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04.24.16

Links 24/4/2016: Google Summer of Code 2016, Year of the OpenBSD Desktop

Posted in News Roundup at 4:52 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

GNOME bluefish

Contents

GNU/Linux

Free Software/Open Source

  • Events

    • Device Tree Microconference Accepted into 2016 Linux Plumbers Conference

      Device-tree discussions are probably not quite as spirited as in the past, however, device tree is an active area. In particular, significant issues remain.

      This microconference will cover the updated device-tree specification, debugging, bindings validation, and core-kernel code directions. In addition, there will be discussion of what does (and does not) go into the device tree, along with the device-creation and driver binding ordering swamp.

    • Refactoring the open-source photography community

      Generally speaking, most free-software communities tend to form around specific projects: a distribution, an application, a tightly linked suite of applications, and so on. Those are the functional units in which developers work, so it is a natural extension from there to focused mailing lists, web sites, IRC channels, and other forms of interaction with each other and users. But there are alternatives. At Libre Graphics Meeting 2016 in London, Pat David spoke about his recent experience bringing together a new online community centered around photographers who use open-source software. That community crosses over between several applications and libraries, and it has been successful enough that multiple photography-related projects have shut down their independent user forums and migrated to the new site, PIXLS.US.

  • Web Browsers

    • Mozilla

      • Is Firefox Search Worth $375M/Year to a Yahoo Buyer?

        That’s because Mozilla is highly dependent on a five-year contract with Yahoo, signed in December 2014, where it receives about $375m per year to make Yahoo the default search provider in the Firefox browser on the desktop. From 2004 to 2014, that contract was exclusively with Google; now it’s Yahoo in the US, Google in Europe, Yandex in Russia and Baidu in China.

  • Funding

  • BSD

    • Year of the OpenBSD desktop

      It is a common theme in the GNU/Linux community to tout the current year as the year of the linux desktop. Every year the same thing happens. The nay sayers nag that Linux is a tiny percentage of the desktop market and that Mac OS X/Windows is superior in so many ways.

  • Openness/Sharing/Collaboration

    • How to build a Linux router, Internet of Things devices, and more news
    • Aravena’s Small Step, Open Source’s Big Leap

      Aravena’s recent initiative to open-source four of his built projects goes a long way to promoting the public and social benefits of collaboration and information-sharing.

    • Open Data

      • CERN Makes 300TB of Large Hadron Collider Data Public

        CERN has recently released the data from the famous 2011 experiment probing the fundamental structure of the Universe to the public. These raw and processed data can be analyzed and verified using CERN Linux virtual environment on a virtual machine.

    • Open Access/Content

      • Lawsuit accuses PACER of milking the public for cash in exchange for access

        The federally run online court document access system known as PACER now finds itself listed on a federal docket. Its overseer, the US government, is a defendant in a proposed class-action lawsuit accusing the service of overcharging the public.

        The suit, brought by three nonprofits on Thursday, claims millions of dollars generated from a recent 25-percent increase in page fees are being illegally spent by the Administrative Office of the Courts (AO). The cost for access is 10 cents per page and up to $3 a document. Judicial opinions are free. This isn’t likely to break the bank for some, but to others it adds up and can preclude access to public records. The National Consumer Law Center, the Alliance for Justice, and the National Veterans Legal Services Program also claim in the lawsuit that these fees are illegal because the government is charging more than necessary to keep the PACER system afloat (as is required by Congress).

      • Lawsuit Filed Over PACER Fees

        For many years we’ve pointed out that the fees charged by PACER were clearly outside what the law allows. If you don’t know, PACER is the electronic filing system for the federal court system. It is great that all filings in federal cases are available online, but the interface looks like it was designed in 1998, the search is ridiculous, and (worst of all) the system charges you 10 cents per page of download — excluding judicial opinions, but including HTML pages including search results and docket reports. There is a cap of $3 per document, but that means that every time I call up PACER on a big case — say the Apple/DOJ encryption battle, there are so many filings that just to look at the docket is basically $3. That adds up.

  • Programming/Development

    • Timezones for programmers

      Timezones are typically based on geographical locations. For example, we have the IANA timezone America/Chicago which can represent Central Time for the United States.

    • When to Rewrite from Scratch – Autopsy of a Failed Software

      It was winter of 2012. I was working as a software developer in a small team at a start-up. We had just released the first version of our software to a real corporate customer. The development finished right on schedule. When we launched, I was over the the moon and very proud. It was extremely satisfying to watch the system process couple of million of unique users a day and send out tens of millions of SMS messages. By summer, the company had real revenue. I got promoted to software manager. We hired new guys. The company was poised for growth. Life was great. And then we made a huge blunder and decided to rewrite the software. From scratch.

    • Doing things that scale

      In the software world, and with internet, we can do a lot of things that scale.

Leftovers

  • Local govt. pleased with Danish eGovernment services

    The increasing digitisation of society requires the stable and secure running of public IT solutions, the agency writes. Denmark’s public administrations expect DIGST to professionally manage the IT systems and to keep them involved. According to DIGST, the agency’s network partners contribute to the dialogue with public administrations.

  • St George’s Day: Who actually is Saint George?

    We all know the basic story of St George, right? English knight who slayed a dragon. Or, wait, there’s a dragon on the Welsh flag, so is that a different myth? Was the dragon Welsh? How do you get to be a saint for slaying a dragon? I thought saints tended to be suffering Christians? Or is that martyrs?

    OK, so maybe we don’t know the ins and outs of St George as much as we think.

    Here’s a quick guide to help you figure out why the George’s cross is George’s cross.

    He’s not even English!

    He was a Greek Christian, born in the third century in what was then Syria Palaestina. Yep, Saint George (or Georgios) was Middle Eastern. Don’t tell Nigel Farage.

  • The case for Europe, 2016

    In an interdependent world, nationalism offers no bolt-hole. The task for all progressives is to find effective ways to engage with continental partners, creating a new blend of national and European politics.

  • Science

    • The Ever-Tightening Job Market for Ph.D.s

      If you’re a grad student, it’s best to read the latest report from the National Science Foundation with a large glass of single-malt whiskey in hand. Scratch that: The top-shelf whiskey is probably out of your budget. Well, Trader Joe’s “Two Buck Chuck” is good, too!

      Liquid courage is a necessity when examining the data on Ph.D.s in the latest NSF report, “The Survey of Earned Doctorates,” which utilized figures from the University of Chicago’s National Opinion Research Center. The report finds that many newly minted Ph.D.s complete school after nearly 10 years of studies with significant debt and without the promise of a job. Yet few people seem to be paying attention to these findings; graduate programs are producing more Ph.D.s than ever before.

  • Hardware

    • Scientists can now make lithium-ion batteries last a lifetime

      Researchers at the University of California at Irvine (UCI) said that’s exactly what they were doing when they discovered how to increase the tensile strength of nanowires that could be used to make lithium-ion batteries last virtually forever.

      Researchers have pursued using nanowires in batteries for years because the filaments, thousands of times thinner than a human hair, are highly conductive and have a large surface area for the storage and transfer of electrons.

      The problem they have encountered, however, is that nanowires are also extremely fragile and don’t hold up well to repeated discharging and recharging, known as “cycling.” For example, in a typical lithium-ion battery, they expand and grow brittle, which leads to cracking.

  • Health/Nutrition

    • Marijuana is kosher for Passover, leading rabbi rules

      Cannabis may be used for medical reasons during Passover, despite previously being forbidden

    • Colorado’s First Black Woman Pot Entrepreneur on Edibles, Incarceration & the Industry’s Whiteness

      We are broadcasting live from Denver, Colorado, where in 2012 the state voted to legalize the recreational use of marijuana. Now 23 states and the District of Columbia have legalized marijuana for either medical or recreational use, and the cannabis industry is one of the fastest growing in the United States. But some have questioned who stands to cash in on the billions being generated by cannabis sales. Michelle Alexander, the best-selling author of “The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness,” addressed the issue in a conversation with the Drug Policy Alliance, saying, “Here are white men poised to run big marijuana businesses, dreaming of cashing in big—big money, big businesses selling weed—after 40 years of impoverished black kids getting prison time for selling weed, and their families and futures destroyed. Now, white men are planning to get rich doing precisely the same thing?” We speak now to Wanda James, CEO of the Denver-based cannabis dispensary Simply Pure. She is the first African-American woman in Colorado to own a cannabis dispensary. She was inspired to start a dispensary by the experiences of her brother, who at 17 was locked up on a petty drug charge—and forced to pick cotton in Texas for four years to earn his freedom.

    • Celebrating 500 Years of German’s Beer Purity Law

      In Germany rules are rules—and they even apply to something as fun as beer. The Reinheitsgebot, Germany’s legendary beer purity law, turns 500 on April 23 in a sudsy celebration known as German Beer Day. Many Germans love the law, but others think it’s an outdated relic that should be chucked. Beer purity is only one part of the Reinheitsgebot story; protectionism, taxes, national pride and marketing all come into play.

    • Chart of the Day: Hillary and Bernie Duke It Out on Soda Taxes

      Finally we have a real difference between Hillary and Bernie. Hillary supports Philadelphia’s proposed tax on sugary drinks of 3 cents per ounce. Bernie doesn’t. “A tax on soda and juice drinks would disproportionately increase taxes on low-income families in Philadelphia,” he said on Thursday.

    • Flint is about how we treat the poor

      As you no doubt know, the water crisis in Flint, Michigan, returned to the headlines last week with news that the state attorney general is charging three government officials for their alleged roles in the debacle. It makes this a convenient moment to deal with something that has irked me about the way this disaster is framed.

      Namely, the fact that people who look like you often get left out of it.

      [...]

      As has been reported repeatedly, Flint is a majority black city with a 41 percent poverty rate. So critics ask if the water would have been so blithely poisoned, and if it would have taken media so long to notice, had the victims been mostly white.

    • The Creepy Way Processed Food Packaging Messes With Your Hormones

      A new study shows common plastic packaging steeps food in industrial chemicals.

    • Flint woman suing over poisoned water crisis found shot to death in home

      On Tuesday, police found the bodies of two women inside of a townhouse, where they also found a one-year-old who was unharmed. Both women were shot, and have been identified as Sasha Bell and Sacorya Reed, though police only said their ages are between 18 and 20 years old, WJRT reported. The child was taken into protective services.

    • Slain Woman Among People To File Lawsuits Amid Water Crisis

      One of two women found shot to death in a Flint apartment was among dozens of people who earlier filed lawsuits over lead-tainted water in the city.

      The Flint Journal reports Thursday that Sasha Bell’s case was one of 64 lawsuits filed by law firms on behalf of 144 children.

      Bell had said her child was poisoned by lead.

      Flint was under state control in 2014 when it switched from Detroit’s water system to the Flint River to save money. The corrosive river water wasn’t properly treated and caused lead to leach from old pipes into homes and businesses.

  • Security

    • Friday’s security updates
    • Why I gave your paper a Strong Reject

      Writing a bunch of wordy bullshit that doesn’t mean anything. Trust me, you’re not going to wow and amaze the program committee by talking about dynamic, scalable, context-aware, Pareto-optimal middleware for cloud hosting of sensing-intensive distributed vehicular applications. If your writing sounds like the automatically-generated, fake Rooter paper (“A theoretical grand challenge in theory is the important unification of virtual machines and real-time theory. To what extent can web browsers be constructed to achieve this purpose?”), you might want to rethink your approach. Be concise and concrete. Explain what you’re doing in clear terms. Bad ideas won’t get accepted just because they sound fancy.

    • Computer System Security Policy Debate (Follow-up)

      The challenge is that political people see everything as a political/policy issue, but this isn’t that kind of issue. I get particularly frustrated when I read ignorant ramblings like this that dismiss the overwhelming consensus of the people that actually understand what needs to be done as emotional, hysterical obstructionism. Contrary to what seems to be that author’s point, constructive dialogue and understanding values does nothing to change the technical risks of mandating exceptional access. Of course the opponents of Feinstein-Burr decry it as technologically illiterate, it is technologically illiterate.

  • Defence/Aggression

    • ‘The Japanese Were Already Defeated and Were Seeking Peace’

      Media reports noted that Secretary of State John Kerry was the highest-ranking sitting US official to visit the war memorial in Hiroshima. US ambassadors have shown their respects, and Jimmy Carter went there when he was out of office. But from non-blame-assigning references to “one of the most destructive acts of World War II,” as a New York Times article had it, to an obliviously ethnocentric focus on how these commemorations have, as the Times said, “long troubled American diplomats,” nothing suggests that US media find much to grapple with.

    • New Push for Military Intervention in Libya: Who Will Control the Libyan Central Bank?

      The emails of the former Secretary of State and current Presidential candidate, Hillary Clinton exposed to the world the principal reasons for the NATO intervention and destruction of Libya in 2011. We are informed by one writer who had examined these emails on the traffic between the USA and France over the imperatives for intervening in Libya. In one e mail dated April 2, 2011 Sidney Blumenthal, then an aide to Clinton informed her ‘that sources close to one of Gaddafi sons were reporting that “Qaddafi’s government holds 143 tons of gold, and a similar amount in silver” and the hoard had been moved from the Libyan Central Bank in Tripoli closer to the border with Niger and Chad. “This gold was accumulated prior to the current rebellion and was intended to be used to establish a pan-African currency based on the Libyan golden Dinar. This plan was designed to provide the Francophone African Countries with an alternative to the French franc (CFA).”Blumenthal then added that “According to knowledgeable individuals, this quantity of gold and silver is valued at more than $7 billion. French intelligence officers discovered this plan shortly after the current rebellion began, and this was one of the factors that influenced President Nicolas Sarkozy’s decision to commit France to the attack on Libya.” The email added: “According to these individuals, Sarkozy’s plans are driven by the following issues:

    • Hillary ‘the Hawk’ Clinton

      Mark Landler has an interesting extended article in the New York Times about how Hillary Clinton came to views about the use of military force that have made her, in Landler’s words, “the last true hawk left” in this year’s presidential race.

      Landler poses the question of Clinton’s motivations as a traditional dichotomy between “calculated political maneuver” and “deeply felt core principle,” and suggests that in the case of Clinton’s hawkishness it is more the latter than the former. But much of what the article describes is less a matter of principle than of sociology.

    • Twenty civilians killed in air strikes in Iraq, Syria: U.S. military

      Twenty civilians were likely killed and 11 others injured in nine U.S. air strikes against Islamic State targets in Iraq and Syria between Sept. 10, 2015, and Feb. 2, 2016, the U.S. military said on Friday.

    • ISIS executes 250 women for refusing to become sex slaves

      The Islamic State, known for its brutality, has reportedly executed 250 girls in northern Iraq for refusing to become sex slaves , according to a media report.

      The girls had been ordered to accept temporary marriages to the terrorists and were murdered, sometimes alongside their families, for their refusal to be sex slaves in Iraq’s second largest city of Mosul.

      ISIS began selecting women of Mosul and forced them into marrying its militants, calling it temporary marriage since it has taken control over Mosul, and the women who refused to submit to this practice would be executed, said Kurdish Democratic Party spokesman Said Mamuzini.

    • The real reason the British government refuses to call Isis’s killings genocide

      George Osborne announced at a parliamentary reception this week that the Government will increase its support for the Holocaust Educational Trust by £500,000. There will also be funding, he added, for a statue of Frank Foley, a British intelligence officer who helped thousands of Jews to escape from Nazi Germany.

      The Chancellor spoke of the horrors of genocide, of taking his family to see the concentration camp at Dachau last month, and praised the courage of those who had helped the refugees at a time of peril. He raised a few smiles saying that some of the money pledged “would come from fines paid by those who fixed the Libor rates – people who showed the worst of values to those who have the best of British values”.

    • Andrew Bacevich and America’s Long Misguided War to Control the Greater Middle East

      Nothing undermines the American belief in military force. No matter how often its galloping about results in resentment and mayhem, the U.S. gets up again to do good elsewhere. Failure to improve life in Vietnam, Lebanon, Somalia, Iraq, Afghanistan, and Libya stiffens the resolve to get it right next time. This notion prevails among politicized elements of the officer corps; much of the media, whether nominally liberal or conservative; the foreign policy elite recycled quadrennially between corporation-endowed think tanks and government; and most politicians on the national stage. For them and the public they influence, the question is less whether to deploy force than when, where, and how.

    • Military Spending is the Capitalist World’s Fuel

      Not least is this the case with the United States, which by far spends the most of any country on its military. The official Pentagon budget for 2015 was $596 billion, but actual spending is far higher. (Figures for 2015 will be used because that is the latest year for which data is available to make international comparisons.) If we add military spending parked in other portions of the U.S. federal government budget, we’re up to $786 billion, according to a study by the War Resisters League. Veterans benefits add another $157 billion. WRL also assigns 80 percent of the interest on the budget deficit, and that puts the grand total well above $1 trillion.

    • Six Year Anniversary of WikiLeaks Collateral Murder; A Celebration of Free Speech

      On April 5, 2010, WikiLeaks published classified military footage of a July 2007 attack by a US Army helicopter gunship in the Iraqi suburb of New Baghdad. The video titled Collateral Murder depicted the killing of more than a dozen men, including two Reuters staffers. At the time of release, the WikiLeaks website temporarily crashed with a massive influx of visitors, while versions popped up on YouTube, reaching millions.

      The importance of The Collateral Murder video has often been talked about from the perspective that it provided visual evidence of unaccounted US military power and brutality. Now, on the 6th anniversary of its publication, we will revisit the emergence of WikiLeaks in the public consciousness and explore the significance of this video release for the advocacy of free speech.

      [...]

      The smothering of free speech has cost the public access to the real images of war. Back in the 1960’s, during the Vietnam War, pictures of wounded soldiers and dead civilians flooded through televisions into American homes. Unlike the current situation, the government had not yet learned to keep the press out of war zones, where all could see the horrific images of what in many cases amounted to war crimes.

    • Defending Democracy To the Last Drop of Oil

      The Saudis, who are also petrified of Iran, threw a fit, threatening to pull $750 billion of investments from the US. Other leaders of the Gulf sheikdoms sided with the Saudis but rather more discreetly.

      Ignoring the stinging snub he had just suffered, Obama assured the Saudis and Gulf monarchs that the US would defend them against all military threats – in effect, reasserting their role as western protectorates. So much for promoting democracy.

    • What’s Left of Palmyra — and Syria

      By pouring weapons and money into the Syrian war, the West and its Gulf state allies share in the guilt for the Islamic State’s partial destruction of Palmyra’s historic ruins, which Jeff Klein visited.

    • Ethnic Cleansing in Palestine: Home Demolitions on the Rise

      According to the Israeli Committee against House Demolitions, an Israeli NGO, the Israeli government has demolished 28,000 Palestinian structures since the Occupation of the West Bank and Gaza began in 1967, resulting in the homelessness and suffering of untold numbers of people. There is little ambiguity about the morality of this form of ethnic cleansing, and even most Israeli legal scholars agree that it is in contravention of international law. Article 53 of the Fourth Geneva Convention states:

    • Drone Warfare and the Kill Chain

      In the current movie, starring Helen Mirren and Alan Rickman, the human toll and moral dilemma of drone warfare are portrayed in a compelling drama of life and death.

    • After drones: the indelible mark of America’s remote control warfare

      Nabila’s favorite memories of her grandmother come from weddings. It didn’t matter who was getting married – relative or neighbor – her grandmother, Mamana, was an active participant, owing to her matriarchal perch above their village.

      Mamana was as responsible as she was festive. An uneducated woman, she was the local midwife, and served as an impromptu primary care physician, even a veterinarian, when the need arose.

    • Islamic State claims it killed Bangladeshi academic

      Prof Rezaul Karim Siddique, 58, hacked to death in Rajshahi in attack similar to murders of other secular and atheist activists

  • Environment/Energy/Wildlife/Nature

    • Navajo Fight Coal Strip Mine in Four Corners

      A Navajo environmental group sued the federal government this week for allowing a New Mexico coal plant and strip mine to operate for another 25 years without assessing clean-energy alternatives.

    • Looking Back on Deepwater With Journalism as Usual

      It’s standard stuff, as if the paper forgets its own reporting (9/4/14) on the ruling on Deepwater in which US District Court Judge Carl Barbieri cited not a lack of rules but a failure to respect them, calling out the entire industry as “motivated by profit” to operate with “conscious disregard of known risks.” In a case where business as usual is the problem, journalism as usual can’t be the response.

    • The Earth Doesn’t Need To Worry, But The Things That Live On It Do

      When is it time to rebrand? Fortune magazine just ran an Earth Day story “Earth Day 2016 Freebies and Deals.”

      The business magazine wants us to know that “Earth Day, historically, hasn’t been thought of as a retail holiday. But as more and more people become environmentally aware, many major stores are jumping on the bandwagon.” Now while we are nowhere near the over-commercialization that, say, Christmas has achieved, I’m still thinking that Earth Day is probably a good day not to buy anything and instead step back from hypermaterialism.

    • Five Planet-Changing Consequences of Global Warming to Consider on Earth Day—and Every Day

      The entire human population is vulnerable to the threats posed by climate change brought about by global warming, because everyone is susceptible to the effects of drought, flood, heat wave, disease, and famine. No one is immune from the risks posed by climate change.

    • Unprecedented global warming as 2016 approaches 1.5 °C mark

      Global surface temperatures could get close to the 1.5 °C-above-preindustrial limit before the Paris climate agreement even comes into effect.

      That’s alarming news, considering that the deal aspires to limit global warming to no more than this.

      Last week Gavin Schmidt, head of NASA’s Goddard Institute of Space Studies, estimated that the average global temperature in 2016 could range from about 1.1 °C above preindustrial to only slightly below 1.5 °C, based on GISS’s temperature record and its definition of pre-industrial (other records and definitions vary).

    • Fracking Executive Says Rich Neighborhoods Safe from Drill Sites

      An executive from a top shale drilling firm told attendees of a fossil fuels seminar in Pennsylvania earlier this month that fracking companies deliberately avoid setting up shop near the “big houses” of the wealthy, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reports.

      Two environmental groups, the Sierra Club and the Center for Coalfield Justice, last week sent a letter to the state Office of Environmental Justice to review Range Resources’ practices to see if it has indeed avoided rich neighborhoods and targeted low-income areas for shale gas development. Attorneys from both organizations were present at the Pennsylvania Bar Institute’s Environmental Law Forum on April 7.

    • Fracking a Possible Cause of Disturbing Birth Defects and Deaths Found in Horses

      The vets are conducting their own study of what may be causing the epidemic of horse birth defects. The veterinary team cite the presence of a gas well adjacent to Gural’s land that was drilled by Chesapeake Appalachia LLC as the “prime suspect” in the Gural farm problems. The Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection confirmed that the farm’s water is contaminated, although they failed to cite Chesapeake as the cause.

    • Fabulous Win for Anti-Fracking Movement as Another Major Pipeline Bites the Dust

      For the second time in less than a week, climate activists and fracking opponents in the northeast find themselves celebrating.

      The latest applause comes after a state regulatory agency on Friday—which happened to be Earth Day—announced it was denying a permit for a major fracked-gas pipeline in the state. Just days earlier, another similar project was halted in New England.

      Calling it “amazing news” and a “huge victory” for New York residents and the planet as a whole, the decision by the Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) to reject the controversial Constitution Pipeline project was welcomed as a timely gift by Frack Action, a state coalition opposed to hydraulic drilling and further expansion of fossil fuel projects in the state.

    • Alongside 174 Nations And Holding His Granddaughter, John Kerry Signs Paris Climate Accord

      “More countries have come here to sign this agreement today than any other time in human history, and that is cause for hope,” Leonardo DiCaprio, U.N. Messenger of Peace, said during the opening ceremony which marked the beginning of the signing. DiCaprio also called climate change the “defining crisis of our time,” and called for fossil fuels to remain in the ground in an effort to cut carbon emissions.

    • A Young American Reminds Us How Badly We Are Failing Children on Climate Change

      If Xiuhtezcatl Tonatiuh didn’t have the look and sound of a 15-year-old, one could easily assume he was twice his real age. The indigenous environmentalist talks like a seasoned activist and well-educated adult, rather than the teenager he really is. Perhaps it is because he is so driven by passion for his cause of climate justice.

      In an interview on Rising Up With Sonali, Tonatiuh revealed that he started his political activism at age 6. He explained that it was natural for climate change to be the cause dearest to his heart because “being involved in the climate movement is protecting everything that I love.”

  • Finance

    • Apple should pay more tax, says co-founder Steve Wozniak

      Apple should pay more tax, according to Steve Wozniak, the company’s co-founder.

      Speaking to the BBC, Wozniak expressed discomfort with reports that Apple avoids tax, saying that paying taxes was just “part of life” – something that “every company in the world” should do.

    • Clinton doubling down on transcripts

      Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton is doubling down on a strategy of not releasing transcripts of speeches she gave to Goldman Sachs and other investment banks.

      Clinton has refused to release any of the transcripts in the face of a pressure campaign from rival candidate Bernie Sanders, who has relentlessly attacked the Democratic front-runner as being too closely tied to Wall Street.

      “She’s not going to basically create a standard that isn’t applied to anyone else in this race,” said one longtime Clinton ally and confidante of her position on releasing the transcripts.

      The issue has been an effective line of attack from Sanders, who has closed the gap with Clinton in national polls.

      It also appears to have hurt Clinton, who has seen her favorability rating in polls drop below 50 percent. Just as bad, Clinton has seen her marks fall with Americans when they are asked whether they trust her or see her as honest.

    • Elizabeth Warren’s Big Win: The New, Much-Needed Rule that Could Rein in Wall Street Slime

      Are you in the market for some good news? While everyone is being told to follow the excitement of the 2016 campaign to the exclusion of all else, out of the spotlight but not far away, the Obama administration is calmly trying to enact lasting progressive change. In the Labor Department earlier this month, consumer advocates won a big battle, as the vast middle class was “gifted” with a new requirement being placed on the financial services industry. As Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren explained, a glaring conflict of interest has been resolved in the favor of people saving for retirement. No longer can investment advisers recommend funds to their clients that reward them or their firms; instead, they must, without exception, direct customers into the best financial products, with lower or, sometimes, zero fees.

    • “Free Love – Not Free Trade”: With Obama En Route, 90,000 March Against TTIP

      Protesters wearing Obama and Merkal masks were among the tens of thousands who marched against the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) in Hannover, Germany on Saturday. (Photo: Helga Reimund / Attac.de)

      On the eve of a visit by U.S. President Barack Obama, tens of thousands of people took to the streets in Germany on Saturday to voice emphatic opposition to the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership agreement (TTIP), a deal they argue benefits global capitalism and corporate elites at the expense of the public good and local democracy.

      With a 1960′s “Summer of Love” theme informing the march, many participants grooved under banners reading “Freie Liebe – Statt Freihandel” (Free Love – Not Free Trade) as organizers estimated 90,000 people in attendance.

    • One of the nation’s largest pension funds could soon cut benefits for retirees

      More than a quarter of a million active and retired truckers and their families could soon see their pension benefits severely cut — even though their pension fund is still years away from running out of money.

      Within the next few weeks, the Treasury Department is expected to announce a crucial decision on whether it will approve reductions to one of the country’s largest multi-employer pension plans.

    • Greece’s Former Finance Minister Explains Why A Universal Basic Income Could Save Us

      Next time you’re having an fight with somebody who doesn’t like the idea of a universal basic income, you might employ some of these arguments from Yanis Varoufakis, Greece’s former finance minister. In an interview with the Swiss newspaper Tages Anzeiger, he not only refutes the usual arguments against the concept that the government should give everyone a minimum check every month, but he makes them sound quite ridiculous.

      [...]

      Varoufakis agrees with one problem—with $2,500 a month on the table, wouldn’t everyone move to Switzerland? He advocates for regulation, which is almost certainly what will happen.

  • AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics

    • BUSTED: Pro-Clinton Super PAC Caught Spending $1 Million on Social Media Trolls

      A Super PAC headed by a longtime Clinton operative is spending $1 million to hire online trolls to “correct” Bernie Sanders’ supporters on social media.

      Correct The Record (CTR), which is operated by Clinton attack dog and new owner of Blue Nation Review David Brock, launched a new initiative this week called “Barrier Breakers 2016” for the purpose of debating supporters of Senator Bernie Sanders — or “Bernie Bros,” as they’re referred to in Correct the Record’s press official release — on Facebook, Twitter, Reddit, and other social media platforms.

      The “Barrier Breakers” will also publicly thank Hillary Clinton’s superdelegates and fans for supporting her campaign. The paid trolls are professional communicators, coming from public relations and media backgrounds.

    • Clinton’s Image Among Democrats at New Low

      Recent activity in the presidential election campaign is clearly taking a toll on the images of the leading presidential candidates, as Hillary Clinton drops to her lowest net favorable rating among Democrats since Gallup began tracking her in July, and as both Ted Cruz and Donald Trump return to near their all-time lows among Republicans.

      We can start with the Democratic side of the ledger, where Clinton’s current net favorable rating of +36 among Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents is based on 66% who give her a favorable rating and 30% who give her an unfavorable rating.

    • Trump’s Campaign Manager Admits His Boss Has Been Playing a ‘Part’ the Whole Time

      “Fixing personality negatives is a lot easier than fixing character negatives. You can’t change somebody’s character, but you can change the way a person presents himself.” – Paul Manafort

      The above quote is from Donald Trump’s new campaign manager. Along with Rick Wiley, Manafort was hired recently to “professionalize” Trump’s operation. What he says here is both revealing and profoundly wrong. How a person presents himself, or more to the point, how far a person is willing to go in order to project an image of himself, says a lot about who he is.

      If a man is willing, as Trump clearly is, to say or do anything in the name of self-promotion, if he shape-shifts and contradicts himself on a whim, if he says things he knows to be untrue and dangerous because he thinks it will win him the news cycle, does that not reveal his character? Trump is either a nihilist or a fraud. In either case, his personality and character are inextricably bound.

    • Sanders: I’ve lost because ‘poor people don’t vote’

      Confronted with poor performance in states with higher populations of low-income people, Bernie Sanders said his losses are due to those people not voting.

      “Well, because poor people don’t vote. I mean, that’s just a fact. That’s a sad reality of American society,” Sanders said in an interview with MSNBC’s “Meet the Press” set to air in full on Sunday.

      Host Chuck Todd had asked about rival Hillary Clinton’s victory in 16 of 17 primary contests in states with the highest levels of income inequality.

  • Censorship/Free Speech

    • Satellite TV is helping Iranians bypass internet censorship

      People who live in countries with a strict nationwide internet filter always come up with ways to get around it. In Iran, according to Wired, people are using satellite TV and a free anti-censorship system called Toosheh. While Iranians do use VPN to bypass the filter, their crippling internet speeds make it hard to stream videos or download bigger files. The system gives them a way to get 1GB of data within 60 minutes. Users simply have to plug a USB stick into the set-top box, access Toosheh’s channel that doesn’t show anything besides text instructions and set the receiver to record.

    • Berwick MP strongly rejects Facebook censorship claims

      Prior to that, her tweets were automatically published onto her public Facebook page, but she had received complaints due to ‘some very offensive comments’ and the idea was to publish fewer updates to Facebook to make it easier for her or her team to keep track of what was being posted by others.

      However, some Facebook users claim that their comments were hidden, not due to their being offensive, but because they were expressing political views opposed to Mrs Trevelyan’s own, for example, on the EU referendum.

    • Utah Lawmaker Says Internet Porn Violates First Amendment

      The Utah lawmaker who introduced a state resolution declaring pornography a “public health crisis” has taken his opposition a step further. During a conservative talk radio appearance on Friday, state Rep. Todd Weiler (R) said that the internet, essentially, violates a person’s First Amendment rights by “delivering pornography” to people who don’t want to view it.

      “Someone may have the First Amendment right, according to the U.S. Supreme Court, to view pornography,” Weiler told Tony Perkins, host of “Washington Watch” radio show. “But what about my First Amendment right not to view it?”

    • California GOP Blathers About Freedom, But Mostly Backs ‘Secrecy Lobby’

      Politicians from the party of Reagan and Lincoln should instinctively know the dangers of giving government officials unaccountable power.

    • A paean to censorship

      It takes a certain mindset for a person to believe that he or she has the right to determine what information, otherwise lawful, that the citizens of Guyana should receive.

    • Donald Trump and His ‘Micropenis’ Expose Problems With Facebook’s Censorship Policies

      California-based artist, Illma Gore, has gotten quite a bit of attention after painting Republican presidential front runner Donald Trump in the nude with a very, very, small penis. Gore told LawNewz.com she’s received nasty threats from Trump supporters, and this week she says Trump’s team even told her she would be getting a cease and desist letter in the mail. Gore says the painting, which is titled Make America Great Again, was not even meant as a political statement per se.

      “The idea was to invoke a reaction from audience to inspire discussion about what is in our pants…our physical being,” she told LawNewz.com.

    • Is censorship bad for business? How trade laws could break through China’s Great Firewall

      The United States has now opened a new line of attack against China’s censorship regime. Human rights arguments aside, could China’s internet controls constitute a trade barrier? In its annual National Trade Estimate Report, the Office of the United States Trade Representative included the Chinese internet filters and blocks in a list of impediments foreign businesses face in China.

    • Does it really mean a free trade?
    • China seizes biggest share of global exports in almost 50 years
    • Chinese censorship fears over Chariots sequel about Liddell
    • Leader comment: Censorship would dishonour Liddell’s memory

  • Privacy/Surveillance

    • How Facebook plans to take over the world

      Social network went from digital directory for college kids to communications behemoth – and it’s planning for prosperity with its global takeover

    • Facebook usage over Tor passes 1M per month

      The number of people using the Tor anonymizing browser to access Facebook has passed the one million mark this month for the first time, Facebook has announced.

      Tor (aka The Onion Router) is a network technology designed to increase the privacy of web users by encrypting and randomly routing Internet connections via a worldwide network of volunteer relays — thereby making it harder for individual web connections to be traced back to a particular user.

      Facebook created a dedicated onion address for Tor access back in October 2014, aimed at making it easier for users to connect via Tor, given that the way the network routes traffic can be flagged by site security infrastructure.

    • Lawmakers ask National Intelligence director, ‘How many citizens have you spied on?’

      American lawmakers are getting frisky when it comes to digital frisking. In a recent letter from 14 top members of Congress (including eight Democrats and six Republicans), Director of National Intelligence James Clapper was asked to estimate the number of Americans affected by various surveillance techniques, including email surveillance and other forms of spying. Data espionage remains one of the few issues over which there is bipartisan concern, and the letter comes as part of an ongoing examination into potential surveillance program reforms.

    • Dispatches: US Surveillance Court Opinion Shows Harm to Rights
    • U.S. administration refuses information about spying on Americans
    • Secret court takes another bite out of the 4th Amendment
    • Congress asks the NSA how often it spies on Americans
    • Spy Chief Pressed for Number of Americans Ensnared in Data Espionage
    • DOJ’s Awesome New Trick to Break into Apple Phones

      Use the sentencing process, rather than the All Writs Act, to open up a phone captured two years ago (which probably has even less usable evidence than Syed Rizwan Farook’s phone did.

      These prosecutors are really using some amazing tools these days.

    • ISP Vows to Protect Users From a Piracy Witch Hunt

      Swedish Internet service provider Bahnhof says it will do everything in its power to prevent copyright holders from threatening its subscribers. The provider is responding to a recent case in which a competing ISP was ordered to expose alleged BitTorrent pirates, reportedly without any thorough evidence.

    • Facebook is going to start showing you pieces people actually read

      Facebook is changing its algorithm yet again, and this time it wants to show you more things that you’ll actually spend time reading or watching.

      The social network looks at a wealth of data when deciding which posts you actually see on News Feed, but until now it hasn’t cared too much about what you actually do when you click away from Facebook. It says that’s going to change.

    • EFF and ACLU Expose Government’s Secret Stingray Use in Wisconsin Case

      Thanks to EFF and the ACLU, the government has finally admitted it secretly used a Stingray to locate a defendant in a Wisconsin criminal case, United States v. Damian Patrick. Amazingly, the government didn’t disclose this fact to the defendant—or the court—until we raised it in an amicus brief we filed in the case. In the government’s brief, filed late last week, it not only fails to acknowledge the impact of hiding this fact from the defendant but also claims its warrantless real-time location tracking didn’t violate the Fourth Amendment.

      We first learned about this case when it was already on appeal to the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals and filed an amicus brief arguing the Fourth Amendment protects all of us from warrantless, real-time location tracking. The government suggested to both Patrick and the trial court that it had relied on location information obtained directly from Sprint. However, we suspected they had instead used a Stingray.

    • The Government Admits 9 Defendants Spied On Under Section 702 Have Not Gotten FISA Notice

      As I noted, in his opinion approving the Section 702 certifications from last year, Judge Thomas Hogan had a long section describing the 4 different kinds of violations the spooks had committed in the prior year.

      One of those pertained to FBI agents not establishing an attorney-client review team for people who had been indicted, as mandated by the FBI’s minimization procedures.

    • Former Top Holder Aide Says Back Door Searches Violate Fourth Amendment; FISC Judge Thomas Hogan Doesn’t Care

      When I first realized that FISA Court Presiding Judge Thomas Hogan picked her to serve as amicus for the review of the yearly 702 certifications last year, I complained that she, not Marc Zwillinger, got selected (the pick was made in August, but Jeffress would later be picked as one of the standing amicus curiae, along with Zwillinger). After all, Zwillinger has already argued that PRISM (then authorized by Protect America Act) was unconstitutional when he represented Yahoo in its challenge of the program. He’s got experience making this precise argument. Plus, Jeffress not only is a long-time national security prosecutor and former top Eric Holder aide, but she has been involved in some actions designed to protect the Executive. I still think Zwillinger might have done a better job. But Jeffress nevertheless made what appears to be a vigorous, though unsuccessful, argument that FBI’s back door searches of US person data are unconstitutional.

  • Civil Rights/Policing

    • Court: Border Search Warrant Exception Beats Riley In The ‘Constitution-Free Zone

      The Supreme Court declared in 2014 that law enforcement could no longer perform searches of cellphones incident to arrest without a warrant. The exceptions to this ruling are making themselves apparent already.

      The area of the United States where the Constitution does not apply — while still being fully within the borders of the US — apparently exempts law enforcement from following this ruling in regards to cellphone searches. The Southern District of California has come to the conclusion that border searches are not Fourth Amendment searches and that the government has no need to seek a warrant before searching a cellphone.

    • VIDEO: Spoken Word Artist Saul Williams Extended Interview on His New Album, “MartyrLoserKing”

      Williams also discusses his appreciation for hacking, Julian Assange, Chelsea Manning, Edward Snowden, and the late net neutrality activist, Aaron Swartz.

    • Washington Launches Its Attack Against BRICS

      Washington has always blocked reform in Latin America. Latin American peoples will remain American serfs until they elect governments by such large majorities that the governments can exile the traitorous elites, close the US embassies, and expel all US corporations. Every Latin American country that has an American presence has no future other than serfdom.

    • Students block Sather Gate on Cal Day in protest of treatment of undocumented UC students

      A group of roughly 30 student demonstrators gathered in front of Sather Gate on Saturday afternoon, protesting UC President Janet Napolitano’s treatment of undocumented students within the UC system.

      The protest was held on Cal Day, a day when the campus opened its grounds for prospective students accepted to the class of 2020.

    • Suicide Rates Are Up, But the Most Obvious Explanations Are Probably All Wrong

      For my money, we flatly don’t know what’s causing the increase in suicides over the past decade. Based on the size of the numbers and the evidence at hand, if you put a gun to my head I’d probably guess opioid abuse was the biggest cause. But I don’t know, and I’m not sure anyone else knows either.

    • Landmark Ruling Will Finally Allow Victims to Hold CIA ‘Torturers to Account’

      Ladin called it “a historic win in the fight to hold the people responsible for torture accountable for their despicable and unlawful actions.”

    • Child Brides ‘Tolerated’ In European Asylum Centres

      Some child brides are living with older husbands in asylum centres in Scandinavia, triggering a furore about lapses in protection for girls in nations that ban child marriage.

      Authorities have in some cases let girls stay with their partners, believing it is less traumatic for them than forced separation after fleeing wars in nations such as Afghanistan or Syria.

    • Open Borders? EU Commission May Pave Path to Millions of Ukrainian Migrants

      The dream of the Maidan revolutionaries -for Ukrainians to be able to travel to Europe without visas, has moved one step closer to reality, with the European Commission proposing to lift visa restrictions on Ukrainians. What might a visa-free regime between Ukraine and the European Union look like for Ukrainians and Europeans? Sputnik investigates.

    • What Happens When Asylum Seekers Are Too Poor to Make Bail

      On April 6, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) filed a class action lawsuit against the federal government for detaining immigrants who remain in jail simply because they are too poor to pay their bond.

    • Fed Up With Officer Violence, San Francisco Residents Go On Hunger Strike Against Police Chief

      “I’ve reached 48 hours now. After the 24-hour mark, you kind of get over the pain of hunger. We get distracted, kind of, with the people that are visiting. We’re trying to stay dry. It was raining last night,” Edwin Lindo told ThinkProgress by phone Friday morning. “I’m hanging in there.”

      Lindo is one of six hunger strikers currently sitting in front of the Mission Police Station in San Francisco, alongside local rapper Equipto, preschool teacher Maria Cristina Gutierrez, local resident Ike Pinkston, and two others. Lindo, who is also running for District 9 supervisor, is one of the four people who initiated the action on Wednesday in protest of Police Chief Greg Suhr, the embattled leader of the San Francisco Police Department.

      Under Suhr’s leadership there’s been a spate of fatal police shootings of residents of color, including Mario Woods, Alex Nieto, and Amilcar Perez-Lopez. Last year, racist and homophobic text exchanges between officers were made public, and similar messages were revealed earlier this month.

      Activists believe Suhr has failed to discipline the officers and allowed police violence to remain the status quo. In addition to Suhr’s resignation, they want the community to have a hand in vetting prospective officers and holding cops accountable. Lindo, Gutierrez, Pinkson, and Equipto wanted to take drastic action, seeing no other way to get the city leadership’s attention.

    • When we mourn the passing of Prince but not 500 migrants, we have to ask: have we lost all sense of perspective?

      Has something gone adrift within the moral compass of our ‘news’ reporting? In the past week, 64 Afghans have been killed in the largest bomb to have exploded in Kabul in 15 years. At least 340 were wounded. The Taliban set off their explosives at the very wall of the ‘elite’ security force – watch out for that word ‘elite’ – which was supposed to protect the capital. Whole families were annihilated. No autopsies for them. Local television showed an entire family – a mother and father and three children blown to pieces in a millisecond – while the city’s ambulance service reported that its entire fleet (a miserable 15 vehicles) were mobilised for the rescue effort. One ambulance was so packed with wounded that the back doors came off their hinges.

    • Amidst Civil War Ghosts, Sanders says: ‘I Worry about Future of Democracy in America’

      While campaigning in Pennsylvania on Friday ahead of next week’s primary in that state, Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders took time to visit the Civil War memorial at Gettysburg and invoked the spirit of Abraham Lincoln as he expressed concern about the troubling direction the nation is now heading.

      Standing near where Lincoln, in 1863, gave one of the most famous political speeches in U.S. history about the fundamental importance of unity and democracy, Sanders expressed to reporters his deep concerns about the disintegration of those key pillars amidst surging income inequality and a sustained assault on the people’s right to have their voices heard and wishes honored by elected lawmakers.

    • Truthdiggers of the Week: Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield of Ben & Jerry’s Fame

      Among the 1,400 activists arrested during the recent Democracy Awakening and Democracy Spring protests were two very familiar faces and even more recognizable names: Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield, co-founders of the international ice cream brand Ben & Jerry’s.

    • Bill Moyers: Campaign Finance Reform — It’s Not Just Liberals Anymore

      Bill sits down with former Bush administration lawyer Richard Painter to discuss why conservatives should care about the influence of money in politics — and how they can fight to get it out.

    • Disturbing New Ad Reveals The Future Of The GOP Under Trump

      Mike Pape, a Republican running for Kentucky’s first Congressional district, released a new TV ad filled with ugly stereotypes about Latino immigrants, complete with huge Mario Bros.-like mustaches, fake accents, and subtitles for the actors, even though they’re speaking in English for the vast majority of the ad.

