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11.04.14

Links 4/11/2014: Trisquel 7.0 LTS, Fedora 21 Beta

Posted in News Roundup at 4:41 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

GNOME bluefish

Contents

GNU/Linux

  • Sorry, Windows Fans, but Can You Run 100 Apps at Once and Still Use the PC?

    Linux distributions are always heralded as the most secure operating systems and Windows is usually left in the dust, but it’s good to know that it can also perform much better in other areas, like application and memory management.

  • Server

    • HarrisData Supports Linux with new ‘AppsInHD’ Platform

      IBM i ERP software developer HarrisData recently unveiled AppsInHD, a new platform that will serve as the foundation for the company’s future Web-based, loosely coupled, REST-enabled applications. The new “mashup” AppsInHD apps will run on IBM i as well as Linux.

    • November 2014 Issue of Linux Journal: System Administration

      Every time I write a Bash script or schedule a cron job, I worry about the day I’ll star in my very own IT version of a Folger’s commercial. Instead of “secretly replacing coffee with Folger’s Instant Crystals”, however, I worry I’ll be replaced by an automation framework and a few crafty FOR loops. If you’ve ever had nightmares like that, you’re in the right place. The truth is, the need for system administrators isn’t going down—it’s just that our job function is shifting a little. If you stay current, and resolve to be a lifelong learner, system administration is as incredible as it’s always been. (And far better than instant coffee! Yuck!) This month, we focus on system administration. It keeps us all relevant, all informed and most important, we should all learn a little something along the way.

    • CoreOS: A lean, mean virtualization machine

      CoreOS is a slimmed-down Linux distribution designed for easy creation of lots of OS instances. We like the concept.

      CoreOS uses Docker to deploy applications in virtual containers; it also features a management communications bus, and group instance management.

      Rackspace, Amazon Web Services (AWS), GoogleComputeEngine (GCE), and Brightbox are early cloud compute providers compatible with CoreOS and with specific deployment capacity for CoreOS. We tried Rackspace and AWS, and also some local “fleet” deployments.

    • Linux Distributors Are All Over the Cloud

      Two of the major Linux distributors, Red Hat Inc. and SUSE, appear to believe that becoming the dominant supplier of cloud services and technology will allow them to continue to battle mainframes, Windows and single-vendor Unix in both corporate and services provider datacenters. Both of these suppliers have made recent announcements based on cloud-related products and services. Let’s take a look at what they’re doing.

  • Audiocasts/Shows

    • bsdtalk246 – Playing with tor

      Looking forward to attending MeetBSD in California this weekend. Still working on finding a new /home for all my stuff, but thank you all who have offered suggestions and hosting.

  • Kernel Space

    • Graphics Stack

    • Benchmarks

      • AMD’s Windows Catalyst Driver Remains Largely Faster Than Linux Drivers

        With last week having delivered our latest Linux vs. Windows NVIDIA benchmarks where we found that the NVIDIA Linux driver can outperform the Windows 8.1 driver with OpenGL workloads, the tables have turned to looking at the AMD Windows vs. Linux performance using the latest code. In this Ubuntu 14.10 vs. Windows 8.1 comparison, the open-source Radeon driver on Linux is also being tested against the Catalyst drivers.

  • Applications

  • Desktop Environments/WMs

    • K Desktop Environment/KDE SC/Qt

      • K3b 2.0.3 released

        I don’t have access to k3b.org so can’t update the news there, shows why the Manifesto is such an important thing.

      • K3b 2.0.3 Released After Over 3 Years

        K3b 2.0.3 has been released earlier today, bringing a number of bug fixes and improvements to this burning application. This is the first incremental release since 2011, after over three years in which everything was quiet regarding the development of K3b.

  • Distributions

    • 10 best Linux distros: which one is right for you?

      Choice and flexibility are the hallmarks of a Linux distribution, and by extension the Linux ecosystem. With the proprietary Windows and OS X, you’re stuck with the system as designed and can’t make changes no matter how unpleasant you may find the experience. Linux distributions are free of such limitations.

      Each distro has the Linux kernel at its core, but builds on top of that with its own selection of other components, depending on the target audience of the distro. Most Linux users switch between distros until they finally find the one that best suits their needs. However, for new and inexperienced users, the choice of hundreds of distros, with seemingly little to distinguish them, can seem challenging to say the least.

    • New Releases

    • Screenshots

    • Ballnux/SUSE

      • openSUSE 13.2: green light to freedom!

        This is the first release after the change in the openSUSE development mode, with a much shorter stabilization phase thanks to the extensive testing done in a daily basis in the rolling distribution used now as a base for openSUSE stable releases. The perfect balance between innovation and stability with the great level of freedom of choice that openSUSE users are used to.

      • openSUSE 13.2 Officially Released, Uses Btrfs As Default

        After one year of development and a change in their development practices, openSUSE 13.2 was officially released this morning.

    • Red Hat Family

      • Red Hat Linux at 20: Recalling ‘Halloween’ release that was no trick

        Twenty years ago [on Oct. 30, 1994], the world had their first glimpse of the operating system that would eventually evolve into Red Hat Enterprise Linux with Marc Ewing’s “Halloween” release of Red Hat Linux. In the mid-90s, Linux was not the juggernaut that it is today, instead the domain of hobbyists and hackers. Red Hat Linux “Halloween,” however, forever changed the game, showing not only the growing demand for Linux but also that you could actually make money in open source.

      • Fedora

        • Too Many Forks, the Right Distro, and Reason for Fedora

          Today in Linux news the community tackles the “too many forks” question. Jack Wallen has how to find the right distro for the job and Mayank Sharma updated his “10 best Linux distros” article. Danny Stieben has five reasons to look forward to Fedora 21 and Bryan Lunduke looks at ChromeOS in his latest desktop-a-week review.

        • 5 Brilliant Reasons To Look Forward To Fedora 21

          Fedora 21 is well on its way to being released in early December, and it brings with it a ton of goodies! Plus, since Fedora is known for being a cutting-edge distribution, there will be a lot of interesting software and technologies that you’ll get to use. Since Fedora moves so fast, it’s important to have these new releases.

        • Announcing the release of Fedora 21 Beta!
        • Fedora 21 beta released
        • Announcing the release of Fedora 21 Beta!
        • Fedora 21 Beta Makes It Out Following Delays

          Fedora 21 is now available in beta form following its latest delays. Fedora 21 is still hoped for in official form next month and continues to be shaping up to potentially the best Fedora release ever.

        • Fedora 21 rolls three versions of Linux into one OS

          Following hints earlier in the year, a beta of Red Hat Fedora Linux 21 has finally arrived in three incarnations: Cloud, Server, and Workstation. Fedora 21 also provides the first public glimpse of Project Atomic, Red Hat’s initiative to produce a Linux distribution optimized as a Docker container host.

          Users who have deployed Fedora in the past as a workstation environment can turn to the appropriately named Fedora 21 Workstation. In addition to updates of all previously included software, the new version features a technology preview of the Wayland display server, an improvement on the X.org display server currently used by Linux distributions. Workstation also includes the Dev Assistant tool to provide developers with a fast way to instantiate project environments.

    • Debian Family

  • Devices/Embedded

    • Hackable drone controller runs Linux

      Gizmo for You has gone to Indiegogo to ask for $600 for a modular, Linux based “Open Source Remote Control” for UAVs and other remote-controlled craft.

    • Tiny $269 3D resin printer runs Linux on Raspberry Pi

      The $269 iBox Nano, billed as the “world’s smallest, cheapest 3D resin printer,” offers WiFi and 328 Micron resolution, and runs Linux on a Raspberry Pi.

      The Raspberry Pi has been used as a computer interface device for 3D printers, as well as a calibration add-on, but as far as we know the iBox Nano is the first 3D printer in which Linux is running the show internally. Last month, an engineering student named Owen Jeffreys showed a video of a Raspberry Pi-based 3D printer project, but the project has yet to be completed (see farther below). Meanwhile, the only other commercial 3D printers we know of that run Linux are the three MakerBot Replicator models announced earlier this year.

    • Phones

      • Mobile Linux Distros Keep on Morphing

        Legitimate questions have been raised as to whether Linux platforms designed for smartphones are as good as a tailored embedded Linux stack built from scratch. Yet, so far experiments outside the mobile realm have proven fairly successful. Over the last week, we saw how several of these platforms, including Firefox OS, Tizen, Ubuntu, and WebOS, are spreading out to new device types.

        First, Mozilla revealed a Firefox OS port to the Raspberry Pi that it hopes will rival Raspbian. Also last week, Samsung showed off a Tizen-based smart TV prototype, as well as a new camera. In addition, specs for the first Ubuntu Touch-enabled tablet were floated on the web, and earlier last month, LG hinted at an upcoming WebOS smartwatch.

      • Tizen

      • Android

        • Nexus 9 Review: A Powerful Tablet…for Android Die-Hards Only

          The Nexus 7 formula wasn’t broken, but Google went and fixed it anyway. The Nexus 7 tablet has been discontinued, and the Nexus 9 is the replacement.

        • Android market share may have hit its peak
        • 5 Android apps that are already redesigned for Android 5.0 Lollipop

          Android is about to complete its metamorphosis into an operating system with not just cohesive design, but stunning good looks. Android 5.0 Lollipop looks great, but that says nothing of the apps. It’s up to developers to get their apps updated using the new material design guidelines with bolder colors, layered UI elements, and floating action buttons. It’ll probably take a while for everyone to get on-board, but some developers have already done the work to create beautiful materialized apps. Here are five of the best.

        • Get Gmail 5.0 for Android right now

          Anticipating the Material makeover for one of Google’s most beloved apps? The wait is over, and here’s how to get a copy for your Android device.

        • Android Lollipop rolls out across smartphones, tablets

          Ready for the latest and greatest Android release? Android 5 “Lollipop” is rolling out over-the-air to select smartphones and tablets now.

          The new Android software, which features the new Material Design, is already on the recently released Nexus 6 and 9. It’s also now on its way to the Nexus 4, Nexus 5, Nexus 7 (both first and second generation), and Nexus 10. It will also be showing up on ” Google Play Edition” devices. These include the Moto G and HTC One M8.

Free Software/Open Source

  • Can Open Source Help Solve Unemployment?

    Put simply, getting involved in an open source project is a great way for anyone to show that they can contribute in a meaningful way, work well with others, and develop skills and experience that can be directly transferred to a work environment.

  • ‘Albania hospitals should switch to open source’

    The government of Albania should benefit from using free and open source for managing the country’s hospitals and health clinics, says Gjergj Sheldija. The ICT consultant is implementing Care2x, an open source Hospital Information System (HIS) for the Mother Teresa Hospital in Tirana.

  • Our connected future: an interview with NASA’s first CTO, Chris C. Kemp

    Chris C. Kemp is the Chief Strategy Officer of Nebula, Inc., a leading cloud computing and IaaS provider which helps enterprises deploy and manage OpenStack-based private clouds. Previously to founding Nebula, Chris served as NASA’s first CTO where he cofounded the OpenStack project.

  • Adobe launches its open source text editor Brackets out of beta, releases CSS extraction tool

    Today Adobe announced the 1.0 release of Brackets, the company’s open source text editor designed for developers who work with HTML, CSS, and JavaScript.

  • Google releases open source Nogotofail network traffic security testing tool

    Google today introduced a new tool for testing network traffic security called Nogotofail. The company has released it as an open source project available on GitHub, meaning anyone can use it, contribute new features, provide support for more platforms, and do anything else with the end goal of helping to improve the security of the Internet.

  • ON.Lab Intros Open Source SDN OS

    The Open Networking Lab (ON.Lab), a non-profit organization founded by SDN inventors and leaders from Stanford University and UC Berkeley, today introduced the open source SDN Open Network Operating System (ONOS).

  • ON.Lab aims to disrupt with SDN Open Source Network Operating System
  • PLUMgrid Incorporates Third Party Open Source SDN Functions for Ease of SDN/NFV Deployments

    PLUMgrid, a leading innovator of virtual network infrastructure for OpenStack clouds, has announced that it has incorporated third party open source SDN functions from partners or community-built open source software modules on its PLUMgrid Platform to provide a single service insertion architecture that simplifies and accelerates the adoption of virtual network services. PLUMgrid Platform helps enterprises and service providers to create and manage L2-L7 virtual network services.

  • How the connection mechanics work inside the Internet of Things

    TIBCO StreamBase now supports a wide range of open source connectors enabling customers to connect, understand and act upon the data processed from the Internet of Things.

  • Scality Announces the World’s First Open Source REST-based Interface for Block-based Applications

  • Events

    • Chillin’ With the Community at OLF

      We are not referred to as “The Linux Community” out of hand. Yes, we can be a loud community. We are often an argumentative community, coloring outside of the lines into larger reaches of the Internet. But we are a community nonetheless. We’re people like Alan Dacey, who stops what he’s doing to write a script to solve a vexing problem for Reglue. People like Clem Lefebvre, who’s devoted to creating a safe and fantastic Linux environment in which to work.

    • HP, Wind River and Others Join Paris OpenStack News Cycle

      As I covered yesterday, this week the OpenStack Summit is taking place in Paris, and there is already a lot of related news flowing out of the event. Internap, which provides Internet infrastructure services, has stated that it is expanding its OpenStack-powered AgileCLOUD public cloud footprint to Amsterdam, and Amysta has announced the release of its billing system for OpenStack, which is essentially a revenue management platform.

  • SaaS/Big Data

    • PLUMgrid widens OpenStack support

      It has been a busy seven days for PLUMgrid. Last week it announced the availability of its Open Networking Suite (ONS) 2.0 for OpenStack. Today, as the OpenStack Summit opens in Paris, it has made three new announcements. The first two around the availability of ONS 2.0 on different OpenStack distributions and the third that it is adopting Docker containers to speed up the delivery of SDN and NFV components.

    • Akanda Debuts Open Source NFV Platform

      Akanda, a start-up incubated with DreamHost since 2012, launched out of stealth mode to deliver an open source Network Function Virtualization (NFV) platform for cloud service providers. The platform is already in use by 500+ tenants at Dreamhost and supporting 1,000s of VMs in its cloud compute service. DreamHost is now spinning-off the solution into Akanda, a start-up whose mission will be to accelerate open source NFV for cloud operators.

    • Midokura Brings MidoNet SDN for OpenStack to Open Source

      Until today, Midokura’s flagship MidoNet network virtualization Software Defined Network (SDN) platform was a closed piece of proprietary code. That is now changing, as Midokura announced today at the OpenStack Summit in Paris that it is open sourcing the core pieces of its MidoNet platform.

    • OpenStack and the Mysteries of the Universe

      OpenStack has emerged in the last four years to be one of the leading ways that enterprises can leverage their server capacity to build cloud infrastructure. OpenStack is also being used with great impact at CERN, quite literally helping to unlock the mysteries of the universe.

  • CMS

  • Business

    • SDN company goes open source

      Midokura giving its product away to fill OpenStack gap

    • An open source ERP system built to self-implement

      Why someone would start a new open source ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) project, is the question that people ask me again and again. If I had known what it takes, I might not have done it! But I did not know that in 2006 when I started to write my own ERP in Python and MySQL.

      [...]

      Our biggest satisfaction will be when a whole bunch of small, local, innovative organizations across the world gets access to tools that will help them compete with large, global, and inefficient corporations—creating a level playing field that will leave our world a little bit more fair.

    • Barclays and CommBank explore open source collaboration pact

      Barclays Bank is to work with Commonwealth Bank of Australia on the development of open source tools for analysing large data sets in an effort to break free from the tyranny of vendor licensing fees.

  • BSD

  • FSF/FSFE/GNU/SFLC

    • Technological Neutrality and Free Software

      Technological neutrality is the principle that the state should not impose preferences for or against specific kinds of technology. For example, there should not be a rule that specifies whether state agencies should use solid state memory or magnetic disks, or whether they should use GNU/Linux or BSD. Rather, the agency should let bidders propose any acceptable technology as part of their solutions, and choose the best/cheapest offer by the usual rules.

      The principle of technological neutrality is valid, but it has limits. Some kinds of technology are harmful; they may pollute air or water, encourage antibiotic resistance, abuse their users, abuse the workers that make them, or cause massive unemployment. These should be taxed, regulated, discouraged, or even banned.

      The principle of technological neutrality applies only to purely technical decisions. It is not “ethical neutrality” or “social neutrality”; it does not apply to decisions about ethical and social issues—such as the choice between free software and proprietary software.

    • GNU Spotlight with Karl Berry: 25 new GNU releases!
    • Free software groups hopeful for new Commission

      Free software advocacy groups are hopeful that the incoming European Commission will advance the use and development of this type of software solution in public administration.

    • Videos from the GNU Tools Cauldron

      The GNU Tools Cauldron, a conference on the low-level toolchain (GCC, glibc, GDB, etc.) was held last July. There is now a full set of videos from the event available for your viewing pleasure.

  • Public Services/Government

    • DOD Considering Open Source EHR System

      Last month, PwC announced it intended to offer a bid for the Department of Defense (DOD) Healthcare Management Systems Modernization (DHMSM) EHR contract. The DOD is searching for a contractor to replace the existing Military Health System (MHS) which currently has more than 9.7 million active duty, retired, and dependent beneficiaries.

    • An open source tool to share data from Europe’s libraries and museums

      The treasures of Europe’s rich history are carefully documented and stored in our many libraries, archives and museums. However, although our history is intricately interconnected, our repositories don’t necessarily have the technology to effectively link and share their content. Museums and libraries often have their own data codification and representation methods which means that the information may not accessible to web search engines and to other institutions.

  • Licensing

  • Programming

    • Entering the Golden Age of Open Source

      The message is clear, there’s never been a better time to write code for a living. Programmers aren’t just coding applications anymore, they are coding networks, data centers, and continuous integration systems. Infrastructure that used to require an up-front investment of millions is available to start out on for free, with a logical, understandable API to access and consume their resources. And behind it all, open source software is powering the new generation.

    • Super-villains of C sought for WORLD CONQUEST plan

      If you think like a super-villain, laugh like an anti-hero, and can write code, it’s time to polish off the cackle, sharpen up the brain, get extra coffee, and start working on your entry to the Underhanded C contest.

      The 7th Underhanded C contest seeks, like its predecessors, code that is “readable, clear, innocent and straightforward as possible”, but with the twist that “it must fail to perform its apparent function”.

    • Improving JavaScript: Google throws AtScript into the mix

      Google’s Miško Hevery, co-inventor of the popular AngularJS framework, has announced a new project to improve JavaScript by adding type annotations and other features.

  • Standards/Consortia

    • HTML5 Gets Promoted to a Standard

      The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) has announced that it is promoting the HTML5 specification to Recommendation status, that highest level of approval, which effectively pushes HTML5 to the level of a web standard.

    • Departments lack common targets for implementing open-document standards

      The standard called the Open Document Format (ODF) was chosen by the government in July 2014 to standardise document formats across the public sector, with PDF and HTML also approved for viewing files.

      In September 2014, government departments were told to publish their implementation plans, which are expected to trickle through over the coming month.

Leftovers

  • Security

    • Tuesday’s security updates
    • Why The UK Desperately Needs 200,000 IT Security Specialists

      The UK’s lack of available talent with the right cyber security skills presents a very real danger to British businesses, according to a London-based cyber security specialist recruiter.

      Responding to recent reports by EY and the office of the Minister for Universities and Science, Cornucopia IT Resourcing, warned that the unless the deficit in the number of available cyber security professionals is addressed, British businesses will remain the target of cyber attacks.

  • Environment/Energy/Wildlife

    • CNN Host: Climate Change Is Undeniable, So Here’s a Denier

      He introduced it as “a story you will see nowhere else this morning.” That story is that one of the founders of the Weather Channel, retired TV weather forecaster John Coleman, thinks “climate change is a hoax.” And saying so got him invited on Fox News.

      [...]

      The current CEO of the Weather Channel arrives next to affirm the channel’s statement that it disagrees with Coleman. And, since the discussion mostly skipped over challenging any of Coleman’s rhetoric, one could actually argue that there wasn’t much of a debate at all.

    • Traffic noise can threaten birds’ survival

      Young birds attempting to call for their parents over man-made noises are inadvertently attracting predators, research finds

  • Finance

    • A Debate on Open Source of Virtual Currency

      With the popularization of knowledge on the online virtual money, more and more virtual money are produced. Since the Bitcoin made the Web money in fashion and gained global attention, the virtual money after Bitcoin were called “Copycat Coins”. While these virtual money use different names merely to differentiate with Bitcoin, like the different names of currencies in the real world, such as the US dollar, the Euro, etc.

  • PR/AstroTurf/Lobbying

  • Censorship

    • Pianist asks The Washington Post to remove a concert review under the E.U.’s ‘right to be forgotten’ ruling

      The pianist Dejan Lazic, like many artists and performers, is occasionally the subject of bad reviews. Also like other artists, he reads those reviews. And disagrees with them. And gripes over them, sometimes.

      But because Lazic lives in Europe, where in May the European Union ruled that individuals have a “right to be forgotten” online, he decided to take the griping one step further: On Oct. 30, he sent The Washington Post a request to remove a 2010 review by Post classical music critic Anne Midgette that – he claims — has marred the first page of his Google results for years.

  • Privacy

    • Open Rights Group response to GCHQ Director’s claim that tech companies are aiding terrorists

      Open Rights Group has responded to an FT comment piece by the Director of GCHQ, Robert Hannigan, in which he calls for “greater co-operation from technology companies’, who are in his words, “the command and control networks of choice” for terrorists.

    • New GCHQ Boss Blames Tech Industry For ‘Facilitating Murder’ And Being Terrorists’ ‘Command-And-Control’ Center

      So, we weren’t too impressed with previous GCHQ (the UK equivalent of the NSA) boss, Sir Iain Lobban, who insisted that GCHQ didn’t do “mass surveillance” so long as you defined “mass” and “surveillance” the way he does (and not the way the English language does). This statement was made just days before it was revealed that the GCHQ (contrary to its own claims) gets access to NSA data without a warrant.

    • GCHQ: Going from Bad to Worse

      Some of the most disturbing revelations to emerge from Edward Snowden’s leaks are that the UK’s GCHQ is involved in spying on all the Internet traffic as it enters and leaves this country, and that it is jointly responsible for undermining basic cryptographic methods that keep communications private – and which make e-commerce possible. All of this without any kind of legal justification, just Jesuitical casuistry that largely turns on contorted interpretations of laws and stretched definitions of key concepts.

