IRC Proceedings: September 13th – September 19th, 2015
|
|
|
|
|
|
IRC Proceedings: September 20th – September 26th, 2015
|
|
|
|
|
|
IRC Proceedings: September 27th – October 3rd, 2015
|
|
|
|
|
|
Intimidation and retribution tactics a new low for EPO
Summary: More threats from Benoît Battistelli (threats of termination and legal actions on top of it) help hide the abuses of Battistelli and his fellow thugs at the EPO
TOMORROW we have a very long post coming, regarding the EPO and the UPC. We have meanwhile been trying to figure out why the SUEPO’s Web site has been so quiet as of late and the answer can be found in recent articles. We belately caught up with them this weekend (my wife and I were on vacation at the time of publication).
This one recent article in German, similar to this one [PDF] which covers a recent controversy, makes the reason crystal clear.
Please bear in mind that my German is very weak, so not only my reading comprehension is limited; the translation too is incomplete and it goes like this:
Escalating dispute in the European Patent Office
A unionist fears for her job. Is she being made an example? The Patent Office is silent regarding the allegations.
By Thomas Magenheim-Hörmann
Munich – If staff were threatened with expulsion in a big German corporation/organisation, especially a senior trade unionist and council boss, the outcry would unquestionably be enormous. Although the European Patent Office (EPO) in Munich operates based on different standards, even there the story makes big waves. “I am to be terminated and in great danger,” says an employee at the centre of this situation. “I” is the council boss Elizabeth Hardon, also union chairman at the Munich-based union SUEPO and thus part of two organisations. There is a Dutch legal fight raging on for two years now — a dispute between management and staff, in which the gloves are drawn out.
At its centre is the French Office President, Benoit Battistelli, who reformed his extra-state authority with an iron fist. Once he even stopped a demonstration of the workforce. Then it was revealed that employees were spied on in the office using bugs and hidden cameras. SUEPO mails are censored. Now [Battistelli] goes after a unionist.
Recently, Hardon was summoned by an internal investigation department. Hardon should have a colleague present while being bullied. The “confidential and personal” invitation was made accessible by SUEPO, internally, before being publicised. Later, she also appeared on an external blog, bringing up SUEPO but wanting to have nothing to do with it. Thereafter, the unionist received a second letter from personnel manager Elodie Bergot, where her “reasonable steps” and “legal measures” were announced — those which one may translate as expulsion.
Hardon had violated confidentiality obligations, even if they related to their own personal matters. Hardon herself and SUEPO are now condemned to silence. Nobody is allowed to talk to journalists without permission from Battistelli. Disciplinary consequences would otherwise result.
Not all the ‘cows’ are at the office. “The search is only for a pretext justifying kicking them out,” says a patent examiner. He wants to remain anonymous. If Hardon must go, new elections for the council are due. “But who then will still be a candidate who is not fully compliant?” Asks the EPA staff. Anyone contrary [to Battistelli] is dumped — this is the lesson that should be taught here.
The Patent Office does not wish to comment on the case. It concerns an ongoing process and about this one EPO can basically say nothing, regrets a spokeswoman. The same applies to a personnel manager at the council. Battistelli himself insisted on a previous occasion against criticism of his style of reform. He only set up what was commissioned by the 38 European member states of the Patent Office. Workers speak against persistent harassment of critical minds and even censorship. The Office insists on home visits to sick employees, which would be impossible under German labour law. But the office is not subject to national law. Therefore, it also ignored the ruling of a Dutch court, which had criticised various violations of the law in the course of reforms.
What remains is a requirement of the Bavarian Data Protection Officer Thomas Petri [and referral] to an external data protection for the office. A heavy burden is on the unionist when it comes to talks between SUEPO, which seeks official recognition of the union. For such a dialogue to become possible, the Patent Office (38 nations) and Battistelli recently committed, so as to restore the industrial peace in the house. Battistelli now shows, as in the example of Hardon, of how little seriousness this was for him to have trade unionists shake hands, says an EPA employee. The EPO staff will be back to monthly protests against the reforms and the methods by which they are to be enforced, says [one person] defiantly. Whether [Hardon] is fired Battistelli can decide, so any resistance breaks [the deal], estimates another insider. One way or another, a deplorable finale promises to take place at the big authority on German soil.
For anything that can be cited as fact, please refer to the original article in German, not the above, as the translation is of low quality and almost definitely contains serious inaccuracies (especially in particular sentences). █
Summary: The abusive monopolist is trying very hard to hide its growing difficulties, especially in an effort to bamboozle non-technical shareholders who cannot understand how Linux has essentially taken over
Microsoft is cooking the books (see our reports about Microsoft’s financial manipulations and abuses) and is changing the way it reports financial results to its investors yet again, making year-to-year (or quarter-to-quarter) analyses virtually impossible. Well, after reporting billions in losses in the last quarter one can understand the effort to dodge bad publicity for the second time in a row. The company has just been downgraded by Citigroup.
“As Microsoft continues to fall into the abyss expect it to try to drag the competition down too.”Android and Linux are selling a lot more than Windows, or put another way, newly-sold devices running Linux easily outnumber devices running Windows. Microsoft, which is nowhere outside of the aging x86/Wintel empire, was hoping to disrupt ARM but failed miserably (its products got cancelled). ARM is where Free software tends to thrive (it’s a Linux turf), but Microsoft pretends people need it to certify ARM with Microsoft. What a bizarre infiltration and an effort to enter the “IoT” hype (billions of devices) from the back door…
Speaking of infiltrations, Mesos and Microsoft get even closer right now [1, 2, 3]. Readers may recall that Microsoft is likely to take over Mesos/Mesosphere, based on recent reports. It’s about proprietary software, but it’s being falsely advertised as “open” (openwashing).
As Microsoft continues to fall into the abyss expect it to try to drag the competition down too. It means that Linux in particular ought to watch out. Microsoft is not an ally, not even an ally of convenience. █
“I’m not one of those who think Bill Gates is the devil. I simply suspect that if Microsoft ever met up with the devil, it wouldn’t need an interpreter.”
–InfoWorld Editor Nicholas Petreley
Credit: unknown (Twitter)
Summary: A roundup of news illustrating that Microsoft is still very much in a total war against Android, (mis)using federal regulators and even software patents to get its way
MICROSOFT’S attacks on Linux never stopped. Anyone thinking otherwise must not have paid attention. To make matters worse, Microsoft is manipulating the media into pretending that “Microsoft loves Linux” and that there is “peace”. In this post we are going to share some stories of interest to assure readers that nothing has changed except Microsoft’s rhetoric and some of the attacks have become more discreet.
“The FTC is wrong about antitrust fears over Android,” writes Microsoft's booster Bill Snyder in IDG, summarising it as follows: “Microsoft can’t develop a successful mobile operating system, so it’s making a crybaby case against Google”
If Android (Free software) is an antitrust violation, what does that make proprietary software? Microsoft and its proxies, as we have shown over the years, were behind these complaints. Remember that back in the SCO days, i.e. around 2003-2005, the Microsoft minions (and few others) tried to frame the GPL itself as anti-competitive. They failed, but it took time and cost money. One of the first questions that the FTC must tackle here is, who is behind the complaints? They may find that it’s little more than a Turf War. (Mis)Using Feds as pawns in the battle (a Turf War), as in using the government to derail one’s competition (even Free software), should be a crime. It is a waste of resources. When the media claims that Microsoft and Google now have “peace” (on patents) be sure to reminder the reporters of what Microsoft has done to cause Google (and Android) antitrust trouble. It is very well documented and we wrote over a dozen articles touching on this subject alone.
“Tell Mary Jo Foley that this is not a “deal” but an extortion.”As we noted the other day (and many people read this article, some news sites even linked to our analysis), Microsoft under Nadella is no different from Microsoft under Ballmer, at least when it comes to patents. The monopolist, under Nadella specifically, has already attacked Samsung, Kyocera, and Dell (over Linux/Android). Where is the love? Does Microsoft have patent peace with Android now? No, of course not. There is no peace even with Google, there is just a settlement in the Motorola case. Microsoft is leaving Motorola aside and is just attacking the OEMs instead, continuing with this latest assault on ASUS. Microsoft is still blackmailing companies, using patents, into bundling Microsoft spyware with non-standards (lock-in). This is extortion. Tell Mary Jo Foley that this is not a “deal” but an extortion. Tell this to others who believed that we have a ‘peace’ for our time after Google and Microsoft reached one settlement (regarding Motorola).
Android is being infiltrated by Microsoft now. It wouldn’t have worked without patent extortion. As Microsoft’s Mouth (Mary Jo Foley) put it: “As nearly two-dozen Android, Chrome OS and Linux vendors are doing, ASUS seemingly is licensing Microsoft’s patents to cover anything that is in those operating systems which potentially infringes on Microsoft’s intellectual property.
“But ASUS also is agreeing, as part of the deal announced today, to pre-install unspecified Microsoft “productivity services” on Android smartphones and tablets. When I asked, a Microsoft spokesperson said the services included the Microsoft Office suite.”
“Patents are being used for leverage.”So Microsoft is embracing and taking over Android inside ASUS. Remember the ASUS EEE? It used to run GNU/Linux before Microsoft intervened. Microsoft calls it EEE, which also stands for “embrace, extend, extinguish” — Microsoft's currently principal strategy against Android. Mark Hachman chose the headline “Microsoft strikes a deal with Asus: We won’t sue if you put Office on your Android devices” (we fought for years against it, starting with the Microsoft/Novell deal). Untimately what we are seeing it is a strategy that first became publicly known after Microsoft had done this to Samsung (earlier this year). Threatening to sue companies if they don’t serve Microsoft’s agenda is not a new strategy even when it comes to GNU/Linux as a whole, Android set aside. See the Microsoft/Novell deal (2006). Patents are being used for leverage.
The media has hardly covered this scandal. Reuters is busy writing about the Microsoft/Google settlement and Microsoft propagandists are everywhere to be seen. Why does ECT, for example, keep quoting its occasional writer Rob Enderle as an ‘expert’ regarding Microsoft, which paid him for Linux FUD? It’s gross. ETC talks about “Rob Enderle, principal analyst at the Enderle Group.” It’s a one-man group and he gets paid by ECT and Microsoft. Why is he approached for his views on Android and Google? Do they think the readers are this dumb? Here is some promotional Microsoft messaging found therein: “There’s strong, scientifically verifiable evidence indicating Microsoft’s move to join the rest of the tech world in open source and collaboration was propelled by a compelling force: the Nadella effect. While tech analysts and reporters had fun with CEO Satya Nadella’s odd “cloud first, mobile first” mantra last summer, his much less concise — yet more encouraging — message has been one of collaboration, and meeting consumers on their terms. For example, Microsoft pushed Office 365 to all major platforms.”