    • Breaking Through Power: Historic Civil Mobilization Now

      Ever wonder why Presidential and Congressional election campaigns fail to meaningfully connect with civil society? Candidate rhetoric is designed to attract voters and campaign contributions. Candidates go out of their way to ingratiate themselves to their corporate paymasters, whose monetized minds want nothing to do with the civil society. Civil society leaders at the national and local levels and their nonprofit citizen groups form the bedrock of democracy. These civic leaders have significant expertise and experience and are meticulous and precise in their written and oral presentations. They do not traffic in false statements that are unfortunately routine for many candidates for federal office. And unlike most major party candidates who receive round-the-clock coverage for every campaign utterance, the civic stalwarts are too often left on the sidelines by the media during the campaign season.

      [...]

      These Americans did speak up in unprecedented numbers in 2002-2003 against the Bush/Cheney invasion of Iraq but had no infrastructure to increase their numbers and reach to the American people and the cowardly politicians in Congress.

    • More than 10.35 million people are in prison around the world, new report shows.

      There are more than 2.2 million prisoners in the United States of America, more than 1.65 million in China (plus an unknown number in pre-trial detention or ‘administrative detention’), 640,000 in the Russian Federation, 607,000 in Brazil, 418,000 in India, 311,000 in Thailand, 255,000 in Mexico and 225,000 in Iran.

    • The Film ‘In an Ideal World’ Offers a Glimpse Inside Our Broken Prison System

      Prisons “make you a racist,” even if that’s not how you were originally, one corrections officer says in the film. In fact, at one point in the movie, the warden of the prison actually describes the segregation as a tool for keeping order—though he adds that prison officials may have shot themselves in the foot by perpetuating racial divisions that aggravate tensions and can lead to violence.

    • Israeli Arab Lawmaker Refuses Holocaust Day Invite: Israel Today Is Like Germany in 1930s

      Joint Arab List MK Zoabi says that she respects the memory of those killed in the Holocaust, but that the ‘Holocaust obligates us not to be silent when racist laws are legislated.’

    • Bernie’s Most Valuable Lesson: The Democratic Party Does Not Do Enough to Represent the Values of Progressive Americans

      Over the past year, the insurgent political campaign of Senator Bernie Sanders has revealed quite a bit about the reasoning of partisan Democrats, and thus separated the progressives from the liberals. As a populist candidate who has refused support from Super PACs and big monied interests, Sanders has shined a light on the unpleasant reality that the Democratic party — and its likely presidential nominee — is almost as reliant on funding from billionaires and Wall Street as the detested Republican party is.

    • Shifty antisemitism wars

      So why is it wrong to equate anti-Zionism and antisemitism?

      First, it is comparing apples and oranges. Indeed, there have always been Jews opposed to Zionism, for different reasons. See, for example, the current work of the International Jewish Anti-Zionism Network (IJAN), or the new book by US professor Dov Waxman, which, among other things, shows how it was only after the Six-Day War in 1967, “some two decades after Israel’s founding”, that “the American Jewish pro-Israel establishment was built.”

      For Rebecca Vilkomerson, Executive Director of Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP), a group with more than 200,000 online members and 60 chapters across the US, “equating anti-Zionism with anti-Semitism obscures the long history of Jewish anti-Zionism and diasporism.” According to the UK-based group Jews for Justice for Palestinians, fusing “Jewishness/Israel/Zionism” enables antisemitism to become “a weapon for imposing conformity on dissidents within the Jewish community.”

  • Internet Policy/Net Neutrality

    • An Open Letter to Verizon CEO Lowell McAdam

      Last week, I took a drastic step. Instead of going in to work at Verizon, I stood outside with a picket sign. I’m on strike because it’s time for you to listen to us.

      I’m a cable splicing technician in Roanoke, Va., which means I install and fix Internet, cable and phone service. I’m proud to say I’ve volunteered to serve wherever the need is greatest. I went to New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina and Central Florida after bad storms there.

      Yet on a work call the other day, one of the managers said technicians like me were “tools to accomplish a task.”

      Maybe that manager chose those demeaning words poorly, but that comment stung with more truth than I can easily admit.

    • Saying the Internet makes librarians obsolete is like saying the plague makes doctors obsolete
    • Upside-Down-Ternet

      My neighbours are stealing my wireless internet access. I could encrypt it or alternately I could have fun.

    • Consumer Complaints About Broadband Caps Are Soaring

      Consumer complaints to the Federal Communications Commission about broadband data caps rose to 7,904 in the second half of 2015 from 863 in the first half, notes a new report by the Wall Street Journal. The Journal filed a Freedom of Information Act request with the agency to obtain the data on complaints, which have spiked as a growing number of fixed-line broadband providers apply caps and overage fees to already pricey connections.

    • The Average Webpage Is Now the Size of the Original

      The web is Doomed.

      Today the average webpage is about the same size, data-wise, as the classic computer game Doom, according to software engineer Ronan Cremin.

      A compressed copy of the installer for the shareware version of Doom takes up about 2.39MB of space. Today’s average webpage, meanwhile, requires users to download about 2.3MB worth of data, according to HTTP Archive, a site that tracks website performance and the technologies they use.

  • DRM

    • EFF to FCC: Consumers Need Strong ‘Unlock the Box’ Rules That Bring Competition, Innovation to Set-Top Boxes

      The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) urged the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to adopt robust, consumer-friendly “Unlock the Box” rules that will give Americans access to more innovative, useful, and creative devices and software for watching pay cable and satellite television.

      The FCC’s proposed “Unlock the Box” rules will allow any manufacturer to create and market devices or apps that will connect consumers to their cable or satellite TV feeds. The proposal will lead to a new generation of navigation devices that let viewers search and play shows on cable, online services, or over-the-air broadcasts from a single clicker, app, or box.

  • Intellectual Monopolies

    • Copyrights

      • Book Review: Shakespeare’s Cultural Capital

        In government, the UK uses Shakespeare to promoting regional tourism and a sense of ‘Britishness.’ As part of the government’s ‘Great’ campaign, which apparently contributes £1.6 billion annually to the UK, Shakespeare as a global icon enhances the UK’s cultural diplomacy. Shakespeare’s home of Stratford-upon-Avon, “attracts over five million visitors each year, generating revenues worth over £335 million for the local economy.”

      • UK dead-set on 10-year sentences for P2P pirates

        The UK government has confirmed that it wants to bring in legislation increasing the maximum sentence for online copyright infringement to 10 years of imprisonment, despite widespread objections and doubts about its feasibility.

        Baroness Neville-Rolfe, parliamentary under-secretary of state and minister for intellectual property, writes in her foreword to the document responding to the consultation held at the end of last year: “we are now proposing changes that include increasing the maximum sentence, but at the same time addressing concerns about the scope of the offence. The revised provisions will help protect rights holders, while making the boundaries of the offence clearer, so that everyone can understand how the rules should be applied.”

        As the UK government’s summary of responses reveals, 1,032 submissions were received, of which 938 came through the Open Rights Group. Concerns raised included the fact that there was no requirement to prove that an infringer had intent to cause harm for them to be considered guilty. That meant the proposed offence had an element of “strict liability,” which would result in somebody being held liable even if they had no intention of causing harm.

      • Kim Dotcom hints at Mega shutdown as he warns punters to pull out

        BERET-WEARING copyright controversy courter Kim Dotcom has told his Twitter users to start backing up any data and documents they might have on storage option Mega, because it looks like it is going from mega to micro following a range of problems.

        Dotcom said that the firm has suffered from the withdrawal of support by PayPal, presumably at the behest of the law or the copyright cartels. This had a significant impact on the business that was showing positive signs of growth in the storage market.

      • Why did Prince change his name to a symbol?

        When Prince changed his name to an unpronounceable symbol, it was regarded as both rebellious and foolhardy. Why did he do it?

        For a generation too young to remember his debut in the late 1970s or the impact of Purple Rain in 1984, Prince – who died yesterday – was perhaps best known as the musician who changed his name to a symbol.

        In 1993, Prince announced that he would no longer go by the name Prince, but rather by a “Love Symbol” which was a mash-up of the gender symbols for man and woman.

        “It is an unpronounceable symbol whose meaning has not been identified. It’s all about thinking in new ways, tuning in 2 a new free-quency,” he wrote in a statement at the time.

        According to Neal Karlen, a former Rolling Stone writer who was one of the few journalists the late musician gave access to, together they wrote up a full explanation for the name change to bury in a time capsule at Prince’s Paisley Park estate in Minnesota.

        “So he said,” cautions Karlen. “I never went for any ground break.”

        The controversial decision was derided as “crazy” and “ridiculous”. Record sales declined. It presented all kinds of logistical challenges for the media, resulting in the clumsy title, “Artist Formerly Known As Prince”.

        So why did he do it?

        The symbol was a rebellion against Prince’s record label, Warner Bros. He first signed with the company back in 1977 when he was still a teenager, and together they produced some of his most famous titles, including Purple Rain and Sign O the Times.

        But after inking a new deal in the early 1990s, Prince chafed under the company’s rigid production schedule. A prolific songwriter, he wanted to release material as soon as it was ready – he had 500 unreleased songs in his famous studio vault. But Warner Bros refused, believing it would saturate the market and dilute demand for the artist’s music.

        “He felt the contracts at the time were onerous and burdensome,” says John Kellogg, assistant chair of the music business management department at Berklee College of Music. “He rebelled against that.”

        Prince compared his contractual obligations to slavery, and began performing with the word “SLAVE” on his cheek. He saw his own name as a part of his contractual entrapment.

        “Warner Bros took the name, trademarked it, and used it as the main marketing took to promote all of the music I wrote,” Prince once said in a press release. “The company owns the name Prince and all related music marketed under Prince. I became merely a pawn used to produce more money for Warner Bros.”

04.22.16

Links 22/4/2016: New Stable Kernels, Nvidia 364.19 Driver

Posted in News Roundup at 7:21 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

GNOME bluefish

Contents

GNU/Linux

Free Software/Open Source

  • Open Source Cloud Apps: 65 Cloudy Apps

    Open source cloud apps are the wave of the future — and the present. Cloud computing itself is no longer just a buzzword, it’s becoming simply the ways things are done. IDC predicts that public cloud spending will grow from $70 billion in 2015 to more than $141 billion in 2019, a compound annual growth rate of 19.4 percent. That is six times faster growth than the firm expects to see for IT spending as a whole.

    The open source community is playing a major role in the growth of the cloud with projects like OpenStack, CloudStack and others providing some of the fundamental building blocks that enable both public and private cloud computing. In addition, many open source project owners make cloud-hosted versions of their software available on a software as a service (SaaS) basis, which gives them a way to monetize their projects and simplifies deployment and support for users.

  • EBSCO Supports New Open Source Project

    Software for academic libraries will be developed collaboratively

  • Putting open source to work

    A few years ago, at the O’Reilly Open Source Convention, I talked about the fact that it’s a mistake only to look at companies that have implicitly monetized open source when thinking about the commercial open source ecosystem; there are many others who have built their businesses on open source software, and you wouldn’t know it to look at them. This is even truer today. You’d be hard pressed to find a single business that doesn’t rely on open source for some part of its operations.

    [...]

    Open source technologies are now an integral part of the enterprise. The people, companies, and technologies have changed. Developers face new challenges, and the stack has grown infinitely more complex.

  • The gift economy at the heart of open source
  • Open Source Kafka Connect Adds More Than a Dozen Connectors

    Confluent, founded by the creators of Apache™ Kafka™, today announced growing support within the Kafka and Confluent Partner ecosystem to build and deploy new, Confluent-certified connectors through Kafka Connect. Since Kafka Connect was released in February, Confluent, Kafka core committers, the open source community and ecosystem partners have developed more than a dozen connectors including HDFS, JDBC, Cassandra and S3, with more in development from leading technology companies. Now, Kafka developers can quickly and easily connect various data sources into their stream data platforms.

  • A Protocol for Dying [Ed: Former FFII President]

    Technically, I have metastasis of bile duct cancer, in both lungs. Since February I’ve had this dry cough, and been increasingly tired and unfocused on work. In March my Father died and we rushed around arranging that. My cough took a back seat. On April 8 I went to my oncologist to say that I was really not well. She organized a rush CAT scan and blood tests.

    [...]

    My kids are twelve, nine, five. Tragic, etc. etc. Growing up without a father. It is a fact. They will grow up with me in their DNA, on Youtube as endless conference talks, and in writing.

  • Automate your home with openHAB

    OpenHAB is an open source automation platform designed to use a pluggable architecture, which means that new devices and protocols can be added easily. This pluggability extends also to the persistence layer, so your system can maintain its state information on your choice of platform

  • OpenIndiana 2016.04 Released To Let OpenSolaris Live On

    OpenIndiana 2016.04 has been released as the newest version of this operating system based on Illumos and originally derived from OpenSolaris.

    OpenIndiana Hipster 2016.04 is the project’s first OS release in a half-year. Unfortunately, there aren’t many details about the new release. The release announcement simply says, “As always, there were a lot of changes since last snapshot.”

  • SaaS/Back End

    • OpenStack Summit in Austin is almost here!

      OpenStack comes home to Austin on Monday for the OpenStack Summit! I will be there with plenty of other Rackers to learn, collaborate, and share our story.

    • How the science of happiness can improve OpenStack teams

      What does the science of happiness have to do with OpenStack? As it turns out, a lot. An international community of contributors works on OpenStack, so the overall health of the large pool of community members influences the direction of OpenStack projects. In this interview, OpenStack Summit speaker Alexis Monville (Director, Improvement & Dissemination of the Red Hat Cloud Innovation Practice) explains how contributors can increase their happiness on individual and team levels, and he offers a few resources for building healthier teams.

    • What’s the total cost of ownership for an OpenStack cloud?

      Technical discussions around OpenStack, its features, and adoption are copious. Customers, specifically their finance managers, have a bigger question: “What will OpenStack really cost me?” OpenStack is open source, but its adoption and deployment incur costs otherwise. So, what is the OpenStack TCO (total cost of ownership)? There has been no systematic answer to this question—until now. Massimo Ferrari and Erich Morisse, strategy directors at Red Hat, embarked on a project to calculate the TCO of OpenStack-based private cloud over the years of its useful life.

    • Yahoo Japan plans to build world’s largest open source private cloud

      Yahoo Japan has partnered with Pivotal to create what it calls the world’s largest private cloud platform built on open source technology. The site will run Pivotal’s Cloud Foundry on OpenStack.

    • TCS launches Network Function Virtualization (NFV) Management framework

      Tata Consultancy Services announced the launch of Mobile Network Function Virtualization (NFV) Management framework for anytime – anywhere monitoring and management for Red Hat OpenStack Platform.

    • Is open source the only road for NFV?

      Every vendor and operator seeking to play in the new world of virtualization and software -defined networking (SDN) must claim to be ‘open’. One of the driving motives for carriers to move towards a software-dominated environment is to escape the old proprietary platforms and lock-ins.

    • From Concept to Cloud: How to Leverage Open Tools

      There are many ongoing projects for producing free open source-related documentation, such as FLOSS Manuals, and there are good guides to open source tools all around the Internet.

    • On the Artificial Intelligence Front, Open Source Tools are Proliferating

      If you ask many people to name the technology categories that are creating sweeping change right now, cloud computing and Big Data analytics would probably be top of mind for a lot of them. However, there is an absolute renaissance going on right now in the field of artificial intelligence and the closely related field of machine learning.

  • Oracle/Java/LibreOffice

    • JavaZone Sells Open Source in TV Parodies

      When I found out that I was going to have the opportunity to substitute for Phil Shapiro for today’s video column, I jumped at the chance. Why? Because I want to share with you one of the great TV parodies that the JavaZone conference produces each year.

  • Healthcare

    • Open source machine learning tools as good as humans in detecting cancer cases

      Machine learning has come of age in public health reporting according to researchers from the Regenstrief Institute and Indiana University School of Informatics and Computing at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis. They have found that existing algorithms and open source machine learning tools were as good as, or better than, human reviewers in detecting cancer cases using data from free-text pathology reports. The computerized approach was also faster and less resource intensive in comparison to human counterparts.

    • Machine learning can help detect presence of cancer, improve public health reporting

      To support public health reporting, the use of computers and machine learning can better help with access to unstructured clinical data–including in cancer case detection, according to a recent study.

  • Funding

  • FSF/FSFE/GNU/SFLC

  • Public Services/Government

    • Lower costs nudge Irish police towards open source

      Ireland’s police force, An Garda Síochána, is tentatively considering using the open source version of SugarCMR for more of its web services. The police force has been using the software for its eVetting project since 2013, after comparing its costs and support options with proprietary alternatives.

  • Openness/Sharing/Collaboration

    • Open Access/Content

      • UI faculty move toward open source text

        University of Idaho students may soon find themselves among the 1.2 million of their peers saving big money on required texts, thanks to an organization offering open source alternatives to pricey books.

      • UI celebrates Open Education Week as movement to adopt open resources picks up pace

        With the beginning of every new semester, one thing never seems to change — college textbooks are expensive, heavy, mostly required and often useless.

        At the University of Idaho, many are trying to do their part to ease that burden and Open Education Week is an attempt to demonstrate that.

        ASUI President Max Cowan said signing onto a partnership with OpenStax is one step forward the university has made this semester.

    • Open Hardware/Modding

      • Not just for software: Bringing open-source philosophy to hardware

        Zannos spoke about Google’s announcement and what that foreshadows for OpenPOWER. “Google obviously is talking about Power9 [an IBM processor] and announced some plans that they’ll continue to share over time,” he said, adding that this speaks broadly to the wide adoption of alternative platforms.

  • Programming/Development

    • With the Rise of DevOps, Perl Shows Its Muscle

      Perl is seeing a real revival in interest. Why? Because Perl is a fantastic DevOps tool. With the rise of DevOps, Perl has once again solidified its long held reputation as the duct tape of the Internet.

      Since February 2016 Perl is back in the top 10 of the TIOBE Index and in the most recent monthly year-on-year comparison sees a healthy gain of 1.18%.

  • Standards/Consortia

    • Maxwell moves on from GDS to national technology advisor role

      New position will see former government CTO expand government relationships with digital and technology industry to boost UK digital economy

      Government chief technology officer Liam Maxwell is to leave his role to take up a new post as national technology advisor.

      Maxwell’s new role is intended to beef up the government’s relationships with the digital and technical industry to boost the UK’s digital economy and provide better public services for citizens.

    • LocalGovDigital agrees 15 service standards

      Agile methodologies, consistency with other government digital services, open standards and making use of common platforms are among the key features of the final draft of the Digital Service Standard for local government, which was released by the practitioners’ group LocalGovDigital late last week.

Leftovers

  • Microsoft’s quiet attack on Google with Windows 10 appears to be working

  • Science

  • Layoffs

    • Microsoft shares drop as results miss expectations

      Shares in Microsoft dropped more than 5 per cent after the software company reported lower than expected revenues and earnings for its fiscal third quarter.

    • Intel’s lay-offs and how they may affect start-ups in Silicon Forest

      These announced lay-offs are part of Intel’s plan to move away, belatedly perhaps, from its reliance on the personal computer industry, in favor of such new growing markets as the internet of things, data centers, gaming, and programmable chips. While the jury is still out whether Intel will ultimately succeed in this pivoting of the company in the direction of these new markets, it is presumed that these centers of R&D activity will generate a lot of Intel-originating patent and related work.

  • Health/Nutrition

  • Security

    • Let’s Encrypt Reaches 2,000,000 Certificates

      Earlier today, the Let’s Encrypt certificate authority issued its two millionth certificate, less than two months after the millionth certificate. As we noted when the millionth certificate was issued, each certificate can cover several web sites, so the certificates Let’s Encrypt has issued are already protecting millions and millions of sites.

    • Hackers Make This Search Engine Out Of 70 Million Voters’ Data

      Did you ever imagine an easily-browsable hacked data available to public and that too in the form of a search engine? Well, here is one of those interesting hacking cases where hackers made a search engine out of the hacked data of the 70 million citizens of Philippines and anyone can easily search for everybody else.

    • How Big Is Your Target?

      In his 2014 TED presentation Cory Doctorow compares an open system of development to the scientific method and credits the methods for bringing mankind out of the dark ages. Tim Berners-Lee has a very credible claim to patent the technology that runs the internet, but instead has championed for its open development. This open development has launched us forward into a brave new world. Nearly one third of all internet traffic rides on just one openly developed project. Its place of dominance may be unsure as we approach a world with cybersecurity headlines. Those headlines do much to feed the industry of fear resulting in government efforts to close doors on open source efforts.

      This paper is a qualitative theoretical discussion regarding cyber security and open source solutions written in three parts. Its goal is to demonstrate that the use of open source technologies reduces vulnerability to cyber attacks. The first part of this paper identifies the difficulties in presenting a software consideration model capable of illustrating the full spectrum of expectations for the performance of today’s code. Previous models merely address basic requirements for execution namely security, functionality & usability. While these aspects are important they fail to take into account modern requirements for maintenance, scalability, price, reliability and accessibility of software. This part of the paper modernizes the model developed by Andrew Waite and presents a clear model for software discussion.

    • 5 Features to Look For In A Next-Generation Firewall

      Sure, the term next-generation firewall (NGFW) has been around since 2007 and the vendors have been hyping these products for a close to a decade.

  • Defence/Aggression

    • How a Simple Request Got Me Blacklisted by the Pentagon

      The Department of Defense has a lot of problems — a series of wars in Iraq that never seem to fully end, a conflict in Afghanistan that just won’t end, quasi-wars in Pakistan and Yemen and Somalia with no end in sight; a proliferation of terror groups around the globe; and its numerous failed, failing, and scuttled training efforts to create local proxy armies.

    • Senator Says Bombing Yemen Is Distracting Saudis From Fighting Terror

      AS PRESIDENT OBAMA meets with Gulf State leaders in Riyadh, Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., is questioning the Saudi commitment to fighting Al Qaeda and ISIS, warning that the war in Yemen is distracting Saudi Arabia from operations against extremists.

      The White House has defended Saudi Arabia as an “effective national security partner.” Responding to a question about Yemen on Tuesday, White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest said that the “United States and Saudi Arabia have worked together to apply pressure to Al Qaeda plotters in Yemen.”

      But at a Brookings Institution discussion about the U.S.-Saudi relationship on Thursday, Murphy questioned the kingdom’s commitment to combating Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) and ISIS, in light of the war in Yemen.

    • Obama Should Go to Hiroshima, But Not Empty Handed

      Clearly, Secretary Kerry was deeply moved, calling it “gut-wrenching” and saying “everyone” including his boss, President Barack Obama, should go there. While Kerry said he would tell the president this when he gets back to Washington, he refrained from publicly advocating the president go to Hiroshima next month when the G-7 economic summit convenes in Japan.

    • Playing Off Europe’s Muslim Fears

      Turkey and the Islamic State are exploiting the Syrian refugee flow into Europe to achieve their own ends, playing off the Continent’s fear of what a Muslim influx will do to political stability, explains Andrés Cala.

    • Obama’s UK visit: The hostile reception for US president over Brexit vote ‘meddling’

      US President Barack Obama arrives in the UK on Thursday to urge the British public to vote to ‘remain’ in the European Union in the June 23 Brexit referendum. Since the presidential visit was announced, however, critics have told him to “butt out.”

      His appearance will be welcomed by the pro-EU campaign and Prime Minister David Cameron.

      Obama is expected to reiterate his view that Britain’s “special relationship” with the US is best served by remaining in the union.

    • Trump’s Putin Fantasy

      More extraordinary still, Trump has indicated, in his selection last month of Carter Page as a foreign policy adviser, that American policy to Europe will be guided by Russian interests. Page, heretofore known as an adviser to Russia’s state gas company, has been among the prominent Americans spreading Russian propaganda about Ukraine’s revolution in 2014 and the Russian invasion that followed. In his writings he has questioned Ukraine’s status as an independent state, which is precisely the line that Moscow took to justify its invasion. He maintains—preposterously—that Ukraine is like Quebec inside a Russia that is like Canada. Quebec is a province and Ukraine is a country. He has referred to Russia’s annexation of Ukraine’s Crimean peninsula, a signal violation of international law, as the “so-called annexation.”

    • The Imbalanced US-Saudi ‘Alliance’

      The Saudi displeasure centers in particular on wanting the United States to take its side in regional rivalries, especially its rivalry with Iran. It is not in the U.S. interest to take either side in such a contest for local influence, any more than it is for the United States to succumb to the zero-summing proclivities of Pakistan and India in their rivalry in South Asia.

    • The Fifth Estate: Foreign Lobbyists

      The American people are waking up to the fact that the 9/11 hijackers – who came to this country with little knowledge of English, and few resources – had some significant assistance from at least one foreign intelligence agency, and the Saudi connection, which is the subject of the redacted 28 pages, is now in the spotlight. In response, the Saudi lobby is manning the barricades, with articles like “Saudi Arabia Is a Great American Ally” in Foreign Policy magazine, which basically argues that we need these head-chopping barbarians because Iran is worse. On the legislative front, Senator Lindsey Graham (R-Perpetual War) is blocking a Senate bill that would give the green light to a lawsuit by the families of 9/11 victims to sue the Saudis. Graham and Senator John McCain have long worked hand-in-hand with the Saudis to garner US support for “moderate” Islamist rebels fighting to overthrow the government of Syria’s Bashar al-Assad. And when the Saudis launched their terror-bombing of Yemen, Graham was right there cheering them on – and lamenting that “they no longer trust us” because they didn’t give us a heads up.

    • Inside the Devastation of America’s Drone Wars

      In our part of the world, it’s not often that potential “collateral damage” speaks, but it happened last week. A Pakistani tribal leader, Malik Jalal, flew to England to plead in a newspaper piece he wrote and in media interviews to be taken off the Obama White House’s “kill list.” (“I am in England this week because I decided that if Westerners wanted to kill me without bothering to come to speak with me first, perhaps I should come to speak to them instead.”) Jalal, who lives in Pakistan’s tribal borderlands, is a local leader and part of a peace committee sanctioned by the Pakistani government that is trying to tamp down the violence in the region. He believes that he’s been targeted for assassination by Washington. (Four drone missiles, he claims, have just missed him or his car.) His family, he says, is traumatized by the drones. “I don’t want to end up a ‘Bugsplat’ – the ugly word that is used for what remains of a human being after being blown up by a Hellfire missile fired from a Predator drone,” he writes. “More importantly, I don’t want my family to become victims, or even to live with the droning engines overhead, knowing that at any moment they could be vaporized.”

    • Watch: Tribeca Film Festival’s ‘The Bomb’ Puts Viewers at the Center of a Nuclear Explosion

      “The Bomb” is a multimedia lesson in the unsettling reality of nuclear weapons today and premieres this Saturday in the Tribeca Film Festival. The closing night event of the festival, “The Bomb” is as much a movie as it is a white-knuckle experience.

    • Baghdad After the Fall of Saddam Hussein

      There are 55,000 US troops in and around Baghdad but they seem curiously vulnerable. They largely stick to their vehicles; there are very few foot-patrols. They establish checkpoints and search cars, but usually have no interpreters. “Mou mushkila (no problem),” one driver said when asked to open the boot of his car. “Don’t contradict me,” a soldier shouted. Military vehicles are often stuck in horrendous traffic jams (because of the electricity shortage the traffic lights are not working) making them an easy target for grenades. Just before the attack in Haifa Street, I was talking to an American soldier outside the National Museum. The tag on his shoulder read “Old Ironsides”. I asked him what unit this referred to. He replied: “The First Armoured Division, the finest armoured division in the world.” But tanks and heavy armour are not much use in Baghdad. A few hours later, a sniper shot dead another soldier as he sat in his Bradley Fighting Vehicle by the gates of the museum.

    • Canada’s $15 Billion Saudi Arms Deal: What History Tells Us

      Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said it is a “matter of principle” that Canada follows through with a $15 billion armaments deal with Saudi Arabia, a totalitarian state which funds international terrorism, stones women to death for the crime of being raped, and that leads the world in public beheadings. This decision has been sharply criticized by journalists, activists, and international organizations. In a public statement Amnesty International said that it has “good reason to fear that light armored vehicles supplied” to Saudi Arabia by Canada “are likely to be used in situations that would violate human rights” in both “neighboring countries” and for ‘suppressing demonstrations and unrest within Saudi Arabia” [1]. Montreal students and a former Bloc Quebecois MP and law professor have filed a class action lawsuit to block the deal, citing that by selling weapons to countries with poor human rights records Canada is violating its own laws [2].

    • Wall Street Journal Runs Ad Denying Genocide That Killed Over 650,000 People

      April 24 is the remembrance day of the Armenian genocide, and to mark the date, a group ran a full-page ad in the Wall Street Journal on Wednesday, implying that Turks and Armenians lost a similar number of lives in 1915.

      One hundred and one years ago, between 664,000 and 1.2 million Armenians were systematically massacred or died from abuse by Ottoman officials. Survivors who fled have kept the story alive of what many call the 20th century’s first massacre.

    • Meet The ‘Jewish Terrorist Network’ In The West Bank

      Israeli police and security officials have announced the discovery of a right-wing network of “Jewish terrorists” in the occupied West Bank, saying they have arrested several accused of plotting and enacting attacks against Palestinians and their homes.

      On Wednesday, representatives of Israel’s internal security agency Shin Bet revealed they had apprehended several members of a “Jewish terrorist network” in the Palestinian territories over the past few weeks. According to the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, the group includes six settlers and an Israeli soldier who reportedly confessed to tossing a tear gas grenade into the home of a Palestinian family and throwing firebombs at another house in Mazraa al-Qabliyah.

    • The EU-Turkey deal: unjust and short-sighted

      I am pretty sure that EU politicians do not watch ISIS videos – at least not the ones in Arabic that do not feature beheadings and blood. Instead, they feature a crowd of second or third generation Europeans speaking Arabic with French, Flemish, German accents: the offspring of our ‘progressive Europe’ hating their own homeland because of a never-forgotten past of violent colonialism and an endless present of exclusion and racism. If our politicians watched these videos they would perhaps not be so confident in their approach to containing extremism and preventing terrorism.

    • The Terribly Annoyed Saudis

      Riyadh lobbied hard for a military confrontation with the Islamic Republic and was keenly disappointed by that landmark accord. President Obama’s visit to Riyadh was designed to alleviate these strains and to reinvigorate the supposed alliance. Apparently, he may follow up with a proposal for some sort of security understanding between NATO and the GCC.

    • What does a left foreign policy look like?

      Sanders’s confusion has often seemed preferable to Hillary Clinton’s murderous certainty: as secretary of state she sank an early peace deal in Syria to deepen the US proxy war, and as a candidate has outdone her hawkish self in calling for a no-fly zone, an insane policy that could lead to war with Russia. But Sanders’s ultimate lack of a policy doesn’t promise an end to the conflict, and it’s not always clear that Sanders is as war-averse as he first appears.

    • Americans Are Killing Themselves at the Highest Rate in 30 Years

      More than 42,000 Americans killed themselves in 2014, and roughly half used a firearm. These and others statistics are likely to fall below the actual rate because many suicides are recorded as accidents.

    • Major Study: Suicide Rates in the U.S. Are Soaring

      In 1999, 10.5 of every 100,000 people committed suicide. In 2014, that number increased to 24 percent, or 13 out of every 100,000 people. In the 80’s, however, the suicide rate had been dropping. The most eye-catching increases were among middle-aged people.

    • Russia’s regions: federalism and its discontents

      Creating the appearance of stability is the Russian political elite’s primary goal. Yet colonial-like rule over the country’s regions, combined with a lack of civic activity, harms the Kremlin’s legitimacy on the ground.

    • How Chernobyl Led to Austria’s Nuclear-Free Utopia

      It began with a hefty dose of Mancunian envy. Manchester, it turned out, was and is “The Radical City.” On day one we visited the historic Manchester Town Hall, where presentations were made to some of the 95 city council members, every last one of whom is a member of the Labour party.

      In the entranceway, radical Mancunian women had “yarnbombed” four of the exclusively male statues with crocheted masks representing a quartet of Manchester’s top female boffins. Scenes from the Harry Potter films, we learned, were filmed in the Victorian gothic building.

      The mosaic floors feature images of bees — a nod to the city’s industrious past — and cotton flowers. Cotton milling was the region’s big industry, but when the U.S. Civil War broke out, Manchester chose to boycott imports of cotton from the pro-slavery South, at great sacrifice to jobs and livelihoods at home. A statue of Abraham Lincoln stands in the square outside, a gift of thanks to the city.

      [...]

      Nuclear power plants are banned in Austria under the country’s constitution after a 1978 referendum. (Yes, Virginia, it is actually illegal to build nuclear power plants there.)

      Nuclear weapons are also banned. So is the storage of nuclear waste.

      Transportation through Austria of civil or military nuclear materials or waste has been outlawed. Any attempt to revive nuclear power in that country cannot happen without a national referendum.

    • China ‘tests terrifyingly powerful Dongfeng-41 nuclear missile’ which could destroy London in HALF AN HOUR

      China has allegedly tested a weapon of mass destruction capable of hitting London and other major European or American cities in just 30 minutes.

      The People’s Republic reportedly fired a nuke called the Dongfeng-41, which has the longest range of any missile in the world.

      It can carry up to 10 warheads over a distance of roughly 7,450 miles in just half an hour before hitting several targets at once.

      This would mean Beijing could destroy the whole of London – which is slightly more than 5,000 miles from the Chinese capital – or wipe out any city in the West.

  • Transparency/Investigative Reporting

    • Ruling Unsealed: National Security Letters Upheld As Constitutional

      A federal judge has unsealed her ruling that National Security Letter (NSL) provisions in federal law—as amended by the USA FREEDOM Act—don’t violate the Constitution. The ruling allows the FBI to continue to issue the letters with accompanying gag orders that silence anyone from disclosing they have received an NSL, often for years. The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) represents two service providers in challenging the NSL statutes, who will appeal this decision to the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.

    • Trilogues: the system that undermines EU democracy and transparency

      The EU body in charge of fighting against maladministration, the European Ombudsman, decided to open an investigation to assess the need for a trilogues reform. As part of this inquiry, she opened a consultation to ask the public about its opinion and experience regarding the transparency of trilogues. On 31 March, EDRi submitted its response, where we ask for an urgent reform of trilogues, echoing the concerns voiced by an open joint civil society letter sent to the three institutions.

    • Reporter Makes FOIA Request For Obama’s Game Of Thrones Screeners

      Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests are a popular topic here on Techdirt. We’ve discussed how important FOIA rules are… and how the government seems to go out of its way to try to ignore both the letter and spirit of the law. Because that’s just how secretive governments act. However, it’s certainly true that some FOIA requests are a little more ridiculous than others. Take, for example, Refinery29 reporter Vanessa Golembewski’s amusing decision to file a FOIA request for Game of Thrones Screeners after finding out that the producers have been sending advance screeners to President Obama.

  • Environment/Energy/Wildlife/Nature

    • US-Canada pact eases Arctic fears

      A joint pledge by the US and Canada to reduce methane emissions for oil and gas activities in the Arctic and limit fossil fuel extraction is putting pressure on Russia to follow suit.

      The pledge was in response to increasing concern across the world at the intention of the eight nations with territorial claims in the Arctic to exploit its resources, even though this risks making climate change far worse.

    • Did The Paris Climate Accord Start A Low-Carbon Landslide?

      Many years from now, the historic international Paris climate agreement could easily be seen as the moment the conversation changed.

      “One of the cool things coming out of Paris was the idea of moving from a ‘woe-is-me’ narrative to talking about the possibilities,” said Kathleen Rogers, president of the Earth Day Network. “This change of attitudes is where I think the momentum is. We are in motion.’’

      The Paris accord seems to have turned climate change “from an insurmountable problem to an opportunity,” agreed Richard Kauffman, chairman of energy and finance for New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, whose administration has been at the forefront of climate change mitigation. “People in Paris witnessed a hinge of history taking place. There is a broad range of actors committed to change, and we can see the ways in which change can be made.”

    • This Earth Day, Listen Up: Mother Earth Is Calling Us Back

      Those of us who succumbed to the false promises of Western consumerism at great cost to the planet and to ourselves are Earth’s prodigal children now returning home.

    • Paris Climate Pact Signed on Earth Day: How the 2016 Election Is Critical to Its Success

      If a Republican administration is elected in November, the Paris agreement would be severely undermined.

    • Scientists Who Are Questioning Fracking’s Impact Have Oil Industry Ties, Groups Say

      As the SAB’s final peer review nears, a draft dissent from at least four board members with ties to the oil and gas industry is being challenged by the Americans Against Fracking Coalition. In a letter sent Wednesday to EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy, the advocacy group, which includes Food and Water Watch along with hundreds of other organizations, said dissenting members’ connections with the fracking industry mean they “have clear conflicts of interest.” While urging the EPA to reject the dissent, the coalition claimed members “do not have any scientific basis for their dissent.”

      “The [EPA’s statement] itself is a political line without scientific basis, and so as a result, it becomes a political statement,” Hugh MacMillan, senior researcher at Food and Water Watch, told ThinkProgress.

      [...]

      The letter is the latest attempt by organizations to sway the EPA against hydraulic fracturing. It comes as the industry has been on the offensive since an assistant professor of geology at the University of Cincinnati said she couldn’t detect one instance of contamination after a three-year study in Ohio. Elsewhere, however, multiple states and counties are growing wary about the consequences of unearthing oil and gas from rock by injecting water and chemicals into wells. Water contamination has been linked to oil and gas operations in Texas, Ohio, California, West Virginia, and Pennsylvania. In Pennsylvania, a major fracking location, two families who had been fighting to prove their water well won a multimillion-dollar lawsuit last March.

  • Finance

    • As Support Plummets, Is EU Moving Closer to Becoming ‘TTIP Free Zone’?

      Intercontinental opposition to the TransAtlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) continues to grow, with a new poll out Thursday showing that support for the controversial deal has “plummeted” in Germany and the U.S. over the last two years.

      The survey (pdf), conducted by YouGov for Germany’s Bertelsmann Foundation, showed that only 17 percent of Germans believe the corporate-friendly trade agreement is a good thing, down from 55 percent in 2014. Likewise, in the United States, only 18 percent support the deal, compared to 53 percent two years ago—though nearly half of U.S. respondents said they did not know enough about the agreement to voice an opinion.

    • Massive shift to freelancers from full-time employment in U.S. market

      Fifty percent (50%) of the workforce in the United States is expected to be freelancers by 2020, according to a new research report that reveals that long-term, full-time employment in the US is no longer the norm, and organisations need to make “crucial adjustments” to cope with the changing work environment.

    • ‘A Global Industry Is Raiding Treasuries All Over the Planet’

      Janine Jackson: The worry about media reaction to the Panama Papers was that the press would treat revelations of the rich and powerful’s ability to hide their wealth as somehow new or exotic. But we’re moving beyond that now with acknowledgement of, for instance, the US role as a tax haven. A few have pointed to a Reuters piece from 2011 that dubbed Cheyenne, Wyoming, “a little Cayman Island on the Great Plains.” And a piece in the Las Vegas Review Journal noted that as money launderers, Nevada’s shell companies leave its casinos in the dust.

    • Don’t Know Much About Economy–but WaPo Likes Kasich Anyway

      People who follow politics and economics would have little difficulty answering that question. For example, Mr. Kasich signed a bill prohibiting the state of Ohio from contracting for health services with Planned Parenthood or any other organization that performs abortions.

      Kasich also has bizarre views on economic policy. In addition to supporting tax cuts for the rich, which the Post criticized because of the impact on the deficit, Kasich also criticized the Fed for its quantitative easing policy. According to Kasich, this only led to companies “buying up more of their stock and making the rich richer.” It is difficult to envision how Kasich thinks this process works.

      Most immediately, quantitative easing leads to lower interest rates. For believers in economics, this lead to more borrowing for things like buying homes, and both public and private investment. It also frees up money for homeowners who refinance their mortgages. This allows them to spend money on other things. Lower interest rates also mean a lower-valued dollar, other things equal. This makes our goods and services more competitive internationally, reducing our trade deficit.

    • Uber Agrees to Pay $100 Million to Drivers in Historic Class Action Settlement

      Ride-sharing giant Uber announced that it has agreed to pay $100 million to settle two class action lawsuits, in which thousands of drivers alleged that they were improperly classified as independent contractors instead of employees.

      The California and Massachusetts lawsuits were set to go to trial in June.

      As part of the agreement, which was announced Thursday evening, drivers will keep the contractor classification, but Uber will pay out $84 million to the drivers, and an additional $16 million if the company goes public and the Uber’s valuation hits certain growth levels.

    • Harriet Tubman and the Currency of Resistance

      U.S. Treasury Secretary Jack Lew announced Wednesday that the revised $20 bill will feature the portrait of the legendary abolitionist Harriet Tubman. Tubman was born a slave, escaped to freedom and became a conductor on the Underground Railroad, as well as a campaigner for women’s right to vote. She will be replacing President Andrew Jackson on the front of the $20 bill. He was a contemporary of hers, who owned slaves (one of 18 presidents who did so) and became wealthy from their forced labor. The decision was influenced by grass-roots action, Lew said, as hundreds of thousands weighed in with their suggestions for which women to honor. It also was not without controversy.

    • Why Is the Progressive Left Helping the Elite Elect Hillary?

      This is astounding. Here we are faced with the corrupt media and the corrupt party establishments determined to put in the Oval Office a tried and proven agent of the One Percent, and the progressive left is beating up on the only two alternatives!

    • New Zealand Government Trying To Streamroller TPP Through Ratification Without Proper Scrutiny Or Public Input

      Back in February, we noted that the TPP has been officially signed, and that the focus now moves on to ratification by each of the 12 participating countries. On this score, there’s been plenty of sound and fury in the US, including bizarre demands to re-negotiate TPP, but less coverage of what is happening elsewhere. As we noted, Canada’s ratification has ground to a halt as the new government there launches “widespread consultations.”

    • Blockchain Technology Could Help Solve $75 Billion Counterfeit Drug Problem

      Counterfeit drugs are a growing problem, but one company wants to use blockchain technology, which underpins bitcoin, to help eradicate it by creating an open and trusted record of where drugs have come from.

      According to CoinDesk, management consulting services company Accenture proposed the initiative at a meeting of the HyperLedger Project, which is run by the Linux Foundation and seeks to build an open-source repository of blockchain code that will address current gaps in the technology.

    • The Racist, Twisted History of Tipping

      Very few of America’s 11 million restaurant workers share my story. The federal minimum wage is a paltry $7.25 an hour, but in 18 states servers, bussers, and hosts are paid just $2.13—less than the price of a Big Mac. This is known as the federal “tipped minimum wage” because, in theory, these food workers will make up the difference in tips. Twenty-five states and DC have their own slightly higher tipped minimums. The remaining seven, including California, guarantee the full state minimum wage to all workers.

    • To See the Real Story in Brazil, Look at Who Is Being Installed as President — and Finance Chiefs

      But there’s one more vital motive driving all of this. Look at who is going to take over Brazil’s economy and finances once Dilma’s election victory is nullified. Two weeks ago, Reuters reported that Temer’s leading choice to run the central bank is the chair of Goldman Sachs in Brazil, Paulo Leme. Today, Reuters reported that “Murilo Portugal, the head of Brazil’s most powerful banking industry lobby” — and a long-time IMF official — “has emerged as a strong candidate to become finance minister if Temer takes power.” Temer also vowed that he would embrace austerity for Brazil’s already-suffering population: He “intends to downsize the government” and “slash spending.”

    • The Real Reason Dilma Rousseff’s Enemies Want Her Impeached

      Corruption is just the pretext for a wealthy elite who failed to defeat Brazil’s president at the ballot box

  • AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics

    • It’s Time to Acknowledge the Immense Power Twitter and Facebook Now Have in U.S. Elections

      A new survey from the Media Insight Project, for example, shows that just 6 percent of Americans “say they have great confidence in the press.”

    • This Poll Of Latino Voters Should Terrify The Republican Party

      The Republican presidential nominee will need as many as 40 percent of Latino voters in some states to clinch a win in November. But ever since Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump built his campaign on promises to deport the country’s 11.3 million undocumented population and claims of Mexican immigrant rapists and drug dealers, his unpopularity has soared among Latinos.

    • Watch: Trump Supporters Threaten Potential Armed Insurrection at Contested GOP Convention

      Trump says there will be riots if he is denied the nomination, a warning his supporters echo in this video.

    • New York Primary: Why is Exit Poll Data Adjusted to Match Final Voting Results?

      Tuesday night CNN projected a 52-48 Clinton win based on exit polling data at 9pm when polls closed in New York. Very similar numbers from ABC at the same time said voters by a 52-47 margin thought Clinton was more inspiring, a number you’d think would closely reflect how people voted. Clinton won the final reported tally by 16%, and by late night and early this morning, exit polling data available at CNN and elsewhere much more closely matched a mid-double digit margin for Clinton. Some of the turn arounds in terms of specific demographics were rather remarkable, especially since just 24 respondents were added to the relevant sample size.

