• Distributions
• Devices/Embedded

Desktop

• In a world of free operating systems, can Windows 10 survive?

• Microsoft is planning to buy back €36bn worth of its own shares [Ed: Microsoft is collapsing. Now it’s buying back its OWN shares. history of fraud]

  Microsoft on Tuesday raised its quarterly dividend by 8pc and said it would buy back up to $40bn (€36bn) as part of a new share repurchase program.

  The company raised its dividend to 39c per share, up 3c from the previous quarter.

• Microsoft keeps good piece of Steve Ballmer legacy

• Warning: Microsoft Doesn’t Want You To Install Linux On Its “Signature PCs”

  Microsoft hates it when its customers wish to install Linux or other operating systems on its PCs. A Redditor has expressed concern over his inability to install Linux on a Yoga 900 ISK2 Ultrabook. Trying to justify this, Lenovo has said that Yoga 900 runs a Signature Edition of Windows 10 Home installed and it’s locked per our agreement with Microsoft.

• Lenovo reportedly blocking Linux on Windows 10 Signature Edition PCs (updated)

  According to Reddit user BaronHK, it is impossible to install Linux onto the Signature Edition Lenovo Yoga 900 ISK2 UltraBook because the SSD is locked in a proprietary RAID mode that Linux doesn’t support, and that even Windows 10 cannot use without an Lenovo driver being downloaded first.

  Evidence — in the form of owner reports and reviews — has been uncovered which suggests that the Yoga 900S, and Yoga 710S are locked in a similar manner.

  To confuse matters further, there is a post from a Lenovo “product expert” claiming that Signature Edition PCs have to lock out Linux users because Microsoft says so.

• Microsoft Reportedly Requires “Signature PCs” To Be Locked To Only Running Windows

  Lately I’ve heard a few reports of some newer PCs being less than friendly with Linux, namely a number of Lenovo devices who have issues with installing Linux. Based upon new information that’s come to light from a Phoronix reader, it appears that PCs receiving Microsoft’s “Signature Edition” tag are being locked-out from running non-Windows platforms.

  Ryan Farmer wrote in explaining that his Yoga 900 ISK2 UltraBook hasn’t been able to see Linux installed over a proprietary RAID mode that’s locked by the UEFI/BIOS of this ultrabook: Linux can’t see the SSD. When contacting Lenovo, he was told by a Lenovo representative, “This system has a Signature Edition of Windows 10 Home installed. It is locked per our agreement with Microsoft.”

• Microsoft Said to Ban Linux on Windows 10 Signature Edition PCs

  So much for the “Microsoft loves Linux” phrase

• Lenovo’s Signature laptops refuse to install Linux

• Lenovo denies claims it plotted with Microsoft to block Linux installs

• Microsoft is now blocking laptops from installing Linux, Lenovo says [Update]

• If You’re A Linux User, Be Wary Of Microsoft’s ‘Signature’ PCs

• Lenovo denies blocking Linux on its Windows 10 PCs

• Windows 10 Home Signature Editions Lenovo Yogas locked to disallow Linux installations

• You Can’t Install Linux on a Microsoft Signature Edition Laptop

• Users are reporting that Lenovo is blocking them from installing Linux on their Yogas [Ed: thanks to UEFI]

• Microsoft Signature PC Program Allegedly Blocks Installation Of Linux, Or Does It?

• Lenovo Says Linux Is Not Blocked on Its Windows 10 PCs

• Lenovo confirms and denies locking Linux operating systems out of Yoga notebooks

• The blame game: Lenovo locked Linux out of certain Microsoft’s Signature hardware

• Some Lenovo PCs can’t run Linux

• Lenovo confirms that Linux won’t work on Yoga 900 and 900S laptops

• Lenovo denies deliberately blocking Linux on Windows 10 PCs

• Surprise! Microsoft Isn’t Blocking Linux on Lenovo Laptops

• Lenovo Denies Claims It Plotted With Microsoft To Block Linux Installs

• Lenovo laptops refuse to run Linux due to storage woes, not Microsoft evildoing

• Microsoft aren’t forcing Lenovo to block free operating systems [Ed: says a famous Microsoft and UEFI apologist]

• No, Microsoft Isn’t Locking Linux Out of PCs [Ed: here come the Microsoft mouthpieces like Thurrott]

• No, Microsoft is not locking users out of Lenovo laptops [Ed: and those who repeat/parrot these mouthpieces]

• ‘Microsoft isn’t forcing Lenovo to block free operating systems’

• Rosy Red Hat, GNOME 3.22, MS/Lenovo Barricading

  Red Hat, Inc. released the financial results for the second quarter ending August 31, 2016 in a press release today. Red Hat stock seems to be going in the right direction for them as well even as insiders sell off their shares. The top story today must have been the skirmish resulting from reports of Linux being blocked from certain Lenovo laptops under orders from Microsoft. Elsewhere, GNOME 3.22 was released as a new age rating system is planned for 3.23. And finally, The Document Foundation reported the results of its 2016 Membership Committee elections.

  It was widely reported today that Lenovo laptops featuring Windows 10 lock the hard drive with proprietary code that Linux can not read – so in essence, blocking users from installing Linux. A user asking in a Lenovo support forum was told by an employee that Linux was blocked due to an agreement with Microsoft. The news traveled around the Intertubes with lightening speed making headlines at every tech site in existence. So, Lenovo and Microsoft jumped into damage control saying it was due to proprietary RAID software. Former kernel contributor Matthew Garrett addressed the issue on his blog today saying the sensational headlines are distracting from a real issue here. He said this is probably because “recent Intel hardware needs special setup for good power management and Microsoft could be insisting that Signature Edition systems ship in “RAID” mode in order to ensure that. Or it could be a misunderstanding regarding UEFI Secure Boot.” He said it all boils down to Intel doing “very little to ensure that free operating systems work well on their consumer hardware.” In any case, two major contributors to the Linux kernel and open source really couldn’t care less about either. Today’s sensational headlines might not be accurate, but they do point to a real problem, among many others.

• Lenovo responds to Linux blocking issue, issues non-denial denial

• True Love…and Microsoft Love

  Stop the patent blackmail

  Microsoft has been going to licensees of Android and threatening the licensees with suit if the licensees do not pay Microsoft money for using software that Microsoft says violates their patents. When the companies agree to settle out of court, Microsoft then requires them not to discuss publically which patents are claimed in violation or anything about the settlement. Of course this means that the FOSS community can not study the patents (to see if they are valid or not) or know which sections of code could be re-written to avoid the patents.

  This is more important than Microsoft just getting their pound of flesh for some code that they did not write, which may have existed as “prior art” while Bill Gates was still getting speeding tickets in New Mexico.

  When companies start to develop products they want to know about as many risks as possible. Therefore they worry about patents that exist in code that could be used to block their product, or make it more expensive than they thought the product would be.

  Not knowing what the patents are, or how much Microsoft will charge for them, or even if they are valid, the companies can not make that decision easily. Therefore they might avoid a FOSS (particularly Android) solution.

  Another problem with software patents is that it makes it expensive, difficult and/or dangerous for companies to distribute code over the Internet or on some media. If there is patent-bearing code in the distribution, a distribution could not afford even a penny royalty if there are going to be millions of copies of their code downloaded, with (perhaps) only 100,000 actually installed. This is why some distributions have a separate package for royalty bearing code (usually multimedia codecs), and others have a version for the USA and other countries that recognize software patents and another version for “the rest of the world”.

  The problem with this technique being applied to Microsoft’s claimed patents is that the patents claimed appear to be in the kernel, and the Linux community does not know which patents or to what code the patents apply.

  For Microsoft to show their love for FOSS, I would recommend them joining the Open Invention Network, or simply agree to license these questionable patents free of charge to organizations using FOSS. Microsoft could still charge royalties for their patents used in closed, proprietary software. I have heard Apple has a lot of cash on hand.

  Allow FOSS proponents to keynote at major Microsoft events.

  Microsoft has been coming to FOSS events for many years now. At first there was always the question of whether a FOSS event should allow someone who has been calling you a “virus”, or “a communist” or talking about your “crappy software” to come to their events, but normally it was felt that for FOSS people to exclude Microsoft personnel from attending or to eliminate them from speaking, or even to refuse to take their sponsorship money was not being very “open”. So Microsoft started coming to FOSS events, having booths, speaking, and trying to hire FOSS programmers.

  On the other hand I remember several times where I was chased out of a general purpose computer event by event managers because Microsoft had complained that we were handing out free CDROMs of GNU/Linux to show attendees. At one event I was even forbidden to hand them out on the street corner in front of the event because the side walk also belonged to the venue (or so they said).

  One time we allowed a Microsoft product manager to participate in a panel with Linus, and about ten seconds before we went on the stage the Microsoft manager pulled out the results of software tests to prove that for some obscure function Microsoft Windows was some percentage faster than Linux. Linus, of course, could not refute this, but he did go home and investigate the issue, and in the next release of Linux that function was two or three times faster than Microsoft Windows.

  Nevertheless, I do not remember Microsoft ever allowing a FOSS person to discuss the benefits of the FOSS model of software at a major Microsoft customer or developer event, and if Microsoft really “loved Linux” (and their customers) you would think Microsoft would want their developer and customer base to know about those values and benefits.

  So for Microsoft to really show its love, I think they should invite recognized FOSS advocates to speak as keynote speakers at Convergence, //Build, the Worldwide Partner Conference and Microsoft Ignite. I am sure I could find the time in my schedule to attend one or two of them and there are other FOSS people who could also help out.

• Lenovo Accused Of Locking Linux Out Of Certain Laptops At Microsoft’s Request

  So whether Microsoft is truly to blame here is still an open question. At the very least, it does seem like Lenovo has some questions to answer — and one hopes that the company will be more forthright and honest than it was back during the Superfish episode when it basically lied through its teeth until it couldn’t lie any more.

• Polychromatic Works With New Razer Linux Drivers, Even More Devices

Server

• Beginning Grep for Linux SysAdmins

  GNU grep is an amazing power tool for finding words, numbers, spaces, punctuation, and random text strings inside of files, and this introduction will get you up and running quickly.

  We’ll stick to GNU grep and the Bash shell, because both are the defaults on most Linux distros. You can verify that you have GNU grep, and not some other grep…

• Cloud Migration Is Making Performance Monitoring Crucial

  Application performance monitoring (APM) and network performance monitoring (NPM) are becoming increasingly important as businesses that have adopt cloud-based services and virtualized infrastructure.

  In the recent SDxCentral report, “Network Performance Management Takes On Applications,” more than half of surveyed respondents are actively looking at APM and NPM systems, and more than one-third are in the testing and deployment phases of adoption. Another 16 to 20 percent are piloting these systems, and roughly 15 percent have already deployed them in their network.

• Containing container chaos with Kubernetes

  You’ve made the switch to Linux containers. Now you’re trying to figure out how to run containers in production, and you’re facing a few issues that were not present during development. You need something more than a few well-prepared Dockerfiles to move to production. What you need is something to manage all of your containers: a container orchestration system.

Kernel Space

• OpenDaylight Introduces ‘Boron’ SDN Platform Release

  The industry consortium’s fifth release of its SDN platform puts a focus on the cloud, NFV, performance and tools.
  The OpenDaylight Project effort to create a common platform for network virtualization continues to mature with the unveiling of the group’s fifth release, dubbed “Boron.”

  The industry consortium announced the Boron release Sept. 21, a week before the OpenDaylight Summit kicks off in Seattle Sept. 27. Project officials said the new release brings with it improvements around the cloud and network-functions virtualization (NFV), and is the result of contributions by consortium members in a range of areas, including performance and tools.

• Is an Editable Blockchain the Future of Finance?

  Blockchain, the technology that underlies the cryptocurrency Bitcoin, has been celebrated as a way to change the way transactions of all kinds are made. But a suggestion to make an editable version of the technology is now dividing opinion.

  The consultancy firm Accenture is patenting a system that would allow an administrator to make changes to information stored in a blockchain. In an interview with the Financial Times (paywall), Accenture’s global head of financial services, Richard Lumb, said that the development was about “adapting the blockchain to the corporate world” in order to “make it pragmatic and useful for the financial services sector.”

• OPNFV Taking the Best of Open Source to Build an NFV Platform

  The OPNFV project is somewhat unlike other collaborative projects hosted at Linux Foundation. Rather than being the home for a specific single piece of technology, OPNFV works with multiple upstream open-source communities in a bid to compose a complete Network Function Virtualization (NFV) platform.

• Graphics Stack

  • OpenGL ES 3.2 Officially Enabled For Intel Mesa Driver, Limited To Skylake+

    Intel’s Mesa driver has supported all of the extensions required by the OpenGL ES 3.2 specification, but only today is the support being officially advertised.

    Today’s commit by Kenneth Graunke of Intel explains, “It’s already advertised because the version.c extension checks are fulfilled, but we didn’t actually claim support, so trying to create a ES 3.2 context would fail. It’s all done, and the CTS results look good, so let’s turn it on.”

  • NVIDIA Is Working Towards HDR Display Support For Linux, But The Desktop Isn’t Ready

    NVIDIA supports HDR displays on Windows and Android, but not currently under Linux for the infrastructure not being in place to support High Dynamic Range displays from the Linux desktop. NVIDIA though is looking at working towards ultimately supporting HDR displays on Linux.

  • Some Fresh Linux 4.8 + Mesa 12.1-dev OpenGL Benchmarks For Radeon GPUs

    For those craving some fresh Mesa Git benchmarks, here are a few OpenGL tests I carried out with some AMD Radeon GPUs when comparing the out-of-the-box Ubuntu 16.04 LTS performance to what’s offered currently by Linux 4.8 and Mesa 12.1-dev Git.

  • NVIDIA Presents Over GBM vs. EGLStreams, The Big Wayland Support Debate Continues

  • XDC2016 Day 1: GLVND, Tizen Wayland/Vulkan, PRIME Sync

  • How Google’s Android Runtime On Chrome OS Uses Wayland, DRM

    Google developer David Reveman presented at this morning’s XDC2016 conference in Finland about the Android Runtime for Chrome making use of Wayland (ARC++) and how the rest of its graphics stack looks for running Android programs on Chrome OS.

    For rendering with ARC++, Gralloc and the OpenGL ES driver are using the Direct Rendering Manager, applications have full access to OpenGL ES, and there are support for other rendering APIs. Compositing with ARC++ is handled by the Android HWComposer and then surfaces are forwarded to Chrome for compositing with the rest of Chrome OS’ user-interface.

  • Wayland 1.12 Next-Gen Linux Display Server Officially Released with Many Goodies

    Today, September 21, 2016, Bryce Harrington has had the great pleasure of announcing the immediate availability of the Wayland 1.12.0 display server for GNU/Linux operating systems, along with the Weston 1.12.0 compositor.

    Development for Wayland 1.12 and Weston 1.12 started exactly a month ago when the first Alpha build was seeded to public testers, and it already contained many of the new functionalities and improvements implemented in this final build we can install today on our GNU/Linux distributions.

Applications

• Proprietary

  • Is Microsoft Is Building Yet Another Skype Client? [Ed: avoid Skype on any device, it harvests data by the tons]

• Instructionals/Technical

  • Installing A Django Development Environment on Ubuntu

  • Cloud Foundry Foundation and Pivotal to Open Source Training Materials

  • Pivotal Announces Open Source Cloud Foundry Training

  • Cloud Foundry Releases Free Online Courses

  • The Many Paths to a Solution

  • How to Install LAMP Stack (Apache, MariaDB, PHP, phpMyAdmin) on Mageia 5 System

  • Install Icinga 2 on Ubuntu 16.04

  • Multiple USB Writing on Linux

  • Create an Open Source AWS S3 server

  • How To Launch a MEAN Site on Ubuntu 16.04 Server

• Games

  • Deus Ex Dividing onto Mac and Linux

  • ‘Firewatch’, the first person mystery adventure game has a major update, new game mode and Unity update [Ed: Mono a spoiler]

  • Gunpods Vagabond, a side-scrolling shooter with Lunar Lander style movement mechanics built with Godot

    It’s currently free, but the developer plans to gradually increase the price as development continues using an Early Access style model.

  • Fatal Theory, a retro inspired beat ‘em up now on Linux, some thoughts included

    The developer of Fatal Theory [Official Site, Steam] sent in a copy of their beat ‘em up for me to have a crack at. It’s a retro inspired game with simple gameplay, but is it any good?

    The game is very low res, your maximum option is 1024×768 for a Window, or the same in fullscreen which doesn’t really look that great. Fullscreen will also turn off your monitor.

  • Man O’ War: Corsair – Warhammer Naval Battles looks like it’s now planned to come to Linux [Ed: Mono warning...]

  • ‘Slayer Shock’ from the developer of Eldritch is now in Beta, go hunt some vampires

    You’re a vampire hunter, your home town is being overrun by the undead and it’s your job to lead the extermination. You will be aided by your crew at your coffee house HQ who will help you arm up and discover the leaders behind it all.

  • Zombie Night Terror, the really fun Lemmings style Zombie game is now out for Linux

  • Classic Flash game ‘The Majesty of Colors’ is being remastered and will release on Linux

Desktop Environments/WMs

• MATE 1.16 Desktop Environment Officially Released with More GTK+ 3 Improvements

  Just a few minutes ago, Ubuntu MATE project leader, and now a Canonical employee, Martin Wimpress, informed us about the availability of the MATE 1.16 desktop environment for GNU/Linux operating systems.

  It has been six long months since the MATE 1.14 desktop environment was announced, during which the MATE development team worked hard on bringing lots of improvements to the core applications included in the lightweight graphical desktop interface used by default in the Ubuntu MATE operating system and other GNU/Linux distributions, as well as lots of other enhancements and cosmetic changes.

• GNOME Desktop/GTK

  • GNOME 3.22 core apps

    GNOME 3.22 is scheduled to be released today. Along with this release come brand new recommendations for distributions on which applications should be installed by default, and which applications should not. I’ve been steadily working on these since joining the release team earlier this year, and I’m quite pleased with the result.

  • Catanzaro: GNOME 3.22 core apps

  • GNOME 3.22 Released: the Future is Now

  • GNOME 3.22 released

  • GNOME 3.22 released

  • GNOME 3.22 Officially Released

    Matthias Clasen announced the official GNOME 3.22.0 release a short time ago. He wrote in part, “This release brings comprehensive Flatpak support. GNOME Software can install and update Flatpaks, GNOME Builder can create them, and the desktop provides portal implementations to enable sandboxed applications. Improvements to core GNOME applications include support for batch renaming in Files, sharing support in GNOME Photos, an updated look for GNOME Software, a redesigned keyboard settings panel, and many more.”

  • Parsix’ Nice GNOME, OpenMandriva 3 Sluggish, Firefox 49

  • GTK+ 3.22 GUI Toolkit Released for GNOME 3.22 as Devs Prepare for GTK+ 4.0

    Immediately after announcing the final release of the GNOME 3.22 desktop environment, Matthias Clasen also had the pleasure of informing us about the availability of the GTK+ 3.22 GUI toolkit.

    Most of you out there developing GTK+ apps know what this open source software is all about, and the latest stable build is now 3.22, released as part of the GNOME 3.22 desktop environment. However, it looks like this will be the last release in the GTK+ 3 series, as the developers are now preparing to bump the development builds to version 3.90.x towards GTK+ 4.0.

  • GNOME 3.22 “Karlsruhe” Desktop Environment Is Officially Out, Here’s What’s New

    Today, September 21, 2016, is a big day for Linux users, especially those who love the GNOME desktop environment, as the next major release is now officially available.

  • Introducing GNOME 3.22: Karlsruhe

    GNOME 3.22 is the latest version of GNOME 3, and is the result of 6 months’ hard work by the GNOME community. It contains major new features, as well as many smaller improvements and bug fixes. In total, the release incorporates 22980 changes, made by approximately 775 contributors.

    3.22 has been named “Karlsruhe” in recognition of this year’s GUADEC organizing team. GUADEC is GNOME’s primary conference, which is held in Europe each year, and is only possible due to the amazing work of local volunteers.

  • GNOME 3.22 Official Release Video Uploaded to YouTube

    A GNOME 3.22 release video has gone live on YouTube. It gives users a look at the key changes that feature in the latest update to the Linux desktop environment.

  • GNOME 3.22 Released, This Is What’s New

    GNOME 3.22 is out, and it features comprehensive Flatpak support, file manager improvements, and a whole host more besides. Click through to read more.

  • Who wrote GTK+ 3.22

    Now that GTK+ 3.22.0 and GLib 2.50.0 have been released, it’s time to look back at this development cycle and see the contributions from people and companies that made these releases possible.

  • GNOME Software and Age Ratings

    After all the tarballs for GNOME 3.22 the master branch of gnome-software is now open to new features. Along with the usual cleanups and speedups one new feature I’ve been working on is finally merging the age ratings work.

  • GNOME 3.22 Released

    The GNOME Community has just announced the official release of GNOME 3.22. GNOME 3.22 — which is slated to be used as the desktop environment for Fedora Workstation 25 — provides a multitude of new features, including a the updated Files application, and comprehensive Flatpak integration with the Software application.

    Fedora users that want to try out the new features in GNOME 3.22 can install a pre-release version of Fedora 25, which currently contains a pre-release of GNOME 3.22, but will be updated to include the stable 3.22 release. Alternatively, if you are running Fedora 24, and want to try out individual applications from the GNOME 3.22 release, these can be installed via Flatpak.

Distributions

• PCLinuxOS/Mageia/Mandriva Family

  • OpenMandriva Lx 3.0

    OpenMandriva is a member of the Mandriva (formally Mandrake Linux) family of Linux distributions. OpenMandriva strives to be a newcomer friendly, desktop operating system. The latest release, version 3.0, features version 5.6 of the KDE Plasma desktop environment and the Calamares system installer. This release of OpenMandriva was compiled using the Clang compiler which is unusual for a Linux distribution as most distributions use the GNU Compiler Collection to build their software. From the end-user’s perspective the choice of compiler will probably have no practical impact, but it does suggest the OpenMandriva team sees either a practical or philosophical benefit to using the liberally licensed Clang compiler.

    OpenMandriva is available in 32-bit and 64-bit builds for the x86 architecture. I downloaded the project’s 64-bit build which is approximately 1.8GB in size. Booting from the project’s media brings up a menu asking if we would like to start a live desktop session or launch the Calamares system installer. Taking the live option brings up a graphical configuration wizard which asks us a handful of questions. We are asked to select our preferred language from a list, accept a license agreement, select our keyboard’s layout from a list and confirm our time zone. With these steps completed, the wizard disappears and the Plasma desktop loads. The desktop displays an application menu, task switcher and system tray at the bottom of the screen. The wallpaper is a soft blue and, on the desktop, we find an icon which will launch the Calamares system installer. Other icons on the desktop are available for launching a welcome screen and accessing the OpenMandriva website.

• Red Hat Family

  • Finance

    • Red Hat Second-Quarter Profit, Sales Exceed Analyst Estimates

    • Earnings Reaction History: Red Hat Inc., 70.0% Follow-Through Indicator, 6.5% Sensitive

    • ARCOP Honors Suppliers with Red Hat Supplier Achievement Awards at 2016 Arby’s Worldwide Franchise Convention

    • Red Hat Reports Second Quarter Results for Fiscal Year 2017

    • Red Hat Inc (RHT) Shares Have 16% Upside Potential, Says Mizuho Securities

    • Red Hat shares rally on earnings beat, outlook

  • Fedora

    • Flatpak 0.6.11 Linux Universal Binary Format Released with New Features, Fixes

      Alex Larsson from the Flatpak project, the universal binary format that aims to simplify application distribution across multiple GNU/Linux operating systems, announced the release of Flatpak 0.6.11.