ECT quoted Enderle not just once but at least twice last week, in both cases regarding Linux matters, e.g. in this article titled “Microsoft Pushes Deeper Into Linux, Containers, IoT”. In it, ECT asks Hilwa, who used to work for Microsoft, about Microsoft and Linux (no disclosure in the article about his Microsoft background). Rob Enderle, who also worked for ECT and is notoriously close to Microsoft, is simply described by ECT as “Rob Enderle, principal analyst at the Enderle Group.”
“Rob Enderle, who also worked for ECT and is notoriously close to Microsoft, is simply described by ECT as “Rob Enderle, principal analyst at the Enderle Group.””What a sham. Richard Adhikari basically interviews Microsoft moles regarding Linux when he’s not busy writing his lots of anti-Android articles (usually regarding security). Al Hilwa and Rob Enderle being his “sources” tells us a lot more about him, perhaps his agenda too. Well, to be fair and to give him the benefit of the doubt here, quite often when it comes to so-called ‘analysts’, everywhere you look it’s proprietary software (e.g. Microsoft) and its minions. Even Dana Blankenhorn, who used to cover Open Source for ZDNet (sometimes being an apologist for Microsoft), has just said in the financial press that “Microsoft has stopped fighting with open source” .
Well, that is complete and utter nonsense. It didn’t stop, Microsoft still does all sorts of things to both Linux and Android. Other financial press says that Microsoft “has finally succumbed to the free OS Linux” because Microsoft copies Linux code, raising all sorts of GPL-related questions and potential issues [1, 2].
the bottom line is, don’t believe for even a second that Microsoft is some gentle aging giant. It’s a vicious abusive monopolist, as its actions against Android (in particular Android because of the platform’s market share) continue to demonstrate. █
Linux maintains a very small market share as a desktop operating system. Current surveys estimate its share to be a mere 2%; contrast that with the various strains (no pun intended) of Windows which total nearly 90% of the desktop market. For Linux to challenge Microsoft’s monopoly on the desktop, there needs to be a simple way of learning about this different operating system. And it would be naive to believe a typical Windows user is going to buy a second machine, tinker with partitioning a hard disk to set up a multi-boot system, or just jump ship to Linux without an easy way back.
What are microservices? Have you heard the phrase “microservices” used in a discussion of modern application development and wondered what it’s all about?
For most users of distros, the distro bug system is the first line of interaction when something kernel related breaks on their system. This makes sense: the kernel most users are using is packaged by a distro so the maintainers should be the first ones to take a look at the problem. Inevitably though, something will arise such that the solution cannot come from the distro maintainers and must come from the greater kernel community. Sometimes the distro maintainers can do the follow up but there may be a request for the bug reporter or reproducer to contact the kernel mailing list directly. Now everything depends on how successful the person is in communicating with LKML.
One of the big items still in the works as part of AMD’s unified Linux driver strategy is that the Catalyst proprietary driver will be isolated to user-space and make use of the AMDGPU kernel DRM driver. Being publicly now in development in a few code branches are changes to the AMD DRM code for beginning to suit more of it to Catalyst’s driver design.
After only 4 days from the release of the second maintenance version of the Linux 4.2 kernel series, Greg Kroah-Hartman comes today, October 3, with news about the release of Linux kernel 4.2.3.
Emil Velikov announced Mesa 10.6.9 today as the newest point release for the aging Mesa 10.6 series.
Mesa 10.6.9 fixes an Intel crash issue with KDE, Unreal Tournament is fixed for Gallium3D drivers, and there are various other Mesa OpenGL fixes.
Mplayer 1.2 is compatible with the recent FFmpeg 2.8 release. The tarball already includes a copy of FFmpeg, so you don’t need to fetch it separately.
It’s been three years since the release of MPlayer 1.1 while surprisingly this weekend MPlayer 1.2 was released.
Lightworks is a professional video editor which is the fastest, most accessible and focused on Non-Linear Editing (NLE) software, the initial release of Lightworks was in 1989; 26 years ago. It support all resolutions available to public up to 4K as well as video in SD and HD formats. Lightworks has the widest support available for formats currently available in a professional NLE. MXF, Quicktime and AVI containers, with every professional format you can think of: ProRes, Avid DNxHD, AVC-Intra, DVCPRO HD, RED R3D, DPX, H.264, XDCAM EX / HD 422.
If you’re a Gimp power user, G’MIC is, without a doubt, one of the single most important add-ons available for the flagship open source image editing tool. With G’MIC you can bring some real magic to your digital images… and do so with ease. Give it a go and see if it doesn’t take your Gimp work to the next level.
The third alpha release of the Kodi 16 HTPC open-source software is now available for testing with long-press support.
Given the number of devices these days with limited remote control buttons but relying upon a long-press of the OK/Enter button to pull up a context menu, Kodi has now implemented similar long-press support for remotes. That’s the main new feature of Kodi 16 Alpha 3.
While more games continue to be ported over to Linux and offered on Steam, the overall Linux gaming market-share remains under 1%.
We covered it before, but now RollerCoaster Tycoon World has a proper release date, and Linux will be included.
Party Hard has recently released for Linux, and it looks like a pretty interesting game. You need to infiltrate your noisy neighbours parties, and kill them.
Polychromatic is probably one of my favourite new releases recently, it’s so simple, but it’s highly addictive.
Tuesday, 06 October 2015. Today KDE releases a bugfix update to Plasma 5, versioned 5.4.2. Plasma 5.4 was released in August with many feature refinements and new modules to complete the desktop experience.
Kubuntu 15.10 “Wily Werewolf” is being released later this month and it will feature the very latest KDE Plasma 5.4 point release.
Plasma 5.4.2 isn’t being released until next week but the Kubuntu crew is pushing it early into 15.10 Wily now to ensure it arrives with the 15.10 debut.
I am really not a person who blogs much and its bit late, please bare with me in case if anyone does not like the way article is written or how it is formatted. I really feel good being KDE user since 2005. Officially I started coding / contributing to minor stuff in KDE in 2010. Switzerland is an awesome place and I really liked Randa. Speaking of Switzerland, for me those trains are art of engineering. I would like to thank KDE e.v. and other sponsors for making this event happen.
For those wondering about the state of GNOME, their annual report is now available.
The GNOME Foundation 2014 annual report covers their financial situation, their trademark battle with GroupOn, their temporary financial shortfall due to the OPW project, the hack/developer events engaged in, and much more.
Aside from a slightly buggy installer that’s not feature-complete, Antergos is a pretty good desktop distribution. It’s not as popular as Ubuntu or Linux Mint, but there’s nothing you can do on those distributions that you cannot do on Antergos. If you’re still distro-hopping, you can put this atop your list of distributions to try. And if you’re coming from the Windows side, and are new to Linux, Antergos is one of the better distributions to test-drive the popular desktop environments on. Installation images for 32- and 64-bit architectures are available for free download here.
It is with great pleasure to present to you the 2015.10 ISO. As always with this rolling distribution you will find the very latest packages for the Plasma Desktop, this includes Frameworks 5.14.0, Plasma 5.4.1 and KDE Applications 15.08.1.
Netrunner Rolling 2015.09 has gotten a complete overhaul:
The desktop transitioned from KDE4 to Plasma5 together with KDE Applications 15.08 and hundreds of packages updated to their latest versions.
Calamares is now used as the default Installer.
LibreOffice and VirtualBox now ship in their 5.-versions.
Gmusicbrowser has been finetuned to load and display large music collections in an efficient and easy way, automatically adding album covers from the internet.
On October 2, Anke Boersma had the great pleasure of announcing the release and immediate availability for download of the KaOS 2015.10 GNU/Linux computer operating system.
While I am a GNOME fan, I recognize how wonderful KDE is too. If you prefer a traditional desktop user interface, KDE is a smart choice. Not only is it it easy to use for beginners, but it offers a ton of customization options for advanced users too.
There are quite a few KDE-based Linux distros, such as Kubuntu, Linux Mint KDE, and Netrunner, but the lesser known KaOS offers a more pure experience. This distro has a goal of remaining lean, while being fairly bleeding edge regarding KDE packages — it is a great showcase for the desktop environment. Today, version 2015.10 sees release, and you can download it now.
Calculate Linux 15 was released today in its KDE, MATE, and Xfce desktop spins along with Calculate Linux Directory Server, Linux Scratch, Scratch Server, and Media Center editions.
After the release of the Manjaro Linux 15.09 computer operating system with its official editions, including Xfce, KDE, and Net Install, it is time to take a closer look at the community flavors of the Arch Linux-based distro.
Arne Exton, the developer of numerous Linux kernel-based and Android-x86 distributions, was happy to inform Softpedia about the release of a custom kernel for the Slackware 12.0 operating system and its derivatives.
Investors will be intently watching the EPS number that Red Hat, Inc. (NYSE:RHT) reports when they announce their upcoming earnings.
On October 3, the developers of the Network Security Toolkit (NST) open-source network monitoring and security analysis toolkit for Linux kernel-based operating systems announced the release of Network Security Toolkit 22-7248.
Since August I’ve been delivering various Linux benchmarks of the Core i5 6600K “Skylake” processor, but unfortunately don’t have access yet to a i7-6700K Linux box. Fortunately, thanks to the open-source Phoronix Test Suite benchmarking software and the OpenBenchmarking.org collaborative cloud component, there are already numerous result files.
Of course, last week marked the release of Fedora 23 beta. So far, reports are good, and I’m really happy using it on my system. (I’ve heard at least one “even better than F22 final release”!) If you haven’t yet, check it out (making sure to scan the F23 Common Bugs page, which to my eye is comfortingly short — looks like we’re on good track for our Halloween release!
Fedora 24 is anticipated to be a very exciting release with likely using the GNOME Wayland desktop by default, doing more to drop i686, likely depending upon KDBUS, and all of the other changes coming via GNOME 3.20 and the next few Linux kernel release cycles.