      Earlier, Clinton lead Sanders by 14% (57-43%) with Latina and Latino voters as I reported in my exit poll live blog. This was consistent with my 56-44% projection based primarily on the average of a half a dozen polls from the week and a half before New York voted. The final exit poll, however, shows Clinton doubling her lead to a 28% win with hispanic voters. Early reports suggested Sanders was winning 69-31% with voters under 45. Final exit polling shows him winning by just 10%, 55-45%, and included him losing the 30-39 year old demographic by 4%. Sanders has not lost 30-39-year-olds anywhere outside the South, including Ohio where he won with them by 18% but lost the overall vote by 14%.

    • Bernie Sanders’ Revolution Might Win in New York After All

      The first real sign of what awaited Hillary Clinton in the 2016 Democratic presidential race came two years ago, when New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo found himself in an unexpectedly heated primary fight with a liberal gadfly from Vermont. Cuomo’s opponent, Zephyr Teachout, was a Fordham law professor who volunteered at Occupy Wall Street and wrote a book about political corruption. Teachout considered the governor too corporate and too conservative. Cuomo paid her so little attention that on election night, she struggled to find a phone number to call the governor to concede.

      But Cuomo couldn’t ignore the results. Despite losing by nearly 30 points, Teachout exposed a deep fissure within the state Democratic Party. She won 32 of 62 counties, carrying some upstate areas by more than 50 points. Her running mate, Columbia law professor Tim Wu, called the primary “the first of what will be a long-running series of contests within the Democratic Party which really divide on the issue of inequality and private power.”

    • How CBS News Aided the JFK Cover-up

      With the Warren Report on JFK’s assassination under attack in the mid-1960s, there was a chance to correct the errors and reassess the findings, but CBS News intervened to silence the critics, reports James DiEugenio.

    • The Story of the Great Brooklyn Voter Purge Keeps Getting Weirder

      The first head has rolled after more than 100,000 voters were mistakenly purged from the Brooklyn voter rolls ahead of this week’s New York primary, which handed Hillary Clinton a much-needed win over Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders. Diane Haslett-Rudiano, the chief clerk of the New York Board of Elections, was suspended “without pay, effective immediately, pending an internal investigation into the administration of the voter rolls in the Borough of Brooklyn,” the agency said in a statement, according to the New York Daily News.

      Anonymous city elections officials said that Haslett-Rudiano, who was in charge of the city’s Republican voter rolls, had been “scapegoated,” according to the New York Post. “It sounds like they cut a deal to make the Republican the scapegoat and protect Betty Ann,” an anonymous Democratic elected official from Brooklyn told the Post, referring to Betty Ann Canizio, who was in charge of the Democratic voter rolls.

    • New Strategy For Pro-Clinton SuperPAC: Argue With Everyone On Social Media

      We’ve seen a lot of silliness this political season, most of which I happily lay the blame for at the feet of what has to be the lamest group of candidates for President this esteemed country has ever seen. What these good-for-nothings have bred is a deeper level of hateful rhetoric and toxic partisanship than what was present already, which I didn’t even think was possible. Yet they achieved it anyway, meaning that my social media feeds are overflowing with the kind of know-nothing memes and claims about all of the candidates that have me thinking about downing a bottle of rat poison just to make my brain stop hurting. Add to all of it the involvement of SuperPACs for all of these candidates, with their un-subtle messages and self-serving advertising, and it’s enough to wonder if we should scrap this whole America thing and try to start something new from scratch.

      [...]

      So, yeah, this Hillary PAC is spending a million dollars to apparently argue with people on social media, which is the kind of thing some of us do for free every day, because we’re obsessive jack-wagons unable to let anyone anywhere say something stupid and think they got away with it. But I know that I’m almost certainly wasting my time, whereas this superPAC is boasting about all of this.

    • Clinton’s Digital Task Force Breaks Barriers To Defend Her Donors

      A super political action committee, Correct The Record, which has direct ties with Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton’s campaign, launched a “digital task force” to push out “positive content” and respond to “negative attacks” and “false narratives” spread within “online progressive communities.” The super PAC also plans to use the “task force” to “thank” and show support for superdelegates, who the campaign contends are under attack by supporters of her opponent, Bernie Sanders.

      The announcement comes as the Clinton campaign has taken on a much more strident tone. Jennifer Palmieri, communications director for the Clinton campaign, contended Sanders “has been destructive and is not productive to Democrats.” After Clinton won the New York primary, a senior Clinton aide told POLITICO reporter Glenn Thrush, “We kicked his ass tonight,” and, “I hope this convinces Bernie to tone it down. If not, fuck him.”

    • Bernie Sanders: the Candidate Who Came in From the Cold

      Bernie Sanders lost the moment he became entranced by the prospect that he might win.

    • Fair Game: Why Bernie Should Keep Going

      Predictably, after New York, the establishment is demanding that Bernie bow out.

    • Lying Is the Business of Right-Wing Propagandists

      Author Ari Rabin-Havt explains how modern conservatism is built on an entire industry built to lie.

    • Why Candidates Need the CIA, NSA and Their Mother to Vet Their Veep [Ed: Establishment only?]
    • How to Pick a Veep Candidate, in 5 Steps
    • ‘Historic Day for Democracy’: Voting Rights Restored for over 200,000 Virginians

      Civil rights organizations are applauding Gov. Terry McAuliffe’s order on Friday restoring voting rights to roughly 200,000 Virginians by eliminating what they call a “vestige of our nation’s Jim Crow past.”

      Using his authority allowed by the state’s constitution, the governor’s Restoration of Rights order allows convicted felons who’ve served their time and finished any required supervised release, parole or probation, to be able to vote, as well as be able to run for office, serve on a jury, or be a notary public.

    • In Trumpland, Who’s Conning Whom?
    • Concentrated Media Power is Real Power: We’ve Let Markets Rule the Public’s Airwaves
    • Bernie’s Sleepy Giant
    • After Sanders — a Path to Electoral Revolution
    • Sanders Campaign’s Commitment To Victory Irritates Media, Offends Clinton Campaign

  • Censorship/Free Speech

  • Privacy/Surveillance

  • Civil Rights/Policing

    • Racially Charged Testimony Helped Put Duane Buck on Death Row. Will the Supreme Court Step In?

      THERE IS NO QUESTION that Duane Buck is responsible for the double murder of his ex-girlfriend and her friend in Houston, Texas, on July 30, 1995.

      That morning, Debra Gardner was at home with her two kids and three friends, including Buck’s stepsister, when Buck stormed into the home armed with a shotgun and a rifle. He began shooting: He fired at one of the friends and missed; he shot his stepsister point blank in the chest (she survived); and he fatally wounded another of Gardner’s friends, Kenneth Butler. Gardner fled from the house and Buck followed, killing her in the street as her two children looked on. Buck was arrested at the scene and laughed as he was taken away, according to one law enforcement officer. “The bitch deserved what she got,” Buck allegedly said. In 1997, Buck was tried and convicted of capital murder. He was sentenced to die.

    • What Happened When I Pushed Myself to Interview More Women

      I’m pissed at myself right now.

      I’m a science writer, and I just turned in one of my biggest articles to date. Over the course of several months I interviewed nearly a dozen researchers and scientists around the globe to get the scoop on the pretty cool uses of a new technology.

      But as my editor and I made the finishing touches on the piece, I realized something very important was off about the article.

      I didn’t interview a single woman.

      Therein we find one of journalism’s roles in the silicon divide: journalists simply don’t interview enough female sources. I’ve never found a real study of male versus female sources in science reporting, but in other topics—such as presidential politics—the number of female sources is sometimes as low as 20 percent.

    • Confirmation: the Not-So Independent Women’s Forum Was Born in Defense of Clarence Thomas and the Far Right

      HBO’s new film on demand, “Confirmation,” revisits the painful battle over the appointment of Clarence Thomas to the U.S. Supreme Court in spite of the testimony of Anita Hill that he sexually harassed her.

      Some pundits have attempted to disparage the film, even though it has several scenes that portray Thomas and his wife Ginny as quiet, sympathetic figures and not as the outspoken right-wing political activists that they were and are.

    • The Government Breaks Its Streak of Cutting Off CIA Torture Lawsuits

      While President Obama acted quickly to dismantle the CIA’s torture program when he took office, his administration has consistently shut the courthouse doors to the victims. But a recent government filing in a lawsuit against the two psychologists who designed the torture program — and profited enormously from it — suggests that this policy may finally be changing. For the first time, the government will not try preemptively to shut down accountability for those legally responsible for torture. As a result, in another first, on Friday those responsible for devising the CIA’s torture program will have to answer for their actions in a federal courtroom.

    • The World’s Indigenous Suicide Crises, By The Numbers

      A state of emergency was declared after 11 members of a single, remote community of Aboriginal Canadians tried to take their lives earlier this month. But as many indigenous and political leaders noted, the issue isn’t isolated to Attawapiskat Canada — it isn’t even limited to Canada.

    • Secret Court Takes Another Bite Out of the Fourth Amendment

      Defenders of the NSA’s mass spying have lost an important talking point: that the erosion of our privacy and associational rights is justified given the focus of surveillance efforts on combating terrorism and protecting the national security. That argument has always been dubious for a number of reasons. But after a November 2015 ruling [.pdf] by the secretive Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) was unsealed this week, it’s lost another chunk of its credibility. The ruling confirms that NSA’s warrantless spying has been formally approved for use in general criminal investigations. The national security justification has been entirely blown.

    • Once-Undocumented Wall Street Executive Now Is Helping Others Live the American Dream

      The American dream has become a harder sell in America. But Julissa Arce still believes that everyone in the United States should have the right to work hard and prosper.

    • Judge Grants Torture Victims Their First Chance to Pursue Justice

      A CIVIL SUIT against the architects of the CIA’s torture program, psychologists James Mitchell and Bruce Jessen, will be allowed to proceed, a federal judge in Spokane decided on Friday.

      District Judge Justin Quackenbush denied the pair’s motion to dismiss a lawsuit launched against them on behalf of three victims, one dead, of the brutal tactics they designed.

      “This is amazing, this is unprecedented,” Steven Watt, a senior staff attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union representing the plaintiffs told The Intercept after the hearing. “This is the first step towards accountability.”

      What’s so unprecedented is that this is the first time opponents of the program will have the chance to seek discovery evidence in the case unimpeded by the government. In every other past torture accountability lawsuit, the government has invoked its special state-secrets privileges to purportedly protect national security.

    • Court Rules ACLU Lawsuit Against CIA Torture Psychologists Can Proceed
    • CIA ​torture program: victims’ lawsuit can move forward, judge says
    • Journalist Matthew Keys Faces Prison Time Over a Law You’ve Probably Broken

      Matthew Keys, a 29-year-old California-based journalist, tells Reason that he believes he was aggressively prosecuted over a rather innocuous case of internet vandalism because a federal prosecutor needed to justify the continued existence of his own job, and thus used a broad and literal interpretation of a “antiquated and draconian law” to throw the book at Keys.

      Keys, who was sentenced to two years in prison last week, was indicted in 2013 under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA) for the alleged crime of sharing a password with hackers affiliated with Anonymous — the decentralized network of activist techo-criminals known for creating digital mischief at the expense of governments, corporations and other poweful institutions — who briefly defaced a single page on the Los Angeles Times’ website in 2010.

      Considering Keys faced a maximum of 25 years in prison and $500,000 in fines for his three felony convictions of conspiracy to transmit information to damage a protected computer, transmitting information to damage a protected computer, and attempted transmission of information to damage a protected computer, one could argue his sentence was light. But when you examine the minimal damage done by his alleged crime, any hard time at all seems excessive.

    • Why Internet voting is a terrible idea, explained in small words anyone can understand

      In this 20 minute video, Princeton computer science prof Andrew Appel lays out the problems with Internet-based voting in crisp, nontechnical language that anyone can understand.

    • Court Says Government Needs More Than The Permission Of A Couple Of Underperforming Drug Dogs To Justify Seizure Of $276,000

      The Seventh Circuit Appeals Court has done something few courts do: told law enforcement it can’t have that sweet, sweet “drug” money it lifted from two brothers for no other reason than that it felt there was something shady about its very existence.

      Police responded to a call about a home invasion at the residence of Pedro and Abraham Cruz-Hernandez. While inside the house, officers came across a handgun, a small amount of marijuana and a scale. This apparently prompted the arrival of two drug dogs, considering they’re not usually standard equipment for home invasion investigations.

      When searching the brothers’ van, police found $276,080. So, they took it. Why? Because their dogs said they could.

    • US-Funded Conservation in African Rainforests is Resounding Failure: Report

      Meanwhile, there is consistent neglect or violation of mechanisms in place to safeguard the surrounding communities’ rights to “lands, livelihoods, participation, and consultation as well as fundamental rights and freedoms, including in the context of conservation,” the group found. Communities in several protected areas reported abuse and other human rights violations, particularly by park rangers.

    • FBI warned agents not to share tech secrets with prosecutors

      The FBI guards its high-tech secrets so carefully that officials once warned agents not to share details even with federal prosecutors for fear they might eventually go on to work as defense attorneys, newly disclosed records show.

      A supervisor also cautioned the bureau’s “technically trained agents” in a 2003 memo not to reveal techniques for secretly entering and bugging a suspect’s home to other agents who might be forced to reveal them in court. “We need to protect how our equipment is concealed,” the unnamed supervisor wrote.

  • Intellectual Monopolies

    • At WIPO: All-Women Panel Of Broadcast Journalists Discuss Revolution In Industry

      An international panel of women at the front edge of broadcast journalism discussed the rapid changes in the broadcasting industry and the balance between quality content and the digital “snacking” that drives so much traffic. And Facebook came in for some criticism.

    • Trademarks

      • Ex-Game Maker Atari To Argue To The US PTO That Only It Can Make ‘Haunted House’ Games

        And that fall will now include going in front of the PTO’s Appeal Board to explain why Atari and Atari alone should be allowed to title a game using the phrase “Haunted House.”

      • Cadbury suffers another blow in the battle to protect purple trade marks

        Cadbury is on a seemingly perennial mission both to secure new as well as to protect existing trade mark rights in their signature purple colour for use on their chocolate products, most famously, their Dairy Milk bars. Following an opposition filed by Nestlé to the registration of one of Cadbury’s purple marks in Société Des Produits Nestlé S.A v Cadbury UK Ltd [2013] EWCA Civ 1174, Cadbury adopted a proactive defensive strategy with the aim of preventing revocation of another existing registration for the same purple mark.

    • Copyrights

      • CJEU says that failure to pay fair compensation for private copying is a tort

        Where can one (read: a collective management organisation) sue to obtain missing payments of the fair remuneration due for private copying?

      • UK Govt Pushes 10 Years Jail For Online Pirates

        The UK government has published its conclusions following a consultation into punishments for online copyright infringement offenses. At the earliest opportunity Parliament will be asked to increase custodial sentences up to a maximum of 10 years while ensuring that unwitting pirates are protected.

      • Kim Dotcom Warns Mega Users to Backup Their Files

        Kim Dotcom is warning users of Mega, the cloud storage company he founded in 2013, to back up their files. According to the entrepreneur, Mega is now under the control of Bill Liu, a New Zealand-based Chinese national that is currently fifth on China’s most-wanted criminal list.

04.21.16

Links 21/4/2016: Yvelines School on FOSS, Android N Developer Preview on Phones

Posted in News Roundup at 6:52 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

GNOME bluefish

Contents

GNU/Linux

Free Software/Open Source

  • This open source tool from MIT Data Lab will change how you see big data

    In the early days of big data, “everyone scrambled to collect and store as much data as they could,” said Datawheel co-founder Dave Landry. “In most cases, they didn’t develop the tools needed to better understand that data. That’s the challenge we are trying to tackle.”

    The rise of the mobile web, IoT, and APIs and modern databases paved the way for big data innovations. Everything in the world can be quantified, and those who scraped and logged early often benefitted from first-mover advantage. By making information easier to access and visualize, Landry said, big data can help businesses make faster and more intelligent decisions.

  • Allura Joins Numerous Projects Advancing at Apache

    The Apache Software Foundation, which incubates more than 350 open source projects and initiatives, has squarely turned its focus to Big Data and developer-focused tools in recent months. The organization has recently elevated a number of incubated projects o Top-Level Status, which helps them get both advanced stewardship and certainly far more contributions.

  • DHS Claims Open Source Software Is Like Giving The Mafia A Copy Of FBI Code; Hastily Walks Back Statement

    Late last week, the DHS’s Chief Information Officer Luke McCormack (or someone from his office) posted comments to GitHub arguing against the proposed policy of making 20% of its code (whatever that means) open source in the interest of better sharing between agencies. The rationale is that shared code could save tax dollars by preventing paying developers to perform redundant work. The DHS felt strongly about this and said as much using an Excel-based parade of horrors.

  • Pieter Hintjens: A Living Obituary

    I first came across Pieter Hintjens 20 years ago, in 1996. He posted to a UseNet group I followed (comp.lang.perl.announce; later announcement), about a tool he had created — Libero — which could translate state machine descriptions into runnable code, in multiple languages.

    Libero caught my attention because I was in the middle of finishing a Computer Science degree with a focus on computational theory. So I built it for OS/2, which I was using at the time, and sent Pieter email. He responded by asking if I would be interested in porting SFL, the iMatix Standard Function Library, to OS/2. By the end of 1996 and the turn of 1997 we were exchanging emails about porting SFL to OS/2.

  • Forking impressive, devs go nuts for Hazelcast

    Operational in-memory computing company Hazelcast — known for its open source In-Memory Data Grid (IMDG) — has shared its community growth numbers from the Github repository.

  • Web Browsers

    • Chrome

      • Chromium Bug Tracker Now Open Source

        Chromium is Google’s open source browser, which shares much of its core browser code with Chrome, Google’s proprietary product. Now Monorail, the Chromium bug tracker, has been made open source.

  • SaaS/Back End

    • How to become an advanced contributor to OpenStack

      At the OpenStack Summit taking place this month in Austin, Texas, Ildikó aims to do just that. In her talk, How to Become an Advanced Contributor, she will guide attendees through the steps of navigating the community, including some of the principles, best practices and unwritten rules of contributing to OpenStack.

      We caught up with Ildikó before her talk to learn a little bit more about some of the barriers to becoming an effective contributor and how to overcome them.

  • Databases

  • Education

    • Yvelines school completes switch to free software

      The primary school in Saint Léger en Yvelines (France) has nearly completely switched to using free software, reports the village’s deputy mayor Olivier Guillard. “Do not underestimate the task”, he advises others on the forum of Etalab, France’s open government portal, “and most of all, persist.”

    • Free The Schools!

      They still keep a few machines with TOOS for compatibility and whiteboards. My advice? Stick with projectors and Gromit and the latest version of LibreOffice. I would use Debian rather than Mint. Further, to reduce the capital costs and maintenance, use ARMed thin clients and a GNU/Linux terminal server.

  • Healthcare

    • Flexibase, the platform behind Code4Health, goes open source

      Flexibase, the building blocks behind NHS’s Code4Health programme, is now publicly available under the Open Source license, it was announced on Thursday morning.

      It can be downloaded via Github, the public code repository, and will also soon be available on Docker hub.

  • Funding

    • Sysdig raises $15M for its open-source Docker monitoring tool

      Since Docker is still relatively new to the enterprise, adopters have fewer monitoring tools to choose from than an organization using traditional virtualization software. But the gap is closing rapidly thanks to providers like Sysdig Inc., which today announced the completion of a $15 million funding round led by Accel Partners and Bain Capital Ventures.

  • BSD

    • BSD at LinuxFest Northwest

      This weekend, the Grand Old Man (or Woman — take your pick) of Linux expos in North America takes place in the upper left corner of the United States.

      For over a decade and a half, LinuxFest Northwest has flown the flag literally in Microsoft’s backyard, an annual open source event held the last weekend in April in Bellingham, Wash. LFNW features presentations and exhibits on various free and open source topics, as well as Linux distributions and applications. It usually has something for everyone from the novice to the professional.

      It has a special place in my heart as well. While I think that SCALE is the best show on the continent for obvious reasons (the SCALE Publicity Team is solely responsible, he says in jest), LFNW is my favorite show to attend, not only because of the history but because of the community vibe the show gives off at an expo that has refused to give in to the creeping corporatism to which other shows have succumbed.

  • Public Services/Government

    • The US Government and Open-Source Software

      As part of the “Second Open Government National Action Plan”, the federal government is planning to share the source code behind many of its software projects.

      To begin with, the plans call for federal agencies to share code with each other. This will help reduce development costs when government departments each work on the same functionality independently. Solving the same problem twice (or more often) is expensive and a waste of taxpayer’s money.

  • Openness/Sharing/Collaboration

    • ‘Follow My Vote’ Launches Kickstarter Campaign for Revolutionizing Open-source Blockchain Voting Software

    • Open Hardware/Modding

      • Acer Joins Open Source Virtual Reality (OSVR) Platform

        Back in January, gaming peripheral and PC company Razer made a splash by announcing the birth of the Open Source Virtual Reality initiative, OSVR for short, at CES. The initiative, set to include a virtual reality peripheral as the hardware development kit, will boast compatibility with most existing computer systems rather than making users meet the beefy requirements of the HTC Vive or the Oculus Rift. The framework is, of course, open-source and can be used by any developer. Partners that sign on early, however, will play a key part in shaping the platform and helping it find its place in the mainstream VR space in the near future. According to a press release from Razer regarding OSVR, the system currently has over 350 partners, of whom the newest is computer and smartphone manufacturer Acer.

      • Acer puts its bets on open-source VR, touts support for Razer’s OSVR in latest gaming PCs

        On Thursday morning, Acer held its 2016 Global Press Conference in New York City, revealing a number of new products that should get your mouth watering. One of the announcements made during the event is that Acer plans to use technology in devices and computers that support the Open Source Virtual Reality (OSVR) platform. The latter solutions will actually be packed with Nvidia’s GeForce GTX 980 and Titan graphics processors, making them compatible with today’s VR products on the market.

  • Programming/Development

Leftovers

  • A civil military: the global future

    A new class of naval vessels customised for emergency aid could hold vital lessons for the world, starting with Britain.

  • Science

    • Almost Nothing About the ‘Apple Harvests Gold From iPhones’ Story Is True

      You may have seen a viral headline floating around over the last few days: Apple recycled $40 million worth of gold last year, which was extracted from iPhones. Almost none of what was reported is true.

      The story was everywhere, from major mainstream outlets like CNN, Fox News, and Huffington Post to tech-focused and normally very good sites such as MacRumors, Gizmodo, Quartz, and The Verge. I’ve never come across a story that has been so uniformly misreported—hundreds of outlets covered Apple’s “Environmental Responsibility Report,” and not one article I read came remotely close to getting the story right.

    • The Dark Ages Were Caused By Two Enormous Volcanic Eruptions

      In 536 CE, the Byzantine historian Procopius wrote of a thick fog that suffocated the sun and plunged all of the Mediterranean into a year of cold and darkness. The phenomenon would signal the start of one of the greatest disease pandemics in history: the Plague of Justinian. In a single year, the outbreak killed an estimated 25 million citizens of the empire. It would be another two centuries until the plague finally succumbed, but by then, 50 million people had died in its wake.

      “And it came about during this year that a most dread portent took place. For the sun gave forth its light without brightness, like the moon, during this whole year, and it seemed exceedingly like the sun in eclipse, for the beams it shed were not clear nor such as it is accustomed to shed,” wrote Procopius. “And from the time when this thing happened men were free neither from war nor pestilence nor any other thing leading to death. And it was the time when Justinian was in the tenth year of his reign.”

    • A tool to help you find your next STEM role model

      STEMM Role Models is a website that helps connect event organizers with presenters from underrepresented groups. Diversity is important to me, so the project caught my eye.

      I reached out to project lead Kirstie Whitaker, a postdoctoral scientist at the University of Cambridge, to learn more. She graciously agreed to an interview, and what follows is a fascinating look at the STEMM Role Models project and its implications for open science, open source, and the future of humanity.

    • Trampling Science to Boost Nuclear Power

      When the Washington Post and New York Times are making the same corporate-friendly point, it’s safe to assume that some PR agency somewhere is earning its substantial fees.

      In this case, the subject is the need for nuclear power—and, for the Post editorial board (4/18/16), for fracking as well. Standing in the way of this in the Post’s version is favorite target Bernie Sanders, while the Times business columnist Eduardo Porter (4/19/16) blames the “scientific phobias and taboos” of “progressive environmentalists.”

  • Health/Nutrition

    • Thousands of Americans Are Hungry Because of Post-Prison Release Laws

      Food stamps are for hungry people, which we should not have in America. There are of course cheaters, just like there are wealthy people who cheat on their taxes. The tax cheats won’t starve to death, or see their children go hungry, but released drug felons in many states will.

      It used to be that when you served your time for a crime, your “debt to society” was considered paid, and you were ready to re-enter society. But for many released drug felons, the punishment continues long after they leave jail.

    • The Death Gap

      But here’s what we haven’t known: The life-expectancy gap between rich and poor in the United States is actually accelerating.

  • Security

    • Thursday’s security updates
    • libressl – more vague promises

      There hasn’t been a lot of noise coming out of the LibreSSL camp recently. Mostly there’s not much to report, so any talks or presentations will recover a lot of the same material. But it’s an election year, and in that spirit, we can look back at some promises previously made and hopefully make a few new ones.

    • My OpenWrt Tor configuration

      In my previous article I shared my thoughts on running Tor on the router. I described an ideal Tor router configuration and argued that having Tor on the router benefits both security and usability.

      This article is about that ideal Tor router configuration. How did I configure my router, and why did I choose the configuration? The interesting part is that it really is “just configuration”. No programming involved. Even more interesting, it’s easy too!

  • Defence/Aggression

    • UK Killing Civilians for Oil Again in the King Salman Canal Project

      The UK government insists on continuing the massive supply – £2.8 billion since the start of the attack – of high tech weapons for Saudi Arabia to use against civilians in Yemen, despite opposition from the EU Parliament and every major human rights group. Furthermore UK special forces are operating inside Yemen in support of the onslaught. Thousands of civilians have died as a result, including many children.

      Given this is not exactly popular in the UK, and that after the law takes its tortuous course there will very probably be embarrassment for the government down the line, the prize which Cameron perceives must be great. Of course, western elite support for the appalling Saudi regime is a given, because Saudi cash pumps primarily into banking, armaments and high end property, the three areas most dear to the interests of the 1%.

    • Italian student’s killing pulls Egyptian family into web of deaths, dead ends

      It was still dark when Rasha Tarek saw her husband Salah for the last time.
      Salah woke up at dawn on March 24 to go to an affluent neighborhood of the Egyptian capital for a painting job, his wife told CNN.
      He was due to travel to Upper Egypt after that.
      But Tarek suspected that her husband was being unfaithful to her, so she sent her brother, father and a family friend to tag along.
      She spoke with her husband while he and the others were en route to their destination. But by 8 a.m. he stopped answering her calls. She tried the others but was unsuccessful in reaching them.

      It took almost an hour before someone answered her husband’s phone.

    • A New Anti-Assad Propaganda Offensive

      Now that Syria’s “cessation of hostilities” appears to be crumbling and rebel forces are gearing up for a fresh offensive, the mighty U.S. propaganda machine is once again up and running.

      A case in point is “The Assad Files,” an 11,000-word article in last week’s New Yorker that is as willfully misrepresentative as anything published about Syria in the last five years or so, which is saying a great deal.

    • Hillary Clinton Really Loves Military Intervention

      If anything worries me about Hillary Clinton, this is it. It’s not so much that she’s more hawkish than me, it’s the fact that events of the past 15 years don’t seem to have affected her views at all. How is that possible? And yet, our failures in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Yemen, Syria and elsewhere apparently haven’t given her the slightest pause about the effectiveness of military force in the Middle East. Quite the opposite: the sense I get from Landler’s piece is that she continues to think all of these engagements would have turned out better if only we’d used more military power. I find it hard to understand how an intelligent, well-briefed person could continue to believe this, and that in turn makes me wonder just exactly what motivates Hillary’s worldview.

    • Clinton And Sanders Speak Differently On Palestine, Think Differently On Syria

      The same cannot be said, however, of the candidates’ policies on Syria. During the debate, Clinton spoke of her recommendation to the Obama administration to set up a safe zone in Syria. Sanders countered by recalling the ghosts of Iraq and Libya, where he said regime change has not improved conditions on the ground.

    • Hillary Clinton “goysplains” to Bernie Sanders in Passover article, accusing him of betraying his people by criticizing Israel

      With hawkish right-wing rhetoric, Clinton steadfastly defended the Israeli government. She conflated the Jewish religion with the state of Israel and condemned critics of the government as anti-Semitic.

    • Clinton Campaign Hints at Potential Woman Running Mate, Fueling Clinton/Warren Speculation

      A top official in the Hillary Clinton campaign has said that the shortlist of potential running mates for Clinton, should she secure the nomination, includes a woman, according to the Boston Globe. Naturally, this has fueled speculation about a possible Hillary Cinton/Elizabeth Warren ticket.

  • Environment/Energy/Wildlife/Nature

    • What is Earth Day 2016? Everything you need to know about the environmental event

      With just two days to go until Earth Day 2016, it’s the perfect time to start thinking about the planet we live on – and how to save it.

      Every year, more than one billion people across the world mark the event by showing support for environmental protection.

      Festivals, rallies and outdoor events are held in nearly 200 countries – often, with the support of A-list celebrities and political leaders.

      But why do we celebrate Earth Day? And how is it observed by people globally?

    • EU dropped climate policies after BP threat of oil industry ‘exodus’

      The EU abandoned or weakened key proposals for new environmental protections after receiving a letter from a top BP executive which warned of an exodus of the oil industry from Europe if the proposals went ahead.

      In the 10-page letter, the company predicted in 2013 that a mass industry flight would result if laws to regulate tar sands, cut power plant pollution and accelerate the uptake of renewable energy were passed, because of the extra costs and red tape they allegedly entailed.

      The measures “threaten to drive energy-intensive industries, such as refining and petrochemicals, to relocate outside the EU with a correspondingly detrimental impact on security of supply, jobs [and] growth,” said the letter, which was obtained by the Guardian under access to documents laws.

    • Climate: Africa’s Human Existence Is at Severe Risk

      “Africa’s human existence and development is under threat from the adverse impacts of climate change – its population, ecosystems and unique biodiversity will all be the major victims of global climate change.”

      This is how clear the Nairobi-based United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) is when it comes to assessing the negative impact of climate change on this continent of 54 countries with a combined population of over 1,200 billion [1.2 billion] inhabitants. “No continent will be struck as severely by the impacts of climate change as Africa.”

      Other international organisations are similarly trenchant. For instance, the World Bank, basing on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reports, confirms that Africa is becoming the most exposed region in the world to the impacts of climate change.

    • Volkswagen, U.S. Reach Deal in ‘Dieselgate’ Scandal

      CBS News adds that VW potentially avoids a trial thanks to this agreement, and that Breyer has set June 21 as the deadline for additional details to be worked out.

      But it may still be too early for environmental advocates to break out the champagne. “[I]t’s worth noting that further delay means that these polluting cars remain on the road—emitting up to 40 times the allowable level of pollution—for even longer,” said Mike Litt, consumer program advocate for the U.S. Public Interest Research Group Education Fund, which launched a “Make VW Pay” campaign following the Dieselgate scandal.

  • Finance

    • Latest Version Of Anti-TPP, RCEP, Shows That Its Intellectual Property Provisions Are Even Worse

      Last summer, we wrote a bit about the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP), a trade agreement that is being worked on by a bunch of Asian countries, and which is often described as an “anti-TPP” or, at the very least, a competitor to the TPP. It’s being driven by China and India — two countries who were not in the TPP process. Given how concerned we were with the TPP, we had hoped, at the very least, that RCEP would be better on things like intellectual property. Unfortunately, some early leaks suggested it was even worse. And while the TPP is still grinding through the ratification process in various countries, RCEP has continued to move forward, and the bad ideas have stuck around.

    • We Can’t Save the Economy Unless We Fix Our Debt Addiction

      Our economy has increasingly been financialized, and the result is a sluggish economy and stagnant wages. We need to decide whether to stop the cycle and save the economy at large, or to stay in thrall to our banks and bondholders by leaving the debt hangover from 2008 intact. Without a debt writedown the economy will continue to languish in debt deflation, and continue to polarize between creditors and debtors. This debt dynamic is in fact themajor explanation for why the U.S. and European economies are polarizing, not converging.

  • Censorship/Free Speech

  • Privacy/Surveillance

  • Civil Rights/Policing

    • Enough with the Hillary cult: Her admirers ignore reality, dream of worshipping a queen

      What is it with the Hillary cult?

      As a lifelong Democrat who will be enthusiastically voting for Bernie Sanders in next week’s Pennsylvania primary, I have trouble understanding the fuzzy rosy filter through which Hillary fans see their champion. So much must be overlooked or discounted—from Hillary’s compulsive money-lust and her brazen indifference to normal rules to her conspiratorial use of shadowy surrogates and her sociopathic shape-shifting in policy positions for momentary expedience.

      Hillary’s breathtaking lack of concrete achievements or even minimal initiatives over her long public career doesn’t faze her admirers a whit. They have a religious conviction of her essential goodness and blame her blank track record on diabolical sexist obstructionists. When at last week’s debate Hillary crassly blamed President Obama for the disastrous Libyan incursion that she had pushed him into, her acolytes hardly noticed. They don’t give a damn about international affairs—all that matters is transgender bathrooms and instant access to abortion.

    • Female Hackers Still Face Harassment at Conferences

      Security and hacking conferences provide platforms for cutting edge research into computer vulnerabilities, exploitable systems, and new defensive measures. These often vast events also let researchers and hackers rub shoulders with their friends and peers, network, and blow off steam.

      But a lingering problem remains for some women at a number of conferences: harassment and prejudice.

      In a recent example, women were targeted at an after-party of internet and human rights conference Rightscon, which took place between March 30 and April 1 in San Francisco.

    • Why aren’t more women in the pot business?

      As thousands of people light up to celebrate 420 on Wednesday, entrepreneur Jazmin Hupp will celebrate something else — a business milestone.

      Three years ago, at a 420 celebration in Colorado, Hupp decided to leave the tech industry to follow her passion and become a cannabis entrepreneur. Hailing from Ashland, Ore., Hupp is the daughter of a jazz musician and an artist (“hippies,” she said) and grew up in a “cannabis-friendly” environment. To rebel, Hupp decided to move to New York and pursue business opportunities.

      “Because I wanted to reject what my parents wanted for me, I became an entrepreneur, I became business-focused, I wanted to get those six figures,” she said.

    • First non-Muslim lashed for breaking Sharia law in Indonesian province

      For her crime, violating the tenets of a faith she does not observe, the courts offered two punishments.

      Option one: time in a grim jailhouse. Option two: nearly 30 lashes with a cane wielded by a anonymous man, hooded and clad in black robes, as her neighbors watched.

      She chose the latter.

      Such was the fate of Remita Sinaga, 60, a rare Christian living in Aceh, one of the most stridently Islamic corners of Asia. Her crime: selling bottles of booze on the sly, an illicit act under Aceh’s increasingly hardline enforcement of Sharia, or Islamic law.

    • Of Course Congress Is Clueless About Tech—It Killed Its Tutor

      When the draft version of a federal encryption bill got leaked this month, the verdict in the tech community was unanimous. Critics called it ludicrous and technically illiterate—and these were the kinder assessments of the “Compliance with Court Orders Act of 2016,” proposed legislation authored by the offices of Senators Diane Feinstein and Richard Burr.

      The encryption issue is complex and the stakes are high, as evidenced by the recent battle between Apple and the FBI. Many other technology issues that the country is grappling with these days are just as complex, controversial, and critical—witness the debates over law enforcement’s use of stingrays to track mobile phones or the growing concerns around drones, self-driving cars, and 3-D printing. Yet decisions about these technical issues are being handled by luddite lawmakers who sometimes boast about not owning a cell phone or never having sent an email.

    • Bernie Sanders Is Not Going to Be President of the United States—He Should Keep Running Anyway
    • Do You Think the New York Election Controversy Was Intentional?

      One day before the New York presidential primary, a class-action lawsuit was filed against the state’s Board of Elections.

      Hundreds of New Yorkers signed onto the lawsuit, alleging that their party preferences were changed without their knowledge.

      Then on Tuesday, the day of the primary, numerous reports surfaced about “broken machines and belated polling” throughout Brooklyn and Queens.

    • These Guys Are Total F**k-Ups: More Proof That the Most Powerful Republicans in America Are Nothing but Hype

      The media has continued its bizarre insistence that the GOP primary has been settled after the completely expected Donald Trump rout in New York on Tuesday,and are seemingly convinced this non-existent reset had something to do with the Trump makeover that is likewise non-existent.

    • The Democracy Movement Is Here To Stay

      SuperPACs and billionaires are bankrolling our elections, and as a result, most Americans have virtually no influence in our political system—a damning state of affairs for the world’s oldest surviving democracy.

    • An Election Stuck in the Mud

      The decline in the level of discourse in this year’s election cycle has been a disgrace, with Democrats behaving better than Republicans — one egregious GOP candidate, of course, in particular. But even supporters of the Sanders and Clinton campaigns have stooped to disingenuous arguments, gratuitous sniping and ad hominem attacks. The trolls and zealots have been out in force with their name-calling and sometimes threats of physical violence and none of it’s helping anyone.

    • No Justice at Guantánamo

      In January 2002, President George W. Bush opened the Guantánamo Bay Detention facility. It was to hold, in Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld’s phrase, the “worst of the worst” in the War on Terror. Over time, its population rose to nearly 800 prisoners from 44 countries, some captured in Afghanistan, some traded for bounty payments by vindictive neighbors or hostile tribesmen, and some seized by CIA operatives in countries far from Taliban territory. The prison then held more al-Qaeda and Taliban followers than leaders, but many prisoners were neither: they had simply been in the wrong place at the wrong time. Recognizing this, within a few years the Bush administration sent more than 500 of the detainees back to their countries of origin or to other countries willing to accept them.

    • U.S. Denies Entry To Syrian Aid Worker Who Came To Receive Humanitarian Award

      One might think that need not apply, however, to Raed Saleh, the head of Syria’s Civil Defense Units, a USAID-funded project also known as the White Helmets. After flying from Istanbul to Dulles Airport outside of Washington, D.C. on Tuesday, the 33-year-old Saleh was told his visa was canceled. He was scheduled to receive a humanitarian award from InterAction, a D.C.-based NGO.

  • Intellectual Monopolies

    • IP Should Serve More Actors In New Ways, Keynote Speaker At WIPO Says

      The much-advertised World Intellectual Property Organization conference on the digital content market kicked off this morning with a speaker calling for the broadening of intellectual property rights income as a way forward for a sustainable economic ecosystem and reducing inequalities. The WIPO director general meanwhile said digital technology has brought new possibilities and reduced prices but also carries its load of regulatory challenges.

    • Copyrights

      • Techdirt Reading List: Moral Panics And The Copyright Wars

        Congress appears to be gearing up to really look at copyright reform again, and so it probably shouldn’t be a huge surprise that we’re starting to see a ramp up of crazy hyperbole about how horrible infringing is, how it’s destroying millions of jobs and billions in revenue. These claims seem to get even more ridiculous whenever legislation is on the line. I may do a post about some of the more recent whining about all of this, but for this week’s reading list post, I thought it might be good to point people to Bill Patry’s excellent Moral Panics and the Copyright Wars. Patry has been involved in the copyright world for decades, working on copyright issues in Congress and with the Copyright Office — and also in private practice as a lawyer. He’s written a massive treatise on copyright law called Patry on Copyright as well as a treatise focusing just on fair use — both of which are frequently cited in legal decisions. He now works for Google — which causes some people to try to dismiss what he says as biased. But with his background, knowledge and experience, you’d be foolish to do so.

      • News Corp. Claims Google News Is An Antitrust Violation In Europe

        That News Corp hates Google is well known. The company’s CEO, Robert Thomson, has a history of barely comprehensible anti-Google rants, based on a confused (i.e. wrong) understanding of how the internet works. Thomson keeps claiming that Google is “stealing” News Corp content by linking people to it and sending the company traffic.

        [...]

        Of course, that’s because we know what the real complaint here is: News Corp wants Google to give it money. Whatever you might think of the EU’s antitrust case against Google in other areas, this argument seems particularly ridiculous and just seems like Thomson and Rupert Murdoch’s sour grapes over the fact that Google is a successful company.

      • Public Domain Citation Book, Baby Blue, Renamed To Indigo Book, Following Harvard Law Review Threats

        We’ve been covering the ridiculous saga of the Harvard Law Review Association and its pricey legal threats to Carl Malamud for daring to publish a public domain set of legal citations. As a bit of background, legal citations tend to follow a standard found in the Bluebook, which is put out by the Harvard Law Review Association (which, confusingly, is actually made up of four top law schools). Many have criticized the Bluebook heavily, including appeals court judge Richard Posner who has ripped into the Bluebook, and suggested a much simpler form of legal citations, leading (in part) to something called the Maroonbook, from the University of Chicago Law Review. And, yet, the Bluebook has still mostly remained atop the heap, generating a ton of money for the law schools that back it. A few years ago, the Bluebook ran into some intellectual property issues, when Professor Frank Bennett sought to build support for the Bluebook into his open source citation tool, Zotero, and the Harvard Law Review Association obnoxiously said no, claiming copyright over citations (which seems… questionable).

Links 21/4/2016: KDE Applications 16.04, New *buntu LTS Releases

Posted in News Roundup at 7:38 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

GNOME bluefish

Contents

GNU/Linux

Free Software/Open Source

  • How British Gas Connected Home is moving beyond Hive and managing an “explosion” of IoT data using an open-source Apache stack

    Connected Home, the IoT offshoot of British Gas, knew it wanted an open source solution for its vastly growing pool of data and connected devices, now its looking at how to leverage this technology for its customers

    For anyone that watches television or listens to the radio in the UK, Hive is the connected thermostat device British Gas advertises with a catchy jingle which: “Controls your heating, from your phone.”

    What they won’t be aware of is the explosion of data a connected device like Hive drives back to its parent company, Connected Home, a business unit launched by British Gas in 2012 to operate along lean, start-up principles.

  • Small Business Project Management Software: A Look at ProjectLibre

    Change happens in every business. Whether it’s a move to a new office, a new product launch, or a total restructuring, careful planning is essential to execute changes smoothly. But why use project management software?

    While it’s possible to manage a small project with an Excel worksheet, small business project management software is a smarter choice. It helps you identify all the required tasks, allocate those tasks to the right people, and make sure your people complete those tasks on time.

  • Modeling Avengers: Open Source Technology Mix for Saving the World

    Cedric Brun is the CTO of Obeo, leads the EcoreTools and Amalgamation components, maintains the Modeling Package, and is a committer on Sirius, Acceleo, Mylyn. Benoit Combemale is an associate professor at the University of Rennes, and is a research computer scientist at IRISA and INRIA. He is co-author of two books, and a member of the ACM and the IEEE.

  • Open Source Blockchain Effort for the Enterprise

    The Hyperledger Project today is also announcing ten new companies are joining the effort and investing in the future of an open blockchain ledger: Blockstream, Bloq, eVue Digital Labs, Gem, itBit, Milligan Partners, Montran Labs, Ribbit.me, Tequa Creek Holdings and Thomson Reuters.

  • Events

    • First Brno Linux Desktop Meetup

      The desktop engineering team in the Red Hat office in Brno is quite large, we’ve got over 20 developers working on various desktop projects here, but there is no active community outside Red Hat. We’re also approached by students who are interested and would like to get started, but don’t know where and we’d like to have an event to which we can invite them, talk to them about it more in detail, and help them with things beginners struggle with.

    • ZeMarmot and GIMP at GNOME.Asia!

      While Libre Graphics Meeting 2016 barely ended, we had to say Goodbye to London. But this is not over for us since we are leaving directly to India for GNOME.Asia Summit 2016. We will be presenting both ZeMarmot, our animation film project made with Free Software, under Libre Art licenses, and the software GIMP (in particular the work in progress, not current releases), as part of the team. See the » schedule « for accurate dates and times.

    • Want more inclusivity at your conference? Add childcare.

