08.20.11
Links – More on the Demise of webOS, SpyPhone and Facebook Busted
Reader’s Picks
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Health/Nutrition
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Boycott Violence.
It is interesting that people are so afraid of sex toys and drawings some kinds sexual fantasies that possession is outlawed but a whole industry exits to glorify violence as fun and normal. The same industry glamorizes a kind of narcissistic, and often violent sex too. There are healthier things to watch and do.
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Security
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BART falls to novice hacker
she figured out how to get into BART’s website by a one-page PDF tutorial and googling “site:bartpoa.com inurl:.asp?”. She said she “exploited a gaping hole” in the site’s security to find all the BART officers’ names, e-mails, and addresses. … I’m satisfied because it really shows how bad the cyber defense of the enemies of free speech and free movement is.
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Environment/Energy/Wildlife
- While Fukushima is still spewing,
the TVA has decided to resurrect the abandoned Bellefonte plant in Alabama.
The TVA board of directors — which approved the $4.9 billion project Thursday night … The TVA board also approved a 2 percent rate increase starting on October 1 to pay for “nuclear safety modifications as a result of Fukushima” as well as cybersecurity measures and clean-air initiatives, it said.
It will probably be more expensive to finish these half done plants than it would be to build new ones but both options are bad bets. The Belefonte plants have not been properly maintained, with key parts salvaged by untrained personnel. The projected cost is $8 billion. Other, current Alabama energy projects involve burning coal, ick.
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- While Fukushima is still spewing,
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Finance
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Massive fraud by banks: 92% of foreclosures in New York City lack proper documents.
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Fannie Mae, a semi-government mortgage lender, has been pushing banks to foreclose rather than give borrowers some slack.
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700 people have been imprisoned for the riots in the UK.
How many bankster have been imprisoned for looting billions? None.
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Anti-Trust
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PJ, in a news link about the demise of WebOS notes:
Let’s see. Android, which is Linux, is being sued every which way. Then Nokia terminates MeeGO, which is Linux, and partners with Microsoft. Now HP terminates webOS, which is Linux, and exits the hardware business. This isn’t, by any chance, in some Machiavellian alternate universe, about shutting down Linux in the mobile marketplace, is it? Yes, I bought a Touchpad today. I was going to anyway. I’ve heard good things about the webOS community, and I know FOSS can do things to keep it improving, and I am thinking, if HP exits the business, who will be around to track me?
She would do better paving it over with really free software because HP can sell the tracking and advertising rights to another company.
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HP’s Carly Fiorina era is finally over…good riddance
Walter Hewlett was right. Walter Hewlett, you may remember, was the low-key, cello-playing scion of the Hewlett family who fought HP’s then-CEO, Carly Fiorina, over her planned $25 billion merger with Compaq, which was announced 10 years ago next month. Hewlett’s point was simple: Just maybe it’s a really bad idea to double down on a low-margin business like PCs.
… Hewlett’s opposition was no match for the publicity-savvy Fiorina and her team of brass-knuckled marketers, who seemed a better fit for politics than the high-tech industry.The top down, employees in the dark, rock star executive way webOS decisions were made show that Carly’s management style and spin control is alive and well. HP might be out of the Microsoft PC business but they are also out of their instrumentation business, the DEC Aplpha business and many other things the world is worse off without.
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Oppose the ATT TMobile merger.
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Patent troll targets Apple’s Disk Utility over alleged patent violation
Lest you think Apple was Software Restore Solutions’ only target, however, the company unsuccessfully sued 26 software vendors last year over the ’511 patent, including Apple, Adobe, Autodesk, Capcom, Citrix, Corel, Intuit, Sega, Skype, and THQ, among others. The case was closed after all the defendants were dismissed, some with prejudice. Software Restore Solutions acquired the ’511 patent from Acacia, another apparent patent troll, which acquired the patent from original inventor Beck Systems. Litigating the ’511 patent appears to be Software Restore Solutions’ only business activity.
Here you see a proxy train which ultimately leads back to Microsoft.s
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PR/AstroTurf/Lobbying
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Nym shift
An executive of Goldman Sachs changed his name and went to work for Rep. Issa, blocking regulations that might reduce the company’s profits.
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An unconvincing Microsoft FUD wave rolls on, HTC Unlocks Phone To Upset Google, May Join Microsoft?
Google wants users to unlock, root their phones and do what they want to do on it. Google phones allow users to use what ever sources they want to install apps, you can just drag and drop and install any (trusted) app. … the deal was needed to offer Android playes with the much needed ammunition to ward off trolls. This was the reason why Google bought Motorola. Every other theory is just an attempt to divert our attention.
The author also insightfully frames the demise of webOS as an issue of HP CEO inaction and one of software patent threats. Though anyone can make their own OS with free software, only a community the size of Google’s Android can stand the threat of US judicial extortion.
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More Murdoch, A whistle blower has been bankrupted by lawsuits and prevented from approaching regulators against his former employer, News America Advertising
The company is the leading US provider of in-store advertising services, helping to bring products from firms such as Coca-Cola, Kraft and Nabisco to the attention of supermarket shoppers. Headed by Paul Carlucci, who now publishes Murdoch’s tabloid the New York Post, it enjoys annual revenues of more than $1bn and has a 90% stranglehold on the market.
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Censorship
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Privacy
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South Koreans sue Apple over SpyPhone
Earlier this month, the government of South Korea imposed a fine of three 3 million won ($2,855) on Apple’s division in the country after the controversy that became known as Locationgate, in which any device running iOS 4.0 or higher was tracking the user’s every move and location.
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Apple locks SpyPhone developers out of device identifiers.
No one has privacy with non free software but this move makes that clear.
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Facebook’s ‘Like’ button illegal in German state
The state of Schleswig-Holstein has ordered all government offices to remove the button from their Web presence and shut down any Facebook “fan” pages, on the grounds that these things violate German and European data privacy laws. A release from the Independent Centre for Privacy Protection in the German state claims that information collected from German users’ “liking” and other activities is sent back to the United States where Facebook uses it to create a profile, all of which runs afoul of Germany’s uberstrict privacy laws. Sites that don’t comply with the take-down order could face a 50,000 Euro fine
It has been shown elsewhere that the “Like” button tracks people whether they like it or not, and Facebook collects data on people who are not members.
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Civil Rights
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How America’s safety net has become a dragnet
In defiance of all reason and compassion, the criminalization of poverty has actually intensified as the weakened economy generates ever more poverty. … Perhaps the constant suspicions of drug use and theft that I encountered in low-wage workplaces should have alerted me to the fact that, when you leave the relative safety of the middle class, you might as well have given up your citizenship and taken residence in a hostile nation.
Ordinances preventing people from sharing food with their neighbors are particularly mean but other terrible examples of cruelty are detailed.
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Intellectual Monopolies
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Copyrights
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Poking More Holes in the First Sale Doctrine
a graduate student lawfully acquired foreign editions of textbooks abroad and then resold them in the United States. The student was subsequently sued by the U.S. textbook owner for copyright infringement. Looking at the statutory language of the first sale provision together with another provision of the Copyright Act concerning importation of copyrighted works, the court concluded that the first sale doctrine applies only to copies that are manufactured domestically, and not to copies manufactured abroad.
People should quit contributing to these textbooks and publish open access to be sure that their work will go to all markets, free of physical and legal restraints that only serve to gouge everyone as fully as possible.
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