A federal judge ruled California’s death penalty unconstitutional Wednesday, writing that lengthy and unpredictable delays have resulted in an arbitrary and unfair capital punishment system.
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It’s something most students learn in elementary school — the United States is made up of 50 states and the District of Columbia. But Channel 9′s Justin Gray found out it’s a lesson that an Orlando agent with the Transportation Safety Administration seems to have missed.
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British police officers have this week started using facial recognition software designed to automatically identify criminals from digital images. Police in Leicestershire become the first in the UK to test NEC’s NeoFace software, which the force says is capable of comparing any digital image of a suspect with photos held on its database, by comparing “dozens of measurements” against key facial features.
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The CIA station chief in Germany left the country on Thursday after Berlin’s shock decision last week to demand his expulsion, the US and German governments said.
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Noriega worked with the CIA from the late 1950s through the 1980s when their relationship soured. Broad, public criticism based on mounting evidence of his close ties to the notorious Colombian Medellin Cartel forced the U.S. government to reverse its tacit acceptance and level charges of drug trafficking and money laundering.
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Manuel Noriega, former Panamanian strongman and CIA operative, is suing an American video game developer over his portrayal in one of their most well-known games. The former dictator objects to the game’s portrayal of him without his consent and demands monetary compensation.
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The rodents are used to pass secrets between CIA agents, Museum Curator Toni Hiley said during a tour taken by Yahoo News reporter Oliver Knox, who gained unprecedented access to the museum, which only allows those with top security clearance access to its artifacts.
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When renowned journalist Michael Hastings died in a high-speed car accident in 2013, he left behind a secret manuscript hidden in his desk drawer. One year later, almost to the day, the manuscript has been published as The Last Magazine, Hastings’s first (and last) novel.
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North Korean officials from the National Defence Commission sent a letter to President Barack Obama officially protesting the release of the James Franco and Seth Rogen film “The Interview” on Thursday, according to reports in the Voice of Korea.
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The Department of Justice will not investigate whether the Central Intelligence Agency illegally spied on staffers of the Senate Intelligence Committee and removed documents from committee servers, McClatchy News Service confirmed Thursday. The CIA also claimed committee staffers took documents from the intelligence agency without authorization. That claim also won’t be investigated.
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The Vietnamese general Nguyen Ngoc Loan, head of South Vietnam’s National Police and a CIA informant—who was famously photographed blowing the brains out of a Viet Cong prisoner in 1968—wound up owning a pizzeria in Burke, Virginia. Down the street a number of Saigon’s former top intelligence officers had townhouses, and everyone would get together at the Vietnam Inn in the Clarendon neighborhood of Arlington, Virginia once a week to reminisce over old times, frequently to be joined by friends from the nearby Pentagon and CIA headquarters.
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In the latest installment of the Guantanamo war court’s most mysterious legal filings — two motions so secret that the public can’t know their titles — an Army judge has issued a classified order to prosecutors that even the defense lawyers can’t see.
The Pentagon disclosed the existence of Army Col. James L. Pohl’s judicial order dated June 4 in a recent website notation in the capital case of the accused USS Cole bomber.
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Despite legal decisions and expert opinions to the contrary, minister after minister has insisted that he is a very dangerous man. He is invariably referred to as a “convicted terrorist” or “war criminal”. Yet recently revealed secret information in the United States suggests that there was never any legal basis for charging him with war crimes in the first place.
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Internet/Net Neutrality
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Verizon is making an alarmist argument in its response to the Federal Communications Commission’s network neutrality proposal. Classification of broadband as a common carrier service—a step called for by public interest groups who want to prevent ISPs from charging Web services for faster access to consumers—would instead require ISPs to charge Netflix, YouTube, and other Web services for network access, Verizon claims.
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Earlier we wrote about Rep. Marsha Blackburn adding a terrible amendment to a House appropriations bill that would block the FCC from preempting anti-competitive bans on municipal broadband. Unfortunately, despite some noise about it, the amendment it was approved 223 – 200 in the House. While Blackburn (falsely) spun the bill about letting local governments make their own decisions, that’s flat out wrong. As others have pointed out it’s exactly the opposite. The FCC’s plan would be about giving power back to local governments to allow them to make their own decisions about whether or not they wanted to offer municipal broadband.
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Over the last few weeks we’ve seen a number of politicians come out on one side or another concerning the FCC’s net neutrality plans, but most of them were pretty much expected. It actually was nice to see some net neutrality supporters be quite explicit in their support for Title II reclassification (like Senator Chuck Schumer), but beyond that there weren’t too many surprises. That’s why it was actually great to see Rep. Gary Peters, who is currently running for the Senate in Michigan, come out in favor of net neutrality, warning of the harm that could be caused by the fast lanes and slow lanes as allowed by the current FCC proposal.
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Klabnik works for marketplace payment company Balanced, where he is—and how awesome is this?—Philosopher in Residence. His job, he says, “is to pay attention to where things are going and also think about where we should be going.”
So for years, Klabnik has been thinking about web standards, the technical protocols that govern the way anyone accesses the World Wide Web. Much of the web’s lingua franca, (HTML, CSS, JavaScript), has been standardized—that is, people who write software for the World Wide Web have come to an agreement about the way certain technologies should work and the way they’ll implement those technologies. A webpage appears the same on both Mozilla’s Firefox and Google’s Chrome because those companies have agreed to program their browsers in accordance with the official rules for displaying that page.
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Intellectual Monopolies
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EU citizens must be better informed of the progress of EU-US talks on the proposed Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP), said MEPs from all political groups debating the issue with EU trade Commissioner Karel De Gucht.
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Copyrights
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ReelRadio, a site that streams an archive of often decades-old historical radio shows, has been forced to take down much of its library after the RIAA complained that the site was operating outside the terms of its license. The letter of the law is tight, and the RIAA is insisting that the near 20-year-old site now meets all of its requirements.
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The world’s biggest copyright holders send Google millions of DMCA notices each week, many of them sent by the most notable anti-piracy companies around. But for reasons best known to themselves, hundreds of thousands being processed by Google are completely useless and a waste of time and money.
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New research by economist Koleman Strumpf shows that there is no significant effect of movie piracy on box office revenues. This conclusion is based on data from 150 blockbuster movies that were released over a period of six years, using the popular Hollywood exchange as an indication for the revenue impact.
Permalink
Send this to a friend
07.16.14
Posted in News Roundup at 7:52 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Contents
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Desktop
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Public PCs aren’t safe, so what’s a PC user to do? Carry a Linux distribution on a USB stick in their backpocket of course!
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In recent weeks, Google has been reengineering a key aspect of the app ecosystem surrounding its Chrome OS platform and Chromebooks based on it: It is calling loudly for all local Chrome OS apps to be able to work offline. This is a major shift from the company’s original strategy of making Chrome OS a nearly entirely cloud-centric operating system, and opens up new possibilities for enterprise users and consumers.
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Since the start of the year Chromebook sales within the U.S. Commercial Channel increased 250 percent year-over-year
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Server
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Founded in 1997, DreamHost is a seasoned internet business home to over 400,000 happy customers, 1.5 million sites and applications, and hundreds of thousands of installs of WordPress, the dominant open source CMS. Open source is in our blood, and has powered every aspect of our services since 1997. DreamHost is built on a foundation of Perl, Linux, Apache, MySQL, and countless other open source projects. In our 16+ years of existence, DreamHost has seen the realities of internet applications and hosting drastically evolve. Our journey to the cloud requires a bit of history and context, so let’s dive right in.
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Resource management and controlling the allocation of resources for complex workloads has always been a topic for discussion in open systems, but no one has ever followed through on making open systems look and behave like an IBM mainframe. On IBM’s MVS and later OSes, resources can be allocated and managed in such a way as to execute policy, whether that policy be to prioritize credit card approval codes at Christmas time or to prioritize stock purchases from a specific broker.
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For those of us veterans in the open source software (OSS) community, certain technologies come along in our lifetime that revolutionise how we consume and manage our technology utilisation. During the early 2000s the concept of high availiability (HA) and clustering allowed Linux to really stack up in the datacentre.
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Kernel Space
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Michael Halstead maintains all of the public facing infrastructure for the Yocto Project, a Linux Foundation collaborative project that provides the tools and methods for building custom embedded Linux distributions. In this Q&A he describes his typical day at work, the best part of his job, how he spends his free time, and more.
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From new cloud platforms, to changes in virtualization and container technologies, to how data is stored and transmitted, every innovation in the data center has a Linux-based or open source component, says Imad Sousou vice president of the Software and Services Group and general manager of the Intel Open Source Technology Center at Intel.
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Applications
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QEMU 2.1.0 RC2, a generic open source emulator and virtualizer that can run OSes and programs made for a different machine, has been released and is available for download.
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It’s been several months since the release of the XBMC 13.0 “Gotham,” probably the best and most complete release in the history of this software. The developers implemented some remarkable new features, but it looks like there still are things to fix and changes to be made.
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FFmpeg is the leading multimedia framework able to decode, encode, transcode, mux, demux, stream, filter, and play pretty much any media that humans and machines have created.
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Proprietary
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Instructionals/Technical
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Wine or Emulation
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WineHQ team, recently announced a new development version of Wine 1.7.22. This new development build arrives with a number of new important features and 68 bug fixes.
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Games
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OlliOlli has been given a release date on PC, Mac and Linux.
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Infinity Runner is a great looking first person action game that involves a lot of running. We give it a try to see how it performs.
I am an absolute sucker for space sci-fi themed games, and just had to give this one a try to report back to you on.
Sadly though, the game itself really isn’t all that interesting and if you have played simple Android games like Temple Run it’s very much the same type of game. You are always running, and you don’t control the running aspect at all.
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X-Plane 10 Global 64bit is now on Steam for Linux and promises a rather expensive flight simulator experience. By expensive we mean £44.99, so dig deep if you want to try it folks.
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Torchlight II, an action hack-and-slash title developed and published by Runic Games on Steam, might get a Linux version soon.
The developers from Runic Games are not at their first try to port one of their games. The first title in the series was promoted on Linux with the help of a Humble Bundle collection, but the game manifested some very problematic technical issues that persisted for a long time, like the missing face of the main characters. Hopefully, the second iteration will be much better.
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Desktop Environments/WMs
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Obmenu is a menu editor designed for openbox. It’s easy to use, allowing to get the most out of the powerful Openbox menu system, while hiding the xml layout from the user.
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K Desktop Environment/KDE SC/Qt
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A year and a half ago Qt 5 was released giving KDE the opportunity and excuse to do the sort of tidying up that software always needs every few years. We decided that, like Qt, we weren’t going for major rewrites of the world as we did for KDE 4. Rather we’d modularise, update and simplify. Last week I clicked the publish button on the story for KDE Frameworks 5, the refresh of kdelibs. Interesting for developers. Today I clicked the publish button on the story of the first major piece of software to use KDE Frameworks, Plasma 5.
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I’ll keep things brief, since I’m inbetween KDevelop windows right now: It’s out today, and in my mind it took just about nine months to make it. Nine months, now that’s a timescale with some cachet.
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When KDE made a radical change to its popular Linux desktop in 2008 in KDE 4, I hated it. Over a year and many changes later, I finally found KDE 4.3 usable. This time, with the just-released KDE Plasma 5, I didn’t have to wait for it to be usable. The new KDE is already good to go.
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The much awaited Plasma 5 has been announced today, which marks a new chapter in the story of KDE software. Plasma 5 is the next generation desktop by the KDE community; it’s the evolution of KDE’s desktop which started taking a new shape with the release of ‘revolutionary’ KDE 4.0.
Plasma desktop uses the time-tested UI optimized for WIMP (windows, icons, menus and pointer) interface and with 5 it further improved that experience. A lot of work has gone in the code-base which makes the desktop sleeker and more polished. If you are thinking just think oh it’s just a different theme and new icons, it’s not true. Plasma 5 uses the brand new Frameworks 5 and Qt5 which not only improves user-experience but also allows developers to use KDE software in a manner not possible before.
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In keeping with the best-fit-only policy, the KaOS community deliberately keeps this distro’s software stores limited. The current inventory is about 2,000 packages. The size will not grow beyond 2,200 packages. KaOS uses Pacman 4.1.2 as the package manager, with Octopi 0.4.0 as graphical front end. This is a good combination, as it’s simple and effortless to add or remove software.
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Time has passed, and it has come time to update to the latest version of Bugzilla again. Sadly not everything managed to come along for the ride this time though. Our custom theme has been bitten by a series of incompatibilities with the newer version of Bugzilla which has prevented people from changing their email address and entering bugs in some cases among others things. As it is more important the site is usable we’ve had to disable it.
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The weekend in San Diego was a good time to get rested from my training activities (training a new helpdesk team here) and prepare Slackware packages for KDE’s monthly maintenance release 4.13.3. These packages were built for Slackware -current and have not been tested to work properly on Slackware 14.1.
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This is the second part of my ramblings about the Plasma 5 release, just after it come out.
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GNOME Desktop/GTK
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There’s a ton of different desktop distros out there for Linux users, but it can be tough sifting through them to find the ones worth checking out. Datamation takes a look at what it considers ten of the best Linux desktop distributions. The list is broken down into two sections: newbies and experienced Linux users.
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Last week the Linux world was surprised to find that DistroWatch was not available at its usual domain name. Many wondered what was happening with the site, and it turned out that it had some domain registrar problems. Ladislav Bonar clarifies what went wrong last week and assures DistroWatch readers that the site has already been transferred to a new registrar.
