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02.12.15

Links 12/2/2015: ChaletOS, Linux 3.20 Features

Posted in News Roundup at 9:11 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

GNOME bluefish

Contents

GNU/Linux

Free Software/Open Source

  • Five ways open source middleware can impact unmanned systems

    Traditionally thought of as intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance (ISR), or kinetic action platforms, unmanned systems are now filling roles such as command and control communications, meteorological survey, and resupply, and explosive ordnance disposal platforms. Historically, these platforms have been developed and fielded as standalone systems built by different vendors with unique and often proprietary payloads, control mechanisms and data formats. But this process has created limitations on interoperability and increased costs, leading the DoD to look at other, more viable options, including commercially supported open source middleware.

  • The privacy differential – why don’t more non-US and open source firms use the NSA as marketing collateral?

    The shockwaves generated by Edward Snowden’s revelations of the close collaboration between US tech giants such as Microsoft and Apple and the NSA are still reverberating through the industry. Those disclosures, together with related ones such as the involvement of the NSA in industrial espionage, as well as the asymmetric nature of US law when it comes to gathering data from foreign individuals, present something of an open goal for non-US technology companies – or so one might have thought.

    On the face of it, then, it is surprising that non-US technology firms and others that can distance themselves from the US law are not proclaiming this fact more loudly. After all, there must be a considerable number of organisations that would dearly love to locate their data as far away from the attentions of the NSA as possible.

  • The Good, the Bad and the Ugly of why I don’t always work in the open

    When you choose not to work in the open, what are your reasons? Are they Good, Bad or Ugly? What are your suggestions for how those of us who want to work more in the open can all do better?

  • Joyent: Never mind those other forkers, Node.js has a foundation now, too

    The popular, open source Node.js JavaScript runtime engine is getting a new foundation to manage its development, in a move that could help mend the recent schism in the project’s community.

  • Google’s new open-source PerfKit framework watches cloud application performance

    Google’s latest foray into the open-source realm is a framework it’s calling “PerfKit,” which is designed to measure application performance in the cloud, the company announced Wednesday.

  • Open source data-driven discovery at the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory

    The Apache Software Foundation has, since those early days, been at the forefront of challenging problems. Within the context of this article, the ASF has both fostered, and continues to host keynote scientific projects such as Apache OODT (a Top Level Project at the ASF which originally came from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory), to recently incubating projects such as Singa (an efficient, scalable and easy-to-use distributed platform for training deep learning models used currently within Deep Convolutional Neural Network and Deep Belief Network as examples).

  • Web Browsers

    • Mozilla

      • A Watershed Moment to Protect the Free and Open Web

        Corporations that seek to control the Web, massive government and corporate surveillance, chilling effects on free expression — all of these issues will be harder to address if the next billions coming online think that the Internet exists solely within the walled gardens of platforms like Facebook and WhatsApp. The greatest danger is people relinquishing their control to gatekeepers that get to decide the rules about what we see and what we create.

      • Cities need to be able to earn digital badges

        When I first heard of Mozilla Open Badges, my heart skipped a beat. Wisely implemented, digital badges can help individuals and communities focus their energies on worthy goals.

  • SaaS/Big Data

  • Databases

    • Nice kitty: MongoDB 3.0 (with Tiger Inside)

      The open source cross-platform document-oriented database company MongoDB has reached version 3.0 this month.

      The new iteration sees significant changes in its storage layer performance and scalability.

  • Healthcare

  • Funding

    • The Open-Source Question

      You’d be forgiven for thinking that the tech world is a loathsome hotbed of rapacious venture capitalists, airheaded trend-riders, and publicity hounds. That’s the image presented by much of the tech press, which prizes stories about the Montgomery Burnses of the tech world over ones about its more idealistic denizens.

    • Payments

      With the new website, we’ve decided to revise how we promote and handle payments. We understand that this has rubbed some people the wrong way, and in the spirit of addressing concerns, we’ve decided to write this post. Keep in mind that this was a really difficult post to right. It covers sensitive territory, and it becomes difficult to choose the right words without offending anyone. That said, here’s our best explanation:

    • Should you pay for Elementary OS?