    • Reaction to comments made by the new head of GCHQ

      Emma Carr, director of Big Brother Watch, said: “It is wholly wrong to state that internet companies are failing to assist in investigations.

    • GCHQ Chief Criticises Tech Firms

      In an unusual step the new head of GCHQ, Robert Hannigan, has written an article accusing technology companies of aiding terrorism and failing to help with investigations. The article is entirely vague in its criticisms of the tech companies, giving little detail of what information GCHQ is failing to receive from the tech companies.

    • Facebook Creates .Onion Site; Now Accessible Via Tor Network
    • Verizon Injecting Perma-Cookies to Track Mobile Customers, Bypassing Privacy Controls

      Verizon users might want to start looking for another provider. In an effort to better serve advertisers, Verizon Wireless has been silently modifying its users’ web traffic on its network to inject a cookie-like tracker. This tracker, included in an HTTP header called X-UIDH, is sent to every unencrypted website a Verizon customer visits from a mobile device. It allows third-party advertisers and websites to assemble a deep, permanent profile of visitors’ web browsing habits without their consent.

    • Facebook’s Ability To Influence The Election

      As the article notes, Facebook had experimented with “I’m Voting” or “I’m a Voter” buttons on its site to see if that would encourage friends to vote, but its civic engagement tactics have gone much further than that.

    • Will The CIA Treat Amazon’s Cloud The Same Way It Treated Drives It Shared With The Senate?

      The US intelligence community’s $600 million cloud computing deal with Amazon was finalized roughly a year ago, but recent revelations about the CIA’s behavior in shared virtual spaces is raising questions about the government’s move to virtual computing.

    • Amazon-CIA $600 Million Deal Facing Scrutiny: “What’s the CIA Doing on Amazon’s Cloud?”

      A billboard challenging Amazon to fully disclose the terms of its $600 million contract to provide cloud computing services for the Central Intelligence Agency has been unveiled at a busy intersection near Amazon’s Seattle headquarters.

    • In Klayman v. Obama, EFF Explains Why Metadata Matters and the Third-Party Doctrine Doesn’t

      How can the US government possibly claim that its collection of the phone records of millions of innocent Americans is legal? It relies mainly on two arguments: first, that no one can have a reasonable expectation of privacy in their metadata and second, that the outcome is controlled by the so-called “third party doctrine,” which says that no one has an expectation of privacy in information they convey to a third party (such as telephone numbers dialed). We expect the government to press both of these arguments on November 4, before the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals. We look forward to responding.

    • Feinstein floats privacy changes to cyber bill

      Senate Intelligence Committee Chairwoman Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) on Tuesday said she is prepared to make changes to her cybersecurity bill to assuage privacy concerns.

    • Congress Wants To Push Dangerous Cybersecurity Bill After The Election, Says US Economy Depends On It

      Reports are coming out that Congress is looking to push forward with bad cybersecurity legislation after the election, but before the new Congress takes over in January. We’ve discussed the bill in question, CISA, before. The main idea behind it is to immunize companies from liability if they share certain information with the government. Supporters of the bill note that the information sharing is entirely voluntary, but by taking away the liability it also makes it a lot more likely that companies will choose to give information to the government, and it’s not yet clear why the government really needs that information. But the FUD levels are high, with Senator Saxby Chambliss actually suggesting the entire economy is at stake here…

    • Court Tells US Gov’t That ‘State Secrets’ Isn’t A Magic Wand They Can Wave To Make Embarrassing Cases Go Away

      Earlier this year, we wrote about the case of Gulet Mohamed, a US citizen who was put on the no fly list and ran into some issues in the Middle East because of that (and by “issues” we mean he was beaten by Kuwaiti officials for wanting to fly home to Virginia). The DOJ was making some nutty arguments, including claiming that the whole case should be thrown out because “state secrets.” This is the usual claim in these kinds of cases. Back in August we noted that the judge, Anthony Trenga, was skeptical of this argument, asking for the DOJ to provide a lot more info to back up its claims (in that post we also noted that the DOJ wanted to pretend that the leaked guidelines for how the no fly list works hadn’t been leaked).

      Now the judge has ruled officially and rejected the DOJ’s argument, saying that they can’t just claim “state secrets” and walk away.

    • Big Bad Data

      Like its successors, such as PRISM, Trailblazer was all about collecting everything it could from everywhere it could. “At least 80% of all audio calls, not just metadata”, Bill tells us, “are recorded and stored in the US. The NSA lies about what it stores.” At the very least, revelations by Bill and other sources (such as Edward Snowden and Chelsea Manning) make it clear that the Fourth Amendment no longer protects American citizens from unreasonable searches and seizures. In the era of Big Data everywhere, it’s reasonable to grab all of it.

  • Civil Rights

    • Feds Gearing Up To Try, One More Time, To Force James Risen To Reveal His Source

      Last week, we noted that Attorney General Eric Holder was hinting that the DOJ was near “a resolution” with reporter James Risen — the NY Times reporter who the DOJ has been harassing and trying to force to give up sources. In a recent interview, Risen makes the rather compelling case, that this effort by the DOJ was never about actually solving any sort of crime (the DOJ knows who did the leak), but rather about totally discrediting and/or punishing Risen for some of his other investigative reports. If the DOJ can undermine the ability of Risen to protect sources, he loses many sources.

    • Sharia law or gay marriage critics would be branded ‘extremists’ under Tory plans, atheists and Christians warn

      Anyone who criticises Sharia law or gay marriage could be branded an “extremist” under sweeping new powers planned by the Conservatives to combat terrorism, an alliance of leading atheists and Christians fear.

      Theresa May, the Home Secretary, unveiled plans last month for so-called Extremism Disruption Orders, which would allow judges to ban people deemed extremists from broadcasting, protesting in certain places or even posting messages on Facebook or Twitter without permission.

    • Texas police officer caught on video: ‘Go ahead, call the cops. They can’t un-rape you.’

      In the video embedded below, two Austin, Texas police officers were accidentally recorded by a dashboard camera having what they thought was a private conversation.

      After a brief back-and-forth between the two men about a minor collision they handled earlier in the day and other matters, an attractive woman walks by.

      “Look at that girl over there,” one officer says.

    • Infringing Panties So Important To DHS, That It Intimidated Print Shop Owner Into Warrantless Search

      A few more details have emerged concerning the Dept. of Homeland Security’s daring daylight raid of a Kansas City lingerie shop. Our long, dark national nightmare ended just before Game 1 of the World Series when Peregrine Honig’s custom-made Royals-related underwear was seized by gun-toting DHS agents. The crime? Presumably trademark infringement (the government’s panty raiders specifically pointed out the joining of the letters K and C as problematic), although everyone involved (including the DHS super troopers) keeps referring to it as a “copyright” issue.

    • Police In Ferguson Set Up No-Fly Zone Solely To Keep Journalists Out, According To FAA Audio Recordings

      A few more details have come to light on the police state experiment conducted in Ferguson, MO over the past couple of months. Despite repeated denials that continued all the way up until October 31st, the real reason for the FAA’s no-fly zone over Ferguson has been revealed.

  • Intellectual Monopolies

11.03.14

Links 3/11/2014: Linux 3.18 RC3, OpenStack Event

Posted in News Roundup at 4:34 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

GNOME bluefish

Contents

GNU/Linux

  • Video: Ken Starks & Ruth Suehle’s Keynotes at OLF

    Here at FOSS Force we’re proud to be associated with Ken Starks. We’re proud because of the great articles he writes advocating Linux. We’re also extremely proud that he was chosen to be a keynote speaker at this year’s Ohio LinuxFest. But most of all, we’re proud because of his big heart, which he expresses through his work through Reglue, the nonprofit he founded in 2005 to give Linux computers, and training on how to use them, to financially disadvantaged school children in and around the Austin, Texas area where he lives.

  • Desktop

    • Homegrown developers look to unseat Microsoft’s dominant OS

      After tinkering with the term “de-Microsofting,” Ni Guangnan decided instead to go with “de-Windowsify.” “We call this a de-Windowsifying movement,” he said.

      Speaking last Saturday at a temporary office in a residential neighborhood in Zhongguancun, Beijing’s answer to Silicon Valley, the 75-year-old computer science professor and member of the Chinese Academy of Engineering talked about his ambitious project to bring together all of China’s homegrown operating system (OS) developers in an alliance to replace Microsoft Windows in one to two years.

    • Attacking Lock-in In China
    • The Linux desktop-a-week review: ChromeOS

      This is not a review of ChromeOS. Nor is it a discussion of the viability of using a Chromebook as your primary computer.

      No, sir. We’re simply going to be looking at ChromeOS as a Desktop Environment from a usability perspective, and how it compares to the other Linux Desktop Environments I have reviewed in my “Desktop-a-week” series thus far.

  • Server

    • POWER ON!

      I’m really excited to have joined the OpenPOWER Foundation as an individual member (The first Ubuntu member even) just yesterday. I have already started contributing to projects and joined a workgroup of the foundation where I hope to offer my experience around software and hardware.

  • Kernel Space

  • Applications

  • Desktop Environments/WMs

    • K Desktop Environment/KDE SC/Qt

      • Habemus Maintainer!

        14 years ago, I started creating an image viewer. Back then it felt like a good project to get started with graphical application development for my newly installed Linux system. Little did I know… In 14 years Gwenview went through one toolkit change (GTK+1.2 to Qt2/KDE2), got ported to Qt3/KDE3, moved from SourceForge CVS to KDE Extragear, got ported to Qt4/KDE4, became the default image viewer of KDE4 and finally got ported to Qt5/KF5.

        [...]

        You may be aware I spend most of my free time these days on some other project. I am not completely out of Qt and KDE development however: I have a number of small side projects, many of them Qt-based, to which I want to give a bit more visibility. Stay tuned for more announcements.

      • DWD – an FAQ for questions around the Web

        DWDs are not CSDs, and all theming and drawing is handled by the window manager and decoration. In addition, applications only export the structure of their widgets, they do not pre-draw or draw the widgets themselves. Applications would have little or no say in how their decorations look, just like traditional SSDs.

      • More Information On The KDE Dynamic Window Decoration Plans

        Published last month were the plans by KDE developers to create Dynamic Window Decorations (DWD) as a hybrid between client-side and server-side decorations. Here’s more information on this concept for improving window decorations.

      • Display Managers In Plasma 5

        The last blog posts about KDM/LightDM/SDDM/WhateverDM left things a bit on an exciting cliffhanger so I’ve been asked a few times what the current state is.

        The short summary is we recommend SDDM as the display manager for Plasma 5.

      • SDDM Is The Recommended Display Manager Of KDE Plasma 5

        SDDM has a relatively short history but is a lightweight, QML-based display manager. The first SDDM release was just in March of 2013. Besides interest from KDE developers, SDDM is also supported by the Hawaii/Maui desktop project.

    • GNOME Desktop/GTK

      • Cinnamon 2.4 Released In Beta Form

        The Cinnamon 2.4 Desktop Environment is now out ahead of its official debut with Linux Mint 17.1 later this month.

      • Cinnamon 2.4

        On behalf of the team and all the developers who contributed to this build, I am proud to announce the release of Cinnamon 2.4!

        This new version will be featured in Linux Mint 17.1 “Rebecca” planned for the end of November and in LMDE 2 “Betsy” planned for Spring 2015.

        Here’s a quick overview of some of the new things in Cinnamon 2.4.

      • Preview of Cinnamon 2.4. Features desktop slideshow

        A preview release of what will become Cinnamon 2.4 is now available for testing. The stable version will ship with Linux Mint 17.1, which will be released at the end of the month, but if you’re willing to take it for a spin and report any bugs you find, you can upgrade to it now.

      • Cinnamon 2.4 Brings A Smoother Experience, Improved Settings

        Cinnamon 2.4 was released recently and it comes with improved settings, a redesigned toolbar for Nemo along with various other changes which bring a smoother overall experience.

  • Distributions

    • How to Find the Best Linux Distribution for a Specific Task

      If you’re looking for a Linux distribution to handle a specific (even niche) task, there most certainly is a distribution ready to serve. From routers to desktops, from servers to multi-media…there’s a Linux for everything.

    • New Releases

      • Neptune 4.2 Release

        We are proud to announce the release of Neptune 4.2. This service release comes with a brand new kernel 3.16.3 (+bfq I/O Scheduler) which includes many driver updates and improvements in power saving functions. Our improved installer now offers you to install on uefi capable PCs and brings in a new option which allows you to disable sudo for your user during installation.

      • XBoard/Winboard 4.8.0 released

        XBoard is a graphical user interface for chess in all its major forms, including international chess, xiangqi (Chinese chess), shogi Japanese chess) and Makruk. Many variations of chess are also supported.

    • Screenshots

    • Ballnux/SUSE

      • Orchestrating Docker Containers on openSUSE

        A couple of weeks ago the 11th edition of SUSE’s hackweek took place. This year I decided to spend this time to look into the different orchestration and service discovery tools build around Docker.

    • Red Hat Family

      • Red Hat Cloud Infrastructure Version 5 Adds Advanced Systems Management for OpenStack Private Clouds

        Red Hat, Inc., the world’s leading provider of open source solutions, today announced the general availability of Red Hat Cloud Infrastructure Version 5, featuring the powerful systems management capabilities of Red Hat Satellite. Red Hat Cloud Infrastructure is a comprehensive solution that supports organizations on their journey from traditional datacenter virtualization to OpenStack-powered clouds. With Red Hat Cloud Infrastructure Version 5, users can now manage their virtualization and OpenStack environments simultaneously, via a single platform.

      • Duke, Red Hat top donors to Economic Development Partnership of NC

        Five companies contributed a combined $440,000 to help get the Economic Development Partnership of North Carolina off the ground.

      • Red Hat releases Cloud Infrastructure version 5, expands Wipro partnership

        Red Hat has launched version 5 of its Cloud Infrastructure package, which is intended for organizations that want to dabble in both OpenStack and traditional data center virtualization simultaneously.

        Red Hat Cloud Infrastructure (RHCI) version 5 debuted on Monday at the OpenStack Summit in Paris. As before, it bundles the Red Hat Enterprise Linux OpenStack infrastructure-as-a-service platform with the company’s virtualization platform and CloudForms, its tool for managing hybrid cloud setups.

      • Fedora

    • Debian Family

      • Elive 2.4.0 Beta Is a Combination of Debian and Enlightenment

        The developers have been hopping from one Beta version to another and it seems that it might take them forever to get to the final version, but they want to make sure that everything will work as it should for the users that will eventually try it.

      • Derivatives

        • Canonical/Ubuntu

          • Is an Intel Tablet with Ubuntu Linux OS in the Works?

            Lately, almost all of the headlines about Ubuntu Linux and Canonical have involved the cloud. But open source fans dreaming of an Ubuntu-powered Intel (INTC) x86 tablet may reason for excitement, if reports are accurate that the UT One Linux tablet will ship by this December.

          • Ubuntu 14.10 Utopic Unicorn review: deceptively simple

            For an operating system named after a magical creature, the release might strike some of you as somewhat overwhelmingly similar to the previous release, Trusty.

            It’s the same creepy default wallpaper (if there is a difference I failed to notice it), the Amazon icon remains firmly conspicuous in the launcher despite protests and there is the same old universal purple shade.

          • Certified Ubuntu images coming to Google Cloud Platform

            Mobile advertising and social data tied up like ribbons to holiday tech story packages are starting to fall like autumn leaves, but the cloud will partially hover over the spotlight for the first half of the month.

          • Ubuntu Community Will Resist the Switch to Unity 8

            Ubuntu developers are working to bring the new Unity 8 to the desktop flavor of the distribution and it will take a while, but users are not really mentally prepared for the change. It will be different from Unity 7, which is the version currently in use, and not many people will be happy.

          • Flavours and Variants

  • Devices/Embedded

    • Open Source Remote Control lets you pilot just about any drone

      Drones and other remotely piloted vehicles are inherently limited by their controls; you frequently have to switch controllers when you switch vehicles, and you can usually forget about customization. You might not have to worry if the Open Source Remote Control (OSRC) project gets off the ground, however. The long-in-development peripheral uses a mix of modular hardware and Linux-based software that lets you steer just about any unmanned machine. On top of a programmable interface, you can swap in new wireless modules and shoulder switches to either accommodate new drones or improve existing controls. You can also attach a 4.8-inch touchscreen module (typically for a first-person view), use cellular networks or even share one vehicle between multiple operators — handy if you’re at a flying club or shooting a movie.

    • Free courseware posted for Yocto on BeagleBone

      Free Electrons has posted free training materials on building an embedded Linux project using Yocto Project and OpenEmbedded on a BeagleBone Black.

      The Linux Foundation’s Yocto Project has been largely supported and influenced by Intel, but it has long since evolved into a phenomenon of its own that is as at home on ARM, PowerPC, and MIPS targets as it is on x86. In fact, for its latest training course on Yocto Project and the associated OpenEmbedded build environment, Free Electrons turned to the ARM-based BeagleBone Black single board computer as the target device. The course shows how to boot root filesystems built with the Yocto Project, as well as run and debug the custom applications compiled with it.

    • Phones

      • Android

        • Android 5.0 Lollipop may make bloatware a thing of the past

          Buying a phone from service providers is one of the things we dread the most. If you want a good deal on a new Android phone, you usually have to sign a two-year contract. But the issues don’t stop there; carrier-branded phones never get software updates as fast as unlocked phones do, and they are always weighed down with additional software that no one really cares about. We wouldn’t complain much about bloatware if service providers only included the apps you need to manage your account or check your visual voicemail, but most phones have anywhere from 5 to 20 additional apps (most of which are available through Google Play) pre-installed into the system partition, making it impossible to uninstall them.

        • How Will Google Respond as Android’s Market Share Peaks?

          For the quarter that ended in September, Apple held 12 percent market share, while Windows Phone and BlackBerry commanded 3 percent and 1 percent.

        • Google’s Android Begins to Top Out

          Android ran 84% of smartphones shipped globally in the third quarter, according to research firm Strategy Analytics, down slightly from 85% in the second quarter.

Free Software/Open Source

Leftovers

  • Hardware

    • Intel paying up after allegedly ‘manipulating’ benchmarks 15 years ago

      Once upon a time, Intel’s processors didn’t dominate AMD. In fact, AMD’s Athlon processors were mighty competitive, enough so that Intel allegedly “manipulated” its Pentium 4 benchmark scores in the early 2000s to mask the performance gap. Intel denies those claims, but nevertheless, you’re probably feeling pretty taken advantage of right now.

  • Security

  • Defence/Police/Secrecy/Aggression

    • Syrian rebels armed and trained by US surrender to al-Qaeda

      Two of the main rebel groups receiving weapons from the United States to fight both the regime and jihadist groups in Syria have surrendered to al-Qaeda.

      The US and its allies were relying on Harakat Hazm and the Syrian Revolutionary Front to become part of a ground force that would attack the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (Isil).

      For the last six months the Hazm movement, and the SRF through them, had been receiving heavy weapons from the US-led coalition, including GRAD rockets and TOW anti-tank missiles.

    • Addicted to Intervention

      American consciousness by capturing the Iraqi cities of Tikrit and Mosul in June, many US elites blamed a lack of US intervention. The US should have kept troops in Iraq, they said, and intervened in Syria’s civil war. This analysis, coming from both conservatives and liberals, went virtually unchallenged by journalists whose response to the latest US wars has been a depressing replay of the coverage of more than a decade ago. Few lessons seem to have been learned.

    • Drone-Strike Feminism

      Using the oppression of women to sell another Iraq War

  • Environment/Energy/Wildlife

    • The Climate-Change Solution No One Will Talk About

      The equation seems fairly simple: The more the world’s population rises, the greater the strain on dwindling resources and the greater the impact on the environment.

      The solution? Well, that’s a little trickier to talk about.

      Public-health discussions will regularly include mentions of voluntary family planning as a way to reduce unwanted pregnancies and births. But, said Jason Bremner of the Population Reference Bureau, those policies can also pay dividends for the environment.

  • Finance

  • PR/AstroTurf/Lobbying

    • Megadonations Follow Randa Ruling in Wisconsin

      A hole in Wisconsin’s campaign finance laws opened by federal judge Rudolph Randa in September is being exploited by out-of-state billionaires like Sheldon Adelson, blowing open the floodgates to huge checks for the state’s gubernatorial candidates in the final weeks and days of this hotly-contested race.

    • Koch-Tied Group Urges Stoners Not to Vote for Mary Burke

      The Koch-backed American Future Fund is running a series of web-only ads urging Wisconsin stoners not to vote for Democratic gubernatorial candidate Mary Burke, but instead to support the Libertarian Party candidate, Robert Burke.

    • Direct Democracy Tackles Fracking, GMOs, Pesticides on Election Day

      These ballot measures reflect “model” legislation pushed by the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), as the Center for Media and Democracy, which publishes PRWatch, has reported.

    • Stonewalled: Sharyl Attkisson’s Failed Attempt To Rehabilitate Her Bogus Reporting

      Attkisson resigned this year after two decades at CBS and promptly launched a media tour attacking her former employer for supposedly protecting the Obama administration from her reporting. Her new book has been published and promoted by conservative interests, who clearly see this narrative as a confirmation of their worldview that the “liberal” media is biased against them.

    • The ALEC Problem Is Even Worse Than John Oliver Thinks

      HBO’s John Oliver did what many others in the media have not by shining a spotlight on the shadowy influence of the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC). But ALEC’s latest initiative, which has its sights set on molding county and municipal governments, has deeper aspirations than even Oliver’s show explored — and has been almost entirely ignored by the media.

  • Censorship

    • Moscow’s fringe ‘Doc’ theatre faces ‘censorship’ with eviction

      Russia has been discouraging public celebrations of Halloween as part of a campaign against western influence.

      But that did not stop Teatr.Doc from staging a bitingly satirical “Night of the Living Dead” on Friday night in what may be one of the last ever productions at the tiny basement theatre in central Moscow famous for innovative and uncompromising work.

      In a move that has shaken the international theatrical community, the Moscow authorities have ordered Teatr.Doc to vacate the basement on grounds that it had violated property regulations.

    • Catherine Rampell: Theater censorship is alive and well

      The community leaders of Maiden, it turns out — to one vignette in particular. Remember that scene with the falling-down gag? There’s no sex, or kissing, or even allusions to lust. But the gravity-prone characters are both men, which was incendiary enough to lead the principal to cancel the production, citing “sexually explicit overtones and multiple sexual innuendoes.”

    • Anti-Censorship Play Receives Surprise Approval From Lebanon’s Censors

      A play that examines Lebanon’s censorship system has been approved by the country’s office in charge of artistic permits, a decision that could point towards a more open future for the country’s writers and performers.