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New Releases
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We are excited to announce the release of Zorin OS 9 Core and Ultimate.
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Screenshots
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Arch Family
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Manjaro 0.8.10, a Linux distribution based on well-tested snapshots of the Arch Linux repositories and 100% compatible with Arch, has received the third upgrade pack.
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The Developers on Manjaro Linux developers are pleased to announce the third update pack of Manjaro 0.8.10.
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Red Hat Family
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Red Hat, Inc, (NYSE: RHT), the world’s leading provider of open source solutions, today announced that SIA, a European leader in the design, creation, and management of technology infrastructures and services for financial and central institutions, corporate and Public Administration bodies, has chosen Red Hat Enterprise Linux and Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization to support a number of its mission-critical systems and to reach a higher operational efficiency with business benefits.
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Fedora
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In case you don’t know, Flock is a conference for Fedora contributors and users to come together, discuss new ideas, work to make those ideas a reality, and continue to promote the core values of the Fedora community: Freedom, Friends, Features, and First.
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0.5.4 has been released today.
A major improvement in this release is the repo priorities config option. With it the admin can enforce packages of a certain repository to take precedence over other ones during an upgrade even when the prioritized packages have lower version. The original DNF bug is here, the functionality is known from Yum Utils as “priority plugin”.
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Debian Family
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Building Linux Mint 17.1 on the same code base as Linux Mint 17, the developers have more time for improving the already existing Linux Mint specific applications and implement newer desktop environments until 2016, while security fixes will be implemented five years from now.
Also, by creating point releases, the users will be able to easily get the latest updates (if the systems use the same code base) from the command-line, by performing regular system upgrades, or get the Linux Mint 17.x images, which already contain the latest versions of the packages.
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A while back we decided to move onto Ubuntu for our backend server deployment. The main reasons for this was a predictable release cycle and long term support by upstream (this decision was made before the announcement that the Debian project commits to long term support as well.) With the release of the Ubuntu 14.04 LTS we are now in the process of migrating our ~5000 servers to that distribution.
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Tails is a distribution based on Debian and Tor technologies whose purpose is to keep its users as anonymous as possible. Even though Tails is not exactly a new distribution and has been around for quite some time, it has become a lot more popular after Edward Snowden said that he used it to hide his footprints when he delivered the documents to various media outlets.
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Derivatives
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Canonical/Ubuntu
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Ubuntu 14.04 Long Term Support/LTS (Trusty Tahr) proves that it doesn’t matter if you’re Oracle, Microsoft, or Canonical: Bringing a fleet of products into new release revision synch is tough. Canonical is trying to cover the bases of cloud, server, desktop, smartphone/tablet, plus management and support and services add-ons. In this release, Cloud and Server get much attention; Desktop not so much. And the Ubuntu smartphone/tablet bits aren’t reviewed here as there are no “production” versions in the wild.
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NI’s new “sbRIO-9651″ system-on-module (SOM) is aimed at simplifying the design of custom data acquisition and control systems, by offering full compatibility with the NI LabView graphical programming environment. Additionally, the module’s core hardware and software compatibility with NI’s cRIO-9068 “CompactRIO” controller is said to further accelerate custom designs by letting programmers develop and test their software on an off-the-shelf system prior to the availability of custom hardware based on the SOM. To that end, the sbRIO-9651 SOM and cRIO-9068 controller system both use the same Xilinx Zynq-7020 SoC, and run a common “NI Linux Real Time” software stack.
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The embedded systems Linux distro, OpenWRT, has taken a step into the 1990s and added native IPv6 support.
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OpenWrt, a highly-extensible GNU/Linux distribution for embedded devices, built from the ground up to be a full-featured, easily modifiable operating system for routers, has advanced to version 14.07 RC1.
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Belgian father-and-son startup DPTechnics is promoting its new open-spec DPT Board as an educational tool for budding embedded developers. Just as the similarly priced Raspberry Pi has been seeded in U.K. schools, DPTechnics is working with schools in Belgium to integrate the board in their curricula.
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Automotive Grade Linux is available to download for free from the Linux Foundation website. It’s built on top of the Tizen, which has been used in some smartphones and smart watches. It’s also in some TVs and even cars already.
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SEAGATE has taken the the wraps off its first major foray into the NAS market.
The Seagate NAS and NAS Pro range will be marketed towards the growing number of small businesses, including SOHO, prosumer and startups. The basic Seagate NAS range has been designed for businesses of up to 25 people with the NAS Pro range targetting the up-to-50-staff market.
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It is no great secret that my colleagues at Collabora have been doing work with the Raspberry Pi Foundation.
My desk is very near Marco and I often see him working with the various Pi boards. Recently he obtained one of the new B+ units for testing and I thought it looked a little sad sat naked on his desk.
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In the mean time Eben Upton and the team at the Raspberry Pi Foundation will be focussing on the software side of the Raspberry Pi, as well as the forthcoming Raspberry Pi touchscreen display. “There’s plenty of life in Raspberry Pi 1 and there’s still plenty of low-hanging fruit on the software side. We’re still finding system level components that we can optimise that deliver really meaningful amounts of performance uplift for the user,” Upton explained.
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We’re big fans of the Raspberry Pi here at BetaNews. The popular (not to mention super-affordable) credit card-sized ARM GNU/Linux computer was designed to bring programming back into schools but has quickly found an audience way beyond that.
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In the two years since we launched the current Raspberry Pi Model B, we’ve often talked about our intention to do one more hardware revision to incorporate the numerous small improvements people have been asking for. This isn’t a “Raspberry Pi 2″, but rather the final evolution of the original Raspberry Pi. Today, I’m very pleased to be able to announce the immediate availability, at $35 – it’s still the same price, of what we’re calling the Raspberry Pi Model B+.
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The board runs Linux, and supports the Arduino integrated development environment, which is widely used to make robots and electronics. Galileo can be attached to PCs running Windows or Mac OS for electronics creation.
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Phones
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It looks like India may be the next global market where Mozilla tests demand for ultra-low cost smartphones based on its Firefox OS mobile platform. The phones will be available for prices of up to $50, DigiTimes has reported, quoting company COO and Mozilla Taiwan CEO Gong Li, but Mozilla has also been making noise about delivering $25 phones. Because India remains a hugely fast-growing market for mobile phones and apps, the region could be a proving ground for Mozilla.
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Mozilla will launch a series of inexpensive Firefox OS smartphone models in the India market in July, with retail prices of up to US$50, according to company COO and Mozilla Taiwan CEO Gong Li.
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Mozilla is thrilled to announce the official kick-off of Maker Party, our annual campaign to teach the culture, mechanics and citizenship of the Web through thousands of community-run events around the world.
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Android
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Reports are rolling in of the possibility of a newer more refreshed looking Play store is on its way. At the moment the reports have not been confirmed and there is no substantiating evidence any of this is true. However Android Police had provided what is believed to be leaked images of what the new Play Store will look like.
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Google has teamed up with Udacity to make available a free course in Android development available to all – complete with videos, quizzes, course materials and forums. The course is called ‘Developing Android Apps: Android Fundamentals,” and it provides everything you need to learn how to make an Android app step-by-step; provided, that is, you already have a basic understanding of programming in general.
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Blackphone CEO Toby Weir-Jones has a lot to say in response to BlackBerry’s recent post on its blog criticizing the company’s approach to privacy.
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This isn’t the first time BlackBerry has taken a public potshot at a rival, but in the Blackphone case, the firm has met its mouthy match.
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Google posted a Nexus 5 factory image and binaries for a new Android 4.4.4 r2 build (plus pushed it to AOSP) this afternoon as KTU84Q. Don’t get too excited about, though, as it has been posted “For 2Degrees/NZ, Telsta/AUS and India ONLY.” In other words, you probably won’t see it as an OTA any time soon unless you are in New Zealand, Australia or India. But hey, it happened!
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In India, the situation is not different. I searched the Language Atlas of UNESCO and found out that 197 Indian languages are endangered. One of these endangered languages is from the region from where I originally belong: Bihar, a state of India. I work in the free and open source software (FOSS) field, focused on localization. The language I do my work in is Hindi. I’ve also worked in Maithili, an Indian language, mentoring the community and help develop several applications in it, including Fedora, GNOME, KDE , and Firefox.
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Local startup GraphAlchemist is hoping to tap into some of that excitement. The data visualization company has tools for corporate customers to visualize data sets and map connections, and now it is releasing a version called Alchemy.js that will allow people to get a taste of the product.
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Silicon Valley may think itself the center of the universe, but when it comes to open source, it can only muster a third-place finish. According to an analysis of top GitHub contributors, both Europe and the rest of the United States develop more open-source software than Silicon Valley. While this may not be surprising given Europe’s long-standing affection for open source, it is a reminder that much of the best development talent doesn’t live along Highway 101 and probably never will.
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Events
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For many years, Linux Foundation research has pointed out that companies have a hard time finding enough skilled applicants for their Linux-related technical positions, especially in development. At The Linux Foundation, we have created a number of programs to address this: from Linux technical training to a free Linux MOOC to a training scholarship program to inclusivity programs at our LinuxCon and Cloud events. If there is a shortage of skilled applicants, we want to invite everyone to join the party.
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Web Browsers
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Chrome
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Google Chrome, a browser built on the Blink layout engine that aims to be minimalistic and versatile at the same time, is now at version 36.0.1985.125 and features just a small number of fixes.
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Mozilla
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We’re pleased to announce the release of mozjpeg 2.0. Early this year, we explained that we started this project to provide a production-quality JPEG encoder that improves compression while maintaining compatibility with the vast majority of deployed decoders. The end goal is to reduce page load times and ultimately create an enhanced user experience for sites hosting images.
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SaaS/Big Data
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CMS
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It was an aging bespoke application that drove TransLink to seek a new content management system, but it was the strength of the community surrounding the open source project that helped the Queensland public transport agency choose Drupal.
Prior to the switch to Drupal, which began last year, the former TransLink site was partly based on static files and partly on a “home-grown CMS that managed a lot of our custom content such as service disruption and events, so that we could do a little bit of distributed authoring within the organisation,” said Natalie Gorring, manager, online products and services, at TransLink.
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Business
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Funding
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Nowadays when people say “crowdfunding,” most people know exactly it is, but just a few short years ago, the term was not commonly used. Bountysource is easy to explain now: it is a crowdfunding site aimed at open source software developers, but a decade ago, people just were not sure what it was or how it worked. Even the founders said the project died quickly because people were unsure of its intentions.
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BSD
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The FreeBSD Release Engineering Team is pleased to announce the availability of FreeBSD 9.3-RELEASE. This is the fourth release of the stable/9 branch, which improves on the stability of FreeBSD 9.2-RELEASE and introduces some new features.
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FSF/FSFE/GNU/SFLC
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GCC 4.9.1 release supports OpenMP 4.0 also in Fortran, rather than just in C and C++.
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Openness/Sharing
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From my earliest days in measurement, the term “real-time” has been special. Its meaning has evolved over these years as a figure of merit without any actual figures being presented. But the use has continually increased as a way of denoting the presence of data as it occurs.
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At O’Reilly, we’ve long been supporters of the open source movement — perhaps not with the religious fervor of some, but with a deep appreciation for how open source has transformed the computing industry over the last three decades.
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Open Hardware
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Students, makers and developers that are in the market for an open source robot might be interested in a new Arduino-based robot called Apeiros.
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The prototype we created of the designed solution, is composed of an Arduino controlling six player boards with voting buttons and LEDs which it reads. The Arduino is connected to a virtual interface showed on a 19″ screen in the middle of the table. Players receive harmless question such as “Which player would be the best superhero?” and everyone then place a vote on each other using the player boards. Votes are then revealed and points are given to the agreeing majority. If players votes indicate disagreement, a discussion round is started where players have to persuade each other to vote differently.
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Airbus design does away with cushions, tray tables and legroom in favour of seats that resemble bicycle saddles
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Security
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This Libav exploit is not a major problem for the Ubuntu systems, but upgrading the system would be a good idea. It’s also nice to see that Ubuntu 13.10 hasn’t been forgotten, although it’s almost close to reaching EOL status.
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It’s not government institutions but ordinary citizens who represent the weakest link in the war against online spying, Finnish IT expert Petteri Jarvinen has said in a recent interview with Xinhua.
His comment came after recent revelations of cyber espionage that is belived to have targeted Finland’s foreign ministry have raised concerns about data and online security in the country’s state organizations.
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Defence/Police/Secrecy/Aggression
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We have previously discussed our concerns over the seemingly exponential increase in “no knock” raids in the country where police give no warning before raiding a home. (here and here and here and here and here and here). Now in a remarkable ruling, a Texas grand jury has refused to indict Goedrich Magee, 20, who shot and killed a law enforcement officer, Burleson County Sgt. Adam Sowders, 31, during a no knock entrance into his home. Magee said that he thought he was being robbed and acted to protect his pregnant girlfriend and children.
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But it wasn’t just the disparity in the time allotted to the different sides; Schieffer made it plainly clear that the threat to Israel was more important to him. He began his conversation with Netanyahu by saying, “I understand as we begin this interview, Tel Aviv is again under an alert, that the sirens have just gone off.” He closed it by saying, “We’ll let you get back to work now, and keep your head down.”