      Elementary OS has attracted a lot of attention lately. But a controversy is brewing over how the distro developers are setting up their new site for payments by users. The Elementary OS site is being redesigned to encourage users to pay for the distro. But should the Elementary OS developers expect a payment in the first place?

    • Jahia Completed a $22.5 Million Round of Financing From Invus
    • Jahia Completed a $22.5 Million Round of Financing From Invus
    • Growth & Expansion: Jahia Receives $22.5 million Round of Funding
    • Open Source Jahia Raises $22.5M to Grow Enterprise Clients

      Jahia is getting a $22.5 million cash infusion from Invus, a New York City-based investment firm, the Geneva, Switzerland-based open source content management system (CMS) vendor announced today.

  • BSD

  • FSF/FSFE/GNU/SFLC

    • Will you be my cryptovalentine?

      Valentine’s day is this Saturday and, if you’re like us, you’re either trying to pick the right gift or wishing you had someone to exchange gifts with. We wish you luck with that. But there’s something important that you can do regardless of your relationship status:

  • Project Releases

    • CMlyst got it’s first release

      Now that Cutelyst is allowing me to write web applications with the tools I like, I can use it to build the kind of web applications I need but am not fine with using the existing ones…

    • Cutelyst 0.6.0 is released

      Cutelyst, the Qt/C++ web framework just got another step into API stabilization.

      Since 0.3.0 I’ve been trying to take the most request per second out of it, and because of that I decided to replace most QStrings with QByteArrays, the allocation call is indeed simpler in QByteArray but since most of Qt use QString for strings it started to create a problem rather than solving one. Grantlee didn’t play nice with QByteArray breaking ifequal and in the end some implicit conversions from UTF-8 were triggered.

  • Public Services/Government

    • DISA Unveils Online, Open Source Collaboration Tool for DoD

      The Defense Information Systems Agency is launching a web-based, open source collaboration tool for the Defense Department that provides webconferencing, chat and instant messaging functions for employees based in the U.S. and abroad.

  • Licensing

  • Openness/Sharing

  • Programming

    • Eric S. Raymond Calls LLVM The “Superior Compiler” To GCC

      Joining in on the heated discussion that originated over Richard Stallman voicing concerns over adding LLVM’s LLDB debugger support to Emacs, Eric S Raymond has come out to once again voice his support in favor of LLVM/Clang and express his feelings that GCC’s leading days are over.

    • Perl creator Larry Wall: Rethought version 6 due this year

      Despite criticisms such as it having a “cryptic syntax,” the Perl language has remained prominent in language popularity assessments, even if popularity has declined and a planned upgrade has been slow to appear. Designed by Larry Wall, the scripting language is suited for tasks ranging from quick prototyping to Web programming and system management tasks, and it’s part of the prominent LAMP (Linux Apache MySQL Perl/PHP/Python) open source stack. At the recent FOSDEM conference in Brussels, Wall revealed intentions to have the long-awaited Perl 6 release out in a beta version in September and generally available by December. Wall answered some questions from InfoWorld Editor at Large Paul Krill via email about what’s planned for the language and responded to criticisms.

    • Learn to crunch big data with R

      Get started using the open source R programming language to do statistical computing and graphics on large data sets

Leftovers

  • Apple’s chorus of critics: How wrong can they be?

    Your daughter comes home from school with a report card studded with A’s. You (1) give her a hug and raise her allowance or (2) ground her and tell her you know she’ll never do this well again.

    Perversely enough, too many pundits and academics have chosen option No. 2 since Apple CEO Tim Cook presented investors the company’s most recent financial report card — a fourth-quarter earnings story that featured record sales at Apple, rapid growth, and (most important) a quarterly profit that is the largest ever recorded by a publicly traded company.

  • Russian woman dies after dropping charging iPhone into bathtub

    A young Russian woman has died after her charging iPhone fell into the bathtub in her Moscow flat.

    Yevgenia Sviridenko, 24, who was originally from Omsk, more than 2,000 miles from the Russian capital, was discovered by her flatmate in the bath on Monday evening, the Komsomolskaya Pravda newspaper reported according to The Moscow Times.