      Flatpak 0.6.11 is a small maintenance version that comes approximately one week after the release of the previous one, Flatpak 0.6.10, bringing a new FLATPAK_CHECK_VERSION macro in the libflatpak library to automatically check the installed Flatpak version, a new option to the flatpak-builder command, namely “–show-deps,” to allow listing of all the files on which the manifest depends.

      The list of changes continues with support for using dashes in application IDs, but app developers are being informed by Alex Larsson that to make them work with symbolic icon names, the IDs may not end with the “-symbolic” name attached. Also, it looks like PTYs are now correctly handled by the HostCommand component, which now outputs the correct PID instead of a bogus one.

    • Rust meets Fedora

      Rust is a system programming language which runs blazingly fast, and prevents almost all crashes, segfaults, and data races. You might wonder exactly why yet another programming language is useful, since there are already so many of them. This article aims to explain why.

    • Fedora / RISC-V stage4 autobuilder is up and running

• Debian Family

  • Accepted apt 1.3 (source) into unstable

  • APT 1.3 Linux Package Manager Has Been Officially Released in Debian Unstabl

    On September 20, 2016, the APT development team, through Julian Andres Klode, announced the release of version 1.3 of the APT (Advanced Packaging Tool) command-line package manager.

    APT 1.3 has been in the works since early May this year, and it received a total of twelve development releases that brought numerous improvements and new features to one of the oldest and most acclaimed package managers for Debian-based GNU/Linux distributions, such as Ubuntu and Linux Mint.

  • APT 1.3 Released For Debian Linux Distributions

    APT 1.3 is now available as the newest version of this Debian command-line package manager.

  • Derivatives

    • Canonical/Ubuntu

      • Snapcraft GUI 3.0 Released for Ubuntu 16.04 LTS (Xenial Xerus) and Ubuntu 16.10

        Softpedia was informed today, September 21, 2016, by Snapcraft GUI developer Keshav Bhatt about the release of a new major update, version 3.0, for Ubuntu 16.04 LTS and above.

        Last week, we introduced you guys to the Snapcraft GUI application, whose main goal is to help application developers who want to distribute their projects across multiple GNU/Linux distributions using Canonical’s innovative Snap universal binary package format build Snappy packages more easily.

      • Ubuntu to Run Much Faster in Virtual Machines, as Well as When Using It Remotely

        After releasing the OTA-13 update for Ubuntu Phone and Ubuntu Tablet devices, Canonical is now working hard on putting all the pieces together for next month’s Ubuntu 16.10 (Yakkety Yak) operating system.

        Ubuntu 16.10 will be officially released on October 13, 2016, but until then we will be able to get an early taste of its new features by downloading the Final Beta ISO images, which for some of the opt-in flavors is called Beta 2. However, for Ubuntu itself, this will be the first and only Beta release.

      • Ubuntu 16.10 (Yakkety Yak) Final Beta Freeze Now in Effect, Lands September 22

        Today, September 21, 2016, Canonical’s Adam Conrad announced that the soon-to-be-released Ubuntu 16.10 (Yakkety Yak) Final Beta is now in freeze stage and will arrive, as initially planned, on September 22, 2016.

        However, early adopters should look for the release late Thursday or very early on Friday, September 23, because the Ubuntu developers are a little busy right now pushing last minute updates to the stable archive, and they also managed to land the new Linux 4.8 kernel packages earlier today, as reported right here on Softpedia.

      • Ubuntu 16.10 (Yakkety Yak) Is Now Officially Powered by Linux Kernel 4.8

        Ubuntu 16.10 being in development and all that, it usually gets at least a few updated packages every 24 hours, and today, September 21, 2016, we were surprised to see that the Linux 4.8 kernel packages have finally landed.

      • IBM Forges More OpenStack Ties with Canonical and Red Hat

        IBM has a slew of news announcements this week. Canonical, the company behind Ubuntu, is spreading out with its OpenStack eforts. It has announced that Ubuntu OpenStack is now available for IBM customers who want to manage their own OpenStack cloud across IBM platforms such as IBM z Systems, IBM LinuxONE and IBM Power Systems, including IBM’s newly announced OpenPOWER LC servers. This is an expansion of the companies’ hybrid cloud partnership, and many instances of OpenStack already run on top of Ubuntu. We covered the news in depth here.

        Meanwhile, the company launched many new products that consist of a combination of Power, z Systems, and storage, with cloud-ready functionality already bundled.

      • Ubuntu Wants Your Opinion On Scopes and Colors

        Got a spare five minutes? You can help the Canonical design out by filling in a questionnaire. The team is looking to “gather information about how people perceive colours and use Scopes.” The short questionnaire is split into two sections: colour and Scopes.

      • Ubuntu Smartphones / Tablets Are Getting Ubuntu Touch OTA-13 Update

      • An Easy Way To Set the Bing Image of the Day As Your Linux Wallpaper

      • Flavours and Variants

        • Black Lab Linux 7.7 Released With Security Fixes And New Software

          Softpedia’s Marius Nestor notes that Black Lab Linux 7.7 arrives with security fixes and software updates released in the Ubuntu Linux repos.

Devices/Embedded

• A tiny Arduino Zero clone, and an Arduino for cosplayers

  Rabid Prototypes shipped a tiny Arduino Zero clone called the “Tau,” and launched an expanded Zero-like “Firecricket” for light, sound, and motion control.

  Early this year, before Boston-based Rabid Prototypes launched its second-generation, 36 x 18mm Neutrino 2.0 Arduino Zero clone on Kickstarter, it mounted a KS project for a smaller, 28 x 15mm “Tau” clone of the Arduino Zero. Due to ship in May, the Tau was delayed throughout the summer, but is finally shipping to backers. It’s also available for order to newcomers for $15, which is $5 more than the KS price. The original Neutrino 1.0 is once again back in stock, as well.

• Hands-on with the quad-core ARM9 Roseapple Pi hacker SBC

  I use Raspberry Pi boards for several real-world jobs. My “STEAMpunk Conference Personality Identification Device” (aka: conference badge) uses a Pi to show an mp4 promotional video on its tiny 1.8-inch color TFT display while “orbing” its blue LED “ozone tube”, for added attention grabbing. Oh, it also includes my stage name “DR TORQ”, in big, bold antique-looking letters.

• Phones

  • Tizen

    • Tizen Store in Indonesia now supports Iocal currency (IDR)

      The next target market for the launch of the Samsung Z2 is expected to be Indonesia. The Tizen store recently started supporting Indonesian language and also recently the Samsung Z2 had passed certification process in Indonesia. Judging by the pace at which these developments are taking place with respect to Tizen in the country, it seems like we are just a matter of days away from its official unveiling. Samsung have now introduced paid services to the Tizen Store in Indonesia to release paid apps into the country.

    • Tizen-Running Samsung Gear Fit 2 price reduced on Amazon

      There is no doubt Samsung has got one of the best fitness and activity tracker in the market in the Gear Fit 2. The Samsung Gear Fit 2 is not only a robust wearable device but also one with lots of awesome features and it is no wonder the Tizen-powered wearable doesn’t come cheap.

      The thing is at its current price of $179.99, the Gear Fit 2 offers users much more than its monetary worth but even at that, the wearable device has got a price slash on Amazon, so intended buyers will have some change when they purchase the Gear Fit 2 from Amazon.

  • Android

    • The Android version of Lenovo’s funky Yoga Book convertible is up for pre-order for $500

      Lenovo turned a lot of heads when it announced its latest Yoga design, the Yoga Book. It’s essentially a convertible laptop with a fold-back screen, complete with the Yoga line’s well-regarded watch band hinge. But the Yoga Book has an ace up its sleeve: instead of a conventional keyboard, it uses a gigantic touch-sensitive panel that includes a dedicated keyboard mode, with virtual backlit “keys” that can be activated at a touch. Windows and Android versions are being made, and the latter is now up for pre-order.

    • 5 awesome Android widgets for a more useful home screen

    • Google granted yet another extension in EU Android antitrust probe [Ed: Microsoft did this...]

    • BlackBerry to resell app from startup that found major Android bug

Open source software free (but not the free you’re thinking of)

I like practical application. Recently, I’ve been trying to expand my horizons through studying Linux operating systems. I’ll use this opportunity to reinforce some of what I’ve learned and hopefully shed a little light on exactly what open source software is and how it’s used. For the sake of clarity, there is a lot more to the topic than discussed below, but we can only stuff so much info into the column!

A common misconception is that open source software means free (as in beer). Open source software may be free to use or paid for, but the “free” in open source applies to the rights (as in speech) of the general public to use, distribute or modify the source software at will. Digging further, there are degrees of “openness” of open source software. As the term indicates, the source is open but generally the source is just the base element of the overall application. For instance, operating systems are typically comprised of a kernel and many other programs which work together, resulting in products like Microsoft Windows, macOS or Red Hat.

How do you get programmers to join your project?

I inherited a project coded in $programming_language when the original developer quit and no one else stepped forward. It is currently hosted on GitHub and has a GPL 3 license.

It’s a tool I use every day and I don’t want to see it die. I know very little $programming_language and very little GUI programming, so I can’t maintain it myself.

How open source is bringing blockchain to the enterprise

During her part of the keynote address at IBM Edge 2016, Donna Dillenberger, IBM fellow, Watson Research Center, at IBM, demonstrated how analytics and transactions work together using The Linux Foundation’s version of blockchain, called Hyperledger.

Google’s Jigsaw subsidiary is building open-source AI tools to spot trolls

Can Google bring peace to the web with machine learning? Jigsaw, a subsidiary of parent company Alphabet is certainly trying, building open-source AI tools designed to filter out abusive language. A new feature from Wired describes how the software has been trained on some 17 million comments left underneath New York Times stories, along with 13,000 discussions on Wikipedia pages. This data is labeled and then fed into the software — called Conversation AI — which begins to learn what bad comments look like.

Confessions of a Necromancer

Bringing the dead machines to life was my passion for decades. Via the FFII I learned that people are the real challenge. I began to move into community building, spending a while helping Wikidot.com build their community. Yet in the end, there is nothing quite like writing some code and seeing a light turn on, and turn off again.

JPEG-Turbo Library 1.5.1 Released

Version 1.5.1 of the libjpeg-turbo library is now available. For those that have somehow managed to never hear of it, libjpeg-turbo is a BSD-licensed, faster JPEG image codec than libjpeg and has various other feature differences.

Checking in on the Taiga project management tool

Taiga is one of the most popular open source project management tools out there right now. It is known for being usable and having a beautiful interface, and Opensource.com listed it in both the Top 5 open source project management tools in 2015 and the Top 11 project management tools for 2016.

I covered Taiga soon after it was released in October 2014, and two years later it’s time to check in and see how things are going for the new company. I spoke with co-CEO Enrique Posner about their 150,000 users, developer community, and what’s next.

Events

• Bossies 2016: The Best of Open Source Software Awards

• InfoWorld Announces the 2016 Best of Open Source Software Awards

• Nexenta Continues to Lead Open Source Advancements Through Software-Defined Storage Innovation at OpenZFS Developer Summit 2016

SaaS/Back End

• Featured speakers announced for OpenStack Summit in Barcelona as adoption continues growth in Europe

• Navigating OpenStack: Community, Release Cycles and Events

  Hopefully last week we piqued your interest in a career path in OpenStack. Adoption is growing and so is the number of OpenStack jobs. Like any other open source project, if you’re going to use it—professionally or personally—it’s important to understand its community and design/release patterns.

Oracle/Java/LibreOffice

• Ditching Microsoft Office? Tips on how to switch to LibreOffice

  Since open-source office suites started gaining popularity more than a decade ago, some large organizations have been turning away from Microsoft Office.

  The Italian ministry of defence’s migration of more than 120,000 PCs to the open-source LibreOffice is just the latest in a string of projects to replace Microsoft at European authorities.

  However, while momentum may be gathering, these organizations remain in the minority, and businesses generally haven’t followed suit in jumping off the Microsoft Office bandwagon.

• Official Results of the 2016 Membership Committee Elections

  The board wants to take the opportunity to thank all past and new members of the Membership Committee for their service to the community, and all candidates for running. Congratulations to the newly elected committee members and their deputies!

CMS

• A brief history of Drupal from 1.0 to 8.0

  Drupal began as a forum for a few friends to monitor their shared Internet connection, which “was expensive and being spliced between them,” according to Jared Whitehead’s The rise of Drupal and the fall of closed source. Today, it’s one of the most popular content management systems out there, competing with powerhouses like WordPress.

  So, what has the Drupal community done to ensure continued competitiveness, usability, and overall sustainability? In this article, I’ll walk you through Drupal’s evolution chronologically, including key design decisions and feature upgrades. My sources include the History of Drupal: from Drop 1.0 to Drupal 8.0 slideshow by WebSolutions HR and Drupal’s CHANGELOG.txt.

Education

• Paradiso’s CEO On The Importance Of Learning Professionals and Systems Like Moodle In Industries At Large

  One of the most rewarding things about being part of the learning industry is the visible ripples one professional can have throughout entire organizations. It helps when the organizations are primed for change, and Learning or Human Resources officers are regarded as boosters of knowledge, skill and innovation.

• Totara 9.0: Key New Features Since The Fork From Moodle

  Before the decision to fork away, Totara HQ had already accounted for 450,000 lines of code on top of Moodle. Features, users and even the visual experience share less commonalities over time.

• The Continued Importance of Open Source Moodle in the LMS Market

  Open-source Moodle, already the most widely used LMS in the world, is continuing to gain traction. Join us to explore how Moodle has impacted the LMS market and continues to be a pioneer in emerging LMS technologies.

Pseudo-Open Source (Openwashing)

• Tumblr now supports Live Photos on the web, open-sources JavaScript library [Ed: Tumblr is still proprietary, so this is a drop in the ocean]

• Tumblr launches support for Apple’s Live Photos on the web, releases tool to let other services do the same

• Tumblr Brings Apple’s Live Photos to the Web, Publishes Open Source Code

• Tumblr Announces Support for Live Photos on the Web, Releases Open Source Library

• Who’s No. 1 in open source? Microsoft! [Ed: New low for Mac Asay, who applied for a job at Microsoft, if he actually wrote this headline and passed these lies]

FSF/FSFE/GNU/SFLC

• Free Software Directory meeting recap for September 16th, 2016

Public Services/Government

• Dear The Sun: we need to talk about your understanding of open source

  I want to talk to you about this article, and the claims it makes about open source software. I would have liked to chat to your cited expert, whom you’ve listed only as Neil Doyle. Sadly, the article fails to specify his area of expertise and both messages and emails to author Ryan Sabey asking for further information have gone unanswered. So I’m responding to it here, supported by some brilliant, contactable experts in security and open source.

  After sitting open-mouthed at the misinformation in this article for some time, I began to reach out to fellow tech experts to see if they felt the same. I first contacted Dr. Jessica Barker, the independent cybersecurity authority behind cyber.uk. I asked if she could address the concerns you raised that use of open source software in the public sector would pose security risks.

  [...]

  “The Sun seems to be implying that open source software is more vulnerable to attack than closed source, which is a sweeping misunderstanding that fails to take the complex nature of cybersecurity into account.

  Both open source and closed source software can be vulnerable to exploit, however these vulnerabilities are arguably more likely to be discovered in open source rather than closed source software as more people (including security researchers) are able to look at it. By its nature, it is publicly available and so it’s harder to hide malicious vulnerabilities”.

• DOD Aims to Make Cybersecurity a Fundamental Part of Its Tech Mission

• The Department of Software?

  Well-developed software can make or break modern weapons systems. Software problems initially hindered F-35 production, for example. The Department of Defense (DOD) set up a Digital Service team last year to help the military solve its information technology problems. Future work on autonomous systems will heavily rely on software development. Most importantly, the DOD will have to protect its own data. To improve the DOD’s use of software, the Center for a New American Security (CNAS) looked at how the Pentagon could better use “open source software.” While the DOD uses some open source software, its full utilization for military software development will require deeper changes to how the DOD approaches code.

• John Weathersby: Selling Open Source to the Federal Government

  John Weathersby founded and ran the Open Source Software Institute to “promote the development and implementation of open source software solutions within U.S. federal, state, and local government agencies.” A worthy goal!

  But why stick to nothing but software? In 2014, Weathersby founded The Open Technology Center at Camp Shelby Joint Forces Training Center (in Mississippi), which is a “non-profit research and development entity sponsored by the Mississippi National Guard and U.S. Department of Homeland Security whose mission is to innovate and integrate open source software technologies for use within national defense and security organizations.”

  The OTC is doing some neat stuff, ranging from autonomous vehicles to making it easier for local governments to request, receive, and account for disaster recovery funds in the wake of an emergency. It’s all good! And it’s all about open source, which is why it’s worth listening to what Weathersby has to say.

Licensing/Legal

• OSI Approved Licenses, a Foundation for Federal Source Code Policy

  The Federal Source Code memorandum includes a subject line that clearly communicates the federal government’s commitment, “Achieving Efficiency, Transparency, and Innovation through Reusable and Open Source Software,” and we applaud the OMB for their compressive work: introducing the benefits of open source software, development and communities to a bureaucracy often challenged to move away from traditional modes of practice and policy; engaging with the larger technology sector in a inclusive and comprehensive review of current, and potential future-states for software development and use within the government, and; actually delivering a policy that can serve as a foundation to build on.

• GitHub repos now prominently show open-source licenses

  GitHub, the source code repository software company with a website where people host and collaborate on open-source software projects, today announced a small but meaningful update to repository pages online — now they prominently display which open-source licenses are used. When you click on the name of the license, you’ll be brought to the license for the repository.

  The change will be coming to GitHub Enterprise, just like the updated profiles, GitHub Projects tool, and pull request reviews that GitHub brought to the GitHub.com last week, GitHub product manager Ayman Nadeem wrote in a blog post.

Openness/Sharing/Collaboration

• Open Data

  • The Future of Geomatics is Open Source

    With no disrespect intended to the other geomatics conferences around (and there are many with high-quality and extremely relevant programmes), the FOSS4G (‘Free and Open Source Software for Geospatial’) conferences are different. FOSS4G 2016 was held in the former plenary chamber of the German Bundestag in Bonn yet, despite this prestigious setting, the atmosphere was very laid-back. Participants dressed in shorts and FOSS4G T-shirts, a beer (or two) in the afternoon, a sense of humour throughout the whole event and a very vibrant social programme (the ice-breaker at the wonderful BaseCamp Hostel Bonn and the Rhine cruise were instant hits!) summed up the vibe at FOSS4G.

• Open Hardware/Modding

  • UltraSoC lends debug to open-source ISA RISC-V

    RISC-V was originally designed to support computer architecture research and education, but as concern has grown in the industry about the increasing dominance of one or two proprietary microprocessor architectures, the RISC-V ISA has aroused interest as a potential open architecture for commercial use. A strong development and debug infrastructure is essential to the success of any chip architecture, and UltraSoC’s vendor-neutral, partnership-based approach, the company believes, complements the RISC-V open ISA principles.

Programming/Development

• is go an acceptable cml?

  Yesterday I tried to summarize the things I know about Concurrent ML, and I came to the tentative conclusion that Go (and any Go-like system) was an acceptable CML. Turns out I was both wrong and right.

• concurrent ml versus go

  Peoples! Lately I’ve been navigating the guile-ship through waters unknown. This post is something of an echolocation to figure out where the hell this ship is and where it should go.

  Concretely, I have been working on getting a nice lightweight concurrency system rolling for Guile. I’ll write more about that later, but you can think of it as being modelled on Go, though built as a library. (I had previously described it as “Erlang-like”, but that’s just not accurate.)

Why project managers need to lose control

Being accountable for the planning, execution, and delivery of a project is demanding. Managing people, facilitating communication, resolving conflict, and mitigating risk are prerequisites to completing on schedule, and within an agreed budget. Add to this the often unpredictable nature of these factors and it’s little wonder that project managers feel a great burden of responsibility.

Those suited to such a role are acutely aware of this responsibility and it’s something they take on quite willingly. They perceive the role of a project manager as a guardian presiding over a project in order to protect it from failure. They are the last line of defense, willing to take the fall should something go wrong. It’s an admirable position of leadership they seek to adopt, but the responsibilities attached to it can become overwhelming for even the most seasoned practitioners.

That’s why I think they need to lose control.

Health/Nutrition

• UN Agrees Political Declaration On Antibiotic Resistance

  The membership of the United Nations today agreed a political declaration on antimicrobial resistance, elevating the global fight against overuse and misuse of antibiotics – and lack of new antibiotics – to the highest political level. The declaration struck by world leaders at the UN General Assembly in New York includes mention of separating medicine prices from the cost of research and development, and calls on the UN secretary-general to create an interagency coordination group. Now – as framed by many governments, intergovernmental organisations and nongovernmental representatives – attention moves to implementation of actions aimed at staving off this threat to humanity itself.

Security

• Bug that hit Firefox and Tor browsers was hard to spot—now we know why

  As a result, the cross-platform, malicious code-execution risk most recently visited users of browsers based on the Firefox Extended Release on September 3 and lasted until Tuesday, or a total of 17 days. The same Firefox version was vulnerable for an even longer window last year, starting on July 4 and lasting until August 11. The bug was scheduled to reappear for a few days in November and for five weeks in December and January. Both the Tor Browser and the production version of Firefox were vulnerable during similarly irregular windows of time.

• Florida Man Charged With Hacking Linux Servers

  Donald Ryan Austin of South Florida has been arrested on charges of hacking into the networks of Linux Kernel Organization and Linux Foundation and installing malicious software. A US Department of Justice (DoJ) release said Austin, who is a computer programmer, is now out on bail and could face a maximum sentence of 10 years if convicted.

  According to the indictment, Austin stole the credentials of an employee to break into the Linux networks and installed rootkit and Trojan software apart from altering the servers. He has been charged with four counts of deliberate damage to a protected computer.

• Why do hackers prefer Linux?

  Linux has much to offer any computer user, but it has proven to be particularly popular with hackers. A writer at The Merkle recently considered the reasons why hackers have so much love for Linux.

• How To Get “Hollywood Hacker Feel” In Your Linux Command Line?

  A developer has created a command line utility which can give you the feel of Hollywood movie hacker. His tool replicates the decrypting text seen from the 1992 hacker movie Sneakers. The code is freely available on his GitHub page.

• DDoS attacks: For the hell of it or targeted – how do you see them off?

  Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks can be painful and debilitating. How can you defend against them? Originally, out-of-band or scrubbing-centre DDoS protection was the only show in town, but another approach, inline mitigation, provides a viable and automatic alternative.

  DDoS attacks can be massive, in some cases reaching hundreds of Gbits/sec, but those mammoths are relatively rare. For the most part, attackers will flood companies with around 1 Gbit/sec of traffic or less. They’re also relatively short affairs, with most attacks lasting 30 minutes or less. This enables attackers to slow down computing resources or take them offline altogether while flying under the radar, making it especially difficult for companies to detect and stop them.

• IoT and a new type of threat for Linux

  Linux has played a significant role in establishing IoT devices as increasingly important parts of our everyday lives, both at home and in the enterprise. Linux based OSes make it easy for developers to create applications that can run on anything, from a fridge to a car, and as a result 73 percent of IoT developers use Linux to run applications on.

  Now, however, questions of security are arising. With IoT gesturing in a brave new world of connected devices, businesses must cope with a greater number of entry points and vulnerabilities, with security the top concern in the industry.

  By placing such a burden on Linux’s security capabilities, there are now real fears that IoT devices will be left exposed and businesses will pay the price.

• NIST Seeks Comments on Cybersecurity Reports

  The US National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has recently issued two draft reports on cybersecurity issues of interest to industrial IoT users, and is seeking industry comment before making their final revisions. One report describes the proposed manufacturing profile for NIST’s Cybersecurity Framework. The other addresses cryptography standards and practices for resource-constrained processors.