Generally Ubuntu Linux hasn’t allowed new minor point releases of software to be sent down as stable release updates (SRUs) once the Ubuntu release ships, but there’s been many exceptions, and now Ubuntu’s Technical Board has agreed to make changes to make it easier to send down micro-release updates as well as offering new features to existing LTS (Long-Term Support) releases.
We reported back in August that Canonical put together another contest for the default wallpapers of the next major release of Ubuntu Linux, this time entitled Ubuntu Free Culture Showcase.
We reported back in August that Canonical put together another contest for the default wallpapers of the next major release of Ubuntu Linux, this time entitled Ubuntu Free Culture Showcase.
Up until Ubuntu went public with Unity, out-of-the-box Linux has always been rather ugly compared to both Windows and Mac. (And depending on who you ask, Ubuntu’s Unity was even a step in the wrong direction!)
If you recently switched from Mac to Linux, or if you’re just a regular Linux user who happens to like the aesthetics of Mac, the good news is that you can do something about it — by using the Gela Theme.
Google’s Nest Labs subsidiary announced more details about the Weave peer-to-peer networking protocol for home automation devices. Nest, which sells the popular Nest Learning Thermostat and other Linux-based home automation products, says it has added Weave to its Works with Nest connected ecosystem program. It also announced the vendors that will support Weave when it is released in 2016, starting with Yale and its “Linus” smart lock (see farther below).
Acrosser’s “AND-G420N1” compact headless networking appliance runs Linux on a quad-core 2GHz AMD G-Series SoC, and offers SATA-II storage and six GbE ports.
Acrosser refers to the AND-G420N1 as a desktop networking microbox, as well as a “cost-effective niche solution.” The networking appliance runs Ubuntu or Fedora Linux on an AMD G-Series GX-420MC SoC
Last year I built a new derby track for my son’s royal rangers group. I used a RaspberryPi with Pidora on it to run the timing system.
And being late matters. In a globalised technology industry, hundreds of smaller industries, and their own supply chains, all line themselves up alongside the winners. Being late and going it alone is suicidal. Ask Nokia: it envisaged a ‘computer first, phone second world’ as far back as 2002, when it started Linux development, and devoted billions to being sure it would be competitive when this world came about. But consumers and industry had already anointed a second platform.
Following the release of the Samsung Gear S2 in the US, Korea, Singapore and Germany makets, Tizen Experts present you with custom Gear S2 wallpapers / backgrounds. To celebrate the Smartwatches history, these first batch of wallpapers will have a Tizen theme to them, after all the Gear S2 runs the Tizen Operating System. You can download them directly from our site either using your computer or your mobile device, and then easily transfer them to your Gear S2 Smartwatch.
Can you hear me now? Not if you’re eavesdropping on a Blackphone. Privacy company Silent Circle has released a second version of its signature handheld, a smartphone designed to quell the data scraping and web tracking that’s become such an integral part of the digital economy in the last few years (and whose results might well end up with the NSA, if the Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act passes).
The handset runs a new version of the firm’s Android-based SilentOS, and comes with features including Silent Circle’s Silent Phone app, which offers encrypted voice calls, messaging and file transfers.
Android fans have a lot of good reasons to root for Motorola these days and the company gave them a brand-new one on Friday. Motorola not only announced which of its phones would be getting upgraded to Android but it also announced that it would actually be deleting two pieces of its own software from those devices to make the upgrade process go even faster.
Tracking mobile web traffic, NetMarketShare computes the market share for mobile operating systems. Based on the data from last month, Android was able to widen its gap over iOS globally. Considering that the Apple iPhone 6s and Apple iPhone 6s Plus weren’t launched until September 25th, the recently released phones accounted for a miniscule part of the data. The new models won’t have a major effect on the results until the figures for this month are released.
Reasonably priced in comparison to its rivals, the Tab S2 with its powerful display and fast processor could be the best Android tablet available in the market today.
Overall, Nvidia, Apple and Amazon have a clear strategy here. They want to revolutionise the way we interact with television, and they want to provide ‘capable enough’ games machines that appeal to the mainstream too. Nvidia is going one step further – it’s looking to attract core gamers on top of that with its Shield platform and GeForce functionality. But without all of the required media options properly in place and completely integrated into the highly promising interface, what we’re left with is an enthusiasts’ machine where only the core can really put the excellent hardware through its paces.
We are three students in the Bachelor of Computer Science second degree program at the University of British Columbia (UBC). As we each have cooperative education experience, our technical ability and contributions have increasingly become a point of focus as we approach graduation. Our past couple of years at UBC have allowed us to produce some great technical content, but we all found ourselves with one component noticeably absent from our resumes: an open source contribution. While the reasons for this are varied, they all stem from the fact that making a contribution involves a set of skills that goes far beyond anything taught in the classroom or even learned during an internship. It requires a person to be outgoing with complete strangers, to be proactive in seeking out problems to solve, and to have effective written communication.
Open source social and cultural history is the antithesis of traditional organizational management structures, and, unfortunately, it’s younger. Emotion is influenced by surroundings and norms, and what we learned about hierarchy when we were growing up influences how we participate in business today.
Join us in Raleigh, North Carolina, from October 19 – 20 at All Things Open 2015. You can also enter for a chance to win a free pass to All Things Open 2015.
The creator of Hadoop said web app developers must put public trust first and argued that actions by the National Security Agency (NSA) offer a cautionary tale for the future of big data.
Doug Cutting, who in 2004 developed the open-source implementation of the Map-Reduce framework, said big data analytics has opened the floodgates for capturing new consumer data as well as analyzing vast stores of historical information.
Hadoop is on a roll in the Big Data space. Allied Market Research has forecasted that the global market for Hadoop along with related hardware, software, and services will reach $50.2 billion by 2020, propelled by greater use of raw, unstructured, and structured data.
What kind of demand is there for cloud computing skills in the job market? Consider these notes from Forbes, based on a report from WANTED Analytics: “There are 3.9 million jobs in the U.S. affiliated with cloud computing today with 384,478 in IT alone. The median salary for IT professionals with cloud computing experience is $90,950 and the median salary for positions that pay over $100,000 a year is $116,950.”
At Strata + Hadoop World here yesterday, Hadoop distribution specialist Hortonworks unveiled a new tool called the Hortonworks Big Data Scorecard designed to help organizations develop a plan for jumpstarting big data projects.
Oracle is no longer interested in Java, according to an anonymous top-level Java source at Oracle. As rumours of Oracle’s neglect pile up, it looks more and more like IT’s most popular programming language is becoming a driverless train.
The full diff follows in the original mail, but it’s probably simpler to just use a snapshot. For those of you who’ve been looking forward to seeing how it handles, now’s the time to find out.
GNU Hurd – microkernel and part of GNU Project. Hurd means “Hird of Unix-Replacing Daemons”, Hird – “Hurd of Interfaces Representing Depth. Total recursion! Development started in 1990 (before Linux kernel) as part of plans to create fully free and open source operation system. Unlike the Linux kernel Hurd have a lot of system daemons (you can see it on video) run by GNU Mach microkernel and some specific system protocols. Popularity of Linux lowered Hurd’s priority, but project progress all this 25+ years.
tl;dr: I want to liberate people; software is a (critical) tool to that end. There is a conference this weekend that understands that, but I worry it isn’t FSF’s.
Mea culpa: I went to bed last night thinking it was Wednesday, woke up today thinking it was Thursday, went along with my usual Thursday work plan (which differs little from any other weekday) until Christine Hall emailed me and asked, “Where’s the wrap?”
This post is about writing technical documentation. More specifically: it’s about writing documentation for programming languages and libraries.
[...]
Let’s get started. The first thing to nail down is why we’re documenting a programming language or library in the first place.
A lot of companies are using tools like Slack, Hangouts, and GitLab…
These days, there’s a lot being said about big data and the value that comes from properly utilizing it. I’ve written previously about the importance of having a data science team. The next goal is to figure out how to keep those data scientists happy.
Advanced Micro Devices Inc., reacting to a continued slump in its business, said it will cut its workforce by about 5% as part of a restructuring to trim costs at the chip maker.
It’s sad right now that we’re going through a time where many new Linux game releases only work with NVIDIA graphics and flat out fail with AMD’s Catalyst driver. While AMD is known to deliver game fixes several months late, making matters worse, it seems some game developers don’t even know who to contact at AMD about Linux driver issues.
Carly Fiorina likes to boast about her friendship with the late Apple founder Steve Jobs. But it turns out she may have gotten taken advantage of by the company’s leader.
Government ministers have buried NHS statistics that show the service hurtling towards an unprecedented £2bn deficit to avoid overshadowing the Tory party conference, say top NHS officials.
One senior figure at the health service regulator Monitor said his organisation had been “leaned on” by Whitehall to delay its report, which shows that NHS finances are worsening.
It’s notable whenever cybercime spills over into real-world, physical attacks. This is the story of a Russian security firm whose operations were pelted with Molotov cocktail attacks after exposing an organized crime gang that developed and sold malicious software to steal cash from ATMs.
Scottrade announced Friday that it suffered a security breach in late 2013 and early 2014, affecting approximately 4.6 million customers. It said it had no idea that the breach had occurred until law enforcement officials told them about it.
An insecure configuration of Java Management Extensions (JMX) within VMware’s vCenter has been pinned as the cause of an exploit that would allow code execution on host machines.
The government has a phishing problem. The method hackers use to enter federal IT systems by luring them into clicking bogus links has led to massive data breaches, and now lawmakers want to ensure agencies are doing something about it.
I believe Michael Daniel when he asserts that the United States discloses the majority of the vulnerabilities that it discovers. Thanks to Edward Snowden, a lot of people in the cybersecurity community don’t. The Obama administration could rebuild some of that trust if it was more transparent on the process. One easy step is to release some of the annual reports that the VEP requires. Obviously some classification issues would need to be worked out but they are not insurmountable. The administration could release a range of the percentage of vulnerabilities it has disclosed, similar to what already exists for tech companies that want to disclose government surveillance requests. Not only will that help rebuild the trust between security researchers and the U.S. government, but provide tangible proof to U.S. rivals that its vulnerabilities stockpile isn’t as big as they think it is.
Western countries have ditched plans for a United Nations-led inquiry into alleged war crimes by Saudi Arabia and others in Yemen, instead backing an investigation by the Saudi-allied Yemen government.
The move came despite rising concern at the number of civilians killed in air strikes by the Saudi-led coalition and indiscriminate shelling by the Houthi rebels. The UN reported on Tuesday that 2,355 civilians had been killed over the last six months. Britain supplies arms to Riyadh and there have been claims these could be being used to commit war crimes.