    • Jerry Springer creator Richard Thomas hits out at censorship in the arts

      Jerry Springer the Opera creator Richard Thomas has become the latest industry figure to speak out about the importance of freedom of speech within the arts, claiming organisations funded by the taxpayer have a particular responsibility to take risks.

    • ‘Anarcho-Capitalist’ Stefan Molyneux Sued For Abusing The DMCA

      A few months ago, we wrote about the strange saga of self-described “anarcho-capitalist” Stefan Molyneux more or less admitting that he and a colleague named Michael DeMarco had filed questionable DMCA notices in response to some critical YouTube videos. DeMarco and Molyneux defended the use of the DMCA by arguing that the videos involved doxxing some Molyneux supporters.

    • Cleveland Plain Dealer Owner Demands Takedown Of Unflattering Video Featuring Candidate It Endorsed In Governor’s Race
    • Northeast Ohio Media Group threatens website for posting editorial board video clip

      The Northeast Ohio Media Group last week posted a video of Ohio Gov. John Kasich and challenger Ed FitzGerald meeting with the editorial board, then took it down without explanation and replaced it with an audio recording.

    • Chelsea Handler Slams Instagram for Removing Her Topless Photo

      Instagram did take the photo down, as per their guidelines, prompting this response from Handler: “If a man posts a photo of his nipples, it’s ok, but not a woman? Are we in 1825?”

      After her first photo was removed, Handler reposted the pic again only for Instagram to remove it again.

    • As Facebook reinstates banned breastfeeding photograph, FEMAIL asks: Is there one rule for celebrity mothers and another for normal women?

      Earlier this week, actress Alyssa Milano posted a tender snap on her Instagram page of herself breastfeeding her one-month-old baby girl Elizabella.

      The 41-year-old was the picture of maternal bliss in the black and white snap, joining the many other proud celebrity mothers who have chosen to share the intimate moment with friends and fans through social media.

      The responses to this, like most A-list breastfeeding photographs, has been overwhelming positive. One follower wrote: ‘Such a beautiful photo! Thank you for sharing this sweet moment with us, and thank you for helping to normalize breastfeeding!’

    • Instagram feed to feature 15 second video-ads

      Instagram a popular social networking service that allows users to share photos and videos will now support video advertisements also. The company has reportedly allowed a few advertisers including Disney, Banana Republic, Lancome, Activision and CW to run a 15 second ad video.

    • Senator Wyden Attacks CIA Redaction Demands As ‘Unprecedented’

      It’s well known that CIA’s been stalling over the release of the officially declassified 480 page “executive summary” of the 6,300 page CIA torture report, put together by staffers of the Senate Intelligence Committee over many years at a cost of $40 million. It’s known that the report is somewhat devastating to the CIA and the CIA isn’t happy about it (at all). Originally, the CIA suggested redactions that made the report incomprehensible, even as James Clapper said it was “just 15%” that was redacted.

    • If GOP Takes Senate Next Week, Expect The CIA Torture Report To Disappear

      We’ve heard some mumbling about one of the main reasons that the CIA has been dragging its feet on declassifying the executive summary of the CIA torture report that the Senate Intelligence Committee put together: it knows there’s a decent chance that the Republicans will win the Senate next week, and suddenly the report may disappear from view. As you may recall, the Intelligence Committee (with support from GOP Senators) voted to declassify the 480 page executive summary of the 6,300 page report (which the Senate spent $40 million putting together). Multiple leaks concerning the report have suggested that it’s devastating and details how terrible the CIA’s torture program was, how it was completely ineffective and how the CIA lied about it all.

  • Privacy

  • Civil Rights

  • Internet/Net Neutrality

    • Hungary internet tax cancelled after mass protests

      Hungary has decided to shelve a proposed tax on internet data traffic after mass protests against the plan.

      “This tax in its current form cannot be introduced,” Prime Minister Viktor Orban said on Friday.

    • After Protests Continue, Hungary Dumps Stupid Internet Tax Idea

      Earlier this week, we wrote about widespread demonstrations against a monumentally stupid plan by the Hungarian government to tax internet usage on a per-gigabyte-downloaded plan. The protests caused the government to “modify” the plan and put a cap on how much tax would be charged, but that seemed to do little to stop the complaints — and thus, the government is shelving the plan entirely, with Prime Minister Viktor Orban announcing that the “tax in its current form cannot be introduced.” Of course, that leaves open the possibility of it coming back in “another” form. But perhaps Orban is learning not to take on the internet.

    • FCC Tests The Waters On A ‘Hybrid’ Net Neutrality Solution That Almost Everyone Hates

      Gautham Nagesh at the Wall Street Journal (who was also the first to reveal many of the details of Tom Wheeler’s original net neutrality proposal) had a story last night confirming the buzz over the last few weeks that Wheeler is now exploring a new set of “hybrid” net neutrality rules that appear, on their face, to take parts of the plans that consumer groups want and parts of what the broadband players want… and comes out, in the end, with a plan that almost no one wants. There is something to the old saying that a good compromise leaves everyone a little unhappy, but it appears that the rules being contemplated right now might leave nearly everyone really unhappy. It’s not clear that’s a good result.

    • MPAA Lobbies Lawmakers on Internet Tax and Net Neutrality

      Every year the MPAA spends millions of dollars in Washington to guarantee their anti-piracy interests are secured. In the most recent quarter the Hollywood group added several of its topics to the agenda of U.S. lawmakers, including Internet tax and net neutrality.

  • Intellectual Monopolies

    • Copyrights

      • Copyright Monopoly Enforcement Gets To Trump Human Rights, Yet Again

        Australia’s administration has introduced a Data Retention bill, learning nothing from the court rulings that declare the practice to be in violation of fundamental rights. They plan to log everybody’s correspondence and movements – with the idea of using that data to enforce the copyright monopoly.

      • Embedding Is Not Copyright Infringement, EU Court Rules
      • Europe’s New Digital Commissioner Explores Imposing An EU-Wide ‘Google Tax’

        When Google is taking intellectual works from within the EU and using them, then the EU has to protect those works and demand a tax from Google.

        Coming from the person who is charged with reforming European copyright, this does not augur well. If Oettinger really thinks that such a tax is the way forward for copyright in the digital age, he is evidently as clueless about the Internet as everyone feared he was, after telling the European Parliament that celebrities storing nude pictures online are stupid.

      • Spain Passes Much-Debated Intellectual Property Law

        After more than a year in the works, Spain passed on Thursday its Intellectual Property Law, with its hotly debated, so-called Google tax that allows for fines on aggregators that show snippets of content without paying for it.

      • Spain Passes Copyright Law; Demands Payment For Snippets And Linking To Infringing Content

        Apparently ignoring just how badly this worked out for publishers in Germany, the Spanish Parliament has passed a law to fine aggregators and search engines for using snippets or linking to infringing content. As plenty of folks have described, the bill is clearly just a Google tax. As we had discussed, the proposed bill would be a disaster for digital commons/open access projects. There had been some thought that the proposed bill might be delayed because of a referral to the EU Court of Justice on a related issue, but apparently that didn’t happen. Either way, it looks like the bill kept the ridiculous “inalienable right” to being paid for snippets — meaning that Creative Commons-type licenses may not even be allowed, and people won’t even be allowed to offer up their content for free. That’s ridiculous.

11.02.14

Links 2/11/2014: Dual-screen Android, OpenBSD 5.6 Released

Posted in News Roundup at 2:04 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

GNOME bluefish

Contents

GNU/Linux

Free Software/Open Source

  • Jonathan Moneymaker on Altamira’s Open Source Push and $1B Air Force Intell Contract Spot

    ExecutiveBiz: Where can Open Source help agencies manage some of those budget challenges?

    Jonathan Moneymaker: In our National Security market Open Source is an idea whose time has come. Gone are the days of questions around quality, scalability, or security. The value is really in speed and flexibility. In many cases deploying open source solutions enable us to start at a 80-90% or higher solution then integrate or customize that framework to a specific mission set that is able to adapt as fast as the threats our customers are combatting.

    In terms of scalability or security, we designed in parallel to our customer’s roadmaps building on Accumulo, the AWS infrastructure and ensuring capabilities such as our big data and visualization platform, Lumify, are fully ICITE compliant. By doing so, it gives our customers the speed to mission required and every dollar spent goes directly into mission capability delivering budgetary relief that they have been looking for from costly traditional proprietary licensing models.

  • 450,000 open source big data connector customers served

    TIBCO stages its annual global convention next week – what used to be called TUCON is now called TIBCO NOW.

  • Events

  • Web Browsers

  • SaaS/Big Data

    • Convirture Adds OpenStack Cloud Backup Tool

      A lot of people back up their data to the cloud. But how do you back up the cloud itself? Convirture, the company that until now has specialized in cloud and virtualization management solutions, hopes to answer this question with a new backup and disaster recovery solution for the OpenStack open source cloud operating system running on the KVM hypverisor.

    • Mirantis Previews OpenStack Juno Cloud Platform

      Mirantis, the “pure-play” OpenStack vendor, is gearing up for the release of version 6.0 of its open source cloud computing platform, which will be based on OpenStack Juno and include the latest Hadoop big data and network functions virtualization (NFV) features, the company said in details of the new release.

  • CMS

  • BSD

    • OpenBSD 5.6 Released

      We are pleased to announce the official release of OpenBSD 5.6. This is our 36th release on CD-ROM (and 37th via FTP/HTTP). We remain proud of OpenBSD’s record of more than ten years with only two remote holes in the default install.

  • FSF/FSFE/GNU/SFLC

    • Free-software pioneer says it’s all about liberty

      When it comes to code that runs a computer or a program, Richard Stallman believes it should be free.

      Not only at no cost to the user, but unshackled and independent. To Stallman, it is a matter of liberty, not price.

      “We say free software as in ‘free speech’ not ‘free beer,’” Stallman said.

      The computer programmer and activist shared his views, which earned him the MacArthur “Genius Grant,” during a presentation at Weber State University on Thursday.

    • GCC’s JIT Compiler Support Moves A Step Closer To Mainline

      Red Hat’s David Malcolm remains committed to landing his just-in-time (JIT) compiler support for GCC.

  • Project Releases

  • Public Services/Government

    • Open Source Project Could Replace Traditional Passports With Bitcoin Tech

      To those who are only marginally familiar with bitcoin, the world’s leading digital cryptocurrency, the idea of adapting the tech into a type of globally accessible passport may seem odd. But Christopher Ellis, a hacker that specializes in privacy and decentralized security, sees them as a natural fit.

    • DoD EHR Contract: Open Source Vs. Commercial

      VistA is the electronic health records system created by the Veterans Administration, which became open source because as the result of taxpayer funded work it was covered under the Freedom of Information Act and was obtained by outside companies seeking to leverage it for their own projects. The VA and the DoD flirted with using VistA as part of a common open source EHR that would cover members of the military from the first day of active duty into their lives as veterans. But whether because of organizational or technical reasons, that joint technical project broke down.

Leftovers

  • Fall of the Berlin Wall 25th Anniversary: Pictorial History of the Wall and Famous Escapes

    This year sees the 25th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. From 1961 to 1989, the city of Berlin was divided by the most visible sign of the Cold War: a barrier more than 140km (87 miles) long.

  • Poppy seller burned in aerosol attack in Manchester

    A 15-year-old Army cadet who was selling poppies for Remembrance Day suffered burns to his face in an attack with a lit aerosol can.

    The boy, who was wearing his uniform, was at a bus stop near Manchester Art Gallery at 18:00 GMT on Saturday when he was attacked.

  • Defence/Police/Secrecy/Aggression

    • FRESH DRONE HIT IN NWA LEAVES FOUR MORE DEAD

      Once again making open mockery of the territorial integrity of Pakistan , the American CIA operated planes struck in the North Waziristan agency Thursday morning killing at least four people. The foreign office has strongly condemned the fresh drone hit in NWA where the Pakistan Army led security forces are already conducting an effective surgery against the insurgents for the last more than four months and made substantial gains in curbing the terrorism. Unconfirmed reports say those kill in Thursday’s missiles hit, include two foreign militants.

    • Why Are We Still Waiting for Answers on Drones?

      Mamana’s son, Rafiq ur Rehman, is a 39-year-old primary-school teacher. He and his two children, Zubair, 13, and Nabila, 9, were the first family members of a U.S. drone strike victim ever to speak to Members of Congress. Rafiq explained that he and his family were educators, not terrorists. He wanted to know why his family was targeted by the U.S. military. Zubair, a teenager, recalled how he “watched a U.S. drone kill my grandmother.” He described why he now fears blue skies: “Because drones do not fly when the skies are gray.” Nabila was picking okra with her grandmother for a religious holiday meal, when day became night. “I saw from the sky a drone and I hear a dum-dum noise. Everything was dark and I couldn’t see anything, but I heard a scream.”

    • GROUNDED Tells Compelling Story of Drone Pilot

      The lesson for me from the play and the quilts is that there are many different victims of drone warfare – and that it’s time for the US to reconsider this policy. Congress needs to reassert its control over US war-making and insist on ending this drone program. Of those who speak for us in Congress, Senator Schumer is only one who has not acted to demand that Congress be the decider over what is now becoming an undeclared and endless war policy – in Syria, Iraq, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Somalia and Yemen.

    • US intervention via drone attacks condemned

      Islamabad- Pakistan has strongly condemned the recent US drone attack in South Waziristan.

    • Matters of jurisdiction: High court seeks petitioner’s assistance in case against drone strikes

      The Peshawar High Court (PHC) on Thursday directed a petitioner to help it determine whether the judiciary had the authority to deliberate on a case against US drone strikes. The court issued these instructions in light of a Supreme Court judgment last year which declared the apex court could not decide on matters of foreign affairs.

    • Drones, Pakistan’s worst kept secret

      The current surge in drone strikes in FATA has reignited the infamous ‘drone debate’ and ‘Pakistan’s tacit agreement’ on intelligence sharing with the United States.

    • Pakistan terms US drone strike ‘unnecessary’

      Drone attacks are widely unpopular across Pakistan and the country has opposed the strikes several times in past considering it a violation of their territorial sovereignty. (end) sbk.ibi

    • My Daughter and I Were Arrested Today By Military Police Guarding Worlds Most Hated Weapon

      It was a familiar and warm exchange of greetings and spirited talk. The small group of activists I was with had called out to the military gate guards with a question concerning the spider web like substance that seemed to be everywhere around the base; on cars, vegetation telephone poles, fences, floating in the air and across the land. Men with sidearms and radios in camo fatigues approached us.

      It was just then getting dark with the officer-in-charge and us each on our legal side of the white line that marked base property and certain arrest should we cross it. With U2s and fighter jets flying around overhead, the officer in charge cheerfully insisted we were looking at spider webs. He then asked if we intended to cross the line at which we answered “not tonight”

    • WATCH: Anti-drone protest held at a Gwynedd airfield

      Peace protesters placed photographs of children injured in drone attacks in the Middle East on the fence of a Gwynedd airfield.

      Cymdeithas y Cymod (Fellowship of Reconciliation) members were responding to news that Llanbedr Airfield will start flight tests of Remotely Piloted Aircraft or drones in early 2015.

      Around 25 people took part in the protest yesterday.

      Peace campaigner Anna Jane Evans said: “We are worried Wales is being used more and more as a practice ground for killing.

    • Naming The Dead: One Group’s Struggle To Record Deaths From U.S. Drone Strikes In Pakistan

      Last year, the Bureau of Investigative Journalism in London embarked upon an ambitious effort to record the names of people reportedly killed by U.S. drone strikes in Pakistan. The project, called Naming the Dead, aims to acknowledge those who have lost their lives in the strikes and to create more transparency about a counterterrorism program shrouded in secrecy.

      The CIA has conducted hundreds of drone strikes targeting militants in Pakistan’s tribal regions since June 2004. U.S. officials have lauded the program for its effectiveness and precision, and it has become an essential pillar of the administration’s counterterrorism policy. Yet despite promises by President Barack Obama to make the program more transparent and apply the highest possible standards to avoid civilian casualties, the administration has, so far, continued its secretive practices.

    • Former CIA Analyst Ray McGovern Arrested While Trying to Attend David Petraeus Event in New York

      Former CIA analyst and activist Ray McGovern was arrested as he attempted to attend an event in New York City featuring former CIA director and retired military general, David Petraeus. He was charged with resisting arrest, criminal trespass and disorderly conduct.

    • Former CIA Agent, Peace Activist Ray McGovern Arrested And ‘Brutalized’ By NYPD

      Ray McGovern, a retired CIA agent turned peace activist, was arrested by the New York Police Department before McGovern could attend a speech by David Petraeus. Witnesses say McGovern was “yelling in pain” as he was being detained.

      Former CIA director David Petraeus, retired U.S. Army Lt. Colonel John Nagl, and author Max Boot were slated to give a speech on American Foreign Policy at the 92nd Street Y on the Upper East Side in New York. The anti-war group “The World Can’t Wait” said McGovern was arrested “at protest of speech.”

    • Former CIA analyst arrested after trying to crash event with David Petraeus

      A former CIA analyst turned anti-war activist was arrested right after attempting to crash a discussion about foreign policy with retired Army Gen. and former CIA Director David Petraeus — even although he claims he purchased the $45 ticket. Ray McGovern,…

    • The Nazis Next Door: Eric Lichtblau on How the CIA & FBI Secretly Sheltered Nazi War Criminals

      Investigative reporter Eric Lichtblau’s new book unveils the secret history of how the United States became a safe haven for thousands of Nazi war criminals. Many of them were brought here after World War II by the CIA and got support from then FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover. Lichtblau first broke the story in 2010, based on newly declassified documents. Now, after interviews with dozens of agents for the first time, he has published his new book, “The Nazis Next Door: How America Became a Safe Haven for Hitler’s Men.”

    • US to train and arm Syrian rebels, despite CIA report that the method seldom works
    • Amazon-CIA Partnership Critics Launch Ad Campaign, Includes Billboard In Front Of Amazon HQ

      Amazon’s $600 million contract with the CIA related to cloud computing services has caused alarm throughout the civil liberties community. The terms of the deal have not been disclosed raising concern that the CIA could be using its access to Amazon’s massive data to conduct intelligence work rather than simply storing data. In light of the ongoing domestic spying scandal regarding the NSA, fewer and fewer people are willing to take government assurances on protecting the public’s privacy.

    • Contras and Drugs, Three Decades Later

      Thus began the Iran-Contra scandal. The Contras were an irregular military formation put together by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in 1981 to overthrow the leftist Sandinista government of Nicaragua. The war they provoked caused tens of thousands of deaths and devastating damage to Nicaragua’s economy.

    • Feds get subpoenas in CIA leak case

      Federal prosecutors obtained 100 blank subpoenas last week for use in the upcoming trial of a CIA officer accused of leaking top-secret information to New York Times reporter James Risen.

      The move clears the way for the Justice Department to proceed with a new review of whether Risen should be subpoenaed to testify at the trial of Jeffrey Sterling, the CIA employee accused of disclosing details of a CIA effort to set back Iran’s nuclear program.

    • Ex-CIA Officer Writes Book on Assassinations, Gets Threat on His Life

      Former CIA operative Bob Baer’s newest book on assassinations hasn’t even been released yet, and he told MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” federal officials have already told him there’s a threat on his life.

      Read Latest Breaking News from Newsmax.com http://www.Newsmax.com/Newsfront/CIA-Book-Bob-Baer-FBI/2014/10/27/id/603354/#ixzz3HvRbCqLm
      Urgent: Should Obamacare Be Repealed? Vote Here Now!

    • Of men and mercenaries

      Be it war, counterterrorism, securing Africa’s natural resources or fighting ebola, this former US Navy SEAL, now a billionaire, is the ultimate Mr Fix-It when it comes to the world of what used to be known as mercenarism.

      Today, that word, “mercenarism”, with its dogs-of-war and soldiers-of-fortune connotations, is frowned upon by the likes of men like Prince, who much prefer the less lurid acronym of PMSCs – private military and security companies – to describe their line of business.

    • Transparency for thee, but not for me?

      While Attorney General Eric Holder is calling for the Senate and the Obama Administration to lay bare the alleged abuse of detainees in Central Intelligence Agency custody, his Justice Department is going to unusual lengths to impose a complete black-out on details about the investigations he supervised into those same incidents.

    • Gormley: What we know about transparency and torture

      For politicians, “Transparency and accountability!” is one of those uncommonly generous and dark-horse-sympathetic political slogans: the kind that parties of any ideology can plagiarize but that underdogs can most easily claim as their own (at least while they remain underdogs).

  • Finance

  • PR/AstroTurf/Lobbying

    • USA Today: Still Not Too Late to Attack Gary Webb

      The chatter around Kill the Messenger, the film based on the life of investigative reporter Gary Webb, has mostly faded. But this week USA Today ran a column that mangled the basic facts of Webb’s reporting.

    • Facebook Wants You to Vote on Tuesday. Here’s How It Messed With Your Feed in 2012.

      Yet the process by which Facebook has developed this tool—what the firm calls the “voter megaphone”—has not been very transparent, raising questions about its use and Facebook’s ability to influence elections. Moreover, while Facebook has been developing and promoting this tool, it has also been quietly conducting experiments on how the company’s actions can affect the voting behavior of its users.

      In particular, Facebook has studied how changes in the news feed seen by its users—the constant drip-drip-drip of information shared by friends that is heart of their Facebook experience—can affect their level of interest in politics and their likelihood of voting. For one such experiment, conducted in the three months prior to Election Day in 2012, Facebook increased the amount of hard news stories at the top of the feeds of 1.9 million users. According to one Facebook data scientist, that change—which users were not alerted to—measurably increased civic engagement and voter turnout.

    • CMD Asks for Federal Criminal Investigation of Wisconsin Club for Growth

      The Center for Media and Democracy has asked Wisconsin’s U.S. Attorneys to investigate Wisconsin Club for Growth for allegedly making false statements on tax filings and conspiring to defraud the United States, federal crimes arising from WiCFG claiming to spend $0 in political activity in 2011 and 2012 while spending almost $20 million influencing elections.

  • Censorship

  • Privacy

    • Ex-spy teaching espionage at A&M’s Bush school

      Tenet had a request from former President George H.W. Bush, who served as CIA director from 1976 to 1977. Olson says Bush was always a “strong advocate” of intelligence, and wanted it to be taught at A&M’s new school of government and public service that bore his name. Olson’s move to Marquette was two weeks away, but the idea of “helping build a program of intelligence and national security” was too appealing, he said.