  • Security

  • Defence/Police/Secrecy/Aggression

    • Barbarians are made, not born – here’s how ISIS was created by the United States

      The US destruction of Fallujah in 2004 was a prime motivation for the growth of ISIS.

    • Senate confirms new Pentagon chief

      The Senate on Thursday confirmed Ashton Carter as President Obama’s new secretary of Defense in a 93-5 vote.

      Carter, 60, will be the 25th secretary of Defense and Obama’s fourth. He is expected to be sworn into office next week

    • Obama Asks Congress to Authorize War That’s Already Started

      As the U.S. continues to bomb the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, President Obama asked Congress today to approve a new legal framework for the ongoing military campaign.

      The administration’s draft law “would not authorize long-term, large-scale ground combat operations” like Iraq and Afghanistan, Obama wrote in a letter accompanying the proposal. The draft’s actual language is vague, allowing for ground troops in what Obama described as “limited circumstances,” like special operations and rescue missions.

      The authorization would have no geographic limitations and allow action against “associated persons or forces” of the Islamic State. It would expire in three years.

    • Ukraine arrests journalist after call to dodge draft

      Ukraine’s security service arrested a journalist on treason charges Sunday after he posted a video online urging people to dodge the country’s new military draft, his wife and officials said.

      Ruslan Kotsaba — a television journalist from the western region of Ivano-Frankivsk — was ordered held in custody for 60 days pending investigations, his wife, Uliana, wrote on Facebook.

    • Life in the Emerald City: Houthis Control Yemen, But They Don’t Yet Govern It

      Just weeks after a coup that ousted Yemen’s Western-backed government, the capital of Yemen is a city painted in green, mostly with spray paint.

      Green tree trunks, green sidewalks, green walls and even a green Ford F-350 bearing the Houthi slogan, which includes the words “Death to America,” on each side of the iconic American truck, about 340 of which the Pentagon shipped to Yemen over the past few years.

    • Endless War? Obama Sends Congress Expansive Anti-ISIS Measure 6 Months After Bombing Began

      President Obama has sent Congress a formal request to authorize military force against the Islamic State six months after the U.S. began bombing Iraq and Syria. The resolution imposes a three-year limit on U.S. operations, but does not put any geographic constraints. It also opens the door for ground combat operations in limited circumstances. The resolution’s broad language covers military action against the Islamic State as well as “individuals and organizations fighting for, on behalf of, or alongside [ISIS] or any closely-related successor entity in hostilities against the United States or its coalition partners.” The resolution also leaves in place the open-ended Authorization for Use of Military Force Congress enacted one week after the Sept. 11, 2001, which has been used to justify U.S. action in Afghanistan, Somalia, Pakistan, Yemen and beyond, and which Obama had previously called for repealing. We speak with Norman Solomon, executive director of the Institute for Public Accuracy and author of many books, including “War Made Easy: How Presidents and Pundits Keep Spinning Us to Death.”

    • Congress, Don’t Be Fooled; Obama Still Believes in Unlimited War

      PRESIDENT OBAMA is going before Congress to request authorization for the limited use of military force in a battle of up to three years against the Islamic State. On the surface, this looks like a welcome recognition of Congress’s ultimate authority in matters of war and peace. But unless the resolution put forward by the White House is amended, it will have the opposite effect. Congressional support will amount to the ringing endorsement of unlimited presidential war making.

      Whatever else they decide, the House and Senate should revise the White House initiative to guarantee that it won’t have this tragic result. First do no harm; before proceeding with a debate over the limits of our continuing military engagement, Congress should make it impossible for future presidents to evade its final decision.

    • The Seduction of Brian Williams: Embedded with the Military

      He is a liar of course, someone who did not tell the truth no matter the reason or excuse, a bad trait for a journalist. Williams lied about being RPG’ed in a helicopter over Iraq; he did not see any variant of what you can see in the photo above. And that’s not a hard thing to “misremember.”

      But if there is any reason to forgive Williams, it was that he was seduced by both his own conflation of his sad little life as a talking head and the “brave troops,” and, more clearly, by the process of embedding with the military. I know. I saw it.