The Freedom of Information Act does open up the government to closer examination by taxpayers. The ideals of the law are rarely achieved, though. It requires agencies to respond in a reasonable amount of time, but far too often it takes a successful lawsuit to force an agency to give up the documents requested.
Russian air strikes in Syria are targeting Free Syrian Army recruits trained by the CIA, US Senator senate John McCain has said.
A military inferno is in the making in Syria after Russia unleashed bombing raids on what it said were “terrorist” targets but which, on early evidence, seemed to have included at least one CIA-backed rebel group – and as reports surfaced of Iranian troops pouring into the conflict.
A government which claims the right to kill its own citizens with no judicial process on the basis of the vote of 24.4% of the qualified electorate, legislates that workers cannot strike without the support of 40% of their qualified electorate because strikes can inconvenience people. Not as inconvenient as being sliced to pulp by flying metal, I should have thought.
…Cruz declared that the JCPOA “will facilitate and accelerate the nation of Iran acquiring nuclear weapons.” This is, of course, a ridiculous thing to say. Beyond the fact that we’ve heard for over three decades that the advent of an Iranian nuke is just around the corner–only a few years, maybe two years, a year and half, 12 months, six weeks away!–and these estimates have never been based upon a shred of credible evidence, the enhanced monitoring and inspections implemented under the new deal effectively prevent any hypothetical Iranian move toward weaponizing its program for at least a decade, probably far longer.
The destruction by US bombs of the Medecins Sans Frontieres hospital in Kunduz – killing doctors, nurses and patients – comes as a stinging corrective to the media pretence that Russian bombs are somehow uniquely evil and destructive. The West has inflicted far more damage in recent years. But the Russians also showed just how ruthless they can be in their brutal suppression of the legitimate desire for national independence of the Chechen people. It is the Americans who today expose most starkly the evils of attempting to solve complex political questions by bombs.
The international medical organization Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) condemns in the strongest possible terms the horrific aerial bombing of its hospital in Kunduz, Afghanistan. Twelve staff members and at least seven patients, including three children, were killed; 37 people were injured including 19 staff members. This attack constitutes a grave violation of International Humanitarian Law.
All indications currently point to the bombing being carried out by international Coalition forces. MSF demands a full and transparent account from the Coalition regarding its aerial bombing activities over Kunduz on Saturday morning. MSF also calls for an independent investigation of the attack to ensure maximum transparency and accountability.
Just between 2003-5, US forces killed 15 journalists in Iraq, the majority either Westerners or working for Western news agencies.
After UK and US bombs have been devastating the Middle East for over a decade, killing certainly tens and probably hundreds of thousands of people, including many thousands of children, the media have suddenly noticed this morning that bombs kill an awful lot of civilians. But only Russian bombs, of course. British bombs are cheerful, happy and their shrapnel and blast are brilliantly engineered only to go in the direction of bad guys.
The main suspect in a series of parcel bombings in southern China was killed in one of the blasts, according to local police.
According to state media reports, police said a 33 year-old quarry worker, Wei Yinyong, was responsible for the 18 bombs hidden in packages that exploded at a series of locations in the southern region of Guangxi on Wednesday and Thursday, killing 10 and injuring 51.
Authorities in China have imposed censorship controls on domestic media reporting on this week’s deadly bomb blasts in Guangxi Province, which claimed seven lives and caused more than 50 injuries on the eve of National Day.
A notice from the central propaganda department, issued on Thursday, restricts all Chinese media including social media from sending reporters to Liuzhou or publishing special coverage while another notice by the cyberspace administration bans the use of close-up shots of the blast scenes.
Benn went on to advocate the “Responsibility to Protect”, the Blairite code for supporting United States military and especially bombing missions abroad. The thesis that Western bombing improves and stabilises countries appears tested well beyond destruction, but the neo-cons stick with it because of the corporate interests it does so much to boost.
The latest batch of Hillary Clinton emails have been revealed, and Trevor Timm, the Executive Director of the Freedom of the Press Foundation, points us to a particularly interesting one, in which then State Department spokesperson PJ Crowley tells Clinton that the State Department has successfully “planted” questions for the show, 60 Minutes, to ask Assange.
There is a reason Fiorina shows up on lists of the “Worst CEOs Of All Time,” (See here, here, here, here, and here among others) and it’s not because the whole business world is engaged in some kind of conspiracy to portray her as an incompetent. Was HP better off after Carly left than when she arrived? The answer is no. [Link] Despite the spin she tries to put on it, Carly Fiorina was a disaster for Hewlett Packard, and they’re still suffering from her so-called leadership. [Link] Fiorina left HP with one of the largest golden parachutes, really unheard of! [Link]
Don’t forget about her trading with Iran in violation of U.S. trade sanctions by using a foreign entity. [Link] According to a column by Josh Rogin: “Under Fiorina’s leadership, Hewlett-Packard sold hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of products to Iran through a foreign subsidiary, despite strict U.S. export sanctions.” [Link]
When Carly was forced out of HP, the very next day, HP stock jumped over 10%. [Link]
Investigators are reportedly looking into whether the apparent killer in the latest mass shooting announced his murderous intentions beforehand on the social media site 4chan. Because of 4chan‘s anonymity, it’s impossible to say whether the poster who warned “don’t go to school tomorrow if you are in the northwest” actually was Chris Harper-Mercer, identified as the person who shot nine people to death at Umpqua Community College the next day before being killed by police.
A new commentary video produced by the National Rifle Association’s (NRA) NRA News suggests that school shootings occur because children do not “respect” firearms or know how to handle them safely.
Janine Jackson: Seattle public school teachers reached a tentative agreement with the school system after a five-day strike. As with most labor actions, there were a number of points at issue, but one of them was the question of basing teacher evaluations on student scores on standardized tests that are a source of frustration for growing numbers of teachers, parents and students.
Jeffrey Lord is using his CNN political commentator position to defend Donald Trump’s most outlandish remarks on the campaign trail. Lord’s pro-Trump advocacy has been so over the top that his own colleagues have repeatedly called him out for pushing inaccuracies, defending misogynistic and anti-Muslim remarks, and carrying Trump’s “fetid water every day.” Lord’s ongoing defense of Trump should not be a surprise, as the billionaire businessman reportedly “helped Lord get his job at CNN.”
So the consensus is that Hillary Clinton’s problem is that she’s not her husband, she lacks his “amazing campaign skills” and is “not very defined for people.” That’s why, from the perspective of NBC‘s Beltway studio, there’s “chatter about an alternative — whether Bernie Sanders or Joe Biden.” If only she could make it “more about the policy or the substance,” get some credit for Bill’s “economic legacy” and convey that “she’s done a lot for middle-class Americans.”
September 30, 2015, marked the 10th anniversary of the publication of cartoons depicting the prophet Muhammad in Danish Newspaper Jyllands-Posten, a decision that would ignite a global battle of values over the relationship between free speech and religion that is still ongoing.
On one side of this conflict are those who insist that free speech includes the right to offend any idea, religious or secular, and that tolerance means putting up with those expressions that you most despise. On the other side are those who believe that religion, and in particular Islam, must be protected from scorn and mockery, a small minority of whom are willing to use violence to enforce a “jihadist’s veto.” In between are the many members of what Salman Rushdie has called the “but-brigade,” people who are formally committed to free speech, but for whom a commitment to tolerance and social peace means imposing society-wide norms of self-censorship on ideas that may offend or hurt members of religious or ethnic groups.
Greg Lukianoff, the President and CEO of FIRE, starts this 20 minute video interview for The Daily Caller by assessing global issues. “The international situation for freedom of speech is dire,” says Lukianoff, focusing on the emergence of blasphemy laws to not offend Islam.
The United Nations was born out of the deadliest tragedy in the world. The institution thus set a principled mission to never allow the repetition of past mistakes by promoting universal human rights, peace, and values of enlightenment. It was a force for good.
But things have changed. While the UN headquarters still remains in New York, the ideological powerhouse is now based in middle class suburbs of Islington, Hampstead, and the like. Its sole duty has become addressing capricious concerns of the middle classes. It’s evident, from the absurdity of Saudi Arabia heading the Council of Human Rights to the obsession with Israel and a “green economy”, that the UN is now a joke organisation completely detached from its noble past aims.
As the late author and Leominster native Robert Cormier argued decades ago, a panel of teachers and scholars argued at Fitchburg State University on Thursday: even with the best intentions, censorship does more harm than good.
Vice’s Motherboard blog recently reported about a campaign to raise awareness of domestic violence on Tinder was removed for “inappropriate images,” and “bad behavior.” The images featured women who appeared to have facial injuries. When the profiles received messages from other users, those users were directed to an advocacy website. An hour into the campaign on Tinder, the profiles behind the campaign were suspended.
Nintendo had a tendency in the eighties and nineties to over-edit their games before releasing them overseas to maintain their family-friendly image. Final Fight is one of the best examples of how this strategy often resulted in nonsensical changes. For the game’s SNES release here in the West, black enemies were given lighter skin. Trans criminals Roxy and Poison were changed into male thugs “Billy” and “Sid.” Instead of grabbing whiskey to regain health, players could grab “vitamine.” My personal favorite change, though, was to the boss Belger. Instead of fighting you in a wheel chair, he now fights you while riding a chair with…slightly smaller wheels. I’m still not sure why they thought these changes would make the game more palatable to a Western release. If Japanese gamers could handle the original version, why couldn’t we?
How much do movies matter to you? Director Jafar Panahi was thrown in jail by a harsh theocratic regime that then banned him from movie-making for the next 20 years. Since then he’s made three internationally acclaimed films in less than five years. Panahi, the Iranian filmmaker who first became known in the West for the 1995 art-house hit The White Balloon, has become an international symbol of the power of dissident art simply by continuing to find ways, even under the most restricted circumstances, to make art from whatever he has at hand.
In 1982, in response to a massive push to ban certain books from schools…
How to see a pair of eyes changed the perception of Banned Books Week.
Each year the American Library Association dedicates an entire week to preventing censorship at local libraries.
This year’s theme was “Readstricted,” a play on words meant to encourage the reading of restricted material.
You may already have heard that this is Banned Books Week, a venerable event established 33 years ago by the American Library Association (ALA). Like me, you may have walked into your local bookstore and seen a display of “banned books,” a display designed to stoke indignation and righteous First Amendment fury.