  Recognizing that the national and economic security of the United States depends on the reliable functioning of critical infrastructure, NIST created in 2014 a voluntary Cybersecurity Framework, which is a compendium of industry standards and best practices to help organizations manage cybersecurity risks. Created through collaboration between government and the private sector, the Framework helps guide cybersecurity activities and encourages organizations to consider cybersecurity risks as part of their risk management processes. Profiles, a key element of the Framework, help an organization align its cybersecurity activities with its business requirements, risk tolerances, and resources. A profile is intended both to help identify opportunities for improving cybersecurity as well as providing a touchstone to compare against in order to prioritize process improvement activities.

• Hackers Able To Control Tesla S Systems From Twelve Miles Away

  Over the last few years, we’ve well documented the abysmal security in the internet of things space. And while refrigerators that leak your Gmail credentials are certainly problematic, the rise in exploitable vehicle network security is exponentially more worrying. Reports emerge almost monthly detailing how easy it is for hackers to bypass vehicle security, allowing them to at best fiddle with in-car systems like air conditioning, and at worst take total control of a compromised vehicle. It’s particularly problematic given these exploits may take years to identify and patch.

Defence/Aggression

• DR Congo is once again spiraling into violence ahead of an election

  The headquarters of one the Democratic Republic of Congo’s main opposition parties was torched on Sept. 20. According to Reuters, at least two people died in the blaze. A day earlier, an anti-government protest turned deadly, after at least 17 people died in clashes, according to the country’s interior ministry. Opposition parties put the number at 53, while activists say 25 protesters were shot.

  The violence has once again left Africa’s largest country teetering on the brink of violence ahead of a crucial election. The resource-wealthy country has never experienced a peaceful transition and the political violence carries the fear that a civil war that left nearly four million people dead between 1996 and 2003 may resurface.

Finance

• New Economic Study Indicates EU-Canada Trade Deal Will Cause ‘Unemployment, Inequality And Welfare Losses’

  As Techdirt noted back in January, it is astonishing that the TPP negotiations proceeded for years with almost no detailed analysis of whether they would be beneficial. It was only recently, after the text had been finalized, that a number of studies started to appear which explored the likely impact of TPP in some depth. Strikingly, every single one of them predicted almost no benefit for the US economy from the deal.

  The situation for TPP is rather better than for the other big US trade negotiations currently underway, TAFTA/TTIP, where attempts to model its impact are thin on the ground. The same is true for CETA, the EU-Canada trade deal that was supposedly “finished” two years ago, and yet still hasn’t been passed because of the text’s deep problems, not least because of its corporate sovereignty provisions. Despite the fact that CETA may be quite close to final ratification — although growing resistance to it in Europe may still stop it — we have very few studies of what benefits it might bring. The main one is the official analysis that was used to kick off the talks (pdf) in the first place, published in 2008.

• ‘No TTIP, No CETA!’ Brussels Protests Against Free Trade

  Thousands of protesters marched through Brussels on Tuesday to demand the European Union abandon planned trans-atlantic free trade deals they say will worsen labor conditions and allow big business to challenge governments.

  Organizers, including unions, environmental and consumer groups and public health insurers, said between 10,000 and 15,000 people headed to the EU quarter of Brussels by early evening. Police put the number at 6,000.

• ICIJ publishes leaked Bahamas info to offshore database

  New revelations published today by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, the German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung and news organizations from Europe, South America, Asia and Africa reveal fresh information about offshore companies in the Bahamas.

  Alongside detailed reporting, ICIJ, Süddeutsche Zeitung and other media partners are making details from the Bahamas corporate registry available to the public. This creates, for the first time, a free, online and publicly-searchable database of offshore companies set up in the island nation that has sometimes been called “The Switzerland of the West.”

  “We see it as a service to the public to make this basic kind of information openly available,” said Gerard Ryle, the director of ICIJ.

  “There is much evidence to suggest that where you have secrecy in the offshore world you have the potential for wrong doing. So let’s eliminate the secrecy.”

  The cache of documents from the island nation’s corporate registry provides names of directors and some owners of more than 175,000 Bahamian companies, trusts and foundations registered between 1990 and early 2016.

• Legal doubt, political concerns, overshadow CETA-TTIP ahead of Bratislava Summit

  Tomorrow’s two day meeting of EU trade ministers in Bratislava is set to be interesting. A circle of rumours and uncertainty surround both TTIP and CETA, and both face a mountain of legal and political challenges that may still be their undoing.

  French Foreign Trade Minister has vowed to ask his colleagues that the TTIP talks are suspended (which may already de facto be the case.) In a sign of desperation, German minister for Economic Affairs Sigmar Gabriel flew to Canada last week to personally secure further concessions in CETA, despite the Canadian government and the Commission reaffirming that the negotiations are closed. This week, tens of thousands took to the streets in protest in Brussels and German cities, while sources all but confirm that TTIP will be effectively shelved until next summer, after no signs of progress from the US side and Brexit implications to mull over. All of these developments will need to be considered by EU ministers in Bratislava.

AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics

• Your Vote For Jill Stein Is Not A Wasted Vote

  When Jill Stein ran as the Green Party’s presidential nominee in 2012, media attention to her candidacy was rare. Now, with two of the most unpopular presidential candidates in history, she has received widespread attention. There seems to be record interest in third party campaigns, including Libertarian Party candidate Gary Johnson.

  The Nation published a debate between Socialist Seattle City Council member Kshama Sawant and Nation contributor Joshua Holland.

  The editors gave Sawant’s column the negative headline—”Don’t Waste Your Vote On the Corporate Agenda—Vote for Jill Stein and the Greens”—but column does not hinge on loathing Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton. Rather, it makes a positive case for supporting Stein by primarily arguing the need for progressives to build an alternative to the two pro-capitalist political parties in America. It has a long-term focus on bringing about radical change.

• Voting for Jill Stein is a Moral Imperative if George H.W. Bush Votes for Clinton

  When Seth MacFarlane warns people on Twitter that voting for Jill Stein will lead to Trump, he forgets that Hillary Clinton spread this photo of Barack Obama in 2008. President Obama’s campaign manager at the time described it as “the most shameful, offensive fear-mongering we’ve seen from either party in this election.” Furthermore, while Donald Trump is overtly xenophobic and utilizes racism to gain votes, Clinton also ran a 3 a.m. ad in 2008 that contained a “racist sub-message.” As stated by Harvard’s Orlando Patterson in The New York Times, “It is striking, too, that during the same weekend the ad was broadcast, Mrs. Clinton refused to state unambiguously that Mr. Obama is a Christian and has never been a Muslim.”

• A Cop Killed a Black Man–Then Things Got ‘Ugly’

  Funny—some might say that the turn toward ugliness occurred in the afternoon, when a police officer fatally shot a black man.

• Media Ask Which Candidate Can Better Exploit Our Irrational Fear of Terrorism

  Something missing from these reports is any discussion of the relative danger of terrorism. The reporters begin with the premise that voters are afraid of it, never challenging the underlying rationality of those fears.

  The reality is that terrorism remains, objectively, a very minor threat. (One is 82 times more likely to be killed falling out of bed than by a terrorist.) But by framing the issue as an urgent danger, with two candidates “dueling” over opposing ways of addressing this menace, the media further inflate terrorism’s importance. Can one even imagine Trump and Clinton “jockeying” for position on climate change, or violence against women and LGBT communities, or lowering heart disease—all of which, statistically, are far, far more dangerous than terrorism?

  This isn’t a new problem, of course. In nine Democratic primary debates, for example, the moderators asked a total of 30 questions about terrorism or ISIS, and not one question about poverty (FAIR.org, 5/27/16). (A 2011 study by Columbia’s school of public health estimated that 4.5 percent of all deaths in the United States are attributable to poverty.)

• Hillary Clinton’s $21,667,000 “Speaking Fees” Fortune, Broken Down Speech by Speech

  And an aside…if you think Hillary’s $21,667,000 was a lot of income for the Clinton clan, you can also tack on an additional $26,630,000 for her ex-president hubby Bill Clinton, and his “speaking fees” collected during the same time period.

  4/18/2013, Morgan Stanley Washington, DC: $225,000
  4/24/2013, Deutsche Bank Washington, DC: $225,000
  4/24/2013, National Multi Housing Council Dallas, TX: $225,000
  4/30/2013, Fidelity Investments Naples, FL: $225,000
  5/8/2013, Gap, Inc. San Francisco, CA: $225,000
  5/14/2013, Apollo Management Holdings, LP New York, NY: $225,000
  5/16/2013, Itau BBA USA Securities New York, NY: $225,000
  5/21/2013, Verizon Communications, Inc. Washington, DC: $225,000
  5/29/2013, Sanford C. Bernstein and Co., LLC New York, NY: $225,000
  6/4/2013, The Goldman Sachs Group Palmetto Bluffs, SC: $225,000
  6/6/2013, Spencer Stuart New York, NY: $225,000
  6/16/2013, Society for Human Resource Management Chicago, IL: $285,000
  6/17/2013, Economic Club of Grand Rapids Grand Rapids, MI: $225,000
  6/20/2013, Boston Consulting Group, Inc. Boston, MA: $225,000
  6/20/2013, Let’s Talk Entertainment, Inc. Toronto, Canada: $250,000
  6/24/2013, American Jewish University Universal City, CA: $225,000
  6/24/2013, Kohlberg Kravis Roberts and Company, LP Palos Verdes, CA: $225,000
  7/11/2013, UBS Wealth Management New York, NY: $225,000
  8/7/2013, Global Business Travel Association San Diego, CA: $225,000
  8/12/2013, National Association of Chain Drug Stores Las Vegas, NV: $225,000
  9/18/2013, American Society for Clinical Pathology Chicago, IL: $225,000
  9/19/2013, American Society of Travel Agents, Inc. Miami, FL: $225,000
  10/4/2013, Long Island Association Long Island, NY: $225,000
  10/15/2013, National Association of Convenience Stores Atlanta, GA: $265,000
  10/23/2013, SAP Global Marketing, Inc. New York, NY: $225,000
  10/24/2013, Accenture New York, NY: $225,000
  10/24/2013, The Goldman Sachs Group New York, NY: $225,000
  10/27/2013, Beth El Synagogue Minneapolis, AIN: $225,000
  10/28/2013, Jewish United Fund/Jewish Federation of Metropolitan Chicago Chicago, IL: $400,000
  10/29/2013, The Goldman Sachs Group Tuscon, AZ: $225,000
  11/4/2013, Mase Productions, Inc. Orlando, FL: $225,000
  11/4/2013, London Drugs, Ltd. Mississauga, ON: $225,000
  11/6/2013, Beaumont Health System Troy, 111: $305,000
  11/7/2013, Golden Tree Asset Management New York, NY: $275,000
  11/9/2013, National Association of Realtors San Francisco, CA: $225,000
  11/13/2013, Mediacorp Canada, Inc. Toronto, Canada: $225,000
  11/13/2013, Bank of America Bluffton, SC: $225,000
  11/14/2013, CB Richard Ellis, Inc. New York, NY: $250,000
  11/18/2013, CIIE Group Naples, FL: $225,000
  11/18/2013, Press Ganey Orlando, FL: $225,000
  11/21/2013, U.S. Green Building Council Philadelphia, PA: $225,000
  01/06/2014, GE Boca Raton, Fl.: $225,500
  01/27/2014, National Automobile Dealers Association New Orleans, La.: $325,500
  01/27/2014, Premier Health Alliance Miami, Fl.: $225,500
  02/06/2014, Salesforce.com Las Vegas, Nv.: $225,500
  02/17/2014, Novo Nordisk A/S Mexico City, Mexico: $125,000
  02/26/2014, Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society Orlando, Fl.: $225,500
  02/27/2014, A&E Television Networks New York, N.Y.: $280,000
  03/04/2014, Association of Corporate Counsel – Southern California Los Angeles, Ca.: $225,500
  03/05/2014, The Vancouver Board of Trade Vancouver, Canada: $275,500
  03/06/2014, tinePublic Inc. Calgary, Canada: $225,500
  03/13/2014, Pharmaceutical Care Management Association Orlando, Fl.: $225,500
  03/13/2014, Drug Chemical and Associated Technologies New York, N.Y.: $250,000
  03/18/2014, Xerox Corporation New York, N.Y.: $225,000
  03/18/2014, Board of Trade of Metropolitan Montreal Montreal, Canada: $275,000
  03/24/2014, Academic Partnerships Dallas, Tx.: $225,500
  04/08/2014, Market° Inc. San Francisco, Ca.: $225,500
  04/08/2014, World Affairs Council Portland, Or.: $250,500
  04/10/2014, Institute of Scrap Recycling Industries Inc. Las Vegas, Nv.: $225,500
  04/10/2014, Lees Talk Entertainment San Jose, Ca.: $265,000
  04/11/2014, California Medical Association (via satellite) San Diego, Ca.: $100,000
  05/06/2014, National Council for Behavioral Healthcare Washington D.C.: $225,500
  06/02/2014, International Deli-Dairy-Bakery Association Denver, Co.: $225,500
  06/02/2014, Lees Talk Entertainment Denver, Co.: $265,000
  06/10/2014, United Fresh Produce Association Chicago, II.: $225,000
  06/16/2014, tinePublic Inc. Toronto, Canada: $150,000
  06/18/2014, tinePublic Inc. Edmonton, Canada: $100,000
  06/20/2014, Innovation Arts and Entertainment Austin, Tx.: $150,000
  06/25/2014, Biotechnology Industry Organization San Diego, Ca.: $335,000
  06/25/2014, Innovation Arts and Entertainment San Francisco, Ca.: $150,000
  06/26/2014, GTCR Chicago, II.: $280,000
  07/22/2014, Knewton, Inc. San Francisco, Ca.: $225,500
  07/26/2014, Ameriprise Boston, Ma.: $225,500
  07/29/2014, Coming, Inc. Coming, N.Y.: $225,500
  08/28/2014, Nexenta Systems, Inc. San Francisco, Ca.: $300,000
  08/28/2014, Cisco Las Vegas, Nv.: $325,000
  09/04/2014, Robbins Geller Rudman & Dowd LLP San Diego, Ca.: $225,500
  09/15/2014, Caridovascular Research Foundation Washington D.C.: $275,000
  10/02/2014, Commercial Real Estate Women Network Miami Beach, Fl.: $225,500
  10/06/2014, Canada 2020 Ottawa, Canada: $215,500
  10/07/2014, Deutsche Bank AG New York, N.Y.: $280,000
  10/08/2014, Advanced Medical Technology Association (AdvaMed) Chicago, II.: $265,000
  10/13/2014, Council of Insurance Agents and Brokers Colorado Springs, Co.: $225,500
  10/14/2014, Salesforce.com San Francisco, Ca.: $225,500
  10/14/2014, Qualcomm Incorporated San Diego, Ca.: $335,000
  12/04/2014, Massachusetts Conference for Women Boston, Ma.: $205,500
  01/21/2015, tinePublic Inc. Winnipeg, Canada: $262,000
  01/21/2015, tinePublic Inc. Saskatoon, Canada: $262,500
  01/22/2015, Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce Whistler, Canada: $150,000
  02/24/2015, Watermark Silicon Valley Conference for Women Santa Clara, Ca.: $225,500
  03/11/2015, eBay Inc. San Jose, Ca.: $315,000
  03/19/2015, American Camping Association Atlantic City, NJ.: $260,000

  Total: $21,667,000

Privacy/Surveillance

• Belgium unveils plans for its own highly intrusive Snoopers’ Charter

  Belgium’s government has called for a bevy of intrusive surveillance powers. New capabilities included in the bill, which has been sent to Belgian parliament, include requiring Internet companies to cooperate with law enforcement agencies during their investigations; giving investigators the power to break into systems and access data, including by paying hackers to do so; and allowing undercover agents to break the law online.

  According to a report in the Belgian newspaper L’Echo, the new bill requires communications service providers to help the authorities with their investigation, and specifically mentions WhatsApp and Viber as services that will be required to comply. That would seem to raise the problem of end-to-end encryption that other countries are grappling with, including the UK, but it is not clear what the Belgian government hopes to do here.

• ePrivacy Directive: The European Commission Must Commit to Confidentiality of the Communications

  The European Commission should submit this autumn a draft revision of the 2002 directive on privacy in the electronic communications sector, also called “ePrivacy directive”. This future draft follows a public consultation launched by the European Commission in April 2016 that La Quadrature answered. While for months the telecoms industry, GAFA and member States have been intensely lobbying against this fundamental text, the European Commission must resist these pressures and seriously take into account the proposals from civil society associations in order to produce legislation respectful of fundamental rights, including the right to encryption.

• Fifteen secret warrants in force granting bulk data collection in UK

  There are 15 secret “directions” in force under the Telecommunications Act enabling the intelligence services to collect bulk data about online and phone traffic, a surveillance watchdog has revealed.

  The number of orders imposed on telephone and internet companies under section 94 of the 1984 legislation has been published for the first time by the interception of communications commissioner’s office (IOCCO). The firms involved have not been identified.

  A further eight directions have been made to provide for emergency services and to protect security personnel, according to a report on the operation of the rarely disclosed powers.

  Parliament does not have to be notified of section 94 directions and until last year they were not subject to formal oversight from any watchdog. Their operation will be reorganised under the investigatory powers bill although the IOCCO is pressing for stronger oversight of bulk communications data collection.

• Sitting Down with a Post-9/11 Whistleblower

  In the years after 9/11, Thomas Drake, then a National Security Agency (NSA) executive, saw something he couldn’t abide: an NSA-led program named Stellarwind. The dragnet-surveillance operation was spying on American citizens using a combination of wiretapping and mass-data collection through the internet.

  Drake protested internally, feeling that Stellarwind violated the Fourth Amendment and was highly illegal—a warrantless surveillance of citizens on home soil. But Michael Hayden, then the head of the NSA who presided over the program, believed American spies had to do whatever it took to prevent another such tragedy.

• Google backs off on previously announced Allo privacy feature

  When Allo was announced at Google’s I/O conference earlier this year, the messaging app was presented as a step forward for privacy. Alongside the end-to-end-encrypted Incognito Mode, the Allo team talked about bold new message retention practices, storing messages only transiently rather than indefinitely.

  But with the release of the app today, Google is backing off on some of those features.

  The version of Allo rolling out today will store all non-incognito messages by default — a clear change from Google’s earlier statements that the app would only store messages transiently and in non-identifiable form. The records will now persist until the user actively deletes them, giving Google default access to a full history of conversations in the app. Users can also avoid the logging by using Allo’s Incognito Mode, which is still fully end-to-end encrypted and unchanged from the initial announcement.

• U.S. judge lists one year’s government electronic surveillance requests in D.C.

  A federal judge released a list Wednesday of all sealed requests made in Washington in 2012 for a rapidly growing form of government electronic surveillance, a step toward bringing more public scrutiny to secret law enforcement activities.

  The action came in a case brought by a journalist to unseal a much larger collection of information about court-ordered surveillance of Americans’ telephone and Internet activity in closed criminal investigations in the nation’s capital.

  Legal experts say even the selective release marks the first time a U.S. district court has made a systematic disclosure of how often law enforcement seeks court orders under a 1986 statute to obtain individuals’ electronic records from communication service providers. The release potentially could serve as a model for court disclosure elsewhere, several legal experts said.

• Head of Dutch security service is fed up with privacy concerns

  Will people who value privacy know that they allowed a terrorist attack to take place? Rob Bertholee, head of the General Intelligence and Security Service of the Netherlands (AIVD) made this and other bold statements in a revealing interview, clearly showing his frustration about legitimate privacy concerns.

  In the interview (in the Dutch daily De Volkskrant) he demands access to any encrypted communications despite the major security implications this may have for millions of citizens. By taking this position he even goes against the position of the Dutch government made earlier this year, when it said it would: “not adopt restrictive legislative measures against the development, availability and use of encryption within the Netherlands.”. And when he is challenged by the interviewer, Huib Modderkolk, about the negative consequences of the new powers he demands, he responds by framing the issue as a false dichotomy between privacy and security.

  Bits of Freedom is worried that the head of the Dutch security service does not fully recognize that the right to privacy and the use of encryption is a core element of a secure and free society. It is not possible to weaken encryption just a little bit for “good causes” only. Introducing back doors would not only allow the Dutch security service to access encrypted communications but also make our communications vulnerable to criminals and foreign intelligence services.

• ‘Snowden’ movie presents another side to whistleblower

  This is a pretty in-your-face criticism of empire, the kind that we rarely hear in the major media — even if the simple truth of it is well-known to tens of millions of Americans. The idea that foreign terrorism, which kills fewer Americans than lightning each year, could be used as an excuse for all kinds of abuses and interventions worldwide, is widely suppressed in the United States.

  We also learn from Snowden that he was morally repulsed by the war crimes that our government commits under the false pretext of “national security.” He explains to his coworkers, while working for Booz Allen Hamilton as a contractor for the CIA, that they could be criminally liable for killing civilians with drone strikes, and for other crimes.

Civil Rights/Policing

• Police Accidentally Record Themselves Conspiring to Fabricate Criminal Charges Against Protester

  The ACLU of Connecticut is suing state police for fabricating retaliatory criminal charges against a protester after troopers were recorded discussing how to trump up charges against him. In what seems like an unlikely stroke of cosmic karma, the recording came about after a camera belonging to the protester, Michael Picard, was illegally seized by a trooper who didn’t know that it was recording and carried it back to his patrol car, where it then captured the troopers’ plotting.

  “Let’s give him something,” one trooper declared. Another suggested, “we can hit him with creating a public disturbance.” “Gotta cover our ass,” remarked a third.

• Stein/Baraka statement on the death of Keith Lamont Scott

  Stein/Baraka statement on the death of Keith Lamont Scott and protests in Charlotte, NC – the demand is simple: stop the killing.

  Our hearts are breaking once again. Keith Lamont Scott, a disabled father of seven, was reportedly killed by police in Charlotte, North Carolina yesterday while sitting in a car reading a book. This gut-wrenching incident follows the death of Terence Crutcher earlier this week, who was killed by police with his hands up next to his car.

  The community response in Charlotte is an understandable expression of anguish and represents the unmet demand for justice.

• Whistleblower air marshal is back to work, but on the ground

  The whistleblower won his job back thanks to the U.S. Supreme Court – a rare victory, and a vindication. But what does winning mean when you actually show up at work?

  For improperly fired air marshal Robert MacLean, it meant six months in a far-flung office with no colleagues and no duties. It meant complaints filed with various governmental agencies over continued retaliation. And, as of last month, it meant finally being sprung from near-solitary confinement and assigned to the Transportation Security Administration’s VIPER team in Washington D.C.

  That’s “Visible Intermodal Prevention and Response” to you and me. Its mission is counterterrorism, and it patrols aviation, rail and marine facilities nationwide.

  “I’m actually doing police work,” said MacLean, formerly of Ladera Ranch, who was blackballed from law enforcement after the TSA fired him for disclosing information that embarrassed the agency.

• Whistleblower Jeffrey Sterling Appears to Have Suffered a Heart Attack in Prison

  Prison medical officials told Jeffrey two weeks ago that they would take him out to see a specialist, but that never happened. They told Jeffrey recently that it was the cardiologist who had cancelled the visit, a very unlikely proposition. In the meantime, he was forced to initiate something called the “Administrative Remedy Process,” which theoretically would force the warden to take action to help him. More on that in a moment.

  Holly Sterling has been tireless in her work to get her husband to a cardiologist. She asked Jeffrey’s sentencing judge, Leonie Brinkema, to intervene. Brinkema refused. She then enlisted the support of Norman Solomon’s Roots Action, which has asked supporters to call Warden Deborah Denham at 303-763-4300. In addition to the warden, Solomon recommends contacting the Bureau of Prisons’ North Central Regional Office by calling Sara M. Revell at 913-621-3939 or writing to her at ExecAssistant@bop.gov. Our grass roots pressure may be the only thing that gets Jeffrey Sterling to a cardiologist. It could save his life.