    • The Minsk Peace Deal: Farce Or Sellout? — Paul Craig Roberts

      As Washington is not a partner to the Minsk peace deal, how can there be peace when Washington has made policy decisions to escalate the conflict and to use the conflict as a proxy war between the US and Russia?

    • New York City Police Officer Is Said to Be Indicted in Shooting Death of Akai Gurley

      A New York City police officer was indicted Tuesday in the fatal shooting of an unarmed black man in a Brooklyn public housing complex stairwell in November, several people familiar with the grand jury’s decision said.

    • Obama to Seek War Power Bill From Congress, to Fight ISIS

      The Obama administration has informed lawmakers that the president will seek a formal authorization to fight the Islamic State that would prohibit the use of “enduring offensive ground forces” and limit engagement to three years. The approach offers what the White House hopes is a middle way on Capitol Hill for those on the right and left who remain deeply skeptical of its plans to thwart extremist groups.

  • Transparency Reporting

  • Environment/Energy/Wildlife

  • Privacy

    • Samsung Ad Injections Perfectly Illustrate Why I Want My ‘Smart’ TV To Be As Dumb As Possible

      Samsung has been doing a great job this week illustrating why consumers should want their televisions to be as dumb as technologically possible. The company took heat for much of the week after its privacy policy revealed Samsung smart TVs have been collecting and analyzing user living room conversations in order to improve voice recognition technology. While that’s fairly common for voice recognition tech, the idea of living room gear that spies on you has been something cable operators have been patenting for years. And while Samsung has changed its privacy policy language to more clearly illustrate what it’s doing, the fact that smart TV security is relatively awful has many people quite justly concerned about smart TVs becoming another poorly-guarded repository for consumer data.

    • Movie review: Citizenfour

      About 20 minutes into this electrifying, often terrifying documentary, the film-maker shows for the first time the man we have come to know as Edward Snowden. The ex-NSA employee who blew the whistle on the US Government’s spying on its citizens is a familiar face only because of 24 hours of interviews this film’s maker compiled over eight days in a Hong Kong hotel room. But when he first appears, he’s talking to Guardian journalist Glenn Greenwald about how they will deal with what Greenwald calls “the ‘you’ story”.

    • Jewel v. NSA: Making Sense of a Disappointing Decision Over Mass Surveillance

      A federal court in San Francisco sided with the U.S. Department of Justice, ruling that the plaintiffs could not win a significant portion of the case—a Fourth Amendment challenge to the NSA’s tapping of the Internet backbone—without disclosure of classified information that would harm national security. In other words, Judge Jeffrey White found that “state secrets” can trump the judicial process and held that EFF’s clients could not prove they have standing.

    • Judge Rules You Can’t Sue the NSA for Secretly Spying on You Unless You Prove You’re Being Secretly Spied On

      Advocates for less government snooping suffered a blow Tuesday when a federal judge in California ruled that a group of citizens can not sue the National Security Agency to stop the “upstream” collection of their data.

  • Civil Rights

    • More Power For Bad Cops: NYPD Head Supports Raising ‘Resisting Arrest’ To A Felony

      The most half-baked “weapon” in any policeman’s arsenal should never be raised to the level of a felony. “Resisting arrest” is the charge brought when bad cops run out of better ideas. This truism runs through nearly every law enforcement agency in the country. When you take a look at videographers and photographers who have been arrested for exercising their First Amendment rights (and backed by a DOJ statement), you’ll see plenty of “resisting arrest” charges.

    • Northern Va. woman dies after being stunned by deputies

      A 37-year-old woman has died after deputies in northern Virginia used a Taser stun gun on her while she was in custody.

      Natasha McKenna of Alexandria was taken off life support Sunday, five days after she was stunned at the Fairfax County jail, the Fairfax County Sheriff’s Office said in a news release.

      McKenna was in the process of being transported from the Fairfax County jail to the Alexandria city jail Tuesday when deputies say she failed to comply with their commands and resisted them. A deputy then used a Taser to restrain her, sheriff’s Lt. Steve Elbert said Monday.

    • Hundreds of South Carolina Inmates Sent to Solitary Confinement Over Facebook

      In the South Carolina prison system, accessing Facebook is an offense on par with murder, rape, rioting, escape and hostage-taking.