The latest story about censorship in America began when a Knoxville, Tennessee, woman named Jackie Sims found out that her 15-year-old son had been assigned to read The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks over the summer. Rebecca Skloot’s 2010 book tells the true story of a poor black woman whose cancerous cervical cells became the basis for medical advances including the polio vaccine and in vitro fertilization without her knowledge; it’s a best-selling, critically acclaimed account about science, race, ethics, and family. But Sims told a local TV station that she “consider[s] the book pornographic,” and wanted it out of the hands of all students in the district.
Apple reserves the right to deny apps entry into its App Store, but its application of this policy is maddeningly inconsistent.
Take the case of software engineer Charles Yeh, who developed an app called Speed Camera Alert and recently tried submitting it to Apple’s marketplace. The company decided to block his program — which tells drivers in Washington, D.C., when they’re nearing local police speed cameras — from being sold in the App Store and downloaded on iOS devices.
In 1972, Michael Scammell, the first editor of Index on Censorship magazine, wrote in the launch issue: “Freedom of expression is not self-perpetuating but needs to be maintained by the constant vigilance of those who care about it.”
The National Coalition Against Censorship has weighed in on a Nashville charter school’s decision to censor a novel without permission. Guess what? They don’t approve.
Some students claim they were censored on the campus of Utah State University after police ordered them to remove anti-abortion messages they wrote on sidewalks.
Four students set out to express anti-abortion sentiments on campus last Thursday to show support for “Women betrayed national day of action.”
They drew nearly 900 hearts on the sidewalk with chalk with a banner reading, “Say No to Abortion.”
When I was kid, the phrase “Banned in Boston” confused me. I thought of Boston as a liberal, cosmopolitan city. Surely they didn’t censor things there.
They don’t anymore, but they sure used to. About 100 years ago, Boston was in the grip of dour “vice” crusaders who used their religious beliefs to decide what books and magazines people could read and what performances they could see on stage. And it wasn’t alone.
Yan noted that he has experienced many rejections in his career because editors feared that his writing would cause controversy. Although he put great emotion into his work, he said he was rejected nine out of 10 times. Eventually, he realized that if he wrote something of quality, it would be published—adding that he is now “the champion of receiving rejections.”
The major question that is hanging in air now: do we need to go underground in London in order to continue to create shows that we feel need to exist for world politicians to understand that we are watching them no matter where we are: in Belarus, Rwanda, Uganda, Australia, or the UK – and that we can make free art with no fear of losing funding? Is it possible?
Former Feinberg Prof. Alice Dreger, who resigned from her position after she said the University censored a faculty magazine, is calling for an official apology from the administration.
“They need to say that a mistake was made and that they apologize and that it won’t happen again,” Dreger told The Daily.
Speaking Wednesday evening to a gathering of about 30 students and community members at Bookends & Beginnings in Evanston, Dreger explained her decision to leave Northwestern in August, just six months after publishing “Galileo’s Middle Finger: Heretics, Activists, and the Search for Justice in Science,” a book on the ethics of medical research and academic freedom based on research made possible through support from the University.
Is there no end to the illegal suppression of free speech and debate on America’s public university campuses?
A teacher at Pemberton Township High School is alleging that his job was changed in retaliation for his refusal to censor articles written for the student-run newspaper, The Stinger, and the subsequent controversy that ensued.
The plague of political correctness infecting every corner of life on American college campuses has grown so ubiquitous that even President Barack Obama—by no means a conservative or contrarian on education matters—is bemoaning student-initiated censorship.
Malaysian police have opened an investigation on the latest book of political cartoons by Zulkiflee SM Anwar Ulhaque, or Zunar.
A sales assistant who manages online sales of the title, Sapuman – Man of Steal, on the website zunar.my has been ordered to attend a meeting with police under the sedition act. The questioning will take place in central Kuala Lumpur on Monday 5 October at noon.
“I strongly condemn these latest police tactics to frighten people from getting access to read and buy my books. My sales assistant did nothing illegal as the Sapuman – Man of Steal is not officially banned by the government. On the contrary, the police should investigate who took RM2.6 billion ($384 million) of public funds instead of clamping down on book sellers who sell books legally,” Zunar said in a statement.
Internet users on Wednesday (Sep 30) attacked Thai government websites leaving them impossible to access for many hours.
It is believed online activists used social media to mobilise supporters, who then went to these websites where they clicked to refresh the pages continuously.
After 40 days I had a novel in my laptop called Thunder Road, all about boys and cars, and swearing, and girls, and fighting, and sex and … did I mention swearing?
NCAC and our Banned Books Week partners know this all too well. But still we can manage to be surprised– both by the ways in which some schools and administrators will bend the rules to placate book banners, but also by the creative and determined activism to defend the freedom to read.
In the spirit of Banned Books Week, we bring you five stories from the field. A few of them will make shake your head, while the others will have you pumping your fist.
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has mistakenly hinted at the social network’s plans to censor people who publish anti-migrant posts.
In a move which has angered free speech activists, the billionaire suggested his firm was working to silence racists and people who post hate speech.
Over the weekend, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg was overheard discussing with German Chancellor Angela Merkel his website’s censorship of a wave of anti-immigrant posts appearing on the social network as Europe continues to deal with the largest refugee crisis since World War II, reported Bloomberg.
Is terror legislation being used to stifle free expression? Where should the line be drawn on pornography? Can national broadcasters be truly independent at a time of war? In a series of provocative debates at this year’s Cambridge Festival of Ideas (19 October – 1 November), censorship and freedom of expression will be explored by a range of leading thinkers and experts in their fields.
Skorton acknowledged the risks of the decision and that it could hurt the Smithsonian’s reputation.
“If a person strongly disagrees, I believe it will change that person’s view of the Smithsonian, but I believe taking down an exhibition will tarnish our reputation among museum professionals and others,” he said. “Creative activity of any kind can generate controversy. We will from time to time get beat up about some of these things.”
The CEOs of Apple, Google, Microsoft, and other major technology firms should press Chinese President Xi Jinping and Internet czar Lu Wei to reverse their expansion of surveillance, censorship, and data collection, Human Rights Watch said today in a letter.
Case in point is the story of Ellen Pao. A hotshot Harvard-educated lawyer, Pao sued her Silicon Valley venture-capital employer for gender discrimination. As evidence, she cited a partner’s referring to a porn star on a private jet.
Where would an otherwise worldly woman come to see a mere mention of porn-watching as evidence of sexual bias? No need to answer.
[...]
Brown offers an exhaustive list of advice for men wanting to counter sexual violence. Item No. 9: “Refuse to purchase any magazine, rent any video, subscribe to any website, or buy any music that portrays girls or women in a sexually degrading or abusive manner.”
Firstly, most pornography is legal, and school administrators have no business telling their scholars what is permissible reading.
As refugees flee one of the world’s most repressive and secretive regimes, Ismail Einashe talks to Eritreans who have reached the UK but who still worry about the risks of speaking out
[...]
After graduating top of his class from Eritrea’s Asmara University, Debesai became a well-known TV journalist for state-run news agency Erina Update. But from 2001, the real crackdown began and independent newspapers such as Setit, Tsigenai, and Keste Debena, were shut down. In raids journalists from these papers were arrested en masse. He suspects many of those arrested were tortured or killed, and many were never heard of again. No independent domestic news agency has operated in Eritrea since 2001, the same year the country’s last accredited foreign reporter was expelled.
Activists stepped up calls for Chinese President Xi Jinping to end an ongoing crackdown on rights activists back home as he defended his government’s tight controls on the Internet on Thursday.
Xi, who traveled from Washington state to Washington, D.C. on Thursday ahead of talks with Obama and a state dinner at the White House on Friday, has been greeted by protesters at every stop of his state visit to the United States this week.
Activists have hit out at the continued detention of prisoners of conscience, an ongoing crackdown on human rights lawyers, mistreatment of Tibetans and Uyghurs and continued harassment of non-governmental and civic organizations.
A diverse group of conservationists, animal advocates, academics and the press filed a federal lawsuit challenging two Wyoming laws they say chill free speech and punish people who collect data on open land.
A circular on Special Guidelines for Television Film Censorship has been enforced since June 15, 2015, the Film Censorship Board (FCB) said.
“This government wanted there to be more voices with the media law. My support and solidarity.”
Scioli also slammed the administration run by mayor and presidential rival Mauricio Macri. “This is a stage of censorship that I never want to see again in Argentina,” he said.
Earlier this year, Sen. Tom Udall, a Democrat from New Mexico, introduced a bill on the congressional floor titled the Cuba DATA Act. The bill encouraged U.S. telecommunication companies to set up shop in Cuba and was widely cheered by human rights activists and business leaders alike.
The records, seen by BuzzFeed News, show that at least one contract, for just under $4.7 million, was signed with a Mexican company that then successfully removed material from YouTube, Facebook, Vimeo, and Dailymotion.
Yahoo denied requests by law enforcement agencies in India, Ireland and the United Kingdom to remove content earlier this year, but agreed to remove a single Flickr image that glorified terrorism, according to the Sunnyvale company’s transparency report published Thursday.
At first glance, 16-year-old Amos Yee seems timid, naïve, almost oblivious to what he did: Challenge the very foundations of Singapore and its revered founder.
But within five minutes, Yee deliberately and clearly articulates why he believes his blog posts are worth jail time.
“I feel like I’m the one who’s actually supposed to break that boundary so that other people will be able to talk about things in an honest way and discuss about it, which I feel is really important,” says Yee, during an exclusive interview with CNN, while seated in his family’s flat in Singapore.
The Media Development Authority (MDA) had issued a licence for the performance of Chestnuts 50 after the “problematic segment” was dropped.
Ways to get invited to the White House for dinner: Make a clock that looks like a bomb.
Ahmed Mohamed, 14, was arrested after his teacher mistook the timepiece for an explosive device.
But Obama has since tweeted inviting the boy for dinner. Then Mark Zuckerberg said he was keen to meet the boy over at Facebook HQ.
All Singapore’s prime ministers, from PM Lee Kuan Yew, PM Goh Chok Tong, and PM Lee Hsien Loong, have been using the mass media to support their power. That explains why the government controls all media resources, from the capital, infrastructure, permits, editorial structure, to even tones of news.
Several senior Singaporean journalists recount that from 1965 to 1980s, PM Lee Kuan Yew use an iron fist to silence the media. During those times, the vocal, mostly leftist journalists and activists had to face hard Singapore laws.