• Florida Forces Students Without Parent Note To Stand During Pledge, National Anthem

  Florida’s Orange County Public Schools announced this week students must have parental permission if they want to kneel during the national anthem at football games or otherwise silently protest, such as refusing the say the pledge of allegiance.

  The move comes after students in a single school district knelt in solidarity with 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick’s protest against social injustice in America.

  Exercising First Amendment rights in Florida now requires parental permission.

• Teenage Girl Dies After Incident at For-profit Group Home

  Maryland is one of several states that send difficult cases to AdvoServ because they cannot find beds and schooling closer to home. The company, which is owned by a private equity firm, is based in Delaware and reported last year that it cared for roughly 700 children and adults in that state, Florida, and New Jersey, and was expanding into Virginia.

  Gowen filed a lawsuit this summer in Delaware against AdvoServ , on behalf of a young resident who says he was left unsupervised and raped repeatedly by other clients at AdvoServ homes during more than four years there. His neck was also injured during a restraint performed by workers.

• Documents From Chelsea Manning Show How Army Is Punishing Her For Suicide Attempt

  Chelsea Manning has released documents through the grassroots advocacy organization, Fight For the Future, which offer a glimpse into how the United States Army is punishing Manning for attempting suicide in July.

  On September 22, Manning will go before a three-person disciplinary board. The board will review evidence related to three administrative charges she faces and determine her punishment. It could involve indefinite solitary confinement, loss of access to the phone and law library, or an extension of the time before she is eligible for parole.

  One form indicates Manning has a “right to consult with an attorney” over the phone at her “own expense,” but she is not allowed to have her attorney with her at the hearing. She may “present during all open sessions” of the disciplinary board, make statements and present documentary evidence, call witnesses to present relevant testimony, and question “adverse witnesses” through the board’s president.

• Another Judge Declares FBI’s Playpen Warrant Invalid, Suppresses All Evidence

  Cyrus Farivar of Ars Technica reports that another federal judge has found the warrant used by the FBI to deploy its Tor-busting malware is invalid. This finding isn’t unique. Multiple judges in various jurisdictions have found the warrant invalid due to Rule 41, which limits execution of warrants to the jurisdiction where they were issued. But only in a few of the dozens of cases stemming from the FBI’s child porn investigation has a judge ruled to suppress the evidence obtained by the FBI’s NIT.

• Hillary Clinton To Silicon Valley: Nerd Harder, To Silence Terrorists, Nerds!

  With the explosive devices in NY and NJ from this past weekend, Hillary Clinton has decided, once again, that it’s time to blame Silicon Valley for not doing more to magically stop terrorists from terroristing.

• ‘The Bodies of Prisoners Are Commodities’ – CounterSpin interview with Noelle Hanrahan on prison strike

  Corporate media could barely have shown less interest. One CBS report, an AP story, and some local accounts in Florida and Alabama were about it, as we tape on September 15. The US, we are told, is engaged in a newly serious conversation about mass incarceration. Leave it to elite media to think they can host that conversation without talking to incarcerated people.

  Joining us to talk about the strike and the issues behind it is Noelle Hanrahan. She’s an investigative journalist, a private investigator, and the director of the multimedia production studio Prison Radio. She joins us by phone from Philadelphia. Welcome back to CounterSpin, Noelle Hanrahan.

Internet Policy/Net Neutrality

• Cable Lobbyists Stop Using The Word Cable In Hopes You’ll Think Industry Has Evolved

  It often seems like the modern cable industry often goes out of its way to remain decidedly un-modern. Thanks to regulatory capture and limited competition, the sector consistently ranks among the very worst industries in terms of customer satisfaction and support. And whether it’s opposing net neutrality or fighting efforts to bring competition to the cable box, you’ll often find the industry’s top lobbying organization — the National Cable and Telecommunications Association at the forefront of fighting nearly every pro-consumer initiative that comes down the pike.

• Here’s how small the North Korean Internet is

  I checked out all of them. Many are dead links, but some were active. One site, cooks.org.kp, contained information about North Korean cuisine. Curiously, gnu.rep.kp wasn’t about the GNU project. Rather, it contained science and technology news from North Korea.

Intellectual Monopolies

• Book Review: Arnold reviews “Economic Approaches to Intellectual Property”

  This new book by Kat Dr Nicola Searle (formerly Economist at the UKIPO and now a lecturer at Goldsmiths, University of London) and Martin Brassell (co-founder and Chief Executive of Inngot, an intellectual property valuation consultancy) provides an introduction to the economics of intellectual property for lawyers, managers and policymakers. Unlike many texts on the economics of IP, it assumes no prior knowledge of economics and begins with an introduction to economics which explains the basic principles. Moreover, it contains no equations and few graphs. While it does include a certain of amount of economic jargon, each term is carefully explained as it is introduced. By contrast, the book does assume a basic knowledge of copyrights, designs, patents and trade marks, although it explains the less commonly encountered rights such as geographical indications and plant breeders’ rights.

• First Revised Articles Of Potential Treaty Protecting TK At WIPO Issued Today [Ed: By trying to distinguish between traditional knowledge and monopoly WIPO (run by former lobbyists and revolving doors) privatises ideas. See how it treats its own staff.]

  A suggestion from the United States, also in the policy objectives, is reflected in the alternative paragraph. It states that the instrument’s objective is “to benefit mankind by preserving to the holder of traditional knowledge certain limited in scope and duration rights in a manner conducive to social and economic welfare, balances rights and obligations, and that is mutually advantageous to holders and users of traditional knowledge”; as well as the “value of a vibrant public domain.”

  Since a “tiered approach” was considered at the last traditional knowledge (TK) IGC discussion, by which different rights might be awarded to different types of TK, the facilitators have provided tentative definitions in the use of terms for four types of TK: secret TK, sacred TK, narrowly diffused TK, and widely diffused TK.

• Trademarks

  • Food companies have a taste for 3D trademarks

    Ferrero Group’s Daniele Lingua says his firm prefers three dimensional trade marks to trade dress

    Attendees heard from a range of counsel at food and beverage companies in the Buon appetito! IP & Food session at the AIPPI World Congress.

    Andrea Chianura of Lavazza in Italy gave an overview of the coffee company’s strategy.

• Copyrights

  • European copyright reform coming – slowly

    Fundamental copyright proposals made by the European Commission will face “a barrage of criticism” and “reform will take some time”. Those were some of the predictions made about the Digital Single Market at the AIPPI World Congress

• Distributions
• Devices/Embedded

Desktop

• Beware: Windows 10 Signature Edition Blocks Installing Linux

  Microsoft opening the source code of a lot of its projects in the last months convinced some people that the company – under its new management – is now good, and that it “loves Linux”, however, this assumption came to be wrong today with the latest monopoly try from Microsoft.

  In a TL;DR format: Some new laptops that ship with Windows 10 Signature Edition don’t allow you to install Linux (or any operating system) on it; the BIOS is locked and the hard drives are hidden in a way you can’t install any OS. Those news are not some rumors from the Internet, Lenovo for example confirmed that they have singed an agreement with Microsoft for this.

• Best Linux Desktop for Customization

  Is customizing your Linux desktop important to you? Run Linux for even a few months, and the ability to customize a desktop environment according to your preferences can become a right.

  Customization options start with the fact that more than one Linux desktop is available, and many of these desktop environments allow some customization of the desktop and panel. However, others include options for almost everything you can see or use.

Server

• How blockchain will grow beyond bitcoin

  Since its advent in 2009, bitcoin’s decentralized, broker-less and secure mechanism to send money across the world has steadily risen in popularity and adoption. Of equal — if not greater — importance is the blockchain, the technology that supports the cryptocurrency, the distributed ledger which enables trustless, peer-to-peer exchange of data.

• The end of Moore’s Law and the expansion of Linux; what do these mean to IBM?

  As many organizations are finding out, open-source computing is a game-changer. Many businesses now rely on open-source tools to lower costs, increase flexibility and freedom, and enhance security and accountability.

  Stefanie Chiras, VP of IBM Power Systems Offering Management, Systems of Engagement, at IBM, joined Stu Miniman (@stu) and Dave Vellante (@dvellante), cohosts of theCUBE, from the SiliconANGLE Media team, during IBM Edge, held at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, NV, to discuss the changing landscape around open source, the end of Moore’s Law, and how the cloud drives innovation for clients.

• Cloud Foundry launches its new Docker-compatible container management system

  Cloud Foundry, the Pivotal- and VMware-incubated open source platform-as-a-service project, is going all in on its new Diego container management system. For a while now, the project used what it called Droplet Execution Agents (DEA) to manage application containers. After running in parallel for a while, though, the team has now decided to go all in on its new so-called “Diego” architecture. Thanks to this, Cloud Foundry says it can now scale to running up to 250,000 containers in a single cluster.

Kernel Space

• Graphics Stack

  • Wayland 1.12 Officially Released

    While it’s coming a few days later than anticipated, Wayland 1.12 along with the adjoining Weston 1.12 compositor update is now officially available.

    Bryce Harrington has announced Wayland 1.12 as the newest version of Wayland.

  • X.Org’s XDC2016 Will Be Livestreamed This Week

Applications

• wlc 0.6

  wlc 0.6, a command line utility for Weblate, has been just released. There have been some minor fixes, but the most important news is that Windows and OS X are now supported platforms as well.

• Proprietary

  • Opera 40 Released With Built-In VPN Support, Chromecast

  • Opera offers browser with free built-in VPN

  • Hands-on: Opera’s free, unlimited browser VPN is ready for secure surfing

  • Opera brings its desktop VPN to the mainstream

  • Synopsys’ Coverity

• Instructionals/Technical

  • Dig into DNS: Part 3

  • How to uninstall obsolete dependent packages

  • Tasksel – Easily and Quickly Install Group Softwares in Debian and Ubuntu

• Wine or Emulation

  • Wine Staging 1.9.19 Implements CIF Reader, Active Setup Download Functionality

    A new version of the Wine Staging software for running various Windows apps and games on your Linux box has been released, 1.9.19, with various new features and improvements.

    Coming hot on the heels of Wine 1.9.19, and after only one week from the previous maintenance update, namely Wine Staging 1.9.18, the new version includes, as expected, all the improvements introduced upstream, such as an experimental udev bus driver for HID, better joystick support, metafile support in GDI+, and the new DC rendering functionality in Direct2D.

• Games

  • LASTFIGHT, a pretty good looking fighting game just released on Linux

    Now this looks like some good fun! LASTFIGHT [Official Site, Steam], a fighting game where you can pick up any object and smash your enemy with it is now on Linux.

  • Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night release has been delayed

    Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night the gothic, exploration-focused action platformer has been delayed back into the first half of 2018.

  • The GameCube and Wii emulator ‘Dolphin’ can now boot every GameCube game

Desktop Environments/WMs

• K Desktop Environment/KDE SC/Qt

  • KDevelop 5.0.1 Open-Source IDE Brings Multiple Bug Fixes, General Improvements

    The development team behind the open-source KDevelop IDE (Integrated Development Environment) software announced the release and immediate availability of the first maintenance update to the KDevelop 5.0 stable series.

    KDevelop 5.0 was released just a month ago, and it brought lots of goodies, the biggest one being the port to the latest KDE Frameworks 5 and Qt 5 technologies. Other features include improved C/C++ support, CMake support, and QML/JavaScript support.

• GNOME Desktop/GTK

  • Parsix Normalizes GNOME

    The Parsix project’s goal is to provide a ready-to-use and easy-to-install Debian operating system with the latest stable release of the GNOME desktop environment. The Parsix distro meets that goal and even goes beyond it.

    The developer community is far more independent than other Debian testing-based derivatives. The Parsix community keeps four software repositories enabled by default. Official repositories contain packages maintained by project developers that are built on the community’s own build servers.

    Content repository is a snapshot of Debian’s stable branch. Wonderland repository contains multimedia-related software packages and is a snapshot of Debian multimedia repositories.

    Even better is the fact that the community maintains its own security software repository for both the stable and testing branches. Parsix Developers closely follow Debian Security Advisories and port them to the distro’s own security repository.

  • MATE 1.16 Ready For Release, More GTK2 GNOME-Forked Code Ported To GTK3

    The various components of the GNOME2 desktop forked MATE code were checked in as version 1.16 today in preparation for announcing this next release.

    MATE 1.16 is being released in time to hopefully make it in Ubuntu 16.10 and Fedora 25, which are among the goals for this release. During MATE 1.16 development that began following MATE 1.14 in April, there’s been more porting of GTK+ 2 code to GTK+ 3.

  • A Look At The Exciting Features/Improvements Of GNOME 3.22

    If all goes well, GNOME 3.22 will be officially released tomorrow, 21 September. Here is a recap of some of the new features and improvements made over this past six month development cycle plus some screenshots of the near-final desktop that will power the upcoming Fedora 25 Workstation.

Distributions

• New Releases

  • IPFire 2.19 – Core Update 104 released

    This is the official release announcement for IPFire 2.19 – Core Update 104.
    This update brings you a new kernel under the hood and a from scratch rewritten Guardian.

  • IPFire 2.19 Linux Firewall Gets New Intrusion Prevention System, Kernel 3.14.79

    Today, September 20, 2016, IPFire’s Michael Tremer announced the release of yet another Core Update to the IPFire 2.19 stable Linux-based firewall distribution and system.

    IPFire 2.19 Core Update 104 appears to be a big release with many interesting changes, starting with the latest version of Linux 3.14 kernel, build 3.14.79, and continuing with a brand new Intrusion Prevention System (IPS) called Guardian, and all the latest software updates and security patches. But first, we should warn you that the Linux kernel 3.14 series reached end of life last week, and users are urged to move to Linux 4.4 LTS.

• OpenSUSE/SUSE

  • SUSE Linux Enterprise 12 Now Includes GCC 6.2, GNU Binutils 2.26.1 & GDB 7.11.1

    SUSE’s Andreas Jaeger reports on the availability of an updated toolchain for the SUSE Linux Enterprise 12 operating system, bringing the latest tools designed for application development.

    The updated toolchain included in SUSE Linux Enterprise 12 comes with some of the latest and most advanced development utilities, such as GCC (GNU Compiler Collection) 6.2, GDB (GNU Debugger) 7.11.1, and GNU Binutils 2.26.1, thus enabling app developers to use the newest technologies when creating their amazing projects.

• Slackware Family

  • Slackware-Based Absolute 14.2 Linux OS Arrives with Up-to-Date Components

    Absolute Linux developer Paul Sherman announced the release of version 14.2 of his Slackware-based GNU/Linux operating system for personal computers and laptops.

    Based on Slackware 14.2, Absolute 14.2 comes, as expected, with many updated components, most of them borrowed from upstream. But it looks like there are some newly implemented things as well, such as an “Autoinstall” option in the installers to allow automatic installation of the OS on a user-selected partition or disk drive.

• Red Hat Family

  • Red Hat links Java to Microsoft’s Visual Studio Code

    Using a newly minted protocol for language and IDE interoperability, Red Hat is expanding Java developers’ ability to use Microsoft’s Visual Studio Code editor.

  • IBM Power Systems and Red Hat Extend Collaboration for Next-Generation Cloud Platforms

  • Power Play: Red Hat, IBM expand collaboration

  • Finance

    • Shares of International Business Machines Corp. (NYSE:IBM) & Bristol-Myers Squibb Co (NYSE:BMY) Stocks News Update: Monday

    • Stocks Logging Active Run- International Business Machines (NYSE:IBM), SeaWorld Entertainment (NYSE:SEAS), Encana (NYSE:ECA)

    • Red Hat Inc. (RHT) Shares Sold by Strs Ohio

    • Smith Asset Management Group LP Has $70,571,000 Stake in Red Hat Inc. (RHT)

  • Fedora

    • Fedora Media Writer Test Day – 2016-09-20

      The idea is the new tool will be sufficiently capable, reliable, and cross-platform to be the primary download for Fedora Workstation 25. The main ‘flow’ of the Workstation download page will run through the tool instead of giving you a download link to the ISO file and various instructions for using it in different ways. This would be a pretty big change, and of course, it would be a bad idea to do it if the tool isn’t ready.

      So this is an important Test Day! We’ll be testing the new version (Fedora, Windows, and macOS) of the tool to see whether it’s working well enough and catch any remaining issues. It’s also pretty easy to join in. All you’ll need is a USB stick you don’t mind overwriting and a system (or ideally more than one!) you can test booting the stick on (but you don’t need to make any permanent changes to it).

• Debian Family

  • Reproducible Builds: week 73 in Stretch cycle

    Ximin Luo started a new series of tools called (for now) debrepatch, to make it easier to automate checks that our old patches to Debian packages still apply to newer versions of those packages, and still make these reproducible.

  • Derivatives

    • Tails 2.6 Anonymous Linux Live CD Is Out, Brings Tor 0.2.8.7 & Tor Browser 6.0.5

      Just a few moment ago, the Tails development team proudly announced the official and general availability of the Tails 2.6 anonymous Live CD Linux operating system based on the latest Debian technologies.

      Earlier this month, we reported on the availability of the first development version of Tails 2.6, the RC1 build, which also appeared to be the only one, and now, nearly three weeks later, we can get our hands on the final release, which brings many updated components and several new features.

      According to the release notes, the biggest new features in Tails 2.6 are the enablement of the kASLR (kernel address space layout randomization) in the Linux kernel packages that ship with the popular amnesic incognito live system, protecting users from buffer overflow attacks.

    • Linux Top 3: Tails 2.6, Android-x86 6.0 and Deepin 15.3

    • Debian-Based Q4OS 2.2.1 “Scorpion” Linux OS Ships with LXQt Alongside Trinity

      Today, September 20, 2016, the Q4OS development team informs Softpedia about the immediate availability of an updated version of their work-in-progress Q4OS 2.0 “Scorpion” GNU/Linux operating system.

      Q4OS 2.2.1 is out now, and it comes as a drop-in replacement for the previous development release, namely Q4OS 2.1.1, bringing all sort of updated components and new technologies based, of course, on the upstream Debian Testing repositories. These include Linux kernel 4.6, Trinity Desktop Environment (TDE) 14.0.4, and GCC 6.

    • Canonical/Ubuntu

      • Ubuntu Touch OTA-13 Officially Released for All Ubuntu Phones and Tablets

        We reported yesterday on the upcoming availability of the Ubuntu Touch OTA-13 software update for Ubuntu Phone and Ubuntu Tablet devices, and it looks like Canonical finally started the phased update earlier today.

        Canonical’s Lukasz Zemczak informs us that the main OTA-13 images have been successfully copied from the rc-proposed channel to the stable one for users to update but, as expected, it’s phased during the next 24 hours, so not everyone will get it at the same time.

      • Ubuntu tees up OpenStack on IBM’s iron

        Canonical’s OpenStack spin has landed on IBM’s Power hardware as part of zSystems’ Linux stack.

        The Ubuntu shop’s cloud has been released for IBM’s zSeries IBM LinuxOne and on IBM Power Systems.

        Canonical’s cloud will run on IBM’s planned LC servers, announced in April. The servers run OpenPOWER – from the group building customised POWER CPUs.

      • Get your own $80 private cloud server kit with Nextcloud Box!

        Nextcloud, an open source, self-hosted file sync and share and communication app platform, has teamed up with Canonical and WDLabs to release a Raspberry Pi and Ubuntu Linux powered cloud server called Nextcloud Box for homes and offices.

        According to the company, the Nextcloud Box is a secure, private, self-hosted cloud and Internet of Things (IoT) platform. It makes hosting a personal cloud simple and cost effective whilst maintaining a secure private environment that can be expanded with additional features via apps.

        “It has been a great co-operation with amazingly agile teams at Canonical and WDLabs,” said Frank Karlitschek, Founder and Managing Director, Nextcloud.

      • Simple Weather Indicator for Ubuntu Now Has Its Own PPA

        A new version of the ‘no frills’ weather indicator that I use on my Ubuntu desktop is available to download — and it finally has a PPA.

Devices/Embedded

• Start-up sells a stamp-sized Linux server for $5

  A start-up has completed a crowdfunding campaign for a stamp-sized Linux server development kit that has integrated Wi-Fi and on-board flash storage for DIYers to build hardware or IoT applications.

  Boston-based Onion Corp. began its Indiegogo crowdfunding campaign in July and by Aug. 23 had already received more than $773,400 in pledged funding — 4,400 times its funding goal.

• Open source machine vision board and robot run Linux and Arduino

  Hicat’s open source, “Livera” machine vision board runs Linux on an ARM9 Hi3518 camera SoC, and Arduino on an Atmel 32u4 MCU, and has an optional robot kit.

  A startup called Team Hicat has gone to Kickstarter to launch a Hicat Livera machine vision development board and robot kit that runs both Linux and Arduino. The CERN-licensed design is available in early bird packages of $39 for the Livera board with built-in 720p ready camera, and $49 for a Pro version that includes a Motor Driver board. The full robot kit, which adds motors, servos, and more, goes for $69. The campaign lasts through Nov. 16, and the devices ship in December.

• Phones

  • Android

    • Google Maps’ shining blue beam guides Android users’ travels

    • Google’s Android search may drop the ‘Now on Tap’ name

    • Stock Android might have a “Restart” option starting with Android 7.1

    • Android Banking Trojan First to Gain Root Privileges

    • Android takes on Apple’s tvOS with open-source Poplar developer board

      Android isn’t as popular in TVs as tvOS, which powers the Apple TV media box. But Linaro, a non-profit organization that champions Android, wants to change that.

      A new $79.99 open-source TV board called Poplar, made by Tocoding, brings Android to enthusiasts who want to make set-top boxes at home for broadcast TV and streaming media. It was made based on specifications set by Linaro, which is working hard to make Android a viable TV OS.

      Poplar is capable of processing and delivering 4K video. It can work with external tuner cards to deliver video streams from cable or satellite sources, but you’ll need to hook up extra hardware for that.

    • Google wants to show Samsung and Huawei what Android should look like

      Google has always been a reluctant hardware maker, even though its Android operating system powers more than 80 percent of smartphones around the globe. But next month it plans to launch two new “Made by Google” smartphones running a unique version of Android with new features unavailable on any other phone.

      Google’s hope is that by producing unique phones — and selling lots of them — it can take back control of Android, which is used freely by smartphone manufacturers from Samsung to Huawei which barely mention Android and are increasingly adding their own apps and services on top to stand out, and diluting Google’s vision of Android in the process.

    • Non-blurry photos of the Google Pixel and Pixel XL leak

    • BlackBerry DTEK60 running Android spotted on company website

    • Google gets more time to counter EU antitrust charge on Android [Ed: Microsoft initiated this whole mess]

21 Open Source Projects for IoT

The Internet of Things market is fragmented, amorphous, and continually changing, and its very nature requires more than the usual attention to interoperability. It’s not surprising then, that open source has done quite well here — customers are hesitant to bet their IoT future on a proprietary platform that may fade or become difficult to customize and interconnect.

In this second entry in a four-part series about open source IoT, I have compiled a guide to major open source software projects, focusing on open source tech for home and industrial automation. I am omitting more vertical projects related to IoT, such as Automotive Grade Linux and Dronecode, and I’m also skipping open source, IoT-oriented OS distributions, such as Brillo, Contiki, Mbed, OpenWrt, Ostro, Riot, Ubuntu Snappy Core, UCLinux, and Zephyr. Next week, I’ll cover hardware projects — from smart home hubs to IoT-focused hacker boards — and in the final part of the series, I’ll look at distros and the future of IoT.