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In 37 of 44 countries surveyed on the issue, at least half of the respondents opposed American strikes, which have become a signature tactic of the Obama administration’s war on terrorism.
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But in contrast, most Americans are of the view that eavesdropping on foreign leaders is an acceptable practice, but they are divided over using this technique on average people in other countries. The PEW survey says disclosures by former National Security Administration (NSA) contractor Edward Snowden about NSA spying revealed the US government’s vast capacity to intercept communications around the world.
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Transparency Reporting
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The rather astoundingly named Josh Earnest is the recently appointed press secretary of President Obama, and he’s kicked off his tenure with quite a whopper: insisting that, despite complaints from basically every corner, President Obama really is “the most transparent President in history.” As you may recall, President Obama promised upon election that he would be “the most open and transparent” President, and one of his first orders of business in the White House was to promise the same.
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The administration still doesn’t want to talk about pardoning Ed Snowden or reforming the ECPA (Electronic Communications Privacy Act), but it has stepped up to cherry pick another petition from the pile over at We The People. The petition, which asks for the government to step in and force states to allow Tesla to sell its cars directly to customers, was created more than a year ago. That puts it right on pace for petition answers, which still average nearly 300 days from the date of creation.
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Environment/Energy/Wildlife
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Matthew Hancock called for cuts to wind power subsidies while Liz Truss claimed renewable power was damaging the economy
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PR/AstroTurf/Lobbying
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New documents indicate that just weeks after the first subpoenas were issued in Wisconsin’s “John Doe” criminal campaign finance probe in October 2013, senate Republicans had begun working to change state law to legalize the activities under investigation.
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Privacy
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Voting against the programme motion – the fast-tracking of the legislation through parliament
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In the UK, the Tories have edged into the lead in the latest Guardian/ICM opinion poll. While New Labour’s support for benefit cuts, government spending plans and the entire neo-con agenda means it makes no difference who is in power at Westminster, residual voter tribal loyalty to these moribund and corrupt parties remains the basic fact of “mainstream” politics, even after the voters have twigged the politicians are almost all self-serving crooks.
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A group of privacy and security organizations have just sent President Obama a letter asking him to issue a veto threat over the Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act passed out of the Senate Intelligence Committee last week. It’s a great explanation of why this bill sucks and doesn’t do what it needs to to make us safer from cyberattacks. It argues that CISA’s exclusive focus on information sharing — and not on communications security more generally — isn’t going to keep us safe.
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Fifteen technology law experts have warned that the Data Retention and Investigatory Powers bill is being unnecessarily rushed through Parliament – and may continue to conflict with EU law
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The last few days have shown that the world is no longer prepared to tolerate all of America’s whims. Countries like Germany and South Korea are freeing themselves from the US’ grip, writes DW’s Frank Sieren.
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The US president and German chancellor have spoken for the first time since a scandal broke out over alleged US espionage against Berlin. The White House said it wants to improve intelligence cooperation with Germany.
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Reflecting the increasing attention paid to information security by many Americans, Pew Research recently conducted a large study, “Net Threats”, to identify important trends among technology experts’ opinions and predictions regarding the future of digital security. The study targeted thousands of Internet experts to measure their thoughts and concerns about the future of the Internet. Researchers at Pew identified four major themes among responses, and this post will discuss the second theme – Trust will evaporate in the wake of revelations about government and corporate surveillance and likely greater surveillance in the future.
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It’s a troubling revelation, because it makes this very important government agency appear no more distinguished than a 15-year old computer hacker. I don’t think British citizens are paying for that sort of thing.
We’ve all received emails purporting to be from our bank or email service provider, with instructions to click legitimate-looking links that would no doubt compromise our computer systems. If government intelligence services are just getting into the same game now, then the lack of return on the intelligence budget investment should be of more concern than the potential for abuse.
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The United States Justice Department has filed a brief requesting that a federal appeals court overturn a decision issued last year, which found that the National Security Agency’s phone metadata program infringed upon the privacy of Americans.
Attorney Larry Klayman, founder of Freedom Watch, and Charles Strange, father of Michael Strange, an NSA cryptologist technician and Navy support personnel for SEAL Team VI who was killed in Afghanistan when his helicopter was shot down, were the plaintiffs in the lawsuit. They sought a preliminary injunction barring the government from collecting their phone records through the program operated under Section 215 of the PATRIOT Act.
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In his December 2013 opinion in Klayman v. Obama, Judge Richard Leon of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia ruled that the “almost-Orwellian technology that enables the government to store and analyze the phone metadata of every telephone user in the United States” not only sounds like the stuff of dystopian science fiction, it “almost certainly does violate a reasonable expectation of privacy” under the Fourth Amendment. It was the first major legal defeat for the NSA.
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The Edward Snowden revelations have made the continued use of this prophylactic for spying activities a farce
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The power to secretly create government propaganda is among the many hacking tools revealed in the latest batch of Edward Snowden documents.
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The Joint Threat Research Intelligence Group (JTRIG) was responsible for developing most of the software programs listed in the documents, which enable GCHQ personnel to make fake victim blog posts, manipulate online polls, send fake SMS text messages, promote a specific video message on YouTube, carry out Denial of Service (DDOS) attacks against websites, and even post fake Facebook posts to entire countries.
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Lawyers representing GCHQ and the government will appear before the Investigatory Powers Tribunal (IPT) to decide if the spy agency violated laws with surveillance activities unearthed by revelations from Edward Snowden.
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In case you didn’t know it by now, spy agencies are really good – and hopefully effective – at spying on people, including both actual valid targets as well as unsuspecting citizens who aren’t plotting anything bigger than a trip to an exotic country. To further demonstrate the power of one such agency – NSA’s close buddy, the British GCHQ, in this case – The Intercept has published a new Snowden leak, which reveals such ambitious mass spying plans, as well as their silly names.
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The proposed amendment would explicitly spell out that to “access electronic data or communication” requires a warrant based on probable cause describing the particular communication that is to be seized.
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The controversial bill, the Cybersecurity Information Act (CISA), was marked up and passed in a closed Senate Intelligence Committee session on July 8, and it is expected to see a full Senate vote some time this year. The bill would encourage companies to share information about cyber threats with each other and with the federal government, but the letter from the coalition to the president said the bill failed to “provide a comprehensive solution” to cyber threats because it, among other complaints, only addresses information sharing.
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This week’s issue of Time magazine features an arresting cover: “World War Zero” screams the headline in huge red block letters. An ominous silhouette of a man in a hoody looking into a background of electronic ones and zeroes darkens the center of the frame. “The global battle to steal your secrets is turning hackers into arms dealers,” the sub-heading warns.
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From the moment of the first revelations of America’s intrusive worldwide spy network last year, it seemed inevitable that Thailand would appear in the reports. And now it has.
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What all this suggests is that without examining what the NSA actually collects, it is difficult, if not impossible, to understand how closely it hews to the law. While The Washington Post article came too late to influence the findings of the Privacy Board, it might still have an effect on Congress when it writes legislation later this year aimed at curbing NSA abuses. The 2008 FISA Amendments were intended, in part, to restore Fourth Amendment rights to US citizens, but in practice those rights have proved to be fungible because Section 702 is so elastic. If, in light of the evidence supplied by Gellman, Greenwald, and their colleagues, it is still possible to agree with the Privacy and Civil Liberties Board that the NSA has not strayed outside the parameters of Section 702, perhaps it is time to acknowledge that the issue is not one of legality but of the failure of the law itself.
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Civil Rights
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Pew Research Center: Asia, Europe maintain pro-American worldview; Middle East, Russia do not approve of DC
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Veterans Affairs regional office slammed her bosses at a congressional hearing Monday night, accusing them of putting bonuses above the well-being of veterans and then retaliating against her for bringing concerns to light.
Kristen Ruell told the House Committee on Veterans Affairs that over the last four years, she had complained about mail at her Germantown office being shredded by the box load, dates being changed so staff appeared to have met performance goals, and veterans receiving two or more payouts on a claim.
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A former Scotland Yard detective who won plaudits for his work on cases including the murder of Stephen Lawrence has claimed that he was moved from his post earlier when he revealed plans to investigate politicians over child abuse claims.
Speaking about his inquiries in 1998 into activity alleged to have taken place in Lambeth children’s homes in the 1980s, retired detective chief inspector Clive Driscoll said that his work was “all too uncomfortable to a lot of people”.
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More Americans are fed up with the phony democracy that exists in the United States. Across the nation people are engaged in democracy rebellions as many re-examine the nation’s roots, especially with the 4th of July weekend just passing.
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It’s not news that taking pictures can get you threatened and arrested, but a lawsuit filed this month by the American Civil Liberties Union sheds further light on just how pervasive the government’s paranoia over photography has become. The suit, Gill v. DoJ, challenges the Department of Justice on a program called the Nationwide Suspicious Activity Reporting Initiative, which is run jointly by the FBI and Department of Homeland Security. The plaintiffs are five “U.S. citizens whose information has been entered into counterterrorism databases for engaging in lawful conduct, and who have been subject to unwarranted law enforcement and scrutiny,” in the words of the ACLU. For two, the behavior that landed them with “Suspicious Activity Reports” (SARs) was taking photographs of energy-related structures in public places.
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Internet/Net Neutrality
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Tomorrow is the deadline for the public to comment on the Federal Communications Commission’s (FCC) attempt to regulate the Internet under the seemingly innocuous moniker of “net neutrality.” The architect of this movement, and the man who coined the term “net neutrality,” is Columbia law professor Tim Wu. Unfortunately, he has proved to be immensely influential among regulators.
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Permalink
Send this to a friend
07.15.14
Posted in News Roundup at 11:24 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Contents
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Desktop
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There is an interesting trend going on in the PC market. Android powered smartphones have overtaken the total PC shipment. Which means Microsoft’s operating system is no more the dominating player in the market. We all understand that the post-PC era belongs to mobile devices as average users can do much more on their smartphones they they used to do on their Windows powered PC, sans mobility. But that’s not the only trend Microsoft is worried about, the real threat is somewhere else. Interestingly as Windows powered PC market is declining, sales of Google’s Chromebooks is picking up. Chromebooks are the #1 best sellers on Amazon.com.
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Do the maths. Millions are buying small cheap computers that do for them what bulky PCs used to do: compute and communicate. Those small cheap computers even do it better, being small and cheap (bonus for no extra charge). If M$ does give away its OS for small cheap computers or pay people to use its OS, everyone will know that the value of M$’s OS on desktop PCs and servers is about $0, too. The endgame is that M$ cannot just compete on price for consumers’ gadgets. M$ will have to compete everywhere and actually work for a living from now on. That will lower their margins considerably. That will cut into their bottom line. That may not maintain their market share anywhere near where it is now.
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To the regular consumer, Chromebook may not be a very cheap device but mind you, if you know the right places to shop, you can actually get a Chromebook that’s as cheap as $200. Now news doing rounds suggest that they could get cheaper than that. MediaTek has reportedly added a new experimental entry-level ARM Cortex A7 board to the open source Chromium OS repository. This will be used in place of the Cortex A15/A7 hybrid that is used by Samsung- not to forget the Intel Celeron chips that are used in other Chrome devices. In theory, this will make Chromebooks and Chromeboxes cost even less than $200, but will be offering sluggish speed.
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When it comes to selecting the best Linux desktop experience, there are a number of different factors to consider. In this article, I’ll explore 10 Linux distributions that I personally believe are the best all around desktop options.
I’ll segment each off for newbies or advanced users, customization vs. pre-configured, along with how each performs on standard PC hardware commonly used in most homes.
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Server
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Every year, the Top 500 list of the world’s fastest supercomputers is released. A list filled with machines containing tens of thousands of nodes and capable of cranking out enough petaflops per second to make your head spin.
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Kernel Space
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E2fsprogs, a tool that provides the filesystem utilities for use with the ext2 filesystem and that also supports the ext3 and ext4 filesystems, is now at version 1.42.9.
The development of E2fsprogs is progressing slowly and each new version managed to be quite impressive, especially if we take into account that it’s made by only one man. The new version of E2fsprogs, 1.42.11, comes with more new features, changes, and fixes than the previous release.
According to the changelog, support has been added so that mke2fs can now create hugefiles that are aligned relative to the beginning of the disk, a bug that was causing e2fsck to abort a journal replay on a file system with bigalloc enabled has been fixed, sanity checks have been implemented so that mke2fs will now refuse insanely large flex_bg counts specified by the -G option, the ke2fs program is now able to provide a better metadata layout for moderately large flex_bg counts, and the mke2fs program will now check the kernel version number to determine whether the lazy_itable_init option is supported.
Also, a description of ext4′s mount options has been added to the ext4 section 5 man page, the chattr man page has been improved, resize2fs will not try to calculate the minimum size of a file system, and a file descriptor leak in debugfs has been corrected.
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Graphics Stack
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It’s been quite a while since the previous driver release by AMD for the Linux platform and it looks like the company still isn’t ready to promote a stable version. This means that the Linux users will have to contend with yet another Beta. At least it comes with a few fixes.
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Applications
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A console application is computer software which is able to be used via a text-only computer interface, the command line interface, or a text-based interface included within a graphical user interface operating system, such as a terminal emulator (such as GNOME Terminal or the aforementioned Terminator). Whereas a graphical user interface application generally involves using the mouse and keyboard (or touch control), with a console application the primary (and often only) input method is the keyboard. Many console applications are command line tools, but there is a wealth of software that has a text-based user interface making use of ncurses, a library which allow programmers to write text-based user interfaces.
