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08.20.15

Vista 10 Turns PCs Into Zombies: Microsoft to Remotely Delete Software From Windows, Like Amazon Deleted Books From Kindle

Posted in Microsoft, Vista 10, Windows at 7:42 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

Without consent, with no warnings whatsoever, without any exceptions

Alleyway in Manchester

Summary: Microsoft allows itself to remotely delete software from Vista 10 (not just Microsoft’s software), as revealed by the mainstream media not too long after the failed launch (poor adoption so far)

TECHRIGHTS is a lot more worried about the precedences set by Vista 10 than about Vista 10 itself, in part because it has been an epic failure so far, despite it being a supposedly ‘free’ upgrade (converting one’s PC into Microsoft’s property). Vista 10 proves people like Richard Stallman correct. It combines everything that can possibly go wrong with proprietary software, intentionally, to serve the proprietor’s sick agenda. Complicity with the state makes it far worse, especially given rogue elements such as espionage (political, not just industrial/competitive).

Based on this article, Microsoft is not even hiding universal back doors in Windows and it reminds users that they just rent their PC if they install Vista 10. To quote the Indian Express, “Microsoft can disable any counterfeit software or hardware running Windows 10, at least this is what is being interpreted based on the updated End User License Agreement (EULA). The new terms and conditions allow Microsoft to change or update software on your computer and changes to the EULA were first spotted by PC Authority.”

That’s rather unprecedented, unless one considers how Amazon deals with Kindle. Ryan, a former Microsoft MVP, told us that “Microsoft can apparently reach in and disable software that they think is pirated. Not just theirs.” Remember that Microsoft also denies the option not to have Windows ‘updated’, i.e. modified remotely. Microsoft is now neglecting to even say what it is changing and why. To quote this new report from the British media:

Windows 10 is keeping its new owners busy, as Microsoft has released the second “cumulative update” for the operating system in three days.

The update dated August 11th was billed as a “security update for Windows 10” and promised “improvements to improve the functionality of Windows 10” plus resolution for half a dozen bugs.

The August 14th update is described as replacing the August 11th update, but with what or why isn’t explained. All that Microsoft will say is that the new download “includes improvements to enhance the functionality of Windows 10.”

Why might a three-day old update need a replacement? Microsoft’s patching process hasn’t gone well, of late, with multiple patches causing unintended consequences necessitating further patches.

But wait, it’s much worse and it’s going to get even worse next year.

“Vista 10 proves people like Richard Stallman correct.”Under the pretext of “emergency”, forced updates now become more than a weekly thing. “There’s mega patch #4,” wrote Ryan. “My system says Cumulative Update for Windows 10 for x64-based Systems. (KB3081444)

“It looks like they copied Compressed RAM from Linux.” Ryan quotes this article which says: “In Windows 10, we have added a new concept in the Memory Manager called a compression store, which is an in-memory collection of compressed pages. This means that when Memory Manager feels memory pressure, it will compress unused pages instead of writing them to disk. This reduces the amount of memory used per process, allowing Windows 10 to maintain more applications in physical memory at a time. This also helps provide better responsiveness across Windows 10.”

So it’s not even a security update, it’s just a ripoff of Linux, and Microsoft forces people to accept it. “That’s in build 10525,” Ryan wrote. “Not much news about this latest mega patch though. They don’t list what’s in them anymore, so why bother covering them?”

For all one knows, there can be ,pre back doors in there.

“The only thing Microsoft will tell you is that it patches a Critical security hole in IE 11,” Ryan added, “but it goes much further. It’s on Reddit.”

So basically, once again we are reminded that installing Vista 10 is becoming part of a Microsoft botnet (the network too, by extension), commandeered by people who modify and delete binaries without the option to opt out and without even explaining what is done (toggling off surveillance antifeatures has no effect, either). What kind of person would install such a thing? It’s a surveillance monster, remotely controlled by Microsoft and its spy buddies. There is already a free (and freedom-respecting) upgrade and it’s called GNU/Linux. █

Black Duck Still Destroying, Lying, Rewriting History

Posted in Deception, Free/Libre Software, FUD, Microsoft at 7:03 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

Manchester crane

Summary: Black Duck is still carrying water for Microsoft and pretends to be working for ‘Open Source’, despite doing it much harm and doing nothing that is actually Open Source

AN ARTICLE titled “The channel’s role in improving open source security” cites a FUD ‘study’ from Black Duck, the firm which, by its very own admission (high level), was created to spread FUD against GPL and discourage its use/adoption.

“Don’t forget that Ohloh, just like Black Duck, was created by people from Microsoft. “The day beforehand we saw gross revisionism that said the firm “set up in 2002 not as an anti-malware tool or a security outfit, but as a ‘curator’” (that’s a lie). All that Black Duck has become is a parasite and a back stabber, wielding software patents and proprietary software.

Another thing that Black Duck turns out to have killed, based on this new post, is Open HUB. It’s said to be “dead” now, maybe because it doesn’t serve the agenda of Black Duck anymore. To quote:

Some may recall it as Ohloh, then it was taken over by Black Duck Software and now runs under the name of Open HUB, the open source network to “Discover, Track and Compare Open Source”. What a laugh. Since Black Duck took over things continuously have gotten worse, spinning repository updates became infrequent, and now OpenHUB simply can’t catch up with all projects, their engine for months was months behind with updating source code, and now completely fails on big repositories.

Don’t forget that Ohloh, just like Black Duck, was created by people from Microsoft. They both should be treated as such. █

Ashley Madison Disaster Apparently the Fault of Microsoft Windows

Posted in Microsoft, Security, Windows at 6:50 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

What kind of company uses Windows for security?!

Hilton Manchester

Summary: New reports serve to show that Ashley Madison’s data which got leaked includes complete dump of corporate Windows passwords

TWO months ago we wrote about the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) breach and Microsoft Windows. It’s quite unusual for large, high-profile breaches to involve anything but Microsoft, but the media rarely call out Windows, not even when Stuxnet is clearly all about Windows (not surprisingly because Microsoft aids the NSA and the NSA developed Stuxnet) and the Sony were reportedly the fault of a leaky Window server, irrespective of who infiltrated it (an entirely separate question).

Another day, another crack. Because OPM contains the personal details of many rich and powerful people. OPM still dominates the news to some degree (although Windows is rarely mentioned) and now it’s Ashley Madison [1,2]. A lot of people, including very high-profile people, can now be publicly shamed and/or blackmailed.

“Well done, Microsoft. Instead of helping just the NSA (and by extension Five Eyes) hoard weapons of blackmail against billions of people the company has now got weapons of blackmail scattered all around the Web, targeting many millions of people.”According to this report, the leak “included a full domain dump of corporate passwords (NTLM hashes) of the Windows domain of the company” (hello Microsoft!).

“According to security experts, including Krebs,” wrote Gordon in IRC, “it’s definitely a legit dump” and there are articles that explain why. “The database dump,” to quote this one report, “appears to be legitimate and contains usernames, passwords, credit card data (last four), street addresses, full names, and much much more. It also contains an extensive amount of internal data which looks like the hackers had maintained access to their environment for a long period of time.”

Ashley Madison’s owners are in panic because a lot of lawsuits may be imminent. They are trying to DMCA sites that share the data, but history teaches that this is a futile effort. They now pay the price of using Windows and many people (perhaps dozens of millions) pay the price of relying on a company that uses Windows.

Well done, Microsoft. Instead of helping just the NSA (and by extension Five Eyes) hoard weapons of blackmail against billions of people the company has now got weapons of blackmail scattered all around the Web, targeting many millions of people. Microsoft leads to a form of global anarchy by making its software flawed by design and leaky by intention. It’s that same dumb mentality that leads some politicians to demands of back doors only for the “Good Guys” (them). █

Related/contextual items from the news:

  1. Remember How The DMCA ‘Stopped’ The Release Of Ashley Madison Cheaters Data? About That…

    And… it took longer than expected, but less than a month later, the data file has leaked online, and you can bet that lots of people — journalists, security researchers, blackmailers and just generally curious folks — have been downloading it and checking it out.