Samsung open sources its HbbTV media player

Samsung’s Hybrid boradcast broadband TV (HbbTV) media player has now taken the open source path which the company announced in a press release earlier today. The project is available on GitHub as HbbPlayer and app developers as well as broadcasters can utilize it to test their services on any HbbTV 1.5 compliant TV which most of Samsung’s smart TVs are.

Secure messaging environment delivers safe online collaboration

Riot Launches Introducing Open Source Encrypted Collaboration for Business

Riot looks to launch a chat revolution with open platform

Riot is trying to knock down the walled gardens of the messaging space

Building businesses out of open-source solutions

The open-source movement is taking over business software. There are benefits; open source is usually less expensive, it’s easy to add on functionality and there’s a community to draw on. The trick, though, is making a business out of open-source solutions. One such business is Rackspace, Inc., a managed cloud computing company.

To gain some insight into how open-source business works, Dave Vellante (@dvellante) and Stu Miniman (@stu), cohosts of theCUBE, from the SiliconANGLE Media team, visited the IBM Edge 2016 conference in Las Vegas. There, they sat down with Major Hayden, principal architect at Rackspace, Inc.

Abigail Cabunoc Mayes: How to Bring Open Source to a Closed Community

Abigail Cabunoc Mayes, who works for the Mozilla Foundation as the lead developer for open source engagement, recently gave a lively talk explaining open source inclusion practices. View this engaging video here.

Coreboot Is Being Ported To A New Intel Skylake-Y System

Those wishing to use Coreboot on a modern Intel system (albeit with the closed-source FSP) will soon have another option to consider with an open-source, physically secure computer powered by a Skylake-Y SoC moving ahead with a port to Coreboot.

Web Browsers

• Mozilla

  • Firefox 49 Released, This Is What’s New

    Mozilla has released Firefox 49 for Windows, Mac and Linux. The latest update to the popular open-source web browser introduces a range of (always) welcome improvements. Among them, Firefox 49 ships with native support for the Widevine CDM on Linux. This enables you to watch Netflix (and other DRM-protected HTML5 video content) without any cumbersome workarounds.

  • Latest Firefox Expands Multi-Process Support and Delivers New Features for Desktop and Android

    With the change of the season, we’ve worked hard to release a new version of Firefox that delivers the best possible experience across desktop and Android.

  • Mozilla shortlists four designs in open-source rebrand project

    Four designs have been shortlisted in the search to find a new brand identity for software company Mozilla.

    Mozilla is best known for its web browser Firefox, though its latest rebrand project is an attempt at dispelling the myth that this is the only thing the company does.

    It is working with design consultancy Johnson Banks on its open-source rebrand project, which has seen it seeking feedback from the Mozilla community and general public through the comments section on the Mozilla blog, social media and live events over the last few months.

    Involving the community in its rebrand aims to show the company’s “transparent” and “open” philosophy, Mozilla says. However, the company has made it clear that this is not a crowd-sourcing project, which would involve public voting, but instead a way of harbouring thoughts and opinions.

SaaS/Back End

• Despite a Skills Gap, Forecasts for Big Data Growth are Rosy

Databases

• CouchDB 2.0

  The Apache CouchDB development community is proud to announce the immediate availability of version 2.0.

• Apache CouchDB 2.0 Released

  For users of Apache’s CouchDB document-oriented NoSQL database system, version 2.0 was announced today.

• Apache Announces Availablity of CouchDB 2.0 Database

  Over the past several months, we’ve taken note of the many open source projects that the Apache Software Foundation has been elevating to Top-Level Status. The organization incubates more than 350 open source projects and initiatives, and has squarely turned its focus to data-centric and developer-focused tools in recent months. As Apache moves these projects to Top-Level Status, they gain valuable community support.

FSF/FSFE/GNU/SFLC

• GNU Chess 6.2.3

  GNU Chess is a chess-playing program. It can be used to play chess against the computer on a terminal or, more commonly, as a chess engine for graphical chess frontends.

Openness/Sharing/Collaboration

• The Coral Project launches open-source ‘Ask’ form builder

  New open-source software designed to allow newsrooms to crowdsource information from readers was made available to publishers on request today (19 September) by The Coral Project.

  Ask is the second in a trio of products from The Coral Project, a collaboration between The Washington Post, The New York Times, and the Mozilla Foundation.

  Greg Barber, director of digital news projects at the Post, and strategy and partnerships at The Coral Project, likened Ask to an enhanced version of Google Forms which allows journalists to request information from readers, such as opinions, personal anecdotes, or suggestions on topics to cover.

Programming/Development

• GitHub 101: A Beginners Guide For Contributing To GitHub Open Source Software Projects

  Since launching in 2009, GitHub has become the biggest Git repository hosting service in the world and is used by millions of individuals and businesses to manage software projects. It has also become a playground for open-source software projects that often involve a large number of contributors. When there are a lot of cooks in the kitchen, it can become chaotic and scare off beginners. If you are a software developer that’s ready to enter the GitHub fray, we have some advice on what to do — and what not to do — when you’re contributing to a project in a Git repository.

  As of April 2016, GitHub has over 14 million users and 35 million repositories. Many of the projects hosted on GitHub are open source. The nature of the service allows for large groups of people from all corners of the world to collaborate and improve the code in these projects. But the nature of group work, especially when individuals come from diverse backgrounds, means maintaining and participating in a project can become problematic. Which is one reason why GitHub brought in a feature that allows project owners of public repositories to block troublesome users.

  It can be intimidating to start contributing to an open source project and it can be a bit of a learning curve for newbies. First off, let’s talk about taking the plunge. To do this, you’ll need to create a GitHub account. We have a guide on how to do this here.

  Once you’ve done that, it’s best to start off on a project that is beginner-friendly.

Health/Nutrition

• ‘Superbug’ scourge spreads as U.S. fails to track rising human toll

  Fifteen years after the U.S. declared drug-resistant infections to be a grave threat, the crisis is only worsening, a Reuters investigation finds, as government agencies remain unwilling or unable to impose reporting requirements on a healthcare industry that often hides the problem.

• The Hidden Toll of Drug-Resistant Superbugs

  Just 17 days old, Josiah Cooper-Pope died in the hospital after he was infected with a drug-resistant bacteria, but no one added his death to the toll from the deadly bug.

  As Reuters reported earlier this month, hospital officials told Josiah’s mom about the infection, but not that her son was the fourth patient out of 12 who would eventually become infected during an outbreak. The hospital also didn’t notify public health officials as the law required. And the final record, Josiah’s death certificate, did not report the superbug as a cause of death. As the story said, it’s as if the killer got away.

Security

• Security updates for Tuesday

• Aid Security Incident Statistics: 18-month trends based on open source reported events affectng aid infrastructure (December 2014 to May 2016)

• Easy Secure Web Serving with OpenBSD’s acme-client and Let’s Encrypt

  s recently as just a few years ago, I hosted my personal website, VPN, and personal email on a computer running OpenBSD in my basement. I respected OpenBSD for providing a well-engineered, no-nonsense, and secure operating system. But when I finally packed up that basement computer, I moved my website to an inexpensive cloud server running Linux instead.

  Linux was serviceable, but I really missed having an OpenBSD server. Then I received an email last week announcing that the StartSSL certificate I had been using was about to expire and realized I was facing a tedious manual certificate replacement process. I decided that I would finally move back to OpenBSD, running in the cloud on Vultr, and try the recently-imported acme-client (formerly “letskencrypt”) to get my HTTPS certificate from the free, automated certificate authority Let’s Encrypt.

• iPhone passcode bypassed with NAND mirroring attack

  Passcodes on iPhones can be hacked using store-bought electronic components worth less than $100 (£77), according to one Cambridge computer scientist.

  Sergei Skorobogatov has demonstrated that NAND mirroring—the technique dismissed by James Comey, the director of the FBI, as unworkable—is actually a viable means of bypassing passcode entry limits on an Apple iPhone 5C. What’s more, the technique, which involves soldering off the phone’s flash memory chip, can be used on any model of iPhone up to the iPhone 6 Plus, which use the same type of LGA60 NAND chip. Later models, however, will require “more sophisticated equipment and FPGA test boards.”

  In a paper he wrote on the subject, Skorobogatov, a Russian senior research associate at the Cambridge Computer Laboratory’s security group, confirmed that “any attacker with sufficient technical skills could repeat the experiment,” and while the technique he used is quite fiddly, it should not present too much of an obstacle for a well-resourced branch of law enforcement.

  The attack works by cloning the iPhone’s flash memory chip. iPhones generally allow users six attempts to guess a passcode before locking them out for incrementally longer periods of time; by the complex process of taking the phone apart, removing its memory chip, and then cloning it, an attacker is able to have as many clusters of six tries as they have the patience to make fresh clones. Skorobogatov estimates that each run of six attempts would take about 45 seconds, meaning that it would take around 20 hours to do a full cycle of all 10,000 passcode permutations. For a six-digit passcode, this would grow to about three months—which he says might still be acceptable for national security.

• Seagate NAS hack should scare us all

  No fewer than 70 percent of internet-connected Seagate NAS hard drives have been compromised by a single malware program. That’s a pretty startling figure. Security vendor Sophos says the bitcoin-mining malware Miner-C is the culprit.

Environment/Energy/Wildlife/Nature

• Hillary Clinton ‘dropped climate change from speeches after Bernie Sanders endorsement’

  Hillary Clinton has dropped the words “climate change” from most of her public addresses since winning the endorsement of her party rival Bernie Sanders, according to Climate Home analysis.

  While the presidential candidate talks regularly about her plan for the US to become a “clean energy superpower”, in recent months she has rarely made reference to the planetary crisis that necessitates it.

  On Monday, when she launched her pitch to millennials online, she could find no room for an issue that will affect that voting cohort more than any other.

  The rhetorical shift undermines hopes that climate change might emerge as a key campaign issue in 2016. Boosted by the disparity between Clinton and her Republican opponent Donald Trump, a self-professed non-believer in climate change.

• Austrian farmer horrified by sheep slaughter in fields

  Under Austrian law the killing of sheep has to take place in official slaughterhouses but the sheep in the field in Styria simply had their throats cut and were left to die.

  Horrified locals raised the alarm with police, who rushed to the area to stop the massacre and managed to save 52 of the 131 sheep that had been put in the field.

  The other 79 had already been slaughtered as part of the Muslim festival of Eid al-Adha, also known as the Sacrifice Feast, which is the second of two Muslim holidays celebrated worldwide each year and considered the holier of the two.

  Muslims who can afford it sacrifice their best animals as a symbol of Abraham’s willingness to sacrifice his only son to God.

Finance

• Store wars: Brussels in food fight with Eastern Europe

  The European Commission has opened a new front in its deepening conflict with Central and Eastern European governments over restrictions on big foreign supermarkets.

  The battle became bloodier Monday when Brussels said it was launching an in-depth investigation to determine whether Warsaw was using a new tax to favor smaller local supermarkets over big foreign retailers. The Commission insisted that the Poles must not levy their new tax until the probe was complete.

  Poland’s Finance Minister Paweł Szałamacha hit back Tuesday, slamming the European Commission’s move as a “success for lobbyists.”

• Leaks Show TISA No Easy Trade Deal; Civil Rights Groups, Unions Alarmed

  Greenpeace, European Digital Rights, Public Services International and the International Transport Worker’s Federation today presented a collection of leaked papers on the Trade in Services Agreement (TISA). As negotiators from a dozen countries currently gathered in Geneva for officially the 20th round to close the deal on better trans-border service trading, the civil rights activists and trade union representatives warned that TISA partners would commit to give up their options to regulate in the public interest through a secret deal.

• Amazon Says It Puts Customers First. But Its Pricing Algorithm Doesn’t.

  One day recently, we visited Amazon’s website in search of the best deal on Loctite super glue, the essential home repair tool for fixing everything from broken eyeglass frames to shattered ceramics.

  In an instant, Amazon’s software sifted through dozens of combinations of price and shipping, some of which were cheaper than what one might find at a local store. TheHardwareCity.com, an online retailer from Farmers Branch, Texas, with a 95 percent customer satisfaction rating, was selling Loctite for $6.75 with free shipping. Fat Boy Tools of Massillon, Ohio, a competitor with a similar customer rating was nearly as cheap: $7.27 with free shipping.

  The computer program brushed aside those offers, instead selecting the vial of glue sold by Amazon itself for slightly more, $7.80. This seemed like a plausible choice until another click of the mouse revealed shipping costs of $6.51. That brought the total cost, before taxes, to $14.31, or nearly double the price Amazon had listed on the initial page.

• The Stronger the Boycott, the Thicker the Hype

  What readers would have no clue about would be the four years of organizing, the walkouts, picket lines and lawsuits over labor violations leading to Driscoll’s being the subject of a high-profile international boycott. Wage theft, poverty wages, hostile and unhealthy conditions—all of these have been reported. One of the workers lawsuits went to the Washington state supreme court; they won a 2015 decision that ensured paid rest breaks for farmworkers statewide.

• Google may face over $400 million Indonesia tax bill for 2015 – government official

  Indonesia plans to pursue Alphabet Inc’s (GOOGL.O) Google for five years of back taxes, and the search giant could face a bill of more than $400 million for 2015 alone if it is found to have avoided payments, a senior tax official said.

  Muhammad Haniv, head of the tax office’s special cases branch, told Reuters its investigators went to Google’s local office in Indonesia on Monday.

  The tax office alleges PT Google Indonesia paid less than 0.1 percent of the total income and value-added taxes it owed last year.

• Federal judge says Bitcoin is money in case connected to JP Morgan hack

  The defendant is Anthony Murgio of Florida, who was arrested in July 2015 in connection with a number of other American and Israeli men who allegedly hacked into JP Morgan Chase, ETrade, and News Corp., among others. Murgio was not directly charged with conducting any of the hacks, but the Justice Department did claim that Murgio ran a sketchy Bitcoin exchange website called Coin.mx with Gery Shalon, the alleged mastermind of the JP Morgan hacks. According to a 2015 indictment, Murgio and others were able to accept shady money from co-conspirators through Coin.mx.

  Murgio is also accused of misrepresenting his business to financial institutions by creating a front for Coin.mx called the “Collectables Club,” as well as with bribing a small New Jersey credit union to process its electronic payments. Judge Alison Nathan’s Monday order did not impact those charges.

  In his motion to dismiss the unlicensed money transfer business charges, Murgio claimed that, because Bitcoins are not considered “funds,” he was not operating an illegal business.

• Taxi price regulation to be abolished

  Government leaders reached a compromise on planned taxi industry reforms on Tuesday. While operation of a taxi will still require a license, regulations on pricing will be abolished – but there will be no limit to the number of taxi licenses that can be issued. The changes will take effect in July 2018.

• Christian Engström at the Nordic Conference on Basic Income 2016 in Copenhagen

  When someone on basic income starts to make money the basic income will be reduced, but never with 100%, so there is always an incentive to work if you can. The cost of this system would be covered in full by letting the basic income replace the current systems for social assistance (försörjningsstöd), student aid and unemployment benefits, and by removing the VAT discounts that certain industries enjoy. To make the proposal politically realistic, there would be no raise in income taxes, and no reduction of current sickness or family benefits.

AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics

• Two-Party Tyranny: Ralph Nader on Exclusion of Third-Party Candidates from First Presidential Debate

  It’s official: When the first presidential debate takes place next Monday, a week from today, it will exclude third-party candidates from the debate stage. The Commission on Presidential Debates announced Friday that both Dr. Jill Stein of the Green Party and Gary Johnson of the Libertarian Party failed to qualify by polling at 15 percent or higher. This comes as polls show Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton are among the least popular major-party candidates to ever run for the White House. We get reaction from four-time presidential candidate Ralph Nader, who has previously been excluded from debates. He has a new book titled “Breaking Through Power: It’s Easier Than We Think.”

• Americans’ Trust in Mass Media Sinks to New Low

  Americans’ trust and confidence in the mass media “to report the news fully, accurately and fairly” has dropped to its lowest level in Gallup polling history, with 32% saying they have a great deal or fair amount of trust in the media. This is down eight percentage points from last year.

• WikiLeaks’ Guccifer 2.0: Obama Sold Off Public Offices to Donors

  On September 13, WikiLeaks lived up to its promise of releasing more Democratic National Committee (DNC) documents. This time they were from hacker Guccifer 2.0, serving as a teaser for larger and likely more embarrassing leaks from the DNC and Hillary Clinton campaign.

  Both the Democratic Party and Clinton campaign have attempted to insulate themselves from the content of the releases by alleging the hacks were organized by the Russian government. The claims are a mix of paranoia and PR/damage control, and will have enduring consequences. It may lead to what former Secretary of Defense William Perry referred to as a drift back into Cold War mentalities.

  The leaks include more evidence of overt corruption within the DNC. One email dated May 18, 2016, from Jacquelyn Lopez, an attorney with the law firm Perkins Coie, asked DNC staff if they could set up a brief call “to go over our process for handling donations from donors who have given us pay to play letters.”

  Included in the leak was a list of high-profile donors from 2008 and the ambassadorship they received in exchange for their large donation to the DNC and Barack Obama’s Organizing For Action (OFA). Essentially, Obama was auctioning off foreign ambassador positions and other office positions while Hillary Clinton served as secretary of state. The largest donor listed at contributions totaling over $3.5 million, Matthew Barzun, served as U.S. Ambassador to Sweden from 2009 to 2011, served as President Obama’s National Finance Chair during his 2012 reelection campaign, and now serves as U.S. Ambassador to the United Kingdom.

Censorship/Free Speech

• Researchers: Canadian firm helping Bahrain censor the web

• Canadian tech company Netsweeper helped Bahrain censor websites, says report

  Canadian technology company Netsweeper helped the Bahraini government block opposition party websites, various news websites and content critical of Islam, according to a new report by the Citizen Lab at the University of Toronto’s Munk School of Global Affairs.

• Italy Proposes Law To Make Mocking People Online Illegal

  Yes, mockery on the internet could get you a €100,000 fine. Mockery. The internet. The internet is made for mockery. And now is the time that everyone should be mocking this idiotic law — and the politicians who proposed it without having the slightest idea of how such a thing would be abused all the time.

• Facebook Algorithms Take Down WordPress Lawyer’s Post About Idiocy Of Algorithmic Takedowns

  We’ve had a lot of talk lately about the idiocy of automated content blocking, whether done by Facebook or by big movie studios like Warner Bros. issuing automated DMCA takedowns on its own site. Paul Sieminski*, the General Counsel for Automattic, was asked by Corporate Counsel magazine for his opinions on the WB takedowns (warning: possible registration or paywall).

  [...]

  Facebook claims that posting about automated takedowns and how they’re problematic somehow violates its Community Standards. Obviously, this is a mistake (yet another one) by Facebook’s autotakedown system, but it really does help highlight the point of how problematic this kind of system can be, when perfectly legitimate speech is silenced, because a bot thinks it’s bad.

• Introducing spiked’s Safe Space Bingo

  For the uninitiated, a Safe Space is a space – physical or hypothetical – where students are protected from offensive opinions, words, jokes, gestures and even items of clothing. They are places where students are able to express themselves free from hateful phrases like, ‘I disagree with you’. But, even before Safe Spaces hit the headlines, universities and students’ unions were cooking up all manner of nonsensical restrictions in the name of protecting students from offence.

• Censorship in the 21st Century

  The freedom you see on the internet means there is someone out there fighting for this freedom for our benefit. Just like there are freedom rights organizations in the physical world, the virtual world has freedom rights companies that stand for the truth they believe in and refuse to fabricate any information. They upload facts as they are in their raw form and just like in any aspect of life, there are supporters and critics in this field as well.

• Powell emails expose depth of media self-censorship re Israeli nukes

  It is of course an open secret of nearly 50 years standing in Washington that Israel has nuclear weapons. But a hypocritical American policy was also set 50 years ago: the White House would repeat Israel’s promise not to introduce nuclear weapons into the Middle East. Behind the scenes the U.S. cooperated with the nuclear program, and urged Israel to sign the nuclear non-proliferation treaty, but publicly, our government would parrot the claim of “nuclear ambiguity.”

  President Obama has continued the charade.

  And meantime Colin Powell states the fact openly to a man-about-town business partner (who has given a ton of money to Democratic and Republican establishment candidates and was married by Rudy Giuliani and gossips about Hillary Clinton’s health issues).

  The most important element of the Powell revelation, though, is the context. A friend points Powell to Netanyahu’s speech (to a dual loyalty Congress) against the Iran deal; and this is Powell’s very first argument. “Iranians can’t use one if they finally make one.” Because Israel has a ton of nukes. Not even the old Mutual Assured Destruction doctrine that preserved peace between the U.S. and the F.S.U. — but self-destruction.

• Those Terrible Takedowns Aren’t Mistakes, They’re Intentional Fakes

  Usually, when we see stupid and dangerous DMCA errors like Warner Bros. taking down its own website and Paramount taking down legitimate Linux torrents, it’s the studios we call out first for their wanton abuse of the system. But of course that’s only part of the story — there is a system of broken incentives both inside and outside the studios that has created an entire “anti-piracy” ecosystem. It started with the third parties that many studios and other rightsholders hire: self-styled copyright enforcement experts who charge a fee to piss an endless stream of DMCA notices into the wind of piracy. Some studios, like NBCUniversal (who we’ll be talking about in a moment) choose instead to build this function into their internal structure with anti-piracy divisions staffed by the same kind of folks. Thanks to the willingness of copyright holders to pay out for this pointless service, it’s grown into a whole industry — and it’s an industry for which the never-ending, whac-a-mole nature of the takedown game is a plus, since it means the job will never be done. While there’s plenty of blame to go around among media companies and lawmakers, it’s these takedown “experts” who are the most directly responsible for the epidemic of botched and fraudulent takedown notices.

  And it’s easy to see why: they need to pad the numbers. If we accept that the whole exercise is pointless (it is) and there’s no actual end goal (there isn’t) then what makes one anti-piracy outfit better than another? Why, sheer volume of pointlessness, of course! The executive who hired the firm that takes down two-million links can brag about his competence compared to the executive who only got one-million for the same price, and the executive who designed the internal division that hit three-million for even less is a damn hero — even though they’re all just futilely pecking away at “infinity”. And so, since there’s no real penalty for abusing the DMCA, these groups have zero incentive to fret about only sending fair and accurate takedowns. But that’s not all — they also have every incentive to actively pad their numbers with takedowns they know are bullshit, and as TorrentFreak discovered last month and recently demonstrated again in pretty undeniable terms, that’s exactly what they’re doing…

• Web Security Firm Sitelock Uses DMCA to Censor Critics

  Sitelock, one of the world’s leading website security companies, is using the DMCA to silence a vocal critic. Web design and services outfit White Fir Design has published several articles about Sitelock, but now the company has hit back by filing DMCA notices against screenshots included in White Fir’s reports.

• Pahlaj Nihalani’s censorship hurts Gajendra Chauhan

  Chauhan told ET it was wrong on the part of the CBFC to decide that “the killings never happened” without consulting historians. He added that he took up the role only after researching on the killings. “I have researched deeply and groomed myself to fit into the character of someone I respect a lot, in terms of appearance and character. I sometimes felt Prasadji’s aatma has come into me, that is my level of involvement in the project.” He said the film has shown only what happened. “I can proudly say that Mookerjee is the reason why Bengal is part of India. Jinnah wanted West Bengal to be a part of Pakistan and Mookerjee fought against that. He is the father of the ideology people voted for power in India. I feel the nation has not given Syama Prasadji his due. He unfurled the national flag in J&K in 1953. He was a great ideologue and the film will educate people about his personality which sadly has not gotten justice.”

• Sexually explicit Sunday Sport ads banned despite ‘censorship’ claim

Privacy/Surveillance

• If I see an ending, I can work backward.