      Providing conference childcare isn’t difficult or expensive, and it makes a huge difference for parents of young children who might want to come. If your community wants to (visibly!) support work-life balance and family obligations — which, by the way, still disproportionately impact women — I urge you to look into providing event childcare. I don’t have kids myself — but a lot of my friends do, and someday I might. I’ve seen too many talented colleagues silently drop out of the conference scene and fade out of the community because they needed to choose between logistics for the family they loved and logistics for the work they loved — and there are simple things we can do to make it easier for them to stay.

    • Roaming Teach-in for Digital Freedom (Washington, DC)
    • #LGM16

      Today I want to tell you about a conference that I really wanted to go to for 2 reasons: 1 – it was about open source graphics, 2 – it was in London =) You probably guessed it – it’s Libre Graphics Meeting.

  • SaaS/Back End

  • Healthcare

    • Slovenia modelling new eHealth services

      To build the data model, the researchers used OpenEHR – publicly developed specifications for health information systems and building clinical models. The tool is user-friendly for both medical experts and IT specialists, says Rant. “OpenEHR helps both groups to understand one another, improving collaboration.”

  • Pseudo-Open Source (Openwashing)

  • Funding

  • FSF/FSFE/GNU/SFLC

  • Public Services/Government

    • Finland organises hackathon on government budget

      “We want to inspire a broad range of experts, including economists, social scientists, behavioural scientists, designers, and of course software developers”, the ministry explains in its introduction. “We believe that the budget needs to be looked at in many different ways, and that combining different kinds of knowledge and experience, produce the best results.”

    • Study: Cross-border eGov services low on agenda

      Cross-border eGovernment services score low on national policy agendas, according to a study on cross-border cooperation between the Nordic countries. Well-organised, national eID infrastructures are not interconnected, the report says.

  • Openness/Sharing/Collaboration

    • Ukrainian Parliament to become more open

      Launched in 2012, the Declaration on Parliamentary Openness is a set of shared principles “on the openness, transparency and accessibility of parliaments supported by more than 140 organizations from over 75 countries”, said OpeningParliament.org, the project’s platform. OpeningParliament.org defines itself as “a call to national parliaments, and sub-national and transnational legislative bodies, by civil society parliamentary monitoring organizations (PMOs) for an increased commitment to openness and to citizen engagement in parliamentary work”.

    • Open Data

      • A Cycling Map

        For a couple of years now, I have been mapping the rural roads around here in OpenStreetMap. This has been an interesting process.

    • Open Hardware/Modding

  • Programming/Development

    • All Star Code Summer Intensive FAQ

      The All Star Code initiative prepares qualified young men of color for jobs in the tech industry by providing mentorship, industry exposure, and intensive training in computer science. This year’s All Star Code Summer Intensive program runs from July 11 to August 19. Here, All Star Code answers our questions about the program and tells us how to get involved.

    • Q&A: Gene Kim explains the joy of devops

      Devops is one of those volatile topics that mixes human behavior patterns with technology, often yielding dramatic increases in productive output — that is, more high-quality software at a much faster pace. It’s a fascinating area. But is devops fascinating enough for a novel?

    • Decoding DevOps, Docker, and Git

      Even as accepted standards on how to do it “right” remain elusive, DevOps is a crucial element of modern IT. Corey Quinn, director of DevOps at FutureAdvisor, has immense experience in operations and DevOps. I had an opportunity to talk to him ahead of his two talks at LinuxFest Northwest 2016: Terrible ideas in Git and Docker must die: Heresy in the church of Docker.

  • Standards/Consortia

Leftovers

  • The Strange Case of Tony Blair, Gordon Brown and the McCanns

    This again is absolutely not the norm. On a daily basis more British citizens have contact with foreign authorities than the total staff of the FCO. It would be simply impossible to give that level of support to everybody. Plus, against jingoistic presumption, a great many Brits who have contact with foreign police are actually criminals.

  • ‘Accuracy is for snake-oil pussies’: Vote Leave’s campaign director defies MPs

    “Can you go back to your seat please?” asked Andrew Tyrie, chair of the Treasury select committee as Dominic Cummings hovered menacingly over his shoulder.

    Cummings, Vote Leave’s campaign director, had no intention of going anywhere. Going back to his seat would be a victory for the cesspit of Brussels. Instead he stood over Tyrie, pointing at his phone.

    “I’ve got another meeting at four, so I’ll have to be out of here before that,” Cummings insisted, sticking it to the Man.

    “I don’t think you’ve got the hang of these proceedings,” Tyrie replied evenly. “We ask the questions and you stay and answer them.”

  • Science

    • Machine Learning and AI Coming Soon to Networking

      Machine learning and artificial intelligence have gained notoriety among the general public through applications such as Siri, Alexa or Google Now. But, beyond consumer applications, these new hot areas of innovation are bringing unbelievable benefits to the different components of IT infrastructure that enable it, said

      David Meyer, Chairman of the Board at OpenDaylight, a Collaborative Project at The Linux Foundation, in his presentation at the DevOps Networking Forum last month.

    • SpaceX Falcon booster comes full circle to Cape Canaveral after landing at sea

      Eleven days after a thrilling landing at sea, SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket booster is coming back to the company’s space-age garage in Florida, in preparation for engine tests and potentially the first-ever reuse of its rocket hardware.

  • Health/Nutrition

    • 12 reasons why tea is better than coffee
    • Criminal Charges Filed in the Poisoning of Flint’s Water Supply

      Three Michigan state and local officials have been criminally charged for their involvement in the Flint water contamination crisis. The water crisis began when Flint’s unelected emergency manager, appointed by Governor Rick Snyder, switched the source of the city’s drinking water from the Detroit system to the corrosive Flint River. The water corroded Flint’s aging pipes, causing poisonous levels of lead to leach into the drinking water.

    • Antibiotics Have Given Us Untreatable Gonorrhea

      Gonorrhea is like an extremely persistent garden weed. As far as sexually transmitted diseases go, it’s relatively easy to get and requires a multipronged offensive to annihilate. And even if you’ve thwarted it once already, you’re still left vulnerable to reinfection.

      So far, doctors have been pretty damn good at treating the disease, which is partially why England’s public health agency has just sounded the alarm over a rise in “super-gonorrhea” among Brits.

    • Prescription meds get trapped in disturbing pee-to-food-to-pee loop

      If you love something, set it free… so the old adage goes. Well, if the things you love are pharmaceuticals, then you’re in luck. Through vegetables and fruits, the drugs that we flush down the drain are returning to us—though we’ll ultimately pee them out again. (Love is complicated, after all)

  • Security

    • Tuesday’s security updates
    • Security advisories for Wednesday
    • Red Hat Product Security Risk Report: 2015

      This report takes a look at the state of security risk for Red Hat products for calendar year 2015. We look at key metrics, specific vulnerabilities, and the most common ways users of Red Hat products were affected by security issues.

      Our methodology is to look at how many vulnerabilities we addressed and their severity, then look at which issues were of meaningful risk, and which were exploited. All of the data used to create this report is available from public data maintained by Red Hat Product Security.

    • April security sensationalism and FUD

      If you happen to follow the security scene, you must have noticed a lot of buzz around various security issues discovered this month. Namely, a critical vulnerability in the Microsoft Graphics Component, as outlined in the MS16-039 bulletin, stories and rumors around something called Badlock bug, and risks associated using Firefox add-ons. All well and good, except it’s nothing more than clickbait hype nonsense.

      Reading the articles fueled my anger to such heights that I had to wait a day or two before writing this piece. Otherwise, it would have just been venom and expletives. But it is important to express myself and protect the Internet users from the torrent of pointless, amateurish, sensationalist wanna-be hackerish security diarrhea that has been produced this month. Follow me.

    • DRAM bitflipping exploits that hijack computers just got easier
    • PacketFence v6.0 released

      The Inverse team is pleased to announce the immediate availability of PacketFence 6.0. This is a major release with new features, enhancements and important bug fixes. This release is considered ready for production use and upgrading from previous versions is strongly advised.

    • [Old] The Athens Affair

      How some extremely smart hackers pulled off the most audacious cell-network break-in ever

    • Write opinionated workarounds

      A few years ago, I decided that I should aim for my code to be as portable as possible. This generally meant targeting POSIX; in some cases I required slightly more, e.g., “POSIX with OpenSSL installed and cryptographic entropy available from /dev/urandom”. This dedication made me rather unusual among software developers; grepping the source code for the software I have installed on my laptop, I cannot find any other examples of code with strictly POSIX compliant Makefiles, for example. (I did find one other Makefile which claimed to be POSIX-compatible; but in actual fact it used a GNU extension.) As far as I was concerned, strict POSIX compliance meant never having to say you’re sorry for portability problems; if someone ran into problems with my standard-compliant code, well, they could fix their broken operating system.

  • Defence/Aggression

    • Media Pretend Not To Know About British Boots on the Ground in Libya

      Yesterday Philip Hammond, UK foreign secretary, visited a naval base in Tripoli to be shown docking facilities for British military vessels. The authoritative Jane’s Defence Weekly published that the 150 strong amphibious Special Purpose Task Group of commandos and special forces is in the Mediterranean on the amphibious warfare vessel Mounts Bay. Obviously purely a coincidence with Hammond’s visit!

      Just as in Syria and in Yemen it will not be admitted that British forces are in combat. In classic Cold War fashion, they are “military advisers and trainers.” There is a specific development which disconcerts me in Yemen, where the SAS operatives supporting the devastating Saudi bombings of the Houthi population have been seconded to MI6. There is a convention that military operations are reported to Parliament and MI6 operations are not, so the sole purpose of screening the SAS as MI6 is to deceive the UK’s own parliament.

    • China tests ICBM capable of striking US within half an hour

      Beijing has successfully tested a new long-range ballistic missile capable of engaging any potential target worldwide. The rocket takes just 30 minutes to cover its maximum 12,000km range and can deliver multiple strikes on any nuclear-capable state.

    • Letter from the Netherlands

      (2) The Neths. has ordered 37 fighter jets F35s with hook ups for 20 odd upgraded nukes to be stored on Dutch soil. In case of war Dutch pilots are to drop these on targets to be determined by the US. Belgium, Germany and Italy have the same arrangement.

    • War, Football, and Realism: If Any

      From the footballer’s point of view, the United States won in Iraq. It killed huge numbers of people while losing few, destroyed whole cities, and never lost a battle. Yet it got none of the things it wanted: a puppet government, permanent large military bases, and the oil. A dead loss. If anybody won, they were Israel and Iran. In Afghanistan, America as usual devastated the country and killed hugely and with impunity, thus winning the football game – but accomplished nothing.

    • Obama knows 9/11 was linked to Saudi Arabia – its massive oil reserves are behind his official visit
    • Saudi diplomats linked to 9/11 plot
    • Why the U.S. and Saudi Arabia Are Suddenly Involved in a Tense Geopolitical Drama

      There’s a reason we’re suddenly talking about 9/11 all over again.

    • US Protects Saudis From Terror Suits, Backs Suits Against Iran

      Intense debate and international diplomatic blackmail has dominated the discussion of the Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act, a bipartisan bill which would open up civil lawsuits against any foreign nations if they are found to be involved in the funding of a terrorist attack occurring on US soil.

    • President Obama Can Help Save Saudi Youth Facing Beheading

      These young men were sentenced to death for activities that, in the United States, are guaranteed by the First Amendment of our Constitution. The fact that they were sentenced to death for actions committed as juveniles is all the more shocking.

    • How The New Yorker Mis-Reports Syria

      Only 6 percent of Americans surveyed in a new national poll say they have a lot of confidence in the media — a result driven by a widespread perception that news stories are one-sided or downright inaccurate. That finding came to mind as I heard New Yorker editor David Remnick introduce an April 17 segment on Syria on the New Yorker Radio Hour.

    • I Fought The Taliban And They Came After Me And My Family

      So there’s this guy in Afghanistan who learned English from watching old Arnold Schwarzenegger movies. When the Americans invaded after 9/11, he offered to help them by acting as an interpreter … then wound up fighting alongside Army Rangers and saving at least five American lives in the process. The moment he felt like he was finally out of danger, the Taliban came after him and his family, forcing him to flee the country.

      [...]

      That means that many of the people shooting at American soldiers somewhere in Afghanistan, right now, don’t really know why Americans with guns are there in the first place. This is something you have to understand about the place if you’re wondering why we couldn’t find bin Laden the moment we landed: Afghanistan isn’t really a nation at all — it’s a sprawling hunk of land about the size of Texas, full of mountains, nomadic tribes, and villages. Most of the people there identify with their own little group and don’t give much of a shit about international politics.

  • Transparency/Investigative Reporting

    • RCEP: The Other Closed-Door Agreement to Compromise Users’ Rights

      A secretive trade agreement currently being negotiated behind closed doors could lay down new, inflexible copyright standards across the Asia-Pacific region. If you are thinking of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), think again—we’re talking about the lesser-known Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP). While RCEP doesn’t include the United States, it does include the two biggest Asian giants that the TPP omits—China and India. So while you won’t read about it in the mainstream U.S. press, it’s a very big deal indeed, and will assume even more importance should the TPP fail to pass Congress.

    • Noam Chomsky defends Julian Assange: “He should be given a medal”

      Assange and others established WikiLeaks in 2006. Since the release of the Chelsea Manning material, U.S. authorities began a long-term investigation of WikiLeaks and Assange, aiming to prosecute them under the Espionage Act of 1917.

  • Environment/Energy/Wildlife/Nature

    • NOAA: Monthly Temperature Reports Are ‘Sounding Like A Broken Record’

      Last month was the hottest March on record by far, NOAA confirmed Tuesday. March was 2.2°F above the 20th century average. This anomaly (departure from “normal”) was “the highest monthly temperature departure among all months” in the 1880-2016 record.

      It follows the hottest February on record in the NOAA dataset, which followed the hottest January on record, hottest December on record, hottest November, hottest October, hottest September, hottest August, hottest July, hottest June, and hottest May. This 11-month streak “is the longest such streak in NOAA’s 137-year climate record.”

    • Nuclear costs in uncharted territory

      If you want a job for life, go into the nuclear industry – not building power plants, but taking them down and making them safe, along with highly-radioactive spent fuel and other hazardous waste involved.

      The market for decommissioning nuclear sites is unbelievably large. Sixteen nations in Europe alone face a €253 billion waste bill, and the continent has only just begun to tackle the problem.

    • DCI Group Subpoenaed in Expanding Exxon Climate Denial Investigation

      DCI Group, a Washington DC public relations and lobbying firm, is the latest group subpoenaed in an expanding investigation by state attorneys general into the funding of climate change denial by ExxonMobil, according to court filings reviewed by the Center for Media and Democracy (CMD).

      ExxonMobil has now received separate subpoenas from both the New York and U.S. Virgin Islands U.S. Attorneys’ Offices. The Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) and DCI Group have also been subpoenaed by the U.S. Virgin Islands for records relating to their role in helping ExxonMobil with climate change denial.

      Seventeen state attorneys general—calling themselves “AGs United for Clean Power”—held a press conference on March 29, announcing increased collaboration between the states in investigating the opposition to tackling climate change.

    • Coral are bleaching along the entire Great Barrier Reef

      Coral reefs are about as colorful as the ocean gets—except when they bleach. Overly warm water can cause corals to spit out the colorful, photosynthetic, single-celled symbiotes that live inside them and produce most of their food. If the heat passes before the corals starve to death, their symbiotes can return, bringing color and health back to the coral.

      As the globe warms, widespread bleaching events are occurring with disturbing frequency. These tend to occur during times of El Niño conditions in the Pacific, which add a temporary boost to the warming water at some reefs. The current record-strength El Niño is sadly no exception.

    • Great Barrier Reef damage: ‘We’ve never seen anything like this before’

      Scientists in Australia have revealed the “tragic” extent of coral bleaching across the Great Barrier Reef, releasing maps which show damage to 93 per cent of the famous 1,500-mile stretch of reefs following a recent underwater heatwave.

      Warning that the reef is now in a “precarious position”, scientists released aerial survey maps which show that the mass bleaching event is the worst in history and far more severe than previous such events in 1998 and 2002.

    • New Indonesia mill raises doubts about APP’s forests pledge

      A landmark commitment by one of the world’s largest producers of tissue and paper to stop cutting down Indonesia’s prized tropical forests is under renewed scrutiny as the company prepares to open a giant pulp mill in South Sumatra.

      To fanfare more than three years ago, Asia Pulp and Paper promised to use only plantation woods after an investigation by one of its strongest critics, Greenpeace, showed its products were partly made from the pulp of endangered trees.

      Greenpeace welcomed the announcement as a breakthrough and the company, long reviled by activists as a villain, rebranded itself as a defender of the environment, helping it to win back customers that had severed ties. At the same time, it was pressing ahead behind the scenes with plans to build a third pulp mill in Indonesia.

    • Will Asia Pulp & Paper default on its “zero deforestation” commitment?

      This study by twelve international and Indonesian NGOs shows that in spite of its high-profile sustainability commitments, Asia Pulp & Paper (APP) is building one of the world’s largest pulp mills in the Indonesian province of South Sumatra without a sustainable wood supply. The US$2.6 billion OKI Pulp & Paper Mills project will expand APP’s wood demand by over 50%, with much of this coming from plantations on high-carbon peatlands.

  • Finance

    • Choice? What Choice?

      It is an old photo but worth recalling. Those expressions of delight of both couples in the company of their fellow members of the ruling elite are not feigned.

    • Bill That Obama Extolled Is Leading to Pension Cuts for Retirees

      One of the many obscure provisions jammed into a last-minute budget bill in 2014 endorsed and signed by President Obama is leading to what would be the first cuts in earned pension benefits to current retirees in over 40 years.

      The Washington Post reports that the Treasury Department is on the verge of approving an application from the Central States Pension Fund – a plan that covers Teamster truckers in several states – to cut worker pensions by an average of 23 percent, and even more for younger retirees. Over 250,000 truckers and their families would be affected. Workers over 75, or those who have acquired a disability, would be exempt from the changes.

    • PMQs: Cameron vows to ‘finish the job’ on academies

      David Cameron has defended controversial plans to force all state schools in England to become academies, saying it is time to “finish the job”.

      During Prime Minister’s Questions, Labour’s Jeremy Corbyn cited opposition to the “top down reorganisation” from teachers, parents and some Tory MPs.

      He said good schools should not be distracted by “arbitrary changes”.

      Sources said the government was likely to guarantee no small rural schools would close as a result of the shakeup.

  • AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics

    • When ‘Both Sides’ Are Covered in Verizon Strike, Bosses’ Side Is Heard More

      In three New York Times stories, management was quoted eight times to workers’ four. In the Washington Post‘s two reports, the ratio was 6:2 in management’s favor. Buzzfeed‘s three articles favored the company 13 to 7, while Vox‘s lone post had four quotes from management and none from labor. In all four outlets together, there were 31 quotes from Verizon representatives, 13 quotes from workers and their representatives.

    • Donald Trump Is Right: The GOP Primary System Is Rigged

      I hate to agree with Donald Trump about anything, but he’s got a point: the Republican primary process is really unfair. Just look at New York: Kasich and Cruz won 40 percent of the vote but only 4 percent of the delegates. It’s an outrage.

    • Hillary and Trump’s Crushing New York Victories Proved One Thing: The System Is in Shreds

      New York’s primary process was exactly as high-profile, nasty and chaotic as you’d expect it to be, but in the end, it only highlighted that this election is just going to go on and on and on and on. Oh, and one more thing: that the way we elect presidential candidates is crazy.

      Seriously, why do we do things this way? In New York City, a slew of snafus and irregularities triggered a probe from the local Board of Elections, which is notorious for its incompetence. (You have to hand it to a city that can turn its police force into a monstrous high-tech army but can’t handle an election.) Millions of people across the state suddenly discovered that they were barred from voting because they weren’t registered Democrats. You can blame Sanders for not making more of a push to get his supporters to get their act in order, but New York has a ridiculously early deadline for changing your party registration. The burden should be on the state to make it easier to vote and not force people to have the equivalent of a key to a special club just to exercise a fundamental right. Of course, this is New York, the place that gave us Boss Tweed, so we shouldn’t be too shocked.

    • What Is Wrong With New York’s Voting System and How Can It Be Fixed? (Video)

      On “Democracy Now!” on Wednesday, voting rights advocates tallied the reforms New York state must implement to restore confidence in democracy after more than 125,000 Brooklyn residents were among many voters unable to cast ballots in the presidential primary on Tuesday because they’d been removed from voter rolls.

      New York Mayor Bill de Blasio said before the polls closed: “It has been reported to us from voters and voting rights monitors that the voting lists in Brooklyn contain numerous errors, including the purging of entire buildings and blocks of voters from the voting lists.”

      On Monday, Truthdig reported that hundreds of New Yorkers filed a class-action lawsuit alleging authorities had tampered with their registration.

    • Five States Have Primaries Next Week. Will They Face The Same Problems New York Did?

      Tuesday’s presidential primary in New York served as a stark reminder that voting irregularities and restrictions are not a thing of the past and not confined to the South.

      As residents purged from the rolls in Brooklyn keep struggling to have their votes counted, the nation’s attention is turning to the states scheduled to vote on Tuesday: Maryland, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, and Delaware.

    • Dr. Jill Stein – Symptoms of a Sick Society
    • Bowing to America’s Oligarchs

      Apparently, other countries, but not the U.S., have oligarchs. Billionaire and Commerce Secretary Penny Pritzker came and went to the National Press Club with hardly a tough question on Monday.

    • The Democratic Stockholm Syndrome

      New Yorkers voted overwhelmingly for those holding their progress captive

    • The ICA and ODA: The IPA’s sham anti-truckie astroturfing operation

      IN my article last week on the Road Safety Remuneration Tribunal (RSRT), I wrote that I doubted that the people most actively opposed to these measures were owner drivers, but rather big business, which primarily benefits from lower freight costs.

    • The Primary Season That Won’t End

      An ongoing series that won’t be over any time soon.

  • Censorship/Free Speech

  • Privacy/Surveillance

    • Metadating helps you find love based on your everyday data

      This twist on speed-dating was part of an experiment run by a team at Newcastle University in the UK. They wanted to know what would happen in a world where instead of vetting potential dates by their artfully posed selfies or carefully crafted dating-site profiles, we looked at data gathered by their computers and phones. As use of data-gathering devices increases, it’s a world that’s just round the corner. The team calls it “metadating”.

    • Helen Nissenbaum on Regulating Data Collection and Use

      NYU Helen Nissenbaum gave an excellent lecture at Brown University last month, where she rebutted those who think that we should not regulate data collection, only data use: something she calls “big data exceptionalism.” Basically, this is the idea that collecting the “haystack” isn’t the problem; it what is done with it that is. (I discuss this same topic in Data and Goliath, on pages 197-9.)

    • Apple, Google, Microsoft, and others express ‘deep concerns’ over controversial encryption bill

      Coalitions representing major tech companies warn of ‘unintended consequences’ in letter to US senators

    • Keep the Pressure On: Brazilian Online Surveillance Bills Threaten Digital Rights and Innovation

      The Brazilian Chamber of Deputies is about to vote on seven bills that were introduced as part of a report by the Brazilian Parliamentary Commission of Inquiry on Cybercrimes (CPICIBER). Collectively, these bills would be disastrous for privacy and freedom of expression in Brazil. That’s why EFF is joining a coalition of Brazilian civil society groups in opposing the bills. As the vote takes place on April 27, it’s crucial that we voice our concerns to CPICIBER members now.

    • Last July, NSA and CIA Decided They Didn’t Have to Follow Minimization Procedures, and Judge Hogan Is Cool with That

      Yesterday, I Con the Record released three FISA Court opinions from last year. This November 6, 2015 opinion, authorizing last year’s Section 702 certifications, has attracted the most attention, both for its list of violations (including the NSA’s 3rd known instance of illegal surveillance) and for the court’s rejection of amicus Amy Jeffress’ argument that FBI’s back door searches are not constitutional. I’ll return to both issues.

    • Documents Reveal Secretive U.K. Surveillance Policies

      Newly disclosed documents offer a rare insight into the secretive legal regime underpinning the British government’s controversial mass surveillance programs.

      London-based group Privacy International obtained the previously confidential files as part of an ongoing legal case challenging the scope of British spies’ covert collection of huge troves of private data.

      Millie Graham Wood, Legal Officer at Privacy International, said in a statement Wednesday that the documents show “the staggering extent to which the intelligence agencies hoover up our data. This can be anything from your private medical records, your correspondence with your doctor or lawyer, even what petitions you have signed, your financial data, and commercial activities.”

    • Data privacy proponents are counting on the public’s right to know

      In the latest front in the great data privacy war, the Electronic Frontier Foundation sued the Justice Department on Tuesday, demanding that the government reveal whether it has obtained orders from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) compelling private companies to help investigators break into customers’ cellphones and devices.

    • ‘Terrorism investigation’ Court lets NSA collect telephone records data

      In its first ruling regarding phone records since the passage of the USA Freedom Act, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court granted the National Security Agency the powers it requested. Much of the court order was redacted, however.

    • Apple: Governments Asked For User Data 30,000 Times In Second Half of 2015
    • Apple’s Spiking National Security Requests Could Reflect USA Freedom Compliance
    • Tech coalitions pen open letter to Burr and Feinstein over bill banning encryption
    • FBI’s Back Door Searches: Explicit Permission … and Before That

      As I have pointed out, Mukasey (writing with then Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell, who would also have to approve any PRISM minimization procedures) made it clear in response to a Russ Feingold amendment of FISA Amendments Act in February of 2008 that they intended to spy in Americans under PRISM.

      So it sure seems likely the Administration at the very least had FBI back door searches planned, if not already in the works, well before FISC approved the minimization procedures in 2009. That’s probably what Hogan explained in that paragraph, but James Clapper apparently believes it would be legally inconvenient to mention that.

    • Why Did Congress Let Law Enforcement Officials Lie About Encryption?

      When you testify before Congress, it helps to actually have some knowledge of what you’re talking about. On Tuesday, the House Energy & Commerce Committee held the latest congressional hearing on the whole silly encryption fight, entitled Deciphering the Debate Over Encryption: Industry and Law Enforcement Perspectives. And, indeed, they did have witnesses presenting “industry” and “law enforcement” views, but for unclear reasons decided to separate them. First up were three “law enforcement” panelists, who were free to say whatever the hell they wanted with no one pointing out that they were spewing pure bullshit.

    • FISA Court Still Uncovering Surveillance Abuses By NSA, FBI

      With multiple redactions and having survived a declassification review, another FISA court opinion has been released to the public. The opinion dates back to November of last year, but was only recently dumped into the public domain by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. While the five-month delay seems a bit long, the alternative is no public release at all. The small miracle that is the public release of FISA court opinions can be traced directly to Ed Snowden and a handful of FOIA lawsuits — not that you’ll see either credited by the ODNI when handing over documents.

      The bad news is that the FISA court has uncovered still more abuse by the NSA and FBI. While there appears to be no imminent danger of the court yanking the agencies’ surveillance privileges (as nearly happened in 2008), the presiding judge (Thomas Hogan) isn’t impressed with the agencies and their cavalier attitude towards mass surveillance. The stipulations put in place to offset the potential damages of untargeted mass surveillance — strict retention periods and minimization procedures — are the very things being ignored by the NSA and FBI.

    • FBI’s PRISM slurping is ‘unconstitutional’ – and America’s secret spy court is OK with that
    • Public advocate: FBI’s use of PRISM surveillance data is unconstitutional
    • Public advocate: FBI’s use of PRISM surveillance data is unconstitutional
    • DOJ Sued Over Access to Requests for Encrypted Data
    • US government sued by activists looking for backdoor smoking gun
    • US surveillance court approves NSA phone records application
    • Watchdog Demands Info From Secret Court
    • EFF Sues DOJ for Secret Court Orders
    • EFF sues Justice Department to discover if secret orders are used to decrypt user data
    • National Security Agency now authorized to gather telephone records under new electronic spying law
    • U.S. DOJ Faces Lawsuit Demanding Disclosure of The Use of Secret Court Orders Against Tech Companies
    • EFF Sues DOJ Over Its Refusal To Release FISA Court Documents Pertaining To Compelled Technical Assistance

      Given the heightened interest in the government’s efforts to compel companies like Apple to break into their own products for them, the EFF figured it would be a good time to ask the government whether it had used FISA court orders to achieve these ends.

      Naturally, the government would rather not discuss its efforts to force Apple, et al. to cough up user data and communications. Hence the secrecy surrounding its use of NSLs, subpoenas and gag orders. Hence, also, its desire to keep cases involving All Writs Acts orders under seal if possible. Hence also (also) its refusal to discuss the secret happenings in its most secret court.

    • Joint Statement on the final adoption of the new EU rules for personal data protection

      Today’s adoption means a robust level of EU data protection standards will become the reality in all EU Member States in 2018.Member States have two years to apply the Data Protection Regulation and to transpose and implement the “Police” Directive. This timeframe gives Member States and companies sufficient time to adapt to the new rules.

      The Commission will work closely with Member States to ensure the new rules are correctly implemented at national level. We will work with the national data protection authorities and the future European Data Protection Board to ensure coherent enforcement of the new rules, building upon the work of the Article 29 Working Party. The Commission will also engage in open dialogue with stakeholders, notably businesses, to ensure there is full understanding and timely compliance with the new rules.

    • SS7 and NSA’s Redundant Spying

      But the fact that Lieu — who really is one of the smartest Members of Congress on surveillance issues — is only now copping onto the vulnerabilities with SS7 suggests how stunted our debate over dragnet surveillance was and is. For two years, we debated how to shut down the Section 215 dragnet, which collected a set of phone records that was significantly redundant with what we collected “overseas” — though in fact the telecoms’ production of such records was mixed together until 2009, suggesting for years Section 215 probably served primarily as legal cover, not the actual authorization for the collection method used. We had very credulous journalists talking about what a big gap in cell phone records NSA faced, in part because FISC frowned on letting NSA collect location data domestically. Yet all the while (as some smarter commenters here have said), NSA was surely exploiting SS7 to collect all the cell phone records it needed, including the location data. Members of Congress like Lieu — on neither the House Intelligence (which presumably has been briefed) or the House Judiciary Committees — would probably not get briefed on the degree to which our intelligence community thrives on using SS7’s vulnerabilities.

    • Nick Asks the NSA: Signaling System 7 (SS7)

      SS7 is the protocol phone companies use to talk to each other. It is an “out of band” signaling protocol, a separate communication channel used to coordinate calls and other features. For example, SS7 is the protocol involved in cellular roaming, allowing a cellphone to work effectively anywhere on the planet.

      Unfortunately SS7 has a large amount of legacy, the biggest being a design concept dating back to the old Bell telephone days with a single flat trust model. This means that a cellular company in Kazakhstan is considered just as trustworthy as AT&T.

    • GCHQ should split to offer separate cyber defence unit, says security expert

      GOVERNMENT LISTENING AGENCY GCHQ should be split into separate attack and defence units, according to a leading security expert.

      Ross Anderson, professor of security engineering in the computer laboratory at the University of Cambridge, explained that this would allow GCHQ to operate more openly, and make other public and private organisations more likely to collaborate with it.

      “The problem is that the UK government has demonstrated repeatedly that it’s not trustworthy. The Snowden documents made it clear that the British state is more interested in exploiting stuff than protecting it,” said Anderson.

    • NSA, FBI outed for violating court order to delete data

      A judge with the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, where America’s intelligence agents go to get approval for secret spy operations, expressed concern top feds weren’t deleting information they collected off the Internet on unsuspecting individuals – in potential violation of law, recently declassified documents showed.

      Judge Thomas Hogan named the National Security Agency as “potentially” in violation of law, and said the office broke “several provisions” of its own internal policies, the Hill reported, citing the November 2015 opinion that was just made public. He also said he was “extremely concerned” the data hadn’t been deleted and the agency maintained its possession of such, in seeming violation of policy and law, the Hill reported.

    • Netflix CEO Says Annoyed VPN Users Are ‘Inconsequential’

      When Netflix recently expanded into 190 different countries, we noted that the company ramped up its efforts to block customers that use VPNs to watch geo-restricted content. More accurately, Netflix stepped up its efforts to give the illusion it seriously cracks down on VPN users, since the company has basically admitted that trying to block such users is largely impossible since they can just rotate IP addresses and use other tricks to avoid blacklists. And indeed, that’s just what most VPN providers did, updating their services so they still work despite the Netflix crackdown.

  • Civil Rights/Policing

    • CMD Exclusive: Why I Chose to Get Arrested in Defense of Our Democracy

      On Monday, I joined hundreds of fellow citizens who were arrested as part of a non-violent act of civil disobedience on the steps of our U.S. Capitol.

      I stood with people of all ages and all walks of life as part of a growing movement to reclaim an America that guarantees the unimpeded right to vote for all and a government that works for the people instead of the powerful plutocrats.

      I was there as someone who has worked for Clean Elections and ethical government for 20 years, and on behalf of my colleagues at the Center for Media and Democracy. CMD serves as a watchdog against corporate influence on democracy and public policy, and it sounded the alarm on the dangerous Citizens United decision of the U.S. Supreme Court six years ago.

    • North Korea Election Monitors Leave New York in Disgust (Satire?)

      A team of North Korean election monitors left New York City in disgust, claiming that democracy was “dead to them.”

      Following a long series of primary election issues across the United States, where local scams, manipulated caucuses and voter disenfranchisement ran wild, the United Nations requested the North Koreans provide a team of election monitors (above) to oversee the highly-contested New York primary. In choosing North Korea for the job, UN officials cited the “great similarities between the North Korean and American systems.”

    • Forcing the Innocent to Plead Guilty, an American Disgrace

      A record 149 people had their criminal convictions overturned in 2015 after courts found they had been wrongly charged, according to a recent study. Nearly four in 10 of those exonerated had been convicted of murder, and the average newly-released prisoner had served more than 14 years in prison. Most of the exonerations came in only two states, Texas and New York. The National Registry of Exonerations, a project of the University of Michigan Law School, found that there have been 1,733 exonerations since 1989, with the total doubling since 2011. More than two-thirds of last year’s exonerees were minorities. Five had been sentenced to death.

      There is a reason why most of the exonerations have come from two locales. District attorneys in Brooklyn, New York, and Harris County, Texas, have begun long-term reviews of questionable convictions, actions that are being watched by prosecutors and defense attorneys across the country. With 156 death row exonerations since 1973, according to the Death Penalty Information Center, this is a problem that must be addressed.

      The National Registry of Exonerations report stated further that 42 of those exonerated in 2015 had pleaded guilty, a glaring indication that the current system of seeking plea bargains simply isn’t just. Indeed, Propublica found that 98.2 percent of all federal cases end in conviction, with nearly all of those a result of plea deals.

    • UK Drug Dogs Finding Way More Sausage And Cheese Than Actual Drugs

      Drug dogs here in the US are mainly one-trick ponies, to clumsily mix a metaphor. Domesticated canines aim to please. Training of drug dogs involves giving them treats or toys upon alerting. You don’t have to be Pavlov to see how this plays out in the real world. Dogs will alert in hopes of a reward or be nudged in that direction by conscious or unconscious “nudges” by their handlers. Hence, we have drug dogs in use with horrendous track records. (But, notably, not horrendous enough to result in judicial smackdowns, for the most part.)

    • Harriet Tubman and the Currency of Resistance

      U.S. Treasury Secretary Jack Lew announced Wednesday that the revised $20 bill will feature the portrait of the legendary abolitionist Harriet Tubman. Tubman was born a slave, escaped to freedom and became a conductor on the Underground Railroad, as well as a campaigner for women’s right to vote. She will be replacing President Andrew Jackson on the front of the $20 bill. He was a contemporary of hers, who owned slaves (one of 18 presidents who did so) and became wealthy from their forced labor. The decision was influenced by grass-roots action, Lew said, as hundreds of thousands weighed in with their suggestions for which women to honor. It also was not without controversy.

    • Harriet Tubman Will Replace Andrew Jackson on the $20 Bill

      Treasury Secretary Jack Lew has decided that a redesigned $20 bill will feature a portrait of Harriet Tubman, a Treasury official confirmed to The Intercept on Wednesday.

    • No Prison Time For NYPD Officer Who Killed Unarmed Man, Then Texted Union Rep Instead of Helping

      Criminally negligent homicide is a felony, which will prevent Liang from resuming his career in law enforcement, and carries a maximum sentence of four years in prison.

    • Egyptian Policeman Kills Over The Price Of A Cup Of Tea In Latest Incident Of Police Brutality

      An Egyptian police officer shot three people after arguing with them over the price of a cup of tea in a Cairo suburb on Tuesday, leaving one of them dead. The incident raised furor among onlookers, who overturned a police car and assaulted another policeman.

      According to one witness, two vehicles carrying riot police and an armored truck quickly arrived on the scene, only to be pelted by rocks by the victims’ family.

    • Law Enforcement Forced To Hand Over $41K It Seized From Businessman At Airport, Plus Another $10K In Legal Fees

      An unidentified Techdirt reader sends in the news that Arizona law enforcement is going to be handing over $10,000 to Madji Khaleq as a result of a failed asset forfeiture attempt. This would be in addition to the $41,870 the DEA already handed back to Khaleq — every cent of the cash federal agents seized from him at the Tucson airport.

    • Brazil: Coup d’état – live on TV!

      An elected president faces impeachment just because Congress dislikes her.

    • 4 Ways Border Patrol Union’s Trump Endorsement Is Filled With Lies and Misinformation

      Since 2005, the Border Patrol has been showered with resources — including $8.4 million to sponsor a NASCAR team — that allowed it to expand its ranks at a breakneck pace. This trend has continued under the Obama administration. Unfortunately, recruitment surges by law enforcement agencies have historically led to — at best — the hiring of unqualified officers and — at worst — widespread misconduct and corruption. The Border Patrol is no exception.

    • ‘We Are Tonu’: Why has the murder of a 19 year old student sparked mass protests in Bangladesh?

      The death of Sohagi Jahan Tonu, a university student at Comilla Victoria College, led to massive protests and a social media outcry. What prevented this from just being another rape and murder case in Bangladesh?

    • Children cuffed, arrested, charged; Murfreesboro outraged

      Police handcuffed multiple students, ages 6 to 11, at a public elementary school in Murfreesboro on Friday, inspiring public outcry and adding fuel to already heightened tensions between law enforcement and communities of color nationwide.

      The arrests at Hobgood Elementary School occurred after the students were accused of not stopping a fight that happened several days earlier off campus. A juvenile center later released the students, but local community members now call for action — police review of the incident and community conversation — and social justice experts across the country use words such as “startling” and “flabbergasted” in response to actions in the case.

    • False Plagiarism Accusation Against Shaun King Shows Dangers of Online Mob Journalism

      On Tuesday afternoon, The New York Daily News published a column by its criminal justice writer, Shaun King (above), that denounced the harrowing treatment of a 37-year-old mentally incapacitated veteran, Elliot Williams, who died from neglect in an Oklahoma jail. Earlier that day, The Daily Beast had published a long, detailed, richly reported article on Williams’ death by Kate Briquelet, and King’s column was obviously based on Briquelet’s reporting.

      But as it appeared in the Daily News, King’s column provided no citation or attribution to Briquelet’s Daily Beast article. Worse, King’s column included two paragraphs that were verbatim copies from Briquelet’s article, and presented those two paragraphs without citation or even quotation marks. At first glance, it looked like a classic case of plagiarism, with King simply lifting two paragraphs and passing them off as his own. And The Daily Beast was understandably furious that their reporter’s excellent work would be pilfered without credit.

  • Internet Policy/Net Neutrality

  • DRM

    • Netflix crackdown in New Zealand takes hold

      Netflix warned in January that people outside the United States trying to watch content on the American catalogue would find it difficult to reach the service through VPN, but it seems to have taken three months for the crackdown to really be felt in New Zealand.

  • Intellectual Monopolies

    • Leaked IP Chapter Of Asian FTA Reveals Tough Rules For Poorer Partners, Civil Society Says

      The alleged intellectual property chapter of a secretive regional trade agreement between an association of ten Asian countries plus six others was released yesterday by a civil society group, which says richer countries in the region are pushing for stringent IP rules.

    • Trade secrets bill clears US House Judiciary Committee

      In a busy few days for trade secrets news, the House Judiciary Committee has approved a Senate-passed trade secrets bills with no changes and Indian company Tata has been hit with a $940m damages verdict in Wisconsin

    • House Judiciary Committee Approves Senate-Passed Trade Secrets Bill

      The House Judiciary Committee on Wednesday approved a Senate-passed bill that would allow civil litigation for the theft of international trade secrets.

      Lawmakers advanced the measure, S. 1890, by voice vote.

      Committee Chairman Rep. Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.) said the legislation “puts forward modest enhancements to our federal trade secrets law, creating a federal civil remedy for trade secret misappropriation that will help American innovators protect their intellectual property from criminal theft by foreign agents and those engaging in economic espionage.”

    • DTSA Moving Forward

      The House Judiciary Committee has taken the next major step toward implementation of the Defend Trade Secrets Act of 2016 (DTSA).

04.20.16

Links 20/4/2016: Wine-Staging 1.9.8, Intel Layoffs

Posted in News Roundup at 4:53 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

GNOME bluefish

Contents

GNU/Linux

Free Software/Open Source

  • Google Updates TensorFlow Open Source Machine Learning Platform

    Google’s TensorFlow is an open source software library for numerical computation using data flow graphs. The architecture provides the ability to deploy computation to one or more CPUs or GPUs in a desktop, server, or mobile device with a single API.

  • Capital One open sources Cloud Custodian AWS resource management tool

    Last July it started developing the tool that would become Cloud Custodian and today it announced at an AWS event in Chicago that it was making that tool available as open source on GitHub.

  • SaaS/Back End

    • Mirantis and Supermicro to Deliver OpenStack Appliances

      Now, Mirantis has partnered with Supermicro, which focuses on server, storage, and green computing solutions,to deliver the Supermicro Mirantis Unlocked Appliance for Cloud Native Applications — billed as “a turnkey, rack-based appliance featuring Mirantis OpenStack, giving Supermicro customers an immediate onramp to agile development of cloud-native applications and container-based services in production.”

  • Databases

    • Firebird 3.0 is released

      Firebird Project is happy to announce general availability of Firebird 3.0 — the latest major release of the Firebird relational database.

      The primary goals for Firebird 3.0 were to unify the server architecture and to improve support for SMP and multiple-core hardware platforms. Parallel objectives were to improve threading of engine processes and the options for sharing page cache across thread and connection boundaries.

    • Weekly phpMyAdmin contributions 2016-W15

      One big area was charsets and collations, which were cached in the session data so far. This had bad effect of making the session data quite huge leading to performance loss on every page, while the cached information is needed only on few pages. I’ve removed this caching, cleaned up the code and everything seems to be behave faster, even the pages which used cached content in the past.

  • Oracle/Java/LibreOffice

    • Oracle Updates VirtualBox 5.0.18

      Full-disclosure I’m both a fan and an everyday user of VirtualBox and have been for many years. Simply put, as an easy-to-use desktop virtualization tool, it works without much hassle, setup or prior knowledge.

  • Pseudo-Open Source (Openwashing)

  • BSD

  • Public Services/Government

    • France improves fiscal transparency by opening tax calculator

      The fiscal calculator is used by the French fiscal authority to calculate the income tax of individuals. It is now freely accessible on GitHub and on the OpenFisca forum. OpenFisca is a social and fiscal simulator and its team is in charge of supporting the calculator.

  • Openness/Sharing/Collaboration

    • Open Hardware/Modding

      • The Sincerest Form of Flattery: Cloning Open-Source Hardware

        We’re great proponents (and beneficiaries) of open-source hardware here at Hackaday. It’s impossible to overstate the impact that the free sharing of ideas has had on the hacker hardware scene. Plus, if you folks didn’t write up the cool projects that you’re making, we wouldn’t have nearly as much to write about.

  • Programming/Development

    • The Operating System is the Target

      Abstracting the OS away isn’t inherently bad. Writing a program to run across multiple OS’s will need to unify the semantics of each system somehow. But making more use of the OS where appropriate can simplify a program while making it more robust and debuggable. OS’s already provide a wide range of tools to inspect what they are doing and by using the OS you get that introspection for free. Maybe next time you see yourself writing a service or tool, take a moment and see where the OS might be able to help you solve it.

    • Learn Git and GitHub Through Videos

      These days, GitHub is pretty much the warehouse district where nearly all open source projects are stored and maintained. There are some tricks to navigating the site, which can easily be mastered by watching tutorial videos.