      Back in 2012, the South Carolina Department of Corrections (SCDC) made “Creating and/or Assisting With A Social Networking Site” a Level 1 offense [PDF], a category reserved for the most violent violations of prison conduct policies. It’s one of the most common Level 1 offense charges brought against inmates, many of whom, like most social network users, want to remain in contact with friends and family in the outside world and keep up on current events. Some inmates ask their families to access their online accounts for them, while many access the Internet themselves through a contraband cell phone (possession of which is yet another Level 1 offense).

    • Pasco, Washington, police have killed more people than police in Germany and the UK combined

      With just 59,000 residents, the Pasco police department in Washington state have shot and killed four people in the past six months—more than police in the entire United Kingdom, which has over 80,000,000 citizens, in the past three years combined. In fact, Pasco police are on pace to have more police shootings than Germany, also with 80,000,000 citizens, over the current 12 month period.

    • U.S. Drops to 49th in World Press Freedom Rankings, Worst Since Obama Became President

      Each year, Reporters Without Borders issues a worldwide ranking of nations based on the extent to which they protect or abridge press freedom. The group’s 2015 ranking was released this morning, and the United States is ranked 49th.

      That is the lowest ranking ever during the Obama presidency, and the second-lowest ranking for the U.S. since the rankings began in 2002 (in 2006, under Bush, the U.S. was ranked 53rd). The countries immediately ahead of the U.S. are Malta, Niger, Burkino Faso, El Salvador, Tonga, Chile and Botswana.

    • ‘Drastic decline’ in world media freedom

      Media freedom has suffered a ‘drastic decline’ worldwide last year in part because of extremist groups such as Islamic State and Boko Haram, the watchdog group Reporters Without Borders says. – See more at: http://www.skynews.com.au/news/world/europe/2015/02/12/-drastic-decline–in-world-media-freedom.html#sthash.dLBZAYMJ.dpuf

    • How the Chapel Hill Victims Deserve to Be Mourned

      I didn’t know Yusor Mohammad, Deah Shaddy Barakat or Razan Mohammad Abu-Salha — the victims of Craig Stephen Hicks’ shooting spree in Chapel Hill, North Carolina – but I recognize them. Anyone who has spent time in American Muslim communities would, and that’s partly why this horrible crime is so painful. I realize I’m making assumptions and maybe getting sentimental in the process, but I can’t help it. The personalities that come through from the testimonies of friends and family, the record of the efforts and achievements of these young people, and the photographs that radiate such joy and life are all too familiar to miss.

    • Conservatives Dance On Grave Of ISIL Hostage: ‘Jew-Hating, Anti-Israel B**ch’

      Not all conservatives used the death of American hostage Kayla Mueller to highlight the brutality of the Islamic State — some decided to focus their disgust on the 26-year-old’s humanitarian work for Palestinians.

      “No tears for the newly-departed Kayla Mueller, the ISIS hostage whose parents confirmed today that she is dead,” conservative blogger Debbie Schlussel wrote on Tuesday, under the headline, “Kayla Mueller: Dead ISIS Hostage Was Jew-Hating, Anti-Israel Bitch.”

      “Mueller was a Jew-hating, anti-Israel piece of crap who worked with HAMAS and helped Palestinians harass Israeli soldiers and block them from doing their job of keeping Islamic terrorists out of Israel,” she wrote.

      Schlussel condemned Mueller’s humanitarian work in the “so-called ‘West Bank’” to prevent the demolition of “terrorists’ ‘houses.’”

    • Trapped in Baku

      A press freedom advocate — and husband of an American servicewoman — went to the U.S. embassy in Azerbaijan, fearing for his life. But he was turned away.

    • Azerbaijani journalist sheltering in Swiss embassy
    • Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry: Emin Huseynov went into hiding at Swiss embassy to avoid investigation

      Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hikmet Hajiyev said in this regard that the investigation carried out under the court verdict discovered that chairman of the Institute for Reporters’ Freedom and Safety Emin Huseynov has engaged in illegal business over unregistered grant contracts, making a great deal of money – AZN 1,575,956 – but evading from taxes AZN 247,551 tax to be paid to the state budget.