    Maybe, next time, rather than claiming copyright, the company will do a better job of protecting its systems.

  2. Data from hack of Ashley Madison cheater site dumped online [Updated]

    Gigabytes worth of data taken during last month’s hack of the Ashley Madison dating website for cheaters has been published online—an act that could be highly embarrassing for the men and women who have used the service over the years.

    A 10-gigabyte file containing e-mails, member profiles, credit-card transactions and other sensitive Ashley Madison information became available as a BitTorrent download in the past few hours. Ars downloaded the massive file and it appeared to contain a trove of details taken from a clandestine dating site, but so far there is nothing definitively linking it to Ashley Madison. User data included e-mail addresses, profile descriptions, addresses provided by users, weight, and height. A separate file containing credit card transaction data didn’t include full payment card numbers or billing addresses.

    [...]

    “We have now learned that the individual or individuals responsible for this attack claim to have released more of the stolen data,” they wrote in an e-mail to Ars. “We are actively monitoring and investigating this situation to determine the validity of any information posted online and will continue to devote significant resources to this effort. Furthermore, we will continue to put forth substantial efforts into removing any information unlawfully released to the public, as well as continuing to operate our business.”

“Our products just aren’t engineered for security.”

–Brian Valentine, Microsoft executive

After OOXML Propaganda, New Assocham Propaganda Calls for Back Doors, Spyware and Other Malicious, Self-defeating Traps Inside Government of India

Posted in Asia, Deception, Free/Libre Software, Microsoft at 6:23 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

Assocham (or ASSOCHAM) has been fronting for Microsoft’s interests for nearly a decade (if not much longer)

Assocham logo

Summary: Assocham is showing its true colours yet again, lobbying for the interests of foreign companies and endorsing serious abuse or compromise of India’s national sovereignty

MICROSOFT, which suffers big financial losses, layoffs, and cancelled products, must be rather nervous right now. It even appointed a new CEO with Indian roots, as part of its desperate, shallow effort to change the company’s image. More than seven years ago we showed how Assocham had become somewhat of a lobbyist for Microsoft's interests in India (effectively aiding Microsoft corruption of international scale). Now that India is moving towards Free software we see a lot of lobbying from Microsoft again. Microsoft still exercises far too much influence against the interests on India, often relying on proxies and front groups that it is closely connected to. We covered it earlier this year in articles such as:

In lobbying for Microsoft et al. Assocham now uses the same propaganda as for software patents, using almost exactly the same words, mainly “fair” and “non-discriminatory” (remember what FRAND and RAND stand for, uttering in quite an Orwellian fashion the very opposite of what they are). Microsoft’s India lobby wants back doors, spying, and strong foreign lock-in in India. Anything else would be “unfair” and “discriminatory”, or so Microsoft would have us believe.

“Given Assocham’s past actions it would be hard for it to deny rogue play.”India’s corporate media and paid-for press wires are now clogged up by at least a dozen English language bits of propaganda from Assocham, e.g. [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]. It’s pure nonsense and it is consistent with what Microsoft has been doing in recent months, both directly and indirectly, e.g. through NASSCOM, which is connected not only to Microsoft but also the Gates Foundation.

Given Assocham’s past actions it would be hard for it to deny rogue play. It’s easy to see why propaganda is needed here. Assocham should be asked by our Indian readers, “are you that corrupt?” We urge for action, perhaps some petition, questioning the integrity of this 95-year-old body, which was either corrupted or was always inherently corrupt.

Vista 10 is totally unacceptable for use by any government. It is definitely unacceptable for use in Munich, which is now under attack by Microsoft boosters yet again (report from CBS), amid many reports about NSA espionage inside Germany (vindicating Munich). Microsoft is a spyware company and no nation in Europe, especially a nation’s government, should let Microsoft possess any data, yet in Italy, based to Microsoft boosting sites [1, 2], there is a retreat to the huge costs of lock-in and OOXML. They say it’s done “to Save Money” as if selling citizens’ data without their consent to some foreign company that cooperates with the NSA more than any other software company is some kind of achievement.

India ought to fight for its digital sovereignty. It has many talented software engineers who can build and maintain the country’s infrastructure using Free software. Assocham may continue to prove itself to be a parasite, a mole, and a sellout. It’s time to shut it up. █

08.19.15

Links 19/8/2015: LinuxCon Everywhere

Posted in News Roundup at 11:32 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

GNOME bluefish

Contents

GNU/Linux

Free Software/Open Source

Leftovers

  • News Corp.’s Amplify education experiment: What went wrong?

    That write-down comes nearly five years after it purchased Wireless Generation for $360 million in 2010 and renamed it Amplify. At the time, News Corp. was going to bet about $500 million on Amplify to dominate the market. Amplify was led by Joel Klein, the former head of the New York City Department of Education.

  • Avoiding Amazon? The 5 best alternatives to the online bookseller giants
  • You probably don’t want to work for Amazon

    ‘Amazon is where overachievers go to feel bad about themselves.’

  • The Missing ‘Leadership Principle’ at Amazon
  • Amazon’s 24/7 Hell Is the Future of Work

    Working at Amazon may be hell, but so is working everywhere else. Or at least it will be soon. The blockbuster New York Times report documenting Amazon’s “bruising” white collar culture is a fine piece of labor reporting, yet its revelations shouldn’t be too surprising. Amazon is revealed to be a more efficient and more unpleasant formulation of the standard modern workplace; one shaped by globalization, digitalization, and increasingly limitless expectations placed on the plugged-in worker.

  • Health/Nutrition

  • Security

    • Security updates for Monday
    • Security advisories for Tuesday
    • DDoS attacks on the rise as Akamai warns that ‘mega attacks’ are coming

      THIS IS THE DAWN of the mega denial-of-service (DoS) attack, according to security firm Akamai and its second quarter threat report.

      We wait every three months for the Akamai State of the Internet report, and we are never disappointed. Its content is pretty good too, and allows for a summary of the past quarter and a reminder about things like Shellshock and web perennials like Flash, WordPress themes and application attacks.

    • Ransomware goes open source

      Turkish security bod Utku Sen has published what seems to be the first open source ransomware that anyone can download and spread. The ‘Hidden Tear’ ransomware, available at GitHub, is a working version of the malware the world has come to hate. It uses AES encryption to lock down files and could display a scare warning or ransom message to get users to pay.

  • Transparency Reporting

    • Julian Assange and the Value of WikiLeaks: Subverting Illusions

      Above and beyond Assange’s personal freedom, what’s at stake includes the impunity of the United States and its allies to relegate transparency to a mythical concept, with democracy more rhetoric than reality. From the Vietnam War era to today — from aerial bombing and torture to ecological disasters and financial scams moving billions of dollars into private pockets — the high-up secrecy hiding key realities from the public has done vast damage. No wonder economic and political elites despise WikiLeaks for its disclosures.

  • Finance

    • Richard D. Wolff | Déjà Vu: Germany Tightens Its Economic Power Over Europe

      Germany’s leaders herded their European counterparts into imposing harsh austerity on Greece. It was the price, they insisted, that Greece had to pay to receive bailout credits from the European Union, European Central Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF). The Europeans required those bailout credits to be used mostly to pay back loans the Greek government had gotten earlier from private banks (chiefly German, French and Greek). Those credits could not be used to get Greece out of the 2008 crash that afflicted all of Europe.

  • PR/AstroTurf/Lobbying

    • Scott Walker’s False Promise of Racial Unity

      When asked about race relations on the first anniversary of Michael Brown’s killing at the hands of a white police officer in Ferguson, Missouri, Walker replied:

      “I think in general if anyone focuses on racial discord we’re going to get more,” he said. “If we focus on unity we’re going to get more of that.”

      In other words, acknowledging systemic problems like the documented wave of police killings of unarmed black men, or the racial wealth gap, or disparities in sentencing and incarceration, creates “discord.” During the GOP debate, he similarly dodged a question about the Black Lives Matter movement, which even Fox News anchor Megyn Kelly called “the biggest civil rights issue of our time.”