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LFTP 4.5.3, a sophisticated file transfer program with a command-line interface that supports FTP, HTTP, FISH, SFTP, HTTPS, and FTPS protocols, has been released and is ready for download.
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Mailnag, an email notifier that was initially developed for GNOME Shell only, was updated to version 1.0 recently, getting numerous changes such as a plugin system for easy extensibility and also, the application is now desktop-independent.
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Proprietary
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Dropbox 2.10.2, a client for an online service that lets you bring all your photos, docs, and videos anywhere, has been released for Linux, Windows, and Mac OS X.
The Dropbox client is a very popular application on the Linux platform, but its developers don’t seem to notice that. Most of the new versions ignore Linux users and focus mostly on the Windows and Mac OS clients, and this particular build is no different.
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Instructionals/Technical
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Games
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When it comes to gaming, Linux has taken major steps forward. What once was a deserted island for gamers has now become a growing arena for both gaming fans as well as game developers. With each passing week, we see more and more gaming franchises debuting on this platform. Thanks to the massive investment of Steam in Linux, you can now have a full-fledged gaming experience without booting up your Windows installation.
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Epic Games has begun financially supporting the open-source Blender modeling software to improve the workflow for artists with Unreal Engine 4.
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Terraria a very popular 2D sandbox game is alive once again thanks to a renewed push from developers, and in a recent update they noted Linux will be looking into after Mac (and Mac looks close). The game itself is something that helped make sandbox games as popular as they are today.
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Vendetta Online 1.8.299, an MMORPG (massively multiplayer online role-playing game) from Guild Software Inc., has been released with a number of small but important features.
The Vendetta Online developers have made a number of smaller changes to the multiplayer game, but some of those modifications don’t apply to the regular platforms. You will find quite a few fixes that are designed only for Android.
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Desktop Environments/WMs
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K Desktop Environment/KDE SC/Qt
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Next time you’ll start your updated Plasma 5 session’s KDE Wallet system, it’ll eventually start migrating your wallets. The precondition is that you’re doing that on a system that also has KDE4 and that you previously used that installation’s KDE Wallet system. If your system doesn’t have a KDE4 wallet daemon, then nothing will happen.
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Last weekend we had a really nice sprint Deventer, which was hosted by Irina and Boudewijn (thank you very much!). We spent two days on discussions, planning, coding and profiling our software, which had many fruitful results.
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Plasma 5.0 is wrapping up and we have all learned a LOT in the first few months of the Visual Design Group’s existence. One thing is clear though. If any of us had any doubts about whether an open approach to visual design can produce great results, most of those doubts have been assuaged. I’m super-proud to be part of this community and the quality of the results we have produced. It is really exciting to see the participation and the optimism by everyone involved!
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July 15, 2014. KDE proudly announces the immediate availability of Plasma 5.0, providing a visually updated core desktop experience that is easy to use and familiar to the user. Plasma 5.0 introduces a new major version of KDE’s workspace offering. The new Breeze artwork concept introduces cleaner visuals and improved readability. Central work-flows have been streamlined, while well-known overarching interaction patterns are left intact. Plasma 5.0 improves support for high-DPI displays and ships a converged shell, able to switch between user experiences for different target devices. Changes under the hood include the migration to a new, fully hardware-accelerated graphics stack centered around an OpenGL(ES) scenegraph. Plasma is built using Qt 5 and Frameworks 5.
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I was fixing a friend’s computer this weekend and she asked me to install her evernote client to keep things in sync, sigh… it’s a java application and I really didn’t wanna install that but well, she needed, so I went to the developer website and WHOA, It went to Qt.
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GNOME Desktop/GTK
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you would think that, in 2014, implementing a code of conduct for conferences or conventions would not be a controversial topic. sadly, you’d also be mistaken. there are various contrarian positions about implementing anti-harassment policies; most, if not all of those positions are wrong.
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New Releases
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GParted Live 0.19.1 Beta 1-2, a small bootable GNU/Linux distribution for x86-based computers that can be used for creating, reorganizing, and deleting disk partitions with the help of tools that allow managing filesystems, is ready for testing.
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4MLinux Allinone Edition 9.1 Beta, a Linux distro focusing on the Maintenance (system rescue Live CD), Multimedia (e.g. playing video DVDs), Miniserver (using the inetd daemon), and Mystery (Linux games) 4M editions, is now available for download and testing.
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Screenshots
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Red Hat Family
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“Open source gives us brand permission to enter a ton of categories,” said Red Hat CEO Jim Whitehurst.
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A few weeks ago, I covered the news that Google had released Kubernetes under an open-source license, which is software to manage computing workloads across thousands of computer servers and leverage docker containers. We’ve also covered Google’s announcement that some vey big contributors have joined the Kubernetes project, including IBM, Microsoft, Red Hat, Docker, CoreOS, Mesosphere, and SaltStack. They are working in tandem on open source tools and container technologies that can run on multiple computers and networks.
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The CentOS 7 Linux operating system became generally available July 7, providing users with a freely available desktop, server and cloud operating system platform. CentOS, an acronym for Community Enterprise Operating System, is based on the Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 7 enterprise OS, released June 10. Unlike RHEL 7, which is a commercially supported enterprise Linux release that requires users to have a paid subscription, CentOS is free. That said, CentOS lacks the support, services and certifications that Red Hat provides its RHEL subscribers. CentOS does, however, provide the same basic technologies as RHEL 7, but for those who don’t need or want the additional enterprise-grade commercial services, CentOS is a free alternative. Red Hat is now an official support and partner of the CentOS community, as well, ever since a surprise announcement in January. CentOS inherits the same XFS file system used in RHEL 7, which provides a file system that can scale up to 500 terabytes. Docker container virtualization support is also part of the CentOS 7 platform. In this slide show, eWEEK examines the CentOS 7 Linux operating system.
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The second Alpha version of Scientific Linux 7.0, a recompiled Red Hat Enterprise Linux put together by various labs and universities around the world, is now available for download and testing.
The developers of Scientific Linux 7.0 have moved very fast and, just a week after the first Release Candidate, a new development release has been made available. Given the short development period since the first Alpha, it’s actually surprising that the devs managed to get all those changes and improvements in.
“Fermilab’s intention is to continue the development and support of Scientific Linux and refine its focus as an operating system for scientific computing. Today we are announcing an alpha release of Scientific Linux 7. We continue to develop a stable process for generating and distributing Scientific Linux, with the intent that Scientific Linux remains the same high quality operating system the community has come to expect.”
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Debian Family
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The Debian project is pleased to announce the sixth update of its stable distribution Debian 7 (codename “wheezy”). This update mainly adds corrections for security problems to the stable release, along with a few adjustments for serious problems. Security advisories were already published separately and are referenced where available.
Please note that this update does not constitute a new version of Debian 7 but only updates some of the packages included. There is no need to throw away old “wheezy” CDs or DVDs but only to update via an up-to-date Debian mirror after an installation, to cause any out of date packages to be updated.
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Derivatives
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Canonical/Ubuntu
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Jane Silber is the CEO of Canonical, a 650-employee software company best known for two things. Its Linux operating system, named Ubuntu, that competes with Windows and Macs, and its bold plan to take on Apple, Google, and Microsoft with soon-to-be released phones/tablets/internet TV devices.
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Some hits and some misses as Canonical tries to cover everything from the smartphone to the desktop to the cloud.
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The City of Munich has become one of the most prominent examples of a city administration that switched from Microsoft products to open source, and it looks like Canonical and Ubuntu were an instrumental part of that change.
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As it’s been some months since last running any Linux vs. Mac OS X performance benchmarks, up today are benchmarks of the latest OS X 10.9.4 release on a Haswell-based Apple MacBook Air compared to running Ubuntu 14.04 LTS on the same hardware with also upgrading against the Linux 3.16 development kernel.
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Flavours and Variants
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The newly launched Linux Mint 17 is now based on Ubuntu 14.04 LTS and all the next major releases will use the same codebase, which will be Linux Mint 17.1, 17.2, and 17.3. The upcoming Linux Mint 18 will be based on Ubuntu 16.04 LTS, if everything goes according to plan.
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The follow-up to 2013’s upgraded Cubieboard2 single- board computer (SBC), the Cubietruck was originally known as the Cubieboard 3. A departure from the family’s traditional narrow circuit board layout led to a name change prior to launch and, if nothing else, it helps differentiate the more powerful design from its predecessor.
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Today, the Raspberry Pi foundation have announced the release of an updated version of the Raspberry Pi model B, known as the B+ (the official announcement is here). There have been a couple of tweaks to the design over the past couple of years, but this is the first major revision. The big news is that it still has the same CPU, SoC and memory (which means that it should run exactly the same software as the previous version). However, there have been a number of important improvements across various parts of the board.
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The Raspberry Pi Foundation announced today the launch of the Raspberry Pi Model B+ as the final evolution of the original RPi board while still costing $35 USD.
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IriTech has launched an Indiegogo project for an Android-based “Fidelys” smartwatch with iris recognition technology and a rotating-clicking bezel for I/O.
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Phones
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According to Jolla, the newest SDK Alpha 1407 has been released today which is good news for those who want to continue hacking and developing for Sailfish OS and those who just want to start doing it!
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Ballnux
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Android L is still some months away from being officially available, but the preview release has given developers enough to port the firmware to HTC’s One M7.
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Android
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Apps like Instagram have made photo filters commonplace. I actually don’t mind the vintage look for quick cell-phone snapshots, but a filter can do only so much. At first glance, Repix is another one of those “make your photo cool” apps that does little more than add a border and change saturation levels. It is more than that, however, taking photo modification to the next level and making it art.
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However, it’s still believed to be Android at play here that has been tweaked enough to offer an iOS like UI, claims 9to5Mac.
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Partition Logic is free software, available under the terms of the GNU General Public License. It is based on the Visopsys operating system. It boots from a CD or floppy disk and runs as a standalone system, independent of your regular operating system.
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When I first started The HeliOS Project, I was using Librenet on my personal computer. Libranet had a per-user licensing agreement in order to make the effort pay and a single user license was for 69.00 If I remember correctly. Jon Danzig and I worked out a multiple licensing agreement that we could both live with. The fact is, Jon almost gave those licenses away because he believed in what we were doing. Jon’s untimely death in 2005 eventually resulted in the Libranet venture striking their tents and moving on.
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Making money from open source. To many in the corporate world, that seems like a contradiction in terms. How are you supposed to make money from something that you give away? they ask. It can be done. A number of companies, large and small, have done quite well in the open source space over the years.
Just ask Patrick McFadin. He’s the chief evangelist for Apache Cassandra at DataStax, a company that’s embraced the open source way. He’s also interviewed leaders at a number of successful open source companies to gain insights into what makes a successful open source business.
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Earlier this month, I spent a day working in the throwback world of DOS. More specifically, it was FreeDOS version 1.1, the open source version of the long-defunct Microsoft MS-DOS operating system. It’s a platform that in the minds of many should’ve died a long time ago. But after 20 years, a few dozen core developers and a broader, much larger contributor community continue furthering the FreeDOS project by gradually adding utilities, accessories, compilers, and open-source applications.
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Security is a top priority for Google. We’ve invested a lot in making our products secure, including strong SSL encryption by default for Search, Gmail and Drive, as well as encrypting data moving between our data centers. Beyond securing our own products, interested Googlers also spend some of their time on research that makes the Internet safer, leading to the discovery of bugs like Heartbleed.
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The first release candidate to OpenWRT “Barrier Breaker” 14.07 is now available with a large number of changes to this popular embedded Linux distribution primarily for routers and other network devices.
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My personal journey with open source began 18 years ago, and for my friend Robin Muilwijk, more than a decade ago. We sat down in an empty piazza in the heart of Amsterdam’s financial district late one night with my remote podcasting recorded this “call to arms” for open source. If you rely on open source and free software, if you take it for granted, or if you would like to understand how you, like me, can do more to make sure our journey, and that of those that follow in our footsteps, can be accepted by people across the IT divide, then give this podcast a listen.
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Juhan Sonin wants to influence the world from protein, to policy, to pixel. And, he believes the only way to do that is with open source principles guiding the way.
Juhan is the Creative Director at Involution Studios, a design firm educating and empowering people to feel wonderful by creating, developing, and licensing their work for the public.
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Events
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Seen as a meeting place for the free and open source software communities, the Linux Conference is set to be held at the University of Auckland early next year.
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Web Browsers
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Chrome
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Mozilla
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Mozilla organized two national events in India during the month of June this year: Indic FirefoxOS L10n Sprint 2014 and Mozcamp Beta 2014.
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Oracle/Java/LibreOffice
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When it comes to Free Software projects, there’s a profound, deep misunderstanding about who does what and how it’s being done. Using the now overused quote, developers write a code “because they have an itch to scratch”, means that there can be twenty different motivations to contribute to Free Software. No one needs to explain or justify his or her contribution. In the real world, one of the most common motivation is money, be it in the form of a salary, a fee, or a transaction involving the developers to fix whatever bug or develop a new feature. Most of the FOSS projects I know -excluding Firefox- do not pay developers directly for fixing bugs except in very specific circumstances and by definition not on a regular basis. The LibreOffice project is no different. The Document Foundation serves the LibreOffice project by financing its infrastructure, protecting its assets and improving LibreOffice in almost every way except paying for development on a regular basis. What this means, in other terms, is that the Document Foundation does not provide support; nor does it provide service to customers. In this sense, it is not a software vendor like Microsoft or Adobe. This is also one of the reasons why there is no “LTS” version of LibreOffice; because the Document Foundation will not provide a more or less mythical “bug-free version” of LibreOffice without ensuring the developers get paid for this. The healthiest way to do this is to grow an ecosystem of developers and service providers who are certified by the Document Foundation and are able to provide professionals with support, development, training and assistance.