    • German Embassy Releases “Alarming” Declaration to Residents in Venezuela

      Caracas, February 11th, 2015. (Venezuelanalysis)- The German Embassy in Caracas has alarmed political observers in Venezuela by publishing what the press has described as an “alarming” official declaration to its citizens in the South American country.

      Published on February 5th, the declaration is written and signed by the Chargé d’Affaires at the German Embassy, Dr. Jörg Polster. It began to make the rounds on social media networks over the last two days.

      In the statement, German diplomat Polster informs readers that the embassy is extremely “worried” about the current situation in the country and advises German residents to take a number of “precautions in the face of the crisis”.

    • Google’s new robo-dog stalks premises, withstands hard kicks (VIDEO)
    • US bill seeks to tie massive trade pact to EU rejection of BDS

      Bipartisan lawmakers aim to make renunciation of Israel boycott efforts in Europe a key negotiating point in largest free trade deal in history

    • A Worthless Piece of Paper

      President George W. Bush was fond of saying that “9/11 changed everything.” He used that one-liner often as a purported moral basis to justify the radical restructuring of federal law and the federal assault on personal liberties over which he presided. He cast aside his oath to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution; he rejected his oath to enforce all federal laws faithfully; and he moved the government decidedly in the direction of secret laws, secret procedures and secret courts.

      During his presidency, Congress enacted the Patriot Act. This legislation permits federal agents to write their own search warrants when those warrants are served on custodians of records — like doctors, lawyers, telecoms, computer servers, banks and even the Post Office.

      Such purported statutory authority directly violates the Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which guarantees the right to privacy in our “persons, houses, papers and effects.” That includes just about everything held by the custodians of our records. Privacy is not only a constitutional right protected by the document; it is also a natural right. We possess the right to privacy by virtue of our humanity. Our rights come from within us — whether you believe we are the highest progression of biological forces or the intended creations of an Almighty God — they do not come from the government.

    • Protesters call for Aquino resignation

      Nationalists and anti-imperialists marched to commemorate the 116th year of the Philippine-American War on Feb. 4, with a call to make President Aquino, suspended Police chief Alan Purisima, and the US government accountable for the recent Mamasapano deaths.

    • Egyptian Court Orders Release of 2 Al Jazeera Journalists

      An Egyptian court on Thursday ordered the release of two journalists jailed for more than a year on charges of broadcasting false news in a conspiracy with the Muslim Brotherhood.

      The release followed the publication this week of a previously undisclosed opinion by Egypt’s highest appeals court condemning the journalists’ conviction as baseless when it ordered a retrial at the beginning of this year. The release also comes at a time when the Egyptian government appears to be trying to allay some of the international criticism it has received after a series of harsh and hasty criminal convictions issued during a crackdown on dissent after the military takeover in July 2013.

    • Denial of Refugee Protection For Matt DeHart

      On Monday, February 9th, Matt DeHart’s parents, Paul and Leann, received notice by mail from the Refugee Protection Division of Canada’s Immigration and Refugee Board that the family’s claim for Refugee Protection had been denied. The family fled the United States after Matt was interrogated and tortured during an FBI espionage investigation in which child pornography charges were hastily filed after Matt was detained at the Canadian border, an action which was triggered by an espionage alert.

    • Matt DeHart Denied Asylum in Canada

      Matt DeHart claims that all his troubles stem from a file uploaded, twice, to a Tor server he ran out of a closet in his parent’s home. An FBI investigation into something the CIA might have done.

    • Matt DeHart, former American soldier claiming he was tortured by U.S., loses bid for asylum in Canada

      Mr. DeHart testified the pornography charges are a ruse to investigate an espionage and national security probe tied to his involvement in Anonymous and his operation of a “hidden” Internet server used to leak a classified U.S. government document, likely destined to WikiLeaks, the whistle-blowing organization.

    • Jails Have Become Warehouses for the Poor, Ill and Addicted, a Report Says

      Jails across the country have become vast warehouses made up primarily of people too poor to post bail or too ill with mental health or drug problems to adequately care for themselves, according to a report issued Wednesday.