    • 70 Awful Displays Of Sexism On Fox News

      On the 95th anniversary of the ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment, which gave women the right to vote, Media Matters looks back at Fox News’ many displays of sexism, ranging from hosts suggesting young women should not exercise civic duties like participating in jury duty because they “don’t get it,” to Erick Erickson’s claim that “the male typically is the dominant role.”

    • Who Is Intimidating Who?

      The cheerful cheddarheads who showed up at the Iowa State Fair “Soapbox” to razz Scott Walker got a rude reception. The Soapbox is a Des Moines Register tradition and peaceful protesters have long been a part of this exercise in free speech. But after Walker was punked by two young people with a fake $900 million Koch check weeks ago, Team Walker seems a bit tense. At the Soapbox, Walker supporters ripped a sign out of one protester’s hand which read “WARNING Don’t let him do to America what he did to Wisconsin.” Another protester told CNN ”I got pushed into a disabled woman. I fell on her wheelchair. She started screaming at me.”

    • Donald Trump Praises Bill O’Reilly For His Focus On Immigrant “Crime Wave”

  • Censorship

    • MPAA Ducks Censorship Battle With Google, Twitter and Facebook

      The MPAA has dropped its request for a preliminary injunction that would require search engines, ISPs and hosting companies to stop linking or offering services to MovieTube. The decision comes a few days after prominent tech firms including Google, Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr and Yahoo branded the request as a broad censorship attempt.

    • U.S. Government Grabbed Dotcom’s Millions “As a Last Resort”

      The U.S. Government has informed the Court of Appeals that the civil forfeiture case against Megaupload and Kim Dotcom was launched as a last resort. The authorities feared that Dotcom and his colleagues would regain possession of the millions in seized assets and argue that they are properly labeled as “fugitives.”

  • Privacy

    • Warrantless airport laptop search dooms Iran arms sales prosecution

      Federal prosecutors asked a federal judge in Washington on Tuesday to dismiss the government’s prosecution of a South Korean businessman accused of illegally selling technology used in aircraft and missiles to Iran.

      The move comes three months after a judge ruled that the government unlawfully seized and searched the suspect’s computer at Los Angeles International Airport as Jae Shik Kim was to catch a flight home in 2012. The government decided not to appeal and said it was “unable to continue prosecuting this matter.”

  • Intellectual Monopolies

    • Copyrights

      • Desperate Rightscorp Burns Through More Piracy Millions

        Piracy monetization company Rightscorp has published its results for Q2 2015 and it’s yet another three months of misery for the company. At the same time as paying out just $117K to its copyright holder clients, Rightscorp managed to run up $1.95m in expenses, leaving the company with operating losses in excess of $1.72m.

      • Universal Music and Kim Dotcom Prepared a Deal to Tax Google

        A recording of Kim Dotcom and several Universal Music executives captured two days before the Megaupload raids has revealed the label planning to do a deal with the entrepreneur. Amid discussion of ‘taxing’ Google by diverting its ad revenue to the label, the execs offered to downgrade Dotcom from “evil” to “neutral” in return for dropping legal action over the “Mega Song”.

      • Hollywood Keeps Breaking Box Office Records… While Still Insisting That The Internet Is Killing Movies

        Hollywood is still 100% focused on trying to blame the internet for any of its woes, mostly with bogus attacks on internet companies it doesn’t like. And yet… it seems to keep on setting box office records. The latest is that Universal Pictures has broken a new record in bringing in $2 billion in box office revenue faster than any other studio in history, pushed over the top by the successful opening weekend of “Straight Outta Compton” (a movie that seems to have some big fans in Silicon Valley).

08.18.15

Links 18/8/2015: Linux 4.2 RC7, IBM’s LinuxOne

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

GNOME bluefish

Contents

GNU/Linux

Free Software/Open Source

  • Ransomware goes OPEN SOURCE in the name of education

    Turkish security bod Utku Sen has published what appears to be the first open source ransomware that anyone can download and spread.

    The “Hidden Tear” ransomware, available to GitHub, is a functional version of the malware the world has come to hate; it uses AES encryption to lock down files and can display a scare warning or ransom message to get users to pay up.

  • Chinese, Russian, tech giants join global open source efforts

    Alibaba and Yandex joining these open source efforts confounds their home nations’ occasionally-expressed intentions to build technology ecosystems less dependent on US companies. Both China and Russia have cited post-Snowden security concerns as the reason they’re keen to rely on indigenous technologies. With their tech giants now participating in global efforts alongside US entities, technological isolation looks rather harder to achieve.

  • Keen IO open-sources its Data Explorer tool for making quick queries

    Keen IO, a startup with a cloud-based data analytics tool, is announcing today that it’s releasing one of its tools for customers, the Data Explorer, under an open-source license.

  • Events

  • Web Browsers

    • Mozilla

      • Mozilla tests a true stealth mode for Firefox

        Mozilla wants to make private browsing truly private.

        The company is testing enhancements to private browsing in Firefox designed to block website elements that could be used by third parties to track browsing behavior across sites. Most major browsers, Firefox included, have a “Do Not Track” option, though many companies do not honor it.

      • Mozilla defaults Tracking Protection for Firefox developer builds, but only for private browsing

        Pre-beta versions of Firefox will block domains known to track users by default when a private browser window is opened.

      • Rust in 2016

        This week marks three months since Rust 1.0 was released. As we’re starting to hit our post-1.0 stride, we’d like to talk about what 1.0 meant in hindsight, and where we see Rust going in the next year.

      • Rust Language Focusing On Infrastructure Improvements, Features & More
      • Firefox Security Exploit Targets Linux Users and Web Developers

        Through the years, Firefox has enjoyed a reputation as one of the most secure Web browsers on any platform, and it’s the default browser for many Linux distros. However, a security exploit appeared this week that has shown users they can’t afford to be complacent about security. Mozilla has rushed to patch the flaw, and a new release has closed the hole (39.0.3). But, plenty of users still haven’t updated their browsers.

      • Mozilla Experiments with True Private Browsing

        Mozilla has a long history of experimenting with new features in pre-beta and developer versions of the Firefox browser, and one of the current experiments could shake up notions about private browsing. The company is experimenting with an approach to private browsing where Firefox could block any and all website elements used by third parties to track browsing behavior. Effectively, the new approach would defy the many organizations that don’t honor “Do Not Track” features in browsers.

  • SaaS/Big Data

    • LinkedIn Open Sources Highly Useful Hadoop Tools

      LinkedIn has already adopted Gradle as itsprimary build system. “With Gradle, developers can easily extend the build system by defining their own plugins,” the company claims. “We developed the Hadoop Plugin to help our Hadoop application developers more effectively build, test and deploy Hadoop applications. The Plugin includes the Hadoop DSL, a domain-specific language for specifying jobs and workflows for Hadoop workflow managers like Azkaban and Apache Oozie.”

  • Databases

    • Open Source First Starting to Converge with Cloud First

      Of course, PostgeSQL is only one instance where open source and the cloud are starting to converge. The same argument could also be applied to everything from Node.js to Docker containers. The point is that as the critical mass of open source software in the cloud continues to build, it’s only a matter of time before that same software starts showing up on premise in much greater numbers than it already has.

  • Oracle/Java/LibreOffice

    • First LibreOffice 5.0 Maintenance Release on Its Way to Fix Middle-Click Paste on X11

      After releasing the huge LibreOffice 5.0 update, The Document Foundation announced that the hard team of developers behind the most powerful open-source office suite in the world is hard at work on the first maintenance release of LibreOffice 5.0.0.

    • An Open Letter to Apache Foundation and Apache OpenOffice team

      So I realize that the Apache Foundation took a lot of pride in and has invested a lot of effort trying to create an Apache Licensed Office suite based on the old OpenOffice codebase, but I hope that now that it is clear that this effort has failed that you would be willing to re-direct people who go to the openoffice.org website to the LibreOffice website instead. Letting users believe that OpenOffice is still alive and evolving is only damaging the general reputation of open source Office software among non-technical users and thus I truly believe that it would be in everyones interest to help the remaining OpenOffice users over to LibreOffice.