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Business
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By implementing ODOO, an open source solution for enterprise resource planning (ERP), the University of Coimbra in Portugal can expect to save more than 70 per cent over the next five to six years compared to the costs of a well-known proprietary ERP solution, says ThinkOpen, a Portuguese ERP consultancy. The university is using ODOO (renamed in May from OpenERP) for its five stores.
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BSD
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JabirOS, the distribution formerly powered by Ubuntu that changed to a FreeBSD base and then proclaimed itself an independent FreeBSD fork, is trying to invent its own user-interface.
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FSF/FSFE/GNU/SFLC
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The GSRC remains one of GNU’s less known programs and is an easy way to download and install GNU software.
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More toolchain goodness this month, with several new features making their way into the sources…
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Openness/Sharing
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Interested in keeping track of what’s happening in the open source cloud? Opensource.com is your source for what’s happening right now in OpenStack, the open source cloud infrastructure project.
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Programming
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Invented 23 years ago, Python’s discovery as a great tool for first-timers has been more recent. The beginner-oriented Raspberry Pi has certainly influenced Python’s new role as a teaching tool, but also its increasing adoption at organizations like Google, Yahoo and NASA that make it valuable to know even after a programmer is no longer a beginner. In modern times, it has routinely been ranked as one of the eight most popular programming languages since 2008.
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Standards/Consortia
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The Khronos Group has shared details about their BoF sessions to be hosted next month during SIGGRAPH and it includes detailing the next-generation OpenGL / OpenGL ES specifications.
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Disturbances have taken place in Buenos Aires after Argentina’s national team lost the World Cup final 1-0 to Germany. Police used tear gas and water cannons to disperse angry fans.
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Despite the late Sunday clashes, the majority of Argentinians have accepted the loss with dignity. Earlier in the evening, thousands of fans came to the Obelisk monument, waving the national flag determined to party in celebrate reaching the World Cup final.
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But the generations of denigration of Scotland’s history, its reshaping to suit a Unionist agenda where the backwards and benighted Scots were brought in to the political and economic glories of the Union and British Empire, underlies so many of the attitudes to Scottish Independence today. Every culture has a right to reference its roots and history without ridicule – and the denial of the authenticity of genuine popular cultural heritage is a particularly pernicious form of ridicule, especially when it is built on lies drummed home in schoolrooms over centuries.
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Science
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On Saturdays, the head of the landmark Native Bee Inventory and Monitoring Program at the U.S. Geological Survey leaves his straw-bale house, where bees burrow in the walls, and goes to his office—for pleasure. From his desk, a recycled segment of a lane from a bowling alley, he pores over bee specimens with a microscope.
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Security
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Prime minister David Cameron has announced a £1.1 billion spending package for the UK’s defence industries, which includes funding to tackle cyber crime and cyber terrorism.
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At the end of June I mentioned LZO and LZ4 security issues were uncovered while coming to light in the past week was another potential LZ4 security vulnerability for the lossless data compression library.
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Last week, when a blog announced to the wild that it was possible to overflow a pointer within LZ4, I immediately produced a fix within the next few hours to protect users, without checking how the code would naturally behave in such circumstance. After all, one assumption of 32-bits memory allocation was broken, so as a rule of thumb, I accepted the idea that it must have broken something.
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Defence/Police/Secrecy/Aggression
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There are still more questions than answers regarding a drone Israel claims to have shot down.
According to the Israeli Defence Forces Twitter account, “An aerial drone from Gaza infiltrated Israel a short time ago. IDF forces shot it down with a Patriot missile above Ashdod.”
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Ever-enterprising Israelis dragged plastic chairs and sofas up to a Sderot hill to eat popcorn, smoke hookahs and cheer when explosions lit up the night sky over Gaza in a photo posted by Danish reporter Allan Sørensen with the caption, “Clapping when blasts are heard.” A follow-up story in Kristeligt Dagblad said over 50 Israelis had transformed the hill, dubbed the Hill of Shame in an earlier war, into “something that most closely resembles the front row of a reality war theater.” The photo has caused outrage online, where commenters have blasted “the morality of a people so skewed that murder is a public spectacle.” Spectators say they were there to “look at Israel creating peace” and “see Israel destroy Hamas.” They inexplicably fail to mention the part about burning children. Oh Israel, what have you wrought?
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Roberts is repeating Israel’s claims that rockets launched from Gaza toward Israel were smuggled into the occupied territory by Syria and Iran–assertions whose validity is often accepted by US media without much scrutiny (FAIR Blog, 3/11/14).
Nonetheless, her point is that the threat of US military force would stop allowing people to “get away with anything they want to get away with.”
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Iran has consistently told the world that it has no interest in developing a nuclear weapon. As of right now, there is no evidence that they are.
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A documentary that looks to shed light on a little-known Canadian factoid, Camp X: Secret Agent School, offers an in-depth look at a top-secret Second World War training camp near Whitby, Ont., that became North America’s first secret-agent school.
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I’m not speaking of the CIA, but they have been involved in Syria since before the attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi. It was shortly after that attack that a U.S. news report surfaced claiming that the CIA was funneling Libyan arms to the rebels in Syria, and it turns our that even before President Obama recently publicly authorized the CIA to train and equip select rebel groups, they had already been training them in Jordan.
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Gen. Hiftar was betrayed by Gaddafi, was approached by the CIA, moved to the USA, and now says he’ll purge Libya of jihadists. Really?
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It’s no secret that the Kurds see the civil war in Iraq as their opportunity for independence, but until now the US has publicly insisted on keeping Iraq a unitary state, even to the point that the Kurds began complaining that the US was the main obstacle to their national aspirations. Privately, however, it appears that the CIA has begun investing in infrastructure in Irbil as part of their effort to gather intel on ISIS.
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Author Nelson Denis inked a deal with Nation Books to tell the story of the 1950 incident when two island towns were bombed by the U.S. Army.
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Security sources said a leading Western-backed rebel was shot dead in the Jordanian capital of Amman. They identified the dead man as Maher Rahel, a commander in the Free Syrian Army, said to responsible for the deployment of rebels trained by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency in the Hashemite kingdom.
“The killer fired one shot and fled,” a source said.
The assassination of the FSA commander was said to have taken place on
late July 11 near a traffic circle in western Amman. The sources said Rahel,
27, commanded the Liwa Al Mujahideen Brigade, linked to FSA and deployed in
southern Syria.
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Jordan, where the US Central Intelligence Agency has been covertly training Syrian rebels for more than a year, is reluctant to host an expanded rebel instruction programme, US officials say.
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The June drone strikes killed nearly 19 militants, including a high-level Haqqani network commander, Haji Gul, and two senior Afghan Taliban leaders. Pakistan’s foreign ministry condemned the strikes, calling them a violation of Pakistan’s sovereignty and territorial integrity. However, other media reports said that Pakistani government officials privately coordinated with U.S. authorities on the attacks. The Washington Post reported in October that Pakistani government officials have for years secretly endorsed the drone program and received regular classified briefings on drone strikes from their U.S. counterparts.
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After decades of lively public debate, New Zealand abolished the death penalty for murder in 1961. It is not widely known that the death penalty for treason remained on the statute books until it was also abolished in 1989.
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What, exactly, does the United States stand for in the Middle East? More important, what would the average Iraqi, Syrian, Egyptian or Yemeni say that it stands for? The suggestion that the United States is retrenching might seem absurd, given that Yemenis can hear the buzz of drones overhead. The notion that the United States is in the business of supporting democratic pluralism might clash with their reading of our Egypt strategy or our will-they-or-won’t-they waffling over whether to actively support Syrian opposition fighters. Day by day, with chaos blossoming, it becomes clearer that if we do have a strategic narrative for the Middle East, we certainly have not articulated it effectively. In marketing terms, we are not making the sale.
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Israel has ordered three Jews suspected in the kidnapping and killing of a Palestinian teenager held until Friday as they made their first court appearance.
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Israeli naval commandos have launched an early morning raid on a beach in the north of Gaza City, as the coastal enclave suffered the bloodiest day yet of the six-day Israeli assault, with 54 Palestinians reported killed.
The raid came amid continuing speculation that Israel would launch a ground offensive in Gaza, a move likely to sharply increase the number of civilian casualties. So far, 166 people have been killed including 30 children, according to Gaza’s health ministry.
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Much of the world is horrified at Israel’s latest slaughter of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip but the continued power of the Israeli Lobby over Official Washington has silenced any protests against the imbalanced infliction of death, as ex-CIA analyst Paul R. Pillar observes.
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However, the U.N. Office for Humanitarian Affairs said Sunday that civilians made up the majority of Palestinian casualties over the past six days – 133 of 168 killed and nearly half of more than 1,100 wounded. And a human-rights researcher said some of Israel’s strikes appear to have violated rules of war.
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Israel’s military said it downed a drone along its southern coastline on Monday, the first time it encountered such a weapon since its campaign against the Gaza Strip militants began last week.
The drone came from Gaza and was shot down near the southern city of Ashdod, the military said. It did not say what the drone was carrying and there was no immediate confirmation from Gaza on the use of unmanned aircraft.
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On Saturday evening, Hamas issued a warning, saying it was going to bomb Tel Aviv at 9 p.m. It did, and luckily the rockets were intercepted by Iron Dome. Sunday morning the IDF issued a similar warning to all residents of “the northern Gaza Strip,” saying it will attack the entire area at noon. Can anyone see the difference? Does saying you’re going to attack a civilian area exempt you from responsibility for the civilians you target? I don’t think so.
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As a Friend (Quaker) who believes there is “that of God” in everyone and therefore every life is sacred, I am deeply concerned about the proliferation of lethal unmanned aerial vehicles, commonly known as drones.
The United States is leading the way in this new form of warfare where pilots on U.S. bases kill people by remote control, thousands of miles away. Drones have become the preferred weapons to conduct war due to the lack of direct risk to the lives of U.S. soldiers, but these drone strikes have led to the deaths of hundreds of innocent civilians in many countries.
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A proposal for a cease-fire between Israel and Hamas from the Egyptian government late yesterday was flatly rejected early today by the armed wing of the Palestinian militant group. The notice was posted on the group’s website.
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Why are Western liberals always more offended by Israeli militarism than by any other kind of militarism? It’s extraordinary. France can invade Mali and there won’t be loud, rowdy protests by peaceniks in Paris. David Cameron, backed by a whopping 557 members of parliament, can order airstrikes on Libya and British leftists won’t give over their Twitterfeeds to publishing gruesome pics of the Libyan civilians killed as a consequence. President Obama can resume his drone attacks in Pakistan, killing 13 people in one strike last month, and Washington won’t be besieged by angry anti-war folk demanding ‘Hands off Pakistan’. But the minute Israel fires a rocket into Gaza, the second Israeli politicians say they’re at war again with Hamas, radicals in all these Western nations will take to the streets, wave hyperbolic placards, fulminate on Twitter, publish pictures of dead Palestinian children, publish the names and ages of everyone ‘MURDERED BY ISRAEL’, and generally scream about Israeli ‘bloodletting’. (When the West bombs another country, it’s ‘war’; when Israel does it, it’s ‘bloodletting’.)
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A group of Israeli filmmakers have added their voices to those pleading for a ceasefire to the attacks by their Government on the Gaza Strip.
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U.S. officials say Israel should not have to accept rocket fire aimed at civilians. But what about other nations?
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The Pentagon and U.S. intelligence agencies exploit social media to keep the endless war on terror alive.
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Last month, Islamic insurgent took control of two main Iraqi cities, Mosul and Tikrit, and openly challenged the pro-West Government in Baghdad.
ISIS is portrayed as a Sunni-extremist group that split from Al-Qaeda. However, recent details leaking out suggests that the rise of ISIS is being ‘shaped and controlled’ out of Langley, Virginia and other CIA facilities in the States with the objective to spread chaos in world’s second largest oil state Iraq.
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Palestinian militants resumed rocket attacks on Tel Aviv on Monday after a 24-hour lull in strikes on the Israeli commercial capital, and Israel kept up its air and naval bombardments of the Gaza Strip despite growing pressure for a ceasefire.
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The Arab League yesterday called for world powers to end Israel’s devastating bombardment of the Gaza Strip.
Egypt also proposed a truce to start early today to be followed by talks on easing the flow of goods into Gaza.
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The Israeli military said it downed a drone launched by militants in the Gaza Strip on Monday, the first time it encountered an unmanned aircraft since the start of its offensive last week, as new Israeli airstrikes pushed the death toll from a weeklong Israeli offensive to at least 175.
Israel began its campaign against militants in the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip last Tuesday, saying it was responding to heavy rocket fire from the densely populated territory. The military says it has launched more than 1,300 airstrikes since then, while Palestinian militants have launched nearly 1,000 rockets at Israel.
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The Israel Defense Forces tweeted the following Sunday: “An aerial drone from Gaza infiltrated Israel a short time ago. IDF forces shot it down with a Patriot missile above Ashdod.”