      The study, “Incarceration’s Front Door: The Misuse of Jails in America,” found that the majority of those incarcerated in local and county jails are there for minor violations, including driving with suspended licenses, shoplifting or evading subway fares, and have been jailed for longer periods of time over the past 30 years because they are unable to pay court-imposed costs.

  • Internet/Net Neutrality

  • Intellectual Monopolies

    • Copyrights

      • “Canada Remains A Safe Haven For Online Piracy”

        The MPAA, RIAA and other entertainment industry groups keep hammering on Canada for its lacking anti-piracy enforcement. The groups label Canada a “safe haven” for both file-sharers and online pirate sites, and ask the U.S. Government to intervene.

      • Copyright Monopolist Claims Legal, Non-Infringing “Fair Use” Is Like AGGRAVATED RAPE

        In a fuming blog article, David Newhoff claims that non-infringing, legal uses of copyrighted works – that is, of people’s own property – are like “aggravated rape” when made without unneeded consent of the monopoly holder. Newhoff tries to scold the crucial concept of “fair use” in copyright monopoly doctrine, the concept which explicitly says that some usages are not covered by the monopoly and therefore not up to the monopoly holder, and ends saying that if you don’t grant permission and can’t set limits, it’s “aggravated rape”. Just when you think copyright monopoly zealots can’t sink any lower, they surprise you with one of the few creativities they’ve ever shown.

      • YouTube Flags Cat Purring as Copyright Infringing Music

        YouTube’s automated takedown tool is known for its flaws, but this week it crossed a line by attacking a purring cat. According to YouTube’s Content-ID system both EMI Publishing and PRS own the rights to a 12 second purring loop. The cat in question, Phantom, has filed a dispute and hopes to reclaim his rights.

      • US’s ‘Naughty List’ Of Countries Whose Intellectual Property Rules We Don’t Like Is A Joke That’s No Longer Funny

        Mocking the ridiculous “Special 301 report” from the US Trade Representative has become something of an annual sport around these parts. As we’ve explained, the whole concept of the report is something of a joke: copyright, patent and trademark maximalists send in reports to the USTR, claiming which countries don’t do enough to respect US intellectual property, and the USTR — via no systematic or objective process — rewrites those complaints into a report that declares certain countries “naughty” for their practices. The whole thing is such a joke that even those in the government will openly mock it. As I’ve said in the past, I once saw the head of the US Copyright Office openly joke about the purely arbitrary nature of the 301 report at a conference. Countries like Canada — which are regularly named to the report, despite having copyright laws that are, in many areas, more stringent than the US’s — have openly declared that they do not find the Special 301 process to be legitimate, and thus do not pay any attention to it. A couple of years ago, Chile also made it clear that it felt the 301 process was illegitimate.

      • Torrent Site: Copyright Troll Had Staff Access to Member Data

        Empornium, one of the leading private torrent trackers for adult content, says it believes a copyright troll gained access to a staff moderation account and is now using obtained data to threaten its users. The revelations may shine light on why some Empornium users have received settlement threats with no lawsuit filed and no notice from their ISPs.

      • BitTorrent’s Original Content Deal Makes Bid for Reputability

        The move might be an effort to appear more legitimate to advertisers and others within entertainment content distribution circles. The BitTorrent file-sharing protocol is often linked with users of the downloading software exchanging content in violation of intellectual property laws. The first project under this original video distribution agreement is the movie Children of the Machine.

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  6. Update on Patent Trolls and Their Enablers: IAM, Fortress, Inventergy, Nokia, MOSAID/Conversant, Microsoft, Intellectual Ventures, Faraday Future, A*STAR, GPNE, AlphaCap Ventures, and TC Heartland

    A potpourri of reports about some of the world’s worst patent trolls and their highly damaging enablers/facilitators, including Microsoft which claims that it “loves Linux” whilst attacking it with patents by proxy

  7. Mark Summerfield: “US Supreme Court Decision in Alice Looks to Have Eliminated About 75% of New Business Method Patents.”