  • CMS

  • BSD

  • FSF/FSFE/GNU/SFLC

  • Project Releases

  • Public Services/Government

  • Openness/Sharing

    • The Focal Camera: An Open Source Modular Camera

      Over the past year, Dutch artist Mathijs van Oosterhoudt has been developing a new camera system. No, it’s not a high-tech digital system that’s intended to go up against the major camera companies. Instead, it’s an open-modular camera system that’s intended to teach people how to build complex cameras. Its name is The Focal Camera.

  • Programming

    • Perl Weekly

      Yesterday was CPAN day: the 20th(!) anniversary of the day CPAN appeared online. A few articles of this week’s edition celebrate the event, and promote the kind of interaction that keeps it alive.

Leftovers

  • Former Executive Pleads Guilty to Conspiring to Bribe Panamanian Officials

    A former regional director of SAP International Inc. pleaded guilty today to conspiracy to violate the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) by participating in a scheme to bribe Panamanian officials to secure the award of government technology contracts for SAP.

    Assistant Attorney General Leslie R. Caldwell of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division, U.S. Attorney Melinda Haag of the Northern District of California, Special Agent in Charge George L. Piro of the FBI’s Miami Division and Acting Special Agent in Charge Thomas McMahon of the Internal Revenue Service-Criminal Investigation (IRS-CI) made the announcement.

  • Author shows off the real Jamaica through Bob Marley shooting

    Marlon James is the first Jamaican-born novelist nominated for the Man Booker prize. A Brief History of Seven Killings uses the true story of an attempt on the life of Bob Marley to explore the turbulent politics of Jamaica in the 1970s.

  • Science

  • Health/Nutrition

  • Security

  • Defence/Police/Secrecy/Aggression

    • Jeb’s New Iraq Stance: My Brother’s ‘Mission Was Accomplished’

      In the early months of his candidacy, Jeb Bush fumbled whenever he faced extremely predictable questions about his brother’s foreign policy. When asked about Iraq again at last week’s debate, he said that, knowing what we know now, “it was a mistake,” then inelegantly pivoted from praising veterans to blaming Obama for the current situation in the Middle East. This week Bush debuted a new stance: Whatever mistakes President George W. Bush made along the way, the Iraq War ultimately turned out for the best (at least until President Obama and Hillary Clinton messed it all up).

    • AP EXCLUSIVE: Top secret Clinton emails include drone talk
    • New Generation of Cuban-Americans Want Embargo Lifted – Former CIA Officer

      Former CIA counterterrorism officer John Kiriacou claims that a new generation of Cuban Americans is willing to lift the trade embargo on Cuba and end the half-century-long boycott of the island nation.

    • ‘We Wanted to Cut Off Che Guevara’s Head’ – Ex-CIA Agent

      He said that he told the General he could not do it because, being the country’s military chief of staff, Candia just wouldn’t be able to present a severed human head as material proof.

    • Point Person: Our Q&A with Michael Hayden

      Twenty-nine scientists with nuclear specialties signed a letter this month supporting the accord. Are they to be completely dismissed?

    • The Iran Gambit II

      Gambit I was the start of false accusations by the then Bush Administration in 2007 that Iran was preparing a nuclear weapon, when in fact Iran had no such ambitions at all, but a plan to open an Iranian Oil Bourse (IOB) in Teheran, an international hydrocarbon exchange, where all countries, hydrocarbon producers or not, could trade this (still) principal energy source in euros, as an alternative to the US dollar. This would have devastated the dollar as a hegemonic fiat currency – still used on false trust as the main world reserve currency.

    • Neocons to Americans: Trust Us Again

      Marching in lockstep with Israeli hardliners, American neocons are aiming their heavy media artillery at the Iran nuclear deal as a necessary first step toward another “regime change” war in the Mideast – and they are furious when anyone mentions the Iraq War disaster and the deceptions that surrounded it, writes Robert Parry.

      America’s neocons insist that their only mistake was falling for some false intelligence about Iraq’s WMD and that they shouldn’t be stripped of their powerful positions of influence for just one little boo-boo. That’s the point of view taken by Washington Post editorial page editor Fred Hiatt as he whines about the unfairness of applying “a single-interest litmus test,” i.e., the Iraq War debacle, to judge him and his fellow war boosters.

      After noting that many other important people were on the same pro-war bandwagon with him, Hiatt criticizes President Barack Obama for citing the Iraq War as an argument not to listen to many of the same neocons who now are trying to sabotage the Iran nuclear agreement. Hiatt thinks it’s the height of unfairness for Obama or anyone else to suggest that people who want to kill the Iran deal — and thus keep alive the option to bomb-bomb-bomb Iran — “are lusting for another war.”

    • Iran carpet industry set for revival after deal
    • Iran Gives UN Information About Past Nuclear Activities

      But Iran and the United Nations agency agreed last month to wrap up the investigation by December, when the IAEA plans to issue a final assessment on the allegations.

      On the sidelines of the deal between Iran and the world powers in the Austrian capital of Vienna on July 14, Tehran and the UN nuclear watchdog signed an agreement to resolve outstanding issue about PMD of its past nuclear activities.

    • Guest commentary: Should get own house in order before bullying others

      Our unelected military ruler, Gen. Prayuth Chan-ocha, tried to stem the backlash, asking Thais to stop blaming the U.S. government for awarding Thailand a low ranking in its annual report.

      But as an American columnist living in Thailand, I have the same question many Thais have, namely: Shouldn’t the U.S. get its own moral house in order before policing the rest of the world?

    • Havana Sells US Diplomatic Ties as Victory
    • US Raises Flag in Cuba After 54 Years (Video)

      The United States and Cuba are taking the next step in restoring diplomatic relations with each other as Secretary of State John Kerry arrived in Havana Friday to attend a ceremony marking the reopening of the U.S. Embassy there. This comes after former Cuban President Fidel Castro wrote in a newspaper column that the U.S. owes the island country “millions of dollars” as reparations for its decades-long embargo.

    • The US-Cuba thaw

      Secretary of State John Kerry had the honor of reopening the US embassy in Cuba 54 years after it was closed. But it was the pair of presidents, Barack Obama and Raul Castro, who made it happen, and each in his own way.

    • Cold War thaw: Re-establishing diplomatic ties with Cuba was the right move

      In the 54 years since the United States ended diplomatic ties with Cuba, we’ve learned a lot about our Caribbean adversaries.

    • The Crisis In Ukraine: War Or Rumors Of War?

      The early reports of the demise of the Soviet Union and the end of the communist threat now appear at best, to have been greatly exaggerated, or at worst, an intentional deception. Although the intelligence service of the Soviet Era, the KGB, was renamed the Federal Security Service (FSB), it facilitated the rise of Vladimir Putin, a former KGB officer, proving the security service is still very much in power within the “new” Russia.

    • Neocons Falsify Iraq War ‘Lessons’

      Having escaped accountability for the Iraq War disaster, U.S. neocons are urging the use of more military force in the Mideast, in line with Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu’s demand to block the Iran nuclear deal. From their important perches of power, these war hawks also twist the history of their catastrophic misjudgments, writes ex-CIA analyst Paul R. Pillar.

    • Analysts concerned over possible civilian casualties from US airstrikes from Turkey

      Speaking to Sunday’s Zaman, Professor Celalettin Yavuz, an expert on foreign policy and security, mentioned the likelihood that US armed drones known as Predators, which have been deployed to İncirlik Air Base, will mistakenly kill civilians in Syria and Iraq as the US-led collation steps up operations against ISIL.

    • Washington Threatens Ecuadorian Democracy

      Rule by powerful monied interests is longstanding US policy.

    • Montagnards: Green Beret’s secret weapon during Vietnam War

      Smokey Stover Theater, onboard the retired USS Yorktown in Charleston Harbor, filled up quickly last night with aging veterans, their spouses, and civilians curious to know more about secret weapons, specifically those employed by U.S. Special Forces Soldiers. That “secret weapon” for the Vietnam-era Green Berets was the indigenous mountain people of Southeast Asia; the Montagnards.

    • AP Interview: Jordan says Syria militants try to sneak in

      Militants have tried to sneak into Jordan from Syria by blending in with Syrian refugees, and attempts to smuggle weapons and drugs into Jordan have increased, the commander of Jordan’s Border Guard said in an interview Sunday.