“Between 1965-1977, no less than 10-15 journalists were imprisoned. They were charged as posing dangers to national security, or accused as using media to renounce against the government,” said one senior journalist in Singapore.
Also, there’s the case of teenage dissident Amos Yee Pang Sang (余澎杉), whose imprisonment after he posted a vitriolic video on YouTube against Lee Kuan Yew shortly after the latter’s death opened a floodgate of sympathy for the outspoken blogger.
Finally, social media encourages Singaporeans to share their political views and to discuss political issues with other citizens.
Inasmuch as mainstream media and new outlets are under the ironclad grip of the government, Facebook and Twitter have been serving as a political platform, such as in the calls for teen blogger Amos Yee to be freed when he was jail. His release in July demonstrated the growing influence of online social media on politics in Singapore.
Regardless of why the PAP is losing its edge, there is little doubt Singaporeans are starting to recognise the vulnerabilities that come with a one-party dominant system. Hongkongers should definitely cherish the divergent spectrum in the political ideologies that we still have in Legco.
What’s more, in true open source spirit we’re letting other ad blocking software use the Acceptable Ads guidelines and whitelisting processes also. Last week, Dean Murphy at Crystal took us up on the offer, and today we are welcoming tens of millions of AdBlock users to our Acceptable Ads whitelist. We’re all fighting on the same side for the consumer, after all.
Technically Incorrect: He might pose as a tech expert. But even the best make mistakes. Having signed up for Twitter, Edward Snowden gets buried in e-mail notifications from followers.
To block ads or not to block ads on your mobile device? That’s the philosophical dilemma facing consumers since Apple added support for ad blockers to its iPhone operating system a couple of weeks ago.
To help answer the question, we decided to put multiple ad blockers to the test. Over the course of four days, we used several ad-blocking apps on our iPhones and measured how much the programs cut down on web page data sizes and improved loading times, and also how much they increased the smartphone’s battery life.
The CIA has withdrawn a number of its personnel from the U.S. Embassy in Beijing following two massive cyber attacks involving U.S. government employee records, according to the Washington Post.
CIA operatives have been withdrawn from China amid fears over their safety following one of the worst cyber hacks of US government data in history.
Computers belonging to the American office of personnel management (OPM) were hacked in April, compromising the details of approximately four million government employees.
In the US he faces charges that could put him in prison for up to 30 years.
Earlier this year, speaking via video-link to a Geneva audience, he said he would like to be granted asylum in Switzerland.
In this video acTVism Munich interviews William Binney to talk about his experience at the National Security Agency (NSA) where worked for circa 36 years and how he uncovered fraud, crime and corruption at the agency. Other issues that are discussed in detail include the role & significance of whistleblowers in society, scope & capacity of the US intelligence state and solutions that the government as well as the individual can employ to reform the NSA.
Fiorina said, “I’m not aware of circumstances” in which NSA surveillance “went too far,” although she supports “the checks and balances” put into place by Congress that ended agency bulk collection of phone records. She also suggested that there were greater government threats to privacy than NSA surveillance and other U.S. intelligence programs.
Four years ago, Facebook promised that the “Like” buttons that had sprung up on non-Facebook sites all around the web wouldn’t be used to track users. In 2011, Facebook said, “No information we receive when you see social plugins is used to target ads; we delete or anonymize this information within 90 days, and we never sell your information.” Back then, Facebook said it only used the information to target you if you actually clicked on one of its off-site Like buttons. Which calmed the privacy storm at the time.
The US government has responded to Europe’s top lawyer, who last week said sending people’s private data to the United States is illegal.
Uncle Sam is not happy.
At the heart of the matter is the so-called safe harbor agreement between the US and the EU. You cannot by law pipe people’s private information out of Europe unless you can promise to keep that data safe. Under the safe harbor framework, America promises to do exactly that, and respect Europeans’ privacy. That agreement is being renegotiated as you read this.
In the meantime, the European Court of Justice’s Advocate General Yves Bot has said, what with all this mass spying going on worldwide by the NSA, the safe harbor agreement is not worth the paper it’s written on.
In response, America reckons Bot has said some stupid things and gone too far.
“We believe that it is essential to comment in this instance because the Advocate General’s opinion rests on numerous inaccurate assertions about intelligence practices of the United States,” the US mission to the European Union stated on Monday.
Apple CEO Tim Cook said he doesn’t think we will hear the U.S. National Security Agency asking for a back door into our iPhones, at least not any more. In an interview on NPR’s All Things Considered on Thursday, Mr. Cook implied that even the FBI is coming around on the need for end-user encryption.
The United States makes an improper division between surveillance conducted on residents of the United States and the surveillance that is conducted with almost no restraint upon the rest of the world. This double standard has proved poisonous to the rights of Americans and non-Americans alike. In theory, Americans enjoy better protections. In practice there are no magical sets of servers and Internet connections that carry only American conversations. To violate the privacy of everyone else in the world, the U.S. inevitably scoops up its own citizens’ data. Establishing nationality as a basis for discrimination also encourages intelligence agencies to make the obvious end-run: spying on each other’s citizens, and then sharing that data. Treating two sets of innocent targets differently is already a violation of international human rights law. In reality, it reduces everyone to the same, lower standard.
A group of nine plaintiffs represented by the American Civil Liberties Union is fighting to get over the first hurdle in the lawsuit: convincing Judge T.S. Ellis of the Eastern District Court of Virginia that they have standing to sue the government, a hurdle the ACLU was unable to clear two years ago in a similar case.
[...]
Although Ellis was presiding over the hearing in Alexandria, Virginia, the case was initially filed in Maryland, where the NSA is based. The Maryland District Court handed the case off because of a peculiar conflict, Toomey said after the hearing: Edward Snowden’s mother is an administrator in a Maryland court.
The plaintiffs claim that the NSA’s “upstream” program, which was partially revealed in the documents leaked by Edward Snowden in June 2013, is illegally surveilling the communications of all internet users.
The case was brought by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) on behalf of the Wikimedia foundation – which owns and operates Wikipedia – as well as Human Rights Watch, the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers and several other plaintiffs including the Nation magazine.
Attorneys representing the NSA filed a motion to dismiss the case, claiming the plaintiffs’ case was “speculative” and had no standing.
Support groups help cult and gang members break free of their former lives. Alcoholics and Narcotics Anonymous help addicts overcome their dependencies. And now one group of privacy campaigners wants to offer its target audience an escape route for what it sees as a equally insidious trap: Their jobs working for intelligence agencies like the NSA.
From MonsterMind to TreasureMap, we’ve only just scratched the surface of the United States’ hyper-clandestine offensive capabilities.
Just as it seems the White House is close to finally announcing its policy on encryption – the FBI has been pushing for tech companies like Apple and Google to insert backdoors into their phones so the US government can always access users’ data – new Snowden revelations and an investigation by a legendary journalist show exactly why the FBI’s plans are so dangerous.
JUST OUTSIDE THE MAIN DOWNTOWN part of Athens lies Kolonos, an old Athenian neighborhood near the archaeological park of Akadimia Platonos, where Plato used to teach. Along the maze of narrow streets, flower-filled balconies hang above open-air markets, and locals gather for hours at lazy sidewalk cafes, sipping demitasse cups of espresso and downing shots of Ouzo in quick gulps.
[...]
The day before his death, Costas’ boss at Vodafone had ordered that a newly discovered code — a powerful and sophisticated bug — be deactivated and removed from its systems. The wiretap, placed by persons unknown, targeted more than 100 top officials, including then Prime Minister Kostas Karamanlis and his wife, Natassa; the mayor of Athens; members of the Ministerial Cabinet; as well as journalists, capturing not only the country’s highest secrets, but also its most intimate conversations. The question was, who did it?
Hero, traitor, geek – no matter what you think of Edward Snowden there is no doubt that he has changed the world a great deal.
In June 2013, the globe-shaking document leaks from Snowden put a spotlight on the National Security Agency’s domestic spying.
The revelations Snowden presented to journalist Glenn Greenwald — who worked at the Guardian at the time of the disclosures — have made people question the Obama administration’s mass surveillance practices.
The U.S. government also considered making changes to its surveillance programs such as Prism.
The director of the NSA, Admiral Michael Rogers, just admitted at a Senate hearing that when Internet companies provide copies of encryption keys to law enforcement, the risk of hacks and data theft goes way up.
The government has been pressuring technology companies to provide the encryption keys that it can use to access data from suspected bad actors. The keys allow the government “front door access,” as Rogers has termed it, to secure data on any device, including cell phones and tablets.
Rogers made the statement in answer to a question from Senator Ron Wyden at the Senate Intelligence Committee hearing Thursday.
It would present an ‘opportunity’ for spy agencies if the foreign minister of Russia or Iran were to use a private email server for official business, the chief of the U.S. National Security Agency said on Thursday.
The National Security Agency is considering a reorganization to prepare for future threats and a changing security landscape.
On Sept. 26, during a little-known quasi-holiday called “Love Note Day” that encourages the writing of sentimental blather to loved ones, there was one very unusual contributor to the gushing chatter on social media: the US National Security Agency (NSA).
“Hoped to serve your people? Ended up spying on them? Exit intelligence.”
Looks like Edward Snowden’s excitement of joining Twitter just got lowered after he received 47 GB of notification from the micro-blogging site unknowingly.
The 32-year-old NSA whistleblower forgot to check his notification settings, as he was unaware that Twitter sends e-mail notifications for pretty much every social interaction, reports The Verge.
In a significant move for internet privacy campaigners, a lawyer for the European Court of Justice said an EU-US agreement on the transfer of huge data banks does not stop watchdogs from suspending the movement of information.
Yves Bot, advocate general in the Luxembourg-based court also said the deal should not prevent investigations of complaints against web giants.
This week, I interviewed NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden for the Electronic Frontier Foundation’s Pioneer Awards, an event that recognizes those protecting freedom on the Internet. We chatted by Google Hangout because Snowden remains in Russia, stuck in international limbo after the U.S. revoked his passport in 2013.
Perhaps the word “exploding” should be used advisedly: This ex-NSA fellow, Charlie Miller, made a name for himself recently when he and another man — Chris Valasek who, like Miller, also just joined Uber — demonstrated that they could mount a remote hack on an automobile, essentially take it over and, potentially, kill the driver.