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Red Alert, which alerts users every time a rocket is fired into Israel, has already been downloaded 780,000 times. It could give you peace of mind. Or it could make you hysterical.
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Transparency Reporting
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A SWEDISH court is set to consider whether an arrest warrant for WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange should be repealed.
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In 2008, Obama griped that the Bush administration invoked the state secrets privilege “more than any other previous administration” and used it to get entire lawsuits thrown out of court. Critics noted that deploying the state secrets privilege allowed the Bush administration to shut down cases that might have revealed government misconduct or caused embarrassment, including those regarding constitutionally dubious warrantless wiretapping and the CIA’s kidnapping and torture of Khaled el-Masri, a German car salesman the government had mistaken for an alleged Al Qaeda leader with the same name. After Obama took office, his attorney general, Eric Holder, promised to significantly limit the use of this controversial legal doctrine. Holder vowed never to use it to “conceal violations of the law, inefficiency, or administrative error” or “prevent embarrassment to a person, organization, or agency of the United States Government.”
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In light of a year’s worth of historic revelations about government subterfuge and mass surveillance, President Barack Obama’s early promise to oversee the most transparent administration ever now seems spectacularly ill-fated.
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Let’s go over that again. The federal government claimed the power to kill its own citizens, denying them the rights to due process and trial by jury, and tried to keep that memo from ever seeing the light of day. Hey, but at least you’ll know who has been visiting the White House.
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Over 30 years ago, I was in Mexico City when an electrifying story suddenly dominated all the papers. It claimed that the CIA had made numerous attempts to assassinate Castro. I was shocked. Then I reminded myself that I was in a Third World country, and this might be political propaganda. When the American press ignored it, I dismissed it. Twenty years later, we learned it was true.
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The FBI’s meetings with a WikiLeaks defector in Denmark were illegal and the Danish authorities knew about it, the whistleblowing organization claims in a criminal complaint filed with the East Jutland Police.
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Recently released e-mails shine further light on the Central Intelligence Agency’s (C.I.A) late 2010 high-level meetings with New York Times and government officials centering on WikiLeaks and Chelsea (Bradley) Manning. The emails convey the difficulties that the C.I.A and numerous government agencies had in grappling with WikiLeaks’ seismic release of Collateral Murder, Afghan War Diary, Iraq War Logs, and Cablegate documents. The released C.I.A emails, published by NYT eXaminer, reveal the ways in which almost a dozen Obama administration functionaries colluded to disparage WikiLeaks and Julian Assange as engaging in conspiracy to commit espionage with Manning. A number of the officials involved in these meetings with the New York Times later went on to launch campaigns to discredit other whistleblowers.
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Environment/Energy/Wildlife
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Germany produced a record 50 percent of its electricity needs through solar panel at the start of June, breaking a huge milestone on its march to renewable energy.
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Finance
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Billionaire Hungarian-American oligarch George Soros is an extremely concerned humanitarian who can be counted on to put his considerable bank balance where his concerns are. Lately, those concerns have included Ukraine and other former Soviet satellite states; Syria; immigration rights in America; the U.S. banking system; and the Great Lakes region of Africa, where all the mining opportunities just happen to be. Perhaps he could lay off the generosity long enough for us to recover from it all.
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You can buy a lot with £76,000 ($130,000). That’s how much the average London home has appreciated over the past year.
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U.S. Central Intelligence Agency for failure to pay more than $20,000 in withholding tax…
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Bitcoin Comic1At the recently concluded CoinSummit in London, a preview of a comic was unveiled that’s sure to intrigue Bitcoin enthusiasts and common people alike.
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Large corporate capitalism is a breed apart from smaller scale capitalism. The former can often avoid marketplace verdicts through corporate welfare, strip owner-shareholders of power over the top company bosses and offload the cost of their pollution, tax escapes and other “externalities” onto the backs of innocent people.
Always evolving to evade the theoretically touted disciplines of market competition, efficiency and productivity, corporate capitalism has been an innovative machine for oppression.
Take productive use of capital and its corollary that government wastes money. Apple Inc. is spending $130 billion of its retained profits on a capital return program, $90 billion of which it will use to repurchase its own stock through 2015. Apple executives do this to avoid paying dividends to shareholders and instead strive to prop up the stock price and the value of the bosses’ lucrative stock options. The problem is that the surveys about the impact of stock buybacks show they often do nothing or very little to increase shareholder value over the long run. But they do take money away from research and development. And consumer prices rarely, if ever, drop because of stock buybacks.
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Metal thefts, which have caused blackouts and traffic accidents, are on the rise in states across the country. A new Ohio state law aims to tackle this problem by regulating scrap yards.
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In May, an international trade agreement was signed that effectively serves as a kind of legal backbone for the restructuring of world markets. While the Trade in Services Agreement (Tisa) negotiations were not censored outright, they were barely mentioned in our media. This marginalisation and secrecy was in stark contrast to the global historical importance of what was agreed upon.
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Kirchner’s problems are the most pressing. On June 16, the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear an appeal from a decision of the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ordering Argentina to pay in full the claims of a group of creditors, who hold roughly $1 billion in Argentine bonds, about 1 percent of the country’s outstanding debt. The investors, led by New York billionaire Paul Singer and politically well-connected in Washington, acquired the tag of ‘vultures’ by buying up the bonds at steep discounts and refusing to accept an agreement signed by around 92 percent of bondholders. U.S. courts have also ruled that banks operating in New York must disclose information about non-U.S. assets of the Argentine government.
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PR/AstroTurf/Lobbying
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How I long to have a Wikipedia entry to call my own! It would be a sign I’d arrived, that I’d made it. It would surely help my career no end. And even though I know myself better than anyone, it is unlikely I could write my own as I’d find it impossible to adhere to the site’s strict rules on neutrality. I’d want my entry to be a gleaming eulogy to all my wonderful achievements. Until yesterday, I might have sneakily paid someone to professionally write or edit a page for me. But thanks to a recent change in Wikipedia’s terms of use, I can’t do that any more, unless my ghost writer declares an interest. I’ll just have to labour on in non-Wikipedia obscurity.
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Sixteen states, more than 500 communities, two million Americans, and now the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee, are on-the-record in support of amending the constitution to reverse the U.S. Supreme Court’s rulings in Citizens United v. FEC and related cases and to restore the power of people in elections.
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Censorship
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Well this is fascinating. Ronan Farrow, the well-known MSNBC reporter who is also an attorney and former State Department official (and, at times, a subject of much parental speculation), apparently has come out in favor of blatant censorship. Following in the dangerous footsteps of Joe Lieberman, Farrow is apparently angry that internet companies like YouTube, Facebook and Twitter aren’t taking down accounts that he believes are used by terrorists.
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News Corporation Australia has used an inquiry by the nation’s Senate into a proposed Australia/South Korea free trade agreement to suggest internet service providers become copyright enforcers.
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It is a mystery why the Observer failed to name Lord Greville Janner as the paedophile abusing boys from care homes. The facts of this particular boy’s continued molestation, and the existence of the letters to him from Janner, have been public knowledge for decades. I can only presume that Britain’s appalling libel laws, which function solely to protect the very rich from exposure of their misdeeds, are the reason for the Observer’s reticence. My own view is that the gross suppression of freedom of speech in the UK has been insufficiently considered as a major reason for the impunity which the wealthy and the powerful have enjoyed for so long.
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Roughly a month ago, I wrote about Kenneth Eng’s doomed copyright lawsuit against author L’Poni Baldwin for allegedly stealing his techno-dragon ideas. As was pointed out by the judge in the lawsuit’s dismissal, copyright doesn’t apply to ideas — only to the expression of ideas. And Eng’s ideas (and expression thereof) weren’t sufficiently distinctive from a host of other technology-meets-mythology creations. The judge did, however, allow Eng to re-file his complaint, both to refine his copyright claims and to actually make some sort of actionable claim.
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In May, the U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear an appeal of a subpoena issued to New York Times reporter James Risen. Federal prosecutors have demanded that Risen reveal the name of a CIA agent who was a source for his book “State of War: The Secret History of the CIA and the Bush Administration.”
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Privacy
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The company is getting into the intelligence game, developing a cloud system for the CIA that will allow them and other intelligence agencies to share information. Joan Neuhaus Schaan of the Texas Security Forum understands why the CIA wants this.
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The NSA has been caught in lie after lie about its surveillance on Americans.
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It’s been a little over a year since revelations from Edward Snowden’s historic NSA leak started appearing in newspapers around the world, and information about new surveillance programs is still surfacing every month. Last week, The Washington Post analyzed 160,000 NSA records and found that “ordinary Internet users, American and non-American alike, far outnumber legally targeted foreigners in the communications intercepted” by NSA surveillance programs. Four days later, Glenn Greenwald released the names of five distinguished Muslim-American men whose emails were being monitored by the NSA, none of whom are suspected of any wrongdoing.
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Global governments, the tech sector, and scholars are closely following a legal flap in which the US Justice Department claims that Microsoft must hand over e-mail stored in Dublin, Ireland.
In essence, President Barack Obama’s administration claims that any company with operations in the United States must comply with valid warrants for data, even if the content is stored overseas. It’s a position Microsoft and companies like Apple say is wrong, arguing that the enforcement of US law stops at the border.
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In one short week, the UK Parliament is set to ram through a new bill on mass surveillance. It is the “Data Retention and Investigatory Powers” Bill, AKA DRIP.
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When the European Court of Justice rightly invalidated an EU directive forcing telecommunications companies to store data for up to two years on all of their consumers, British Prime Minister David Cameron’s reaction was to countermand the spirit of the ruling and double down on the failed policies of mass surveillance.
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The CJEU ruling was delivered on 8 April, 2014. The government has had 3 months to address the court’s findings. We believe that it is the threat of legal action by Open Rights Group and other organisations that has prompted this ‘emergency’ legislation – not the threat of terrorism or criminal activity. The government should not mislead us about the urgency of this legislation. Given its significance and the threat to our civil liberties, It should not be passed without proper parliamentary scrutiny.
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The Data Retention and Investigatory Powers bill is the most tedious outrage ever, right down to the dreary acronym. But oh, the horrors it will bring …
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New York-based company Wiper releases an app that gives you the ability to delete your texts, photos, and call logs from your phone, your friend’s phone, and the company’s server.
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Tor is the backbone of the anonymous Internet, and clearly the NSA hates it with a passion. Or, at least, it did until it began to realize that Tor nodes were great places to meet terrible people’s IP addresses. Now, Tor itself has never been compromised: It remains secure and anonymous. But to get to Tor, you have to use a Tor node, and to get to a Tor node, you must send info from your IP address to the node’s address. And even before that, you’ve got to download the list of Tor exit and entry nodes from the central authority.
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If you downloaded the privacy software Tor in 2011, you may have been flagged to be spied on.
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That means that if you downloaded Tor during 2011, the NSA may have scooped up your computer’s IP address and flagged you for further monitoring. The Tor Project is a nonprofit that receives significant funding from the U.S. government.
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Senate Finance Committee Chairman Ron Wyden is investigating the economic harm he said is being caused by the National Security Agency’s surveillance methods.
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The public disclosure of emails by former NSA contractor, Edward Snowden, could be an “unwarranted invasion of personal privacy”, according to a letter fro the US Department of State responding to a FOIA request by online publication, The Desk.
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Remember in May when the National Security Agency said it found one email from Edward Snowden to the NSA office of general counsel?
The NSA released that email shortly after Snowden said in an interview with NBC host Brian Williams that the agency had copies of emails from Snowden “raising concerns about the NSA’s interpretations of its legal authorities.”
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The National Security Agency has acknowledged it retains a record of e-mail communications from former contractor turned whistleblower Edward Snowden, but says those records are exempt from public disclosure under the federal Freedom of Information Act.
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A fresh set of documents leaked by Edward Snowden show how the UK intelligence agency can manipulate online polls and debates, spread messages, snoop on YouTube and track Facebook users.
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UK eavesdropping nerve center GCHQ has developed tools to manipulate online polls, ramp up page views for articles, and obtain private photos on Facebook. That’s according to Glenn Greenwald’s latest trawling of documents leaked by Edward Snowden.
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According to new documents released by Glenn Greenwald and FirstLook.org (provided by none other than by the “Boy-Who-Must-Not-be-Named” as far as the NSA is concerned),the GCHQ has dedicated an entire wing of its surveillance arm to actively monitoring and manipulating the status of petitions, organizations, and websites at will in order to influence the public opinion.
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The Government Communication Headquarters (GCHQ) – Britain’s National Security Agency (NSA) equivalent – commands a wide-ranging set of tools that enable it to hack into popular social media and communications outlets and plant false information on the Internet, according to a document published by The Intercept Monday. The long list of options ranges from inflating the results of online polls to allowing the agency to monitor Skype communications in real time, though the details of that capability remain murky.
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The secretive British spy agency GCHQ has developed covert tools to seed the internet with false information, including the ability to manipulate the results of online polls, artificially inflate pageview counts on web sites, “amplif[y]” sanctioned messages on YouTube, and censor video content judged to be “extremist.” The capabilities, detailed in documents provided by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden, even include an old standby for pre-adolescent prank callers everywhere: A way to connect two unsuspecting phone users together in a call.
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Nearly six in 10 people around the world express confidence in President Obama even as his approval rating in the United States is near an all-time low, according to a poll released Monday.