  • Transparency Reporting

  • Environment/Energy/Wildlife

  • Finance

    • Why A Democrat Is Now Blocking An Obama Nominee

      Sen. Sherrod Brown has a new tactic in the fight to access secretive trade deal documents.

    • Count finds 40 percent increase in Marin homeless population

      A one-day count of Marin County’s homeless population in January found 1,309 homeless people ­— a 40 percent increase from the 933 homeless reported in 2013.

    • Show Me a Hero: Fear and Loathing in Yonkers

      Show Me a Hero concentrates on the most volatile five years of the clash between Yonkers and U.S. District Court Judge Leonard B. Sand. In 1987, the judge, weary of the city’s stalling in the face of his order to build 200 units of public housing on its predominantly white and middle-class west side, ordered the Yonkers City Council to get the project under way or face escalating fines that would quickly reach $1 million a day and bankrupt the city within three weeks. Making it clear that the case had gone beyond politics or policy wonkery, the judge also fined any council member who voted against the housing.

    • Why is Bitcoin forking?

      So this is it. Here we are. The community is divided and Bitcoin is forking: both the software and, perhaps, the block chain too. The two sides of the split are Bitcoin Core and a slight variant of the same program, called Bitcoin XT. As of August 15th, there is now a full release available.

  • PR/AstroTurf/Lobbying

    • Jeremy Corbyn and the SNP

      I was impressed by Jeremy’s talk and by the energy in the room. Jeremy was at his strongest when referring to the need for basic human decency and respect in our treatment of those in need for aid from the state, including the homeless and refugees. His basic human empathy and compassion really shone through. He was contemptuous of austerity, marketisation and the neoliberal consensus. His denunciation of Iraq and of Trident galvanised the room. He can talk with a genuine moral authority. He is certainly not a great orator, but sincere and fluent.

    • Kezia Dugdale Got Just 5,217 Votes

      The Labour Party is being remarkably coy about releasing the actual result of its Scottish accounting unit leadership election, giving only a percentage. The entirely complacent unionist media is complicit in what amounts to a deception.

    • Fox Nation Promotes Absurd Conspiracy Theory That EPA “Foul[ed] Up” Animas River “On Purpose”

      On August 12, FoxNation.com republished portions of a post by The Gateway Pundit headlined, “Letter to Editor PREDICTED COLORADO EPA SPILL One Week Before Catastrophe So EPA Could Secure Control of Area.” Fox Nation highlighted the portion of the Gateway Pundit post in which author Jim Hoft wrote: “The letter detailed verbatim, how EPA officials would foul up the Animas River on purpose in order to secure superfund money. If the Gold King mine was declared a superfund site it would essentially kill future development for the mining industry in the area. The Obama EPA is vehemently opposed to mining and development.”

    • Investigative Journalist Slams The Big Media Tycoons’ Public Mind Control

      This has been obvious since Operation Mockingbird, a CIA-based initiative to manage the media came into operation. Most people feel that almost everything we see in the media is just “brainwashing”. A lot of blatant lies are splashing over the TV screen, especially on issues related to “health, food, war (“terrorism”), poverty and more”.

    • ‘Hitler was an Anglo-American stooge’: the tall tales in a Moscow bookshop

      Adolf Hitler was installed in power in Germany as part of an Anglo-American plot, the CIA is planning a full-scale land invasion of Russia from Ukrainian territory within the next five years, and the world has become so dominated by women that they have evolved to be capable of reproducing without the need for male sperm.

    • ABC’s Martha Raddatz Debunks Ben Carson’s Claim That Planned Parenthood Targets Black Communities For Abortion

      ABC’s Martha Raddatz debunked GOP presidential candidate Dr. Ben Carson’s claim that Planned Parenthood engages in racist population control by targeting black communities.

  • Censorship

    • Scott DeSmit: Willingly surrendering our freedom

      Put away the tinfoil hats.

      The government spies on us and we can do nothing about it.

      They know. Everything.

      This may be a revelation to most people because it was not reported by most major media outlets, but the government now has access to almost everything we do.

      They know what we ate for breakfast, lunch and dinner.

      Going to a movie? They know which one and at what time.

      The government has photographs of almost every person in America and photographs of your children, too.

      Your cat? Yes, they have photographs of your pets.

  • Privacy

  • Civil Rights

    • Why Did the FBI Spy on James Baldwin?

      James Baldwin’s FBI file contains 1,884 pages of documents, collected from 1960 until the early 1970s. During that era of illegal surveillance of American writers, the FBI accumulated 276 pages on Richard Wright, 110 pages on Truman Capote, and just nine pages on Henry Miller. Baldwin’s file was closer in size to activists and radicals of the day — for example, it’s nearly half as thick as Malcolm X’s.

    • The FBI Agent Who Hunted N.W.A

      In the late ’80s, the bureau targeted the hip-hop group for their incendiary anthem ‘Fuck tha Police,’ and transformed the rappers into First Amendment crusaders.

    • [Old] Texas Bill to take on NDAA Indefinite Detention Passes House Committee, 4-2

      A Texas bill that would make indefinite detention, as purportedly authorized by the 2012 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), a criminal act – passed through a state House committee last week.

    • [Old] Anonymous Launches #Gitmo2Chicago to Shut Down NDAA Style Secret Detention Center By Chicago Police

      Various activist groups and concerned citizens are coming together to oppose the Chicago Police’s secret torture detention center also known as Homan Square.

    • Bush torture comments worry human rights groups over possible resurgence

      Activists lament political culture ‘where tolerating torture is the norm’ and fear potential of Republican successor to Barack Obama overturning his torture ban

    • Republican Presidential candidate Jeb Bush leaves door open for use of torture by government

      The former Florida governor on Thursday said that in general, he believes torture is inappropriate, and that he was glad his brother, former President George W Bush, largely ended the CIA’s use of the techniques before he left office. The CIA used water boarding, slapping, nudity, sleep deprivation, humiliation and other methods to coerce Al-Qaeda detainees, methods the military would be prohibited from using on prisoners of war. “I don’t want to make a definitive, blanket kind of statement,” Bush told an audience of Iowa Republicans, when asked whether he would keep in place or repeal President Barack Obama’s executive order banning so-called enhanced interrogation techniques by the CIA.

    • CIA Mistakenly Releases Apology Letter It Wrote to Senate For Illegally Spying On It

      The documents of the US government that were expected to remain out of reach in the coming years have been got hold of by Jason Leopold of FOIA staffers. The CIA would have definitely thought that one of the documents would remain its little secret for the coming years.

    • Where psychologists went wrong

      Too late for Omar Khadr and thousands of other political prisoners tortured at Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib, and other CIA “black hole” sites where some APA psychologists may still be “interrogating” with CIA psychologists and psychiatrists.

    • Righting Governance Gone Rogue in the American Psychological Association: The Torture Scandal

      By a nearly unanimous vote and standing ovation, the American Psychological Association’s (APA) Council of Representatives voted August 7th, 2015, at their annual convention to adopt a new policy barring psychologists from participating in national security interrogations and torture, including non-coercive interrogations now conducted by the Obama administration. The resolution states “psychologists shall not conduct, supervise or be in the presence of, or otherwise assist any national security interrogations for any military or intelligence entities.” The resolution places the APA on the side of international law by “barring psychologists from working at Guantánamo, CIA black sites, and other settings deemed illegal under the Geneva Conventions or the U.N. Convention Against Torture, unless they are working directly for the persons being detained or for an independent third party working to protect human rights.”1

    • Psychologists contrite on ‘torture’ collusion

      Aside from the personal vindication, Reisner said, the resolution would help repair the APA’s badly damaged image.

      “The public is legitimately wary of the American Psychological Association as the representative of professional psychology,” he said. “And if it is the representative of professional psychology, the public will be wary of professional psychology.”

    • Pre-crime: DHS admits that it puts people on the no-fly list based on “predictive assessment”

      A DoJ filing in an ACLU lawsuit in Oregon admits that you can be put on a no-fly list based on “predictive assessments about potential threats,” as opposed to threatening or dangerous things you’ve actually said or done.