    • UK court backs security ban on anonymised telephone calls system

      A UK court has upheld the Government’s right to ban commercial marketing of a money-saving telephone service on security grounds because it could provide anonymity for callers. The service uses “GSM gateways” that can reduce call charges by rerouting calls through mobile phone SIM cards – but it also allows users to make anonymous calls, potentially avoiding government surveillance.

      The Court of Appeal refused to award companies damages for a government licensing system that in effect bans the GSM gateway services they offered and largely halted their business.

    • What We Can Learn From The Adobe E-Reader Mess

      Earlier this month we wrote about potential malicious behavior in Adobe’s e-reader software, “Digital Editions.” There were several independent reports claiming that Adobe’s software was sending back to Adobe–in the clear–a list of books read in the software. There were also independent reports that the program was sending back lists of books on an attached e-reader, even if those books had never been opened in ADE itself – in other words, collecting information not just about the book you are reading now, but your electronic library.

    • Facebook, hidden services, and https certs

      In terms of both design and security, hidden services still need some love. We have plans for improved designs (see Tor proposal 224) but we don’t have enough funding and developers to make it happen. We’ve been talking to some Facebook engineers this week about hidden service reliability and scalability, and we’re excited that Facebook is thinking of putting development effort into helping improve hidden services.

    • Taunton Students Suspended After Posing With Airsoft Rifles On Facebook

      Two high school students in Taunton have been suspended after they posted a photo of themselves holding Airsoft rifles. Thousands of people have leapt to their defense online, but their school isn’t backing down.

      The Airsoft rifles look dangerous, but they shoot plastic pellets. Tito Velez, 15, often competes with a team as a hobby.

    • NSA Phone Surveillance Faces Fresh Court Test

      The National Security Agency’s collection of Americans’ phone records will face a fresh test this coming week when a Washington, D.C., appeals-court panel hears arguments over the surveillance program.

    • Brazil Builds Internet Cable To Portugal To Avoid NSA Surveillance

      Brazil is building a cable across the Atlantic to escape the reach of the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA). The move is one of many ways the Brazilian government is breaking ties with American technology companies — but it won’t come cheap.

    • Obama congratulates Brazil president (and NSA critic)
    • Focus on NSA Surveillance Limits Turns to Courts

      While Congress mulls how to curtail the NSA’s collection of Americans’ telephone records, impatient civil liberties groups are looking to legal challenges already underway in the courts to limit government surveillance powers.

    • U.S. Rep. Holt discusses NSA spying, Ebola quarantine at ACLU forum in Princeton

      With little more than two months before he closes the book on a 16-year Congressional career, U.S. Rep. Rush Holt (D-12th Dist.) discussed the challenges in store when it comes to preserving civil liberties in the 21st century.

    • In NSA Bills, the Devil Is in the Details

      This is a longstanding issue that’s been brought up by lots of people lots of times. It’s not some minor subtlety. If the government decides to look for “all calls from the 213 area code,” that’s not necessarily bulk collection even though it would amass millions of records. It would be up to a judge to decide.

      [...]

      If and when we get close to Congress actually considering bills to rein in the NSA—about which I’m only modestly optimistic in the first place—this is going to be a key thing to keep an eye on. As the ACLU and the EFF and others keep reminding us, reining in the NSA isn’t a simple matter of “ending” their bulk collection program. The devil is truly in the details, and tiny changes in wording can literally mean the difference between something that works and something that’s useless. Or maybe even worse than useless. As Pohlman points out, if you choose the right words, the NSA could end up having a freer hand than they do today. This is something to pay close attention to.

    • NSA-APPROVED SAMSUNG KNOX STORES PINS IN PLAINTEXT
    • Before the NSA, there was the USPS

      That man, Leslie James Pickering, is a bookstore owner in Buffalo. More than a decade ago, however, Pickering was formerly a spokesman for the Earth Liberation Front, an environmental group deemed “eco-terrorists” by the FBI—and the presumed cause of his surveillance.

    • Fascism, American-Style

      On November 4, 1952 the NSA was created by a Presidential Executive Order signed by then president Harry Truman. Earlier that year, in January 1952, Truman’s state of the union address focused on the Korean War, the global Soviet-Communist threat, the “Iran oil situation”, and the need to increase the production of US military equipment for use by American forces, and for transfer to Western European Allies. Truman called on Americans to seek guidance in the God of Peace even as a brutal shadow war was being waged by the United States to eliminate popularly elected “leftist” governments.

    • Pentagon’s plans for a spy service to rival the CIA have been pared back

      The Pentagon has scaled back its plan to assemble an overseas spy service that could have rivaled the CIA in size, backing away from a project that faced opposition from lawmakers who questioned its purpose and cost, current and former U.S. officials said.

    • Does the CIA want Republicans to win the midterms?

      Will we ever see the Senate’s 6,000 page report on CIA torture without someone leaking it? A leak always been the most likely resolution for the transparency-seeking public, but, in this case, it’s increasingly looking like the only one.

    • If the Republicans Win Big on Tuesday, So Will the CIA
    • You’ll Probably Never Know Why The CIA Spied On The Senate

      The document is known as the “Panetta Review,” and senators contend it backs up damning conclusions in their still-classified report on the CIA’s post-9/11 enhanced interrogation program. Senate investigators uncovered the internal CIA document in their years-long probe, and the agency was so concerned that it alleged the investigators had broken the law in obtaining the review. CIA agents, in turn, searched Senate computers.

    • EFF files brief in response to Jewel v. NSA opposition

      The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) filed a new brief in response to a government opposition against a summary judgment motion.

    • Obama appeals ruling on NSA disclosure

      Not satisfied with a Bay Area judge’s ruling that allowed the government to withhold a series of documents about its telephone surveillance program, the Obama administration filed an appeal Monday over the one document that the judge ordered disclosed.

    • The NSA’s culture of paternalism must be fixed

      Not only did this explanation finally clarify what had previously been to me a very confusing idea, it also confirmed what I had already come to suspect: namely, that high-ranking officials from the NSA possess a paternalistic and condescending attitude toward the American people. The fundamental premise of Hayden’s argument is that the American people are like children, who must not only be protected from external threats, but also from themselves.

    • Former NSA Official Warns Companies Against Cyber-Retaliation or ‘Hacking Back’

      Private companies should not use the law of talion, taking revenge over the entities, which are suspected to be hacking them, warned Joel Brenner, a former senior counsel at the NSA and and head of US counterintelligence under the Director of National Intelligence.

    • Does Hillary Clinton Oppose NSA Spying? Nobody Knows (Except Maybe the NSA)

      National Journal raises an interesting question about the presumed candidacy of Hillary Clinton: Where does she fall on NSA spying and the mass surveillance state?

    • Members of the Deep State exchange high-fives, celebrating our passivity

      On 6 June 2013 the Guardian and Washington Post published the first in the latest round of revelations about the NSA’s surveillance programs. Amidst the outpouring of brave rhetoric about the need to change, I predicted that nothing would happen. Rather, our passivity would encourage the leaders of the national security state (aka the Deep State). After 17 months it’s clear I was right

  • Civil Rights

  • Internet/Net Neutrality

    • Mobile Providers: No One Has Complained* About Our Service, So Net Neutrality Shouldn’t Apply To Us

      As we’ve pointed out in the past, the wireless providers, led by lobbying group CTIA, are desperate not to have the FCC include wireless broadband in whatever new net neutrality/open internet rules it releases. However, Tom Wheeler has been hinting that he’s had enough of wireless providers screwing over the American public. The head of CTIA, Meredith Attwell Baker (famous for jumping from an FCC commissioner job to head Comcast lobbyist just months after she approved Comcast’s merger with NBC Universal), has written an absolutely hilarious opinion piece at Wireless Week insisting that everyone loves their wireless providers, so there’s no need whatsoever to apply any net neutrality rules.

    • Does the FCC really not get it about the Internet?

      [I am posting below a short essay by my friend and colleague Brett Frischmann of Cardozo Law School concerning the “net neutrality” rules now being considered by the FCC. I’ve stayed largely away from the whole net neutrality debate over the years — too much inside [FCC] baseball for my taste — but Brett’s been in the middle of it for some time, and I think he draws attention below to a simple, but very profound, problem at the heart of the approach the agency is taking: the distinction it is drawing between “edge providers” (suppliers of content) and “end users” (recipients of content). One can hardly imagine a more inappropriate distinction one could draw on the Internet that we now have, so much of whose power has come from its “end-to-end” design: all senders are recipients, all recipients are senders, and all IP addresses are equal. But I’ll let Brett fill in more of the details./DGP]

    • FCC chief set for panto horse net neutrality settlement

      THE NET NEUTRALITY DEBATE looks set to be settled soon with a neither-fish-nor-flesh solution designed to appease everyone and please no one.

      According to sources close to Tim Wheeler, chairman of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), and chief architect of the deal that no one wants except the cable industry, the Shill in Chief is expected to announce that the FCC will take on greater responsibility for broadband management.

    • Net Neutrality May Extend Phone Regulations to Broadband

      Public advocacy groups said they are making progress in talks with U.S. regulators to apply utility-style rules to ensure broadband providers treat Web traffic fairly.

      “The baseline of what we can expect has gone up,” Chris Riley, senior policy engineer with browser maker Mozilla, said in a blog post yesterday. Likely outcomes are that the Federal Communications Commission will use powers crafted last century for telephone companies to devise net neutrality rules, he said.

  • Intellectual Monopolies

10.31.14

Links 31/10/2014: Rubin Leaves Google, Neelie Kroes Ends EU Career

Posted in News Roundup at 5:33 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

GNOME bluefish

Contents

GNU/Linux

  • Sad News! ;-)

    So, XP is dead, “7” is dying, “8” is a zombie, and “10” is vapourware with nowhere to call home. M$ continues layoffs. POOF! It all falls down. In the meantime Google and the OEMs will crank out many millions of ChromeBooks. Canonical, Linpus, RedHat, Suse… and the OEMs will crank out many millions of GNU/Linux PCs. Several OEMs will crank out many millions of GNU/Linux thin clients. Android/Linux will reverberate with another billion or so units of small cheap computers(tablets, smartphones). This looks like good news to me.

  • Desktop

  • Server

  • Kernel Space

  • Applications

  • Desktop Environments/WMs

    • Desktop Linux users beware: the boss thinks you need to be managed

      Desktop Linux users beware: IT has noticed you and decided it;s time you were properly managed.

      So says VMware, which yesterday at its vForum event in China let it be know that it will deliver a desktop virtualisation (VDI) solution for Linux desktops.

    • K Desktop Environment/KDE SC/Qt

      • Window and Desktop Switcher moved to Look’n’Feel Package

        Today we did an important change in how KWin will distribute its assets in the upcoming 5.2 release. When we started our thoughts about the Look’n’Feel Package and how we want to have meta themes for the complete Plasma workspace we also wanted to have this for the Window and Desktop switcher provided by KWin. So the structure of the Look’n’Feel Package already has all the pieces for including the Window and Desktop Switcher, but it was not used. Now we finally addressed this for the 5.2 release and moved the default switcher into the Look’n’Feel Package and KWin can locate the switchers from the Look’n’Feel Package.

    • GNOME Desktop/GTK

      • GTK+ 3.16′s New GtkGLArea Widget Gets Improved

        Earlier this month GTK+ 3.16 development code gained native OpenGL support. This GTK+ OpenGL support involved adding support for wrapping an OpenGL context for native windows with GLX on X11 and EGL on Wayland to use OpenGL to paint everything. A GtkGLArea widget was also added for providing OpenGL drawing access within GTK+ applications. The GtkGLArea has already seen some more improvements to better GTK’s OpenGL support.

      • Recent improvements in libnice

        For the past several months, Olivier Crête and I have been working on a project using libnice at Collabora, which is now coming to a close. Through the project we’ve managed to add a number of large, new features to libnice, and implement hundreds (no exaggeration) of cleanups and bug fixes. All of this work was done upstream, and is available in libnice 0.1.8, released recently! GLib has also gained a number of networking fixes, API additions and documentation improvements.

  • Distributions

    • Reviews

      • Quick Look: Puppy Linux 6.0

        Puppy Linux 6.0 is a lightweight Linux distribution that can easily be run off a USB stick, SD card or live disc. This version has been dubbed “Tahrpup” by the Puppy Linux developers, and it is based on Ubuntu 14.04. It also uses Linux kernel 3.14.20.

      • Security-Minded Qubes OS Will Satisfy Your Yen for Xen

        It has advanced far beyond the primitive proof of concept demonstrated more than four years ago. Release 2 (beta), which arrived in late September, is a powerful desktop OS.

        Qubes succeeds in seamless integrating security by isolation into the user experience. However, comparing Qubes to a typical Linux distro is akin to comparing the Linux OS to Unix.

    • New Releases

      • Black Lab Education Desktop 6.0.1 to Be Supported Until 2022

        There are numerous Linux distributions that are oriented towards education, but you can never have too many in a domain such as this one. It’s based on the Black Lab Professional Desktop, which is a very good and powerful solution. Interestingly enough, Black Lab Linux is actually based on Ubuntu, and the latest one uses the 14.04.1 base (Trusty Tahr).

    • Arch Family

    • Red Hat Family

    • Debian Family

      • Derivatives

        • Canonical/Ubuntu

          • Atom-based Ubuntu Touch tablet specs leaked

            Specs have been leaked for a 10.1-inch Ubuntu Touch tablet called “UT One” that runs on an Intel Atom Z3735D SoC, with shipments expected in December.

          • The Wide World of Canonical

            I thought perhaps it was a one-off mistake made by a marketing department flunky who perhaps had too much Red Bull while writing a press release. Being the responsible company that Canonical/Ubuntu is, and being the good FOSS community member that it portrays itself to be, I assumed they’d fix the error right away and make sure that ludicrous hyperbole was not the order of the day.
            Would that be asking too much?

            Perhaps. Sadly, a company that claims to be a FOSS leader can’t be bothered with getting simple facts correct. An ad on LinkedIn posted a week ago today makes the same claim for a job in London. You can click on the photo to the right and read, “It is used by over 20 million people in 240 countries in 80 languages.”

          • NVIDIA’s Linux Driver On Ubuntu 14.10 Can Deliver Better OpenGL Performance Than Windows 8.1

            The same Intel Core i7 4770K system used for yesterday’s Windows vs. Linux graphics benchmarks were used when benchmarking the GeForce GTX 780 Ti, 970, and 980 graphics cards. Windows 8.1 Pro x64 had all available system updates at the time and was running the NVIDIA 344.48 WHQL binary driver that was their latest release at the time of testing. When running Ubuntu 14.10 x86_64 on the system with its Linux 3.16 kernel, the NVIDIA 343.22 driver was used. The 343.22 driver was the latest publicly available proprietary Linux driver at the time of testing and their first to support the GTX 970/980 under Linux. All of the same hardware was used under each operating system and each OS was with its software default settings as were the driver settings.

          • The First Vivid-Based Ubuntu Touch Image Has Been Released

            As I have previously announced, the Ubuntu Touch development branch is based on Ubuntu 15.04 Vivid Vervet, while the Ubuntu RTM branch is still using Ubuntu 14.10 Utopic Unicorn as code base, because it has already received stability improvements and will by default on the first Ubuntu powered Meizu phone. Currently, all the new features are implemented on the Ubuntu-Devel branch, the RTM one receiving only fixes.

  • Devices/Embedded

    • Linux accessory adds web access to dumb cameras

      Lumera Labs is aiming to Kickstarter an open source Linux camera attachment for one-click transfers to the cloud via WiFi, plus GPS tagging, HDR, and 3D.

    • Phones

      • Tizen

      • Android

        • Google’s surprise Nexus 6 preorders anger some Android users

          The Nexus 6 is Google’s biggest phone, and judging by the initial reaction from Android users, it may end up being its best-selling phone ever. Creating the Nexus 6 was a bold move by Google and it has resulted in pandemonium as Google’s initial supplies of the phone were quickly depleted by enthusiastic buyers. However, Google gave no warning about Nexus 6 preorders and that has angered some Android users who tried to buy it.

        • Nexus 6 Pre-Orders Were A Joke

          Today, the Nexus 6 went up for pre-order on the Google Play Store for a grand total of five minutes by my count. No warning, no announcements, no broadcasts from the Nexus Twitter account, no excitement from Sundar Pichai or any other Android leaders, nothing. I, like many of you, had no idea that pre-orders had even started. And by the time I tried to go order, it was too late. Sold out, gone. Nexus 4 all over again.

        • Download APKs From Google Play To Your Computer With Google Play Downloader

          Google Play Downloader is a simple open source application which can be used to download APKs from Google Play to your computer.

        • Android creator Andy Rubin is leaving Google

          The move is, perhaps, not a total surprise. Last March, Rubin left the Android group and was replaced by Sundar Pichai. His latest project, as detailed in a lengthy New York Times report in December, was creating robots for a project outside of the company’s Google X lab, something that dovetailed with Google’s shopping spree of robotics companies. In 2012, there were also rumors abound that Rubin planned to leave for a stealth-mode startup called CloudCar, though they were vehemently denied.

Free Software/Open Source

  • We All Work For Open Source Companies Now

    But here’s another, equally salient fact: Every company on the planet must embrace open source to varying degrees, including vendors that make their money selling proprietary software or services.

  • New Projects from the Ever-Protean World of Open Source

    In my previous column, I pointed out that free software was now so successful, and in so many fields, that people might wonder whether there’s anything left to do. The question was rhetorical, of course, of course: the ingenuity of the open source community means that people there will always find new and exciting projects. And not just the big one that I suggested of baking strong crypto into all our communication tools. There are countless other novel uses for open source, as these three very different examples below indicate.

  • Events

    • Ohio LinuxFest 2014 – A Look At Tomorrow

      I went to the Ohio Linux Fest this year to give the closing keynote address to somewhere around 300 folks. And trust me…this will show up later so you’ll know what I mean…the last two minutes of my keynote were the best part. Wait for it…soon.

  • SaaS/Big Data

    • Simplifying application development in the cloud

      Everett is also a core contributor to the Apache jclouds project, an open source tool designed to make it easier for developers to build applications which are able to reap the benefits of cloud computing while being agnostic to which cloud infrastructure project lies underneath.

    • PLUMgrid Delivers Suite of Tools for OpenStack Clouds

      This week, PLUMgrid, which specializes in virtual network infrastructure for OpenStack cloud deployments, announced the availability of its Open Networking Suite (ONS) version 2.0 with expanded support for OpenStack distributions and network functions. The company claims that “PLUMgrid ONS for OpenStack is the industry’s first software-only virtual networking suite that provides terabits of scale out performance, production-grade resiliency, and secure multi-tenancy for businesses to build agile cloud networks.”

  • CMS

    • Boycott Linux, Fedora Beta a Go, and Drupal Yikes

      The top story tonight is a highly critical flaw in Drupal 7 that may have allowed a lot of compromised websites. At tonight’s Go/No-Go meeting, Fedora 21 Beta was approved for next week. The folks at ROSA have released an LXDE version and LibreOffices 4.3.3 and 4.2.7 were released. Red Hat Software Collections 1.2 was released and Jack Wallen looks at the “science behind Ubuntu Unity’s popularity.”

    • Drupal Hack & WordPress Users

      The current situation being faced by Drupal users is evidence of just how determined the black hats are in their quest to find vulnerable sites and exploit them. According to Drupal, “Automated attacks began compromising Drupal 7 websites that were not patched or updated to Drupal 7.32 within hours of the announcement of” the vulnerability. On any site on any platform, paying attention to security is just as important as paying attention to content.

    • What you need to know about the Drupal vulnerability CVE-2014-3704

      For those that fall into the affected category we’re looking at 264,265 live sites that are currently running Drupal version 7, as a CMS at least, as of this writing. The advisory outlining this problem was originally posted on October 15th, 2014. Within 7 hours there were multiple exploits circulating in the wild. A safe assumption that if you are running an affected version that you were compromised unless you managed to have your site updated or patched before Oct 15th, 11pm UTC.

    • Drupal Users Had Seven Hours to Patch or Be Hacked

      Whenever a security exploit is fixed, users are advised to patch quickly to reduce the risk of attack. In the case of a recent open-source Drupal content management system (CMS) vulnerability, the window in which users needed to patch before being exploited has been quantified as being only seven hours.

  • Healthcare

    • How to train your doctor… to use open source

      The federal hospitals are running a system that was released in to the public domain called VistA, written in MUMPS. This is the same language that the $100 million software is written in! Except there is a huge difference in price. OSEHRA was founded to protect this software.

  • FSF/FSFE/GNU/SFLC

  • Openness/Sharing

  • Programming

    • Go 1.4 Beta Release Brings Big Runtime Changes

      Google’s Go language implementation is now in beta for the upcoming 1.4 major release.

      Go 1.4 is bringing Android ARM support, NaCL on ARM support, big changes to the Go runtime, minor performance improvements, changes to Go’s existing libraries, and a ton of other improvements.

    • Rocker: Run R in Docker containers

      Rocker is hosted on GitHub, with three containers already available in the repository – r-base, r-devel and rstudio. The last container (rstudio) provides R and an instance of RStudio Server. RStudio is an integrated development environment (IDE) for R.

  • Standards/Consortia

    • W3C Declares HTML5 Standard Complete

      More than four years ago, Steve Jobs declared war on Flash and heralded HTML5 as the way to go. You could be forgiven if you thought the HTML5 standard — the follow-up to 1997’s HTML 4 — has long been set in stone, given that developers, browser vendors and the press have been talking about it for years now. In reality, however, HTML5 was still in flux — until today. The W3C today published its Recommendation of HTML5 — the final version of the standard after years of adding features and making changes to it.

Leftovers

  • Farewell from Neelie Kroes

    Today is my last day in office at the European Commission.

    Over the years, I have met a lot of people – people who have inspired, encouraged, and energised.

    In fact over 5 years in digital policy there have almost been too many to thank. But that is what I would like to today.

  • Security

    • Google Accounts Now Support Security Keys

      People who use Gmail and other Google services now have an extra layer of security available when logging into Google accounts. The company today incorporated into these services the open Universal 2nd Factor (U2F) standard, a physical USB-based second factor sign-in component that only works after verifying the login site is truly a Google site.