    • 11 resources for teaching and learning Python

      If you’re looking to teach, tutor, or mentor beginning programmers, you’ve got your work cut out for you. Different learning styles, varying levels of knowledge, and a subject area that’s a moving target all conspire to see you run ragged as an instructor. Luckily, there is help available—lots of help. It comes in the form of open source textbooks, tools, and even games—all created to make being a teacher (and a learner) easier than ever before.

Leftovers

  • Optometrists Push For State Laws Blocking Online Eye Exams

    Billing itself as a sort of Uber-for-eye-exams, telemedicine startup Opternative recently came on the scene offering a quick, inexpensive alternative to traditional optical exams that uses your computer and smartphone. Following a 25-minute online exam, an ophthalmologist will approve your results and issue a prescription for a cost of $40. No doctor visit is required.

  • Sevens Marry Sevens: Is Online Dating Making Mixed-Attractiveness Couples More Rare?

    And with the trend in dating being a shorter time between meeting someone and dating them, with dating sites and apps playing a key role in this shift, matching people based on physical desirability because that’s how it tends to work outside of dating sites becomes something of a self-fulfilling prophecy. The algorithms will reinforce this by trimming people’s pool of candidates to their own desirability class, and we might see the end of mixed-attractiveness couples generally speaking.

    Is that a bad thing? I don’t know. I’m married and never did any online dating at all, so I have zero experience with it. I do know that if I were a user of any of these sites, I would feel potentially cheated out of meeting great candidates because the algorithm thought I was too attractive or ugly to meet them. But that ultimately doesn’t matter, as the trends show that online dating isn’t going anywhere, so we might just all have to get used to seeing synced up couples from a physical standpoint.

  • Science

    • We Asked Some Experts to Score Justin Trudeau’s Explanation of Quantum Computing

      Although Trudeau was at the Institute to announce $50 million in funding which will allow those working at Perimeter to continue their work on fundamental physics, he took the time to breakdown the essence of quantum computing for a clueless journalist…

      [...]

      While most applauded Trudeau’s remarkably “clear and concise” explanation of quantum computing, others deemed his description as totally off the mark.

  • Hardware

    • Intel to cut 12,000 jobs from global operations

      US tech giant Intel is shedding 12,000 jobs as it seeks to cut reliance on the declining personal computer market.

      The maker of computer chips will take a $1.2bn charge to cover restructuring costs.

      The job cuts, about 11% of Intel’s workforce, will be made over the next 12 months, Intel said in a statement.

    • Intel Confirms Major Layoff, 11 percent of Employees To Go

      Intel Corp. today announced that it would cut some 12,000 jobs—that’s 11 percent of its total workforce—by mid-2017, with the majority of those affected getting the bad news within the next two months.

      In a press release, the company said the “restructuring initiative” would “accelerate its evolution from a PC company to one that powers the cloud and the billions of smart, connected computing devices,” and that the compnay would be increasing its investments in “data center, IoT, memory, and connectivity businesses.”

  • Health/Nutrition

    • From the US to Indonesia, why do we perpetuate the ‘war on drugs’?

      The Indonesian president, Joko Widodo, decided to declare a state of emergency in relation to drugs. And one key measure he would take in response to this emergency was to execute everyone on death row for drug offences. So Indonesia proceeded to execute 14 people last year. They’ve recently made statements that they wish to continue with more executions. Some analysts say that this is part of a political strategy. That he was seen as someone who was not a tough man, who did not have strong standing or the confidence of party members. And so he decided to take this stance to show that he could be tough.

      It’s political convenience, it’s political gain, that governments choose to perpetuate and stay on this path.

    • Teflon Toxin Contamination Has Spread Throughout the World

      IN RECENT MONTHS, PFOA, the perfluorinated chemical formerly used to make Teflon, has been making news again. Also known as C8, because of its eight-carbon molecule, PFOA has been found in drinking water in Hoosick Falls, New York; Bennington, Vermont; Flint, Michigan; and Warrington, Pennsylvania, among many other places across the United States. Although the chemical was developed and long manufactured in the United States, it’s not just an American problem. PFOA has spread throughout the world.

      As in the U.S., PFOA has leached into the water near factories in Dordrecht, Holland, and Shimizu, Japan, both of which were built and operated for many years by DuPont. Last year, the Shimizu facility and part of the Dordrecht plant became the property of DuPont’s spinoff company, Chemours. Just as it did in both New Jersey and West Virginia, DuPont tracked the PFOA levels in its workers’ blood in Holland and Japan for years, according to EPA filings and internal company documents. Many of the blood levels were high, some extremely so. In one case, in Shimizu in 2008, a worker had a blood level of 8,370 parts per billion (ppb). In Dordrecht in 2005, another worker was recorded with 11,387 ppb. The national average in the U.S., in 2004, was about 5 ppb.

    • Drop in dementia rates suggests disease can be prevented, researchers say

      Dementia rates in the UK have fallen by a fifth over the past 20 years despite the population ageing, scientists say.

      With changes in lifestyle and education over the last two decades thought to be among the factors responsible for the drop, the researchers believe the study highlights the benefits of taking preventative action. “Physical health and brain health are clearly highly linked,” said Carol Brayne of Cambridge University who co-authored the study.

      Nick Fox, Professor of Neurology at University College, London who was not involved in the study, agrees. “This does suggest that our risk, in any particular age in later life, can be reduced probably by what we do ten, twenty or thirty years before.”

    • NHS spends millions picking up bill after patients suffer botched treatment in private hospitals

      Thousands of patients are having to be admitted to NHS hospitals after suffering botched treatment in private hospitals.

      Private hospitals ‘are often not equipped to deal with complications from surgery’, a damning report warns.

      As many as 6,000 patients a year need NHS care after bungled treatment at a non-NHS hospital.

      Almost half of them – around 2,500 – are ‘emergency’ cases who have to be rushed to the nearest NHS hospital.

      The problem is feared to cost taxpayers millions of pounds. Last night a senior doctor branded it a ‘national scandal’.

  • Security

  • Defence/Aggression

    • Bernie Sanders backs bill that would let Americans sue Saudi Arabia over 9/11 terror attacks

      Bernie Sanders has backed legislation that would let Americans sue Saudi Arabia over the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

      The bill is opposed by the Obama administration, but it is important to victims’ families, some of whom believe Saudi officials played some part in the attacks.

      The Democratic presidential candidate spoke in favour of the legislation on NBC’s “Today Show” ahead of the New York presidential primary.

      He said it was important to have a full understanding of the “the possible role of the Saudi government in 9/11.”

    • Saudi Arabia’s Alleged 9/11 Connection Just One of Many Reasons the U.S. Ally is a Problem

      Lawmakers from both parties, including Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) and Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) have introduced legislation that would require the declassification of the 28 pages, and Congress is considering a bill that would allow terror victims’ families to sue the Saudi government for “contribut(ing) material support or resources” to “acts of terrorism.” The bill essentially removes the immunity currently enjoyed by officials of foreign governments from being held liable in US courts.

      The Saudi government has threatened to divest itself of up to $750 billion in American assets if the bill passes, and the Obama administration is currently lobbying Congress to not pass the bill, citing economic and diplomatic concerns as well as potential reciprocity against US officials and citizens.

    • Obama Went From Condemning Saudis for Abuses to Arming Them to the Teeth

      Thirteen years later, Obama is making his fourth trip to Riyadh, having presided over record-breaking U.S. arms sales to Saudi Arabia while offering only muted criticism of the kingdom’s human rights violations.

      And don’t expect the president to speak up while he’s there. Obama last traveled to Saudi Arabia in January 2015, cutting short his trip to India after the passing of the former Saudi king, Abdullah ibn-Abdulaziz al-Saud. During that visit, Obama was criticized for not speaking out against the flogging of prominent Saudi blogger and dissident Raif Badawi. In 2014, Badawi was sentenced to 10 years in prison and 1,000 lashes for “insulting Islam” and “going beyond the realm of obedience,” with the first flogging session taking place weeks before Obama arrived.

      In January, after a record-setting year for Saudi beheadings, Saudi authorities set off protests by executing Shia cleric and regime critic Nimr al-Nimr. U.S. response was muted. The State Department merely said the execution “risks exacerbating sectarian tensions at a time when they urgently need to be reduced” – and then fell silent on the repression of the following protests.

    • Night-vision goggle case cause of plane crash that killed 14, Air Force says

      A solid plastic case designed to hold a set of night-vision goggles was ultimately responsible for causing the crash of an Air Force transport plane that killed 14 people in October, the Air Force announced in a statement last week.

      [...]

      The Taliban quickly claimed responsibility for the crash, saying it shot down the aircraft.

    • Voices of Reason vs. the Doomsday Lobby

      In 2010, three high-ranking military officials including Air Force Colonel B. Chance Saltzman, Chief of the US Air Force’s Strategic Plans and Policy Division who had worked directly for the Secretary of the Air Force, published a major policy paper suggesting that the US should unilaterally cut its nuclear arsenal by more than 90 percent. The paper argued, “…the United States could address military utility concerns with only 311 nuclear weapons in its nuclear force structure….” With about 1,300 warheads on Trident submarines, another 500 or so on heavy bombers like B-52s or B2s, 180 on fighter-bombers in Europe and the last 450 on top of the Minuteman rockets, cutting to 311 would clearly mean the ICBMs would go the way of the Berlin Wall (since the favored war-fighting nukes are on submarines which can be kept secret from the American public and everybody else).

  • Transparency/Investigative Reporting

  • Environment/Energy/Wildlife/Nature

    • American Geophysical Union Sells Its Scientific Integrity For $35,000 In ExxonMobil Money

      Apparently you can buy the scientific integrity of the entire American Geophysical Union (AGU) for $35,000. Well, maybe you can’t, but oil giant ExxonMobil can.

      In February, 100 AGU members and other earth and climate scientists wrote an open letter to the board of 62,000-member group urging it to stop taking sponsorship money form ExxonMobil. The scientists urged the AGU to live up to its 2015 board-approved policy that says AGU will only partner with (i.e. take more than $5,000 from) organizations that meet “the highest standards of scientific integrity, that do not harm AGU’s brand and reputation, and that share a vested interest in and commitment to advancing and communicating science and its power to ensure a sustainable future.”

    • New Leak at Hanford Nuclear Waste Site is ‘Catastrophic,’ Worker Warns

      A leak at the Hanford nuclear site in Washington state has prompted warnings of “catastrophic” consequences, as workers attempt to clean up more than eight inches of toxic waste from one of 28 underground tanks holding radioactive materials leftover from plutonium production.

    • U.S. Greenhouse Gas Emissions Climbed For the Second Straight Year

      Over the last decade, the United States embraced energy efficiency and higher fuel economy standards, causing almost double-digit declines in U.S. greenhouse gas emissions. But since the last drop in 2012, that trend has gone in the opposite direction for the second time in a row, according to the Environmental Protection Agency’s annual Greenhouse Gas Inventory Report, which tracks emissions across the entire country.

    • We must remain in the EU to protect our environment

      Environmental problems don’t queue politely waiting for their passports to be checked.

    • Hillary Clinton’s Fossil Fuel Financiers

      Hillary Clinton’s campaign for the presidency of the United States is powered by a lot of fossil fuel money. How can this be, when nearly all of the industry’s contributions are going to Republicans? For one, the oil and gas giants are very, very wealthy, so just a small Democratic leak from the pipeline adds up quickly. Moreover, Clinton has a lot of support from the nation’s corporate lobbyists, many of whom represent fossil fuel companies. Finally, Clinton’s wealthy backers come primarily from the world of finance—hedge-fund billionaires, investment bankers, and Wall Street executives.

    • President Obama Wants to Protect Wildlife From Cruel Killing Methods, but Trophy Hunters Aren’t Happy About It

      The strong public support for the changes is a strong signal that unsporting practices like baiting of brown bears is scientifically flawed and no longer acceptable to the majority of Americans whose tax dollars support public lands. Bear baiting involves intensive feeding of bears, typically weeks in advance of hunting seasons, so that the animals become accustomed to feeding in a certain area and then become easy targets for trophy hunters waiting nearby in blinds. Bait usually consists of donuts, candy, grease, rotting garbage, corn, fish, meat and other high-calorie foods, which can be toxic and even fatal to bears and other wildlife. Chocolate and caffeine are and can be lethal even for bears who are not later killed by hunters.

    • US and China lead push to bring Paris climate deal into force early

      The US and China are leading a push to bring the Paris climate accord into force much faster than even the most optimistic projections – aided by a typographical glitch in the text of the agreement.

      More than 150 governments, including 40 heads of state, are expected at a symbolic signing ceremony for the agreement at the United Nations on 22 April, which is Earth Day.

    • Global Warming and the Planetary Boundary

      Climate change is on a fast track, a surprisingly fast, very fast track. As such, it’s entirely possible that humanity may be facing the shock of a lifetime, caught off-guard, blindsided by a crumbling ecosystem, spawning tens of thousands of ISIS-like fighters formed into competing gangs struggling for survival.

    • Hillary Clinton’s Fossil Fuel Financiers

      Hillary Clinton’s campaign for the presidency of the United States is powered by a lot of fossil fuel money. How can this be, when nearly all of the industry’s contributions are going to Republicans? For one, the oil and gas giants are very, very wealthy, so just a small Democratic leak from the pipeline adds up quickly. Moreover, Clinton has a lot of support from the nation’s corporate lobbyists, many of whom represent fossil fuel companies. Finally, Clinton’s wealthy backers come primarily from the world of finance—hedge-fund billionaires, investment bankers, and Wall Street executives.

    • Indonesia Is Still Burning

      The orange-furred toddler survived one of the most destructive wildfires on record, but with a plastic tube leashing her neck to the porch of a small hut, she hardly appears to have found salvation. A villager, Kasuan, who like many Indonesians goes by one name, found the orangutan cowering from wild dogs last fall, perched in one of the surviving oil palm trees in a scorched plantation near the burned forest that had been her home. The rest of her family, Kasuan tells me, perished in the epic forest fires that overtook Kalimantan, the Indonesian portion of Borneo, as woodlands were burned to make room for plantations that harvest palm oil, a $50 billion business. The ubiquitous ingredient is used in half of the packaged food and cosmetic products found on supermarket shelves, from Oreo cookies to Colgate toothpaste. At least nine of the highly endangered primates died during last year’s conflagrations. Three weeks before I arrive in March, three more orangutans, all of them female and one of them a baby, burned to death when the annual fires ignited months early.

      “If we didn’t rescue the orangutan from the haze and the fires, it would die like the others,” Erni, Kasuan’s wife, says. When the ape, which they named Sumbing, wasn’t tied to the post, Erni carried her like one of her own children. “I hope I can look after it and keep it healthy.”

      But the couple has no idea how to care for her when she grows into an adult weighing well over 100 pounds, if the animal survives that long. Compared with wild orangutans I’ve photographed, Sumbing’s hair and limbs look thin, and she seems frightened and depressed. She snaps at me when I first arrive but calms down when I pat her, and eventually she takes my hand for a moment. “I hope there are some authorities that will come to take care of the orangutan,” Kasuan says, contradicting his wife’s hopes, “because we can’t feed it what it needs.”

  • Finance

    • Investor-State dispute settlement undermines rule of law and democracy, UN expert tells Council of Europe

      Today before the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, UN expert Alfred de Zayas explained why the investor-State dispute settlement (ISDS) mechanisms contained in trade agreements are incompatible with democracy, the rule of law and human rights.

      “Existing ISDS should be phased out and no new investment treaty should contain any provision for privatized or semi-privatized dispute settlement. It is wholly unnecessary in countries that are party to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which commits States to due process and the rule of law,” said Mr. de Zayas.*

    • No, Bernie’s Taxes Don’t Show That He’s a Hypocrite

      Tax laws are tax laws, and there’s nothing hypocritical about following them even if you disagree with them. Just the opposite, in fact. It speaks well of Sanders that he supports changes that would hurt him personally. It’s a helluva lot more than Republicans ever do.

    • Robert Reich: Why Is Everyone Ignoring One of Sanders’ Most Important Proposals?

      Bernie’s idea to tax financial speculation is right on the money, and not even radical. What gives?

    • Is ISDS dead? No, multi-million lawsuits still on the horizon

      When put to the test, the Investment Court System, proposed by the Commission to replace the ill-fated Investor State Dispute Settlement mechanism (ISDS), fails to protect the right to regulate, write Cecilia Olivet and Natacha Cingotti.

      Cecilia Olivet is a researcher on trade and investment at the Transnational Institute and Natacha Cingotti is a trade campaigner for Friends of the Earth Europe.

      In just a few days, the European Union will go back to the negotiating table with the United States in an attempt to salvage the small possibilities to complete a transatlantic trade and investment deal (TTIP) before President Obama leaves office.

      During the 13th round of TTIP negotiations in New York next week, a key issue will be the controversial subject of how to resolve investment disputes.

    • Australian Case Shows Why Corporate Sovereignty Isn’t Needed In TPP — Or In Any Trade Agreement

      One of central claims made by supporters of corporate sovereignty chapters in trade deals is that companies “need” this ability to sue the government in special tribunals. The argument is that if the extra-judicial investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) framework is not available to a company, it will be defenseless when confronted with a bullying government. A new case in Australia shows why that’s not true.

    • France threatens halt to TTIP talks barring progress in coming months

  • AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics

    • Why Don’t the Candidates Talk About Afghanistan?

      Perhaps at some point the media, the voters, or the next debate moderators might inquire of the candidates what their current thoughts are.

    • 6 Policies Obama wants Saudi Arabia to Change

      He has also blamed Saudi Arabia for spreading around its intolerant, Wahhabi version of Islam, a very minority version of the religion that is puritanical and dislikes outsiders. (Probably only 40% of Saudis are Wahhabis, hence maybe 9 million of the kingdom’s 22 million citizens. There aren’t really any Wahhabis elsewhere outside Qatar and Sharjah, though millions of people have become Salafis, i.e. Sunnis who come close to Wahhabism but don’t want to leave their Sunni traditions entirely. So there are 1.5 billion Muslims, and most of them are not Puritanical or xenophobic and most of them are fine with women driving and disapprove of the full face veil (a lot of Muslim women don’t cover their heads at all). But it should also be noted that there is no statistical relationship between Wahhabism and extremism (most Wahhabis are not extremists andy more than most Shiites or Sunnis are).

    • Bernie Sanders Can Win Over Conservatives

      Now consider Clinton. Even among liberals her name is synonymous with Wall Street, and Wall Street is not synonymous with optimism for the future. The FBI continues to investigate her conduct at the State Department, and her family’s multi-billion-dollar philanthropic network means she’s conspicuously entangled with the world’s glittering, begrudged oligarchy. Do you believe her campaign is positioned to overcome the conservative distrust that a right-wing attack machine captained by Trump, Ted Cruz or John Kasich will relentlessly inflame among the masses? Now combine your answer with polls that suggest one-third of Sanders’ spirited supporters would neither vote for nor support Clinton in the general election and those that show her trailing him against Republicans nationally by as many as eight points.

    • Bernie Sanders’ Camp Complains to DNC Over Hillary Clinton’s Fundraising

      The line between legal and illegal presidential fundraising has gotten murkier in our post-Citizens United world. The Bernie Sanders camp believes Hillary Clinton and the Democratic National Committee may have crossed it.

      On Monday, Bernie 2016 expressed its concerns in a letter to DNC Chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz. The letter claims that the Hillary Victory Fund—the joint fundraising committee created by the DNC and Hillary for America (HFA)—is violating campaign finance rules.

    • Breaking Up With the Corporate Duopoly of Democracy

      In recent years, waves of whistleblowers have emerged, exposing the unprecedented scale of government and institutional corruption. From Chelsea Manning to Edward Snowden, their courage and conscience not only revealed a system virtually devoid of morality, but it unmasked some of the operators of its machinery; those who act remorselessly without any regard for others.

      This callous and conniving sector of society has a name. They are psychopaths. Psychopathy expert Robert D. Hare called them “social predators”. Social worker Steve Becker depicted them as “exploitative-consciously violating individuals”. He described how a psychopath possesses an extreme sense of entitlement; an attitude of getting whatever he wants, and in his pursuit, others are simply an object that exist mainly “to satisfy his gratifications”.

    • Millions of New Yorkers Disenfranchised from Primaries Thanks to State’s Restrictive Voting Laws

      Voters head to the polls today in New York for both the Democratic and Republican primary in one of the most closely watched races of the election. But millions of New Yorkers won’t be able to vote, thanks to the state’s restrictive voting laws.

      The state has no early voting, no Election Day registration, and excuse-only absentee balloting. The voter registration deadline for the primary closed 25 days ago, before any candidate had even campaigned in New York. Meanwhile, independent or unaffiliated voters had to change their party registrations back in October—over 190 days ago—to vote in today’s closed Democratic or Republican primaries.

      Meanwhile, WNYC is reporting there are 60,000 fewer registered Democrats in Brooklyn and no clear reason why. This comes as a group of New Yorkers who saw their party affiliations mysteriously switched filed a lawsuit seeking to open the state’s closed primary so that they can cast a ballot. We speak to The Nation’s Ari Berman, author of “Give Us the Ballot: The Modern Struggle for Voting Rights in America.”

    • New Yorkers File Emergency Lawsuit To Give Voting Rights Back To 3.2 Million People

      With less than 24 hours until the presidential primary, a group of New Yorkers who saw their party affiliations mysteriously switched are filing a lawsuit Monday seeking to open the state’s closed primary so that they can cast a ballot.

      New York has the earliest change-of-party deadline in the country — registered independent voters who wanted to participate in Tuesday’s presidential primary had to change their party by last October. Many voters missed that deadline — or thought they met it, only to have paperwork get lost in the mail — and are disenfranchised as a result.

    • Trump, Clinton take New York, move closer to presidential nomination

      The voting in New York was marred by irregularities, including more than 125,000 people missing from New York City voter rolls. The city has roughly 4 million voters considered active for the primaries.

    • Clinton and Trump in a Landslide Victory in the New York State Primary

      Not only did it pit Clinton, its former U.S. senator, against Brooklyn-born Sanders, but both candidates aggressively parried. Sanders went after Wall Street and Clinton’s ties to financiers, held events where he reached out to other key constituencies (such as Puerto Ricans concerned about the island’s debt and striking Verizon telecom workers) and held rallies attended by tens of thousands of backers.

    • A Look at the Presidential Candidates’ Tax Returns

      Monday was the deadline for filing federal tax returns. The presidential candidates are also making tax-related headlines, as four of the five have already released their 2014 tax returns to the public. The takeaways? Bernie Sanders (who has made headlines for his low income compared to the rest of the 2016 candidates) pays the least, thanks to significant deductions. The Clintons, on the other hand, pay a 35.7 percent tax rate (compared to the average national rate of 14.7 percent).

    • After New York Win, Clinton Campaign Says Sanders’ Attacks Help Republicans

      Palmieri pointed to Sanders’ recent comment that Clinton is not qualified to be president—a remark Sanders quickly walked back—as well as his assertion in the last debate that he questioned her judgment. She also noted that the Sanders campaign on Monday accused the Clinton campaign of campaign finance violations.

    • Watch: Activist Whose Group Filed an Emergency Lawsuit in New York Blasts Mysterious Disenfranchisement of Thousands of Voters

      Shyla Nelson talks with The Young Turks about the federal lawsuit filed by Election Justice USA against the Department of Elections due to a giant voter purge in New York State.

  • Censorship/Free Speech

  • Privacy/Surveillance

  • Civil Rights/Policing

    • How I Was Arrested by a War Crimes Tribunal — for My Journalism

      On March 24 I stood outside the United Nations war crimes tribunal in the Hague, surrounded by dozens of men and women who had survived massacres and concentration camps and rapes during the Bosnian war. I had joined the gathering on Churchillplein before the announcement of the tribunal’s verdict for Karadzic, who was charged with genocide and crimes against humanity. I noticed a female security officer from the U.N. weaving back and forth through the crowd, trying to reach me. I realized, as the officer grabbed for my wrist and tried to put handcuffs on me, that my freedom was at issue on this day, too.

      “She’s crazy, she has no jurisdiction,” I shouted at a Dutch police officer who stood before me stone-faced. I didn’t try to run. I was on Dutch territory so I assumed the Dutch police would not allow a U.N. officer to arrest me. Having no police powers, the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia had always depended on member nations to execute its warrants—but this was about to change. Ironically, the tribunal’s first arrest by one of its own officers was going to be of a journalist who had reported on warlords and mass killers, rather than an actual war criminal.

    • Democracy Sleepwalking

      By the time the week was over, perhaps 1,200 were arrested. It may have been the largest nonviolent civil disobedience in years, but this is one more metric, like number of sponsoring organizations, to stick on a press release for media consumption. And the media know it. One high-level organizer scoffed at the mainstream media impact, noting the minimal coverage.

    • My Projection for Sanders v. Clinton in New York’s Primary

      This projection, if accurate, would keep Sanders on Another Path to Victory in terms of the pledged delegate race as I see it. The polls close tonight at 9pm eastern. By about 10pm, we should know whether I have stumbled upon a way to more accurately forecast Democratic primaries or whether I’ve been doing math to make myself feel better as a Sandernista.

    • Ben & Jerry Get Arrested At Capitol Hill Protests

      Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield – more popularly known as Ben and Jerry, the guys behind the ice cream – were among hundreds of protesters arrested at the Democracy Spring rallies at the United States Capitol Building on Monday. The protests began early this month with a 140-mile march from Philadelphia to D.C. and continued with a week-long sit-in to demand Congressional action on voting rights and campaign finance. Cohen and Greenfield were among some 1,300 peaceful protesters who were arrested. Actress Rosario Dawson, who in recent months has been an active and vocal supporter of Bernie Sanders, was also among those arrested.

    • The Sanders/Clinton Split on Israel

      There is a vast difference between Sanders and Clinton on Israel. Make no mistake. A President Hillary Clinton would strengthen Israel’s noose around the necks of the Palestinian people. She would not be an honest broker in any process to bring peace to that region.

    • BREAKING: NYPD Officer Sentenced To Five Years Of Probation For Killing Akai Gurley

      Former New York Police Officer Peter Liang was sentenced to five years of probation and 800 hours of community service by New York Judge Danny Chun Tuesday, two months after a jury convicted the former officer of manslaughter and official misconduct. Just before the sentence was handed down, Chun reduced the manslaughter count to criminally negligent homicide.

    • Thousands of Israelis Rally in Support of Soldier Who Executed Wounded Palestinian

      Thousands of Israelis rallied in Tel Aviv’s Rabin Square on Tuesday in support of an army medic who was caught on video last month apparently executing a wounded Palestinian suspect following a knife attack in the occupied West Bank.

      The medic, Sgt. Elor Azaria, 19, was charged with manslaughter by an Israeli military court on Monday for firing a single bullet into the head of Abdel Fattah al-Sharif, killing him, on March 24 in the city of Hebron. Sharif was one of two young Palestinians suspected of lightly wounding an Israeli soldier in an area of the city inhabited by Jewish settlers.

    • How Israel Killed the ‘Two-State Solution’

      The radical Israeli settlers in the West Bank city of Hebron present what is certainly a candidate for being the ugliest face of Israel’s creeping annexation of the West Bank. And, the expansion of settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem has reached a point that renders the so-called Two State Solution an impossibility.

  • Internet Policy/Net Neutrality

    • Did You Think the Battle Over Net Neutrality Was Over? Think Again

      A landmark decision by the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia that will determine the fate of US rules protecting net neutrality could come as early as this week.

      The central legal issue before the court is whether the FCC overstepped its regulatory authority in 2015 by reclassifying internet service providers, or ISPs, as “common carriers” under Title II of the Communications Act.

      Some of the nation’s largest broadband companies have challenged the FCC’s policy, calling it “arbitrary, capricious, and an abuse of discretion” that “harms consumers, competition, and broadband deployment.”

      By changing the way it approaches ISPs, the FCC claimed the authority to apply utility-style regulations originally designed for phone companies to broadband providers in order to prohibit blocking, throttling, and paid prioritization deals, in which ISPs like Comcast, Verizon and AT&T favor certain content, effectively discriminating against rivals.

  • DRM

    • Netflix: VPN Blockade Backlash Doesn’t Hurt Us

      Netflix CEO Reed Hastings says that the recent crackdown on VPN and proxy users hasn’t hurt the company’s results. The VPN blockade only affects a small but vocal minority, according to Hastings, and there are no signs that hordes of subscribers are abandoning ship.

  • Intellectual Monopolies

    • Nationalizing Trade Secret Law

      Nationalizing Contract Law?: It is interesting that congress is moving forward so quickly with nationalizing the traditional state-law claim of trade secret misappropriation. Most trade secret cases involve an underlying breach of contract between the parties. The current bill would implicitly have courts rely upon local contract law to determine the scope of rights of the parties before then determining whether a federal claim of trade secret misappropriation exists.

    • EU-Canada Trade Deal Still Struggling, As Romania And Belgium Say They Won’t/Can’t Ratify Treaty

      Alongside the better-known trade deals that aren’t really trade deals, TPP and TAFTA/TTIP, the smaller one between the European Union and Canada, CETA, is still trapped in a strange kind of political limbo. It was “celebrated” way back in October 2014, and has been officially in the “legal scrubbing” phase where the text is tidied up and translated into all the relevant languages (lots of them for the EU). Cleverly, the EU has used this period to sneak in the “lipstick on a pig” version of corporate sovereignty in an attempt to head off revolts among EU nations worried about growing public resistance to the idea.

    • Copyrights

      • Microsoft’s Azure Awarded FACT Anti-Piracy Seal of Approval

        Azure, the cloud computing platform created by Microsoft, has become the first service of its type to gain certification from anti-piracy group Federation Against Copyright Theft. The accreditation means that Microsoft has implemented many physical and digital processes designed to thwart online pirates.

      • California Assembly Looks To Push Cities To Copyright & Trademark Everything They Can

        If you’ve followed Techdirt (or US copyright law) for any length of time, you’re probably familiar with the fact that the federal government is barred from claiming copyright on any work created by the federal government (but it is able to hold copyrights that were transferred to it, which is another issue for another day). However, with state law, it’s a bit more murky. Many have (quite reasonably) argued that this same rule should apply to state laws as well. But states sometimes like to claim copyright in their works — and thus, for now, it’s officially a matter delegated to each state to decide for its own works. Remember when the state of Oregon claimed copyright in its own laws?

      • Authors Guild Petulantly Whines About How Wrong It Is That The Public Will Benefit From Google Books

        Yesterday we wrote about the fairly unsurprising, but still good, news that the Supreme Court had rejected an attempted appeal by the Authors Guild of the really excellent fair use decision by the 2nd Circuit appeals court over whether or not Google scanning books to build a giant, searchable index was fair use.

      • Copyright Experts: Fair Use is Not Getting a Fair Deal in Australia

        Fair use is one of the biggest undelivered promises of a report of the Australian Law Reform Commission to the Australian government two years ago, which recommended improvements to Australian copyright law. Instead of delivering a fair use exception, the government slapped users with onerous new enforcement provisions such as SOPA-style web blocking and data retention, along with a now-shelved attempt at a graduated response code for penalizing users suspected of infringement.

        Strangely, these new strict enforcement provisions have failed to transform Australia into a more innovative and productive economy, and so the government has finally turned its attention back to other copyright reforms such as fair use, by way of a new inquiry of its Productivity Commission. Cue the entry of Australia’s big media and entertainment conglomerates, who funded a fear-mongering report by PricewaterhouseCoopers (PWC) claiming that the introduction of a fair use exception to copyright would bring near-apocalyptic consequences for Australia’s creative sector, while failing to deliver significant benefits.

04.19.16

Links 19/4/2016: Kali Linux Rolling Release, PCLOS Reviewed

Posted in News Roundup at 5:31 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

GNOME bluefish

Contents

GNU/Linux

Free Software/Open Source

  • Why the Internet of Things needs open source

    It should come as no surprise to you that the Internet of Things already depends upon open source. Many IoT devices run one form of embedded Linux or another. In fact, without Linux many IoT devices simply wouldn’t exist. What should come as a surprise to you is when companies that produce these IoT devices close up shop, they leave those devices out in the wild to die. Perfectly good hardware no longer capable of functioning…even when open source is at the heart of the device.

    This needs to change.

  • CUBA Platform is Going Open Source

    The long-awaited moment has come, and now we are happy to announce that the CUBA Platform has finally joined the free software community! From now on, the runtime part of the platform is open source and distributed under the Apache 2.0 license. This means that you will be able to create and distribute your applications for free! So, go ahead and start your CUBA application right now!

  • Events

    • Device Tree Microconference Accepted into 2016 Linux Plumbers Conference

      Device-tree discussions are probably not quite as spirited as in the past, however, device tree is an active area. In particular, significant issues remain.

    • OpenSchool 2016 in Brno

      Last week Red Hat Czech has for the first time hoster a very special event. We’ve called it OpenSchool and the purpose of the event was to explain to high school students trends in IT, trends in software development as well as why should they care about opensource. It was fairly tough for us to figure out the level of knowledge that these kids between 12-16 years of age know about IT now. Sure they use smart phones daily, are on most of social networks and intuitively use tons of different applications – but do they know how their favorite apps are developed and what powers their daily used social network in the back?

    • Event report: rootconf 2016

      Rootconf is the largest DevOps, and Cloud infrastructure related conference in India. This year’s event happened on 14-15th April in the MLR convention center, Bangalore. I traveled on the day one of the event from Pune. Woke up by 3AM in the morning, and then took the first flight to Bangalore. Picked up Ramky on my way to the venue. Managed to skip most of the (in)famous Bangalore traffic thanks to a govt holiday.

    • The night I became a hacker

      You may ask yourself, how does one become a hacker?

    • Announcing systemd.conf 2016

      After our successful first conference 2015 we’d like to repeat the event in 2016 for the second time. The conference will take place on September 28th until October 1st, 2016 at betahaus in Berlin, Germany. The event is a few days before LinuxCon Europe, which also is located in Berlin this year. This year, the conference will consist of two days of presentations, a one-day hackfest and one day of hands-on training sessions.

  • Web Browsers

    • Mozilla

      • Some Of What You Can Find On Mozilla’s Servo Roadmap

        Besides planning for the Servo and Browser.html initial release this summer there are a lot of other exciting items on the roadmap for developers working on Mozilla’s Servo next-generation engine written in Rust.

        Among the hopes for Servo in 2016 are more performance improvements, continue advancing the browser front-end (such as the current browser.html effort), fill in remaining subsystem implementations, bringing the Windows port up to scratch, moving WebRender into production quality, and begin shipping Rust/Servo components gradually within the Gecko engine. Among the performance items on the agenda for Servo this year is CSS support on the GPU, SIMD layouts, DOM wrapper fusion, and more.

      • This Week In Servo 60

  • SaaS/Back End

  • Oracle/Java/LibreOffice

  • CMS

  • Pseudo-Open Source (Openwashing)

  • FSF/FSFE/GNU/SFLC

    • Richard Stallman Talks GNU, Linux, Terrorism and French Politics

      What is Richard Stallman, the father of free software (if not open source) like in person? And what is he thinking now about Linux, terrorism and French politics? I gained some insight recently when the founder of the GNU operating system spoke near Paris.

  • Public Services/Government

    • Study: Govt should nurture open source sector

      Governments that want to increase the use of open source software by public administrations should encourage the growth of an open source service sector, recommends Maha Shaikh, researcher at Warwick Business School, University of Warwick (UK). Public administrations should share their open source expert consultants.

    • OSI’s Comments to the White House Office of Management and Budget Regarding the “Federal Source Code Policy”

      Governments around the globe recognize the value of open source as both a technology solution delivering value to the public they serve, as well as an approach for development returning tax-payer investments back to the society they represent. The implementation of the Federal Source Code Policy will be a key component in “reducing Federal vendor lock-in, decreasing duplicative costs for the same code, increasing transparency across the Federal Government, and minimizing the challenges associated with integrating large blocks of code from multiple sources” (Line 30, Federal Source Code Policy).

    • Munich publishes interim report on IT performance

      The city of Munich (Germany) has published the first part of a report on improving the city’s IT performance. The report by Accenture, a consultancy, suggests that the city uses a great many software applications, making its IT too complex.

    • Munich, Revisited

      News of the death of GNU/Linux in Munich’s local government is exaggerated, apparently. A thorough review of the global IT-system finds nothing to report. What it does find is that Munich is still using too many applications even after pruning them back severely in the migration to GNU/Linux.

  • Licensing/Legal

    • Open Source: Licensing Pitfalls May Outweigh Benefits [Ed: certainly another attack on using common talking points]

      A common provision of such licenses, however, is that any software that derives from the open-source software must also be made publically available under the same copyleft provisions. Some of these licenses can be incompatible with one another, so that by combining code blocks with different licenses a developer would create a situation where conforming to one license violates the terms of the other license. Some licenses may conflict with a businesses’ objectives by forbidding commercialization of derivative products. And some licenses, Leach noted, are “viral” in nature in that not only is the specific software built on the open-source component to be made open source under the license, so is all other integrated software that becomes part of the product. Further, such a viral license not only “infects” the developing company’s proprietary product software, forcing it to be open source, the license can force application software created by the product’s user to also become open source under the viral license.

  • Openness/Sharing/Collaboration

    • This open source tool will help you use your mind to control DIY projects

      Move over pressing buttons with hands. You can now use your mind to control smartphones, robots, and even your friends’ limbs with OpenBCI, an open-source brain-computer interface.

    • Open Hardware/Modding

      • RuuviTag, an open-source Bluetooth Sensor Beacon, heading to KickStarter

        RuuviTag is a low power, compact Bluetooth beacon solution that can monitor its surroundings in various ways, that can be implemented to other devices and projects due to its open development.

        Aside from being just a standard proximity beacon, it can also monitor temperature, humidity, air pressure and acceleration, and can be easily adjusted to cover different kinds of needs without programming or electronic knowledge. The device can operate for several years on a single coin battery.

  • Programming/Development

    • 5 more timeless lessons of programming ‘graybeards’

      The HR departments and hiring managers in Silicon Valley have a challenge. They can’t ask an applicant’s age because their companies have lost brutal discrimination lawsuits over the years. Instead, they develop little tricks like tossing in an oblique reference to “The Brady Bunch” (“Marcia, Marcia, Marcia!”) and seeing if the candidate gets the joke. Candidates who chuckle are deemed a poor cultural fit and are tossed aside.

    • Node.js Foundation 2016 User Survey Report

      The Node.js Foundation recently conducted an expansive user survey to better understand Node.js users (you, or maybe you :). We were interested in getting a better sense of the type of development work you use Node.js for, what other technologies you use with Node.js, how the Node.js Foundation can help you get more out of Node.js, how you learn new languages, and more.

    • Learn Computer Science And Programming With Google’s New Education Website

Leftovers

  • Science

    • Britain’s scientists must not be gagged

      Unless government officials make a major U-turn in the next few days, many British scientists will soon be blocked from speaking out on key issues affecting the UK – from climate change to embryo research and from animal experiments to flood defences. This startling, and highly controversial, state of affairs follows a Cabinet Office decision, revealed by the Observer in February, that researchers who receive government grants will be banned, as of 1 May, from using the results of their work to lobby for changes in laws or regulations.

      The aim of the Cabinet Office edict was to stop NGOs from lobbying politicians and Whitehall departments using the government’s own funds. The effect, say senior scientists, campaigners and research groups, will be to muzzle scientists from speaking out on important issues. The government move is a straightforward assault on academic freedom, they argue.

    • How ‘The Jungle Book’ Made Its Animals Look So Real With Groundbreaking VFX

      A small, colorful bird flutters about on screen in the opening scene of Disney’s new live-action adaptation of The Jungle Book, inviting the audience into the mythical wilds with an adorable chirp and clear message on behalf of the filmmakers, which amounts to, “Look what we can do now!”

  • Health/Nutrition

    • John Oliver Shames Congress for America’s Lead Contamination Crisis

      “There is no safe level of lead,” Oliver said. “It’s one of those things that are so dangerous, you shouldn’t even let a little bit inside of you—much like heroin or Jeremy Piven. Even low-level exposure can lead to irreversible damage like lower IQ’s, anti-social behavior, and reduced attention span.”

    • Bernie and Hillary Have Very Different Positions When It Comes to Fracking

      When Bernie Sanders addressed a huge crowd in Binghamton, New York last week and proposed a national fracking ban, it was the first time I’ve heard a national leader of his prominence get the science on fracking right.

      New Yorkers know that science, because we fought tooth and nail to ensure the perils of fracking were understood. In December 2014, our voices were heard, as the health commissioner found that fracking endangered public health. Governor Cuomo famously said he would follow “the science, not emotion” on fracking, and banned it throughout New York.

    • Davison student journalists broadcast loud and clear

      Surrounded by a throng of media outlets from all over the state at a news conference with Flint Mayor Karen Weaver about replacing the city’s lead-tainted water pipes, Bruns, a 17-year-old reporter with Davison Community Schools’ DTV, knew she had to ask a question. Her camera person gave her a small shove into the crowd. She asked about the cost.

      “I have to put my voice out there,” said Bruns, a junior at Davison High School. “It’s taught me a lot about putting myself out there and being confident in my questions. …We’re the only high school doing this.”

      Bruns is part of a small but ambitious group of high school journalists at DTV, Davison’s student-run cable access station. Covering Flint’s water crisis long before the national media descended on Flint, they’re getting powerful first-hand lessons about the role of the media, politics and the human toll when government fails to do its job. Davison is just 10 minutes outside Flint.

    • Investment Court System put to the test

      New EU proposal will perpetuate investors’ attacks on health and environment

  • Security

    • Security updates for Monday
    • DHS CIO walks back staff comments on open source

      Some IT professionals at the Department of Homeland Security raised eyebrows over recent comments on GitHub that suggested a proposed federal open-source policy could result in the “mafia having a copy of all FBI system code” or could give terrorists “access to air traffic control software.” The comments were attributed to the CIO’s office.

      However, DHS CIO Luke McCormack has since filed his own official comments, noting that “prior comments do not represent DHS policy or views.”

    • Microsoft PowerShell — Hackers’ New Favorite Tool For Coding Malware

      You might not know but PowerShell, the ubiquitous force running behind the Windows environment, is slowly becoming a secure way for the attackers to hide their malicious activities. Unfortunately, at the moment, there’s no technical method of distinguishing between malicious and good PowerShell source code.

    • MIT reveals AI platform which detects 85 percent of cyberattacks

      Today’s cybersecurity professionals face daunting tasks: protecting enterprise networks from threats as best they can, damage limitation when data breaches occur, cyberforensics and documenting the evolution and spread of digital attacks and malware across the world.

    • Changing your password regularly is a terrible idea, and here’s why [Ed: security advice from agencies whose modus operandi, based on leaks, is to target sysadmins and hoard all their passwords isn't good advice]

      Most administrators force users to change their password at regular intervals — every 30, 60, or 90 days, for example. But this carries no real benefits as stolen passwords are generally exploited immediately, said CESG, the IT security arm of surveillance agency GCHQ.

  • Defence/Aggression

    • US-Led Coalition Against Daesh Contracts for ‘Indefinite Quantity’ of Ammo

      The US-led coalition against Daesh will buy an unspecified amount of non-standard ammunition from Orbital ATK weapons manufacturer.

    • Orbital ATK making non-U.S. standard ammo for U.S. allies

      Non-U.S. standard ammunition and mortar weapons systems are to continue to be produced by Orbital ATK under a new indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity award from the U.S. Government.

    • Orbital ATK Wins Ammunition and Mortar Weapons Contract From Dept. of Defense (NYSE:OA)
    • Explaining Trump and Clinton to a Global Audience (and to Americans)

      Then across the span of a day, September 11, 2001, America changed. We became, as a nation, afraid.

      We were afraid of enemies most Americans had heard little about. We were afraid of what might happen next. We were afraid of an attack against the shopping mall, the school, the tiny place in our tiny town that didn’t show up well on most local maps, never mind one bin Laden might use. Our fears were carefully curated by opportunistic people in two successive administrations, who used that fear to manipulate democracy itself. They turned America’s vast spying apparatus inward, imposed a global gulag archipelago of torture sites and secret prisons, and institutionalizing the drone wars.

      Amid the various causes and justifications, that it is all about oil, or empire, what it is all about at the root level is fear. Fear of the latest bogeyman, fear screeches of groups on YouTube are real, and that they are ready to strike what we now all call the Homeland. That word never existed in America prior to 9/11.