Human Rights Watch and three anonymous individuals filed a complaint today over surveillance by the United Kingdom. The complaint by Human Rights Watch to the Investigatory Powers Tribunal (IPT) charges its rights had been violated by the Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) in intercepting, using, and retaining its communications and in particular, sharing them with the US National Security Administration (NSA).
Want to know if the British and American government are spying on you? You don’t need to go through a lengthy court battle to find out—now you just need to fill out an online form.
Claims must be submitted by 5 December, 2015 as the Investigatory Powers Tribunal will only search for records obtained and shared within the last year. King estimates that it will take at least six months for filed claims to be answered.
The British Civil Liberties Group, Privacy International is now offering a new online tool through which individuals and organizations can file complaints with GCHQ about surveillance of phone calls and internet usage. Privacy International has long concerned itself with the sharing of data between the US National Security Agency (NSA) and GCHQ and government surveillance.
The NSA will probably spy on foreign leaders like Iranian President Hassan Rouhani during the UN General Assembly in New York this week, applying a “full court press” that includes intercepting cellphone calls and bugging hotel rooms, former intelligence analysts told NBC News.
The NSA intercepted and spied on all telephone calls and correspondence, as well bugged the hotel rooms of all 143 members of the Iranian delegation, including then-President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, during the 62nd UN General Assembly in New York in 2007, NBC reported.
Not everyone is inspired artistically by Edward Snowden, the former CIA employee who leaked classified NSA documents. But then again not everyone is Simon Denny, the New Zealand-born, Berlin-based artist, who took the PowerPoint slides leaked by Snowden and turned them into art for his installation show “Secret Power.”
But at the photographer Trevor Paglen’s new exhibition at Metro Pictures, the crowd was decidedly different. Instead of sleek monochrome, visitors wore hoodies and T-shirts, and clutched messenger bags instead of totes. The shift is probably because Paglen’s project, uncovering the infrastructure of governmental surveillance, resonates with a decidedly more hacker crowd than minimalist sculpture.
The federal judge refereeing a court battle over the National Security Agency’s phone-snooping program said Wednesday he will allow a conservative lawyer’s lawsuit to proceed with new plaintiffs but urged the attorney to narrow his focus in order to speed up the case.
Despite attempts by attorney Larry Klayman to push the court to question the government on whether it had specifically collected data from his phone records, U.S. District Judge Richard Leon urged Mr. Klayman to keep the case specific to new plaintiffs — who used a phone company already known to have provided data to the NSA.
European companies may have to review their widespread practice of storing digital data with US internet companies after a court accused America’s intelligence services of conducting “mass, indiscriminate surveillance”.
So when he heads to California’s Silicon Valley this week, Modi, 65, will get the red-carpet treatment as he dines with chief executives, promotes India’s start-up community and meets tech leaders including Apple’s Tim Cook and Microsoft’s Satya Nadella. On Sunday, he will appear at an online “town hall” session with Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg.
President George W. Bush sought to retroactively authorize portions of the National Security Agency’s post-9/11 surveillance and data collection program after a now-famous incident in 2004 in which his attorney general refused to certify the program as lawful from his hospital bed, according to newly declassified portions of a government investigation.
Mr. Bush’s effort to salvage the surveillance program without changes did not satisfy top Justice Department officials, who threatened to resign. But the newly disclosed passages of a report by inspectors general of six agencies suggest that the confrontation in the hospital room came after the Justice Department identified several problems, including a “gap” between what Mr. Bush had authorized the N.S.A. to collect and what the agency was collecting in practice.
One Hasidic woman from Borough Park has broken all the religious stereotypes which normally confine women to being mothers and caregivers. She has taken her knowledge and talent and used it to be the ultimate mensch, working for NSA to keep the U.S. safe.
According to YNetNews, Anne Neuberger, 39, was raised speaking Yiddish and studying Torah, but always had a passion for justice and civil rights, deciding to further her education at Columbia University with the support of her father and husband.
NSA, the United States National Security Agency, is challenging university students in the US to exercise their reverse engineering and low-level code analysis skills while working on a fictitious, yet realistic, security threat.
Maribor, 3 October – That there are no friendly countries in the world is an old diplomatic saying. Countries can only have shared interests, or they do not have them but will in the future, the daily Večer says on Saturday as it comments on allegations that the NSA had intercepted international calls from Slovenia in 2005-2008.
The Patriot Act allows the U.S. authorities including the NSA to collect and search communications data stored on servers from U.S. technology providers.
Former Dutch Government Minister Dion Kotteman slammed the U.S. Patriot Act on Tuesday for allowing U.S. intelligence agencies including the National Security Agency (NSA) the ability to spy and collect the personal data of European citizens.
The US Patriot Act means it’s impossible to guarantee that the NSA and other American intelligence services aren’t able to snoop on data stored on European data centre servers, Dion Kotteman, executive adviser to the Dutch Ministry of Finance and Former CIO of the Dutch Government has said.
Republican presidential candidate Jeb Bush — or just “Jeb!” as he’s called in his campaign signs — probably won’t win the endorsement of the Electronic Frontier Foundation given his positions on tech policy. In fact, we can’t imagine many Silicon Valley types are pleased with Jeb’s latest declarations this week that as president he’ll kill net neutrality rules while at the same time bulking up the data collection powers of the National Security Agency.
It’s not just your pictures the NSA has access to. Every email you’ve sent will most certainly have passed through an AT&T cable at some point. Fun fact: AT&T has been fully co-operating with the NSA since the Patriot Act was passed. So the NSA has all of your emails. Any personal information you’ve sent through an email, they’ve got it.
Legally, the NSA’s supposed to get permission to look at it. However, it’s all sitting there on their servers. Some employee, say, an independent contractor named Edward Snowden, could get their hands on it and do whatever they want. You see, it’s not just the government you have to worry about. It’s identity theft, revenge porn, those sorts of things perpetrated by some rogue employee who decides it would be fun to post all of this data on the internet for everyone to see, such as the people who posted the nude photos of celebrity women that they stole from Apple’s cloud storage service.
If Edward Snowden could get away from the NSA and escape the country to Russia with classified information, what’s stopping someone from getting away with everyone’s emails? Which brings me to another point: if politicians are worried about Snowden revealing these things making the nation less safe, then they should be demanding answers from the NSA about how he got away with it in the first place. The word “security” is in their name. They had one job. They couldn’t even do that right.
China’s speakers will include General Hao Yeli, vice president of the China Institute for Innovation and Development Strategy, and Zhang Li, assistant to the director of the China Institute of Contemporary International Relations. Both are expected to “discuss the establishment of a new order in the cyber world and China’s outlook.”
On August 11, the National Security Agency updated an obscure page on its website with an announcement that it plans to shift the encryption of government and military data away from current cryptographic schemes to new ones, yet to be determined, that can resist an attack by quantum computers.
Germany’s Left and Greens are demanding the full list of “selectors” to be published.
Last week saw a lot of reactions on social media over a draft proposal submitted by a government committee. The suggestions included some points that could at the least be qualified as draconian in today’s digital age. However, not sliding on to the political ramifications of this, let us discuss this in a global scenario. The whole world was in arms on social media when Snowden dropped the bomb on NSA- alleged snooping of citizens calls, messages and private data by the government had people worried. According to Snowden, the NSA surveillance systems collected roughly 1.7 billion emails, phone calls and other types of communications every day. Although the furor that was created then is all but dead now, its existence persists. Not so long ago we also heard the likes of RIM (Research in Motion) for a tussle over handing over their data to the government.
The Justice Department is persisting in the implausible claim that there is no reliable proof that Verizon Wireless was part of the National Security Agency’s program to sweep up data on U.S. telephone calls, notwithstanding a government document officially released last month that appears to confirm the cellphone carrier’s involvement.
Because it can barely keep its own data safe.
There has been a continuos stir arising among people about the National Security Agency peeking into people’s lives by tracking their social network or social media platforms. Also, the rumours have surfaced about NSA tracking people’s buying patterns with the help of an app called PEEPME, created by a young guy from Belgium named Zeki Sever.
Although NSA has completely denied the rumours that it has impersonated any US company website, including PEEPME to collect data and spy on targets but sources have suggested that NSA is using Metadata to compile ‘Social netwrok Diagrams’ on PEEPME to view people’s lifestyle, how much and on what they are spending. To do this, they are using Zeki Sever as their puppet.
Keeping apart the continuing rumours about NSA, the unique app is surely gaining huge popularity among the people and in fact, a lot of celebrities like Tyga, Scott Disick and Amber Rose have come out on social media to promote the app.
Sen. Ron Wyden on Monday stopped blocking a bill that authorizes 2016 funding for the FBI, CIA, and the National Security Agency after it was stripped of a provision that would have required Twitter, Facebook and other social media companies to heavily police their users’ online speech.
Military and civilian employees of the National Security Agency/Central Security Service (NSA/CSS) gathered at the agency’s Memorial Wall on September 11, 2015 – Patriot Day – to collectively recite the Oath of Office, reaffirming their commitment to the Constitution and to the safety, security, and liberty of the American people.
No. This is not the opening sentence of an Onion article. This actually happened.
In real life.
Maybe it was opposite day.
It’s tempting to call this staged event Orwellian. It reeks of doublespeak. But this is really too ridiculously transparent and silly to even qualify. It is an insult to doublespeak.
Seriously, look up “implausible” in the dictionary and you will find the words “NSA agents safeguarding the Constitution and liberty.”
Here is a photo of all of the NSA employees who are faithful to the Constitution standing on the beach.
OK. Perhaps I’m being too harsh.It could have been an honest mistake, Maybe the pocket Constitutions they pass out to NSA employees don’t include the Bill of Rights. Or maybe the Fourth Amendment got all blurred because of some kind of ink smear. It could have been a printing mistake or something.
The NSA committed at least three major acts: the battle over FISA orders against Yahoo, sabotaging US products in transit, and the bulk surveillance of Yahoo and Google’s internal networks, that all represent not just attacks on Silicon Valley companies, but attacks on the very business models these companies operate on. For Silicon Valley, beyond anything else, needs a reputation for trust, a reputation directly attacked by the NSA.
Adm. Mike Rogers has long posited that strong encryption on consumer devices hampers law enforcement and intelligence work. But on Thursday he acknowledged the possible security downside of one proposed way for the government to decrypt data on consumer devices.