  As an example the first time you visit a page on www.example.foo.invalid you might receive a cookie with the domain example.foo.invalid so next time you visit a page on www.example.foo.invalid your browser will send the cookie along. Indeed it will also send it along for any page on another.example.foo.invalid

  A supercookies is simply one where instead of being limited to one sub-domain (example.foo.invalid) the cookie is set for a top level domain (foo.invalid) so visiting any such domain (I used the invalid name in my examples but one could substitute com or co.uk) your web browser gives out the cookie. Hackers would love to be able to set up such cookies and potentially control and hijack many sites at a time.

  This problem was noted early on and browsers were not allowed to set cookie domains with fewer than two parts so example.invalid or example.com were allowed but invalid or com on their own were not. This works fine for top level domains like .com, .org and .mil but not for countries where the domain registrar had rules about second levels like the uk domain (uk domains must have a second level like .co.uk).

• Max Schrems shows how one privacy activist can make a global difference

  Max Schrems is at it again: after having made the sharing of private European data to corporations in United States banned by the European Court of Justice, he’s now seeking class action status for a privacy lawsuit against Facebook. This is one individual calling out the highest executive offices on the purest of bullshit, and succeeding with it – he does not just set an example for others, but shows all of us that one individual can end global wrongs.

  There was a small notice in a few news outlets yesterday, about how somebody is seeking class action status against a privacy lawsuit against Facebook. A TechCrunch article mentions his name, but not before calling him “privacy campaigner”, just like the BBC calls him “a privacy activist”, and only mentions his name halfway down the article. But to those of us who read court papers with all the boredom and dryness of an imminent dust explosion, the name Maximillian Schrems immediately rang bells from such court papers from a year ago.

  It used to be that the European Commission – the executive branch of the European Union – gave away private data on European citizens to U.S. corporations freely, obviously without asking said citizens first, on some sort of goodwill assumption that European privacy laws would be followed (which they couldn’t be in the first place, as the US has the NSA). This was called “The Safe Harbor agreement” for European private data.

• Unprecedented and Unlawful: The NSA’s “Upstream” Surveillance

  The FISA Amendments Act of 2008 (FAA) — the statute the government uses to engage in warrantless surveillance of Americans’ international communications — is scheduled to expire in December 2017. In anticipation of the coming legislative debate over reauthorization, Congress has already begun to hold hearings. While Congress must address many problems with the government’s use of this law to surveil and investigate Americans, the government’s use of “Upstream” surveillance to search Internet traffic deserves special attention. Indeed, Congress has never engaged in a meaningful public debate about Upstream surveillance — but it should.

  First disclosed as part of the Snowden revelations, Upstream surveillance involves the NSA’s bulk interception and searching of Americans’ international Internet communications — including emails, chats, and web-browsing traffic — as their communications travel the spine of the Internet between sender and receiver. If you send emails to friends abroad, message family members overseas, or browse websites hosted outside of the United States, the NSA has almost certainly searched through the contents of your communications — and it has done so without a warrant.

  The executive branch contends that Upstream surveillance was authorized by the FAA; however, as others have noted, neither the text of the statute nor the legislative history support that claim. Moreover, as former Assistant Attorney General for National Security David Kris recently explained, Upstream raises “challenging” legal questions about the suspicionless searching of Americans’ Internet communications — questions that Congress must address before reauthorizing the FAA.

  Because of how it operates, Upstream surveillance represents a new surveillance paradigm, one in which computers constantly scan our communications for information of interest to the government. As the legislative debate gets underway, it’s critical to frame the technological and legal issues that Congress and the public must consider — and to examine far more closely the less-intrusive alternatives available to the government.

• ‘It Looks Like You’re Trying To Harvest Cell Phone Data…:’ Quick-Start Guides For IMSI Catchers Leaked

• After Equation Group Dump, Cisco Finds New Zero-Day Flaw

• Cisco customers targeted by hackers using leaked NSA hacking tools

• Cisco finds new Zero-Day Exploit linked to NSA Hackers

• Shadow Brokers’ Cisco vulnerability exploited in the wild

• Cisco customers targeted using leaked NSA hacking tools

• Cisco warns of exploitation of new flaws linked to Shadow Brokers exploits

• NSA hacking tools used against Cisco customers

  Leaked NSA hacking tools are now being used on Cisco customers, according to the tech giant. The company published an advisory on Friday saying that NSA grade hacking tools are now being used against customers.

  The authors wrote that the “Cisco Product Security Incident Response Team (PSIRT) is aware of exploitation of the vulnerability for some Cisco customers who are running the affected platforms.” Cisco have not yet identified those that have fallen prey to the exploit.

  The vulnerability affects a variety of Cisco product and by extension, anyone who is using them including any Cisco PIX firewalls and Cisco products running affected releases of Cisco iOS software, iOS XE software and iOS XR software. However, the company are currently checking whether the vulnerability affects any more of their products.

• UK Proposes Great Firewall, Can Digital India Do It?

  There is a ‘cyber-ideological war’ brewing in Britain; GCHQ (Government Communications Headquarters) in the UK have proposed what is being called the ‘Great British Firewall’, which will give the organization, greater surveillance powers, to keep malicious websites out of the reach of British enterprises. Privacy groups have started raising serious concerns, as the firewall could potentially open up private user information to British authorities in the process.

  GCHQ apparently has a reputation similar to that of NSA (National Security Agency) when it comes intrusive activities for the civilian population. Thomas Falchetta, the legal officer for Privacy International, paraphrased it, by saying “Given the broad scope of GCHQ’s hacking operations both domestically and abroad, this seems like the fox protecting the chicken.”

• UK might be planning a ‘Great British Firewall’

  You’ve probably heard of the Great Firewall of China, the virtual fortification that allows the Chinese government to monitor and restrict internet traffic to and from the world’s most populous nation.

  Well, the cyber-security chief of the UK Government Communication Headquarters (GCHQ) has suggested early plans for what sounds rather like a “Great British Firewall”.

  Privacy groups immediately sounded the alarm that it might pose a risk to freedom of speech, and offer the potential for Britain’s secret services to get up to no good. So what exactly is GCHQ proposing and should we be worried?

• Does the UK need or even want a ‘Great British Firewall’?

  You’ve probably heard of the Great Firewall of China, the virtual fortification that allows the Chinese government to monitor and restrict internet traffic to and from the world’s most populous nation. Well, the cyber-security chief of the UK Government Communication Headquarters (GCHQ) has suggested early plans for what sounds rather like a “Great British Firewall”. Privacy groups immediately sounded the alarm that it might pose a risk to freedom of speech, and offer the potential for Britain’s secret services to get up to no good. So what exactly is GCHQ proposing and should we be worried?

  Firewalls are standard tools for computer defence. They are essentially filters which can control what traffic enters and leaves a network. You are probably protected by a firewall right now, at your workplace or at home, that runs either on your computer’s operating system or on the hardware that provides your connection to the internet.

  A firewall can be configured to reject certain types of traffic deemed undesirable or potentially harmful. This might be a connection request from an untrustworthy source, such as a web address known to harbour hackers or spammers, for example. Or it could block a file that looks like it might contain a computer virus or other malware. While deflecting this sort of undesirable traffic the firewall allows standard traffic such as web browsing and email to pass through.

• Will The Washington Post Give Back Its Pulitzer And Stand Trial With Snowden?

  We already know that the Washington Post editorial board has some cognitive dissonance when it comes to Ed Snowden. Three years ago, right after the Washington Post itself, via reporter Barton Gellman, broke a bunch of the initial stories around the Ed Snowden documents — including the first public report on the Section 702 PRISM program — the editorial board wrote a piece condemning Snowden’s leaks. Now, it’s true (as many point out) that the editorial board is separate from the reporters who work at the paper, but it still is really quite amazing that the editorial board would not only burn a source like that but basically complain about its own journalism.

  It appears that three years later, the Post’s editorial board has not changed its perspective. In response to the campaign to pardon Snowden, the Washington Post has come out with a tone deaf editorial against pardoning Snowden, calling for him to be prosecuted, and insisting that Snowden caused real harm with the revelations. Here’s the really incredible part. The Post focuses its complaint on the revelation of the PRISM program — and that is the story that the Post broke. Glenn Greenwald and the Guardian had the first story, about the Section 215 mass phone records surveillance program. But it was the Post that had the first story about PRISM. And yet, the Washington Post now says that while revealing the 215 program may have been a public service, revealing PRISM was a crime.

  [...]

  Remember that, while many people falsely think that Snowden is the one who revealed these programs to the public, that’s not the case. He gave the documents to certain journalists, saying that he trusted them to sort through them and determine what was newsworthy, what was not, and what should be kept secret. It was the Washington Post that determined the PRISM program — which is still subject to legal challenges (though so far has been found to be legal) — was serious enough for news coverage. Not Ed Snowden. And yet now the Post says Snowden should be prosecuted for the journalistic decision it made, which earned it a Pulitzer.

• Oliver Stone’s “Snowden” is great entertainment and an important argument for pardon

  I just saw Oliver Stone’s Snowden. It’s an excellent film, no doubt, and also an important rebuttal to ongoing efforts by propagandists to limit America’s conversation to who Edward Snowden is, rather than what this whistleblower revealed.

• Why Global Privacy Should Matter to Americans: A Reply to Jack Goldsmith

  Jack Goldsmith’s response to my call for a pardon for Edward Snowden deserves a reply. I also have a few thoughts on what Susan Hennessey and Ben Wittes have now added to the debate.

  Jack and I agree that the reforms instituted since 2013 would not have happened without Snowden and have helped the NSA become more transparent, accountable and effective. We agree that this is a good thing because NSA operations are vital to national security and international stability. We also agree that Snowden should not be punished for exposing a program of domestic collection of telephone records approved by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court that was—at best—of marginal value and legally questionable, was ruled illegal by another federal court and has now been ended by Congress.

• As a source — and a patriot — Edward Snowden deserves a presidential pardon

  President Obama’s administration has an unfortunate record of prosecuting whistleblowers, some of whom have been important sources for journalists.

  That’s not a legacy any president should want.

  In the waning days of his administration, the president can turn that around, not entirely, but in an important way by pardoning the former NSA contractor Edward Snowden and allowing him to return to the United States from his Russian exile without facing charges.

  Obama absolutely should do so. Snowden did an important — and brave — service for the American public and, in fact, the world, when he made it possible for news organizations to reveal widespread government surveillance of citizens. Some of that surveillance broke the law; some, although within the law, was nevertheless outrageous and unacceptable. And, afterward, some of the wrongs were righted through legislative reform.

  One of the beneficiaries was The Washington Post, which won the Pulitzer Prize for public service for stories made possible by Snowden’s leak of more than a million documents. (The Guardian U.S. shared in that award, given in 2014.) Some see it, then, as hypocritical for The Post’s editorial board to weigh in against a pardon, as it did in Saturday’s paper — even though the editorial-writing side is separate from the newsroom.

  In awarding its highest honor to both publications, the Pulitzer board cited The Post’s revelations “of widespread secret surveillance by the National Security Agency, marked by authoritative and insightful reports that helped the public understand how the disclosures fit into the larger framework of national security”; in the Guardian’s case, for aggressive reporting that sparked “a debate about the relationship between the government and the public over issues of security and privacy.”

  At the time of the revelations, the president himself declared that national debate important and worthwhile, although he criticized Snowden for breaking the law in making the classified documents public.

• FBI director: Cover up your webcam

  The head of the FBI on Wednesday defended putting a piece of tape over his personal laptop’s webcam, claiming the security step was a common sense one that most should take.

  “There’s some sensible things you should be doing, and that’s one of them,” Director James Comey said during a conference at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

  “You go into any government office and we all have the little camera things that sit on top of the screen,” he added. “They all have a little lid that closes down on them.

  “You do that so that people who don’t have authority don’t look at you. I think that’s a good thing.”

Civil Rights/Policing

• Mike Pence Just Gave The Dumbest And Most Dangerous Answer Of The Entire Campaign

  O’Donnell asked Pence if profiling can violate rights. He answered, “Well, of course, it can,” and then talked more about the importance of common sense.

  Pence never answered the question about how Trump’s plan to profile immigrants would work. His answer was some idiotic nonsense about political correctness and common sense.

  The Republican Party was the party of individual liberty, but under Donald Trump, the “common sense” of the president overrides the constitutional rights and protections of the American people. Gov. Pence’s answer wasn’t just idiotic. Pence expressed a form of idiocy that presents a danger to fundamental individual rights that are the backbone of the republic.

• Find A Good Kid Who Tries To Do The Right Thing And Suspend Him From School For A Year

  The idiots running the schools there later reduced his suspension to 30 days.

  A suspension that shouldn’t exist at all. (The message to kids: “If you see something, say nothing.”)

  On a positive note, this should teach Kyle things he wouldn’t have learned at school — like to always question authority.

• Death in County Jail ruled homicide; cause of death was dehydration

  The death of an inmate in the Milwaukee County Jail has been ruled a homicide, four months after corrections officers reportedly cut off his water supply for an extended period of time.

  The cause of death was dehydration, with other significant conditions including bipolar disorder, according to autopsy results released Thursday by the Milwaukee County medical examiner’s office.

  Terrill Thomas, 38, was found unresponsive in his cell on April 24, nine days after being arrested for shooting a man in the chest and later firing two shots in the Potawatomi casino.

  His family said he was in the throes of a mental breakdown when he was arrested. At the time of his death, he was awaiting a court-ordered psychiatric examination.

• Video Released in Tulsa Shooting Incident

  Police released video Monday of the scene where a white police officer shot and killed an unarmed black man Friday in Tulsa, Oklahoma.

  Tulsa police officer Betty Shelby fatally shot Terence Crutcher, 40, on Friday evening, after responding to an abandoned car blocking the road, according to The New York Times.

Internet Policy/Net Neutrality

• Nashville Council Member Admits AT&T & Comcast Wrote The Anti-Google Fiber Bill She Submitted

  We’ve been talking about how the next great battlefield in broadband is utility pole attachment reform. In many cities, the incumbent broadband provider owns the utility poles, giving them a perfect opportunity to hinder competitors. In other cities, the local utility or city itself owns the poles, but incumbent ISPs have lobbied for laws making it more difficult for competitors to access them quickly and inexpensively. Google Fiber has been pushing “one touch make ready” rules in several cities aimed at streamlining this bureaucracy by letting a licensed, third-party installer move any ISP’s gear (often a matter of inches).

• Is dialup still an option?

  Is the Internet usable on Dialup in 2016? No. You can’t even pretend it’s maybe usable. It pretty much would suck rocks to use the Internet on dialup today. I’m sure there are some people doing it. I feel bad for them. It’s clear we’ve hit a place where broadband is expected, and honestly, you need fast broadband, even 1 Megabit isn’t enough anymore if you want a decent experience. The definition of broadband in the US is now 25Mb down 3Mb up. Anyone who disagrees with that should spend a day at 56K.

• AT&T and Comcast helped elected official write plan to stall Google Fiber

  As the Nashville Metro Council prepares for a final vote to give Google Fiber faster access to utility poles, one council member is sponsoring an alternative plan that comes from AT&T and Comcast.

  The council has tentatively approved a One Touch Make Ready (OTMR) ordinance that would let a single company—Google Fiber in this case—make all of the necessary wire adjustments on utility poles itself. Ordinarily, Google Fiber must wait for incumbent providers like AT&T and Comcast to send construction crews to move their own wires, requiring multiple visits and delaying Google Fiber’s broadband deployment. The pro-Google Fiber ordinance was approved in a 32-7 preliminary vote, but one of the dissenters asked AT&T and Comcast to put forth a competing proposal before a final vote is taken.

DRM

• HP Launched Delayed DRM Time Bomb To Disable Competing Printer Cartridges

  For decades now, consumers have been lured into a sour deal: pay for a relatively inexpensive printer, then spend a lifetime paying an arm and a leg for viciously overpriced printer cartridges. As most have learned first-hand, any attempt to disrupt this obnoxious paradigm via third-party printer cartridges has been met with a swift DRM roundhouse kick to the solar plexus. In fact if there’s an area where the printer industry actually innovates, it’s most frequently in finding new, creative and obnoxious methods of preventing cartridge competition.

  Hoping to bring this parade of awfulness to its customers at scale, HP this week unearthed the atomic bomb of printer cartridge shenanigans. HP Printer owners collectively discovered on September 13 that their printers would no longer even accept budget cartridges. Why? A firmware update pushed by the company effectively prevented HP printers from even detecting alternative cartridges, resulting in HP printer owners getting messages about a “cartridge problem,” or errors stating “one or more cartridges are missing or damaged,” or that the user was using an “older generation cartridge.”

Intellectual Monopolies

• Trademarks

  • From OHIM to EUIPO

    The great changes at EUIPO will continue with further reforms coming into force next year, including the abolition of the “graphical representation” requirement for EUTMs. Luis Berenguer, Head of the Communication Service of EUIPO, discusses the changes in an interview

• Copyrights

  • Most Young Millennials Love Piracy and Ad-Blockers

    More than two-thirds of all millennials admit to having downloaded or streamed pirated content, a new survey from Anatomy Media finds. The same group also has a high preference for ad-blocking, which is believed to be directly related to the high prevalence of invasive ads on pirate sites.

  • Microsoft sues Wisconsin man (again) for copyright infringement (again)

    Microsoft is hoping the third time will be the charm in its efforts to shut down a man once again being accused of pirating its products.

    The Redmond giant has filed suit [PDF] in the US District Court in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, against Anthony Boldin for illegally selling product activation keys for its products. The complaint seeks damages and a court order barring Boldin from selling its products without a license.

    Microsoft said that, through various websites he owned and operated, Boldin was selling decoupled product activation keys that allowed users to authenticate pirated copies of its software.

    The keys – obtained for use with academic, supplier, and internal copies of Microsoft Windows and Office – were sold by Boldin’s sites to customers who were then directed to other download sites (including Microsoft’s own sites) to get the software itself. To gather proof, Microsoft investigators made a handful of purchases directly from the sites.

• Distributions
• Devices/Embedded

Server

• Oracle vs Amazon: Oracle’s public cloud milestones so far

  The centrepiece of Oracle OpenWorld 2016 this week is a plan to go head to head with Amazon Web Services within the infrastructure as a service market. Oracle is a relative latecomer to the public cloud market but boldly claims its Generation 2 IaaS can take on AWS’ offerings. It’s ambitious to say the least: a Gartner report last year said AWS’s IaaS cloud is ten times bigger than the next 14 competitors combined, not that you’d know it from Oracle’s bullish language.

Kernel Space

• Bcache File-System Has Initial Encryption Patches

  It’s been a while since last having anything to talk about with regard to Bcachefs as a file-system aiming for speed while having ZFS/Btrfs-like capabilities and being spun out of the Bcache caching code. This file-system now has tentative patches for complete encryption support.

• GENIVI Alliance Announces New Open Source Vehicle Simulator Project

  The GENIVI Alliance, a non-profit alliance focused on developing an open in-vehicle infotainment (IVI) and connectivity software platform for the transportation industry, today announced the GENIVI Vehicle Simulator (GVS) open source project has launched, with both developer and end-user code available immediately.

• Graphics Stack

  • libinput and the Lenovo T460 series trackstick

Applications

• mrxvt looking for maintainers

  mrxvt is a cool light-weight terminal emulator, not tied to a specific desktop environment and with minimal dependency. This was also one of my very first bigger contributions to Free Software. Well I had patches here and there before, but that’s one project where I stuck around longer and where I was quickly given commit rights. So it is dear to my heart. It was also my first big feature attempt since I started a branch to add UTF-8 support (actually any-encoding support), which is the normal way of things now but at the time, many software and distributions were still not working with UTF-8 as a default. Then I left for years-long wandering our planet on a motorcycle (as people who know me are aware) and because of this, drastically slowed down FLOSS contributions until a few years ago. Back as a contributor, mrxvt is not my main project anymore (you know which these are: GIMP and ZeMarmot!). I moved on.

• Flowblade 1.8 Released, Supports Keyboard Trimming, Clip Snapping

  The open-source video editor Flowblade has a new release available for download.

  Flowblade 1.8 arrives with a batch of key improvements into, including the ability to trim clips using the arrow keys on your keyboard.

  This way of working, say the Flowblade team, feels “more convenient and precise then always working with a mouse

• News about Blender second release candidate and other projects.

  The Chairman Blender Foundation and producer Blender Institute, Mr. Ton Roosendaal comw with this news about second release candidate and other projects…

• Proprietary

  • Microsoft Updates Skype for Linux to Version 1.8 [Ed: malicious software]

  • Adobe Flash Player Update with Critical Bug Fixes

  • Adobe Flash Player Update Download Available with Bug Fixes on Linux

  • Opera for Desktop Gets Free VPN on Windows, Linux, and Mac

    After bringing its free VPN services to iOS and Android, Opera has now released a free, no-login VPN for desktop users as well. The VPN is bundled in to the Opera browser and requires no sign-in or any setup – using it is as simple as the press of a single button. What this does is make using a VPN simple even for users who are not technologically-inclined. Opera’s browser VPN was first launched as a beta in April this year.

    A month later, Opera VPN was available as a standalone app on iOS. The VPN was then launched for Android in August before finally rolling out the final version for desktop users now.

• Instructionals/Technical

  • Atop – Monitor real time system performance, resources, process & check resource utilization history

  • “PAM Mastery” ebook now out

  • The curious case of the switch statement

  • Get Started Writing Web Apps with Node.js: Using the All Powerful NPM

  • Microsoft SQL Server from PHP

  • Mirroring Keystone Delegations in FreeIPA/389DS

• Games

  • Deus Ex: Mankind Divided Mac and Linux versions on the way

    Deus Ex: Mankind Divided is full of all sorts of strange allegories around prejudice. The game expects us to be surprised that people are distrusting and fearful of the augmented humans that could kill them in a heartbeat with their swiss army penis augmentation, when fact the augmented humans did in fact try and kill all of the regular folk towards the end of Deus Ex: Human Revolution where a broadcasted signal – a bit like in Kingsman: The Secret Service – sent them all into a murderous rage. (Sorry, spoilers.)

    It’s certainly a strange thing, but if you can get your head around it (read: suspend your disbelief, ignore the pseudo-lofty stupidness, and generally crack on with things) then it’s a rather excellent game.

  • Some thoughts on ‘Siralim 2′, the never ending monster battling RPG

    You don’t need to play the first game, as they stand completely apart with their own story and introductions.

  • Dogma: Eternal Night is an in-development vampire MMO that will have Linux support [Ed: Microsoft Mono insider, so watch out]

    I have to say I think it looks pretty cool, the idea of being a vampire like that in an MMO would be pretty fun.

  • Unigine Is Working On Perhaps The Most Beautiful GPU Benchmark, Coming Later This Year

Desktop Environments/WMs

• K Desktop Environment/KDE SC/Qt

  • Kubuntu needs some K/Ubuntu Developer help this week

    Our packaging team has been working very hard, however, we have a lack of active Kubuntu Developers involved right now. So we’re asking for Devels with a bit of extra time and some experience with KDE packages to look at our Frameworks, Plasma and Applications packaging in our staging PPAs and sign off and upload them to the Ubuntu Archive.

• GNOME Desktop/GTK

  • WebKitGTK+ 2.14

    These six months has gone so fast and here we are again excited about the new WebKitGTK+ stable release. This is a release with almost no new API, but with major internal changes that we hope will improve all the applications using WebKitGTK+.

  • Looking forward GNOME 3.22

    is still true! Between backend reworks, Summer of Code projects and spontaneous contributions from awsome random contributors, here are the things that I’m looking forward with GNOME 3.22 release.