    • US War Crimes in Iraq: Fallujah Residents Starving, Murdered, Besieged by US Backed Government Forces and ISIS

      Fallujah is now under siege by the US imposed Iraqi puppet government and ISIS – as people demonstrate in thousands in protest at yet another American backed administration which has brought nothing but misery to the population. Incredibly US Vice President Joe Biden and Iranian Major-General Qassem Soleimani have come together: “to make clear … that no attempt should be made to unseat” the current Prime Minister, Haider al-Abadi. (“US, Iran Keep Iraqi PM in Place”, Reuters, 6 April 2016.)

    • Saudis have lobbying muscle for 9/11 fight

      Saudi Arabia has an army of Washington lobbyists to deploy as it tries to stop Congress from passing legislation that could expose the country to litigation over the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

      The kingdom employs a total of eight American firms that perform lobbying, consulting, public relations and legal work.

      Five of the firms work for the Saudi Arabia Embassy, while another two — Podesta Group and BGR Group — have registered to represent the Center for Studies and Media Affairs at the Saudi Royal Court, an arm of the government. PR giant Edelman, meanwhile, is working for the Saudi Arabian General Investment Authority to encourage international investment.

    • Uncovering the Hidden Truths of 9/11

      This vexing issue is back in the news again thanks to CBS, whose 60 Minutes program reported on the so-called “28 Pages,” the portion of the official report on 9/11 that has been withheld from the public since 2003, through two presidencies. Many former officials, including members of Congress, long demanded Washington release the 28 Pages, to no avail. Presidents Bush and Obama have demurred because those pages reveal some very unflattering things about Saudi Arabia, our longtime ally.

    • An Interview With Gustavo Castro, Sole Witness to Assassination of Berta Cáceres

      The government wanted me under its control. It has no laws that protect victims. Nor does it have regulations or protocols or a budget to protect human rights activists. Nor does it have regulations for protected witnesses. So they wanted me under their so-called protection where there is no law that obligates them to do anything. Which is why I stayed in the Mexican Embassy. But it was a month of horrible stress and tension, in which the government, with its complete lack of regulations or protocols, could easily accuse me of anything at any moment, show up with a judicial order, and the Mexican Embassy wouldn’t have been able to do anything. One week before I arrived in Honduras, the Judicial Commission had been dissolved, so there was no legal instrument with which I could defend myself. There was no commission before which I could denounce a judge who acted illegally, because that commission had been dissolved. So I found myself in total legal defenselessness — without a lawyer, because they suspended her. And it seemed neither international pressure nor the Mexican government could do anything. So it was a state of complete insecurity and a constant violation of my human rights.

    • Saudi Arabia Coerces US Over 9/11

      Saudi Arabia is threatening to financially punish the U.S. if it holds the kingdom to account for its 9/11 role…

    • Clinton and Sanders Back Saudi-9/11 Bill, But Who Has Read ‘Missing 28 Pages’?

      Though he has access to the pages, Sanders told “CBS This Morning” on Monday that he hasn’t yet read them—nor will he, until they are publicly released.

      “The difficulty is,” he explained, “you see then, if you read them, then you’re gonna ask me a question, you’re gonna say, ‘You read them, what’s in them?’ And now I can tell you honestly I have not.”

    • The Pretense of Nation-Building

      It is no wonder then, that U.S. intervention has fomented and fueled sectarian and tribal civil wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Libya, Yemen, Somalia, Pakistan, and elsewhere. The expertise of America’s geopolitical planners has proven to be, not in the building of nations, but in the demolition of societies.

    • Tomgram: William Astore, Words About War Matter

      Since 9/11, can there be any doubt that the public has become numb to the euphemisms that regularly accompany U.S. troops, drones, and CIA operatives into Washington’s imperial conflicts across the Greater Middle East and Africa? Such euphemisms are meant to take the sting out of America’s wars back home. Many of these words and phrases are already so well known and well worn that no one thinks twice about them anymore.

      Here are just a few: collateral damage for killed and wounded civilians (a term used regularly since the First Gulf War of 1990-1991). Enhanced interrogation techniques for torture, a term adopted with vigor by George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, and the rest of their administration (“techniques” that were actually demonstrated in the White House). Extraordinary rendition for CIA kidnappings of terror suspects off global streets or from remote badlands, often followed by the employment of enhanced interrogation techniques at U.S. black sites or other foreign hellholes. Detainees for prisoners and detention camp for prison (or, in some cases, more honestly, concentration camp), used to describe Guantánamo (Gitmo), among other places established offshore of American justice. Targeted killings for presidentially ordered drone assassinations. Boots on the ground for yet another deployment of “our” troops (and not just their boots) in harm’s way. Even the Bush administration’s Global War on Terror, its label for an attempt to transform the Greater Middle East into a Pax Americana, would be redubbed in the Obama years overseas contingency operations (before any attempt at labeling was dropped for a no-name war pursued across major swathes of the planet).

    • Iraqi Refugee Kicked Off Plane for Speaking Arabic in L.A. Says Islamophobia Boosts ISIS

      An Iraqi college student was removed from a Southwest Airlines flight in Los Angeles this month and interrogated by the F.B.I. because a fellow passenger overheard him speaking Arabic during the boarding process.

      The student, Khairuldeen Makhzoomi, a senior at the University of California, Berkeley, was granted asylum in the United States after his father was killed by Saddam Hussein’s secret police. He told The Intercept that he wants Americans to know about what happened to him because the current wave of anti-Muslim hysteria in the United States is counter-productive, since it reinforces the propaganda of the Islamic extremists. Americans who see all Muslims as potential terrorists, he said, are “playing straight into the rhetoric of the Islamic State — they fall into the trap.”

    • Politics, racism and Israel/Palestine

      If we need to be vigilant against the evil of antisemitism, we need to be equally vigilant against the kind of virulent racism which is gaining ground in Israel.

      [...]

      Anti-Zionist Jews in Israel and in the diaspora find common cause with the Palestinian Authority not because they share a desire to annihilate the Jewish state but because they oppose a militant, ultra-nationalist Zionism that ironically has the denial of Palestinian statehood at its core.

  • Environment/Energy/Wildlife/Nature

    • Netherlands moots electric car future with petrol and diesel ban by 2025
    • The Netherlands Could Soon Ban The Sale Of Non-Electric Cars

      In the Netherlands, gas-powered cars could soon be a thing of the past.

      The lower house of the Dutch parliament passed a motion recently that would ban the sales of non-electric cars in the country by 2025. The motion still needs to pass the Senate to become binding, but if it does, it would mean that the only non-electric cars allowed in the Netherlands would be those already on the road today: anyone in the country looking to buy a new car would have to buy electric.

      Such a law would, naturally, lead to a big increase in electric car ownership in the Netherlands. Already, the Netherlands is doing pretty well on EV purchasing: last year, Dutch residents bought more than 43,000 new electric cars, and EVs currently make up nearly 10 percent of the country’s market. The Netherlands ranks second in the world for market share of electric vehicles — behind Norway, where over 22 percent of the market is made up of electric cars. In the United States, for comparison, EVs make up 0.66 percent of the market.

    • 250 Faith Leaders Demand Nations Ratify Paris Climate Deal

      Former U.N. climate chief Christiana Figueres has credited faith groups for helping to advance the Paris Climate Agreement by supporting “holistic, equitable, but above all, ambitious climate action.”

    • Fossil fuels could be phased out worldwide in a decade, says new study

      The worldwide reliance on burning fossil fuels to create energy could be phased out in a decade, according to an article published by a major energy think tank.

  • Finance

    • How The American Neoconservatives Destroyed Mankind’s Hopes For Peace

      The only achievements of the American neoconservatives are to destroy in war crimes millions of peoples in eight countries and to send the remnant populations fleeing into Europe as refugees, thus undermining the American puppet governments there, and to set back the chances of world peace and American leadership by creating a powerful strategic alliance between Russia and China.

    • Lies and the Koh I Noor Diamond

      Britain annexed the Sikh Kingdom. Poor Dulip Singh was forcibly separated from his mother and exiled to Scotland, where he was held effectively a state prisoner until his death.

      It is bad enough to see senior Indians kowtowing to that lazy bald bloke and his skinny wife, on the very expensive luxury holiday I am paying for, without also seeing the Indian government playing lickspittle in court.

    • Wonks and Activists

      In other posts I wrote about how Paul Krugman, a genuine expert, was completely wrong about the impact of trade treaties, especially NAFTA. Larry Summers, a genuine expert with a lot of real-world experience, has been disastrously wrong on a number of occasions, not least of which was his loud endorsement of financial deregulation, even after the Long Term Capital Management debacle. Summers was one of the people who quashed the efforts of Brooksley Born to regulate derivatives.

    • The Obamacare “Wonks” Are Awfully Selective about Which Taxes and Costs They See

      In this passage, Cohn talks about the things that Bernie Sanders might do as President that fall short of his goal of “single payer” health care (I put that in quotes because what we’re really talking about is government paid health insurance — as providers pull out of exchanges in Obamacare we’re actually moving closer to a much more alarming sort of single payer model).

    • Panama Papers: Reigniting the Debate for a Global Tax Body

      Globally, economists estimate that $7.6tn worth of assets are held off shore and are thereby avoiding taxation – 25% more than five years ago and equivalent to 8% of the world’s total financial assets. Citizens for Tax Justice have calculated that Fortune 500 companies alone hold a record $2.4tn in offshore accounts, which they argue allows them to avoid almost $700bn in US federal income taxes. Most recently, Oxfam have estimated that the 50 largest US companies have $1.4 trillion hidden in Tax havens, which costs the US government approximately $111 each year. In the EU, governments are reportedly losing out on revenues of between 50-70bn euros ($56-79bn).

    • The Panama Papers and the 1%

      Mainstream media have had little to say about the tax evasions of global corporations, choosing instead to focus on world leaders who, personally or via family and cronies, have moved funds into companies abroad to avoid paying taxes—for instance, Vladimir Putin, Xi Jinping, David Cameron, Nawaz Sharif, and Iceland’s Sigmundur Davíð Gunnlaugsson (the only one to step down). Naturally, they all reject criticism, saying that what they did isn’t illegal (Britain, Pakistan, and Iceland), or the leaks are a Western attempt to undermine their rule (Russia), or the news isn’t fit to print (China). Largely missing from the discussion is the consequences of tax avoidance: it robs the poor—countries and people—to further enrich the wealthy. Unpaid taxes skew government budgets, reduce spending on social well being, and, for a poor country, force reliance on foreign loans that typically come with strings attached. In countries with widespread official corruption, the poor are doubly cheated.

    • Patriotic Philanthropy?

      On one hand, Rubinstein uses his wealth to preserve various artifacts of American history. On the other, he uses his wealth to convince lawmakers to maintain a preferential and fundamentally unfair tax status for himself and other millionaires and billionaires. There’s nothing patriotic or philanthropic about subverting the fabric of our democracy.

    • Hooray for Hillary Clinton’s Ties to Walmart

      Senator Bernie Sanders is emailing supporters highlighting the fact that his opponent in the Democratic presidential primary, Hillary Clinton, is being supported by “enormous checks from people like Alice Walton (yes, Wal-Mart).” And it is true. Federal campaign finance records show that Walton, of Bentonville, Arkansas, gave Hillary Clinton’s campaign $2,700, and then wrote another check, for $353,400, to the “Hillary Victory Fund.”

      The support for Clinton’s campaign represents something of a political shift for Walton. Previously, her large donations had mainly gone to Republicans. The Federal Election Commission records show she donated a total of $200,000 in 2011 and 2012 to a committee backing Mitt Romney, a Republican presidential candidate, and a total of $2 million in 2004 to a group supporting President George W. Bush’s reelection. Additional contributions of more than $150,000 in the past dozen years have gone to groups supporting Republican candidates for the House and Senate.

    • Panama and the Criminalization of the Global Finance System

      Well, Panama was basically carved off from Colombia in order to have a canal. It was created very much like Liberia. It’s not really a country in the sense that a country has its own currency and its own tax system. Panama uses U.S. dollars. So does Liberia.

      The real story didn’t come out in the Panama papers. Reporters naturally focused on criminal people laundering money. But Panama wasn’t designed to launder money. It was designed to launder earnings – mainly by the oil and the gas industries, and the mining industry.

  • AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics

    • Hillary Clinton and the Gender Card

      Not race nor gender — nor any other innate characteristic — should be the touchstone in voting for President of the United States. Yet, as I have traveled the country these past several years, I have been amazed at how many Americans have no qualms in stating that their support for President Barack Obama is based solely – or mostly – on his being black. Equally amazing is the unabashedly indiscriminate support I hear voiced by highly educated women for Hillary Clinton – “because she is a woman and it’s our turn,” as they put it.

    • Bernie Sanders Is Almost Tied Nationally and Ahead of Clinton in Three Democratic Primary Polls
    • Once Ahead by 60 Points, Clinton National Lead over Sanders Has Dwindled to Zero

      Though all political eyes in the U.S. are now focused like a laser beam on Tuesday’s New York primary, the national trends remain startling when it comes to the intense competition between Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders.

      Though Clinton led Sanders by sixty points when he entered the campaign less than a year ago, a new Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll released Monday shows that lead has been “all but eliminated” – with only two percentage points now separating the Democratic candidates.

      As the Journal reports, “The result continues a steady narrowing of the gap between the two Democratic candidates since January, when Mrs. Clinton led by 25 points, 59% to 34%. And it is a far cry from the way the race looked when Mr. Sanders began his campaign last year: In June 2015, a Journal/NBC poll found Mrs. Clinton leading by 60 percentage points, 75% to 15%.”

    • Bill Moyers: How Our Stone-Age Brain Gets in the Way of Smart Politics

      When a politician talks anger and they talk fear, they are mainlining, just like a heroin addict, going straight for the most sensitive parts of the brain because fear and anger are those emotions that we really relate to. And when a politician engages and indulges people’s fears and their angers, they seem really authentic. That’s why Donald Trump seems so authentic to so many millions of people because these emotions are so strong and powerful.

    • Democrats March Toward Cliff

      It is hard to imagine someone who is viewed unfavorably by a clear majority of voters (56 percent) and with a net-negative of 24 points winning the White House, except that most voters also don’t like the top Republican choices either. Donald Trump sports a 41-point net-negative and Sen. Ted Cruz is at minus-23 points. (By contrast, of the two trailing candidates, Sen. Bernie Sanders gets a net-positive 9 points and Gov. John Kasich a net-positive 12 points.)

  • Censorship/Free Speech

    • Russia’s Top Investigator Wants Internet Censorship to Fight U.S. ‘Info War’
    • Top Russian investigator proposes internet censorship using Chinese experience
    • Literary censorship in schools impedes progress

      “I believe that books challenge and interrogate. They give us windows into the lives of others and give us mirrors so that we can better see ourselves. Ultimately if you have a worldview that can be undone by a novel, let me submit that the problem is not with the novel,” states bestselling author John Green in his latest YouTube video, “On the Banning of Looking for Alaska.” His response comes right after the American Library Association (ALA) released its list of the most banned or challenged books of 2015 with Green’s award-winning novel, “Looking for Alaska,” topping off the list at number one.

    • American Self-Censorship Association

      The American Bar Association is bowing to China again. Last year it barely mumbled condemnation after Beijing rounded up more than 200 lawyers and legal activists across China. Now comes news that it also nixed a book deal with a leading human-rights lawyer for fear of “upsetting the Chinese government.”

    • Teng Biao Book Canceled for Fear of “Upsetting” China

      Human rights lawyer and activist Teng Biao, living in the U.S. since 2014 as the situation for rights lawyers back in China has become increasingly bleak, has been working on the book “Darkness Before Dawn,” a reflection on his 11 years of fighting for human rights in China. The American Bar Association (ABA), which had commissioned the book in late 2014, last year wrote Teng with bad news: they would not be able to publish the book due to “concern that we run the risk of upsetting the Chinese government.”

    • Leaked Email: ABA Cancels Book for Fear of ‘Upsetting the Chinese Government’

      The American Bar Association insists the move was market-driven, but an employee email says otherwise.

    • Is the ABA Afraid of the Chinese Government?

      The American Bar Association retracted an offer to publish the book of a well-known Chinese human rights lawyer last year, Foreign Policy reported on Friday.

      In a January 2015 email to human rights lawyer and author Teng Biao, one ABA employee said the book was being killed because of the “risk of upsetting the Chinese government,” according to the article in Foreign Policy. A reporter for the magazine said Teng only forwarded the ABA’s email to his publication last week.

    • China Bans Rich Kids From TV So They Can’t Embarrass the State
    • Censorship FTW! China bans Paris Hilton, minor Kardashians et al

      It might be time to reconsider the evils of China’s censorship regime, after the Middle Kingdom slapped a ban on reality TV shows featuring celebrities’ children.

      China’s not super-keen on reality shows: this 2015 speech by official Tian Jin urges their producers to make people, not celebrities, the real heroes of such programs. It also calls for reality shows to demonstrate proper socialistic values, represent historical and cotemporary Chinese culture faithfully and avoid sexing things up and thereby straying from the truth.

      State-owned outlet Xinhua now reports that the nation’s State Administration of Press, Publication, Radio, Film and Television (SAPPRFT) has circulated an edict effectively banning reality shows featuring celebrities’ kids from state-owned media.

    • Government denies allegations of state media censorship

      This declaration comes days after a US State Department Country Report on Human Rights Practices for 2015, cited actions of Prime Minister Moses Nagamootoo under the heading of ‘Censorship or Content Restrictions’.

    • US Human Rights report cites PM’s “headline” concern

      Nagamootoo’s directive to the state-owned Guyana Chronicle newspaper that all headlines must first get his office’s green-light.

      ‘In August the prime minister issued a directive that all headlines in the state-owned print media be first scrutinized and approved by his office before they are published. The directive was a response to a headline criticizing the government,” the report notes.

    • Nothing About The Story Of An Artist Being Threatened With A Lawsuit Over A Painting Of A Small-Dicked Donald Trump Makes Sense

      The Guardian had a weird story over the weekend claiming that artist Illma Gore is being threatened with a lawsuit if she sells a painting she created of a naked Donald Trump with, well, a less than average sized schlong (and I use that term, only because Trump apparently likes that word). I won’t post an image of the painting. The Guardian has the whole thing if you really feel like seeing it. But almost nothing in the story makes any sense at all.

    • Another police report made against Amos Yee – this time for insulting Islam

      Amos Yee whose whereabouts is still unknown has uploaded a photo in his Facebook. In the photo he is seen with a shawl over his head, holding up a Quran with one hand and making an extremely rude gesture with another.

    • Indonesia tells Singapore to mind its own business over the haze issue

      IN comments certain to rile Singaporean officials, Indonesia’s Environment and Forestry Minister Siti Nurbaya said Singapore should stop commenting on Indonesia’s efforts to combat haze and fires, and “focus on their own role.”

      Indonesia’s neighbors, Singapore and Malaysia, are frequently victims of haze from fires in Indonesian territory in what seems to be an annual affair. Jakarta has often been accused of not doing enough to address the problem, and the minister’s comments suggest that it is irritated over the criticism it receives.

      While strongly defending her government’s commitment to curbing land and forest fires, Siti questioned Singapore’s role in doing the same.

  • Privacy/Surveillance

  • Civil Rights/Policing

    • Indonesia rules out apology to victims at state-endorsed talks on 1965 massacres

      Human rights advocates are hopeful the symposium will lead to a public hearing process, so Indonesians can hear firsthand accounts from survivors and descendants of victims.

      “This is an essential element of an effective accountability process,” said Human Rights Watch executive director Kenneth Roth.

      “Dozens of countries around the world have had truth commissions shed light on past atrocities, issues that are always difficult matters to address. Why not Indonesia?”

    • Police Officer Attempts To Set Record For Most Constitutional Violations In A Single Traffic Stop

      As we’re well aware, officers need not trouble themselves as to the details of the laws they enforce. If they feel something is a violation of the law, they’re pretty much free to pull someone over and engage in some light questioning. (The Ninth Circuit Appeals Court recently declared it’s even OK for police officers to lie about the reason they’ve pulled you over.)

    • 27 Percent of New York’s Registered Voters Won’t Be Able to Vote in the State’s Primary

      New York’s restrictive voting laws hurt voters across the political spectrum, but could have a particularly chilling effect on younger Bernie Sanders supporters. “Thirty-seven percent of voters under the age of 30—the Vermont senator’s core group of supporters—aren’t registered to a political party in New York City,” writes Russell Berman in The Atlantic. There’s a good chance a surge of non-affiliated voters will show up at the polls on Tuesday, only to be turned away. (Hundreds of New Yorkers have also filed suit because their registrations have mysteriously changed from Democratic or Republican to not affiliated or independent.)

    • Only Bernie Sanders can break the power of capitalism in the US

      Defining the race as a choice between class and identity, between economic justice and social justice, was Clinton’s masterstroke. If it works, Sanders will be sunk by a combination of Wall Street money and millions of black votes in the southern states. The latter backed Clinton in some places eight or nine to one.

    • UC Davis Chancellor Survives 5-Week Sit-In Protesting Her Ties To Companies That Profit Off Students

      It’s one thing for a university chancellor to sit on a for-profit board. It’s another for a chancellor to sit on the board of a company that makes money off of students with expensive textbooks, and then move on to another that’s under investigation by the federal government.

    • #BlackLivesMatter in Britain too: why does our media care less?

      The UK media seems more comfortable talking about race issues in America than those closer to home. It is the BBC’s responsibility to challenge these double standards.

    • Pennsylvania Cop Threatens Child on School Bus: Don’t Smile or I’ll Drag You to the F*cking Police Car

      A police officer outside the city of Pittsburgh was caught on tape berating a school child on a bus for smiling at him, according to a video posted to Facebook.

      The video was posted on April 13 but the caption doesn’t give much in the way of details. It says the officer works for the North Braddock Police Department. He walks over to a child seated on a school bus and leans over threateningly.

    • Court Shoots Down Cops Attempting To Prop Up Two Warrantless Searches With A Stack Of Lies

      “Our word against yours,” says law enforcement. The accusers are almost always deemed eminently credible. Presumption of innocence and all that, but the accused are almost always deemed… incredible[?]… right up until law enforcement shows its narrative can’t hold hydrogen or oxygen, much less water. (via FourthAmendment.com)

      Roughly paraphrased, this is the story: some cop saw a guy take a white grocery bag full of something and put it in his car. Surveillance commenced. The car’s driver failed to signal a turn, which was all the cops needed to begin an exploratory stop.

      As we know, law enforcement is no longer allowed to artificially prolong traffic stops until probable cause for a search develops. Instead, it must hand out its tickets and move along. Exceptions apply, of course, but that is the gist of the Supreme Court’s Rodriguez decision.

    • N.D.Okla: Material govt’s LEO witnesses to consent were so bad govt retracted their testimony, and search fails

      The government realized when they called defendant’s estranged wife near the end of the suppression hearing about the alleged consent search of their house that “As the suppression hearing unfolded over the course of two days, the credibility of certain law enforcement witnesses was called into serious question” about the search of the house. They regrouped, asked to reopen the proof, and retracted the testimony they found false. The court makes the credibility determination that all the material government witnesses aren’t believable and suppresses the consent search. Without the consent search, the search warrant fails, too. United States v. Fernandes, 2016 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 17933 (N.D.Okla. Feb. 12, 2016).

    • City Council Using Open Records Requests To See What Members Are Saying About Them Behind Their Backs

      Most convicts already have diminished rights, depending on their convictions. Denying open records to ex-cons or those in prison denies them access to justice. It doesn’t happen often, but prisoners have been able to have their cases reheard by uncovering prosecutorial misconduct through FOIA requests. And let’s not forget that a man imprisoned for tax fraud blew the lid off law enforcement’s use of Stingray devices while still behind bars, thanks to incessant FOIA requests.

      The step back from the slope was one of pure capitulation: council member Emma Acosta never tabled the motion. Apparently she was well-aware the discriminatory suggestion wouldn’t survive a challenge. She instead proposed that telephone numbers of city employees should be redacted and her “no criminals allowed” suggestion was removed from the agenda.

    • Bernie Supporters Are Mostly Disappointed in Obama

      As for Bernie supporters, I don’t think they view Obama as a rebel or a truthteller. Bernie himself is careful not to criticize Obama, but a lot of his supporters see Obama as basically a disappointment: just another squishy centrist who made some incremental progress and called it a day. In the end, we still don’t have universal health care; the banks are still running things; the Republican Party continues to obstruct; and rich people are still rich. That’s the very reason we need a guy like Bernie in the Oval Office.

    • The Oregon Department of Justice Trains Agents on How to Break the Law

      After about five months of waiting, the Oregon Department of Justice last week released its internal human resources investigation conducted by the special assistant attorney general looking into the surveillance of people on Twitter using #BlackLivesMatter.

    • An Internal Report on Oregon’s Illegal Surveillance of Black Lives Matter on Twitter Leaves Us With More Questions Than Answers
    • The Oregon Department of Justice’s Illegal Surveillance Shows It Lives Inside a Bubble of Bias

      The state of Oregon last week finally released the long awaited report on its Department of Justice’s surveillance of people using the Black Lives Matter hashtag among others. The report and the 162 page appendix, the work of an independent investigator, is disturbing and reveals a range of deeply troubling issues about the Justice Department’s Criminal Justice Division, so much so, that we decided we needed to tackle it in separate posts.

    • More than 900 ‘Democracy Spring’ protesters arrested in D.C. – so far

      Police have calmly arrested hundreds of people in Washington, D,.C. protesting the influence of money in politics during the last week, in what several participants described as a striking display of restrained law enforcement.

      More arrests are expected Monday, the final day of protests when the focus of the non-violent protests turn to voting rights and timely consideration of the Merrick Garland’s nomination to the Supreme Court. U.S. Capitol Police have arrested more than 900 protesters through Saturday.

      Mass demonstrations by a group called “Democracy Spring” began last Monday. A related group, “Democracy Awakening,” joined the efforts on Saturday and are holding often integrated sit ins and other demonstrations to protest laws it considers discriminatory, such as Voter ID laws.

    • Why Can’t The Nation & the Left Deal With Election Theft?

      To avoid the circular firing squad in which the left indulges every election year, we should make it clear that we are both members of the Green Party. We prefer Bernie to Hillary, but like Jill Stein most of all. We hope Bernie at some point will establish a substantial string of grassroots training camps so the thousands of highly active young people who are supporting him will convert those energies to great long-term community organizing.

    • Sweden’s housing minister resigns amid ‘extremist links’ row [iophk: "This is the same guy that has openly admitted to pushing an islamist agenda"]

      Turkish-born Mehmet Kaplan denies wrongdoing and says he is stepping down due to public and media criticism

  • Internet Policy/Net Neutrality

    • The Broadband Industry Is Now Officially Blaming Google (Alphabet) For…Everything

      From net neutrality to municipal broadband, to new broadband privacy rules and a quest to open up the cable set top box to competition, we’ve noted repeatedly that the FCC under Tom Wheeler isn’t the same FCC we’ve learned to grumble about over the years. For a twenty-year stretch, regardless of party control, the agency was utterly, dismally apathetic to the lack of competition in the broadband space. But under Wheeler, the FCC has not only made broadband competition a priority, but has engaged in other bizarre, uncharacteristic behaviors — like using actual real-world data to influence policy decisions.

    • House Passes Bill Attempting To Gut Net Neutrality, Supporters Declare The Internet Saved

      As we’ve been discussing, the House has been pushing a new bill dubbed the No Rate Regulation of Broadband Internet Access Act” (pdf). As the name implies, the bill is being framed as a way to keep an “out of control” government from imposing new price caps on broadband, not coincidentally as the broadband industry increasingly eyes usage caps and overages to take advantage of a lack of sector competition. The bill has numerous problems, not least of which being that a special definition of “rate regulation” included in the bill would effectively prevent the FCC from doing, well, anything.

  • Intellectual Monopolies

    • Russia: New Amendments Would Allow Use Of Inventions Without Permission Of Patent Holders

      The Russian government is considering approval of a package of controversial amendments to national legislation that would allow the use of inventions without the permission of patent holders.

    • WIPO Committee Adopts New Development Projects, Agrees Future Work, Stumbles On Technical Assistance

      The issue of technical assistance that WIPO provides to developing countries is a tough issue as developing countries have expressed concern about the nature of advice being provided – that it might favour the strict application of intellectual property rights instead of also presenting flexibilities available to developing and least-developed countries.

    • Computer generates all possible ideas to beat patent trolls

      Alex Reben came up with 2.5 million ideas in just three days. Nearly all of them are terrible – but he doesn’t mind. He thinks he has found a way to thwart patent trolls by putting their speculative ideas in the public domain before they can make a claim.

      In his project, called All Prior Art, Reben, an artist and engineer, uses software to rummage through the US patent database, which is freely available online. The software extracts sentences from patent documents and splices them into phrases that describe new inventions.

      The result is a bizarre array of contraptions that don’t quite make sense. A robotic phone book. A nasal plug adorned with magnetic jewellery. 3D-printed soap that kills pests on strawberry plants. And one of Reben’s favourites – a temperature-regulating adult nappy with a built-in hood.

    • Epic Trade Secret Case Billion Dollar Verdict

      I expect that 2016 will be the year that Congress to creates a federal cause of action for trade secret misappropriation. Acting in rare unanimous fashion, the Senate recently passed the Defend Trade Secret Act (DTSA) with republican leadership. The house is expected to follow with President Obama also indicating support. In his most recent State of the Union Address, President Obama noted that “[n]o foreign nation, no hacker, should be able to . . . steal our trade secrets.”

    • Copyrights

      • After 4 Years… Copyright Holders Still Think Megaupload is Alive

        More than four years after Megaupload was taken down by the U.S. Government, several prominent copyright holders still ‘think’ that the site is hosting infringing content. Automated bots operated by their anti-piracy partners continue to send Google numerous takedown notices for Megaupload URLs, more than it received when the site was still online.

      • A Pirate in Local Government – An Interview with David Elston
      • EU Regulators Seem To Think They Can Tell YouTube That Its Business Model Should Be More Like Spotify

        We’ve been quite concerned about new internet regulations on the way from the EU, with a focus on how internet platforms must act. As we’ve noted, the effort is officially part of the (reasonable and good!) idea of making a “Digital Single Market,” but where the process is being used by some who think it’s an opportunity to attack the big internet companies (mainly Google and Facebook). There are two EU Commissioners heading up the effort, and one, Gunther Oettinger, has been fairly explicit that he’d like to burden American internet firms with regulations to “replace” them with European equivalents. Of course, as we’ve noted, when you have giant companies like Google and Facebook, they can pretty much handle whatever regulatory burden you throw at them. It’s the innovators and the startups that will be shut out because they won’t be able to manage it. So, ironically, in trying to hold back Google and Facebook with regulations, the EU would really only entrench them as the only players able to handle those regulations.

      • Supreme Court Says It Won’t Hear Authors Guild Appeal Over Google Books Ruling

        Last fall, the 2nd Circuit appeals court gave a clear and convincing win to Google in the long-running Authors Guild case against Google’s book scanning program. And, really, the decision was a massive win for the public, in that it was a strong defense of fair use (even in commercial settings). But, of course, the still clueless Authors Guild — which doesn’t seem to actually represent the interests of most authors (many of whom have found Google Books to be a profoundly useful tool) — decided to ask the Supreme Court to overturn the case.

      • Case Closed: Supreme Court Lets Fair Use Ruling Stand in Google Books Litigation

        The Google Books case is over after a decade of litigation, leaving in its wake new guidance on the reach of the fair use doctrine and, not incidentally, protection for an extraordinary public resource for finding books and information.

04.18.16

Links 18/4/2016: Linux 4.6 RC4, Tomb Raider for GNU/Linux

Posted in News Roundup at 8:33 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

GNOME bluefish

Contents

GNU/Linux

Free Software/Open Source

  • Keeping the Blockchain Open in the Shadow of Tech Giants

    You’ll find it parroted most in the open source community, particularly when Microsoft pulls stunts like their recent “partnering” with canonical to implement an Ubuntu-like Posix environment in Windows Ten. The phrase originates from the DOJ’s findings during the United States v. Microsoft Corp. antitrust case in 2003, as an internal standard for their technology development. Examples of Microsoft’s attempts at this methodology are pervasive in their offerings, including ActiveX and DirectX in the web and graphics software ecosystems, and recently, their involvement with the Linux community.

  • MEF, China Unicom, ON.Lab, Huawei Sign Open Source Agreement

    The MEF, China Unicom, ON.Lab, and Huawei are pleased to announce a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) to collaborate on using open source solutions to transform Central Offices and accelerate the industry transition to Third Network services. MOU partners will develop Proof of Concept use cases that illustrate how operators can deliver agile, assured, and orchestrated MEF-defined services by using open source software and open specification hardware. These use cases will serve as a stepping stone for deployable Third Network services that yield productivity-enhancing benefits for end customers.

  • Events

    • Mixing Linux and ZFS, LinuxFest NorthWest and More…

      It’s LinuxFest NorthWest time! I’ve never been to LFNW, but I have a soft spot in my heart for it’s hometown of Bellingham, Washington. Back in the day — we’re talking the late 1960s and early 70s — Bellingham was home to a hippie underground newspaper, Northwest Passage, that was known in counterculture circles of the day across the continent. Alas, the Passage has been gone since ’86, but its spirit seems to live on in a high techy, Linuxy sort of way at LFNW. From what I’ve seen, LFNW seems to be the most community driven and for-the–people of the major festivals in the U.S.

    • Reflections on Starting a Local FOSS Group

      Last Wednesday was no less than the third time the local FOSS group in Aalborg met. Today I’m looking back at how it all started so I thought I would share some thoughts that may help others who would like to spread free and open source software in their local area.

    • BrickHack 2016

      Last month at the Rochester Institute of Technology, BrickHack 2016 came to a close. BrickHack is an annual hackathon organized by students at RIT. Close to 300 people attend every year. This year was BrickHack’s second event.

  • Web Browsers

    • Mozilla

      • An introduction to Redox

        Back in March, a young operating system project attracted attention in the open source community. The project is called Redox and its developers are working on a Unix-like operating system written in the Rust language. The Redox operating system features a microkernel design (like MINIX), the permissive MIT license and some interesting design ideas.

        While I read a lot of opinions in March about the developers and their design goals, I encountered very little commentary on what it was like to use the young operating system itself. This lead me to become curious and download the project’s small installation ISO which is just 26MB in size.

      • Firefox 45.0.2 Has Been Released
      • Thunderbird 45.0 Has Been Released, Bringing New Features And Bug-Fixes
      • ‘BLATANTLY ILLEGAL’: 17 newspapers slam ex-Mozilla CEO’s new ad-blocking browser [Ed: means he does it right!]

        A group of the biggest US newspaper publishers — including Dow Jones, The Washington Post, and The New York Times Co. — have cosigned what they are calling a “cease and desist” letter (read it in full below) sent to the former Mozilla CEO’s new browser company.

      • A nail in the coffin for Firefox? Mozilla struggles to redefine browser

        A quiet announcement about a new Mozilla project sounded like a death knell for the Firefox browser.

        It wasn’t. But the project, called Tofino, reveals the technology challenges Mozilla faces more than a decade after Firefox’s debut. Hundreds of millions of people still use the browser, but its star is fading compared with Google’s Chrome.

        Mozilla released details about the Tofino project Friday, saying a six-person team at Mozilla will consider how to radically revamp Web browsers.

  • SaaS/Back End

  • LibreOffice

  • FSF/FSFE/GNU/SFLC

    • Richard Stallman on Free Software: Freedom is Worth the Inconvenience

      Dr. Richard Stallman is an inductee of the internet hall of fame as well as the founder of the “Free Software” movement. In the words of Robert Grüning “Richard Stallman is like the Socrates of software, the money making colleagues are the sophists.” Another member of my audience said that Stallman is like Tron – he fights for the users. Yet Richard himself disliked both characterizations and called them misleading. So I suggest you check out my Singularity 1on1 interview with Richard Stallman, learn about the Free Software movement and judge for yourself.

    • DejaGnu 1.6 released

      DejaGnu 1.6 was released on April 15, 2016. Important changes include decent SSH support, many bug fixes and a much improved manual. Many old and defunct board files have been removed.

    • Libgcrypt 1.7.0 released

  • Project Releases

  • Openness/Sharing/Collaboration

    • Open Access/Content

      • Free, high-quality education resources from the National Science Digital Library

        The use of open educational resources is growing. Open education involves making learning materials, data, and educational opportunities available to all without the restrictions of copyright and proprietary licensing models. According to U.S. Secretary of Education John King, “Openly licensed educational resources can increase equity by providing all students, regardless of zip code, access to high-quality learning materials that have the most up-to-date and relevant content.”

    • Open Hardware or OS

      • Redox: a Rust-based microkernel

        Creating a new operating system from scratch is a daunting task—witness the slow progress of GNU Hurd, for example. But it would be hard to argue that the existing systems are the be-all and end-all of how we interact with computer hardware. At least some of the deficiencies in today’s offerings can arguably be traced to the language used to implement them; C, for all its power, has some fairly serious flaws that lead to bugs and security holes of various sorts. So it is interesting to see a new entrant that uses the Rust language, which is focused on memory safety. The result is Redox, which is still far from ready for everyday use, but may provide an interesting counterpoint to Linux, the BSDs, OS X, Windows, and others.

      • Announcing Kestrel-4

        Based on the recent and wild success of the Kestrel-3 home-brew computer project, I am happy to announce my next project for the open computing masses. Say hello to the Kestrel-4.

      • An Open-Source Steam Controller Driver is in Development

        What properly holds me back from buying one is the fact I need to use Steam to use the controller, and the few games I do play aren’t available on Steam (e.g, SuperTuxKart, MAME, etc).

      • Open-source 3D printed WireBeings robot allows for voice controlled wifi functionality at a bargain

        When I was a child growing up in the 1980s robots were something found exclusively in the realm of science fiction. As time passed, the 1990s emerged and Honda’s Asimo started making appearances in tech-centric television programming on the Discovery Channel or TLC (this, during an era when those networks still focused on educational content).

  • Programming/Development

    • RFC: EfficiencySanitizer

      We plan to build a suite of compiler-based dynamic instrumentation tools for analyzing targeted performance problems. These tools will all live under a new “EfficiencySanitizer” (or “esan”) sanitizer umbrella, as they will share significant portions of their implementations.

    • Google Is Working On An Efficiency Sanitizer To Improve Performance Problems

      Derek Bruening of Google has announced the company’s interest in creating an “Efficiency Sanitizer” for LLVM/Clang for analyzing targeted performance problems.

      Worked on Google and other compoanies have been Address Sanitizer, Memory Sanitizer, Thread Sanitizer, Leak Sanitizer, Data Flow Sanitizer, and other sanitizers found in LLVM/Clang some of which have also been ported to GCC. These sanitizers have been incredibly helpful for developers in catching various problems within program code-bases, including many security issues. The latest focus being pursued by Google’s compiler engineers is on an Efficiency Sanitizer.

Leftovers

  • Science

    • 10 Inventors Who Died Because Of Their Own Inventions

      These people made contributions to the mankind but they would have never thought that their own creation would be held accountable for their last breath.

    • Actor Wil Wheaton Brings Love of Arts to STEM Festival

      Actor and writer Wil Wheaton wants to “add an A to the STEM acronym and make it STEAM.” He’ll be speaking at the USA Science and Engineering Festival April 16-17 in Washington about why he thinks the arts should be represented in the acronym commonly used when referring to the science, technology, engineering and math fields.

      Wheaton, 43, best known for his role as Wesley Crusher on “Star Trek: The Next Generation” in the 1980s and ’90s and more recently as a fictionalized version of himself on “The Big Bang Theory,” says that he has always been fascinated by science and technology, and has made it a goal of his to ensure that kids get the encouragement they need to pursue those fields.

    • Kettering Cosmos: How school children exposed Soviet secret

      The existence of the Plesetsk site was not admitted by the USSR for a further 17 years.

      It was reported at the time that the schoolboys had “beat the Americans” in discovering the site. Bob Christy, another pupil who participated in the experiment, thinks they probably knew of its existence, but the school’s work made sure the information was made public.

      “It wasn’t about studying the Russian space programme, it was about helping children understand space,” he said.

  • Hardware

    • Intel planning for thousands of job cuts, internal sources say

      Intel is preparing a significant round of job cuts across business units this spring, according to multiple sources inside the company familiar with its plans.

      The cutbacks will reduce employment in some parts of the business by double-digit percentages, according to Intel insiders, amounting to thousands of job cuts across the company by the end of the year. The planned downsizing could begin soon after Intel reports its first-quarter financial results Tuesday, though sources say timing and specifics remain fluid.

  • Health/Nutrition

    • Monsanto’s Most Dangerous Product?

      On 13 April, the EU Parliament called on the European Commission to restrict certain permitted uses of the toxic herbicide glyphosate, best known in Monsanto’s ‘Roundup’ formulation.

      Glyphosate was last year determined to be “probably carcinogenic” by the WHO, and the resolution calls for no approval for many uses now considered acceptable, including use in or close to public parks, playgrounds and gardens and use where integrated pest management systems are sufficient for necessary weed control. The resolution falls short of an outright ban called for by many and also calls for the renewal of the licence for glyphosate to be limited to just seven years instead of the 15 proposed by the Commission.

      Nearly 700 MEPs voted on the seven-year licensing of glyphosate and the vote was passed by 374 votes in favor to 225 votes against.

    • This is what a dying NHS looks like

      If you don’t believe the Tories would destroy the NHS it’s time to face reality. It’s happening right now. The NHS is critically unwell, and whether it’s deliberate or not, death’s door is open.

  • Security

    • Backdoor in JBoss Java Platform Puts 3.2 Million Servers at Risk
    • Let’s Encrypt: threat or opportunity to other certificate authorities?

      Let’s Encrypt is a certificate authority (CA) that just left beta stage, that provides domain name-validated (DV) X.509 certificates for free and in an automated way: users just have to run a piece of software on their server to get and install a certificate, resulting in a valid TLS setup.

    • Making it easier to deploy TPMTOTP on non-EFI systems

      On EFI systems you can handle this by sticking the secret in an EFI variable (there’s some special-casing in the code to deal with the additional metadata on the front of things you read out of efivarfs). But that’s not terribly useful if you’re not on an EFI system. Thankfully, there’s a way around this. TPMs have a small quantity of nvram built into them, so we can stick the secret there. If you pass the -n argument to sealdata, that’ll happen. The unseal apps will attempt to pull the secret out of nvram before falling back to looking for a file, so things should just magically work.

    • Badlock Vulnerability Falls Flat Against Its Hype

      Weeks of anxiety and concern over the Badlock vulnerability ended today with an anticlimactic thud.

    • Samba 4.4.2, 4.3.8 and 4.2.11 Security Releases Available for Download
    • The Internet of bricks

      One of the promises of the “Internet of things” is that it gives us greater control over our homes, gadgets, and more. Free software also offers that sort of promise, along with the idea that, if necessary, we can support our own gadgetry when the manufacturer moves on to some new shiny object. The currently unfolding story of the Revolv hub shows that, in many cases, these promises are empty. The devices we depend on and think we own can, in fact, be turned into useless bricks at the manufacturer’s whim.

      The Revolv “M1″ home-automation hub was one of many products designed to bring home control to the Internet. It is able to control lights, heating, and more, all driven by smartphone-based applications. The product was sufficiently successful to catch the eye of the business-development folks at Nest, who acquired the company; Nest was acquired in turn by Google, and is now a separate company under the “Alphabet” umbrella.

    • Underwriters Labs refuses to share new IoT cybersecurity standard

      UL, the 122-year-old safety standards organisation whose various marks (UL, ENEC, etc.) certify minimum safety standards in fields as diverse as electrical wiring, cleaning products, and even dietary supplements, is now tackling the cybersecurity of Internet of Things (IoT) devices with its new UL 2900 certification. But there’s a problem: UL’s refusal to freely share the text of the new standard with security researchers leaves some experts wondering if UL knows what they’re doing.

      When Ars requested a copy of the UL 2900 docs to take a closer look at the standard, UL (formerly known as Underwriters Laboratories) declined, indicating that if we wished to purchase a copy—retail price, around £600/$800 for the full set—we were welcome to do so. Independent security researchers are also, we must assume, welcome to become UL retail customers.

    • Combined malware threat is robbing banks of millions every day

      THE SECURITY attack dogs at IBM have uncovered two normally solo malware threats working together to rob banks in the US and Canada.

      IBM’s X-Force division has dubbed the combined malware Stealma and Louise GozNym by merging the names of the individual, but now friendly, Gozi ISFB and Nymaim.