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Klaus Scharioth, Berlin’s former ambassador to the US, tells DW why Germany’s expulsion of the top CIA official was right and why the current crisis is the biggest challenge yet for transatlantic ties.
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Worse yet, when Angela Merkel responded by demanding the departure of the CIA’s chief of mission, the administration was dismissive — expressing annoyance that Merkel had publicly denounced a practice that the “intelligence community” views as standard-operating-procedure. Obama should instead view Merkel’s gesture as an occasion to take dramatic steps to reassure a country in which only 27% of the public views the United States as trustworthy, and 46% consider it an aggressive power.
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In 48,643 interviews in 44 countries, Pew also found that the United States is more favorably viewed than China in all areas of the world except the Middle East.
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In a new poll from the Pew Research Center, 81 percent (the global median excluding U.S. citizens) of people around the world said it was “unacceptable” for the U.S. to spy on them. Fewer (73 percent) thought it was unacceptable for the U.S. to spy on the leaders of their country and 62 percent were opposed to the U.S. spying on its own citizens.
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A main selling point of the U.S. brand on the international stage has long been summed up with the screech of eagles and one word: “Freedom.” But in the wake of the revelations about U.S. surveillance programs from former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden last year, the world is less convinced of the U.S.’s respect for personal freedoms according to new survey results from Pew Research.
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Recently, news that Facebook had set out to manipulate the emotions of more than 700,000 unwitting “psychological study subjects” (read: its users) in an effort to better understand how they respond to certain content and, in turn, better monetize said users, set off a firestorm about who owns what, when, and how. Are we just finger-tapping pawns in their giant hive machine? Are we being taken for a ride on that Great Monetizing Ferris Wheel, being flipped upside-down until every last penny falls from our pockets?
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Campaign groups concerned with privacy and civil liberties have told a normally secret court that GCHQ is not allowed to access the data it collects from the internet.
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Civil liberties groups took Britain’s spy agencies to court Monday in a bid to limit electronic surveillance, as the country’s government tries to pass legislation to extend snooping powers.
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Intelligence agencies need to intercept a communications “haystack” in order to find their “needle”, which civil liberty groups must accept, tribunal hears
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The AP report on the destruction of The Guardian’s hard drives is just the latest evidence that reporters can’t trust the Obama administration on spying claims
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US government standards for software may enable spying by the National Security Agency (NSA) through widely used coding formulas that should be jettisoned, some of the country’s top independent experts concluded in papers released.
Such mathematical formulas, or curves, are an arcane but essential part of most technology that prevents interception and hacking, and the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has been legally required to consult with the NSA’s defensive experts in approving them and other cryptography standards.
But NIST’s relationship with the spy agency came under fire in September after reports based on documents from former NSA contractor Edward Snowden pointed to one formula in particular as a Trojan horse for the NSA.
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The US National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has been urged to hire more crypto experts so it can confidently tell the NSA to take a hike.
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The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has been legally required to consult with the NSA’s defensive experts in approving them and other cryptography standards.
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NIST’s primary external advisory board released a report calling for the agency to increase its staff of cryptography experts and implement more explicit processes for ensuring openness and transparency to strengthen its cryptography efforts.
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As a matter of faith, some people believe that God can see and hear everything. But as a matter of fact, the U.S. government now has the kind of surveillance powers formerly attributed only to a supreme being.
Top “national security” officials in Washington now have the determination and tech prowess to keep tabs on billions of people. No one elected Uncle Sam to play God. But a dire shortage of democratic constraints has enabled the U.S. surveillance state to keep expanding with steely resolve.
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Just a day after a historic trial began that challenges the legitimacy of Britain’s mass surveillance programme, fresh documents have revealed how the GCHQ — the government’s intelligence and information gathering agency, has developed sophisticated tools to manipulate online polls, artificially increase traffic to a website and find private photos of targets on Facebook.
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The NSA whistle-blower Edward Snowden has condemned the new surveillance Bill being pushed through the UK’s parliament this week, expressing concern about the speed at which it is being done, lack of public debate, fear-mongering and what he described as increased powers of intrusion.
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The secretive UK investigatory powers tribunal has begun its hearings into the legality of mass surveillance conducted by tapping fiber optic lines, through a Snowden-revealed programme called TEMPORA.
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Emergency legislation announced by the UK government on July 10, 2014, that would grant the British intelligence and law enforcement agencies access to data about millions of people’s communications is a blow to the right to privacy.
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Edward Snowden has spoken out on #DRIP, the surveillance bill that the UK’s major parties have vowed to ram through without any debate.
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Privacy campaigners and lawyers have warned that emergency data legislation currently being ‘railroaded’ through parliament gives the government “sweeping” new surveillance powers, despite assurances from David Cameron and other party leaders that the Bill only maintains current practices.
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Brit spy agency can monitor Skype, manipulate online polls, and “amplify” sanctioned messages on YouTube.
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Two German parliamentarians suspect that their phones were tapped by an intelligence agency, according to Der Spiegel. The allegations come amid a diplomatic row between Berlin and Washington over US espionage.
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The NSA is probably violating myriad foreign countries’ laws, because all countries prohibit foreign spying against themselves. Yet, this hardly justifies the current outrage abroad. The complaining countries are running similar programs.
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What does character have to do with espionage? That question, as much as any details about handlers and cover names and clandestine meeting spots, is what makes the events that led, this past week, to the expulsion of the C.I.A.’s station chief in Berlin feel like an old spy novel. The beguiling way to look at it is in terms of the character of the spy: the way he acts and his attributes, those he takes on in some undercover operation and those that make one wonder about who he is and where his loyalties really lie—about his own character, in the moral sense. But spy stories also lead us to talk, in ways that are more and less useful, about the character of nations.
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FOR this year’s Independence Day bash the US Embassy in Germany picked the historic Tempelhof airport where an allied air lift 66 years ago kept Berlin’s citizens from starving during Soviet leader Josef Stalin’s blockade.
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If there was one clear lesson from the dust-up over Ms. Merkel’s cellphone, it was that such operations against allies are almost certainly not worth the damage caused when they are revealed, as they too often are. This is particularly true of Germany, where there is currently a generally pro-U.S. government whose cooperation is critical to managing the crisis in Ukraine, negotiations over Iran’s nuclear program and a prospective trans-Atlantic free-trade deal, among other matters.
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Commenting on the execution of a French nobleman by Napoleon, the French diplomat Talleyrand supposedly observed: “It was worse than a crime — it was a blunder.” That consummate expression of realpolitik certainly applies to the alleged U.S. espionage operation in Germany that has strained relations between the two countries.
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During much of the Cold War typewriters were state of the art, so they were the focus of spooks and spies just as mobile phone networks, emails and social networks are today. Techniques were developed to use cheap microphones to listen to key taps and decipher what was being written, spy cameras could peer over typist’s shoulders and undercover agents could photograph and leak documents. Debonair KGB agents were even tasked with seducing typists and winkling information from them. Missile-equipped Aston Martins aside, some of what you see in James Bond films actually went on.
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Germany’s parliamentary committee investigating the National Security Agency is mulling using manual typewriters to make sure American agents don’t snoop on its work.
Patrick Sensburg, a member of Chancellor Angela Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union party who is leading the panel, told a German broadcaster on Monday that the committee needed to do all it can to secure its work from spies’ prying eyes.
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The head of Germany’s parliamentary inquiry into the NSA spying scandal has suggested the government return to using typewriters to protect national secrets from prying eyes.
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On July 10, the German government demanded the immediate departure of the head of the CIA mission in Berlin. Such demands are not unusual, even between ostensible allies. What is unusual is that it should be publicly announced, and with much fanfare. What accounts for what some are already calling an “unprecedented breach” in the very close relations after 1945 between the United States and the German Federal Republic?
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The CIA refuses to hand over its records on notorious East German Stasi head Erich Mielke, a German filmmaker claims in court.
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Politicians claim communciations technology is mistrusted in wake of US spying allegations and NSA surveillance revelations
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As evidence of US spying and surveillance continues to mount, Germany is struggling to secure even basic government documents from prying American eyes, and are forcing officials to take some unusual steps.
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In the wake of Edward Snowden’s revelations about surveillance tactics employed by the NSA, there are increasing concerns about corporate data privacy, and especially about where to house corporate and customer data. The prevalence of cloud computing and cloud-based storage and collaboration services is only exacerbating these concerns. While public pushback and grass-roots reform campaigns are evolving in the US and abroad, the reality remains that banks and financial institutions must operate within jurisdictional parameters. Deciding where to house and how to move your data is an exercise in both understanding the relevant legal regimes and the appropriate application of risk analysis in the decision-making process.
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The organisations that are looking to invent, and dominate the next era of computing are, at their heart, based on advertising revenue, and in the process of owning the future, these companies and their device-based competitors will treat the personal information of consumers as a prized commodity.
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One of the greatest obstacles to achieving that goal is that we live in the age of specialization, where scientists, social analysts, and experts in every field focus in on a particular area of knowledge and study. But almost no one can look at the big picture and connect the dots. Very few disciplines demand the study of data from a vast spectrum of trends, scientific developments, political changes, economics, food supplies etc. Metadata is data about the data on a wide variety of topics, but it is only as good as the the kind of data it collects and its ability to analyze that data. According to Anthony Lowenstein, a writer for The Guardian, “The NSA will soon be able to collect 966 Exabyte’s a year, the total of internet traffic annually. Former Google head Eric Schmidt once argued that the entire amount of knowledge from the beginning of humankind until 2003 amount to only five Exabyte’s.”
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US intelligence agencies are considering basing their recruitment activities in Warsaw or Prague due to growing pressure in Germany following the NSA spying row, according to German media. – See more at: http://www.thenews.pl/1/10/Artykul/176193,US-spies-to-relocate-to-Poland-after-German-row-#sthash.PH74Toqr.dpuf
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The U.S. approach to spying in that country was different during the Cold War, when it was split between West Germany, allied with the United States in NATO, and East Germany, part of the Communist Warsaw Pact headed by the Soviet Union. Back then it was a target-rich environment for spies from all sides.
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Two German parliamentarians suspect that their phones were tapped by an intelligence agency, according to Der Spiegel. The allegations come amid a diplomatic row between Berlin and Washington over US espionage.
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Against this backdrop, it is hard to qualify the latest scandal as mere stupidity. The N.S.A. revelations could at least be dismissed as an unfortunate but inadvertent result of mission overreach; developing human intelligence sources within the German government is another matter. To many Germans, America’s continuing espionage against one of its supposedly closest allies smacks of arrogance and disrespect.
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The UK’s most secretive court is beginning a week-long hearing – mostly in public – into complaints that GCHQ’s mass surveillance of the internet violates human rights.
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In April the European Court of Justice threw out an EU law that forced companies to retain data for at least six months, saying it breached the right to privacy.
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He told the Guardian: “I mean we don’t have bombs falling. We don’t have U-boats in the harbour.
“I mean the NSA could have written this draft,” he added.
“They passed it under the same sort of emergency justification. They said we would be at risk. They said companies will no longer cooperate with us. We’re losing valuable intelligence that puts the nation at risk.”
T he Data Retention and Investigation Powers Bill announced last Thursday will maintain the authorities’ existing powers rather than add to them, according to the Government.
It includes measures that ministers say will maintain the balance between security and privacy, including a “poison pill” clause which will terminate the legislation at the end of 2016, forcing the next government to debate and pass a replacement bill.
Labour has agreed to support the bill but civil liberties campaigners warn it is being rushed through without the necessary examination.
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Britain’s CCTV network is one of the largest in the world, while leaked National Security Agency (NSA) files shone a light on the extent of surveillance of online activity. Sales of the novel spiked in the light of the Edward Snowden revelations last year.
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As you have probably heard, the UK government is using the most underhand of methods to pass a deeply undemocratic and illiberal law that would extend surveillance massively in this country, the Data Retention and Investigatory Powers Bill (DRIP). Here’s the absurd timeline of how it will be pushed through…
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The NSA whistle-blower Edward Snowden has condemned the new surveillance bill being pushed through the British parliament this week, expressing concern about the speed at which it is being done, a lack of public debate, fear-mongering, and what he described as increased powers of intrusion.
Snowden said it was very unusual for a public body to pass an emergency law such as this in circumstances other than a time of total war. “I mean, we don’t have bombs falling. We don’t have U-boats in the harbour.”
It is suddenly a priority, he said, after the government had ignored it for an entire year. “It defies belief.”
He found the urgency with which the British government was moving extraordinary and said it mirrored a similar move in the US in 2007 when the Bush administration was forced to introduce legislation, the Protect America Act, citing the same concerns about terrorist threats and the NSA losing cooperation from telecoms and internet companies.
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NSA whistleblower says it ‘defies belief’ that bill must be rushed through after government ignored issue for a year
[...]
In an exclusive interview with the Guardian in Moscow, Snowden said it was very unusual for a public body to pass an emergency law such as this in circumstances other than a time of total war. “I mean we don’t have bombs falling. We don’t have U-boats in the harbour.”
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US Secretary of State John Kerry has insisted that Washington and Berlin remain “great friends” despite a new spying scandal. Two new alleged cases of espionage have rocked German-US relations over the past two weeks.
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The latest spying revelations, combined with revelations last year that the NSA was targeting Merkel’s cell phone, have sunk German-US relations to the lowest point in a decade. The German public’s anger over American spying has reached a fever pitch; if it weren’t for the media distraction caused by German participation in the World Cup final later today, it would be even worse.