    Some of the patent microcosm, or those who profit from the bureaucracy associated with patents, responds to claims made by Techrights (that software patents are a dying breed in the US)

  8. Eight Wireless Patents Have Just Been Invalidated Under Section 101 (Alice), But Don't Expect the Patent Microcosm to Cover This News

    Firms that are profiting from patents (without actually producing or inventing anything) want us to obsess over and think about the rare and few cases (some very old) where judges deny Alice and honour patents on software

  9. 2017: Latest Year That the Unitary Patent (UPC) is Still Stuck in a Limbo

    The issues associated with the UPC, especially in light of ongoing negotiations of Britain's exit from the EU, remain too big a barrier to any implementation this year (and probably future years too)

  10. Links 7/1/2017: Linux 4.9.1, Wine 2.0 RC4

    Links for the day

  11. India Keeps Rejecting Software Patents in Spite of Pressure From Large Foreign Multinationals

    India's resilience in the face of incredible pressure to allow software patents is essential for the success of India's growing software industry and more effort is needed to thwart corporate colonisation through patents in India itself

  12. Links 6/1/2017: Irssi 1.0.0, KaOS 2017.01 Released

    Links for the day

  13. Watchtroll a Fake News Site in Lobbying Mode and Attack Mode Against Those Who Don't Agree (Even PTAB and Judges)

    A look at some of the latest spin and the latest shaming courtesy of the patent microcosm, which behaves so poorly that one has to wonder if its objective is to alienate everyone

  14. The Productivity Commission Warns Against Patent Maximalism, Which is Where China (SIPO) is Heading Along With EPO

    In defiance of common sense and everything that public officials or academics keep saying (European, Australian, American), China's SIPO and Europe's EPO want us to believe that when it comes to patents it's "the more, the merrier"

  15. Technical Failure of the European Patent Office (EPO) a Growing Cause for Concern

    The problem associated with Battistelli's strategy of increasing so-called 'production' by granting in haste everything on the shelf is quickly being grasped by patent professionals (outside EPO), not just patent examiners (inside EPO)

  16. Links 5/1/2017: Inkscape 0.92, GNU Sed 4.3

    Links for the day

  17. Links 4/1/2017: Cutelyst 1.2.0 and Lumina 1.2 Desktop Released

    Links for the day

  18. Financial Giants Will Attempt to Dominate or Control Bitcoin, Blockchain and Other Disruptive Free Software Using Software Patents

    Free/Open Source software in the currency and trading world promised to emancipate us from the yoke of banking conglomerates, but a gold rush for software patents threatens to jeopardise any meaningful change or progress

  19. New Article From Heise Explains Erosion of Patent Quality at the European Patent Office (EPO)

    To nobody's surprise, the past half a decade saw accelerating demise in quality of European Patents (EPs) and it is the fault of Battistelli's notorious policies

  20. Insensitivity at the EPO’s Management – Part V: Suspension of Salary and Unfair Trials

    One of the lesser-publicised cases of EPO witch-hunting, wherein a member of staff is denied a salary "without any notification"

  21. Links 3/1/2017: Microsoft Imposing TPM2 on Linux, ASUS Bringing Out Android Phones

    Links for the day

  22. Links 2/1/2017: Neptune 4.5.3 Release, Netrunner Desktop 17.01 Released

    Links for the day

  23. Teaser: Corruption Indictments Brought Against Vice-President of the European Patent Office (EPO)

    New trouble for Željko Topić in Strasbourg, making it yet another EPO Vice-President who is on shaky grounds and paving the way to managerial collapse/avalanche at the EPO

  24. 365 Days Later, German Justice Minister Heiko Maas Remains Silent and Thus Complicit in EPO Abuses on German Soil

    The utter lack of participation, involvement or even intervention by German authorities serve to confirm that the government of Germany is very much complicit in the EPO's abuses, by refusing to do anything to stop them

  25. Battistelli's Idea of 'Independent' 'External' 'Social' 'Study' is Something to BUY From Notorious Firm PwC

    The sham which is the so-called 'social' 'study' as explained by the Central Staff Committee last year, well before the results came out

  26. Europe Should Listen to SMEs Regarding the UPC, as Battistelli, Team UPC and the Select Committee Lie About It

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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