  • We’re going to partay, karamu, fiesta, forever

    GNOME release 3.22 happens to be during one of the core days of the Libre Application Summit Hosted by GNOME (LAS GNOME) On top of a high rise, in Portland Oregon, we’re going to celebrate GNOME 3.22 in grand style with the conference participants and end the core days at LAS GNOME!

Distributions

• New Releases

  • Q4OS 2.2, Scorpion, testing

    Q4OS development team is pleased to announce immediate availability of the new significant update of the Q4OS ‘Scorpion’ desktop, version 2.2. This is a testing version of the Q4OS desktop, based on the recent Debian 9 Stretch release with the upgraded Linux kernel 4.6, GCC 6 and the Trinity 14.0.4 desktop environment. The alternative LXQT desktop is supported in Q4OS, so users can have Trinity and LXQT desktops alongside installed and choose which one to log in. Q4OS 2.2 ‘Scorpion’ continues to be under development so far, and it will stay as long as Debian Stretch will be testing. Q4OS ‘Scorpion’ will be supported at least five years from the official release date.

  • Absolute 14.2 released

    Based on Slackware 14.2

    Comes in a 32 as well as a 64-bit version. Same basic functionality, but most everything updated under the hood. No longer fits on a single CD — the usual installation method is a USB stick. With this size-constraint removed, larger apps like LibreOffice and Calibre are now included in the base installation.

  • OMV3 beta amd64/i386 images

    The amd64 and i386 ISO images for 3.0.36 (beta) can be downloaded for testing here. Please do not use them for production systems.

• PCLinuxOS/Mageia/Mandriva Family

  • Announcing upcoming Mageia 5.1 ISOs and an update on Mageia 6 progress

    As a community-led distro with a limited amount of resources and contributors, we stand by “Release when it’s ready” and don’t want to rush a release out until we are fully happy with it. Obviously, we are not yet fully happy with Mageia 6, though it is shaping up pretty well! On the other hand, we are still very pleased with Mageia 5 and want to continue supporting it until Mageia 6 is ready to take over.

• Red Hat Family

  • International Business Machines Corp. & Red Hat Inc Expand Collaboration on Enhancing Hybrid Cloud

    Both hardware and software businesses are poised on making the lives of their consumers easier through further extension of their partnership to provide better solutions

  • Red Hat Prepares for OpenStack Newton Improvements

    The next major milestone release of OpenStack, dubbed “Newton,” is currently scheduled to debut the week of October 3. While the release is not yet finalized, product teams at Red Hat already have a grip on what they see as the big improvements that OpenStack Newton will bring.

  • Herzog dons a Red Hat in a private Cloud

    HTI chose to build its new PTC system on a “private Cloud” powered by Red Hat Enterprise Linux and managed by Red Hat Satellite and Red Hat CloudForms. The Enterprise Linux platform “allows for easier scaling for IoT (Internet of Things)-type network deployments and helps minimize the hosting footprint in Herzog’s datacenter, thanks to the flexible, stable foundation that it provides,” HTI said. Red Hat CloudForms, an “open hybrid Cloud management platform,” has helped Herzog transform its existing virtualized infrastructure into a private Cloud, through its on-demand scaling functionality. Red Hat Satellite helps Herzog maintain greater platform security and compliance with various regulatory standards, as well as manage its software lifecycle from testing through production. Herzog also worked with Red Hat Consulting to help bring its new offering to market.

  • How to partner with external marketing agencies

    A community-powered approach to working with the broad ecosystem of marketing agencies—to which more and more firms are turning these days—can produce new and inspiring results.

    I’ve seen it myself since I began leading marketing at Red Hat, especially during something we call our annual agency workshop. The workshop is our opportunity to strengthen the relationships, values, and shared knowledge that bind our community of marketing firms together.

  • Finance

    • What to Expect When Red Hat (RHT) Posts Q2 Results

    • Red Hat (RHT) Q2 Earnings: What’s in the Cards this Time?

    • Red Hat Earnings On Tap: Margin Expansion Key

  • Fedora

    • AsciiBind all the things!

      I have finally finished a, probably way too long, proposal for implementing a new Fedora Docs publishing toolchain using AsciiBinder.

      The proposal, also published using AsciiBinder, suggests that we definitively adopt AsciiDoc and convert our DocBook sources to it without delay. Further we should begin publishing with AsciiBinder, ideally by Fedora 26.

    • What is the Fedora Code of Conduct?

      We all live in a society. Every society has customs, values, and mores. This is how homo sapiens are different from other species. Since our childhood, in school, then college, and then at work, we follow a shared set of social values. This shared set of values creates a peaceful world. In the open source world, we strive for values that lead to us all being welcoming, generous, and thoughtful. We may differ in opinions or sometimes disagree with each other, but we try to keep the conversation focused on the ideas under discussion, not the person in the discussion.

      Fedora is an excellent example of an open source society where contributors respect each other and have healthy discussions, whether they agree or disagree on all topics. This is a sign of a healthy community. Fedora is a big project with contributors and users from different parts of the world . This creates a diverse community of different skills, languages, ages, colors, cultural values, and more. Although it is rare in Fedora, sometimes miscommunication happens and this can result in situations where the discussion moves from the idea to the person.

    • Wheee, another addition.

      I’m thrilled to announce that Jeremy Cline has joined the Fedora Engineering team, effective today. Like our other recent immigrant, Randy Barlow, Jeremy was previously a member of Red Hat’s Pulp team.

• Debian Family

  • Debian 8 Updated, Kubuntu Help Wanted, Mageia 5.1

    The Debian project announced an update to their stable Debian 8 branch, the sixth such update since its release. This update is primarily to address security issues. Elsewhere, the Mageia folks announced an update to version 5, released last summer, to hold users over since 6.0 has been delayed. The Linux Grandma put out the call for help today as they’re running a bit low on developers over there and the Free Software Foundation as well as Richard Stallman replied to the accusations of discrimination in the case of LibreBoot.

  • Debian GNU/Linux 8.6 “Jessie” Live ISO Editions Are Now Available for Download

    Just yesterday, September 18, 2016, we reported on the official availability of the Debian GNU/Linux 8.6 “Jessie” operating system, but no installation mediums of Live editions were announced.

    That changes today, September 19, 2016, as we’ve received a tip from one of our readers that both the installation-only and Live ISO editions have been released on the official channels and are now available for download (see the links below if you want to get them now).

  • Updated Debian 8: 8.6 released

  • Derivatives

    • Canonical/Ubuntu

      • Our Poll Results Suggest Few People Use 32-Bit Ubuntu

        92% of omgubuntu.co.uk readers say they use a 64-bit version of Ubuntu as their primary OS, with just 7% relying on an Ubuntu 32-bit install.

Devices/Embedded

• Tiny $2.10 WiFi module taps ESP8285 WiFi SoC

  Itead has launched a $2.10, 14 x 13.5mm “PSF-A85” WiFi module based on the ESP8285 SoC, a version of the ESP8266 that adds 1MB SPI flash.

  In recent months, before releasing the faster, Bluetooth enabled ESP32 big brother to its popular ESP8266 WiFi SoC, China-based Espressif released a follow-on to the ESP8266 called the ESP8285. Now, Itead, which also makes various Sonoff-branded WiFi-enabled IoT gizmos, has released what appears to be the first third-party WiFi module based on the chip: the $2.10 (without antenna) PSF-A85.

• Phones

  • Tizen

    • Samsung’s JerryScript gets a stable 1.0 version release

      JerryScript isn’t the only lightweight Engine that is working with embedded hardware right now. Other engines like Duktape, tiny-js and MuJS, D7, etc are also actively working on bringing Javascript support to embeddable devices. But Samsung’s backing here gives a clear edge to JerryScript and help it go mainstream.

    • Does your WhatsApp say the version has expired? Here is a Temp Fix

    • Video: How To – Apply a Voucher Code in the Samsung Galaxy Apps Store / Gear Manager

  • Android

    • [Oops] It looks like Nest accidentally aired a commercial featuring the Google Pixel

    • Google Play Books is getting much smarter with book recommendations

    • Pet peeves: things we wish Android handled differently

    • Android Studio v2.2 released to stable channel with new layout designer and ConstraintLayout, test recorder, APK Analyzer, and much more

    • Google’s upcoming Pixel XL won’t be the powerhouse phablet Android fans were hoping for

    • New Desire 10 Pro and Lifestyle: mid-range specs and HTC 10-inspired designs

    • HTC Desire 10 preview: Flashy outside, ordinary within

    • Google Trips: This iOS, Android app gives you all your travel data plus offline access

    • ZTE Axon 7 updated, Android 7.0 Nougat in the pipeline

Why China is the next proving ground for open source software

Western entrepreneurs still haven’t figured out China. For most, the problem is getting China to pay for software. The harder problem, however, is building software that can handle China’s tremendous scale.

There are scattered examples of success, though. One is Alluxio (formerly Tachyon), which I detailed recently in its efforts to help China’s leading online travel site, Qunar, boost HDFS performance by 15X. Alluxio CEO and founder, Haoyuan Li, recently returned from China, and I caught up with him to better understand the big data infrastructure market there, as China looks to spend $370 million to double its data center capacity in order to serve 710 million internet users.

Samsung releases Open Source HbbTV media player

Samsung Electronics announced that its Hybrid broadcast broadband TV (HbbTV) media player will be available as an open source project named HbbPlayer on github, an open source developer community. This will enable broadcasters and application developers who are writing HbbTV applications to test and validate them on a platform which can be implemented on any HbbTV 1.5-compliant TV.

How to make Open Source work for you

Business today is all about adapting, pivoting and expanding quickly. With market conditions changing ever so rapidly, open source has become the key to helping companies modify their solutions while keeping their IT expenditures and development time to a minimum.

Today, we’re starting to see a new crop of developers who grew up using open source methodologies to develop open source components. As these developers make their way into enterprise IT departments, they’re bringing their familiarity with and desire for open source with them.

Accordingly, we’ve been seeing tremendous amounts of innovation come from open source projects. The focus of many open source projects is on helping to solve the complex technology challenges that most businesses face today such as how to work with big data and how to build the best cloud applications.

So how can and should enterprises go about making open source work for them in the best way possible? Here are some factors to take note of.

Do you have a business or a hobby? Open source versus proprietary in the real world

The open-source world is an endlessly interesting and exciting place for developers. The inventory of technologies is always growing, and bleeding-edge software platforms often debut in open source marketplaces. For these same reasons, however, enterprises can grow weary of open source, a seemingly endless tweaking and tinkering game to customize software for business purposes. Some say a proprietary solution that utilizes open source is preferable for businesses that need to make moves in real life.

Events

• Manchester GNOME 3.22 Release Party – Friday 23rd Sept. @ MADLab [Ed: we're planning to be there.]

• LAS (Libre Application Summit) GNOME Conference Takes Place September 19-23

  Today, September 19, 2016, was the first day of the first-ever LAS (Libre Application Summit) GNOME open source conference for GNU/Linux application developers.

  As you might have guessed already, the event is being organized by the GNOME Project, the same non-profit organization that’s behind the popular GNOME desktop environment used in numerous Linux kernel-based operating systems around the globe, and an important part of the Free Software ecosystem.

  LAS (Libre Application Summit) GNOME conference’s main goal is to encourage the growth of the Linux application ecosystem among small and medium-sized businesses, as well as various educational institutions. It also aims to expand the collaboration between the Linux kernel and major GNU/Linux operating systems.

• Headed to LAS GNOME!

  By the time this gets posted on the blog, I will be headed to LAS GNOME. I’m really looking forward to being there!

  I’m on the schedule to talk about usability testing. Specifically, I’ll discuss how you can do usability testing for your own open source software projects. Maybe you think usability testing is hard—it’s not! Anyone can do usability testing! It only takes a little prep work and about five testers to get enough useful feedback that you can improve your interface.

• Fedora 24 release party in Paris

• HackMIT

  One of the core missions of a Fedora Ambassador is to represent the Fedora Community at events. On the weekend on September 17 and 18, 2016 I attended HackMIT as a representative of Fedora with Justin Flory. I was also honored to serve as a mentor to several teams.

• Tickets for systemd 2016 Workshop day still available!

  We still have a number of ticket for the workshop day of systemd.conf 2016 available. If you are a newcomer to systemd, and would like to learn about various systemd facilities, or if you already know your way around, but would like to know more: this is the best chance to do so. The workshop day is the 28th of September, one day before the main conference, at the betahaus in Berlin, Germany. The schedule for the day is available here. There are five interesting, extensive sessions, run by the systemd hackers themselves. Who better to learn systemd from, than the folks who wrote it?

• [LPC] Preliminary Microconference Schedule Up

  Every year we get a number of constraints on Microconferences which we try hard to accommodate. Accounting for all of those, we’ve put the preliminary schedule up here. If you notice any problems, please email contact@linuxplumbersconf.org and we’ll try to fix it

  Also note, this is preliminary, the Microconferences may still move around as we get requests to change them. Also note that the times of talks within Microconferences is highly likely to change (please see the MC leaders if you want this to change).

• World Port Hackathon 2016 concludes successfully

  Last month, the fourth edition of the World Port Hackathon took place in Rotterdam. Several teams worked on problems identified by representatives of the port community in workshops leading up to the hackathon. This year’s event was organised in co-creation with the Maritime and Port Authority (MPA) of Singapore.

• Nexenta to Showcase Its Open Source-driven Software Defined Storage Solutions at OpenStack Days Nordic 2016

Web Browsers

• Mozilla

  • Firefox 49.0 Is Now Available

    While being delayed one week due to last-minute bugs, Firefox 49.0 is now available this morning.

    Firefox 49 ships with Linux Widevine support for handling this CDM similar to the existing Windows support for being able to play more protected HTML5 video content.

  • Mozilla emits JavaScript debugger for Firefox and Chrome

    Mozilla developers have released a new JavaScript debugger for Firefox.

    It’s hoped the new “Debugger.html” will replace todays XUL-based debugger, which the project’s Bryan Clark describes as “incredibly hard to change”.

    That may not necessarily happen, because Clark notes there’s another team in Firefox that’s working on refactoring the existing debugger code.

Oracle/Java/LibreOffice

• Oracle pledges continued support for Java and NetBeans

  Last week, Oracle disowned NetBeans. The company announced it was turning its Java-based NetBeans over to the Apache Software Foundation. Now, Oracle is changing its tune on both NetBeans and Java Enterprise Edition (JEE).

  Oh, don’t get me wrong. Oracle still doesn’t want to manage NetBeans. But Oracle claims it’s not just dumping the NetBeans integrated developer environment (IDE) code. In an email, Bill Pataky, VP of Oracle Mobile Development Program and Developer Tools, told me, “Oracle is opening the governance model of NetBeans, not dropping support. Oracle has three products that depend on NetBeans.” These are:

Education

• Dear younger self, here are four tips for reaching your goals

Healthcare

• How a free mobile app fights Ebola and other global epidemics

  Luckily an open medical record platform already existed: OpenMRS. In 2015, Save the Children International identified the need for medical data collection in the Ebola treatment centers and reached out to the OpenMRS community. Around the same time, Google Crisis Response and Doctors Without Borders were working on a similar project Project Buendia, an Android client built on top of an OpenMRS server.

  Founded in 2004, OpenMRS is a free, modular open-source electronic medical record platform used in more than 60 low- and middle-income countries. As the OpenMRS site explains, OpenMRS is a multi-institution, non-profit collaborative led by Regenstrief Institute, a medical informatics research leader, and Partners In Health, a Boston-based philanthropic organization with a focus on improving the lives of underprivileged people worldwide through health care service and advocacy.

  OpenMRS includes many features out of the box, such as a centralized dictionary that allows for coded data, user authentication, a patient repository, multiple identifiers per patient (i.e., patient can have multiple medical record numbers), data entry for electronic forms, data export, patient workflows (so patients can be put into programs and tracked through various states), relationships (to track relationships between two people, such as relatives and caretakers), and reporting tools. Add-on modules are also available or can be developed.

Pseudo-Open Source (Openwashing)

• Were New York, Minnesota Attacks Open-Source Jihad?[Ed: Microsoft-connected ‘news’ channel MSNBC. No comment needed. Microsoft loves Linux.]

Funding

• Armed with $5M, Boston open-source startup to expand in RTP

  Mautic, a Boston-based open-source marketing automation firm, has disclosed a $5 million fundraise – cash one of its executives says will fuel growth across the company, including in the Triangle.

  David Hurley, the company’s co-founder and chief finance officer, is based in Raleigh. He says the firm is focused on expanding in the area.

  “We’ve been building the team from an engineering and infrastructure standpoint,” he said Monday in an interview. “We’re really focusing on the things Raleigh does well. We’ve got an awesome talent pool in the area.”

• Open source marketing automation platform Mautic picks up $5M Series A and a new CEO from Applause

• Mautic Raises $5 Million Series A Round; also Announces Applause Executive, Matt Johnston, as CEO

• Mautic Gets $5M, Adds Applause Exec as CEO to Boost Open Source Marketing Tools

FSF/FSFE/GNU/SFLC

• Emacs 25.1 released

Licensing/Legal

• LLVM contemplates relicensing

  The LLVM project is currently distributed under the BSD-like NCSA license, but the project is considering a change in the interest of better patent protection. “After extensive discussion involving many lawyers with different affiliations, we recommend taking the approach of using the Apache 2.0 license, with the binary attribution exception (discussed before), and add an additional exception to handle the situation of GPL2 compatibility if it ever arises.”

Openness/Sharing/Collaboration

• Netflix’s Meridian, an open source benchmark disguised as a original program

  The 12 minute long Netflix Original “Meridian” might not be the most exciting program they’ve ever released but it is among one of the most interesting. The program is available to anyone, via the Creative Commons license they attached to it, up to an including competitors such as iTunes and Hulu. This seemly strange move is because it is actually a benchmark for encoding streamed video and the more people that see it the more information Netflix and others will gain. It is originally filmed in 4k resolution at 60fps, which is far more than most displays can handle and much larger than residential data infrastructure is used to handling.

• Vienna, KDZ release Open Government Implementation Model

  The City of Vienna and KDZ have released version 3.0 of their Open Government Implementation Model to the public in German as well as English. The Model describes five stages of a strategy as well as practical recommendations for politicians and administrations to implement open government.

• Open Data

  • Tube Heartbeat open data project reveals pulse of London Underground

    Oliver O’Brien, a Senior Research Associate at University College London (UCL), has created a wonderful visualisation of the volume of passengers traveling the London Underground on a typical workday. His Tube Heartbeat project builds on the outcomes of the TfL Rolling Origin and Destination Survey (RODS), which was made publicly available under the UK Open Government Licence (OGLv2). It shows the numbers entering and exiting each of the 268 stations and the numbers traveling each of the 762 links in between.

Science

• Star Trek: inspiring people and their tech since 1964

  Star Trek has inspired fans, technologies, and careers ever since its creation in 1964 by Gene Roddenberry.

Hardware

• We tear apart a hard drive and SSD to show you how they work

  It’s the day everybody dreads: You power up your PC and it sits dormant, failing to boot because your hard drive or SSD is dead. But after you stop cursing and reaching for your backups—you do create backups regularly, right?—you might as well make the best of things.

  There’s a world of small wonders hidden inside every storage drive if you take the time to dig around. Since storage drives die far less frequently than they used to, the opportunities for dissection are rare. So we’ve broken out our screwdrivers and dissected both a solid-state drive and a traditional hard drive for you, to reveal what makes them metaphorically tick. If your drives start actually ticking, back up your data now and start looking for a new one pronto.

Security

• Security advisories for Monday

• Why do we do security?

  I had a discussion last week that ended with this question. “Why do we do security”. There wasn’t a great answer to this question. I guess I sort of knew this already, but it seems like something too obvious to not have an answer. Even as I think about it I can’t come up with a simple answer. It’s probably part of the problems you see in infosec.

  The purpose of security isn’t just to be “secure”, it’s to manage risk in some meaningful way. In the real world this is usually pretty easy for us to understand. You have physical things, you want to keep them from getting broken, stolen, lost, pick something. It usually makes some sort of sense.

• New release: usbguard-0.6.2

• DNSync

  While setting up my new network at my house, I figured I’d do things right and set up an IPSec VPN (and a few other fancy bits). One thing that became annoying when I wasn’t on my LAN was I’d have to fiddle with the DNS Resolver to resolve names of machines on the LAN.

• The Cryptographic Key That Secures the Web Is Being Changed for the First Time

  Soon, one of the most important cryptographic key pairs on the internet will be changed for the first time.

  The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), the US-based non-profit responsible for various internet infrastructure tasks, will change the key pair that creates the first link in a long chain of cryptographic trust that lies underneath the Domain Name System, or DNS, the “phone book” of the internet.

  This key ensures that when web users try to visit a website, they get sent to the correct address. Without it, many internet users could be directed to imposter sites crafted by hackers, such as phishing websites designed to steal information.

• Oracle will acquire cloud security vendor Palerra [iophk: "one cannot vend security"]

Environment/Energy/Wildlife/Nature

• IN PHOTOS: Copenhagen holds car-free day

  The car-free day began with the Copenhagen Half Marathon, where roughly 22,000 runners pounded the pavement for 21.0975 kilometres on a course that began at Fælledparken in Østerbro and wound its way through Nørrebro, Frederiksberg and the inner city.

• Six US States Declare Emergency after Major Gasoline Pipeline Spill; Media Almost Silent

  The Colonial Pipeline spill has caused 6 states (Tennessee, Virginia, Georgia, South Carolina, Alabama, and North Carolina) to declare a state of emergency. Gasoline (petrol) prices on the east coast are likely to spike. Yet, most puzzling is how this vast emergency and its likely effect on cost of living has gone unnoticed by mainstream media outlets. The pipeline is owned by Koch Industries: is this why the media is silent?

• Haze from Indonesian fires may have killed more than 100,000 people – study

  A smog outbreak in Southeast Asia last year may have caused over 100,000 premature deaths, according to a new study released Monday that triggered calls for action to tackle the “killer haze”.

  Researchers from Harvard and Columbia universities in the US estimated there were more than 90,000 early deaths in Indonesia in areas closest to haze-belching fires, and several thousand more in neighbouring Singapore and Malaysia.

• Study estimates 100,000 deaths from Indonesia haze

  Indonesian forest fires that choked a swath of Southeast Asia with a smoky haze for weeks last year may have caused more than 100,000 deaths, according to new research that will add to pressure on Indonesia’s government to tackle the annual crisis.

  The study by scientists from Harvard University and Columbia University to be published in the journal Environmental Research Letters is being welcomed by other researchers and Indonesia’s medical profession as an advance in quantifying the suspected serious public health effects of the fires, which are set to clear land for agriculture and forestry. The number of deaths is an estimate derived from a complex analysis that has not yet been validated by analysis of official data on mortality.

  The research has implications for land-use practices and Indonesia’s vast pulp and paper industry. The researchers showed that peatlands within timber concessions, and peatlands overall, were a much bigger proportion of the fires observed by satellite than in 2006, which was another particularly bad year for haze. The researchers surmise that draining of the peatlands to prepare them for pulpwood plantations and other uses made them more vulnerable to fires.

• Think California’s current drought is bad? Past incarnations have lasted hundreds of years

  California is now five years deep into one of its most severe droughts on record, and scientists are continually probing the different factors that affect the state’s climate, and how much those are related to the overall warming of the globe. Increasingly, this means looking back into the past for clues about how the region has changed over the last few thousand years and what influences might shape its future.

  In this connection, new research published Thursday in the journal Scientific Reports suggests the Pacific Ocean may play a bigger role than anyone thought — and an unexpected one. Moreover, it suggests that massive long-term droughts can hit the region in conjunction with cycles of ocean warming and cooling — and that if these patterns continue to hold, another megadrought could lie in the future.