      It’s the first case in which a court is being asked to “review the basis for the government’s predictive model for blacklisting people who have never even been charged, let alone convicted, of a violent crime.”

      The Obama administration is trying to prevent further disclosures about the program’s basis for denying Americans the right to travel based on secret evidence and an opaque process. FBI counter-terrorism assistant director Michael Steinbach defended the no-fly list’s dependence on security through obscurity: “If the Government were required to provide full notice of its reasons for placing an individual on the No Fly List and to turn over all evidence (both incriminating and exculpatory) supporting the No Fly determination, the No Fly redress process would place highly sensitive national security information directly in the hands of terrorist organizations and other adversaries.”

    • New York Times uses rape allegations to promote a wider war in the Middle East

      The New York Times led its Friday edition with a lengthy front-page article headlined “Enslaving Young Girls, the Islamic State Builds a Vast System of Rape.” The article, spread out over more than two pages, provides a lurid account of women and girls belonging to the Yazidi religious minority being systematically captured and sold as sex slaves by Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) fighters.

      The author, Rukmini Callimachi, cites various US academics and think tanks to argue that ISIS has devised a religious justification for rape and “developed a detailed bureaucracy of sex slavery.” The prominence of the article, its sensationalist tone and presentation, and its timing—appearing in the midst of a US escalation of its military interventions and proxy wars in Iraq and Syria—make clear that the publication of the piece is calculated to inflame public opinion and build support for a wider war.

    • Kayla Mueller, American hostage, was raped repeatedly by ISIS leader, U.S. says

      American hostage Kayla Mueller was repeatedly forced to have sex with Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the leader of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria group, U.S. intelligence officials told her family in June.

    • America’s despicable, hypocritical persecution of Chelsea Manning

      Chelsea Manning, the former U.S. Army private who was imprisoned for giving thousands of classified documents to WikiLeaks, was recently threatened with torture for supposedly violating the conditions of her detention.

    • Benghazi Case Focuses Attention on US Interrogation Strategy

      The case, still in its early stages, is focusing attention on an interrogation strategy that the Obama administration has used in just a few recent terrorism investigations and prosecutions. Abu Khattala’s lawyers already have signaled a challenge to the process, setting the stage for a rare court clash over a tactic that has riled civil liberties groups but is seen by the government as a vital and appropriate tool in prosecuting suspected terrorists captured overseas.

    • Decriminalising human suffering

      Rachel Moran is a victim of the sex slave industry, who went on to become a co-founder of the Space International Anti-Sex Trade Group. She made the following comments in her tweet about the 11th Aug 2015 decision by the AI:

      “Amnesty’s decision is ‘breathtakingly disgraceful’. When I first heard this proposal, I got very emotional, I have been through a lot and I am not a woman who usually gets emotional. But this is an insult, from the most publicly recognised human rights body in the world, who is saying everything that happened to me was completely normal, above board and ought to be legal.”

      Hundreds of anti-sex slave organisations around the globe have condemned this move by the Amnesty International UK.

    • Russian Muslims Face Challenges of Demography and Migration

      …Russian Muslims have constantly been at the centre of public attention and the mass media.

    • Torture, show trials common in neocolonial Libya

      A video released last week showing the beating and torture of Saadi Gadhafi is not an anomaly in contemporary Libya where the Pentagon and NATO waged a war of regime change in 2011.

    • The myth of presidential wisdom in foreign affairs

      President George W. Bush stupidly invaded Iraq to the benefit of our arch-enemy Iran and to avenge his family embarrassment at the hands of a gloating Saddam Hussein. He continued fighting a post-9/11 purposeless war in Afghanistan hoping to summon a democracy into being from an antedeluvian political culture.

    • Judith Miller and those Weapons of Mass Destruction

      Her critics said she was grandstanding, playing the journalism martyr to recapture the luster lost during her reporting of the Iraqi war. But she retorted she was standing on journalistic principles, that her sources at first refused to waive a confidentiality agreement, forcing her to go to jail, then relented, allowing her to go free and testify.

    • US government investigated journalists 14 times during 2014

      A Justice Department report says the US government questioned, arrested or subpoenaed journalists 14 times during 2014, including the high-profile subpoena issued to New York Times reporter James Risen.

      Former US attorney general Eric Holder said in February 2014 that the department would release information on how law enforcement officials use its tool to investigate the news media.

      The four-page annual report released on Friday includes 14 incidents, including the subpoena issued to Risen, who refused to divulge his CIA source for a chapter of his book about the Iran nuclear program. The informant, Jeffrey Sterling, was convicted on nine counts in January.

    • California legislators to eye police push for use of drones

      California law enforcement agencies are looking to fly drones as an affordable and efficient way to monitor crime scenes, pursue suspects and search for lost hikers.

    • Yemen In Meltdown: Domestic And Regional Competitions And Destruction Of Nationhood – Analysis

      The national ideal in North Yemen got corroded through the 1980s because of two main reasons. First, there was the natural attrition pertaining to the first generation of leaders and the accompanying reluctance of younger educated Yemenis to return to their country to replace them. The American authority on Yemen, Asher Orkaby, has noted that in 2014 at least 30,000 educated Yemenis were working abroad. This was mainly due to the second contributory factor: the 33-year rule of President Ali Abdullah Saleh, first, from 1978 over North Yemen, and then from 1990 over united Yemen, after a short military campaign in which the communist forces were defeated.

    • Florida inmate serving life sentence killed in cell

      A Florida prison inmate serving a life sentence for his role in a 2011 Jacksonville murder was killed in his cell.

      The Florida Department of Corrections said 35-year-old Craig Eugene Roback died on Thursday after an altercation with his cellmate at the Columbia County Correctional Institution.

    • Emigration and war: Capitalist media suppress the obvious

      The reports about tens of thousands of desperate refugees scrambling out of the Middle East and North Africa, trying to reach some place in Europe, are excruciatingly painful. The number who have drowned along the way or died of thirst or hunger is unknown. Others survive these perilous journeys on overloaded boats only to be captured and either interned or turned back at the borders. Photographs show them to be thin, often to the point of emaciation, with few possessions other than the threadbare clothes on their backs.

      Most migrants are men searching for work. But there are women, too, and even children and infants. For every person whose story may be told, thousands remain unrecognized and anonymous. They are only statistics in one of the world’s most perilous mass migrations.

    • 2016 Candidates Must Talk Extrajudicial Drone Strikes

      As President Obama looks to legacy building during his remaining time in office, he’s leaving behind a troubling institution for the next commander in chief to inherit: A program permitting the extrajudicial killing of U.S. citizens abroad. Though President Bush and his administration were responsible for establishing these practices, the Obama White House has, in some respects, expanded some of them. As the 2016 election season heats up, it is worth looking at where the possible presidents-to-be stand on the issue.

      Despite the fact that targeted killings, whether by unmanned aerial drone or cruise missile, are not a new element of the U.S. military, a new, concerning threshold was crossed in 2011. In an unprecedented move, President Obama authorized a lethal drone strike which successfully targeted Anwar al-Awlaki, a U.S.-born citizen. It is unclear if Samir Khan, a U.S. citizen also killed in the strike, was meant to be hit as well. However, the decision to target Anwar al-Awlaki for death has drawn heat from human rights critics, as has the death of his U.S.-born, 16-year-old son, Abdulrahman al-Awlaki, with good reason.

    • Letter from America: Our Messy, messy world!

      Religious extremism is on the rise all over the globe. And it is as much an Islamic problem, as it is a Jewish, Christian, Hindu, Buddhist and Sikh problem. Not a single religious tradition is impervious from its deadly embrace.

      All these religious extremist groups are abusing their religion to create a world of fitnah and fasad. I have chosen these two Arabic words because of the loaded meanings that each carry. The first word in Arabic means trials/tribulations/persecutions/misguidance and the second word: anarchy/confusion/corruption/mischief.