      “It appears that the operators of Nymaim have recompiled its source code with part of the Gozi ISFB source code, creating a combination that is being actively used in attacks against more than 24 US and Canadian banks, stealing millions of dollars so far,” said IBM in a blog post.

    • Flaw-finding Ruby on Rails bot steams past humans
    • Future of secure systems in the US

      Security and privacy are important to many people. Given the personal and financial importance of data stored in computers (traditional or mobile), users don’t want criminals to get a hold of it. Companies know this, which is why both Apple IOS and Google Android both encrypt their local file systems by default now. If a bill anything like what’s been proposed becomes law, users that care about security are going to go elsewhere. That may end up being non-US companies’ products or US companies may shift operations to localities more friendly to secure design. Either way, the US tech sector loses. A more accurate title would have been Technology Jobs Off-Shoring Act of 2016.

    • Software end of life matters!

      Anytime you work on a software project, the big events are always new releases. We love to get our update and see what sort of new and exciting things have been added. New versions are exciting, they’re the result of months or years of hard work. Who doesn’t love to talk about the new cool things going on?

    • JBOSS Backdoor opens 3 million servers at risk of attacks

  • Defence/Aggression

    • Hillary’s Neocon Problem

      Hillary Clinton has a dark history in foreign policy. Indeed, if the Nuremberg principles were applied evenly, her name would certainly be on the docket, along with her former boss in the White House, who is actually less of a hawk than she. When Donald Trump publicly expressed a willingness to negotiate with Russia over international conflicts, she referred to such an idea as putting “Christmas in the Kremlin.” She’s red-baited Bernie Sanders for his support for the Cuban and Nicaraguan revolutions back in the 1980s. Clinton basically backs not “political realism,” but the more imperial tradition of neoconservative “American exceptionalism,” a chauvinist mindset by which the US sets the political, economic, and military priorities of the world and the places and times of its interventions, sometimes with allied support, sometimes without, at its own discretion.

    • Is Hillary Clinton Above the Law?

      Secretary of State Clinton was harsh on subordinates who were careless with classified information, but those rules apparently weren’t for her, a troubling double standard, says ex-CIA analyst Ray McGovern.

    • Young Iraqis Overwhelmingly Consider U.S. Their Enemy, Poll Says

      The poll was conducted by Penn Schoen Berland, a public relations and market research firm co-founded by controversial strategist Mark Penn, and was sponsored by a Dubai-based affiliate of Burson Marsteller, once described as “the PR firm for evil.” Still, the undertaking, as outlined by organizers, sounds ambitious. It included 250 face-to-face interviews in three Iraqi cities, plus another 3,250 interviews in 15 other countries throughout the Arab world, all with men and women ages 18-24 “selected to provide an accurate reflection of each nation’s geographic and socio-economic make-up.” It claims an error rate of plus or minus 1.65 percent.

    • Pope Francis Takes On ‘Just War’ Theory

      The Catholic Church, which over the centuries has blessed many dreadful wars, is shifting to an anti-war position favored by Pope Francis and more in line with Jesus’s teachings, writes ex-CIA official Graham E. Fuller.

    • Deadly Myths: Iraq ‘Surge’ General Calls for ‘Surge 2.0’

      There is no question that the neocons in the room, whose lavish sinecures come to them courtesy of the military-industrial complex, were hyperventilating in anticipation of another major US invasion of Iraq (and Syria). War is the greatest DC jobs program and the hits just keep coming.

  • Environment/Energy/Wildlife/Nature

    • Lawsuits Charge that 3M Knew About the Dangers of Its Chemicals

      FOR DECADES, 3M was the primary producer of C8, or PFOA, and was the sole producer of a related chemical known as PFOS. But while DuPont was caught up in a massive class-action suit over C8, 3M has largely avoided public scrutiny and serious legal or financial consequences for its role in developing and selling these industrial pollutants.

      In February, however, a state court in Minnesota, where the company is headquartered, allowed a lawsuit against 3M to move forward. And late last year, lawyers filed a class-action suit in Decatur, Alabama, home to one of 3M’s biggest plants. Both lawsuits charge that 3M knew about the health hazards posed by the perfluorinated chemicals it was manufacturing and using to make carpet coating, Scotchgard, firefighting foam, and other products — and that the company knew the chemicals were spreading beyond its sites. With PFCs cropping up in drinking water around the country and all over the world, the two lawsuits raise the possibility that 3M may finally be held accountable in a court of law.

    • WWF: Finland has spent its natural resources for 2016

      The environmental group WWF Finland says that as of today, the country has already used up its share of natural resources for the entire year. Energy production, traffic emissions and food production are the top ills.

    • We Just Crushed The Global Record For Hottest Start Of Any Year

      NASA reports that this was the hottest three-month start (January to March) of any year on record. It beat the previous record — just set in 2015 — by a stunning 0.7°F (0.39°C). Normally, such multi-month records are measured in the hundredths of a degree

      Last month was the hottest February on record by far. It followed the hottest January on record by far, which followed the hottest December by far, which followed the hottest November on record by far, which followed the hottest October on record by far. Some may detect a pattern here.

    • Going out, I found I was really going in: John Muir’s spiritual and political journey

      However, his friends were worried. Muir’s siblings pleaded with him to abandon his “clouds and flowers” for more practical pursuits. “You must be social John,” Jeanne Carr, a transcendentalist friend and spiritual mentor had written him, trying to coax him to leave the mountains and re-enter public life. “I could envy you your solitude, but there may be too much of it.” Carr felt strongly that Muir had a singular gift for carrying the transcendentalist vision of a sacred nature to a wider public, a vision she believed could help to dismantle the industrial consensus that saw nature only as a commercial resource to be exploited.

  • Finance

    • US Corporate Tax Cheats Hiding $1.4 Trillion in Profits in Offshore Accounts

      The biggest tax dodger is technology giant Apple, with $181 billion held offshore. General Electric had the second-largest stash, at $119 billion, enough to repay four times over the $28 billion GE received in federal guarantees during the 2008 Wall Street crash. Microsoft had $108 billion in overseas accounts, with companies like Exxon Mobil, Pfizer, IBM, Cisco Systems, Google, Merck, and Johnson & Johnson rounding out the top ten.

      Overseas tax havens have been the focus of recent revelations about tax scams by wealthy individuals, based on the leak of the “Panama Papers,” documents from a single Panama-based law firm, Mossack Fonseca, involving 214,000 offshore shell companies. The firm’s clients included 29 billionaires and 140 top politicians worldwide, among them a dozen heads of government.

    • Paul Krugman Is Proof That To Be Successful Even As An “Objective” Academic You Must Serve The One Percent
    • Bernie Sanders publishes tax returns showing $205,000 earnings following Hillary Clinton’s challenge

      Bernie Sanders has revealed he earns $205,000 dollars (£145,000) a year, after being challenged by Hillary Clinton to publish his tax returns.

      Mr Sanders’ annual income, which is shared with his wife, is less than his multimillionaire rival made for three recent speeches delivered to Goldman Sachs employees.

      The banking giant paid Ms Clinton $675,000 (£475,000) for the appearances. She and her husband have an estimated net worth of $110m (£77m), far surpassing the Sanders, who are worth around $300,000 (£210,000).

    • Hillary’s Bold Plan to Financially Penalize Recidivist Super-Predators

      The other day Hillary promised she would appoint Attorneys General like Eric Holder and Loretta Lynch. “I will appoint an Attorney General who will continue the courageous work of Eric Holder and Loretta Lynch.” Given that the comments came at an Al Sharpton event, I assumed the comment meant to invoke Holder and Lynch’s efforts to reform criminal justice and, presumably, their even more laudable support for civil rights.

      Nevertheless, it was a disturbing comment, given that Holder and Lynch have also both coddled the bankers who crashed our economy. Indeed, when Hillary tries to defend her huge donations from bankers, she always points to Obama’s even huger ones, and insists that there’s no evidence he was influenced by them. But the Obama DOJ record on bank crime is itself the counter to Hillary’s claim those donations didn’t influence the President.

    • 99% Party: Sanders Supporters Shower Clinton Motorcade with 1000 $1 Bills

      Actor George Clooney hosted a couple of obscenely expensive fundraising events for Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign on Friday and Saturday nights. 1%er couples needed to pony up $353,400 to buy access. Saturday’s event was at Clooney’s home at 7:00 pm.

      At the same time, Howard Gold, a next-door neighbor of Clooney, hosted a $27 per person fundraiser in support of Bernie Sanders, Clinton’s rival for the Democratic nomination, according to The Hill.

      Gold, whose family founded the 99 Cents Only store chain, called his event the “99% Party.” The email invitation to the 99% party read, “Swimming pools, Movie Stars and merriment for all! This is happening right next door to Clooney’s party for Hillary!” according to The Hill.

    • Here’s a Way to Shut Down Panama Papers-Style Tax Havens — If We Wanted To

      IT WOULD HAVE been infuriating at any time of the year to learn about the massive tax evasion by the global 0.01 percent revealed by the Panama Papers leak. But it’s especially maddening for regular American schlubs to hear about it in April, just as we’re doing our own taxes.

      According to estimates by Berkeley economist Gabriel Zucman in his book The Hidden Wealth of Nations, rich individuals and big corporations use various machinations to pay at least a third of a trillion dollars less than they owe every year. For everyone else, this translates directly into higher taxes, more national debt, and less government spending.

  • AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics

    • Facebook denies that it would ever try to influence the election

      Gizmodo published a screenshot Friday of an internal poll that Facebook employees were purportedly using to decide what questions to ask CEO Mark Zuckerberg at a meeting in March.

    • Like it or not, Mark Zuckerberg is now Silicon Valley’s ambassador to the rest of the world

      The company’s main product announcement, its attempt to turn Messenger into a hub little programs for businesses to chat with customers, was greeted by puzzlement from users and skepticism from the developers who were the main audience for the show.

    • To Protect Hillary Clinton, Democrats Wage War on Their Own Core Citizens United Argument

      FOR YEARS, THE Supreme Court’s 5-4 decision in Citizens United was depicted by Democrats as the root of all political evil. But now, the core argument embraced by the Court’s conservatives to justify their ruling has taken center stage in the Democratic primary between Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders — because Clinton supporters, to defend the huge amount of corporate cash on which their candidate is relying, frequently invoke that very same reasoning.

    • Superdelegates have destroyed the will of the people: As a political activist and hopeful millennial, I won’t support a broken system by voting for Hillary

      Four years ago, I attended a College Democrats conference in Chicago. I set foot inside Obama’s campaign headquarters and felt the enthusiasm about his presidency first-hand. For the first time, I called myself a Democrat with confidence. Democracy empowered me. I wanted to share my enthusiasm with the entire world.

      Throughout my college career, I was actively involved with the College Democrats. I served as president. I recruited friends to attend meetings, volunteer for voter registration drives, petition for candidates, canvass in local neighborhoods and spread the word about upcoming presidential debates. I even formed close relationships with fellow Democrats through it. Civic engagement and active citizenship was my life. I wanted to empower everyone around me to exercise their political power.

      [...]

      In a truly democratic system, we’d have more competent, diverse candidates. Voting no longer provides me the indulgence and satisfaction it once did. I feel it does more harm than good with our current political climate. If I vote for Clinton as a rejection of Trump, or vote for Sanders to dodge a Clinton vote, what duty am I actually performing? When I vote for a president I don’t support, I support a flawed political system. I refuse that system.

    • New York Observer Reporter Who Resigned Over Trump Ties And Endorsement: For Me, “A Line Had Been Crossed”
    • Wall Street Journal Slimes Noam Chomsky, Michael Moore, Forgets About George W. Bush’s Monumental Blunders

      In an article titled “Islam and the Radical West” published in the Wall Street Journal, columnist Bret Stephens raises the important issue of the radicalization of Western Muslims. But as far as responsible and informed journalism goes, the piece’s credibility ends there. Stephens goes on to make a number of stereotypical and weakly supported claims regarding Islam while taking amateurish pot shots at some of America’s most important thinkers, including Noam Chomsky.

    • Yes, Hillary Clinton Is a Neocon

      Beyond sharing this neocon “regime change” obsession, former Secretary of State Clinton also talks like a neocon. One of their trademark skills is to use propaganda or “perception management” to demonize their targets and to romanticize their allies, what is called “gluing white hats” on their side and “gluing black hats” on the other.

    • Meet The Protesters Who Crashed Donald Trump’s Private Event

      Maya Randolph and Aru, who declined to give her last name, were two of the few dozen New Yorkers arrested Thursday evening at a massive protest of Republican presidential frontrunner Donald Trump. The young women were part of a group of 10 people who were arrested and charged with criminal trespass after they stormed the hotel where Trump was speaking at a private event.

    • Trump Manager Said Apologizing To Reporter He Allegedly Assaulted Would Be ‘Unrealistic’

      Corey Lewandowski, Donald Trump’s campaign manager, refused to apologize on Sunday for his alleged assault of former Breitbart reporter Michelle Fields.

    • The Best Reporting on Bernie Sanders Over the Years

      Bernie Sanders became the first socialist mayor of Burlington, Vermont, and ran successfully as an Independent for the House of Representatives and then the Senate. Now, the Democratic challenger to Hillary Clinton has young voters “feeling the Bern.”

      The political career of Bernie Sanders nearly ended before it began. In the early 1970s, he lost his first four races — two for the Senate and two for governor — running on the ticket of Vermont’s radical Liberty Union Party, while espousing positions such as ending the Vietnam War and abolishing the CIA. But when he ran as an Independent for mayor of Burlington in 1981, the socialist Sanders beat the five-term Democratic incumbent.

    • Barack Obama Never Said Money Wasn’t Corrupting; In Fact, He Said the Opposite

      DURING THURSDAY’S DEMOCRATIC debate in Brooklyn, Bernie Sanders asked this question about Hillary Clinton: “Do we really feel confident about a candidate saying that she’s going to bring change in America when she is so dependent on big money interests?”

      Clinton’s response was to invoke Barack Obama. “Make no mistake about it, this is not just an attack on me, it’s an attack on President Obama,” she said. “President Obama had a Super PAC when he ran. President Obama took tens of millions of dollars from contributors. And President Obama was not at all influenced when he made the decision to pass and sign Dodd-Frank, the toughest regulations on Wall Street in many a year.”

    • Breaking Up the Banks: Why Sanders is Right

      Now Krugman has always been a defender of the banks and always in denial that banks can be crooked. A few years ago, Iceland had a problem. The banks were very crooked. They controlled the government that was about to give enormous amounts of money to the banks. I had gone over and met with the Prime Minister and former Prime Ministers and convinced them not to pay Britain and the sort of crooked depositors. They hired Krugman at a very high fee and gave him the handouts and he said no, the Icelandic banks are not crooked. Iceland should really bankrupt itself and pay for the Icesave and the British bank affiliates that went under, even though these were not bank branches but bank affiliates.

  • Censorship/Free Speech

    • Online censorship on the rise: Why I prefer to save things offline

      It took me some time to trust the cloud. Growing up with digital technologies that were neither resilient nor reliable — a floppy drive could go kaput without you having done anything, a CD once scratched could not be recovered, hard drives malfunctioned and it was a given that once every few months your PC would crash and need a re-install — I have always been paranoid about making backups and storing information. Once I kicked into my professional years, I developed a foolproof, albeit paranoid, system, where I backed up my machines to a common hard drive, made a mirror image of that hard drive, and for absolutely crucial documents, I would put them on to a separate DVD which would have the emergency documents. It was around 2006, when I discovered the cloud.

      [...]

      Turkey, recently, demanded that German authorities remove a satirical German video titled Erdowie, Erdowo, Erdogan mocking their President. In response, Germany reminded the Turkish diplomacy of that lovely little thing called freedom of speech, and in the meantime, Extra 3, the group that had released the video on YouTube, added English subtitles to the video. Just for perks. I hope you gave a brownie point to Germany, even as you scrambled to see the video.

    • Decision to hide UAlbany student newspapers ‘inappropriate’

      The decision to hide issues of a student-run newspaper at the University at Albany that called attention to a rise in reported campus sexual assaults — coming during a visit by accepted students — was inappropriate, a top college official said.

    • Silent censorship

      JUST living in Australia for a few months and watching television, makes you see clearly, how the Fiji public is so badly denied by the poverty of Fiji media offerings and silent censorship

      There are wonderful Australian media programs such as Q and A, Insiders, Catalyst, Landline, Insights, Foreign Correspondent, Four Corners, to name just a few, not even mentioning the many specials every week on ABC and SBS.

      Just in the past two months alone, Landline explored how an Australian sugarcane farmer, successfully intercropped rice to pander to his Vietnamese wife. Another intercropped with sunflowers for the seeds and oil, and mung beans (which Fiji farmers have also tried on a very small scale).

    • Soaring Subsidies and Nutritional Censorship Highlight Food Policy Disasters: New at Reason

      Recently, a pair of controversial federal food issues has made the news. The unpredicted increase in USDA farm subsidies and continuing fallout from the new dietary guidelines have captured headlines. They’re worth focusing on together, as they represent some varied and truly awful federal food law and policy.

      Earlier this week, House Agriculture Committee Chairman Michael Conaway (R-Tx.) blasted critics of farm subsidies, claiming we live in a “fantasyland” where such subsidies aren’t needed.

    • IHT Retrospective | 1941: Roosevelt Tells Press He Wants No Censorship
    • UC Davis Chancellor Linda Katehi Told To Resign After Censorship Of Pepper-Spray Google Results

      UC Davis chancellor Linda Katehi may be forced to resign after documents were released earlier this week which show the school paying $175,000 of university funds to scrub Google results of references to the 2011 pepper-spray incident.

    • Pepper-sprayed students outraged as UC Davis tried to scrub incident from web

      The California university is being accused of censorship after paying a firm to try to hide references to the incident in which police sprayed protesters in 2011

    • On UC Davis and Erasing Things from the Internet

      This week, I and much of the internet learned that UC Davis paid at least $175,000 to a Maryland firm by the name of Nevis & Associates to disassociate the pepper spray incident of 2011 — in which footage of a campus police officer very casually and callously covering student Occupy protesters with pepper spray at close range was caught on video and disseminated — from both the name of the university and its chancellor in Google search results.

    • From draconian censorship to wilful conformity

      A discussion on Pakistan’s media on Sunday found that the industry, while certainly more independent than years past, is also following dangerous patterns of conformity and is no longer a watchdog for public interest.

      New Delhi-based activist Saif Mahmood moderated a session titled “Media: More Independent, Less Responsible’. He began by quoting an IBA-USAID study where Pakistan’s media was given a responsibility score of 5.46, and an independence score of 5.74, and added that these were reasonably good scores in his opinion.

    • Censorship on films meaningless in internet era

      “Censorship on films is futile in India. There are several other media these days which provide inappropriate content to youngsters for free,” said Bollywood director Sudhir Mishra, who is known for directing critically acclaimed films like Hazaaron Khwaishein Aisi, Dharavi and Chameli.

    • Google refuses to censor search results that identify PJS and YMA

      The British press has played ball, agreeing not to name YMA, his husband PJS and the two others, AB and CD with whom a threesome is supposed to have taken place but it is impossible for law enforcement agencies to control what appears online. Google has been the first port of call for many curious-minded people eager to learn the names of those involved, and the search giant has said that — despite many requests to do so — it will not censor search results that could lead people to the names.

      Spend a little time on Twitter, Facebook, and numerous other websites and it won’t be long before you learn — if you don’t already know — the identities of the four people involved. Web Sheriff is not happy about this, and has requested that Google remove search results in a way that is reminiscent of the Right To Be Forgotten. As noted by Torrent Freak, Web Sheriff is usually associated with copyright-related takedown notices, but now also seeks to remove data that could harmful to reputations.

    • Merkel Vows to Repeal Law, After It Is Used to Prosecute Comic for Insulting Erdogan

      CHANCELLOR ANGELA MERKEL alienated a broad swathe of the German public on Friday by approving a request from Turkey to prosecute Jan Böhmermann, a comedian who insulted Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan by reading an obscene poem about him on late-night television.

      In the same statement, however, Merkel said that her government would move to repeal the law Böhmermann appears to have violated, an obscure provision of the German penal code that makes it a crime to insult foreign heads of state. If approved, the change would not take effect until 2018.

      In the meantime, Böhmermann now faces possible prosecution both for breaking that law — an artifact of the ancient prohibition on hurting the feelings of monarchs, known as lèse-majesté — and for ordinary defamation, because Erdogan has also filed a separate defamation complaint with a state prosecutor.

    • Hard to satire: Turkey forcing censorship abroad
    • Angela Merkel is now silencing German satirists to please Erdogan. This is what the EU has wrought
    • Erdogan’s attitude to Europe is looking more and more like Putin’s
    • Great Ashby councillor’s campaign over ‘unjust’ censorship

      Terry Tyler, a member of Great Ashby Community Council, says the communications policy he and other members must adhere to is so restrictive it is preventing him from doing his job.

      The policy, seen by the Comet, says ‘correspondence with the public from individual councillors should be avoided’ and states ‘the clerk should clear all comments to the media with the chair of the council’.

  • Privacy/Surveillance

  • Civil Rights/Policing

    • Trade Secrets: who voted what

      As expected, the European Parliament approved the Trade Secrets Protection directive by a large majority (503 in favour vs. 131 against).

    • Why Has The World Forgotten Islamic State’s Female Sex Slaves?

      Twenty months ago the Islamic State (ISIS) abducted thousands of Yezidi women and girls as the extremist group swept through their villages in northern Iraq in the middle of a terrible summer. Many were forced to become sex slaves for the group’s fighters. Hundreds remain enslaved and many of those who have escaped are still reliving the trauma and often not getting the help they desperately need.

    • Neoliberalism – the ideology at the root of all our problems

      Imagine if the people of the Soviet Union had never heard of communism. The ideology that dominates our lives has, for most of us, no name. Mention it in conversation and you’ll be rewarded with a shrug. Even if your listeners have heard the term before, they will struggle to define it. Neoliberalism: do you know what it is?

      Its anonymity is both a symptom and cause of its power. It has played a major role in a remarkable variety of crises: the financial meltdown of 2007‑8, the offshoring of wealth and power, of which the Panama Papers offer us merely a glimpse, the slow collapse of public health and education, resurgent child poverty, the epidemic of loneliness, the collapse of ecosystems, the rise of Donald Trump. But we respond to these crises as if they emerge in isolation, apparently unaware that they have all been either catalysed or exacerbated by the same coherent philosophy; a philosophy that has – or had – a name. What greater power can there be than to operate namelessly?

    • Confessions of a Former Torturer

      [...] Sleep deprivation, as I’ve said before, can be accomplished in a matter of hours. You can let someone go to sleep in a dark room with no windows, and you can wake them up in 15 or 20 minutes. They have no idea how long they’ve been asleep. And with no windows, they have no idea what time of day it is. You can let them go back to sleep, and you can wake them up in 20 minutes. They still have no idea. And they’ve since—within 45 minutes, they’ve lost all sense of time. Two or three hours later, you can convince this person that he’s been living for four or five days, when it’s really only been an hour.

    • The Telegram Criticising Bush That Got Me Sacked

      As this blog is now read daily by tens of thousands of people who had not heard of me before, some idea of where I come from might be in order. After a diplomatic career of rapid promotion (senior civil service age 36, my first Ambassadorship in Uzbekistan age 42) my opposition to Bush/Blair’s immoral and counter-productive foreign policy got me sacked.

      This telegram (diplomatic communications are called that; cable in the USA) I am with retrospect very proud to have sent. To have made at the time the observation that the Bush/Blair policy of invasion, oppression and torture would not suppress fundamentalism, but would create it, was prescient. I should say I understood very well I would be sacked. Some things are worth being sacked for.

      On provenance, after being kicked out I typed this up from my handwritten draft which I had in my briefcase; hence it does not carry the identifiers it would gain when sent. I assure you it is genuine, and by now I expect it should be obtainable under a Freedom of Information request. If someone makes one I would be grateful – the date on it is the day I wrote it, it might have got sent a day or two later, so give them a range.

    • Green Party proposes prosecuting Northern Irish men under the abortion laws for ‘reckless conception’

      The Deputy Leader of the Green Party for Northern Ireland has suggested making “reckless conception” a criminal offence for men “in the interests of equality”

    • Iraqi Man Removed From Southwest Flight For Speaking Arabic

      While on the plane, he called his uncle to tell him about the dinner and ended the phone call by saying “inshallah” — a common term used in Arabic that translates to “God willing.” But after he hung up, he noticed a female passenger eyeing him suspiciously. The passenger reported Makhzoomi, who was then removed from the flight and searched.

    • Student Thrown Off Flight After Passenger Heard Him Say ‘God Willing’ in Arabic

      So once again people from The World’s Most Frightened Country (C) fully overreacted to nothing. One of the 230 million people worldwide who speak Arabic happened to be on an airplane and happened to use one of the most common expressions in his language.

      [...]

      Makhzoomi explained he was talking on the phone with his uncle and, as he said goodbye, he used the phrase “inshallah,” which translates as “if God is willing.” The student said that after hung up, he noticed a female passenger looking at him who then got up and left her seat.

      Moments later an airport employee made Makhzoomi step off the plane into the arms of security officers. Makhzoomi was told the woman thought he said “Shahid,” meaning martyr. Because in-shal-lah and sha-hid sound the same, at least to a dumb ass who speaks no apparent Arabic and likely learned the term shahid when it was last mispronounced on AM talk radio.

    • Racial Justice Takes Center Stage in New York Primary

      AS IT HAS grown in volume and influence, the movement reaffirming the value of black lives has raised its cry for racial justice from the streets and the internet to the race for the Democratic nomination, especially in the New York primary, where talk of police accountability, mass incarceration, and structural inequality has become an integral part of the candidates’ pitch to voters.

      At the Democratic debate on Thursday night, both Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders spoke frankly about racism, with Clinton calling on white people to “recognize that there is systemic racism,” and Sanders again criticizing Clinton’s 1996 comments about “super predators,” saying that “it was a racist term and everyone knew it was a racist term.”

      But while competition for the so-called black vote continues to heat up ahead of Tuesday’s primaries, and the generational gap that has defined the primary race persists, members of Black Lives Matter remain determined to keep all candidates in check on matters of race and racism.

    • Are the Economic Pins to the Saudi-US Relationship Still in Place?

      So on the one hand, Obama is making a big show of declassifying the 28 pages. On the other hand, he is lobbying (privately until this NYT report) to ensure that nothing legal will come of the release of those pages.

      It feels kind of like Obama’s treatment of torture, allowing very limited exposure of what happened, all while ensuring there will be no legal accountability (legal accountability, I’d add, that would threaten to expose others higher up in the US executive branch; and note that while the Administration is permitting a lawsuit of James Mitchell and Bruce Jesson, I’m skeptical this well get very far either).

      Against this background, the Saudis are trying to negotiate an oil freeze to bring up prices, but apparently have delayed doing so, ostensibly because of rising animosity with Iran but also, analysts suggest, to hurt US capacity.

    • Bernie Sanders: US “Can’t Be Blackmailed” by Saudi Arabia

      “It’s stunning to think that our government would back the Saudis over its own citizens,” said Mindy Kleinberg, whose husband died in the World Trade Center on September 11.

    • Obama Appeases Saudi Head-Choppers

      Do we have a more unattractive “ally” than the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia? In order to find one, we have to go all the way back to World War II, when the US was allied with the Soviet Union while “Uncle” Joe Stalin was murdering millions in the gulag.

    • George Clooney Bemoans Big-Money Politics After Hosting Big-Ticket Fundraisers for Clinton (Video)

      Hollywood star and Democratic Party booster George Clooney pulled off a clever script-flipping trick on Sunday’s edition of “Meet the Press.” When confronted with Bernie Sanders’ recent critique of the cost required to attend the two fundraisers he and his wife, human rights lawyer Amal Clooney, hosted over the weekend for Hillary Clinton in the Bay Area and Los Angeles, Clooney completely agreed with it.

    • George Clooney on Hillary Clinton Event: ‘There Is a Difference Between the Koch Brothers and Us’
    • Over 7,800 Prosecutions Questioned After NJ Lab Tech Caught Faking Drug Test Results

      If Shah wasn’t concerned about putting a possibly innocent person behind bars, it’s unlikely his yearly salary of $101,039 would have been much of a motivating factor for better work either. It could be that this was an isolated incident — the one time Shah cut corners to increase throughput. (Which, truth be told, is kind of how our entire criminal justice system operates: throughput is preferable to diligent effort.)

      But odds are that if Shah got caught, it’s something that happened eventually, rather than immediately. Bad habits are easy to develop and tend to spiral out of control until the inevitable happens. There’s no way to tell if this was a one-off. Conversely, there’s no way to positively state this didn’t happen all the time. Hence the thousands of criminal cases now being viewed as questionable.

    • The Bernie Sanders Miracle: American Crowd in Brooklyn Cheers Palestinian Dignity

      The Israeli propaganda line is that the Palestinians are natural, intrinsic terrorists who are always attacking Israelis out of blind hatred for Jews and who casually deploy terrorism on a mass scale and refuse to recognize the inexorability and naturalness of several million European and North African and other Jews living in Palestine.

    • Arab-Americans, including ‘Watan’ Newspaper, Endorse Bernie Sanders

      It notes that Sanders’s demand for even-handedness in US policy toward Israel and Palestine is unusual in the Democratic Party.

    • ‘I have a conscience’: the Wall Streeters fighting for Bernie Sanders in New York

      He may be an investment banker himself, but Ryan prefers Sanders’ pledge to begin breaking up the banks in his first 100 days in the White House over Clinton’s more indirect promises.

      “She has a thousand talking points, but when the lights are turned off and all the glare of the election fades, politics-as-normal will return, the lobbyists will get to work, and nothing at all will happen,” he said.

      Frank, still speaking anonymously, agrees. “Hillary Clinton is paying lip-service to Wall Street changes. Maybe in her heart she means business, but for me income inequality is the civil rights issue of our time, and I feel strongly we need a president who is totally committed to making this happen.”

    • ACLU Sues Bureau of Prisons Over Missing Torture Documents

      The ACLU lawsuit alleges that either the bureau conducted an inadequate search, or is illegally denying the existence of documents.

    • Liberals for Hillary: There is Nothing Stranger

      Meanwhile, since the 1960s, when African Americans secured the right to vote in practice, not just theory, Republicans have been recruiting displaced and alienated white voters into their ranks, taking advantage of racist and nativist animosities, and anything else that they could put to use.

    • I Feel a Political Revolution Coming

      The media often would like us to believe that Sanders’ promises to continue his quest for equality are too lofty and unrealistic, and even impossible. Is it really impossible to treat Black people like humans instead of just votes? Is it really so impossible to make an investment in our students instead of the $17 billion the Clintons invested in police, military grade weapons and prisons? Is it really impossible to invest in the healthcare of the American people instead of the $26 billion wasted training foreign armies under Clinton as Secretary of State? Is it really impossible to demand transparency from our police departments and our criminal justice system in an effort to bring life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness to fruition once and for all? Is it really impossible to take the necessary steps to get more teachers and counselors in our schools instead of labeling them super predators and putting them on the school to prison pipeline?

  • Internet Policy/Net Neutrality

    • Working on HTML5.1

      HTML5 was released in 2014 as the result of a concerted effort by the W3C HTML Working Group. The intention was then to begin publishing regular incremental updates to the HTML standard, but a few things meant that didn’t happen as planned. Now the Web Platform Working Group (WP WG) is working towards an HTML5.1 release within the next six months, and a general workflow that means we can release a stable version of HTML as a W3C Recommendation about once per year.

    • Obama Urges Opening Cable TV Boxes To Competition

      President Obama is throwing his weight behind a plan that would lead to competition in the market for set-top cable and satellite TV boxes. Most viewers now rent the boxes from their TV providers. The Federal Communications Commission wants to make it easier for viewers to buy the devices.

  • Intellectual Monopolies

04.16.16

Links 16/4/2016: Wine 1.9.8 Released, Saints Row 2 for GNU/Linux, KDE Neon Upgrade, GNOME 3.20.1, Rust 1.8, OpenEMR 4.2.1

Posted in News Roundup at 10:59 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

GNOME bluefish

Contents

GNU/Linux

Free Software/Open Source

  • DHS: Open Source Software Is Like Giving Mafia a Copy of FBI System Code

    But publishing source code could also let attackers “construct highly targeted attacks against the software,” or “build-in malware directly into the source code, compile, then replace key software components as ‘doppelgangers’ of the original,” DHS’ Office of the Chief Information Officer argued in comments posted on GitHub.

  • Dissecting The Myth That Open Source Software Is Not Commercial

    Writing a myth-debunking piece for such an informed audience poses a certain risk. The readers of the IEEE Software Blog already know what open source software is, and many have probably written some. How can I be sure that anyone reading this even holds the belief about to be debunked?

  • ownCloud 9.0 Enterprise Edition Arrives with Extensive File Control Capabilities

    ownCloud, Inc. has had the great pleasure of announcing the availability of the Enterprise Edition (EE) of its powerful ownCloud 9.0 self-hosting cloud server solution.

    Engineered exclusively for small and medium-sized business, as well as major organizations and enterprises, ownCloud 9.0 Enterprise Edition is now available with extensive file control capabilities and all the cool new features that made the open-source version of the project famous amongst Linux users.

  • Is there a need for open source file sharing?

    Want a solution like Box, Dropbox or Egnyte but one you can deploy everywhere? Feel passionate about open source and want to leverage a community solution? ownCloud might just have something for you.

    ownCloud offers an on-premises enterprise file access platform, but one which is an open source solution. The company firmly pitches its wares with stated differentiation through openness, modular architecture, extensibility and federated sharing abilities. So are they onto something here?

  • The advantages of open source in Internet of Things design

    Another complementary approach to standards development is the release of designs and specifications into the open source community as open hardware and interface standards for others to adopt. Examples include Arduino, Raspberry Pi, and Beaglebone, which enable quick prototyping, as well as the mangOH open hardware reference design, an open source design that is more easily scalable in commercial settings and is built specifically for IoT cellular connectivity.

    Open source platforms like these enable developers that may have limited hardware, wireless or low-level software expertise to start developing IoT applications in days—rather than months. If executed properly, these can significantly reduce the time and effort to get prototypes from paper to production by ensuring that various connectors and sensors work together automatically with no additional coding required. With industrial-grade specifications, these next-generation platforms not only allow quick prototyping, but also rapid industrialization of IoT applications.

  • Apache Storm 1.0 packs a punch

    When big data mavens debate the merits of using Apache Spark versus Apache Storm for streaming data processing, the argument usually sounds like this: Sure, Storm has great scale and speed, but it’s hard to use. Plus, it’s slowly being overtaken by Spark, so why go with old and busted when there’s new and hot?

    That’s why Apache Storm 1.0 hopes to turn the ship around, not only by making it faster but by also easier and more convenient to work with.

  • Apache Storm 1.0 Packs a Speed Punch, is Set to Compete in the Big Data Space

    Are you familiar with Apache Storm? Not everyone is, but it, along with another Apache tool called Flink, is competing with tools like Apache Spark in the Big Data space. These tools focus on streaming data processing, which is emerging as a huge theme in the data analytics world.

  • Apache Wookie Heads to the Attic

    The last time I wrote about Apache Wookie was May 2012, on the occasion of the open-source project’s 0.10.0 release.

  • Coreboot Ported To Run On Lenovo’s ThinkPad T420
  • Broadwell-DE SoC / Xeon D Support Added To Coreboot
  • Open Source MANO Group Targets June for ‘Release 0′

    OSM was formed under the auspices of European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI) earlier this year, around the same time as the OPEN-Orchestrator Project (OPEN-O), a Linux Foundation group that is taking a different approach to unified open source-based orchestration efforts.

  • Events

    • Dig into IoT with 41 OpenIoT Summit presentations

      Slide decks from 41 OpenIoT Summit talks are now online, from sessions including AllSeen, Brillo, mBed, Iotivity, Tizen, Weave, Zephyr, and IoT security.

      Last week, we pointed you to 50 slide decks released by the Linux Foundation from the Embedded Linux Conference (ELC), held in San Diego in April 4-6. Now, the non-profit Linux advocacy organization has released 41 more slide presentations, this time from the inaugural OpenIoT Summit track co-located with ELC.

    • Will North Carolina’s HB2 Affect State’s Open Source Conferences?

      At this point, how much effect the continuing economic backlash caused by the North Carolina General Assembly’s passage HB2, otherwise known as the “Bathroom Bill,” will have on the state’s two major open source conferences is anybody’s guess. Certainly, the past three weeks have not been good for operators of event venues in North Carolina, nor have they been good for the state’s bean counters, whose job is to make what the General Assembly spends balance with incoming tax revenue, which is certainly taking a hit in at least some counties.

    • Listen to ASF’s Rich Bowen Interview Speakers Before ApacheCon Next Month

      ApacheCon is just a few weeks away, and I, for one, am really looking forward to it. I think it’s going to be the best yet. I think that every time, and so far, I’ve been right.

      We’ve been doing ApacheCon for more than 15 years now, and it just keeps getting better. This year it will take place May 9-13 in Vancouver, Canada.

    • LinuxFest Northwest 2016 Takes Place April 23-24, in Bellingham, WA, US

      We have some great news for our Linux readers living in the US, as the upcoming LinuxFest Northwest 2016 event is taking place next week, between April 23-24, in Bellingham, WA.

      For those of you not in the known, LinuxFest Northwest is an annual event, targeted at novice, intermediate, and advanced Open Source and Linux enthusiasts, that usually takes place on the last weekend of the month of April, in Bellingham, Washington, United States of America (USA).

  • Web Browsers

    • Chrome

    • Mozilla

      • Announcing Rust 1.8

        The Rust team is happy to announce the latest version of Rust, 1.8. Rust is a systems programming language focused on safety, speed, and concurrency.

        As always, you can install Rust 1.8 from the appropriate page on our website, and check out the detailed release notes for 1.8 on GitHub. About 1400 patches were landed in this release.

      • Rust Programming Language 1.8 Released

        Rust 1.8 has been declared stable by the team working on this increasingly popular programming language focused on safety, speed, and concurrency.

      • Mozilla’s Commitment to Inclusive Internet Access

        Developing the Internet and defending its openness are key to global growth that is equitable, sustainable, and inclusive. The Internet is most powerful when anyone — regardless of gender or geography — can participate equally.

      • Mozilla has asked us to “police” this forum.

        I was contacted by Mozilla with the request to “police” our forum, since we (Pale Moon devs) are in direct control of the things discussed and posted here.

        I’d like to clarify our position on this kind of thing to keep things from becoming unpleasant in both our relationship with you, the community, and our relationship with Mozilla:

        We do not censor your posts, and this will not change in the future — this is an open forum.

  • SaaS/Back End

    • OpenStack Foundation Survey Shows Deployments Fully Underway

      Results from the seventh OpenStack Foundation user survey are out, and they paint a picture of a powerful cloud platform that has squarely moved from the evaluation stage at many enterprises to deployment stage. Sixty-five percent of OpenStack deployments are now in production, 33 percent more than a year ago, according to the findings. And 97 percent of community members said that “standardizing on the same open platform and APIs that power a global network of public and private clouds” was one of their top five considerations in choosing OpenStack.

    • Organizing the OpenStack community locally and globally

      Sharone Zitzman is no stranger to community. As a lead for the Cloudify open source community at GigaSpaces, and an organizer of many local events including OpenStack Israel, DevOps Days Tel Aviv, and the DevOps Israel meetup group, she knows well what it means to be involved with bringing people together for common goals across open source projects.

    • Hortonworks and Pivotal Provide Details on Deepening Partnership

      As reported here earlier this week, the Hortonworks’ Hadoop Summit has been underway in Dublin, Ireland, and one of the biggest pieces of news there was that Pivotal, already a player in the Hadoop distribution arena, will be reselling Hortonworks Data Platform (HDP), which is Hortonworks’ Hadoop platform. A corollary piece of news is that Pivotal is also shifting from focusing on its own distribution to the Hortonworks platform.

    • Hortonworks Ramps Up Hadoop Security

      Hortonworks this week announced a series of enterprise security efforts to bolster performance and data safety with its Hortonworks Data Platform.

      The company announced Tuesday that Pivotal Software will standardize on Hortonworks’ Hadoop distribution. Hortonworks also will resell extract, transform and load tools developed by Syncsort.

      The thrust of the Hortonworks’ product announcements, which were made in conjunction with its Hadoop Summit, concerned updates on applying security policies and maintaining data governance to simplify the provisioning of clusters in hybrid clouds. Those procedures were designed to make it easier for customers to interactively explore data in Hadoop.

    • Cumulus, Dell and Red Hat Partner on Open Source DevOps for OpenStack

      Cumulus Networks, Dell and Red Hat have forged a partnership to bring to DevOps efficiencies to the open source cloud by automating networking and deployment for OpenStack clusters, according to news announced this morning.

    • Cumulus Networks Collaborates with Dell and Red Hat to Simplify 300+ Node OpenStack Pod

      Cumulus Networks, the leading provider of Linux networking operating systems, today announced a collaboration with Dell, the leading provider of open and innovative technologies, and Red Hat, Inc., the world’s leading provider of open source solutions, to simplify large-scale OpenStack deployments without the need for any proprietary software-defined networking (SDN) fabric solutions. The resulting solution offers an all-Linux OpenStack pod that is easy to install and maintain, and incorporates the latest networking technologies.

    • TripleO Evolves for OpenStack Deployments

      There are a lot of different ways to deploy an open-source OpenStack cloud, and one of the best ironically is with OpenStack itself, via a project known as OpenStack on OpenStack (OOO), or just simply TripleO.

    • Cumulus, Dell, Red Hat Use Open-Source DevOps for an OpenStack Cluster

      The three vendors were able to use such open DevOps tools as Git and Ansible to install and deploy a 300-plus-node OpenStack cluster in six hours.

    • Open source cloud drives Volkswagen’s DevOps culture transformation

      Volkswagen plumped for an OpenStack-based private cloud to kick-start its new approach and, after a shoot-off between Mirantis and Red Hat, the company opted for the former.

    • OpenStack Survey Highlights Containers and DevOps in Open Source Cloud

      Ubuntu continues to dominate OpenStack deployments, interest in containers is strongly increasing and DevOps remains the top focus of open source clouds. These are among the takeaways from the latest OpenStack user survey, which debuted this week.

  • Databases

    • ActorDB: an alternative view of a distributed database

      My Percona Live Data Performance Conference talk is called ActorDB: an alternative view of a distributed database. ActorDB is an open source database that was developed using a distributed model: it uses an SQL database that speaks the MySQL client/server protocol.

  • Hadoop

  • Pseudo-Open Source (Openwashing)

    • Inside Facebook’s Open Source Machine [Ed: openwashing censorship and surveillance company (proprietary)]
    • Give to get: inside Facebook’s open source operation

      Facebook doesn’t sell software, but it’s arguably the largest open source software company in the world.

      In the last few years, the social network has accelerated its contributions to open source, providing not only code it uses in its own operations, such as its artificial intelligence software Torch, but also designs for servers and entire data centers. At the company’s F8 conference for developers and business partners this week, Facebook’s open source leaders announced continued progress on such projects as React Native, which helps developers use the same code on different operating systems.

  • FSF/FSFE/GNU/SFLC

    • GCC 4.9 vs. 5.3 vs. 6.0 Compiler Benchmarks On Debian 8.4

      With GCC 6.1 due out soon with its plethora of new features and improvements, I decided to run some fresh benchmarks this week of GCC 4.9.3 vs. GCC 5.3 vs. GCC 6.0.0 on a Debian stable system.

      From the Xeon E3-1280 v5 system with MSI C236A Workstation, I was using Debian 8.4 x86_64 as the base Linux OS for this benchmarking while building clean compilers of GCC 4.9.3, GCC 5.3.0, and GCC 6.0.0 20160410.

    • Free Software Foundation’s Priorities Reflect Changing Times

      In 2008, the Free Software Foundation (FSF) created its list of high-priority projects that “are important for increasing the adoption and use of free software and free software operating systems.”

      However, the list has been neglected in recent years, to the extent that the page for projects that no longer need to be on the list includes nothing added in the last five years.

      Consequently, the FSF is considering ways to reintroduce the list. In the process, it is revealing its own priorities, and how those have changed over the years — sometimes with unexpected results.

    • GCC 7.0 Now In Development, GCC 6.1 Likely Coming Next Week

      The GNU Compiler Collection (GCC) made it today to having no P1 regressions (the highest priority) and thus they’ve now branched the code for the GCC 6 series, GCC 7.0 is now on the master branch, and GCC 6.1 should be released next week.