    • Friday’s security updates
    • More Failures Of The Wintel Monopoly

      Of course, this damage could have been mitigated by promptly patching when M$ releases their “Patch Tuesday” updates or sooner in an emergency. That’s the point. Consumers are not IT-people. They don’t know about this stuff. They just know about the speed and convenience of PCs on the web. That other OS is supposed to be “easy to use” but that’s just PR in the ads. It’s also easy to lose all security, have the system slow to a halt or crash. Sometimes, M$ gets it wrong and the patches don’t work. Consumers eventually buy another machine or take the box in for repairs to get it working again.

      [...]

      Of course, one should patch GNU/Linux systems too, but they do very well unpatched. The great beauty of GNU/Linux for consumers is that there are hundreds of distros and the typical malware-artist can’t hack them all simultaneously whereas “the monopoly” is a single big fat target. So, better code, fewer malwares and diversity all work together to protect consumers whereas the salesmen running M$ seek to make life “easy” for both consumers and malware-writers. I choose freedom. I use Debian GNU/Linux.

  • Defence/Police/Secrecy/Aggression

    • The Ottawa Shootings — my RT interview

      Yes­ter­day I was asked to do an inter­view on RT in the imme­di­ate after­math of the Ott­awa shoot­ings. As I said, there needs to be a full forensic invest­ig­a­tion, and I would hope that the gov­ern­ment does not use this ter­rible crime as a pre­text for yet fur­ther erosion of con­sti­tu­tional rights and civil liber­ties. Calm heads and the rule of law need to pre­vail.

    • The war on drugs funds terrorism

      Here is a short excerpt from a panel dis­cus­sion I took part in after the Lon­don première of the new cult anti-prohibition film, “The Cul­ture High”. This is an amaz­ing film that pulls together so many big issues around the failed global 50 year policy of the war on drugs. I ser­i­ously recom­mend watch­ing it.

  • PR/AstroTurf/Lobbying

    • ALEC Tampers with Wisconsin Constitution

      On November 4, Wisconsin voters will decide if the state constitution should be amended to require that “revenues generated by use of the state transportation system be deposited into a transportation fund administered by a department of transportation for the exclusive purpose of funding Wisconsin’s transportation systems and to prohibit any transfers or lapses from this fund.” The ballot measure reflects model legislation pushed by the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) that is intended to prioritize road funding over all other types of transportation spending.

    • Media Cry Foul When Democrats Talk About Race

      epublicans are accusing Democrats of race-baiting? It sounds like the Times’ Jeremy Peters is making that accusation–isn’t that what “race-baiting” means, to “play on fears” with “racially charged messages”?

    • Rick Berman Exposed in New Audio; Hear His Tactics against Environmentalists and Workers Rights

      Rick Berman, the king of corporate front groups and propaganda, has been caught on tape detailing his attacks on public interest groups in the labor and environmental movements, including on efforts to increase the minimum wage for workers.

      As noted in a new story by Eric Lipton at The New York Times, Berman met with energy company executives at the posh Broadmoor Hotel earlier this year to raise money from them to attack groups representing citizens concerned about clean water, clean air, and the future of the planet. But Berman’s “win ugly” tactics apparently did not persuade all of his prospective clients for his lucrative business of creating tax-exempt non-profit front groups that then contract with his for-profit PR firm to give corporations cover for his attacks on their opponents. The way Berman profits from this arrangement has spawned a legal complaint to the IRS.

      An audio tape of Berman and his associate, Jack Hubbard, has been provided by a person at the Broadmoor event to the Center for Media and Democracy, which publishes PRWatch and has long tracked Berman’s deceptive PR operations.

    • Journalists need a point of view if they want to stay relevant

      If extreme polarization is now an enduring feature of American politics — not just a bug — how does that change the game for journalists? I have some ideas, but mainly I want to put that question on the table. “Conflict makes news,” it is often said. But when gridlock becomes the norm the conflicts are endless, infinite, predictable and just plain dull: in a way, the opposite of news. This dynamic has already ruined the Sunday talk shows. Who can stand that spectacle anymore?

    • How Facebook Could End Up Controlling Everything You Watch and Read Online

      How many of you are reading this because of a link you clicked on Facebook? In the online publishing industry (which WIRED obviously is part of), Facebook’s influence on site traffic—and therefore ad revenue—is difficult to overstate. Over the past year especially, “the homepage is dead” has become a standard line among media pundits. And more than anything else, it’s Facebook that killed it.

      Given that links appear to be more clickable when shared on Facebook, online publishers have scrambled to become savvy gamers of Facebook’s News Feed, seeking to divine the secret rules that push some stories higher than others. But all this genuflection at the altar of Facebook’s algorithms may be but a prelude to a more fundamental shift in how content is produced, shared, and consumed online. Instead of going to all this trouble to get people to click a link on Facebook that takes them somewhere else, the future of Internet content may be a world in which no video, article, or cat GIF gallery lives outside of Facebook at all.

  • Censorship

    • BBC refuses to include Green party in general election TV leader debates

      The BBC has rejected a demand from the Green party to be included in the proposed TV leader election debates, saying that it, unlike Ukip, has not demonstrated any substantial increase in support.

      The broadcasters have proposed three debates, one including Ukip, the Liberal Democrats, Labour and the Conservatives, a second involving the Lib Dems, Labour and the Conservatives, and finally one between Ed Miliband and David Cameron.

      The Green Party was infuriated that they had been excluded and won support in online petitions.

  • Privacy

    • GCHQ views data without a warrant, government admits

      British intelligence services can access raw material collected in bulk by the NSA and other foreign spy agencies without a warrant, the government has confirmed for the first time.

      GCHQ’s secret “arrangements” for accessing bulk material are revealed in documents submitted to the Investigatory Powers Tribunal, the UK surveillance watchdog, in response to a joint legal challenge by Privacy International, Liberty and Amnesty International. The legal action was launched in the wake of the Edward Snowden revelations published by the Guardian and other news organisations last year.

    • More RIPA Revelations

      Yet more evidence has come to light to show that the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000 (RIPA) is woefully out of date.

      It has been revealed that GCHQ, has the ability to request large amounts of un-analysed communications from foreign intelligence agencies without first obtaining a warrant. The documents, obtained in the course of a case brought before the Investigatory Powers Tribunal (IPT), show that the use of a warrant was not necessary if it is “not technically feasible” for GCHQ to obtain one.

    • Sony Xperia devices are sendng your data to China

      If you are using a Sony Xperia device running either Android 4.4.2 or 4.4.4 it’s advised (by me) that you install a custom ROM on your device. Several reports have appeared online that the stock firmware on these devices contains Baidu spyware that is discreetly sending data back to servers in China, you do not need to have installed any software on your phone as it’s bundled into the firmware.

    • Congress Still Has No Idea How Much the NSA Spies on Americans

      Adequate oversight is impossible when even diligent members of the Senate Intelligence Committee can’t get basic facts about surveillance.

    • 49 Orgs Call on Congress to Restore Whistleblower Rights for Intelligence Contractors

      Congress should quickly restore whistleblower rights for government contractors who work in the intelligence community (IC), 49 ideologically diverse organizations and the Make It Safe Coalition told lawmakers in a letter today.

    • Liberty exposes secret links between GCHQ and the NSA
    • The NSA Scandal May Have Just Gotten Even Worse

      The National Security Agency might not have only collected personal information belonging to millions of Americans. It may very well have shared it too – with at least one foreign government.

      A report released yesterday by the U.K.-based human rights organization Liberty reveals Britain’s intelligence agencies can access information which the NSA has already collected whenever and wherever it wants – and without a warrant.

    • Brazil-to-Portugal Cable Shapes Up as Anti-NSA Case Study

      Brazil is planning a $185 million project to lay fiber-optic cable across the Atlantic Ocean, which could entail buying gear from multiple vendors. What it won’t need: U.S.-made technology.

    • Brazil greenlights $200m internet cable to Europe in bid to outfox NSA

      Brazil is moving ahead with plans to build an “anti-NSA” internet cable to Europe, even though it won’t make the slightest difference to spying efforts.

      Francisco Ziober Filho, president of state-run telecoms company Telebras, announced earlier this week that the company will form a joint venture with Spain’s IslaLink to run the submarine connection between Fortaleza at the northern tip of Brazil and Lisbon, Portugal. Filho also strongly suggested that the cable will not include any equipment from US manufacturers – take that, NSA.

      Despite the rhetoric, however, one expert in cable infrastructure told The Register that not only does the cable not make economic sense but it amounts to little more than “a $185m propaganda statement” on the part of Brazilian president Dilma Rousseff.

    • How NSA Director Wants to Build an IoT Security Coalition

      Admiral Michael Rogers is preparing a coalition of government, military and commercial interests to fight a global cyber war if necessary.

    • NSA chief calls for more “permeable” barrier between state and tech corporations

      In two speeches this month, US National Security Agency (NSA) Director Admiral Mike Rogers called for a further integration between the NSA and major technology and communications companies.

    • National Journal: NSA Outsources Surveillance of Americans to British Intelligence
    • A Secret Policy Lets the UK Suck Up Any Bulk NSA Data It Wants
    • Court: UK spies get bulk access to U.S.’s NSA data
    • GCHQ Can Access Raw Data From NSA Without a Warrant, Secret Policies Disclose
    • Comforting the NSA and Afflicting Its Dissenters

      No serious defense of the surveillance state can ignores its anti-democratic abuses, its lawbreaking, and its record of punishing whistleblowers.

    • FBI Seeks New Powers To Hack And Spy

      The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is seeking more powers to hack into a suspect computer no matter where it is located, and carry out surveillance.

    • New NSA Documents Shine More Light into Black Box of Executive Order 12333

      Today, we’re releasing a new set of documents concerning Executive Order 12333 that we — alongside the Media Freedom and Information Access Clinic at Yale Law School — obtained in an ongoing Freedom of Information Act lawsuit. EO 12333 hasn’t received much public attention to date, but the government’s prior disclosures in our suit have shown that the executive order in fact governs most of the NSA’s surveillance. In the NSA’s own words, EO 12333 is “the primary source of the NSA’s foreign intelligence-gathering authority.”

    • Cricket Revealed As Mobile ISP That Was Blocking Encrypted Emails

      A few weeks ago, we wrote about how VPN company Golden Frog had quietly revealed in an FCC filing that an unnamed mobile broadband provider had been (even more) quietly blocking people from sending encrypted emails — basically blocking users from making use of STARTTLS encryption. The Washington Post has now revealed that the mobile operator in question was Cricket — a subsidiary of AT&T, and that it stopped blocking such encryption a few days after our post was published.

    • Mobile ISP Cricket was thwarting encrypted emails, researchers find

      Some customers of popular prepaid-mobile company Cricket were unable to send or receive encrypted e-mails for many months, according to security researchers, raising concerns that consumers may find that protecting their privacy is not always in their hands.

    • Swedish regulator orders ISP to retain customer data despite death of EU directive

      The Swedish Telecoms Regulator PTS has threatened Kista-based ISP Bahnhof to continue storing records of its customer communications, even though the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) ruled the 2006 Data Retention Directive invalid [PDF] in April of this year.

    • Vermont’s Automatic License Plate Readers: 7.9 Million Plates Captured, Five Crimes Solved

      The sales pitch for automatic license plate readers is how great they are at helping cops solve crimes. From hunting down stolen cars to tracking pedophiles across jurisdictions, ALPRs supposedly make policing a breeze by gathering millions of time/date/location records every single day and making it all available to any law enforcement agency willing to buy the software and pay the licensing fees.

    • License Plate Scanners Raise Privacy Concerns, But Do They Help Police?

      Over the past five years, law enforcement agencies in Vermont have invested more than $1 million in technology that gathers millions of data points every year about the whereabouts of vehicles across the state.

    • Amazon-CIA $600 Million Deal Facing Scrutiny: “What’s the CIA Doing on Amazon’s Cloud?”

      A billboard challenging Amazon to fully disclose the terms of its $600 million contract to provide cloud computing services for the Central Intelligence Agency has been unveiled at a busy intersection near Amazon’s Seattle headquarters.

    • FBI’s Use Of ‘Sneak And Peek’ Warrants Still Steadily Increasing, Still Has Nearly Nothing To Do With Fighting Terrorism

      Another tool supposedly “crucial” to the War on Terror is just another lowly footsoldier in the War on Drugs. Some long-delayed reports on Section 213 “sneak and peek” warrants have finally been released by the US government, providing more detail on the constantly-expanding use of delayed-notification warrants by the FBI.

    • Government Authority Intended for Terrorism is Used for Other Purposes

      The Patriot Act continues to wreak its havoc on civil liberties. Section 213 was included in the Patriot Act over the protests of privacy advocates and granted law enforcement the power to conduct a search while delaying notice to the suspect of the search. Known as a “sneak and peek” warrant, law enforcement was adamant Section 213 was needed to protect against terrorism. But the latest government report detailing the numbers of “sneak and peek” warrants reveals that out of a total of over 11,000 sneak and peek requests, only 51 were used for terrorism. Yet again, terrorism concerns appear to be trampling our civil liberties.

  • Civil Rights

  • Internet/Net Neutrality

  • Intellectual Monopolies

    • New Zealand’s Trade Minister Admits They Keep TPP Documents Secret To Avoid ‘Public Debate’

      A couple years ago, then US Trade Representative Ron Kirk explained why the negotiating text of trade agreements like the TPP needed to be kept secret: because if the public debated it, the agreement probably wouldn’t be approved. He used, as an example, a failed trade agreement where the text had been public. Beyond the “small sample size” problem of this explanation, the much more troubling aspect is the obvious question of recognizing that if public debate would kill the agreement, perhaps it’s the agreement that’s the problem and not the public.

    • Response to EU Ombudsman’s Consultation on TTIP Transparency

      The EU Ombudsman is running a consultation on how to improve the transparency of the TTIP negotiations. This shouldn’t be hard, since there is currently vanishingly small openness about these secret talks.

    • Trademarks

      • Pizzeria Attempts To Trademark The Flavor Of Pizza. Yes, Seriously.

        Trademark, while generally one of the better forms of intellectual property as used in practice and in purpose, can certainly still be abused. It can also fall victim to an ever-growing ownership culture that seems to have invaded the American mind like some kind of brain-eating amoeba. And that’s how we’ve arrived here today, a day in which I get to tell you about how there is currently a trademark dispute over the flavor of pizza.

    • Copyrights

10.30.14

Links 30/10/2014: GNOME 3.15.1, Red Hat Software Collections 1.2

Posted in News Roundup at 5:37 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

GNOME bluefish

Contents

GNU/Linux

  • Desktop

    • China will upgrade all PCs to Linux by 2020

      China have announced a new time frame in which they will move to a new operating system. It will consist of 15% of government computers being switched to Linux per year. The report by Ni Guangnan outlining the transition won government approval and by 2020 the Chinese Government’s transition to Linux should be complete.

    • Things I Do in Windows When I Forget It’s Not Linux

      Many Linux users out there dual-boot with a Windows system, or they just use the two operating systems separately. An interesting thing happens when you’re in Windows and you try to do something that you think is normal, but that feature doesn’t exist.

  • Server

    • Weapons of MaaS Deployment

      I’ve been researching OpenStack deployment methods lately and so when I got an email from Canonical inviting me to check out how they deploy OpenStack using their Metal as a Service (MaaS) software on their fantastic Orange Box demo platform I jumped at the opportunity. While I was already somewhat familiar with MaaS and Juju from research for my Official Ubuntu Server Book, I’d never seen it in action at this scale. Plus a chance to see the Orange Box–a ten-server computing cluster and network stack that fits in a box about the size of a old desktop computer–was not something I could pass up.

  • Audiocasts/Shows

  • Kernel Space

    • Linux Kernel Finally Being Optimized For SSHDs

      The Linux kernel is finally being optimized for use of solid-state hybrid drives (SSHDs) that follow the ATA 3.2 standard.

    • Video: KvmGT – GPU Virtualization for KVM

      Here is a video I’ve been waiting for by Jike Song from Intel. The KVM Forum 2014 was held in conjunction with the recent LinuxCon Europe and someone (from the Linux Foundation or the KVM Forum) has been processing and posting presentation videos to YouTube in a staggered fashion. About 13 hours ago this video appeared. When I noticed the topic on the KVM Forum schedule (along with the slide deck [PDF]) a week or two before the event, I was really looking forward to learning more.

    • Conspirationist Website Wants People to Boycott Linux and Use Minix

      This is not the first initiative of its kind. In fact, a similar website was released just a couple of weeks ago, asking users to support forking Debian because it adopted systemd. Now, the Linux kernel is the target and the website claims to be the work of multiple users (developers?).

    • Ease your kernel tracing struggle with LTTng Addons

      If you are new to Linux tracing and/or LTTng, go no further. Head on to the new and awesome LTTng Docs to know what this stuff is all about. I wrote an article on basics of LTTng and then followed it up with some more stuff a few month back too.

    • Graphics Stack

      • GLAMOR Acceleration Continues To Be Cleaned Up

        Now that X.Org Server 1.17 RC1 has been released with a focus on improving GLAMOR and integrating the xf86-video-intel DDX, Keith Packard has written a blog post about the work that has gone on so far since GLAMOR’s inception for optimizing and cleaning up this 2D-over-OpenGL acceleration method.

    • Benchmarks

      • Windows 8.1 vs. Ubuntu 14.10 With Intel HD Graphics

        For those curious how the latest open-source Intel Linux graphics driver is performing against Intel’s newest closed-source Windows OpenGL driver, we’ve put Ubuntu 14.10 (including a second run with the latest Linux kernel / Mesa) against Microsoft Windows 8.1 with the newest Intel GPU driver released earlier this month.

  • Applications

  • Desktop Environments/WMs

  • Distributions

    • Ubuntu & SUSE & CentOS, Oh My!

      It’s Halloween week, and the big names in Linux are determined not to disappoint the trick-or-treaters. No less than three mainline distributions have released new versions this week, led by perennially-loved-and-hated crowd favourite Ubuntu.

      Ubuntu 14.10, better-known by its nom de womb “Utopic Unicorn”, hit the streets last Thursday. It appears to be a mostly update release, with more of the release announcement’s ink devoted to parent-company Canonical’s “Canonical Distribution of Ubuntu Openstack” than to Utopic’s “latest and greatest open source technologies”. Among those, the v3.16 kernel has been included, as well as updated versions of GTK, Qt, Firefox, LibreOffice, Juju, Docker, MAAS, and of course, Unity. Full details can be found in the official release notes.

    • New Releases

    • Screenshots

    • Ballnux/SUSE

      • SUSE Linux Enterprise 12 Is Released

        Enterprise users who rely on SUSE Linux now have access to a new and updated version of the platform: SUSE Linux Enterprise 12, announced Monday. SUSE says the key benefits this update offers to customers are increased uptime, improved operational efficiency and accelerated innovation.

      • Suse enterprise Linux can take your system back in time

        The newest enterprise edition of the Suse Linux distribution allows administrators to go back in time, for instance, to immediately before they made that fatal system-crippling mistake.

    • Red Hat Family

      • Red Hat Software Collections 1.2 Adds GCC 4.9, Nginx 1.6

        Red Hat has released their third update to their “Software Collections” that provide updated development tools/packages to RHEL6/RHEL7 users as an alternative to their default packages.

      • Red Hat Offers Startups a Free Cloud Platform

        Application testing and development has traditionally been one of the chief drivers of public cloud usage, as it presents extremely little real risk to a company. Because critical information — customer data, credit card numbers and so on — isn’t being stored, the benefits of cloud computing are more apparent and immediate. Now, Red Hat Inc. wants to make it’s even easier, by offering a version of its OpenShift platform specifically for software startups.

    • Debian Family

  • Devices/Embedded

    • ARM unveils toolkit for students learning how to program

      ARM has unveiled a toolkit for university students who wish to learn embedded systems design and programming.

    • Phones

      • Tizen

        • Cool Devices and Demos at Tizen Developer Summit Shanghai

          All around it was a great event, with additional keynotes from luminaries in the Chinese government and industry, sessions from Intel, Samsung, and the community, and a well-attended DevLab where attendees learned how to write and deploy their first wearable Tizen app. I spoke to one person who had written a complete sketchpad app in the 1.5 hour session, who had never used the Tizen wearable platform before. All around, we were very pleased with the event and the attendees were as well.

        • Samsung’s Gear S smartwatch coming to the US on November 7th

          Samsung’s Gear S smartwatch will launch in the United States on November 7th, the company announced today. All four major US carriers (Verizon, AT&T, Sprint, and T-Mobile) will carry the device, and you’ll also be able to purchase it from Samsung’s store-in-a-store shops at Best Buy locations across the US. The Gear S will be available in black or white, but Samsung’s not revealing any pricing details; it’s leaving that task to the carriers. Just don’t expect the Gear S, with its built-in cellular radio and curved OLED screen, to come cheap.

        • Samsung values your need for security and your input to Samsung KNOX

          Samsung as a company is not the most open at times, but they are trying to change their ways with Open Source initiatives within the company, and also them trying to take onboard Open Source projects like Tizen. It looks like the Samsung KNOX team also wants their customers, partners, and basically anyone to know that they value the quality of Samsung KNOX that they are offering, and welcome you to contact them regarding any concerns you might have or information you want to contact to share publicly or privately.

      • Android

        • Google’s new open source project lets developers add live YouTube streaming to their Android apps

          With the new YouTube WatchMe for Android project, developers can now integrate live streaming into their apps. Thanks to this new open source project, more third-party devs will be able to offer video streaming features similar to Sony’s Live on YouTube by – Xperia and HTC’s upcoming RE camera.

        • 35 Essential Android Apps for Daily Use

          This list of essential Android apps are the ones you must have apps you need every day. They help with email, weather, music, and handful of other essential tasks.

        • Windows Phone Shrinks In Android-Dominated Europe, As New iPhones Boost iOS’ Share

          Spare a thought for Microsoft, a relative newcomer to the mobile making business, after Redmond completed its $7.2BN+ acquisition of former European mobile making powerhouse Nokia earlier this year. If Microsoft was hoping to see quick marketshare wins in Europe once its hands were fully on the levers of production that has not come to pass.

        • Puppy Linux 6.0 Tahrpup CE released

          Puppy Linux has long been one of the more prominent lightweight Linux distributions. This time around it’s up to version 6.0 and it has been dubbed “Tahrpup” by the Puppy Linux developers. Puppy Linux 6.0 is based on Ubuntu 14.04 and uses Linux kernel 3.14.20.

        • KDBUS Submitted For Review To The Mainline Linux Kernel

          It looks like KDBUS, the Linux kernel D-Bus implementation, is posed to be added to the next kernel release after Greg Kroah-Hartman sent out its patches today.