    • Amazon: Devastating expose accuses internet retailer of oppressive and callous attitude to staff

      Working four days in a row without sleep; a woman with breast cancer being put on “performance-improvement plans” together with another who had just had a stillborn child; staff routinely bursting into tears; continual monitoring; workers encouraged to turn on each other to keep their jobs.

      Life at Amazon sounds bleak, according to a devastating, 5,900-word expose by The New York Times.

      The global internet retailer founded by billionaire Jeff Bezos, which paid just £11.9m in tax in Britain last year despite UK sales of £5.3bn, has previously been accused of treating warehouse staff in the UK “like cattle” as they are driven to work harder.

  • Intellectual Monopolies

08.17.15

Patents Roundup: Patent Reform, Google’s ‘Startups’ Ploy, JDate, Fitbit, Cisco, and UPC in the UK

Posted in America, Europe, Patents at 3:30 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

The UK silently adopts a worse patent system without even consulting the public

Manchester library

Summary: A collection of news stories about patents, accumulated over the past week or so

LAST week we observed quite a few ongoing patent cases, as well as new developments in Europe and the United States. This post summarises all the important ones.

The Economist Started a Massive Debate

In at least two articles, both of which published earlier this month, The Economist slammed the current patent system, alluding not specifically to the notorious US patent system. It’s a global problem, that’s for sure, as many systems are interconnected (more so over time, especially with so-called ‘trade’ deals afloat). It is very nice to see a respected British newspaper like The Economist (notable as the UK’s patent regime and copyright regime have historically been most overzealous) joining the opposition to it all, after all…

“In at least two articles, both of which published earlier this month, The Economist slammed the current patent system, alluding not specifically to the notorious US patent system.”Days later, citing The Economist, David Perry of Red Hat said that “more recently, it seems that the problem of patent trolls has captured the attention of a broader audience. Four years ago, NPR produced an episode of This American Life called “When Patents Attack!” And, four months ago, John Oliver devoted the bulk of his time on Last Week Tonight, to raising awareness about patent trolls. “Most of these companies don’t produce anything—they just shake down anyone who does, so calling them trolls is a little misleading—at least trolls actually do something, they control bridge access for goats and ask fun riddles,” he explained.”

Red Hat focuses on patent trolls again. “The patent troll problem is not a new one” is the headline. The Economist, however, did not focus on trolls at all. It’s regretful to see Red Hat distracting the debate again, moving us away from the core issues.

Another article, composed by Mike Masnick, offered a better response. “Once Again The Economist Thinks Patents Are Hindering Innovation And Need Reform” was the headline and citing The Economist, Jeff John Roberts of Fortune, a man who recently wrote some good articles about patents, published an article titled “Hey lawmakers, patents and innovation aren’t the same – here’s a reminder”. This too was motivated by the debate above. To quote Jeff John Roberts: “Patents mean more innovation, right? Sadly, that’s not the case as The Economist makes clear. In a terrific piece of writing in the August 8th issue, the UK magazine explains in clear language what has gone so wrong:

“Red Hat focuses on patent trolls again.”“Patents are supposed to spread knowledge, by obliging holders to lay out their innovation for all to see; they often fail, because patent-lawyers are masters of obfuscation. Instead, the system has created a parasitic ecology of trolls and defensive patent-holders, who aim to block innovation, or at least to stand in its way unless they can grab a share of the spoils […]

“Innovation fuels the abundance of modern life. From Google’s algorithms to a new treatment for cystic fibrosis, it underpins the knowledge in the “knowledge economy”. The cost of the innovation that never takes place because of the flawed patent system is incalculable.”

“The Economist editorial comes at a time when patent reform is getting bogged down yet again in the U.S. Congress. If you’re keeping score, this is the third time in five years that lawmakers have tried to fix the system but, as before, the patent lobby is swooping down with money and dire slogans to grind the process to a halt.”

It has been nice to see the public debate changing somewhat (diverted away from “trolls”), owing to articles that question the system as a whole, not just parasitic elements in it.

Sadly, discussions about patent scope are almost inexistent. That’s a due to a failure of scientists to ‘butt in’ and become involved in the debate. Maybe it’s also the fault of journalists for not approaching scientists for their views.

Lobbying for and Against Patent Reform

Reform debate has been locked down. When the political system in the US speaks of patent ‘reform’ (especially these days but also historically) it basically speaks about “trolls”. Classic “patent troll”, as per definition, is a firm looking to make financial gain not from products (they do not exist) but from extortion. Patent trolls encourage and promote a non-producing economy for parasites to thrive in, nobody can deny that. Is it any better if products exist though? Companies like Microsoft have some products, but in many areas they act like parasites, preying on companies that actually have the lion’s share of the market (Android for instance). It should be clear by now that eliminating “trolls” alone would not end the problem. It’s therefore a misguided debate, driven for the most part by corporations, their lobbyists, and patent lawyers to whom they are top clients.

“It is important that the people who actually produce (actual products, not paperwork) provide their input regarding patent law, or else they will be misrepresented and the law steered against them.”Last week we saw an occupied media lobbying on patent ‘reform’ [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]. As expected, much of this comes from corporate media for corporate agenda [1,2], [3] (posted in other sites) is a “Case for Patent Reform” by Lee Cheng, the chief legal officer at Newegg, which is exceptionally proud of its fight against 'trolls', having done so for years. It receives recognition in this new piece titled “Don’t Be a Victim: Protecting Your Small Business from Patent Trolls”. [4] is a piece from the lobbyists’ media, composed by member of the “Independent Inventors of America”, who basically lobbies against the favoured reforms currently on the table. We sure wonder if this is just another lobbying piece from a front group pretending to be “inventor”. Lastly, in [5] we have greedy patent lawyers who openly call for expansion of patent scope. Where are the scientists in all this? It’s mostly lawyers again. It is important that the people who actually produce (actual products, not paperwork) provide their input regarding patent law, or else they will be misrepresented and the law steered against them.

We were rather amused to see greedy patent lawyers who openly call for expansion of patent scope trying a gross reversal of today’s reality and attempting distortion of facts, pretending that large corporations pass patents to startups (the ‘trickle-down’ nonsense), as opposed to troll-feeding by large corporations, so as to get their rivals attacked by trolls like MOSAID (renamed Conversant). Well, to be fair to patent lawyers, that’s just what they do for a living. They present a gross, biased, and often inaccurate picture of reality in order to get their way and win cases.

Patent Lawyers/Maximalists Against Patent Reform

Yet another lawyers’ firm, McCarthy Tétrault LLP, writes about what it labels “Google’s “FFF” patent plan”, noting: “These two initiatives build on Google’s effort to impact patent reform in the United States and beyond. Prior to these announcements, Google’s efforts included the launch of the Patent Purchase Promotion in April (which we discussed here). Google has not officially released any information on the outcome of the Patent Purchase Promotion but Kurt Brasch, a lawyer at Google, reported that the program was a big success. In a phone interview with Fortune.com Mr. Brasch stated that the company bought numerous patents at purchase prices ranging from $3000 to $250,000.”

“Google cannot fend off patent trolls, so its claims to be helping startups with its patents are just marketing.”Google claims that it helps startups, but this won't work. Google’s IBM-like strategy was talked about by other sites of patent lawyers (covered in brief along with expected protests against the aforementioned reports from The Economist).

Here is what IP Troll Tracker wrote about Google’s strategy when it comes to a startup it supports: “Google would rather shutter the venture than try and fend off the lawsuit, unless the Ordrx software were already pulling in mountains of money.”

Google cannot fend off patent trolls, so its claims to be helping startups with its patents are just marketing. Fortune‘s Jeff John Roberts said so too. That was just a couple of weeks ago in the corporate press.

JDate

“JDate is not a classic patent troll, but it sure acts like one.”Tackling the JDate case, which we wrote about repeatedly for weeks, TechDirt says that “The whole lawsuit is absurd, and it starts with the trademark claims that come before the patent ones.”

JDate is not a classic patent troll, but it sure acts like one. JDate will hopefully get sued in a move of retaliation, preferably to the point of bankruptcy. What the company has done here sets a very bad example to any others that are watching. Software patents on very vague concepts are the weapon.