The American Booksellers for Free Expression (ABFE) has joined the American Library Association (ALA) and other library groups in urging a federal court to limit the National Security Agency’s (NSA) surveillance of international electronic communications, including those relating to the purchase and use of books. On September 3, ABFE and ALA filed an amicus brief in support of an ACLU lawsuit challenging Upstream, a once-secret program that was revealed by NSA whistleblower Edward J. Snowden.
The CIA, the National Security Agency and the military’s Joint Special Operations Command have been leading a dedicated manhunt to methodically detect and kill senior militants in Syria and Iraq.
According to The Associated Press, “The drone strikes—separate from the conventional bombing campaign run by U.S. Central Command—have significantly diminished the threat from the Khorasan Group, an al-Qaida cell in Syria that had planned attacks on American aviation, U.S. officials say. The group’s leader, Muhsin al-Fadhli, and its top bomb-maker, David Drugeon, were killed this past summer.”
A dedicated manhunt by the CIA, the National Security Agency and the military’s Joint Special Operations Command has been methodically finding and killing senior militants in Syria and Iraq, in one of the few clear success stories of the U.S. military campaign in those countries.
The idea of university professors or students working with the FBI or CIA probably makes you raise your eyebrows.
But then perhaps you’re picturing someone like the fictional Henry McCord in Madam Secretary. He’s a Georgetown theology professor who was asked to plant a bug for the National Security Agency (NSA) at the home of a scholar believed to be connected to a terrorist.
NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Glenn Greenwald, Brazilian privacy activist David Miranda and others have launched a new campaign to establish global privacy standards. The proposed International Treaty on the Right to Privacy, Protection Against Improper Surveillance and Protection of Whistleblowers would require states to ban mass data collection and implement public oversight of national security programs. The treaty would also require states to offer asylum to whistleblowers. It is being dubbed the “Snowden Treaty.” At a launch event last week, Edward Snowden spoke about the need for the treaty via teleconference from Russia. “This is not a problem exclusive to the United States or the National Security Agency or the FBI or the Department of Justice or any agency of government anywhere. This is a global problem that affects all of us,” Snowden said.
The goal of the new directorate is to provide CIA analysts with a “wide range of cyber options in the initial trade space” to help them solve problems earlier in the intelligence cycle, Roche told FCW during a recent visit to Langley. This means, among other things, locating and understanding the “digital dust” left behind by actors in the cyber domain. It is an open question whether the new directorate will serve as a platform for offensive operations.
One of the most consistent responses to the concerns raised by EFF and others about the US government’s mass spying programs is this: If you’ve got nothing to hide you have no reason to fear.
[...]
We know that the government claims that any evidence of a crime can be sent to domestic law enforcement agencies and we also know that the DEA built its own database of telephone records, which was supposed to be limited to drug crimes but was used far beyond its initial mandate.
Second, even if you don’t think you have something to hide, it’s possible the government thinks you do. One legal expert has argued that the average person likely commits three felonies a day without ever realizing it.
That’s not surprising since there are so many criminal laws on the books – an attempt to catalogue them all in the 1980s failed. And even if you don’t ever violate any law or draw the ire of policeman or prosecutor, someone you know and love could.
For years, the British government has reportedly tracked and stored billions of records of Internet use by British citizens and those outside the UK in an effort to track every visible user on the Internet. Ryan Gallagher of the Intercept joins Hari Sreenivasan via Skype from Brighton, England, with more on UK cyber surveillance.
Anthony Silva, the mayor of Stockton, California, recently went to China for a mayor’s conference. On his return to San Francisco airport he was detained by Homeland Security, and then had his two laptops and his mobile phone confiscated.
“Just how high are these rates? A pro bono attorney paid $14 a minute to speak to an incarcerated client,” FCC Commissioner Mignon Clyburn said in a speech last week. “Families write explaining how they are making extraordinary sacrifices by paying $400-$500 a month to hear their loved one’s voice. The endless array of new and increasing fees can add nearly 40 percent to costs—fees as high as $9.50 to open a new account, $4.75 to add money to an account, and $2.99 a month for the account maintenance fee. These rates and fees would be difficult for any family to bear, but if you were already struggling to stay afloat, you are now foregoing basic necessities like food and medicine just to make a phone call. No family should be forced to make this choice.”
Not even Turkmenistan, where the Glorious Leader renamed the days of the week after his family and bequeathed the Presidency to his dentist (who remains President) do they have a national anthem as ludicrously obsequious as the British. Furthermore, even North Korea’s anthem makes no mention of the ruling dynasty. I haven’t sung the British hymn to arse-licking since I was old enough to understand what it meant (about 13). As a British diplomat and Ambassador I used to do exactly what Corbyn did – stand silently. And I have done that while in the Queen’s company.
Saudi Arabia has still not responded to India’s request to interrogate one of its diplomats, accused of raping two Nepali women who worked for him.
The US Attorney’s Office [official website] on Friday dismissed all charges against the former chairman of Temple University’s physics department, Xi Xiaoxing [University profile], for allegedly sharing American-made schematics of a device used in superconductor research to Chinese scientists. The charges were based on emails of technological specifications of the device, known as a pocket heater, that the professor sent during his time as chairman of the physics department at Temple. The US Attorney’s Office declined [AP report] to comment on the matter other than the decision to dismiss the charges was based on “new information.” The motion comes after a presentation by the professors’ attorney that demonstrated the information he exchanged with China had little to no commercial value and did not involve restricted technology. Xi’s attorney argued that the government misunderstood the science and Xi’s attorney presented several experts that testified on behalf of Xi.
An Israeli media report on a Ukrainian woman who recently immigrated has caused consternation among pro-Russian separatists in the east of the former Soviet republic, with representatives of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic calling on Jerusalem to censor her story.
The American tech company CloudFlare, known for its no-compromise stance on internet freedom and freedom of expression, announced nearly two weeks ago that it had finally entered—sort of—a territory where those principles are often compromised: China.
Technically, CloudFlare didn’t really enter China. The company agreed to an unprecedented partnership with the Chinese internet giant Baidu, creating something like a fast lane for websites both inside and outside of the communist country, through a service owned by Baidu and called Yunjiasu, or “Fast Cloud.”
Some, given CloudFlare’s history of defending websites against censorship, and its public goal of making the internet better, saw this as sort of a deal with the devil. Richard Bejtlich, a well-known security expert who works for another security firm, FireEye, wrote in a Motherboard op-ed that the deal was dangerous for two reasons: intellectual property, and censorship.
They also call for more independent newspapers and media houses to be allowed to operate in Swaziland, where King Mswati III rules as sub-Saharan Africa’s last absolute monarch.
As we’ve reported in the past, Bassel Khartabil Safadi, a 31-year-old Palestinian-Syrian, is a respected computer engineer specializing in open source software development. He has been a project leader for open source web software called Aiki Framework. He is well known in online technical communities as a dedicated volunteer to major Internet projects like Creative Commons, Mozilla, Wikipedia, Open Clip Art Library, Fabricatorz, and Sharism.
We’ve all been there: It’s nearly 2 in the morning and you’re cruising around the Internet looking for new domain names to purchase. I mean, talk about a cliched night, right?
The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) is asking a federal appeals court to approve Federal Communications Commission (FCC) net neutrality rules that prevent Internet service providers from interfering with and censoring content on the Web.
U.S. telecommunication providers sued the FCC in Washington D.C. federal circuit court after the FCC published the rules, called the Open Internet Order, earlier this year. Among other things, service providers and their supporters argue that the order strips telecom companies of control over which speech they transmit.
The main difference, from the publishers’ point of view, between print books and e-books is that it’s very difficult to self-publish a print book: It’s difficult for an author to distribute physical books to thousands of real-world bookstores. In a world where books are mostly delivered electronically, it’s hard to imagine that publishers will play much of a role.
Towards the end of 2013, IP-Watch — along with the Yale Media Freedom and Access Center — filed a FOIA lawsuit against the USTR for its refusal to release its TPP draft documents. The USTR spent a year ignoring IP-Watch’s William New’s request before telling him the release of draft agreements would “harm national security.”
Copyright holders must consider fair use before taking down YouTube videos of cute cavorting children, federal judges have ruled. The decision in the landmark digital copyright case is expected to curb takedown requests, although some loopholes remain.
Kim Dotcom’s oft-delayed extradition hearing is slated to begin on Monday, nearly three years and 10 months since the infamous raid of Dotcom’s New Zealand mansion. Over that time span, Dotcom’s legal team has managed to drag out the affair through 10 extradition hearing delays and various other legal maneuvering. And according to some number crunching from the New Zealand Herald (confirmed by the Crown Law Office, the NZ prosecutors representing the US there), Dotcom’s trials and tribulations have cost NZ taxpayers nearly NZ$5.8 million in legal fees (or approximately $3.7 million).
Wyoming lawmakers adopted legislation making it illegal to gather data on open space—such as performing water quality tests or taking photographs—for the purpose of reporting to the government harmful farming practices, environmental degradation, or other ills.
The two-part legislative package, signed by Gov. Matt Mead earlier this year, is the subject of a constitutional legal challenge from environmentalists, animal rights advocates, and the media.
Back at the end of August, we wrote about a ridiculous situation in which the Pokemon Company decided to sue two fans in Seattle who had set up a Pokemon-themed party leading into the big PAX conference. As soon as the threats came down, these guys shut down the party entirely, but the Pokemon Company would not be stopped in its determination to totally bankrupt and destroy such a big fan who was out there promoting Pokemon and Pokemon culture. The company, represented by big copyright maximalist law firm Davis Wright Tremaine, went forward with the ridiculous lawsuit anyway. While they dismissed one guy from the lawsuit, the other, Ramar Larking Jones, didn’t hire a lawyer, saying he had no money for it.
As Techdirt has pointed out, copyright extensions are bad enough, but retroactive ones are even worse, since the creation of the work has already occurred, so providing additional incentives makes no sense, even accepting the dubious idea that artists think about copyright terms before setting to work. Moreover, copyright extensions are a real kind of copyright theft — specifically, stealing from the public domain. If you think that is just rhetoric, it’s worth looking at what is happening in Argentina.
Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Guest Editorial Team
Community: Get involved
RSS Feed: subscribe to the RSS feed for regular updates
Site Wiki: You can improve this site by helping the extension of the site's content
Site Home: Background about the site and some key features in the front page
IRC Channels: Come and chat with us in real time
Design by Beccary and Weblogs.us · Valid XHTML · Valid CSS · Hosting by CoPilotCo · Part of Bytes Media
 |  |
Content is available under CC-BY-SA