        • Three great Android tools for Linux and Windows sysadmin

          Systems administration isn’t a simple job — and being able to respond to issues quickly is a definite plus. Not long ago, server problems meant receiving a phone alert followed by a trip to the data center to fix whatever was wrong. Today, having full-powered computers such as smartphones or tablets literally in your hand is a tremendous help when doing sysadmin. Load Android with a few key applications and you can remotely monitor servers and services, get alerts and warnings as they occur, and solve problems without any travel at all.

        • Android’s dominance in Europe crushes Windows Phone

          In today’s Android roundup: Windows Phone is in deep trouble in Europe as Android reigns supreme. Plus: LG sells 16.8 million Android phones, and Android 5.0 Lollipop’s security features

        • Watch a working Project Ara prototype demonstrated ahead of Spiral 2 reveal

          The engineers behind Project Ara are trying to make the last smartphone you’ll ever need. Their design for a modular device has users slotting components — a camera, extra storage space, a Wi-Fi connector — into their phones, as and when they need them. It’s an ambitious scheme, but engineers working at NK Labs in Boston have already produced a working prototype, which they showed off to modular smartphone evangelist Dave Hakkens during a recent visit.

Free Software/Open Source

  • Has the time come to rebrand open source?

    I wonder how many other businesses are experiencing the same problem. I’m keen to start a conversation about how others fair when selling FOSS solutions and whether its time to get together again and think again about a re-branding that will have my prospective customers asking, “OK tell us more” rather than “open sounds insecure”. To that end I would like to nominate a brand new name that I have seen used in FOSS communities as a suitable candidate… Community Software.

  • Elastix seeks LatAm open-source VoIP community
  • Vast majority of software developers now use open source, Forrester reports

    Both developers and organizations are adopting open-source software based on merit rather than ideology, according to the findings of the report. A full 80 percent of the more than 1,200 coders from tech firms and traditional companies that participated in the survey said they use free tools because they’re functionally superior to commercial alternatives in the same category, while 72 percent said the broad participation in open-source projects can make the code more secure.

  • This time it’s SO REAL: Overcoming the open-source orgasm myth with TODO

    What can the world learn from Google, Twitter and Facebook – apart from how to make millions through ads flinging? How to run a successful open-source project.

    The trio in September announced TODO, to make open-source project “easier.” Joining them are Dropbox and Box and code-site GitHub, payment providers Square and Stripe, US retailer WalMart Labs and a body called the Khan Academy.

  • Facebook, Google, and the Rise of Open Source Security Software

    Arpaia is a security engineer, but he’s not the kind who spends his days trying to break into computer software, hoping he can beat miscreants to the punch. As Sullivan describes him, he’s a “builder”—someone who creates new tools capable of better protecting our computer software—and that’s unusual. “You go to the security conferences, and it’s all about breaking things,” Sullivan says. “It’s not about building things.”

  • Facebook Builds Open-Source Osquery for Security Insight

    The tool is designed to expose what’s going on inside an OS. Osquery, Facebook’s new open-source framework, could give enterprises new security insight.

  • Events

  • Web Browsers

    • Mozilla

      • GPU Profiling Support Lands In Mozilla Firefox

        The built-in profiler for Mozilla’s Firefox web browser now has the ability to provide GPU profiling information.

        Mozilla graphics team has added GPU profiling support that so far will show how much GPU time is spent when compositing. The GPU profiling support has already proven useful for debugging issues and optimizing Firefox’s GPU usage.

      • Introducing SIMD.js

        SIMD.js will accelerate a wide range of demanding applications today, including games, video and audio manipulation, scientific simulations, and more, on the web. Applications will be able to use the SIMD.js API directly, libraries will be able to use SIMD.js to expose higher-level interfaces that applications can use, and Emscripten will compile C++ with popular SIMD idioms onto optimized SIMD.js code.

      • SIMD For JavaScript Continues Coming Along

        SIMD for JavaScript continues to be worked on by Mozilla, Google, Intel, and others for better accelerating particular workloads in the web.

  • SaaS/Big Data

    • Contributing effectively to OpenStack’s Neutron project

      Earlier this year, Kyle Mestery posted an article on his blog outlining some common misconceptions about contributing to the Neutron project and how to contribute effectively upstream. Kyle is a Principal Engineer at Cisco Systems where he works on OpenStack, OpenDaylight, and Open vSwitch. He is also Program Technical Lead (PTL) for the OpenStack Neutron project, the networking component of OpenStack handling the complex task of connecting machines in a virtual environment.

    • DreamHost Takes its OpenStack IaaS Platform Out of Beta Tests

      DreamHost has now taken its DreamCompute infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) OpenStack cloud platorm out of private beta testing. The company, with a platform that comes from the creators of Ceph, is set to compete with Amazon and other players in the cloud game.

    • This Polish startup aims to “do to open source what DigitalOcean did to SaaS”

      With almost 80,000 followers on Twitter and series A funding of $37.2 million in the bank, cloud hosting firm DigitalOcean is a suitable company to look up to for VirtKick.

  • Oracle/Java/LibreOffice

    • LibreOffice based document editor comes to the iPad

      LibreOffice is enjoying some serious adoption. CloudOn, a US-based company has launched a document editor for Apple’s iPad which is based of free and open source LibreOffice. The company says in a press statement that the app offers a, “…new experience for creating and editing mobile documents with a gesture-first doc editor that removes all the clutter, overload and lag of yesterday’s tools. Now people can intuitively create and collaborate on thoughts, ideas and information in ways that fits with the way they work.”

    • LibreOffice 4.3.3 Released with 62 Bug Fixes

      A new minor release of the hugely popular open-source office suite LibreOffice has been made available for immediate download.

  • Healthcare

    • PwC pitches open-source electronic health records

      According to PWC’s Dan Garrett, who heads the firm’s Health IT practice, the VistA solution makes sense in the short term because of existing interoperability between DOD and VA, and in the long term because the open architecture of VistA gives DOD the ability to modernize at its own pace.

  • Business

  • Funding

  • FSF/FSFE/GNU/SFLC

  • Public Services/Government

    • Paris extends smart city open source tools to region

      The French capital is pushing for the use of free and open source software solutions to extend its smart city project to the city region. Making databases and applications interoperable and creating smart city grids requires tools to be as open as possible, and the use of open source provides many advantages over proprietary tools, says the city’s Deputy Mayor Jean-Louis Missika.

  • Openness/Sharing

  • Programming

    • Job No. 1 In Open Source: Making Sure Others Can Understand Your Code

      While I’ve pointed out the importance of hiring exceptional writers to help craft and articulate meaningful stories about why a product matters, the reality is that strong writing skills matter just as much for developers as for marketers. In part this is a matter of developers doing a better job of marketing their projects to rally contributors, but it’s actually much more fundamental.

  • Standards/Consortia

    • The Failed Promise of HTML5

      The W3C announced this week that the HTML5 specification is now an official recommendation. While I was an avid supporter of the HTML5 effort in the early days, seven years ago, you can count me among those that aren’t all that excited by the W3Cs announcement.

      [...]

      As I see it, web standards are now evolving every six to eight weeks and the W3C is merely a bystander in the process.

Leftovers

  • Windows 7: Officially Dead This Week

    With no funeral, retrospectives, accolades, or notes of sadness, the Windows 7 era has come to an end.

  • Freedom Reaches Retail Shelves On Friday

    Perhaps freedom won’t turn on like the flick of a light-switch. It will be a gradual process that’s been going on for a while but it will be faster now. People I meet are still wondering what to do about XP. “7” or “8*” or Wintel are not on their radar any longer. They are thinking that if Android/Linux is what I like, why do retailers only offer Wintel on retail shelves? They are thinking that something must be available and they are finding GNU/Linux. On their own. That’s the game-changer. That’s the shift in mind-share.

  • Security

    • Security advisories for Thursday
    • Hackers breach some White House computers

      Hackers thought to be working for the Russian government breached the unclassified White House computer networks in recent weeks, sources said, resulting in temporary disruptions to some services while cybersecurity teams worked to contain the intrusion.

    • LAX flight delayed after WiFi hotspot name prompts concerns

      An American Airlines flight from Los Angeles International Airport to London was delayed Sunday after concerns over the name of a WiFi hotspot.

      A passenger saw the WiFi connection, named “Al-Quida Free Terror Nettwork,” and expressed concern to a flight attendant.

    • Stupid WiFi Hotspot Name Gets American Airlines Flight Grounded

      America: land of the ass coverage policy and home of “better safe than sorry.” Free and brave? Not so much. If anyone wants to know if the terrorists have won, here’s another one to file under “Exhibit A: Yes, At Least A Sizable Partial Victory.”

    • Hackers Are Using Gmail Drafts to Update Their Malware and Steal Data

      In his career-ending extramarital affair that came to light in 2012, General David Petraeus used a stealthy technique to communicate with his lover Paula Broadwell: the pair left messages for each other in the drafts folder of a shared Gmail account. Now hackers have learned the same trick. Only instead of a mistress, they’re sharing their love letters with data-stealing malware buried deep on a victim’s computer.

    • Security Specifications

      There are many potential sources for security specifications. Some of them are government standards. For example, in the United States, HIPAA, the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996, specifies requirements for administrative safeguards, physical safeguards, and technical safeguards of medical records and personally identifiable information. Anyone dealing with Protected Health Information must comply with HIPAA.

  • Defence/Police/Secrecy/Aggression

    • Drones posing global security issues

      To date, only the US, Britain and Israel have used armed drones in an overt, operational environment in which they killed opponents. But the reason why other nations have not used drones is political, not technological, for almost every government is developing an offensive UAV capability.

    • Bill to ban armed drones from N.J. skies advances in Legislature

      A bill that would criminalize the outfitting of drones with weapons was advanced by a state Assembly committee today.

      The bill, introduced in January, primarily limits the use of the unmanned aerial vehicles by law enforcement and fire departments to certain situations where search warrants have been obtained, or where there is a clear emergency, such as an Amber Alert or an active fire, according to the legislation.

    • DoD, Lockheed Shake On 29 F-35s; Price Drops 3.6%

      The eighth Low Rate Initial Production contract includes 19 F-35As, six F-35Bs and four F-35Cs. “It also provides for the production of the first two F-35As for Israel, the first four F-35As for Japan along with two F-35As for Norway and two F-35As for Italy. The United Kingdom will receive four F-35Bs. The contract also funds manufacturing-support equipment as well as ancillary mission equipment.”

    • Killer robots are here and we must stop them, expert says

      From “The Terminator” to the Avengers’ upcoming battle with Ultron, pop culture’s parade of killer robots has long expressed fears that modern technology’s marvels might turn against us.

      In fact, the killer robots are already here – in the form of military drones and missiles, for now – and so is a movement to ban them by such organizations as the Campaign to Stop Killer Robots. So says physicist Mark Gubrud, who appears tonight at a Georgia Peace and Justice Coalition meeting to speak about the “robot arms race” and the growing possibility of “robot armies fighting a war and humans playing no role.”

    • Elon Musk: ‘We are summoning the demon’ with artificial intelligence

      Elon Musk, a chief advocate of cars smart enough to park and drive themselves, continues to escalate his spooky speech when it comes to the next level of computation — the malicious potential of artificial intelligence continues to freak him out.

    • Rethinking a Negative Perception of Drones | Commentary

      We hear a lot about the nasty realities of modern drone usage — the targeted strikes that kill indiscriminately and the surveillance operations that concern privacy advocates. The side of the story we hear far less often is that of the large, military aircraft’s smaller brethren: the UAVs that have demonstrated significant advantages with disaster relief, search and rescue, conservation, forest fire detection and scientific research efforts. Unfortunately, myths persist publicly and in Congress there is no middle ground between libertarian-leaning privacy advocates who oppose drones and those who are in favor of them.

    • Drone deliberately flown at plane above Essex sparking terror fears

      A passenger plane was just 75ft from a mid-air crash with an unmanned drone, an official report has revealed.

      The quadcopter drone was deliberately flown towards the turbo-prop plane as it came into land, according to the co-pilot. He feared there was a high risk of a collision with the plane, which holds up to 74 passengers.

    • US drone strike kills five people in Pakistani tribal region

      A suspected US drone strike killed at least five militants in a Pakistani tribal region today, with local villagers saying the dead included a senior Arab commander.

    • What’s the cause of endless wars?

      Todd Chretien argues that the imperial state doesn’t just defend oil industry thieves, but the system of competitive capitalism worldwide–the so-called “free market.”

    • Students protest BAE’s ‘careers in killing’

      The Lancaster University Careers Fair was again the venue for a protest against the inclusion of BAE Systems. A Group of Lancaster University Students and activists staged a “die-in” at the careers fair in the university’s Great Hall this afternoon. The group lay on the floor to symbolise the death and destruction caused by arms manufacturer BAE Systems, who were represented at the fair.

    • Obama’s Hypocritical Crusade Against Extremism
    • US urges battle against IS to be waged online

      The US-led coalition has carried out fresh air strikes against jihadists in Syria and Iraq as Washington called for the battle against the Islamic State group to be taken to the Internet.

    • Video – Thales Watchkeeper UAV deployed to Afghanistan

      Since 25th September, the Thales Watchkeeper has been cutting its teeth in Afghanistan. From the British Army base in Helmand province, in the south of the country, the tactical UAV has conducted regular monitoring and reconnaissance missions to protect the estimated 10,000 British soldiers stationed there since 2001 as part of the International Security Assistance Force.

    • A sky full of drones

      Western enthusiasm for Malala Yousafzai overshadows the fact that western policies deny children in Pakistan their most basic rights. The short-term memory of the media cycle, coupled with political self-interest and selective attention continue to marginalise the trauma of CIA drones.

    • The Malala that they ignore

      The press pick and choose which of Malala’s messages are amplified ― and which are silenced. They can hardly get enough of her insistence on the importance of “the philosophy of nonviolence I have learned from Gandhi, Bacha Khan and Mother Teresa”.

      [...]

      In March last year, Malala sent this message to a congress of Pakistani Marxists: “First of all, I’d like to thank The Struggle and the IMT [International Marxist Tendency] for giving me a chance to speak last year at their Summer Marxist School in Swat and also for introducing me to Marxism and socialism.

      [...]

      When the courageous activist speaks of the importance of education and non-violence, the West shouts her words loudly from the mountain tops. When that same activist criticises predator drones and, that most sacrosanct entity of all, capitalism, the silence is deafening.

    • Naming the Dead: visualised

      The database of names is built on over two years of research in and outside Pakistan, using a multitude of sources. These include both Pakistani government records leaked to the Bureau, and hundreds of open source reports in English, Pashtun and Urdu.

  • Transparency Reporting

    • Swedish officials weigh up option to question Assange ahead of court ruling

      Sweden’s chief prosecutor said on Tuesday she was seriously considering an invitation by the British government to question Julian Assange in London, before a court ruling in Sweden on whether to lift the warrant for his arrest.

      The Foreign Office said on Tuesday it would welcome a request by the Swedish prosecutor Marianne Ny to question Assange inside the Ecuadorian embassy and would be happy to facilitate such a move, which is seen by Assange’s lawyers as an important step towards breaking the deadlock surrounding the case.

    • Timeline: Julian Assange sex allegations

  • Environment/Energy/Wildlife

  • Finance

    • IRS Also More Than Willing To Steal Money Under The Pretense Of Crime Fighting

      The Department of Justice and its underlings (the FBI and nearyl every law enforcement agency in the nation) have turned the ideal of asset forfeiture (defund drug dealers; return money to the defrauded, etc.) into a free-roaming, many-tentacled opportunistic beast, one that “liberates” any amount of “suspicious” cash from tourists, legitimate business owners or anyone else who just happens to have “too much” cash in their possession.

    • Detroit man fights $30k child support bill for kid that is not his

      The State of Michigan is ordering a Detroit man to pay tens of thousands of dollars, or go to prison. The reason? He owes back child support for a child that everyone agrees is not his.

      “I feel like I’m standing in front of a brick wall with nowhere to go,” said Carnell Alexander.

      He says he learned about the paternity case against him during a traffic stop in Detroit in the early 90s. The officer told him he is a deadbeat dad, there was a warrant out for his arrest.

  • Censorship

    • Hungary Internet-Tax Protest Swells Into Anti-Orban Demo

      A rally to block a planned tax on Internet use in Hungary swelled into one of the largest anti-government demonstrations since Prime Minister Viktor Orban came to power in 2010.

    • Street Demonstrations Against Hungary’s Plan To Tax Internet Data Lead To A Partial Climbdown By Government
    • FDA Is Angry That ICANN Won’t Just Censor Websites On Its Say So

      It’s not just the City of London Police demanding that websites be taken offline without any due process. It appears that the US Food & Drug Administration (FDA) is getting in on the game as well. The Wall Street Journal recently published a detailed article about how angry the FDA is with ICANN (there’s also a corresponding blog post which may not face the same paywall restrictions) for not simply killing domains that the FDA deems “rogue pharmacies.” That’s not to say that there aren’t reasonable concerns about rogue pharmacies. There are clearly some concerns about those sites, but it seems like there are better ways to deal with those than just barging in and saying that ICANN and registrars need to take down sites based solely on their say so.

  • Privacy

    • You Can’t Vote Out National Security Bureaucrats: And They, Not Elected Officials, Really Run The Show

      A year ago, we noted a rather odd statement from President Obama, concerning some of the Snowden leaks. He more or less admitted that with each new report in the press, he then had to go ask the NSA what it was up to.

    • Documents Show FBI Impersonated Newspaper’s Website To Deliver Spyware To Suspect’s Computer

      The court documents didn’t detail how the FBI managed to install the weaponized payload on Glazebook’s computer. The emails obtained by the EFF, however, expose the electronic paper trail.

    • During Cold War, CIA And FBI Hired Over 1,000 Nazis As Spies, Limited Investigations Of Those Nazis

      A new book by Eric Lichtblau, The Nazis Next Door: How America Became a Safe Haven for Hitler’s Men, apparently details how the FBI and CIA hired over 1,000 Nazis during the height of the cold war, forgiving them their past sins, so long as they might help spy on the Soviet Union.

    • Entirely Coincidentally, NSA Signals Intelligence Director Moved To New Position After Conflicts Of Interest Were Exposed By Buzzfeed

      The NSA’s newly-developed concern for “optics” is being tested by employees both former and current. Keith Alexander, the NSA’s longtime leading man, took his snooping show on the road, offering his expertise to banks for $1 million/month. But he couldn’t leave it all behind, attempting to drag the current NSA CTO along with him by offering him an interesting — but conflicting — part-time position with IronNet Security. The NSA said, “That’s fine.” Then it said, “We’re looking into it.” Then it said nothing while Keith Alexander pulled the plug on the deal while simultaneously denying any sort of impropriety.

    • UK’s GCHQ Can Get Warrantless Access To Bulk NSA Data
    • Secret policy reveals GCHQ can get warrantless access to bulk NSA data
    • Verizon is launching a tech news site that bans stories on U.S. spying

      The most-valuable, second-richest telecommunications company in the world is bankrolling a technology news site called SugarString.com. The publication, which is now hiring its first full-time editors and reporters, is meant to rival major tech websites like Wired and the Verge while bringing in a potentially giant mainstream audience to beat those competitors at their own game.

    • FBI Raids House Of ‘Second Leaker’ Who Provided Terrorist Watchlist Documents To The Intercept

      The government appears to have located the “second leaker.” Snowden obviously still remains out of reach in Russia, but the other leaker — one hinted at over the past few months and confirmed in Laura Poitras’ Snowden documentary “Citizenfour” — seems to have been identified by the FBI. Michael Isikoff at Yahoo News breaks the news.

    • More Surveillance Punishes Canadians, Not Terrorists

      The potential destruction of terrorism is infinitesimally smaller than the damage done to our rights by a disproportionate attempt to prevent it.

      Please. Please remember this. It’s even more important now, when that fact is so easily forgotten in the wake of the attack on our Parliament and the tragic deaths of Warrant Officer Patrice Vincent and Cpl. Nathan Cirillo.

    • White House Says Obama Doesn’t Think Netanyahu Is a ‘Chickenshit’

      On Tuesday, The Atlantic’s Jeffrey Goldberg wrote that “The Crisis in U.S.-Israel Relations Is Officially Here,” and it begins with an anonymous senior administration official calling Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu a “chickenshit.”

      Now, White House damage control is officially in effect. Press secretary Josh Earnest said Wednesday afternoon that the Obama administration does not think that Netanyahu, as Goldberg reported, is in fact a “chickenshit.”

    • Islamophobia TV

      THE THURSDAY before Homeland’s season premiere, I wrote an article for the Washington Post calling Homeland “the most bigoted show on television.” While I am not the first person to present many of the arguments I laid out in the article, the moment was right and the article went viral.

      [...]

      The only male Muslim character who’s allowed to be something other than a terrorist–an innocent victim–is Issa, Abu Nazir’s young son, who’s killed in a drone strike that mistakenly targeted his school.

    • Twitter Might Be In Worse Shape Than You Think

      For Twitter, old news is bad news. On Monday, the company once again had to tell investors that its strenuous efforts to attract new users met with only middling results in the third quarter. The market reacted much as it did upon receiving similar news in February and May, lopping more than 10% off Twitter’s share price upon the open of trading Tuesday amid a handful of analyst downgrades.

    • The 7 Privacy Tools Essential to Making Snowden Documentary CITIZENFOUR

      What needs to be in your tool belt if you plan to report on a massively funded and ultra-secret organization like the NSA? In the credits of her newly released CITIZENFOUR, director Laura Poitras gives thanks to a list of important security resources that are all free software. We’ve previously written about CITIZENFOUR and Edward Snowden’s discussion of his motivation to release closely guarded information about the NSA. Here’s a closer look at the seven tools she names as helping to enable her to communicate with Snowden and her collaborators in making the film.

    • More Apple privacy concerns: Yosemite uploads unsaved TextEdit docs to iCloud

      If you’re using Apple’s latest desktop OS, Yosemite, you might want to adjust your iCloud settings to avoid unsaved documents ending up on Apple’s servers.

      Apple’s latest desktop OS, OS X Yosemite, and its latest mobile update, iOS 8.1 are designed to make work across multiple Apple devices a lot more convenient, courtesy of syncing features rooted in iCloud Drive (Apple’s answer to Dropbox) and “continuity”.

    • Apple’s OS X Yosemite slurps UNSAVED docs into iCloud

      Apple’s OSX 10.10 – aka Yosemite – is silently uploading users’ unsaved documents and the email addresses of their contacts to Apple’s iCloud, according to security researcher Jeffrey Paul.