Jawbone and Fitbit

Citing this patent maximalists’ site (which even grooms notorious patent trolls), IP Kat says that “Jawbone holds 78 utility patents and 78 design patents compared to Fitbit’s 89 utility patents and 11 design patents. Jawbone’s patents lean towards hardware and design, whereas Fitbit’s patents are more focused on hardware and software.”

Yes, Fitbit is patenting software, as we noted here several times before. Its Orwellian surveillance tendencies aside, it ought to convince people to avoid these products. A good friend of mine had purchased a Fitbit device and saw it lasting for only one week. It’s a fragile toy and a fashion accessory that tracks the owner even when the owner is asleep. Nobody needs that.

Cisco

We recently wrote about Cisco's attempt to portray itself as a trolls buster, having acted like a troll itself. Some GNU/Linux-centric sites help the former narrative. This is a good example where a massive corporation, Cisco, not some small startup, uses patents for anti-competitive purposes while claiming to be fighting trolls.

Large corporations want the population to only be obsessed with patent trolls. It helps those large corporations protect themselves and does nothing to tackle the broader issues.

EPO and UPC in the UK

The EPO is coming to the UK. It’s entering from the back door. It gets more of a presence in the UK in ways that we first covered last week, noting that no public consent was even sought! The lawyers who work for (or with) the UK-IPO must think they are above the law, as it increasindly looks a bit like government-sanctioned collusion.

“The UPC is almost guaranteed to bring patent trolls to Europe, enabling them to expand their scope of litigation (or threatening letters, demanding payments).”A maximalist of patents (including software patents), AmeriKat of IP Kat, wrote about the UPC courtroom being established before it’s even authorised. AmeriKat “interprets this as meaning that if the UPC doesn’t happen (pending a UK referendum on membership of the EU) or is somehow delayed than the IPO or, indeed another governmental body, can make use of the space.”

Another piece from the same blog speaks of a “[b]ill that is drafted by civil servants – his servants – and that is supposed to protect the interests of businesses” rather than those of citizens. The UPC is almost guaranteed to bring patent trolls to Europe, enabling them to expand their scope of litigation (or threatening letters, demanding payments).

When people return from their summer holiday we are guaranteed to hear a lot more about the EPO and the UPC. It’s truly undemocratic and often secretive, too. █

08.16.15

Vista 10 Inherently Broken, Anti-Competitive (Against GNU/Linux and Free Software), Privacy-Infringing, and Definitely Not Secure

Posted in Free/Libre Software, GNU/Linux, Vista 10, Windows at 3:17 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

…but some people install it because it doesn’t cost them anything upfront

“I’m going to f—ing kill Google.”

–Steve Ballmer, Microsoft CEO

Summary: A roundup of recent reports about Windows 10, which is akin to Windows Vista in many ways

VISTA 10 is a mess. Ask the management of Microsoft what it thinks of it (while no cameras or microphones point at the management’s direction). When Vista was released the company gloated and dubbed it the “best ever” although later E-mails (requested by subpoena) showed that internally the opposite was being said. Ask Microsoft’s engineers what they think of Vista 10 (I have). Look at how a third mega patch got released within just 2.5 weeks, essentially acting almost like a re-release of the whole operating system given its massive size (almost everything at the core gets replaced).

See “Bill Gates dumped a huge amount of Microsoft stock this year” and “Bill Gates unloads $717M in Microsoft stock in first half of 2015, tops list of U.S. insider stock sales” (composed by Microsoft’s longtime booster, Todd Bishop). This accelerated just shortly after the release of Vista 10, as we noted over a week ago. He seems to be taking his money out before it’s too late, more quickly than ever before. This is not a sign of confidence.

Attacking the Competition

Last week we wrote about how Microsoft attacked Linux on Raspberry Pi. This was first announced quite a while ago and now that it is practically happening reviewers say that Vista 10 IoT Core is a disaster on Raspberry Pi, which hardly surprises us. It’s all just branding. There is no substance and it’s technically a misfit.

A couple of weeks ago we showed how Microsoft used Vista 10 to also attack Mozilla, not just Linux dual-boot setups, as this article serves to remind us. Any of “the failed attempts [to install/configure dual-boot] had been reinstalls of once successful installations. And in all the failed attempts, the cause centered around installing the boot loader GRUB, as you’ll see from the following screenshots.”

Microsoft Tim wrote about how Microsoft uses Vista 10 to essentially delete (or remove the path to) Firefox as the default browser, just as Microsoft treats Linux partitions when one installs Vista 10.

Let this remind us that any news about Vista 10 is therefore relevant to GNU/Linux users. It cannot be ignored by GNU/Linux users because Vista 10 certainly won’t ignore, as opposed to try to screw, the competition. Remember that Google formally complained (to the authorities) about Windows Vista. It happened when Vista came out. Microsoft was deliberately trying to “f—ing kill Google,” to use Ballmer’s language. A lot people don’t remember this anymore. Microsoft plays dirty, still.

Privacy Violations in Vista 10

The Daily Fail, probably Britain’s worst newspaper, referred to Microsoft Peter as “Analysts” in this piece about Microsoft’s privacy violations that even GNU/Linux sites have covered. Well, Microsoft Peter didn’t find out about it, he just wrote about what people had been saying in some popular Web forums and what we also covered here nearly a fortnight ago. Microsoft blatantly ignores users’ settings for business reasons.

“With Windows 10 snooping on your every keystroke,” wrote SJVN, “it’s time to consider an alternative: the Linux desktop.”

Microsoft’s ‘muppet labs’ (that’s what our reader iophk calls this PR unit of Microsoft) is now being propped up by the New York Times. It is marketing disguised as an article, in which Microsoft’s attack on privacy is framed as “science”. They try to pretend that surveillance over people is somehow beneficial to ‘research’ or ‘science’. Nice spin they got there…

Microsoft Emil (Emil Protalinski, predecessor of Microsoft Peter at Ars technica) is back to Microsoft propaganda with this Vista 10 promotion. Has Microsoft recruited him or something? Maybe his loyalty from his previous job…

There are certainly still a lot of manufactured ‘articles’ in favour of Vista 10. There is a big budget behind it.

Deflecting the Outrage to Lenovo

Microsoft Peter managed to deflect criticism from Microsoft to Lenovo last week, causing some sites to call for a boycott of Lenovo rather than a boycott of Microsoft (or both). As The Register put it, “Microsoft made it possible,” so shouldn’t we discuss the role of Microsoft too?

Pushing People to Adopt Newer Versions of Windows

Some Microsoft apologists and boosters have been calling on Windows users to buy (pay for) or install newer versions of Windows, with more antifeatures. Citing “security”, as if newer is actually safer (the opposite is often true), they try to induce panic and rush people to ‘upgrade’.

Simon Sharwood of The Register has expressed concern about many out-of-date servers running an old version of Windows — one that is not even supported anymore. Back doors may therefore be exploited in many Web sites, databases etc. — back doors which not only Five Eyes espionage agencies know about.

Sharwood claims that at least 175 million such servers exist and that this “number comes from Netcraft’s regular count of the world’s web servers. The company’s August survey found 874,408,576 sites running on 5,391,301 web-facing computers.”

“The bottom line?” says Sharwood, is that “ten per cent of all web-facing computers are running old and poorly-secured web servers, at least by today’s standards.”

Well, any version of Windows has back doors, so any server which runs any version of Windows is a “poorly-secured web server,” to use Sharwood’s words.

Remember that some of these contain credit card details. Windows, which has contained NSA back doors for well over a decade, is clearly not suitable for any server anywhere in the world. Over the years we have given many high-profile examples where millions of credit card details had been snatched from Windows servers. Almost every such incident turned out to involve Windows, despite it being in a minority market share in this area.

But Hey, Microsoft Lowered the Cost to $0

Vista 10 is definitely not free, but for existing users of Windows, it can be viewed as a ‘free’ ‘upgrade’, if selling oneself to Microsoft qualifies as ‘free’ (it’s definitely not freedom).

As Susan Linton put it the other day, citing a poll from Microsoft-centric site and a Microsoft booster, “nearly 2/3 respondents say the zero price tag was the reason they chose to upgrade to Windows 10.” █

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