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A noted NSA whistleblower told a group of journalists earlier this week that the NSA is lying when they try to reassure Americans that they “just” collect call metadata, which is information about the caller, recipient, and timing of calls. Rather, the whistleblower says, 80% of all American voice phone calls are recorded and then stored with no plans for disposal.
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The bill is known as the Cyber Information Sharing Act (CISA), and it now heads to the Senate for a debate and possible vote, but some politicians and privacy rights groups are concerned that the bill won’t protect average Americans.
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Now, a year and a half after Swartz killed himself, there is the Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act. CISA is a lot like CISPA, but could end up being even worse. Privacy and civil rights groups including the ACLU and the Electronic Frontier Foundation are standing up to fight it. In an article about the bill, the ACLU’s Sandra Fulton wrote: CISA “poses serious threats to our privacy, gives the government extraordinary powers to silence potential whistleblowers, and exempts these dangerous new powers from transparency laws.” The bill has been approved by the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence and will move to the Senate soon.
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As former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden’s leaks have revealed, the surveillance nets are everywhere. The agency intercepts data to cellphones and computers, tracks the Web browsing habits of millions of individuals worldwide and, through its Optic Nerve program, downloaded private webcam footage from innocent people. It has even embedded bugs within consumer technology products after intercepting and opening packages shipped through the mail.
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First, you can never have an expectation of privacy. Don’t say anything in an email or any other kind of Internet communication that would get you in trouble if, instead, you drove to Washington and said it to an investigator of the National Security Agency. Because putting it in an email or any other communication means you are, in fact, saying it to the NSA.
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Decades before the NSA mined its first scrap of data, Hitler’s Gestapo—the worst of the worst of the Nazis—perfected the dark art of domestic spying and intimidation.
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Glenn Greenwald’s latest reporting has given us conclusive proof that the NSA has unfairly monitored Muslim Americans. As Sikh Americans, we were very pained to see leaders of civil rights organizations and academic institutions as well as a Muslim American who served the Navy as a JAG officer and worked in the Department of Homeland Security unjustly surveiled. This revelation reminds us of Fred Korematsu and the Japanese American internment, which is, to this day, one of the darkest moments in our nation’s history.
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Classified NSA training documents using the racial epithet “raghead” surfaced this past week in a recent release of documents from NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden. Edward Snowden put his life on the line in order to expose the US spy agency’s violations of human rights and privacy around the world.
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The U.S. government has been snooping on prominent members of the Muslim-American community, according to documents released by National Security Agency whistle-blower Edward Snowden and publicized in a story by Glenn Greenwald and Murtaza Hussain of the online publication Intercept.
That story reveals that the NSA and FBI covertly monitored the emails of five Muslim-Americans who have “all led highly public, outwardly exemplary lives,” the article said.
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For the last couple of weeks, sections of the cyber security community have been absorbed by questions of greater import that those of the round ball. Is Edward Snowden the only whistleblower, or does the National Security Agency now face a second leaker? If so, what do they know?
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Talking up the power of big data is a real trend at the moment and Google founder Larry Page took it to new levels this month by proclaiming that 100,000 lives could be saved next year alone if we did more to open up healthcare information.
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Reid Hoffman, the founder and chairman of LinkedIn (LNKD), the professional networking site, is a big proponent of trust–between managers and employees and between his company and its customers. So naturally he’s not a fan of the government’s NSA surveillance program.
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Some of the substantial proof of this comes from Cuban spy trials in 2001 and 2006, when US federal prosecutors presented evidence in a Miami courtroom that people had been spying on the US for Cuba and sending encrypted shortwave radio transmissions.
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Edward Snowden is seeking to extend his stay in Russia, where he has been granted asylum from the U.S. after releasing documents on the NSA’s surveillance programs around the world, and officials at the Kremlin confirmed to state media that the new permit is likely to be approved.
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The United States has spent more than US$500 billion on intelligence since 9/11, an outlay that U.S. officials say has succeeded in its main objective, preventing another catastrophic terrorist attack. This fiscal information, published in intelligent estimates colloquially known as the “black budget”, was revealed for the first time nearly a year ago, through whistle-blower disclosures made by Edward Snowden, which were published by the Washington Post.
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BRITISH security services infiltrated and funded the notorious Paedophile Information Exchange in a covert operation to identify and possibly blackmail establishment figures, a Home Office whistleblower alleges.
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Civil Rights
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Cage has also worked with the victims of mistreatment and abuse to expose what it sees as British government participation in the secret world of rendition and torture. It also spoken out against the UK’s anti-terrorism laws, saying they are draconian and target Muslims. But it insists it has always conducted its activities legally and clearly states it is opposed to the killing of innocent civilians.
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I’m afraid I don’t have an obvious alternative to “libertarian” that would encompass this third pillar of our present order, and distill the entire structure’s complexity to a single word or phrase. But the third pillar’s heft and importance is too substantial to ignore, and there are all kinds of elements of our age — from “too big to fail” to the Department of Homeland Security, from the design of Obamacare to the nature of our coalition politics, from the political forays of Mark Zuckerberg to the fate of Brendan Eich — that don’t make sense if you can’t sense its shadow, or recognize how big a role it’s likely to play, going forward, in keeping the whole edifice standing up.
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Dallas Northington spent nearly eight years working for Target in loss prevention, roaming the stores and scanning the surveillance cameras. In an episode at the Leesburg Target store in May that he said was typical, a man was allegedly captured twice on video shoplifting, and Northington responded as he said he always did: He called the Leesburg police, made a report and provided them the videos of the two incidents.
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Canada’s Omar Khadr has lost his bid to have his war-crimes convictions tossed after the U.S. government argued a previously secret memo that raised questions about the legal underpinnings of his prosecution was irrelevant to his case.
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As readers of this blog will know, after the Second Circuit released a redacted copy of the OLC’s “drone memo,” those of us who represent Omar Khadr filed a motion with the U.S. Court of Military Commission Review (“CMCR”) arguing that it undermined the validity of his convictions. In due course, the government filed its opposition to the motion, which somewhat predictably argues that the OLC’s analysis is not relevant to the case. As we were about to file a reply, the CMCR denied the motion to vacate, albeit “without prejudice.” Thus, the issue is not going away any time soon.
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Since 2008, the Harper government has been guided by unthinking support for Guantanamo and the military commissions, a blind eye to the violation of Khadr’s legal and human rights, willful ignorance of the law and disregard for decisions by the Supreme Court.
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Khadr’s case is one where wrong has been piled onto wrong over the years, both in Canada and the United States, during the long war on terror. Khadr’s father’s close al-Qaida connections rightly angered Canadians, who felt betrayed. But under international convention, child soldiers in these circumstances are to be rehabilitated, not sent to jail. When all is said and done, this will go down as a dark chapter in our federal government’s willingness to ignore long-held principles of juvenile justice, as well as its obligations to international conventions on children and the rule of law.
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The father of Roman Seleznev has offered a $50,000 reward for information regarding the arrest of his son in the Maldives, including any video or other evidence supporting the reports and witness statements that it was American agents that arrested, questioned and then transported his son to Guam. The case is another example of the United States and the CIA flaunting international laws and forcing countries to allow them free reign.
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The dead bodies of a young married woman and her stepdaughter were found from their house here in village Jurian village.
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UK Foreign Office documents concerning the use of British territory by CIA ‘rendition’ flights show that ministers have been keeping key evidence in their posession from MPs, it has emerged.
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Crucial logs that confirm the British overseas territory Diego Garcia was involved in the CIA’s black site rendition program as a secret prison have been passed to the UK police for further investigation, despite earlier claims that there were no logs.
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CIA agent claims the agency derailed his career because he wrote a novel that cast The Company in a negative light…
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Pope Francis has been quoted as saying that reliable data indicates that “about 2%” of clergy in the Catholic Church are paedophiles.
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Whistleblower and former Conservative party activist Anthony Gilberthorpe says he provided child prostitutes for a sex and drugs party with top politicians
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Michael Ratner: NSA and FBI spying on the lawful political activity of Muslim Americans, as revealed by The Intercept, is no different than the surveillance of Martin Luther King, Jesse Jackson, and other black civil rights leaders
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Have we reached that point? Many think so. A recent poll found 74% of Americans agree the broken political system needs to be fixed first. The poll found that “corruption of government by big money and frustration with the abuses of the political ruling class: incumbent politicians, lobbyists, the elite media, big business, big banks, big unions, and big special interests unites Americans.” And, “the battle lines of the new political order are emerging. When presented with the proposition that ‘the real struggle for America is not between Democrats and Republicans but mainstream America and the ruling political elites,’ over 66% of voters agree.”
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One of corporate journalism’s bad habits is framing international stories on the premise that news is what happens to the US. There is no better recent example of this than the story of tens of thousands of children fleeing Central America for refuge in other countries, including, but not limited to, the US. With some exceptions, this story is covered as the US’s “border crisis,” and the latest installment in our supposed immigration debate, with the children little more than nameless symbols of a troubled policy.
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Internet/Net Neutrality
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In recent weeks, there have been several notable developments related to the future of Internet freedom and access. Now, The Internet Association, a consortium that includes Facebook, Google, Twitter and Netflix, has a comment filed with the U.S. Federal Communications Commission demanding better enforceable net neutrality rules for boh wired and mobile networks.
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During this open comment period for the FCC’s proposed rulemaking on net neutrality, it’s been great to see hundreds of thousands of comments go in to the FCC on the matter. It’s also been fantastic to see that a number of innovative startups have decided to speak out on how important an open and free internet is for being able to build their businesses, to innovate and to compete on the modern internet. They also point out that the current plan from Commissioner Tom Wheeler would put that all at risk. Here are three interesting ones worth mentioning.
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THE UNITED STATES Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has received over half a million comments about its proposals for the future of net neutrality in that country.
Ahead of tomorrow’s deadline, a total of 647,000 comments have been sent to the commission expressing views on the future of the internet.
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The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) needs to be convinced that Net Neutrality is worth saving.
The agency has asked members of the public, along with industry leaders and entrepreneurs, to tell it why Internet Service Providers should be banned from traffic discrimination. This comment window is one of the best opportunities we’ve had to make an impact. Comments are due July 15, 2014. Submit your statement in support of Net Neutrality right away using the Electronic Frontier Foundation’s free software commenting tool.
Net neutrality, the principle that all traffic on the Internet should be treated equally, should be a basic right for Internet users. It’s also crucial for free software’s continued growth and success.
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On the July 14 edition of CNBC’s Closing Bell, host Kelly Evans interviewed Harold Ford, Jr. and John Sununu about the FCC’s latest proposed regulations, introducing them as “Broadband for America honorary co-chairs,” without explaining what Broadband for America was. Both Ford and Sununu insisted that the Internet should not be treated as a public utility and claimed that new regulations would slow Internet speeds and innovation.
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An association of more than two dozen technology companies including Facebook, Google, Twitter, and Netflix urged the Federal Communications Commission on Monday to create strong, enforceable net neutrality rules for wired and mobile networks.
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Intellectual Monopolies
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As Techdirt has reported, corporate sovereignty chapters in TAFTA/TTIP and TPP have emerged as some of the most controversial elements in those agreements. Meanwhile, countries that already have bilateral investment treaties (BITs) with investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) mechanisms are looking for ways to get rid of them in order to avoid the loss of sovereignty they imply. One nation that already has considerable experience in this area is Bolivia. A new report provides fascinating background information on exactly how it has gone about this (pdf), with valuable lessons for others looking to do the same.
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Democrats in Congress are pumping the brakes on negotiations of a multinational trade pact, worried that a significant bloc of their base would leave the party should the agreement be approved before the November elections.
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Copyrights
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Kim Dotcom says he will drop a political bomb just days out from the election and prove Prime Minister John Key misled the public.
Mr Key has always maintained the first he knew about Dotcom was a day before the raid on his mansion. But Dotcom says that is not true and he has hired the Auckland Town Hall.
Dotcom says he will drop a political bomb, which goes right to the core of Mr Key’s credibility, five days out from the September 20 election.
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The Internet’s Own Boy is a documentary about computer prodigy, Internet pioneer, and activist hacker Aaron Swartz, but even if you’ve never heard of Aaron Swartz you should see this movie. The story has implications beyond the short life of one man. Through the passion, drama, and tragedy of Aaron Swartz’s life The Internet’s Own Boy describes issues that impact everyone online: censorship, government surveillance, free speech, transparency, and net neutrality.
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Musician steps up to run digital music company that he founded, ahead of launch for gadget and high-def downloads store
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Kim Dotcom’s emerging music service Baboom is inviting would-be investors to grab a piece of what should be an intriguing startup. Speaking with TorrentFreak the senior advisor handling the offer says that not only is it tracking “exceptionally well” but the company is being “overwhelmed” with support from the global indie music industry.
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The American Bar Association has released a detailed white paper advising the Government on how to tackle online piracy. The lawyers recommend several SOPA-like anti-piracy measures including injunctions against companies hosting pirate sites. At the same time, however, they advise against suing file-sharers as that would be ineffective or even counterproductive.
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With its significant entertainment business interests, media giant News Corp has been making its feelings known in the ongoing piracy debate. After targeting Google last month the company says it wants the government to tighten up the law in order to hold Australian ISPs responsible for the actions of their pirating subscribers.
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