    • Apple Mac OS X Yosemite ‘Secretly’ Uploading Private Data to iCloud Servers

      A security researcher claims that Apple’s latest desktop software secretly and silently uploads unsaved documents and email addresses to the company’s servers without a user’s knowledge.

      According to Berlin-based hacker and security researcher Jeffrey Paul, changes made in Mac OS X Yosemite causes sensitive and private data to be automatically uploaded to Apple’s servers.

  • Civil Rights

    • 12 Nobel Peace Prize Winners Ask Nobel Peace Prize Winning President Obama To Release CIA Torture Report

      The signatories of the letter are Desmond Tutu, Jose Ramos-Horta, Mohammad ElBaradei, Leymah Gbowee, Muhammad Yunis, Oscar Arias Sanchez, John Hume, F.W. De Klerk, Jody Williams, Carlos X. Belo, Betty Williams and Adolfo Perez Esquivel. One hopes that this would help drive things forward on actually releasing the report, except that the CIA seems dead set against it.

    • An End to Torture

      Twelve Nobel Peace Prize laureates have written to President Barack Obama asking the US to close the dark chapter on torture once and for all. Please add your voice in support of their message below. It will be forwarded to the President. And please share widely.

    • We Hardly Knew Ye: Judge Dismisses Manuel Noriega’s Publicity Rights Suit Against Activision

      Sometimes it’s difficult to maintain any faith in our legal system, particularly when it comes to intellectual property, and perhaps even more particularly when it comes to publicity rights. Then, some former drug-running dictator comes along to sue a video game and the system actually manages to do right. Yes, the case brought by Manuel Noriega against Activision over the game’s depiction of the dictator in the Call of Duty franchise has been tossed out by the judge.

    • Manuel Noriega case against Call of Duty is dismissed

      Noriega did work as a CIA informant before the agency broke ties with him.

    • More Cops Investigate More Teens ‘Sexting.’ Now What?

      The reason for police involvement — beyond the slim chance that it could net them some cheap child porn busts, thanks to existing laws being applied badly — is left unstated. Apparently, the discovery of suggestive and/or explicit photos couldn’t be left up to the students and their parents to handle. Instead, somebody will need to be punished for something that appears to be incredibly common and often wholly voluntary.

    • The TSA Stole My Belt Buckle… For Safety.

      On my flight out to LA, I dealt with the same issue with an imperious and stupid TSA supervisor who tried to take the buckle under the same pretenses at DCA until I protested long enough for her to get the top level supervisor in the terminal.

    • Footage shows homeless black man Milton Hall being shot at 46 times by police in the US

      Graphic footage has emerged showing a homeless man being shot and killed by police in the US who fired a barrage of 46 bullets as he held a penknife.

      Milton Hall, who was mentally ill, was surrounded by eight officers training their guns in a shopping centre car park in Saginaw, Michigan, in July 2012.

      The 49-year-old had been arguing with police after an alleged altercation with a shop assistant for several minutes and the video shows him refusing an officer’s demand to put down the knife.

  • Internet/Net Neutrality

  • Intellectual Monopolies

    • Copyrights

      • Gottfrid Svartholm Found Guilty in Hacking Trial

        Gottfrid Svartholm has today been found guilty of hacking crimes by a Danish court. The Swedish Pirate Bay founder and his 21-year-old accomplice were found to have been involved in illegally accessing systems operated by IT company CSC. It was the biggest hacking case ever conducted in Denmark.

      • Pirate Bay founder guilty in historic hacker case

        Gottrid Svartholm Warg and his 21-year-old Danish co-defendant were found guilty on Thursday morning, with the Dane released on time served and Warg to be sentenced on Friday.

      • Pirate Bay Swede found guilty in Denmark

        Sweden’s Pirate Bay Founder Gottrid Svartholm Warg was found guilty of hacking crimes in a Danish court on Thursday.

      • Dotcom Tries To Reclaim Millions Seized in Hong Kong

        It was a place where Kim Dotcom loved doing business but it took just 13 minutes for a Hong Kong court to authorize the seizure of $42 million of his assets in 2012. Now the tycoon wants his cash back, with his legal team arguing that justice officials misled the courts.

      • EFF Ranks Service Providers For Who Stands Up To Copyright/Trademark Bullies

        We’ve written in the past about the EFF’s Who Has Your Back rankings, in which it looks at various internet companies to see who protects your privacy against governments and lawsuits. Now, the EFF has come out with an offshoot chart, looking at who has your back when it comes to bogus copyright and trademark demands. The only two companies that get a perfect score are Automattic/WordPress and NameCheap, as you can see on the full chart. The worst, somewhat surprisingly, is Tumblr, which scored a big fat zero out of the five listed items.

      • Crooner in Rights Spat
      • When Even The New Yorker Is Doing Long Features On The Ridiculous State Of Copyright Law…

        This article has been out for a few weeks now, but I’ve finally had a chance to read through the whole thing. Louis Menard, over at the New Yorker, has a long piece on just how messed up copyright laws are today, going over many of the same grounds we have (for nearly two decades). The piece itself is a sort of book review of Peter Baldwin’s new The Copyright Wars: Three Centuries of Trans-Atlantic Battle, but basically repeats the main point: copyright law as it is today really doesn’t make much sense. The first half of the article is a great look at the problems of copyright law, but unfortunately, the second half of the article goes off the rails by leaping on familiar and misleading tropes about why people feel the way they do about copyright. Still, the first half covers a number of copyright’s problems quite well.

10.29.14

Links 29/10/2014: Ubuntu Touch Tablet, Puppy Linux 6.0

Posted in News Roundup at 6:29 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

GNOME bluefish

Contents

GNU/Linux

  • Spooky Linux Urban Legends

    The truth is, Linux — and the ecosystem of Free and Open Source software around it — isn’t perfect. Heck, I regularly give Linux a hard time for its shortcomings, myself. But the reality is… it’s absolutely fantastic for both end users and companies building software/hardware solutions alike.

  • Tux Machines DDOS Attack Mostly Contained

    According to Schestowitz, although the site continues to be under fire, he and his team have developed methods to deal with the attacks.

    “The DDOS attacks against both sites are still going on,” he wrote last night in an email in response to our query. “There’s now an aggressive filtering software in place banning a lot of machines which it suspects to be part of the attacks. It helps reduce the frequency of downtime.”

    That’s good news. Although we have no idea of the traffic figures for TechRights, it’s certainly a popular free software site. Tux Machines is probably even more popular, with thousands of visitors daily depending on it for links to the latest news on Linux and FOSS. It’s nice to know it’s seemingly dependable again, even as it continues to come under attack.

  • Desktop GNU/Linux Wins

    To me, this is quite an important period because the only reason I migrated to GNU/Linux was to be free of crashes. Later I was glad I did because of performance, lack of malware, avoidance of the EULA from Hell, easy back-ups and installation, easy management, etc. Many other famous migrations happened around the same time and I would bet stability was an issue for them too. Certainly cost, flexibility, and independence from M$ were issues. Many businesses were spending ~$1000 per seat per annum just to keep things running, so it’s not just about licences or being “cheap”. FLOSS is the right way to do IT.

  • Why Microsoft loves Linux

    That’s a heck of a long way from Steve Ballmer proclaiming back in 2001 that “Linux is a cancer.” In the years since then Microsoft certainly attacked Linux like it was a cancer — doing everything from sponsoring SCO’s copyright attack on Linux to claiming that Linux violated unnamed Microsoft patents to endless FUD assaults.

  • About Linux Weekly News

  • Server

    • Parallels CTO: Linux container security is not the problem

      Containerization technology has been a game-changer, powering Docker and other transformative software solutions. It’s also garnered its share of criticisms about performance, security, and resiliency.

      But one of the creators of Parallels, a key containerization technology on Linux, is pushing back against what he feels are pervasive myths about containers — many of which, he argues, are rooted in misunderstandings of how to use them and what they’re for.

  • Kernel Space

    • Introducing the 2014 Linux Training Scholarship Winners

      The Linux Foundation recently announced its 2014 Linux training scholarship winners.This year marked the strongest demand we’ve ever seen for this program with more than 1,000 applications received. Reading through the submissions it became clear that learning Linux is widely recognized as a smart strategy for building a successful career. From every corner of the world, up and coming developers and sysadmins want to be able to tap into this massive opportunity. This is also represented in our Intro to Linux MOOC as well with nearly 300,000 registrations from more than 100 countries.

    • systemd 217

      Many new features, even more bugfixes!

    • Systemd 217: Many New Features, Even More Bug-Fixes

      Lennart Poettering announced the release today of systemd 217 and it’s quite a big update.

    • Graphics Stack

      • OpenGL 4.x Support For Mesa Still Inching Along

        While there hasn’t been much to report on lately with regard to major OpenGL 4.x advancements, the OpenGL 4.0+ support is still being worked on by the open-source developers wishing to expose GL4 compliance within the Intel, Radeon, and Nouveau Linux graphics drivers, among other potential Mesa/Gallium3D drivers.

      • AMD’s R300 Gallium3D Driver Enables VDPAU Again

        For those stuck running on the R300g driver, which supports the ATI Radeon X1000 (R500) series and older GPUs, you really should consider upgrading your graphics card and likely your system. But if you’re set on using the R300g driver going into the foreseeable future, you might as well upgrade Mesa.

      • xorg-server 1.16.99.901

        Here’s the first RC for X server 1.17.

      • X.Org Server 1.17 RC1 Released, Exciting For GLAMOR & Modesetting

        Keith Packard has made available the first test release for the upcoming X.Org Server 1.17 release. This release is coming a bit late but Keith is still hoping to have xorg-server 1.17.0 ready for release at the end of the year or around early January.

      • OpenGL 4.x Support For Mesa Still Inching Along

        While there hasn’t been much to report on lately with regard to major OpenGL 4.x advancements, the OpenGL 4.0+ support is still being worked on by the open-source developers wishing to expose GL4 compliance within the Intel, Radeon, and Nouveau Linux graphics drivers, among other potential Mesa/Gallium3D drivers.

    • Benchmarks

      • 6-Way Ubuntu 14.10 Radeon Gallium3D vs. Catalyst Driver Comparison

        As a follow-up to last week’s Ubuntu 14.04 vs. Ubuntu 14.10 AMD Performance Comparison and yesterday’s Radeon R9 290: Gallium3D vs. Catalyst driver comparison, here’s taking things further in looking at the performance of the open-source AMD Radeon Linux graphics driver in several configurations while compared against the closed-source AMD Catalyst graphics driver as found on Ubuntu 14.10.

      • Btrfs On 4 x Intel SSDs In RAID 0/1/5/6/10

        These results are much more interesting than the earlier two-disk HDD benchmarks now using solid-state storage and having bought four Intel Series 530 120GB SSDs for making this an interesting RAID comparison. Four of the Intel SSDSC2BW120A4K5 solid-state drives were used in their 120GB capacity. Each of these solid-state drives retail for $75~80 USD and features sequential reads up to 540MB/s and sequential writes up to 480MB/s with its Serial ATA 3.0 interface. The 2.5-inch SSD 530 Series drive is rated by a five-year warranty and uses 20nm Intel NAND MLC memory.

  • Applications

  • Desktop Environments/WMs

  • Distributions

    • Reviews

    • New Releases

    • Ballnux/SUSE

    • Red Hat Family

      • Red Hat begins offering free OpenShift to startups

        Red Hat is looking to lure startups to its web of services with a new program that gives budding businesses free access to OpenShift Online, Red Hat’s public cloud app development platform.

      • Red Hat Launches OpenShift Startup Program

        Red Hat, Inc. (NYSE: RHT), the world’s leading provider of open source solutions, today announced the launch of the OpenShift Startup Program. This free program uses OpenShift Online, Red Hat’s public cloud application and development platform, to help startups build and grow their business.

      • Fedora

        • Fedora Join workshop at Nha Trang IT Day 2014

          Sunday, October 26th, 2014, at Nha Trang university, Nha Trang, Vietnam, the Nha Trang IT Day 2014 was taken place. During that day, the Fedora Join workshop was held to introduce about Fedora Project to professors, teachers and students who work and study at NTU and nearby universities and to help them to join into.

        • Makulu for Work and Play, Wget Vulnerability, and Systemd Updates

          makuluToday in the Linux newsfeeds is Sean Michael Kerner’s coverage of a newly reported Wget Symlink Vulnerability. MakuluLinux 1.0 Cinnamon was released today and two community reviews give users a nice introduction. The Systemd debate continues and The Canonical Distribution of Ubuntu OpenStack was announced. And finally today, Bryan Lunduke shares “what it’s like living on a Chromebook.”

        • ownCloud updates for Fedora 19 and EPEL 6

          Instead of relval (for a change) I spent some of my non-work time today working on ownCloud packaging (I’m the owner/’primary contact’/whatever for the ownCloud package, these days).

    • Debian Family

      • Derivatives

        • Canonical/Ubuntu

          • Ubuntu’s Unity 8 desktop removes the Amazon search ‘spyware’

            Unity 8, seen in the Ubuntu Desktop Next images and Ubuntu Touch phones, removes a controversial feature branded “spyware” by some and fixes one of Ubuntu’s most long-standing complaints. When Unity 8 is stable and ready, Ubuntu won’t send your local searches over the web and show you Amazon product results anymore, quelling some longstanding fears in the open-source community.

          • SIMD8 Vertex Shaders For Broadwell

            Kristian’s latest patches being made public are enabling support for vertex shaders to be generated using Intel’s SIMD8 scalar back-end for Broadwell hardware and newer. “With Broadwell we have the option to run vertex shaders in scalar (SIMD8) mode which potentially gives us better throughput and more vertices per thread dispatch. This patch series implements this by repurposing our [fragment shader] backend to also work for vertex shaders.”

          • An Intel-Based Ubuntu Touch Tablet Is Planning To Launch Soon

            Today we’ve received some information a device dubbed the “UT One” that is an Ubuntu Touch tablet powered by an Intel Bay Trail processor and aims to ship in December.

          • UT One tablet with Ubuntu Touch coming in December?

            The makers of the Ubuntu Linux operating system for notebooks, desktops, and servers have been working on a version for phones and tablets… and hope to see the first of those devices ship later this year or early in 2015.

          • UBUNTU DEVELOPER TOOLS CENTER 0.1 RELEASED WITH ECLIPSE AND ANDROID ADT SUPPORT

            A couple of months ago, Canonical released Ubuntu Developer Tools Center (UDTC), a project to “enable quick and easy setup of common developers needs on Ubuntu”.

          • Ubuntu Could Give a Fatal Blow to Windows in China

            The Windows operating systems is going out the front door in China and its place will be taken by a Linux distribution that will be used by the authorities and the governing body. The problem is that there is no real alternative, although at least one OS might be ready for the task, and that is Ubuntu Kylin.

          • Ubuntu’s Unity desktop may be more popular than most people think

            Unity is the desktop that just can’t get much respect in the Linux world. It has been criticized since the day it first appeared, with many Linux users being quite vocal in their disgust at Canonical’s decision to include Unity instead of GNOME. But is Unity really that reviled? A new survey by OMG Ubuntu indicates that most Ubuntu users actually seem to like Unity.

          • Ubuntu Survey Results Show Unity, Heron’s and Dual-Boots Are Popular

            One week and 15,000 responses later, the results of our Ubuntu at 10 Reader Survey are finally ready to serve up. And they make for some fascinating mid-morning coffee-break reading.

  • Devices/Embedded

    • Tiny open source USB-stick SBC focuses on security

      Inverse Path is readying a tiny, open-spec “USB Armory” SBC that runs Linux or Android on an i.MX53, and offers Trustzone, secure boot, and USB emulation.

    • Lightweight DBMS guides Linux-based cow feeding robot

      Ittia announced a design win for its lightweight embedded DB SQL database in Wasserbauer’s uClibc Linux based “Butler Gold” robot designed to feed cattle.

    • Phones

      • iPhone 39.3 M units in Q3… sorry I missed this news a week ago

        So Apple gave its Q3 results (talking calendar quarter of course so its July-September numbers) and this includes the first few days of sales of the new iPhone 6 models. How was it? 39.3 million units. Thats up 12% from Q2 and up 16% from the same period one year ago. That is not good enough, as the market is growing far faster, so iPhone market share is again down (year-on-year). Because of the iPhone launch pattern of one launch date per year, the quarterly sales move up and down a lot, so the Apple view should always be considered with the annual view. But yes, market share now in Q3 is about 12.4% which is down from 13.3% a year ago same period. Apple’s iPhone market share year-on-year has now fallen 8 consecutive quarters, down from the peak market share of 23.9% in Q1 of 2012 to essentially half of that, 12.4% today.

      • Tizen

        • Samsung Gear S UK release gets delayed

          We previously reported that the Tizen based Samsung Gear S was looking at a release date of 24th October, which happened to be last week by many of the major UK online tech retailers. Well, as what happens quite often in the Tech world the release has been delayed, and we are now looking at the week commencing 11 November 2014 for its UK launch. No specific reason has been given by Samsung to the delay.

      • Android

        • 12 of the best new features in Android Lollipop

          Google’s approach for rolling out the latest version of Android, Lollipop, is a little different. There are the usual things we see every year — a new Nexus phone and a new Nexus tablet — but instead of a big event, the company is posting details in blog posts and on the main Android site. So if you’re tracking the rollout closely, you probably have a sense of what’s new and what’s cool in the OS. If you’re not, though, getting a sense of what Lollipop is actually like and what it actually does isn’t easy.

        • YouTube’s WatchMe for Android Brings Live Event Streams to Android Apps

          YouTube has been in the news recently based on reports that it plans to launch paid subscription services, but there is another bit of interesting news about the popular video hosting and streaming company: It has launched an open source project called YouTube WatchMe for Android, available on GitHub, that offers an app designed to facilitate YouTube Live Streaming Events on Android devices.

        • Twelve great features in Android 5.0 Lollipop

          In today’s Android roundup: Twelve of the best features in Android 5.0 Lollipop. Plus: Google releases its Google Fit health app, and popular music app djay 2 is now available for Android

        • 12 of the best new features in Android Lollipop

          Google’s approach for rolling out the latest version of Android, Lollipop, is a little different. There are the usual things we see every year — a new Nexus phone and a new Nexus tablet — but instead of a big event, the company is posting details in blog posts and on the main Android site. So if you’re tracking the rollout closely, you probably have a sense of what’s new and what’s cool in the OS. If you’re not, though, getting a sense of what Lollipop is actually like and what it actually does isn’t easy.

Free Software/Open Source

  • Survey indicates four out of five developers now use open source

    Why? The majority of them have switched to open source because they perceive open source development programs as having better performance and reliability. This, as Hammond observed, is a change. “Open source used to be popular because of the lower cost. Now the cost of tools is the least important element for developers.”

  • The Apache Software Foundation Marks 15 Years of Open Source Innovation and Community Leadership

    Apache has seen amazing success over the last 15 years. Not only do ASF projects impact almost every area of computing, but the Apache License, our Contributor License Agreements (CLAs), and our pattern of open, collaborative development (often known as “The Apache Way”) continue to influence Open Source projects outside of the ASF. Many Apache projects have gone on to build huge, successful ecosystems around themselves, and other established projects have joined the ASF to grow and diversify their community.

  • Wipro is building space for 10,000 in open source

  • Events

    • Looking Ahead at Upcoming FOSS Events

      Now that the mega-conference week that was is in the books — Ohio LinuxFest, All Things Open and Seattle GNU/Linux Conference are all history for this year — generally the Linux/FOSS world catches its collective breath and starts thinking about shows in 2015.

    • Free Software (and Freedom) in Kosovo

      So today’s challenge for hackers, I think, is putting that advice into practice by writing a new generation of free software programs with strong crypto baked in as a matter of course. That means strong crypto in connectivity software (more things like OpenVPN, TOR, Commotion); in communications programs (MailPile, Cryptocat, RedPhone), and in content applications (FreeNet, GNUnet).

    • Keys to diversity in tech are more simple than you think

  • Web Browsers

    • Mozilla

      • Mozilla: Spidermonkey ATE Apple’s JavaScriptCore, THRASHED Google V8

        Mozilla Distinguished Engineer Robert O’Callahan reports that the Spidermonkey JavaScript engine, used by the Firefox web browser, has surpassed the performance of Google’s V8 engine (used by Chrome) and Apple’s JavaScript Core (used by Safari) on three popular benchmarks: Mozilla’s own Kraken, Webkit’s SunSpider and Google’s Octane.

  • SaaS/Big Data

  • Oracle/Java/LibreOffice

    • The Power of Brand and the Power of Product Redux

      Those who know me know that I am partial to OpenOffice, an open source project that I contribute to. So I am extremely pleased to see it continue to advance in all fronts. Since coming to Apache, OpenOffice’s name recognition has grown from 24% to 39% and the user share has grown from 11% to 18%, while keeping user satisfaction constant. This is a testament to the hard work of the many talented volunteers at Apache.

    • LibreOffice vs. OpenOffice: Why LibreOffice Wins

      Comparing LibreOffice and Apache OpenOffice is like comparing identical twins. Even people who know them well have trouble distinguishing one from the other, and, when you find a difference, it is often trivial. All the same, the differences are growing, and LibreOffice has at least eleven advantages over OpenOffice – see the list below.

  • Funding

  • Project Releases

  • Public Services/Government

    • Rebuilding tech in Afghanistan with open source

      The Center for International and Intercultural Communication (ZiiK) at the Technical University of Berlin (TU Berlin) has been helping with the reconstruction of academic organizations in Afghanistan since 2002. Under the supervision of the Berlin IT lecturer, Dr. Nazir Peroz, Director of the ZiiK, computer centers have been established at five college locations in Afghanistan.

  • Licensing

  • Openness/Sharing

  • Programming

    • Zend Server 8 Delivers Z-Ray Application Insight

      For the first time, Zend Server is now also available on IBM’s Power Linux platforms. Zend has been available for years on IBM i, but has not been available for Linux running on IBM’s Power servers. IBM has had a busy year for Power, launching its Power8 server systems portfolio and doubling down on Linux.

  • Standards/Consortia

    • Why agency IGs are more bark than bite

      The U.K. government employee added, “Yet we still have a huge .pdf mountain which we hate, and do our best to segment and slice. But to stop the remaining .pdf mountain getting any higher requires that Word documents stop being the default way government communicates with itself. We’ve made a start with HTML and Open Document Format becoming our adopted open standards for documents.

      Levels of inter-departmental and inter-agency alignment and agreement will need to be be Herculean…to…agree on standards,” he said.