  “What this paper provides is a new analysis of the link between what happens in the ocean and what happens in terms of the water availability on the land,” said Noah Diffenbaugh, a climate system expert at Stanford University, who was not involved with the new study.

Finance

• Zuckerberg’s “compound” raises red flags for housing board

  An advisory board recommended a California city refuse Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s plans to demolish and rebuild four homes around his property because of privacy concerns, saying it won’t support the building of a “compound.”

AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics

• Tom Watson plot to rid Labour of registered supporters in bid to stop Left-wing seizing leadership again

  Tom Watson has unveiled plans to axe Labour’s registered supporters and give MPs a greater say in appointing the party’s future leaders in a bid to prevent another Left-wing takeover.

  The deputy leader is also taking plans to Labour’s ruling body today which would see the return of shadow cabinet elections in which more moderate MPs could enter Jeremy Corbyn’s top team.

• I Protected Hillary Clinton In The Secret Service – Here’s Why Her ‘Fainting’ Video Really Scares Me

  I protected First Lady Hillary Clinton, President Bill Clinton, and their family while I served in the Secret Service Uniform Division as an officer from 1991-2003.

  By now, you have most likely seen the startling video of Hillary Clinton ‘fainting.’ Through the lens of my 29-year-career in The Service, I can see what a naked-eyed media pundit cannot: There is something seriously wrong with Mrs. Clinton.

  Pneumonia or overheating are highly suspect excuses and I’ll explain why.

  My analysis is not partisan. I cared for and protected the Clintons for many years. It was my duty to guard Mrs. Clinton in the Secret Service and I was so close to the First Family that the Supreme Court subpoenaed me to testify on the details of Bill Clinton’s late-term scandals.

• What Are They Afraid Of?

  If all the major TV networks got together and decided to televise a presidential debate restricted to Republican nominee Donald Trump and Libertarian candidate Gary Johnson, while barring Democrat Hillary Clinton, it would be recognized as an act of media bias. But what if the debates this fall are restricted to just Trump and Clinton? That, too, needs to be recognized as an intentional act of media exclusion.

  Since 1988, televised presidential and vice-presidential debates have been controlled by a private organization with no official status: the Commission on Presidential Debates. The commission grew out of a deal cut in the 1980s by GOP and Democratic leaders. Today, even though the U.S. public largely distrusts the two major parties’ presidential candidates, TV networks seem willing to let them again dictate the terms of debate, including who gets to participate.

  Presidential debates have been televised in every campaign since 1976. (They rarely happened before then; the Kennedy-Nixon debates of 1960 were an exception.) From 1976 through 1984, they were sponsored and run by the nonpartisan League of Women Voters. In 1980, the League insisted on including independent candidate John Anderson.

  In 1985, the national chairs of the Democratic and Republican parties, Paul Kirk and Frank Fahrenkopf, signed an agreement that referred to future debates as “nationally televised joint appearances conducted between the presidential and vice-presidential nominees of the two major political parties. . . It is our conclusion that future joint appearances should be principally and jointly sponsored and conducted by the Republican and Democratic Committees.”

• How Trump May Win Ohio and Pennsylvania

  The every-four-years parade of east coast journalists trooping out into the Rust Belt of Ohio, Pennsylvania, Indiana, West Virginia and their neighbors has begun.

Censorship/Free Speech

• Brazilian Court Agrees Wikipedia Can Use Publicly-Available Personal Information For An Article

  A couple of weeks ago, we wrote about a victory in the courts for Creative Commons licenses, noting that such judgments were still rather few and far between. That’s unfortunate, in the sense that some people still think CC licensing is weird, rarely-used or even invalid. The situation regarding Wikipedia is similar. Even though it has been around for 15 years — just like Creative Commons — it too suffers from continuing doubts about its aims and methods, and a relative dearth of legal cases helping to clarify the status of both.

  Here’s one from Brazil, which has recently been settled in favour of Wikipedia’s parent organization, the Wikimedia Foundation. It concerns the Brazilian musician Rosanah Fienngo, who had brought a lawsuit objecting to information about her personal life being included on her Portuguese Wikipedia page.

• Journalist says YouTube tried to manipulate her interview with EU Commissioner Jean-Claude Juncker

  A journalist has claimed that YouTube tried to manipulate her interview with the European Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker – days after his office backed a new tax that could cost the firm millions.

  Laetitia Birbes, a popular videoblogger, interviewed Mr Juncker for a project hosted by YouTube but says representatives of the service had asked her to run difficult questions past a press officer beforehand.

  “I found out they expected for me to ask only very soft questions,” Ms Birbes said in a video posted on Facebook on Sunday.

• Andy Hall: Thai court finds UK activist guilty of defamation

  A UK activist who campaigned for the rights of migrant workers in Thailand’s fruit industry has been found guilty of defamation and computer crimes.

  Andy Hall, from Lincolnshire, was given a three-year suspended jail term and fined 150,000 baht ($4,300; £3,300).

  Hall had contributed to a report by a Finnish watchdog, Finnwatch, in 2013 alleging the Natural Fruit Company mistreated its workers.

• MuckRock & Vice Announce Fellowship To Investigate Peter Thiel

  Vice’s Motherboard tech site has also stepped up and agreed to double the amount so that even more people can file Thiel-related FOIAs.

  Of course, the name MuckRock chose for this is a clear play on the well-known Thiel Fellowship, in which he gives $100,000 to entrepreneurial college students to work on building companies, rather than completing school.

  And while I’m not so sure how much Thiel-related info is really FOIA-able, this may put to the test Thiel’s stated claim that he wasn’t against journalism that made him look bad, in funding lawyer Charles Harder to sue Gawker into oblivion, but rather to “send a message” about protecting privacy. Of course, when you try to silence the press, there’s always a chance that the press decides to turn an even bigger spotlight on you. I guess now we have to wait and see if Harder starts threatening MuckRock with trademark infringement claims over the name…

• If You Build A Censorship Machine, They Will Come

  If you have the power to censor other people’s speech, special interests will try to co-opt that power for their own purposes. That’s a lesson the Motion Picture Association of America is learning this year. And it’s one that Internet intermediaries, and the special interests who want to regulate them, need to keep in mind.

  MPAA, which represents six major movie studios, also runs the private entity that assigns movie ratings in the U.S. While it’s a voluntary system with no formal connection to government, MPAA’s “Classification and Ratings Administration” wields remarkable power. That’s because most movie theaters, along with retail giants like Wal-Mart and Target, won’t show or sell feature films that lack an MPAA rating. And a rating of “R” or “NC-17” can drastically limit the audiences who are allowed to view or buy a movie.

  Power creates its own temptation. MPAA itself has been accused of rating independent films more harshly than those produced by MPAA’s own member studios. And this year, a class action lawsuit seeks to force MPAA to use its ratings system to eliminate tobacco imagery from children’s films. The lawsuit, Forsyth v. MPAA, claims that MPAA has a special legal duty to avoid harm to children, and because of that duty, MPAA should be required to give an “R” rating to every film that contains smoking or other tobacco use.

• Palekar approaches HC against pre-censorship of play’s script

  Noted filmmaker and actor Amol Palekar has approached the Bombay High Court challenging rules which make pre-censorship of the scripts of plays mandatory by the Maharashtra State Performance Scrutiny Board.

  Palekar, in his petition, has said the rules are ‘arbitrary’ and violative of the fundamental rights of a citizen guaranteed under the Constitution.

• Zuckerberg accused of ducking responsibility by Norwegian editor

• Norwegian editor challenges Zuckerberg to discuss censorship

• With Facebook’s flaws in the spotlight, Mark Zuckerberg’s silence is deafening

• 1,000,000 People Fell for This Mark Zuckerberg Hoax, Here’s Why It Could Never Actually Happen

• ‘Facebook is faceless’ – Jack Tame has a go at ‘crazy’ censorship of Kiwi tattoo artist’s creation

• Māori tattoo expert wants more consultation over censorship of moko images on social media

• ‘Censorship no-no, but artists should set limit’

• Amol Palekar challenges pre-censorship of plays

• Amol Palekar moves HC against pre-censorship of play scripts

• Amol Palekar approaches HC against pre-censorship of play’s script

• Amol Palekar moves Bombay HC against pre-censorship of scripts

• Van Damme vows DA will fight censorship of internet and social-media websites

• South Africa: Internet Censorship Bill Unconstitutional – DA

• DA blasts Internet ‘censorship’ Bill

• DA believes new internet censorhip bill is unconstitutional

• DA blasts new ‘Censorship Bill’

• The Internet Censorship Bill must be blocked – Phumzile Van Damme

• Censorship Bill under fire

• DA tears Internet Censorship Bill apart

• Anonymity: worth defending

  “If anonymity wasn’t allowed any more, then I wouldn’t use social media,” a 14-year-old told me over the kitchen table a few weeks ago. He uses forums on the website Reddit to have debates about politics and religion, where he wants to express his view “without people underestimating my age”.

  Anonymity to this teenager is something that works for him; lets him operate in discussions where he wants to try out his arguments and gain experience in debates. Anonymity means no one judges who he is or his right to join in.

• Does anonymity need to be defended? Autumn magazine 2016

• KPI Responds to Blurred Swimmer Image Argument

• Broadcasting Commission Washes Hands of Censorship as Indonesia Loses Focus

• Indonesian swimmer sparks censorship debate

Privacy/Surveillance

• Leaked Oversight Report Shows Illegal Surveillance, Massive Constitutional Violations By Germany’s Intelligence Service

  Unfortunately, the violations found by the Data Protection Commissioner have since been codified into law. The BND is harvesting even more than it was when it was inspected, having just finished a 300 million euro revamp of its surveillance tech. Much like here in the US pre-Snowden, the oversight in Germany is relatively toothless. Whatever exists will be actively thwarted by intelligence agencies (the report states that BND deleted logs the Commissioner asked to examine) or by other legislators who are always willing to sacrifice the public’s rights for national security.

• Photos of the Submarine Internet Cables the NSA Probably Tapped

  The words “mass surveillance” usually bring to mind wiretaps, security cameras, and the NSA hoovering unfathomable quantities of cellphone metadata and Internet activity. Few pause to consider the physical aspect of that last type of data collection: The government taps hundreds of cables that snake across the ocean floor, carrying data around the world.

  Artist Trevor Paglen reveals some of those cables in a recent series, offering a visual reminder of how vulnerable your data is, and how easily it is accessed. “Once you start looking into the infrastructure, it becomes obvious very quickly that 99 percent of the world’s information goes through little tubes under the ocean,” Paglen says. “Those are very juicy targets for someone who wants to surveil the world.”

• Cars will make up 98% of mobile-to-mobile traffic by 2021 [Ed: 'smart' means surveillance]

  Internet radio and information services will generate approximately 6,000 petabytes of data a year

• ‘Snowden,’ a picture of the cybersecurity state

  The impact of all this information has been enormous, both for the U.S. government and Snowden’s own personal life. Since releasing the information to the world, he has been holed up in Russia, with only temporary permission to stay. His American passport has been revoked. He cannot move around freely or communicate easily, for fear of U.S. covert agents seeking to apprehend him – or worse.

  The movie doesn’t depict much of his Russian life, a decision that tends to reinforce the film’s message that there is no privacy anymore. If it showed more about how Snowden communicates now, it might provide useful insights into how Americans – and others around the world – could potentially use encrypted software to communicate without being subject to government surveillance.

• Oliver Stone’s Snowden: The NSA is “running a dragnet on the whole world”

  Veteran American filmmaker Oliver Stone, who has been directing since the mid-1980s, has made a movie about National Security Agency (NSA) whistleblower Edward Snowden. Snowden follows its titular character’s evolution from his enlistment in 2004 in the US Army Reserve as a Special Forces candidate, at which time he was a “patriot” and firm supporter of the war in Iraq, to his decision in 2013 to expose the NSA’s illegal efforts at universal surveillance.

• Why were there three loud bangs and an evacuation at GCHQ today?

• RECAP Three loud bangs and evacuation at GCHQ as ‘incident’ simulated in Cheltenham [Ed: trying to get the population accustomed to panic and terror, maintaining power]

• UK spy agencies to combat modern slavery – Theresa May [Ed: so GCHQ is doing immigration now]

• Spies will join fight against slavery gangs, May declares

• UK spy chiefs to join Theresa May’s anti-slavery taskforce

• British spies will join anti-slavery task force to stamp out ‘evil’ of modern-day exploitation

• Theresa May orders spy chiefs to block illegal immigration routes into the UK

• Spies to join fight against slave trade ‘evil’, Theresa May announces

• Theresa May announces British spy chiefs will join battle against modern slavery

• Theresa May tasks UK intelligence with combatting slave trade suring UN summit

• British PM says spy chiefs to join new taskforce to ‘stamp out’ modern slavery

• Britain’s spooks have a new mission – to fight people trafficking and stop illegal immigration and modern slavery [Ed: They told us GCHQ was to stop terrorism and now it does immigration, copyright enforcement and what not?]

  THERESA MAY has controversially ordered spy chiefs into the fight against illegal immigration and modern slavery – as she demands global action against the scourge.

  The PM today urged world leaders to make tackling people trafficking as important an issue as winning the war on drugs.

  And she revealed the heads of Mi5, Mi6 and GCHQ would be joining Ministers on a new ‘anti-slavery’ taskforce.

• Student Hackers Dive into NSA Challenge [Ed: Pedowashing puff pieces abound]

• Hackers hit some Cisco customers using new vulnerability from leaked NSA hacking tools

• Shadow Brokers BENINGCERTAIN Tool Deployed in Live Attacks

• Some Cisco Customers Are Being Hacked With NSA’s Exploit Tools

• Leaked NSA cyber weapons were more damaging to Cisco than originally thought

• Hackers Hit ‘Some’ Cisco Customers With Leaked NSA Hacking Tools

• Cisco patches Equation group exploit

• Cisco discloses PIX firewall, IOS software security holes

• Cisco Warns of IOS Flaw Vulnerable to ShadowBrokers Attack

• Cisco Warns of Second Firewall Bug Exposed by Shadow Brokers

• Cisco reveals third remote flaw in NSA group hack

• Cisco warns of another ‘Shadow Brokers’ leaked zero-day

• Cisco plugs another ‘Shadow Brokers’ hole

• Cisco warns of NSA-linked information disclosure risk in ‘multiple’ products

• Boys Noize gives an NSA crash course in new video for ‘Snowden’

• Boys Noize’s ‘Mayday’ Video Is a Truth Bomb Set to a Beat

• Washington Post turns on Snowden despite receiving Pulitzer Prize for his NSA leaks

  The Washington Post says whistleblower Edward Snowden should not be granted a presidential pardon from Barack Obama. This is despite the newspaper receiving a Pulitzer Prize for its reporting of the NSA leaks sent to the Post by Snowden.

• House Intelligence Committee’s List Of ‘Snowden’s Lies’ Almost Entirely False

  So, last week, I wrote up a long analysis of the House Intelligence Committee’s ridiculous smear campaign against Ed Snowden, highlighting a bunch of misleading to false statements that the report made in trying to undermine Snowden’s credibility as he seeks a pardon from President Obama. The Committee insisted that it had spent two years working on the report, but it seems like maybe they just needed all that time because they couldn’t find any actual dirt on Snowden.

  In my analysis, I pointed to some of Snowden’s public responses, highlighting how the House Intel Committee was either completely misinformed or lying about Snowden. But Barton Gellman, one of the four reporters who Snowden originally gave his documents to, and who has done some amazing reporting on the Snowden leaks (not to mention, who is writing a book about Snowden) has responded to the report as well, and highlights just how incredibly dishonest the report is.

Civil Rights/Policing

• Just under 30 percent of French Muslims reject secular laws – poll

  Just under 30 percent of France’s 3 to 4 million Muslims reject the country’s secular laws, according to an Ifop poll published by the French weekly Journal du Dimanche.

  When asked if they considered the Islamic legal and moral code of sharia to be more important than the French Republic’s laws, 29 percent of respondents answered “yes.”

  The poll found that 20 percent of male Muslim respondents and 28 percent of female Muslim respondents were in favour of the face veil, the niqab, and of the burqa which covers both face and body.

  Another 60 percent said they were in favour of letting girls and women wear a head scarf at schools and universities which is forbidden at France’s secular public institutions.

• ‘No matter the price’, Amal Clooney seeks justice for Yazidi sex slaves

  Islamic State militants who have enslaved, murdered and raped Yazidi women and children must be brought to justice, no matter the price, international human rights lawyer Amal Clooney said on Monday.

  Clooney, a barrister at Doughty Street Chambers in London, is on a mission to prosecute the Islamist group through the International Criminal Court for their crimes against the Yazidi community.

  She announced in June she would represent Yazidi women in Iraq who have been victims of sexual slavery, rape and genocide by Islamic State militants, also known as ISIS.

• Black man shot by Tulsa police had hands ‘in the air,’ says pastor who reviewed video of the shooting

  A 40-year-old black man who was fatally shot by a Tulsa police officer had his hands up and appeared unarmed when one officer Tasered him and another fired at him, according to a local pastor who reviewed footage of the incident Sunday.

  The department hasn’t commented publicly on the video or said whether police recovered a weapon from the scene.

  Terence Crutcher died in the hospital Friday evening after being shot once, Tulsa police told the Associated Press. Police said two officers found Crutcher standing by his SUV, which had broken down in the middle of the road.

  As Crutcher approached the officers, he refused commands to raise his hands and instead reached into the vehicle, AP reported police saying. At that point, one officer fired a Taser and another fired a round, police told AP.

Internet Policy/Net Neutrality

• How Pirates Shaped The Internet As We Know It

  Today is “International Talk like a Pirate Day.” While it’s a lot of fun to act like a pirate, drink rum and catch up on Errol Flynn movies, piracy is also a serious issue with real economic and legal significance. As electronic devices become an increasingly ubiquitous part of our lives, the content we consume has moved from analog to digital. This has made copying – as well as pirating – increasingly easy and prevalent.

  Adding fuel to the flames of this rising “pirate generation” has been the content industry’s recalcitrant and often combative attitude toward digital markets. Piracy, and the reactions to it, has had an immense impact on the daily lives of ordinary Americans, shaping their digital experience by determining how they can share, transfer and consume content.

  As soon as electronic storage and communication technology was sufficiently developed, digital piracy became accessible. Whether it’s a song, movie, video game or other piece of software, you could suddenly reproduce it without having to steal it off a shelf or obtain any specialized machinery to counterfeit it. Additionally, if you wanted to listen to an mp3 of the latest Britney Spears album on your computer, there weren’t many lawful options. This led to a surge in online piracy and helped foster a culture of online file-sharing.

  Out of this period came some ridiculous anti-piracy campaigns, but also major legislation both good and bad (such as the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act and the Communications Decency Act) as well as legal battles that would set key precedents for how we access the digital world.

• Making Sense of Modern Pornography

  Pornography helped shape the Internet—for instance, with its need for high-bandwidth technology—and it reflects and magnifies its trends. The triumph of porn has come at a cost to the industry itself, which can no longer produce a Jenna Jameson. Despite MindGeek’s near-monopoly of the tube sites (which, like other Internet platforms, are underregulated), their content is increasingly crowd-sourced. Mass production in the San Fernando Valley has been replaced by an amateur landscape in which everyone is a potential producer, and in which our fantasies and worst aspirations—our greed, our desire to humiliate, to dominate—are fed back to us in larger quantities than ever before. Decentralization hasn’t led to diversification (except at the margins, where buying ethical porn is like buying vinyl). Most porn remains conservative, brutal, and anonymous. It’s rapid-fire, often monotonous, and even if, or because, it does the trick, much of it is pretty depressing. It’s hard to see how local protests, however admirable, can resist a business model that already profits from decentralized, unregulated, amateur production. Except for the few companies that have profited from distribution, it’s unclear who makes money from porn, and how that money connects either to the work of performers or to how they are treated. With the decline of the industry, pornography, like the Internet itself, seems ever harder to control. Some will find that cause for horror, others, for celebration. Every era gets the porn it deserves. ♦

• Open WiFi hotspots, city-WiFi and anonymity

  It is not reasonable to expect a café owner to keep a database of all local WiF users. That would require an extensive and very privacy sensitive register that cannot be tampered with and that can stand up to legal procedures. And still, it would do nothing to identify an individual user on the cafés single IP address. At least not with the relatively cheap and simple WiFi equipment normally used in such places.

  It all quickly gets complicated and expensive. This would effectively kill free WiFi with your coffee.

  The same general questions can be raised when it comes to Juncker’s free city WiFi. But there is a difference. Public sector operated WiFi will have more money and can apply common technical standards. As the number of users in a city-WiFi can be expected to be substantially higher that at a single café – there would not only need to be some sort of password protection but also individual user names, linked to personal identity. At least if you want to meet with the ECJ ambition to be able to identify single users.

  In both cases, anonymity will be more or less impossible.

  And when it comes to city-WiFi, we can expect various law enforcement and intelligence agencies to show a keen interest.

DRM

• HP confirms that its printer firmware blocks some remanufactured cartridges

  EVIDENCE IS growing that printer maker HP put a ‘self-destruct’ protocol into a firmware update that would kill off printers using hooky cartridges.

  The news follows the revelation that thousands of people started getting the same error message about their cartridge on the same day, 13 September. Not a Friday.

  One third-party ink supplier carried out an investigation and it was discovered that the end-of-life date was programmed into a firmware update in March 2016.

  A statement to Dutch media explained that HP does indeed take steps to block cartridges “to protect innovation and intellectual property”.

  However, this could have been handled better. HP could have, you know, told people and that.

  HP, one of the companies that has been forced to raise prices post-Brexit, has never made any secret of how it doesn’t like third-party cartridges, but it really should have been explicit if it was going to do this.

Intellectual Monopolies

• Trademarks

  • Colour combinations: getting back to WYSIWYG

    Guidance on protecting colour combinations in Europe has evolved over time. But in the light of recent decisions is further clarification needed? Roland Mallinson investigates

• Copyrights

  • Copyright Is Not an Inevitable or Divine Right, Court Rules

    The Delhi High Court has delivered a landmark judgment which allows a local university copyshop to print course packs, using parts of commercial educational books. The judge held that copyright is not an inevitable or divine right. Copying for educational use is fair dealing, whether it’s done by hand or automatically in an organized fashion.

  • Former Disney Digital Boss Says He “Loves Piracy”

    Entertainment industry workers usually speak about illegal downloading in the harshest of terms but for one former Disney executive, it has its upsides. Speaking at the huge All That Matters conference, Samir Bangara admitted that he “loves” piracy as it’s a great indicator of content popularity.

  • Guy Arrested Over KickassTorrents Blocked From Talking To His US Attorney

    Just a few weeks ago, we had lawyer Ira Rothken on our podcast (it’s a really great episode, so check it out if you haven’t heard it yet). Rothken has been involved in lots of big copyright cases, but is probably most well-known these days as Kim Dotcom’s US lawyer. In that episode we talked a lot about the Kim Dotcom situation, but also spent a fair amount of time on the case of Artem Vaulin, who was arrested in Poland for running the search engine KickassTorrents. The US is seeking to extradite him to stand trial in Illinois. On the podcast, Rothken expressed some concerns that he hadn’t been able to speak directly to Vaulin and noted that he was working on it.

  • Former UMG Exec: Major Label Music Should Cost More And DMCA Safe Harbors Should Be Destroyed

    If you’re going to argue against YouTube, Spotify, etc. and the supposed wholesale screwing of artists, it helps if:

    A. You’re not a former member of an entity with decades of experience in screwing artists, and

    B. You have some grasp of basic economic concepts.

    Paul Young, a former director of licensing for Universal Music Group, has an op-ed posted at The Hill decrying the unfairness of streaming services and the wrongness of the DMCA. But any point he’s trying to make is buried under ignorance and the demand that some artists be treated more equally than others.