      Nathaniel Heller, founder of the transparency and ethics nonprofit Global Integrity, said it’s important to figure out “how to get away from PDF ghettos as a way of transmitting information.” He added, “what’s really needed for this sort of dense information — and IG reports are a classic example — to be made more useful to, say, my mother is context, analysis, and summaries…My gut is that it takes someone, whether an IG office itself or other infomediaries, to tell us a bit about why a particular case should matter.”

    • Microsoft Plans Skype Calls Without Plug-In Via Internet Explorer

      In-browser Skype calls are on the horizon after Microsoft backs ORTC and WebRTC technology

    • Open Web Platform Milestone Achieved with HTML5 Recommendation
    • The W3C Pronounces the HTML5 Standard Finalized
    • Yes, Virginia, there IS a W3C HTML5 standard – as of now, that is

      After nearly 10 years of development, the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) has promoted the HTML5 specification to Recommendation status, its highest level of maturation, effectively making the markup language a formal web standard.

Leftovers

  • How a Band of Rebels and Pioneers Launched WIRED’s First Website 20 Years Ago Today

    It was the summer of 1994, and WIRED had been covering the digital revolution for nearly a year and a half. Personal computers were linking up, people were logging on, and the whole thing was crashing through society like a “Bengali typhoon,” as WIRED founder and editor-in-chief Louis Rossetto famously described it.

  • Science

    • Orbital Sciences’ Antares Rocket Explosion in Pictures

      sHere, NASA photographer Joel Kowsky captures the moment of a “catastrophic anomaly” on the Antares rocket just after it lifted off from Pad-0A at the Wallops Flight Facility on Wallops Island, Virginia. The rocket’s upper half is clearly visible here, with what appears to be an explosion near its aft. Credit: NASA/Joel Kowsky.

  • Security

  • Environment/Energy/Wildlife

    • While You Were Getting Worked Up Over Oil Prices, This Just Happened to Solar

      After years of struggling against cheap natural gas prices and variable subsidies, solar electricity is on track to be as cheap or cheaper than average electricity-bill prices in 47 U.S. states — in 2016, according to a Deutsche Bank report published this week. That’s assuming the U.S. maintains its 30 percent tax credit on system costs, which is set to expire that same year.

  • Finance

  • PR/AstroTurf/Lobbying

  • Privacy

    • Apple sacrifices data privacy for convenience

      When I first heard about Jeffrey Paul’s claim [NSFW] that OS X 10.10 Yosemite was leaking data to Apple’s servers, my first reaction was “yeah, yeah – that’s the way autosave is supposed to work.”

      But I was wrong.

      Yes, some people that have upgraded to Yosemite directly from Snow Leopard are being caught out by the way autosave works, something that the rest of us have got used to.

  • Civil Rights

    • New book sheds further light on US government protection of ex-Nazis

      A new book published Tuesday, The Nazis Next Door: How America Became a Safe Haven for Hitler’s Men, by New York Times journalist Eric Lichtblau, details the close relations developed by the US government with Nazi war criminals during and after the Second World War.

  • Internet/Net Neutrality

    • US says AT&T misled customers over promises of offering unlimited data plans

      AT&T is being sued by the US government over allegations it misled millions of smartphone customers who were promised unlimited data plans but instead experienced slow speeds while browsing the Internet or watching streaming video.

    • FTC sues AT&T over ‘deceptive’ throttling of unlimited data customers

      The Federal Trade Commission is suing AT&T because the second-largest US carrier throttles speeds of its unlimited data customers, a policy that the FTC describes as “deceptive” and “unfair.” In a press release, the FTC said AT&T has “misled millions of its smartphone customers” by slowing down their data speeds after they’ve used up a certain amount of data in a single month. AT&T has failed to make its throttling policies clear enough, according to the complaint. “The issue here is simple: ‘unlimited’ means unlimited,” said FTC Chairwoman Edith Ramirez. The Commission’s filing blasts AT&T for slowing customers down to the point where common tasks — watching video, streaming music, etc. — become “difficult or nearly impossible.”

  • Intellectual Monopolies

    • Copyrights

      • Led Zeppelin Sales Soar as Stairway to Heaven Suit Continues

        In a case of improbable timing, Led Zeppelin has simultaneously scored a new hit with the album containing Stairway to Heaven while firing back against allegations that it ripped off the opening notes of the legendary song.

        [...]

        The new release of the alternate “Sunset Sound” mix, however, provides no new clues to the controversy—even if it does shed new light on the song itself. If you listen very hard, you’ll notice the picked guitar intro once had a more haunting feel, with a reverb-like sound that makes it seem distant. And at the end, Jimmy Page momentarily restarts his guitar solo at a point when the familiar mix instead winds down into an anticlimax. While fans might debate the relative merits of these versions, one thing is certain: With the album climbing the charts, ever-more money is at stake in the legal battle.

      • RIAA: The Pirate Bay Assaults Fundamental Human Rights

        The RIAA has just submitted its latest list of “rogue” websites to the U.S. Government. The report includes many of the usual suspects and also calls out websites who claim that they’re protecting the Internet from censorship, specifically naming The Pirate Bay. “We must end this assault on our humanity and the misappropriation of fundamental human rights,” RIAA writes.

10.28.14

Links 28/10/2014: SUSE Linux Enterprise 12, Canonical OpenStack Distro

Posted in News Roundup at 5:07 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

GNOME bluefish

Contents

GNU/Linux

Free Software/Open Source

  • Organizations are Rallying Behind an Open Source Internet of Things

    If you’ve been reading about the Internet of Things (IoT) market, you may be noticing that it is picking up steam with powerful partnerships and big name companies launching initiatives. Red Hat put up an extensive post recently illustrating that it is very focused on the concept of networking objects of all types, and we’ve covered the backing that organizations ranging from The Linux Foundation to Microsoft are putting behind the IoT market.

  • Events

    • Ceph Developer Summit 2014 – Hammer

      The Ceph Developer Summit (CDS) for the next major Ceph release called Hammer started today some hours ago (2014/10/28). It’s again a virtual summit via video conference calls.

  • Web Browsers

  • SaaS/Big Data

    • Hybrid cloud – the future is open source

      Among respondents to Computing’s recent data centre research programme, the hybrid cloud model is generating a lot of interest. Indeed, moving towards a hybrid model was the aim of 41 per cent of them (see figure 1).

      Hybrid cloud implies a close interconnectivity between a private cloud (i.e. a collection of physical and virtual systems used exclusively by one company) and the multi-tenant public cloud services exemplified by Google, Amazon and Microsoft Azure. This seamlessly integrated whole allows data, services and workloads to be moved between public and private clouds at will, with the administrator able to monitor and manage the whole system via a single dashboard.

    • Making cloud storage easy with OpenStack Swift

      When you want to learn about object storage in OpenStack, John Dickinson is the guy to ask. John is the Director of Technology at SwiftStack, a company which relies on the OpenStack Swift project to provide unstructured data storage to customers around the world. He also serves as the Program Technical Lead (PTL) for OpenStack Swift and has been involved in the development of Swift since 2009.

    • IBM Expands Global Cloud Footprint and Focus on OpenStack

      Despite a recent poor quarterly results report, IBM appears to be applying even more focus to its cloud services business. The company has announced an expansion of its global cloud network with a new cloud center in Mumbai, India and a new suite of cloud services for OpenStack. And these are just the latest components of IBM’s $1.2 billion investment in cloud centers in every major market worldwide.

    • Chris Kemp: Nebula CSO. Cloud pioneer. Entrepreneur. Former NASA CTO.

      Chris Kemp spoke with TechRepublic about the founding of OpenStack and how he went from NASA’s first CTO of IT to startup founder.

  • BSD

  • FSF/FSFE/GNU/SFLC

    • GCL 2.6.12 is released

      The GCL team is happy to announce the release of version 2.6.12, the latest achievement in the ‘stable’ (as opposed to ‘development’) series. Please see http://www.gnu.org/software/gcl for downloading information.

    • [GNU IceCat] 31.2.0

      GNU Icecat is now available on Fedora repositories.

  • Project Releases

  • Openness/Sharing

  • Standards/Consortia

    • Survey probes accessibility of Member States’ transposing of EU legislation

      A survey is being conducted to see if the sharing of information on how the European Union Member States are transposing European legislation can be improved. The results of this survey could potentially contribute to increased interoperability of the ICT systems that provide access to European legislation.

    • W3C now endorses HTML5

      In addition HTML5 will see much more better games get developed for the web, Mozilla using various technologies have shown off desktop-like games in terms of graphics, if this were to become mainstream we may see a shift from people using traditional desktop and laptop to devices like Chromebooks, although post-Snowden privacy concerns make this a more distant reality than it was before. HTML5 also brings with it native support for scalable vector graphics (SVG) and math (MathML), anotations important for East Asian typography and features to enable accessibility of rich applications.

Leftovers

  • Health/Nutrition

  • Security

  • Defence/Police/Secrecy/Aggression

    • Army Says Only 30% of Americans Could Join

      The U.S. Army now says that seven out of 10 young people between the ages of 17 and 24 are ineligible to become soldiers.

      The alarming reduction in the pool of prospective soldiers worries Army brass and they largely attribute it to three issues: obesity or health problems; lack of a high school education; and criminal histories.

      “There’s a reliance on an ever-smaller group of people to serve and defend the country,” said Maj. Gen. Allen Batschelet, commanding general for the U.S. Army Recruiting Command at Fort Knox, Ky. “What do we do about that and how do we address that concern?

    • David Cameron jogger: ‘How good is security if I managed to run between them?’

      The jogger who was manhandled to the ground after running into David Cameron, the Prime Minister, has said he had “no idea” why police officers jumped on him.

      Dean Farley, a 28-year-old hospital worker from Leeds, questioned the Prime Minister’s security arrangements.

  • PR/AstroTurf/Lobbying

    • The Washington Post’s Putinology

      OK, so fiery anti-Americanism is the belief that the United States desires a unipolar world where it calls the shots. Does anyone doubt US elites think otherwise?

  • Privacy

    • Verizon’s ‘Perma-Cookie’ Is a Privacy-Killing Machine

      Verizon Wireless has been subtly altering the web traffic of its wireless customers for the past two years, inserting a string of about 50 letters, numbers, and characters into data flowing between these customers and the websites they visit.

    • Sharyl Attkisson’s computer intrusions: ‘Worse than anything Nixon ever did’

      That’s the noise that Attkisson’s Apple computer was making at 3:14 one morning. A Toshiba laptop computer issued by CBS News did the same thing a day earlier, around 4 a.m. All this goes down in October 2012, right in the midst of the Benghazi story. A person who’s identified as “Jeff” warns Attkisson: “I’ve been reading your reports online about Benghazi. It’s pretty incredible. Keep at it. But you’d better watch out.” “Jeff,” like several of the names in “Stonewalled,” is a pseudonym.

    • Report Reveals Wider Tracking of Mail in US

      In a rare public accounting of its mass surveillance program, the United States Postal Service reported that it approved nearly 50,000 requests last year from law enforcement agencies and its own internal inspection unit to secretly…

Links 28/10/2014: PiFxOS, The Document Foundation in OSBA

Posted in News Roundup at 5:49 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

GNOME bluefish

Contents

GNU/Linux

Free Software/Open Source

  • Wipro to deploy 10,000 strong team for open source initiatives on non-proprietary software

    Wipro’s open source practice has been made under its Business Application Services division, under which the company intends to build open source platforms that enable online services on a large scale.

    The company will shift its focus to applications, infrastructure, including operating systems, databases, cloud technologies and software defined infrastructure. Significantly, in the Product Engineering space, Wipro believes licensable IP blocks will help shrink product development timelines.

  • Catalyst to lead Mahara open source ePortfolio project

    Catalyst, an open source software specialist based in Christchurch, New Zealand, has taken ownership of ePortfolio project Mahara’s trademark and will also lead the its partner programme, it announced overnight.

  • Events

    • ‘All Things Open’ All Wrapped Up for 2014

      There was absolutely nothing wrong with this year’s All Things Open conference. There were a few glitches, as might be expected, but not enough to matter. Was it perfect? Probably not. Perfection at a conference would probably be pretty boring — and boring would be a fault keeping it from being perfect, if you’ll excuse a little circular logic. Let’s just say say that ATO was more than good enough — and then a lot more.

  • Web Browsers

    • Mozilla

      • Mozilla hopes to challenge Raspbian as RPi OS of choice

        The Mozilla Foundation staged a Mozilla Festival in the UK over the weekend, and one of the projects developers delivered was a port of Firefox OS working to the Raspberry Pi.

      • Mozilla Positions Firefox OS as a Competitor to Raspbian for Raspberry Pi

        The Mozilla Foundation held its much anticipated festival in England this past weekend, and one of the projects shown off by developers is a port of Firefox OS working with he Raspberry Pi. The diminutive, credit card-sized Raspberry Pi devices (shown here), priced at $25 and $35, have quickly won over hackers and hobbyists who are taking Linux in new directions, including even supercomputing.

        Now, Mozilla appears to belive its Firefox OS mobile platform can engage developers working on robotics and other applications for Raspberry Pi boards.

      • Mozilla preps Firefox OS for the Raspberry Pi

        Mozilla released an experimental “PiFxOS” build of Firefox OS optimized for the Raspberry Pi, with an early focus on robotics and media players.

  • SaaS/Big Data

    • OpenStack Venture Funding Marches On as SwiftStack Secures $16M

      If you observe the old adage “follow the money” right now, it seems that you’ll be led straight to OpenStack. Today, there is yet more news about venture funding for an OpenStack-focused startup. SwiftStack, which specializes in software-defined storage based on the OpenStack cloud platform, announced that it closed $16 million in funding to scale its efforts to enable storage scalability for the enterprise.

  • Oracle/Java/LibreOffice

    • LibreOffice Is #1

      LibreOffice is a fine example of what FLOSS can be. When FLOSS projects reach this level of penetration in usage there’s no limit to how far they can go. We’ve seen this before in the Linux kernel, Apache web-server, MySQL database, PostgreSQL database and many others.

    • The Document Foundation joins the Open Source Business Alliance

      The Document Foundation (TDF) joins the Open Source Business Alliance (OSB Alliance), to strengthen LibreOffice ecosystem by creating stronger ties with companies and organizations deploying the free office suite on a large scale.

  • BSD

    • FreeBSD 10.1 RC3 Gets Lots of Fixes

      The previous RC in the series had a very short list of changes and just a couple of regressions, which indicated that we might get a stable version soon. It looks like that wasn’t the case after all and that we still have to be patient and gaze with great interest at what the devs are doing.

      FreeBSD 10.0 was a big step forward for this distribution and a natural evolution from the 9.x branch. People tend to forget that open source is not the same thing with Linux and there are other distros out there that might be using a completely different base, like BSD for example. The first point release for FreeBSD 10.x is also an important step for the devs because it gathers a huge number of changes that will make users’ lives much easier.

  • FSF/FSFE/GNU/SFLC

    • GNU Emacs 24.4 Released
    • New GNUMail release 1.2.2

      After Pantomime a GNUMail release had of course to follow. The same words as for Pantomime apply.

    • GNU wget 1.16 released
    • GNU libtool 2.4.3 released [stable]

      GNU Libtool hides the complexity of using shared libraries behind a
      consistent, portable interface. GNU Libtool ships with GNU libltdl, which
      hides the complexity of loading dynamic runtime libraries (modules)
      behind a consistent, portable interface.

    • guile-ncurses 1.6 released

      I am pleased to announce version 1.6 of GNU Guile-ncurses. Guile-ncurses is a library for the creation of text user interfaces in the GNU Guile dialect of the Scheme programming language. It is based on the ncurses project’s curses, panel, form, and menu libraries.

  • Project Releases

  • Openness/Sharing

  • Programming

    • Changing the Behaviour of Eclipse’s Update Manager

      If you’ve developed plugins for the Eclipse environment, you’re moderately aware that Eclipse’s update manager can behave in strange ways from a user perspective. Things have gotten better with the p2 Remediation Support in Kepler (4.3.0) but what about dependency resolution done by Maven plugins, like Tycho, at build-time ? You get to specify a list of repositories, their content is aggregated, and if your request is satisfiable, it will be satisfied. Of course there’s some criteria p2 will attempt to optimize. For example, preferring highest version with fewest dependencies (minimize transitive closure) from a set of identically named units.

    • Clang Goes Ahead And Enables C11 By Default

      LLVM’s Clang C/C++ compiler went ahead and enabled C11 as the default C language for the upcoming LLVM 3.6 release.

Leftovers

  • NYT Tried to Sell ‘Pro-Growth’ Candidate, but Brazilians Weren’t Buying

    Stewart was referring to Aécio Neves, governor of the state of Minas Gerais and the favorite of “investors and business people in Brazil.” Neves ended up losing to incumbent President Dilma Rousseff, described by Stewart as “a former Marxist guerrilla who praises Mr. [Hugo] Chávez as ‘a great Latin American.’”

    [...]

    Cardoso belonged to the same party as Neves, the Brazilian Social Democratic Party, which despite its name takes a center-right line. This may explain why Neves’ “pro-growth” policies were not as convincing to Brazilian voters as they are to New York Times columnists.

  • Security

  • Defence/Police/Secrecy/Aggression

  • Transparency Reporting

    • Assange court ruling expected ‘by midnight’

      Wikileaks founder Julian Assange’s appeal against the arrest warrant hanging over him is being considered by a court in Stockholm, with the chief prosecutor expected to report back before midnight.

    • Peter Carey: ‘How can Assange be a traitor?’

      Peter Carey’s new novel, Amnesia, features an activist on the run from the US government. He talks to Tim Martin about his intuitive connection with the WikiLeaks founder

    • Whitlam, Assange inspire Carey

      Peter Carey is in Melbourne flogging his latest book Amnesia, about an Australian female cyber-terrorist, a kind of Julian Assange in drag. When I call the two-time Booker Prize winner’s hotel, he’s wolfing down the last of a cold steak sandwich. Gough Whitlam had died earlier that week and was still on his mind.

    • Peter Carey, A History Manifesto

      Peter Carey’s new novel Amnesia counterpoints modern hackers with murky incidents in Australia’s recent past as a writer explores where countries and individuals stand in the modern world.

  • Environment/Energy/Wildlife

  • Privacy

    • Feds identify suspected ‘second leaker’ for Snowden reporters

      The FBI recently searched a government contractor’s home, but some officials worry the Justice Department has lost its ‘appetite’ for leak cases

    • Big Brother’s Liberal Friends

      IT IS strange that the Obama administration has so avidly continued many of the national-security policies that the George W. Bush administration endorsed. The White House has sidelined the key recommendations of its own advisers about how to curtail the overreach of the National Security Agency (NSA). It has failed to prosecute those responsible for torture, on the principle that bygones should be bygones, extending a courtesy to high officials that it has notably declined to provide to leakers like Chelsea Manning. The result is a remarkable degree of continuity between the two administrations.

      Yet this does not disconcert much of the liberal media elite. Many writers who used to focus on bashing Bush for his transgressions now direct their energies against those who are sounding alarms about the pervasiveness of the national-security state. Others, despite their liberal affectations, have perhaps always been enthusiasts for a strong security state. Over the last fifteen months, the columns and op-ed pages of the New York Times and the Washington Post have bulged with the compressed flatulence of commentators intent on dismissing warnings about encroachments on civil liberties. Indeed, in recent months soi-disant liberal intellectuals such as Sean Wilentz, George Packer and Michael Kinsley have employed the Edward Snowden affair to mount a fresh series of attacks. They claim that Snowden, Glenn Greenwald and those associated with them neither respect democracy nor understand political responsibility.

      [...]

      Snowden and his companions have shown that national-security liberals’ arguments for deference rest on false assumptions. The truth is that not only are America’s overseas interventions problematic by themselves, but they are also increasingly undermining domestic liberties. Intelligence efforts that are supposed to be focused abroad turn out to have sweeping domestic consequences. It’s impossible to distinguish intelligence data on domestic and foreign actors. Security officials in various countries can work together across borders to circumvent and undermine domestic protections, actively helping each other to remake laws that restrict their freedom of operation. And at home, officials can use these new arrangements to work around and undermine civil rights. This commingling of domestic and international politics is complex and poorly understood. It helps explain why national-security liberals have such difficulty in comprehending—let alone refuting—Snowden’s and Greenwald’s arguments.

  • Civil Rights

    • Occupy Democracy is not considered newsworthy. It should be

      From last Tuesday, Parliament Square was wrapped in wire mesh. In one of the more surreal scenes in recent British political history, officers with trained German shepherds stand sentinel each day, at calculated distances across the lawn, surrounded by a giant box of fences, three metres high – all to ensure that no citizen enters to illegally practice democracy. Yet few major news outlets feel this is much of a story.

    • A Plan to Cut Costs and Crime: End Hurdle to Job After Prison

      With an estimated one in three American adults having been arrested at some point in their lives, and 16 million people — about 7.5 percent of the adult population — who are felons or former felons, the question of how to reintegrate the 700,000 people who are released from prison each year has become increasingly urgent.

    • How the Press and the CIA Killed Gary Webb’s Career

      Ceppos assigned another Mercury News investigative reporter, Pete Carey, to review Webb’s reporting against the charges of the media critics. On October 12 the Mercury News published Carey’s findings, which backed up Webb’s work and actually added new information, particularly regarding the 1986 search warrant against Blandón and his arms-dealing associate, Ronald Lister. But though Webb’s reporting was vindicated, the assignment to Carey was an omen of the paper’s increasing defensiveness.

  • Intellectual Monopolies

    • TTIP Update XLI

      In my last update, I noted that the controversial investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) chapter remains the centre of attention, with rumours swirling around that the President-elect of the new European Commission, Jean-Claude Juncker, would pull a rabbit out of his hat by announcing that ISDS would be dropped. That didn’t happen, and it seems that once more, the UK is to blame.

    • Copyrights

      • Big Pirate Sites ‘Raided’, Admins on the Run

        Authorities have carried out raids across Germany in pursuit of the operators of movie streaming portal Kinox.to. The individuals are also said to be behind other sites including Movie4K, FreakShare and BitShare. Throw alleged extortion, arson and the fact the sites are still online into the mix, and the plot only thickens.

      • MPAA Reports The Pirate Bay to The U.S. Government

        The MPAA has informed the U.S. Government about two dozen piracy-promoting websites it would like to be gone. The list includes major torrent sites The Pirate Bay and Kickass.to, file-hosting services such as Uploaded and Rapidgator, as well as Russia’s social network VK. The popular Popcorn Time application was also welcomed with a mention.

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