      For those still confused by the new GCC versioning scheme, GCC 6.1 will be the first stable release in the GCC 6 series. Jakub Jelinek of Red Hat who is managing the release hopes to ship GCC 6.1 by the end of next week or shortly after that point. A GCC 6.1 RC1 candidate is meanwhile imminent.

    • foliot @ Savannah: GNU Foliot version 0.9.6-beta is released.
    • denemo @ Savannah: Version 2.0.6 is out

  • Project Releases

    • OpenEMR 4.2.1 is released

      The OpenEMR community has released version 4.2.1. This new version is 2014 ONC Certified as a Modular EHR. OpenEMR 4.2.1 has numerous new features including 30 language translations and a patient flow board.

  • Public Services/Government

    • New local government digital standard published

      A local government digital service standard has been agreed and published after taking into account the views of council staff in a consultation last month.

      The standard is a common approach for local authorities to deliver good quality, user centred, value for money digital services – and is a local government version of the original Government Digital Service Standard used across central government.

    • NZGOAL Software Extension

      The New Zealand Government Open Access and Licensing (NZGOAL) frame work is being extended to incorporate software licensing. The draft below is an initial draft for which we are seeking feedback on. The intention of this extension to NZGOAL is to ensure that publicly funded bespoke software is appropriately licensed to enable reuse by the public as well as government. This should enable more efficient maintenance and improvement, and potentially accelerate innovation going forward.

    • Dutch MP calls for open source resource centre

      The Dutch government should set up a resource centre on free software and open standards, says Member of Parliament Astrid Oosenbrug. “There is a serious lack of understanding of these two topics in the government”, the MP says. The centre should remedy this, and Ms Oosenburg has started studying possibilities and options.

    • Opening Minds As Well As Government With FLOSS
    • Italian parliament hosts debate on open source

      Italy’s parliament on Monday will hold a public debate on possible regulations on free and open source software, open standards, open data and open government. The meeting on Monday 18 April is hosted by Mirella Liuzzi, of the Five Star Movement.

    • White House Source Code Policy a Big Win for Open Government

      The U.S. White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) is considering a new policy for sharing source code for software created by or for government projects. There’s a lot to love about the proposed policy: it would make it easier for people to find and reuse government software, and explicitly encourages government agencies to prioritize free and open source software options in their procurement decisions.

      EFF submitted a comment on the policy through the White House’s GitHub repository (you can also download our comment as a PDF). The OMB is encouraging people to send comments through GitHub, reply to and +1 each other’s comments, and even offer direct edits to the policy via pull requests.

    • U.S. Federal Source Code Policy: FSF supports, and urges improvements – comment by April 18!

      You can submit your own comments regarding this proposal, supporting the FSF’s suggestions and adding your own ideas for improvement, through 11:59pm EDT on Monday, April 18, 2016.

  • Openness/Sharing/Collaboration

  • Programming/Development

    • How Node.js created a model open source community

      The creation of programming languages and platforms is rarely without challenges. A case in point is in the experiences of the community around the Node.js platform. Node.js allows the creation of backend services using JavaScript and a collection of “modules” that handle various core functionality and other core functions. Node.js’ modules use an API designed to reduce the complexity of writing server applications. Node.js’ package ecosystem, npm, is the largest ecosystem of open source libraries in the world.

    • Git work flows in the upcoming 2.7 release

      Easy to program in. No need to recompile, you can hack in as you would in shell. Fun.

    • Bug bounty blitzers open-source sick subdomain-spotter

      The tools, AltDNS and Assetnote, help hackers to automatically identify subdomains and hosts, then generate mobile phone push notifications the minute new possibly-vulnerable domains are published.

Leftovers

  • Monica Lewinsky: ‘The shame sticks to you like tar’

    Nearly 20 years ago, Monica Lewinsky found herself at the heart of a political storm. Now she’s turned that dark time into a force for good

  • 3 projects to enhance the experience of reading or writing poems

    April is National Poetry Month in the United States and Canada. During April, individuals and institutions take part by reading, sharing, and writing poetry. You can find National Poetry Month events at your local library, your local bookstore, and at many other places. To give National Poetry Month an open source spin, in this article I’ll share three open source projects for reading or writing poetry. From reading classical Greek and Roman poetry, to exploring the corpus of Persian poetry, to crafting poems of your own with a handy Android application, these projects take advantage of the creativity of open source to enhance the experience of reading or writing poems.

  • Health/Nutrition

    • 9 Ways Global Warming Is Making Us Sick

      The Obama administration has released a major new report on how manmade global warming is making Americans sicker—and it’s only going to get worse.

      Developed over three years and involving approximately 100 climate and public health experts, the 332-page report was based on more than 1,800 published scientific studies and new federal research, and was reviewed by the National Academies of Sciences.

  • Security

    • Security updates for Thursday
    • Badlock: Samba Vulns & Patching your machines

      Unless you are living in a black hole aka SCIF, or otherwise totally disconnected from various news outlets, you have likely heard about the numerous vulns that dropped as a series of CVEs better known as ‘badlock’ Tuesday. Well, there is good news for those on Redhat based distros! Patches are already in the default repos for Fedora / RHEL / CentOS.

    • Gone In Six Characters: Short URLs Considered Harmful for Cloud Services

      TL;DR: short URLs produced by bit.ly, goo.gl, and similar services are so short that they can be scanned by brute force. Our scan discovered a large number of Microsoft OneDrive accounts with private documents. Many of these accounts are unlocked and allow anyone to inject malware that will be automatically downloaded to users’ devices. We also discovered many driving directions that reveal sensitive information for identifiable individuals, including their visits to specialized medical facilities, prisons, and adult establishments.

    • URL shorteners could offer shortcut to malware infection, study claims
    • Guess what? URL shorteners short-circuit cloud security

      Two security researchers have published research exposing the potential privacy problems connected to using Web address shortening services. When used to share data protected by credentials included in the Web address associated with the content, these services could allow an attacker to gain access to data simply by searching through the entire address space for a URL-shortening service in search of content, because of how predictable and short those addresses are.

    • Defining “Gray Hat”

      Black Hats are the bad guys: cybercriminals (like Russian cybercrime gangs), cyberspies (like the Chinese state-sponsored hackers that broke into OPM), or cyberterrorists (ISIS hackers who want to crash the power grid). They may or may not include cybervandals (like some Anonymous activity) that simply defaces websites. Black Hats are those who want to cause damage or profit at the expense of others.

      [...]

      The biggest recent debate is “0day sales to the NSA”, which blew up after Stuxnet, and in particular, after Snowden. This is when experts look for bugs/vulnerabilities, but instead of reporting them to the vendor to be fixed (as White Hats typically do), they sell the bugs to the NSA, so the vulnerabilities (call “0days” in this context) can be used to hack computers in intelligence and military operations. Partisans who don’t like the NSA use “Grey Hat” to refer to those who sell 0days to the NSA.

      WIRED’s definition is this partisan definition. Kim Zetter has done more to report on Stuxnet than any other journalist, which is why her definition is so narrow.

    • WordPress Turns On Free Encryption
    • Badlock Flaw Disclosed as Microsoft Issues 13 Security Advisories
    • How Badlock Was Discovered and Fixed

      Severity analysis of vulnerabilities by experts from the information security industry is rarely based on real code review. In the ‘Badlock’ case, most read our CVE descriptions and built up a score representing a risk this CVE poses to a user. There is nothing wrong with this approach if it is done correctly. CVEs are analyzed in isolation; as if no other issue exists. In the case of a ‘Badlock‘ there were eight CVEs. The difference is the fact that one of them was in a foundational component used by most of the code affected by the remaining seven CVEs. That very specific CVE was marked CVE-2015-5370.

    • Linux Ransomware Could Soon Be Affecting Everyone [Ed: This is a truly garbage ‘article’ from a plagiarism Web site. One actually needs to install malware to be affected]

      Windows operating system has been plagued by ransomware since years, and the attackers have generated millions in revenue. The ransomware is expanding to Mac, Android, and Linux now. It is being said that this year is a critical one in terms of ransomware, and all major operating systems are predicted to get affected. Also, the attackers are constantly working on improving the ransomware, making it harder to deal with.

    • Experts crack Petya ransomware, enable hard drive decryption for free
    • Libgcrypt 1.7 Adds New Algorithms, Performance Improvements

      Werner Koch announced the release today of libgcrypt 1.7, a major update to this general cryptographic library.

      Libgcrypt 1.7 adds a nnumber of new hash algorithms, ChaCha20 stream cipher support, various other new algorithms/modes and also some new curves for ECC.

    • Friday’s security advisories

  • Defence/Aggression

    • James Henry on Panama Papers, Sanho Tree on Hiroshima

      Also on the show: “No US apology for Hiroshima” was many media’s thumbnail of Secretary of State John Kerry’s recent visit to one of the Japanese cities—along with, of course, Nagasaki—where the US killed more than 200,000 people with atomic bombs dropped in 1945. The dominant Hiroshima “narrative”—lamentable but necessary, ultimately saved more than it killed—has remained remarkably unchanged, in good part because of US media’s defense and preservation of it. We discussed that narrative years ago with military and diplomatic historian Sanho Tree, now director of the Drug Policy Project at the Institute for Policy Studies.

    • Saudi Arabia’s foreign minister has said $681 million banked into the Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak’s bank accounts was a “genuine donation.”

      Saudi Arabia has for the first time publicly confirmed Malaysia’s claim that $681 million in Prime Minister Najib Razak’s bank accounts was a donation from the Saudi royal family, countering accusations that the money was siphoned from heavily indebted state investment fund 1MDB.

      Saudi Arabian Foreign Minister Adel Al-Jubeir called the money a “genuine donation” in comments Thursday to Malaysian reporters in Istanbul after a meeting with Najib. On Friday, Malaysia’s foreign ministry provided a video clip of Al-Jubeir’s comments, which Najib’s office said vindicate the prime minister, who has faced months of pressure to resign from critics including former Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad.

    • A New Nuclear Arms Race Feared as U.S. & Others Aim to Build Smaller, “More Usable” Nukes

      Part 2 of our conversation with Marylia Kelley. Her group, the Alliance for Nuclear Accountability, just published a report titled “Trillion Dollar Trainwreck: Out-of-control U.S. nuclear weapons programs accelerate spending, proliferation, health and safety risks.”

    • Learning to Love the Bomb — Again

      Perhaps the height of Official Washington’s madness is the casual decision to invest $1 trillion in a new generation of nukes, including a downsized, easy-to-use variety, with almost no debate, a danger that Michael Brenner addresses.

    • Obama’s Trillion-Dollar Nuclear-Arms Train Wreck
    • The CIA Doesn’t Want You To Know that ISI Supports Terror, But DIA Does

      The National Security Archive just got a number of documents on the funding of the Haqqani network, showing it gets (or got) funding from Gulf donations, the Taliban in the tribal lands, and Pakistan’s ISI. A particularly interesting DIA cable describes how a guy named Qabool Khan, on orders of the Haqqani, got a job — thanks to Hamid Karzai’s brother Mahmoud’s influence — running security for the US Salerno and Chapman bases. Along with intelligence about Americans on the base, of the $800 he made for each guard at the base, Khan sent $300 back to the Haqqanis.

    • America’s Imperial Overstretch

      This week, SU-24 fighter-bombers buzzed a U.S. destroyer in the Baltic Sea. The Russian planes carried no missiles or bombs.

      Message: What are you Americans doing here?

      In the South China Sea, U.S. planes overfly, and U.S. warships sail inside, the territorial limits of islets claimed by Beijing.

      In South Korea, U.S. forces conduct annual military exercises as warnings to a North Korea that is testing nuclear warheads and long-range missiles that can reach the United States.

    • U.S. Report on Saudi Arabia Downplays Civilian Casualties in Yemen

      IN ITS ANNUAL human rights report on Saudi Arabia, the State Department ignored thousands of civilian casualties from the Saudi-led bombing campaign in Yemen and overlooked the widespread use of illegal cluster munitions by the bombing coalition.

      Saudi Arabia launched an air campaign in Yemen last March after Houthi rebels in Yemen threatened the rule of the Saudi-backed president. The Saudi military has been widely criticized for targeting civilians, destroying homes, schools, and hospitals, and using internationally banned cluster munitions.

      The Obama administration has supported the Saudi-led campaign throughout, providing the coalition with intelligence and selling them at least $20 billion in weapons since the campaign began in March.

    • Hillary Clinton’s Gender Argument

      Hillary Clinton calls on women to support her to be the first female President, but all Americans should look carefully at her record advocating bloody, neocon “regime change” wars, says ex-CIA analyst Ray McGovern.

  • Transparency/Investigative Reporting

    • Does Over-Classification Matter With the Hillary Emails?

      Rules are for fools, and in this case the fools in question are you, me and what’s left of the American democratic system. Obama, in an interview, basically made it clear nobody is going to indict Hillary Clinton for exposing classified material via her unclassified email server, even if it requires made-up rules to let her get away with it.

      The president’s comments in an interview last Sunday that “there’s classified and then there’s classified” made clear he imagines national security law allows for ample, self-determined fudge room when exposing classified material.

    • New EU trade secrets law could jail whistleblowers, block drug trial data access

      EU parliament has adopted new rules on the protection of trade secrets, shortly after passing those on data protection, reported by Ars earlier today.

      A European Parliament press release explains: “The rules will introduce an EU-wide definition of trade secrets and oblige member states to ensure that victims of the misuse of trade secrets will be able to defend their rights in court and seek compensation. The agreed text also lays down rules on the protection of confidential information during litigation.” According to the agreed rules, “trade secret” means information which is “secret, has commercial value because it is secret, and has been subject to reasonable steps to keep it secret.”

      A controversial issue is the impact the new trade secrets rules will have on whistleblowers and journalists: “MEPs stressed the need to ensure that the legislation does not curb media freedom and pluralism or restrict the work of journalists, in particular with regard to their investigations and the protection of their sources.”

      However, the Pirate Party MEP, Julia Reda, believes the new rules will harm journalism, writing that they have “created major uncertainties about the role of whistleblowers and investigative journalists. All information, including information about malpractice, can be protected as a trade secret. As a result, the burden of proof that the public interest outweighs the business interest will now always lie with the whistleblower.”

      One area where whistleblowing is crucially important concerns drug safety. Health Action International (HAI), a non-governmental organisation dedicated to strengthening medicines policy to improve public health, said it was was “deeply disappointed with today’s adoption of the European Union Trade Secrets Directive.”

    • Trade Secrets Directive Clears European Parliament Despite Concerns

      Rejecting calls for a vote to be delayed until the European Commission proposes tougher whistle-blower protections, the European Parliament on 14 April approved by 503-131 new rules giving companies redress for theft or misuse of trade secrets. Debate on the trade secrets directive showed sharp divisions among lawmakers, heightened by the recent “Panama Papers” and other leaks, over whether the legislation will help businesses safeguard their innovative ideas or lead to increased corporate secrecy.

    • BREAKING: Safe passage through Panama – EU Trade Secrets Directive approved, but not without protest

      In the end, the voices in favour prevailed, with 503 votes for and only 131 against. The strength of this majority is also fair reflection of the concerns, which were at times overstated. For a start, contrary to the suggestion from the Ecologist, the Directive has no impact on criminal law (this remains entirely a matter for national legislators). Recital 12a also makes clear that national judicial authorities have ample scope for taking account of national sensitivities. I suspect national approaches to whistleblowing and public interest will remain largely unchanged as a result of the Directive, although the impact of the Panama Papers is perhaps harder to predict.”

  • Environment/Energy/Wildlife/Nature

    • ‘Days of Revolt’: Corporate Influence and the Pitfalls of a Two-Party System (Video)

      Dr. Margaret Flowers is an environmental activist running for the U.S. Senate in Maryland as a member of the Green Party. In this episode of teleSUR’s “Days of Revolt,” she discusses political stagnation and revolution with Truthdig contributor Chris Hedges.

      The two discuss the “corporate stranglehold” on American elections and the oppressive nature of two-party systems. Although she emphasizes the importance of grass-roots movements to incite political change, Flowers also notes that it’s “important to have people inside of the system.”

    • Why World Leaders Are Terrified of Water Shortages

      Secret conversations between American diplomats show how a growing water crisis in the Middle East destabilized the region, helping spark civil wars in Syria and Yemen, and how those water shortages are spreading to the United States.

      Classified US cables reviewed by Reveal from the Center for Investigative Reporting show a mounting concern by global political and business leaders that water shortages could spark unrest across the world, with dire consequences.

      [...]

      The classified diplomatic cables, made public years ago by WikiLeaks, now are providing fresh perspective on how water shortages have helped push Syria and Yemen into civil war, and prompted the king of neighboring Saudi Arabia to direct his country’s food companies to scour the globe for farmland. Since then, concerns about the world’s freshwater supplies have only accelerated.

      It’s not just government officials who are worried. In 2009, US Embassy officers visited Nestlé’s headquarters in Switzerland, where company executives, who run the world’s largest food company and are dependent on freshwater to grow ingredients, provided a grim outlook of the coming years. An embassy official cabled Washington with the subject line, “Tour D’Horizon with Nestle: Forget the Global Financial Crisis, the World Is Running Out of Fresh Water.”

    • Greenland ice melts ‘disturbingly’ early

      Meteorologists on Greenland have recorded a 10 percent melt of the island’s sheet ice, beating the record for the earliest date for this level of melting by ‘nearly a month.’

  • Finance

    • Ted Cruz Uses Discredited Talking Points To Make Case Against Minimum Wage Hike

      Research, however, shows no significant connection between increasing the minimum wage and jobs. A 2009 analysis of 64 United States minimum-wage studies found “little or no evidence of a negative association between minimum wages and employment.” Likewise, a 2013 Economic Policy Institute (EPI) report found that “Research over the past two decades has shown that, despite skeptics’ claims, modest increases in the minimum wage have little to no negative impact on jobs. In fact, under current labor market conditions, where tepid consumer demand is a major factor holding businesses back from expanding their payrolls, raising the minimum wage can provide a catalyst for new hiring.”

    • US corporations have $1.4tn hidden in tax havens, claims Oxfam report

      US corporate giants such as Apple, Walmart and General Electric have stashed $1.4tn (£980bn) in tax havens, despite receiving trillions of dollars in taxpayer support, according to a report by anti-poverty charity Oxfam.

    • Jeremy Corbyn suggests EU-wide minimum wage to give British workers a ‘level playing field’

      The European Union should consider introducing an EU-wide minimum wage to reduce the incentive for people to immigrate to Britain, Jeremy Corbyn has suggested.

      The Labour leader today made his first speech of the EU referendum campaign, arguing that there was a “strong socialist case” for staying in the bloc.

      But Mr Corbyn accepted that there were concerns about the impact of migration on the UK – and said changes to wage laws could help reduce perceived pressures.

    • Dutch voters now demanding referendum on TTIP

      Some 100,000 Dutch citizens have already signed a petition demanding a referendum on TTIP. 300,000 names are needed to trigger a non-binding vote on the issue, as was the case with the Ukraine plebiscite.

      The Socialist Party (Socialistische Partij) is pushing for the referendum. Founded in 1977 as the ‘Communist Party of the Netherlands/Marxist–Leninist’, it won 15 out of 150 seats (10%) in the Dutch Parliament elections in 2012, equivalent to just under 910,000 individual votes.

      Spokesman Jasper Van Dijk told EurActiv that the EU-Ukraine referendum had given the campaign, which has lasted a matter of months, added impetus.

      NGOs against TTIP were part of the drive, he said, which had excited popular imagination.

    • Elizabeth Warren Introduces Bill To Make Tax Season Return-Free

      Yay, it’s tax season again! As our American readers will know, this is the wonderful time of year when we scramble to get all of our taxes and deductions paperwork in order, take them to some storefront that looks like a military recruitment center, push all of those papers in front of someone that looks like they just graduated from college, and scream, “You figure it out!” For our foreign readers, I should explain that we do this because our tax code is more complicated than the plot of Game of Thrones, our tax authorities are every bit as ruthless as that same series, and we’ve collectively allowed our citizens’ payment of due obligations to become a for-profit industry. But seriously, though, come to America. It’s great. I swear.

    • City Council Passes Law Limiting Homeless People’s Belongings to What Can Fit in Trash Bin

      Like every American city in the Age of the 99 Percent, Los Angeles has a significant homeless problem. Full-on shantytowns are now a feature of LA’s urban landscape, with colonies of desperate men and women setting up camps, and building shelters out of tarps, wherever they can find safe space to do so.

    • CETA, TTIP and ISDS: Lessons from Canada

      A new video is set to spark debate on CETA (the Canada-European Union Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement) with the deal on the verge of a vote this year in the European Parliament, where opponents hope it will be defeated.

      Today, the Council of Canadians, in partnership with the European Citizens’ Initiative against TTIP and CETA, is launching CETA: Lessons from Canada, a five-minute animation. Using a technique known as “handimation”, the short video gives a comprehensive background on the controversial deal, known to many as TTIP 1.0.

    • Saudi Arabia Warns of Economic Fallout if Congress Passes 9/11 Bill

      Saudi Arabia has told the Obama administration and members of Congress that it will sell off hundreds of billions of dollars’ worth of American assets held by the kingdom if Congress passes a bill that would allow the Saudi government to be held responsible in American courts for any role in the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

      The Obama administration has lobbied Congress to block the bill’s passage, according to administration officials and congressional aides from both parties, and the Saudi threats have been the subject of intense discussions in recent weeks between lawmakers and officials from the State Department and the Pentagon. The officials have warned senators of diplomatic and economic fallout from the legislation.

      Adel al-Jubeir, the Saudi foreign minister, delivered the kingdom’s message personally last month during a trip to Washington, telling lawmakers that Saudi Arabia would be forced to sell up to $750 billion in treasury securities and other assets in the United States before they could be in danger of being frozen by American courts.

  • AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics

    • We Must Speak Up—Capitalism is Eating Democracy

      Yanis Varoufakis, previous finance minister for Greece, offers insights as an economic insider about the current workings of global finance. He suggests the key challenge of our time is a lack of democracy to balance today’s unchecked capitalism. Capitalism without democratic oversight can become a very uncivilized system—brutish and destructive. This current imbalance threatens the global economy, our environment, and the future of civil society.

    • Media Asking Wrong Questions on North Carolina’s ‘Bathroom Law’

      But while media are busy working through anti-LGBT talking points, they aren’t asking Republican politicians to explain how they’ll enforce laws that would require people to prove their “biological sex” at the bathroom door. The law says people must use facilities that corresponding to the sex “stated on a person’s birth certificate.” So people should carry their birth certificates with them at all times?

    • Protests Against Money in Politics Hold Little Interest for Beltway’s ‘Political Junkies’

      More than 400 people were arrested in a non-violent sit-in on Capitol Hill April 11, many having marched 150 miles from the Liberty Bell in Philadelphia. The protest, called Democracy Spring, is about ending the influence of big money in politics and ensuring free, fair elections through things like restoring the Voting Rights Act. The next day, another 85 mostly elderly people were arrested, many chanting, “Democracy is not for sale, [we’re] not too old to go to jail.”

    • How Does That Plastic Taste?

      As of March 2016, a review of recent corporate news coverage indicates that many of the themes in Jamail’s article have not been covered in the corporate press, including especially the extent to which the seafood we eat contains plastic, as well as a number of the solutions to this problem, as discussed by Dr. Wallace Nichols and other researchers.

    • Release of Clinton’s Wall Street Speeches Could End Her Candidacy for President

      The reason you and I will never see the transcripts of Hillary Clinton’s speeches to Wall Street fat-cats — and the reason she’s established a nonsensical condition for their release, that being an agreement by members of another party, involved in a separate primary, to do the same — is that if she were ever to release those transcripts, it could end her candidacy for president.

      Please don’t take my word for it, though.

      Nor even that of the many neutral observers in the media who are deeply troubled by Clinton’s lack of transparency as to these well-compensated closed-door events — a lack of transparency that has actually been a hallmark of her career in politics.

      Nor do we even need to take Clinton’s word for it — as we could certainly argue that her insistence that none of these transcripts ever be seen by the public is itself a confession that her words would cause significant trauma to her presidential bid.

    • The Brooklyn Dodgers: Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders Give Non-Answers at Debate

      WHEN A CANDIDATE for high office can’t respond to a simple question with an honest answer, attention should be paid. More often than not these days, that kind of behavior is just greeted with a shrug by the members of the elite media, but specific acts of evasion are worth studying. Because if something’s important enough for a candidate that they concoct a ludicrous non-response, there’s probably a sore point under there somewhere.

    • Hillary Clinton’s Favorability Rating Among Democrats Hit a New Low (Video)

      Hillary Clinton may be the Democratic frontrunner, but her appeal is waning. According to the HuffPost Pollster average, 55 percent of the electorate now views Clinton unfavorably—and 40.2 percent of people view her favorably, according to the same average.

    • Bernie Sanders earned $205,000 in 2014

      Earlier today I noted that someone who earns $200,000 pays an average federal income tax rate of 15 percent. Well, it turns out that Bernie Sanders is really, really average. He released his 2014 tax return tonight, and it reports that he had an adjusted gross income of $205,617 and total taxes due of $27,653. That’s 13 percent of his income.

    • What exactly do pro-Brexiters mean when they say they want to make Britain great again?

      The United Kingdom could ‘better face the future outside the European Union’. That was the opinion of 43% of respondents in the European Union Public Opinion survey, the Eurobarometer, in May 2015. It’s hardly surprising that such a large proportion of the population has such a bleak view of the benefits the EU brings to the UK, considering that scrutiny of Brussels has intensified over recent years. And in the run-up to the referendum, the spotlight is well and truly fixed on the issue.

    • A Note on Hillary Clinton, the Queen of Chaos

      In fact, this primary campaign has produced a couple of surprises, more earthly than divine. Both surprises reveal widespread grassroots discontent with both Hillary Clinton and the whole American political establishment. However, this discontent so far fails to focus on the point of my book: the need to combat the ideology and practice of U.S. war policy personified by Hillary Clinton. Where is the effective alternative to the War Party?

  • Censorship/Free Speech

    • Texas Prison System Unveils New Censorship Policy

      The Texas Department of Criminal Justice is getting in the digital censorship game with a new policy that would punish an offender for having a social media presence, even when someone on the outside is posting updates on their behalf.

    • GreatFire activist urges western firms to help end Chinese censorship

      Western companies need to end their hypocrisy over free speech in China, and start helping to end censorship in the country, a leading anti-censorship activist has told the Guardian.

      One of the three co-founders of GreatFire, an organisation dedicated to fighting the so-called Great Firewall of China, the technological heart of state censorship in the country, said it hurts to see companies such as Apple citing Chinese censorship in their battles with western governments, while co-operating with authoritarian state in order to earn money from its burgeoning middle classes and take advantage of its enormous manufacturing base.

      Speaking in London shortly before winning a Freedom of Expression award from campaign group Index on Censorship, the activist, who goes by the pseudonym Charlie Smith due to the threat to his safety if the Chinese government discovers his identity, listed Apple and LinkedIn amongst his personal villains.

    • It’s Official: Washington Thinks Chinese Internet Censorship Is a ‘Trade Barrier’

      In its annual report on the challenges U.S. exporters face in foreign markets, released in April, the office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR) listed Chinese Internet censorship as a trade barrier for the first time. The move is likely to please U.S. businesses that operate in China or that are considering doing so. But previous U.S. attempts to encourage China to dismantle the so-called Great Firewall of Censorship, which keeps out certain foreign content Chinese authorities deem harmful, have had little effect. Will describing censorship as a trade barrier make a difference? In this ChinaFile conversation, experts discuss the implications of the new report, and how might China react to this pressure from Washington.

    • Leaked Documents Confirm Ecuador’s Internet Censorship Machine

      According to a leaked internal memo of the multinational ISP Telefónica in Ecuador, the Association of Internet Providers of Ecuador (AEPROVI) collaborated with the Ecuadorian government to block their users’ access to websites. The memo was obtained and published by the Associated Whistleblowing Press and the Ecuadorian whistleblowing platform, Ecuador Transparente.

      The memo describes how on March 28, 2014, between 7:20 pm and 7:53 pm, a technician received reports of users unable to access Google and YouTube. It explains that Telefónica staff verified the accessibility issues and reported them to Telefónica’s Network Operations Center (NOC). The NOC then confirmed that these websites were inaccessible due to AEPROVI “blocking access to certain Internet websites by request of the National Government.” The leaked document explains that many clients were affected, prompting AEPROVI to roll back its website blocking in order to remedy the situation.

    • Ecuador Briefly Censored Google and YouTube, Leaked Document Shows

      On Thursday, March 27, 2014, someone hacked the official Twitter account of Ecuador’s President Rafael Correa. The next day, hackers posted personal emails from the country’s spy chief Rommy Vallejo on a Google-hosted blog, which contained a classic Anonymous-like YouTube video.

      Hours later, some internet users in Ecuador reported not being able to access Google and YouTube. As it turned out, the outage wasn’t caused by a technical glitch, but a government censorship order, according to a leaked document from telephone giant Telefonica.

      “The issues with accessing internet pages such as Google and YouTube was due to the fact that personnel at [Ecuador’s internet providers’ association] AEPROVI blocked access to certain internet pages by request of the national government,” reads part of the document, which appears to be an internal Telefonica support ticket.

    • Erdogan Tries to Extend Turkish Censorship to Germany

      Jan Böhmermann, host of the late-night “Neo Magazin Royale,” in Hamburg, Germany, on August 21, 2012. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has filed a complaint against the comedian who recited a satirical and sexually crude poem about him on German television, complicating Berlin’s attempts to get Turkey’s help in dealing with Europe’s migrant crisis.

    • Merkel, Accused of Betraying Core Values, Faces a Balancing Act With Turkey
    • Journalists want ‘slanderous’ poem republished

      Colleagues of satirist Jan Böhmermann at public broadcaster ZDF are campaigning to have his ‘slanderous’ poem about Turkey’s leader reinstated online – even as legal action looms against the comedian.

    • Let’s All Talk About The Stuff That UC Davis Spent $175k Trying To Keep Off These Internets

      Those funds, spent by a public university, mind you, were spent in the wake of the pepper spraying incident specifically to reformulate the image of UC Davis by obfuscating search results, web mentions of the incident, and by crafting a deluge of other UC Davis content that was decidedly more brand-friendly. But, hey, are you still confused as to what incident we’re talking about here? Maybe this video of the incident will help jog your memory.

      What should be readily apparent to you by now is that trying to bury factual if unfortunate history by hiring so-called brand reputation groups works about as well as trying to cover up your inability to cook a decent meal by dumping chocolate icing on everything you make. Sure, icing is good, but you still burnt that bone-in ribeye, you fool.

      More importantly, in true Streisand Effect fashion, the attempted coverup of the incident now has us all discussing it again. And not only discussing the incident, but multiplying information about the incident, and footage of it, throughout the internet.

    • Texas prisons’ new rules aim to force social media to close inmate accounts

      This month the Texas Department of Criminal Justice (TDCJ) updated its offender handbook (PDF) to stipulate that inmates are not allowed to have social media accounts. While blog posts are still permitted, a spokesperson for the TDCJ told Ars that the rule was developed to get social media platforms to comply with the corrections department’s takedown requests more readily.

    • ABC rejects criticism its Chinese web portal bows to Beijing censorship

      The ABC has strongly rejected criticism its Chinese web portal, AustraliaPlus.cn, helps Beijing to silence critical voices in the region.

      An opinion piece in the Australian Financial Review by Prof John Fitzgerald, director of the Asia Pacific program in social investment and philanthropy at Swinburne University of Technology accused the ABC of selling out its news values in order to get a foothold in China.

      “The ABC has not, and never has, entered into an agreement with China or any country in regards to censorship of its content,” the ABC said in a strongly-worded statement.

    • 6 May: Tehran Book Fair, Uncensored

      Taking place on 6-7 May 2016 at London’s Free Word Centre, the book fair coincides with the Tehran Book Fair, but unlike the Iranian counterpart, it’s free from censorship, and will feature censored books from independent Iranian publishers.

      Most of the event will be in Farsi, but there will be an English-language session too on Friday 6 May from 4.30pm to 5.30pm – in association with Index on Censorship and Small Media.

    • Student journalists battling censorship on campuses nationwide

      Freedom of the press on campus has garnered plenty of attention with incidents at the University of Missouri and Wesleyan University. Yet the two incidents “are hardly the only examples,” warns Observer.

      At Mizzou, a student photographer was pushed away from covering student protesters by former professor Melissa Click, who has since been fired and charged with assault. The Wesleyan Argus faced controversy and defunding threats after publishing a critical article about Black Lives Matter.

    • Jodie Ginsberg: “Free expression needs defenders”
    • In the Erdogan vs. Böhmermann crisis, the real comedians are the politicians themselves
    • UC Davis Spent $175,000 To Bury This Story Of Police Brutality. We’re Writing About It So They Fail.
    • UC Davis Wondered If $175,000 Would Make The Internet Go Away. Conclusion: No.
    • UC Davis spent $175,000 to bury search results after cops pepper-sprayed protestors
    • University of California in Davis Spent $175k on SEO and “Reputation Management”
    • U. of Delaware Students Drew a Penis on a Free Speech Ball. Cops Made Them Censor It.

  • Privacy/Surveillance

    • Mexican Supreme Court Should Reject Mass Surveillance
    • Two hidden recording devices are discovered at Harvard Law School
    • How Technology Helps Creditors Control Debtors

      From software that records your every keystroke, to GPS tracking, to ignition kill switches—lenders have more power over their customers than ever.

    • Facebook Employees Asked Mark Zuckerberg If They Should Try to Stop a Donald Trump Presidency

      This week, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg appeared to publicly denounce the political positions of Donald Trump’s presidential campaign during the keynote speech of the company’s annual F8 developer conference.

      “I hear fearful voices calling for building walls and distancing people they label as ‘others,’” Zuckerberg said, never referring to Trump by name. “I hear them calling for blocking free expression, for slowing immigration, for reducing trade, and in some cases, even for cutting access to the internet.”

      [...]

      “Facebook can promote or block any material that it wants,” UCLA law professor Eugene Volokh told Gizmodo. “Facebook has the same First Amendment right as the New York Times. They can completely block Trump if they want. They block him or promote him.” But the New York Times isn’t hosting pages like Donald Trump for President or Donald Trump for President 2016, the way Facebook is.

      [...]

      Facebook has toyed with skewing news in the past. During the 2012 presidential election, Facebook secretly tampered with 1.9 million user’s news feeds. The company also tampered with news feeds in 2010 during a 61-million-person experiment to see how Facebook could impact the real-world voting behavior of millions of people. An academic paper was published about the secret experiment, claiming that Facebook increased voter turnout by more than 340,000 people. In 2012, Facebook also deliberately experimented on its users’ emotions. The company, again, secretly tampered with the news feeds of 700,000 people and concluded that Facebook can basically make you feel whatever it wants you to.

    • Canadian police had access to BlackBerry Messenger pretty much like everyone else

      POLICE IN CANADA took advantage of BlackBerry Messenger (BBM) security’s “Achilles’ heel” by compelling the company to hand over its universal decryption key, and using access to mobile operators’ infrastructure to read more than a million messages.

      Declassified documents arising from a Royal Canadian Mounted Police criminal investigation between 2010 and 2012 indicate that the police force kept a dedicated server at its headquarters in Ottawa to intercept messages. The server was connected to the network of Canadian mobile operator Rogers, which also cooperated with investigators.

    • Canadian Law Enforcement Can Intercept, Decrypt Blackberry Messages

      Blackberry’s CEO, John Chen, didn’t care for the fact that Apple was “locking” law enforcement out of its devices by providing customers with default encryption. As he saw it, Apple was placing profits ahead of Mom, Apple pie and American-made motorcars.

    • Report Exposes Flaws In Link Shorteners That Reveal Sensitive Info About Users And Track Their Offline Movements

      The Freedom to Tinker Foundation has just released a study it compiled over the last 18 months — one in which it scanned thousands of shortened URLs and discovered what they unintentionally revealed. Microsoft’s OneDrive — which uses link-shortening — could be made to reveal documents uploaders never intended to share with the public. Worse, Freedom to Tinker discovered a small percentage of brute-forced URLs linked to documents with “write” privileges enabled.

    • How Short URLs Could Reveal Your Home Address and Get You Hacked

      Two researchers devised a method to automatically guess, or scan by brute force, millions of Microsoft OneDrive (1drv.ms) and Google Maps (goo.gl/maps) short links. This way, they found thousands of open OneDrive folders with potentially sensitive information, as well as Google Maps links that could be used to identify the people who created them, as well as their identity.

      In other words, short URLs with five, six, or seven-character tokens that users might think as private, are not that private.

      “When you are sharing something using a short URL, you are not sharing with just the intended recipient…you are sharing with the entire world.” Vitaly Shmatikov, a professor at Cornell Tech, and one of the researchers who worked on the study, told Motherboard in an email.

    • How an internet mapping glitch turned a random Kansas farm into a digital hell

      But instead of being a place of respite, the people who live on Joyce Taylor’s land find themselves in a technological horror story.

    • How Bad Are Geolocation Tools? Really, Really Bad

      Geolocation is one of those tools that the less technically minded like to use to feel smart. At its core it’s a database, showing locations for IP addresses, but like most database-based tools, the old maxim of GIGO [Garbage In, Garbage Out] applies. Over the weekend Fusion’s Kashmir Hill wrote a great story about how one geolocation company has sent hundreds of people to one farm in Kansas for no reason other than laziness. And yes, it’s exactly as bad as it sounds.

    • Sixth Circuit Says Cell Site Location Data Just A Business Record; No Warrants Required

      To date, four appeals courts have entered opinions on whether cell site location info is covered by the Fourth Amendment. So far, only the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals has found this to be worthy of a warrant. All others find CSLI to be covered under the Third Party Doctrine. These cases all deal with historical cell site location info, usually obtained in bulk with subpoenas. Near real-time tracking using tower pings is another issue entirely — one that’s rarer because a) obtaining rolling CSLI from a provider is a pain and b) everyone’s using Stingrays now.

    • FBI Has Been Not Counting Encryption’s Impact on Investigations for Over a Decade

      During the first of a series of hearings in the last year in which Jim Comey (at this particular hearing, backed by Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates) pushed for back doors, they were forced to admit they didn’t actually have numbers proving encryption was a big problem for their investigations because they simply weren’t tracking that number.

    • Documents Show FBI Deployed Software Exploits To Break Encryption Back In 2003

      Documents FOIA’ed by Ryan Shapiro and shared with the New York Times shed some new light on previous FBI efforts to break encryption. Back in 2003, the FBI was investigating an animal rights group for possibly sabotaging companies that used animals for testing. The FBI’s Department of Cutesy Investigation Names dubbed this “Operation Trail Mix,” which I’m sure endeared it to the agents on the case. At the center of the investigation were emails the FBI couldn’t read. But it found a way.

    • The FBI’s Asinine Attempt to Retroactively Justify Cracking Farook’s Phone

      That’s the logic the FBI is now peddling to reporters who are copping onto what was clear from the start: that there was never going to be anything of interest on Farook’s phone. After all, they’re suggesting geolocation data on the phone (some of which would be available from Verizon) might explain the 18 minutes of the day of the attack the FBI has yet to piece together.

    • FAQ: Apple, the FBI, and Zero Days
    • Massive EU data protection overhaul finally approved

      The European Parliament today voted in favour of major reforms to data protection in the EU, first put forward in January 2012 as a replacement for the current rules, which were drawn up in 1995. The new law is done and dusted and will come into action in April 2018.

      There are two components to the new law: the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), which is designed to give EU citizens better control of their personal data, and the Data Protection Directive, which covers how personal data is used by police in the EU.

    • Apple Responds To DOJ’s Attempt To Get Into Drug Dealer’s Phone: Why You So Dishonest?

      As we’ve discussed at length, there are multiple cases going on right now in which the US Justice Department is looking to compel Apple to help access encrypted information on iPhones. There was lots of attention paid to the one in San Bernardino, around Syed Farook’s work iPhone, but that case is now over. The one getting almost but not quite as much attention is the one happening across the country in NY, where magistrate judge James Orenstein ruled against the DOJ a little over a month ago, with a very detailed explanation for why the All Writs Act clearly did not apply. The DOJ, not surprisingly, appealed that ruling (technically made a “renewed application” rather than an appeal) to an Article III judge and the case was assigned to judge Margo Brodie.

    • Special forces troops ‘using new GCHQ system’ on anti-terror patrols? [Ed: propaganda rag uses the “support the troops” card to ‘sell’ GCHQ to us]
    • GCHQ director acknowledges historic mistreatment of LGBT people at Stonewall conference
    • UK spy chief apologises for GCHQ’s historic ban on gay staff
    • Spy agency chief: I apologize to gay staff unfairly dismissed in the past
    • GCHQ chief apologises for ‘horrifying’ treatment of Alan Turing [Ed: intolerance, new charm offensive]
    • Head of GCHQ apologises for historic ban on homosexuals
    • GCHQ apology for Turing and homosexuals treatment
    • GCHQ boss publicly apologises for the organisation’s historic ban on gay staff
    • Edward Snowden Forms Improbable Partnership With Jean-Michel Jarre
    • Edward Snowden made a song with electronic musician Jean-Michel Jarre
    • Edward Snowden Is Releasing A Song Called ‘Exit’. No, It’s Not A Joke.
    • Edward Snowden is now dabbling in techno music
    • Edward Snowden releasing techno track with Jean Michel Jarre
    • Edward Snowden has been messaging teenagers about the news and making electronic music
    • US anti-encryption law is so ‘braindead’ it will outlaw file compression

      The proposed bill put forward by Senators Richard Burr (R-NC) and Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) to force US companies to build backdoors into their encryption systems has quickly run into trouble.

      Less than 24 hours after the draft Compliance with Court Orders Act of 2016 was released, more than 43,000 signatures have been added to a petition calling for the bill to be withdrawn. The petition, organized by CREDO Action, calls for Congress to block the proposed law as a matter of urgency.

    • Microsoft Sues Government Over Its ECPA-Enabled Gag Orders

      The lawsuit claims these gag orders violate multiple rights of multiple parties. Those whose data is being requested are having their Fourth Amendment rights violated by the undisclosed searches. Microsoft’s First Amendment rights are being violated by the accompanying gag orders.

    • Adoption of three texts on personal data: teach yourself how to be safe!

      Today, the European Parliament adopted three texts on personal data: the regulation framework for personal data processing by private companies, the Directive on judicial and police processing of personal data, and the PNR (Passenger Name Record) that aims at the creation of national records gathering large amounts of data of persons travelling from or to the European Union, including internal flights. These texts feature numerous loopholes that threaten the right to privacy. Given the inability of the institutions to come up with regulations that actually protect Internet users, it is up to each and every one of us to learn how to protect themselves, their personal data and their privacy on the Internet.

    • Coast Guard Academy competes against other service academies, NSA in cyber security exercise [Ed: New NSA puff piece wrapped up in prose]
    • Facebook Hired a Former DARPA Head To Lead An Ambitious New Research Lab [Ed: imperialism and mass surveillance symbiotic]

      She was a key Google executive, too

      If you need another sign that Facebook’s world-dominating ambitions are just getting started, here’s one: the Menlo Park, Calif. company has hired a former DARPA chief to lead its new research lab.

    • Mobile By Reach: Digging Deeper into Pew Numbers from February, with Projections to 2016 [Ed: so who needs RFID? People let themselves be tracked at all time]

      With Pew’s survey we found using my company analysis that the world has 5.0 Billion unique mobile phone owners (owning one or more mobile phones, which can be smart or dumb phones). Out of the 5.0B, the number of unique smartphone owners was 2.3 Billion last year (46%) and as we’ve measured out of the sales numbers the total installed base of all smartphones at 2.5 Billion so 200 million of the total smartphones in use worldwide are by those of us who have 2 phones in their pockets (or 9% of all smartphone unique owners have 2 smartphones). I published this breakdown of the world mobile phone unique ownership and smartphone vs dumbphone vs no-phone owners in February, based on Pew numbers:

    • US court agrees with feds: Warrants aren’t needed for cell-site location data

      Another federal appeals court is siding with the Obama administration’s position that court warrants are not required to track a suspect’s cell-site location. The Wednesday decision (PDF) by the 6th US Circuit Court of Appeals adds to the growing number of federal appeals court rulings siding with the government, likely meaning the US Supreme Court won’t weigh into the legal thicket any time soon. Only one federal circuit has sided against the government, but that ruling was set aside, (PDF) and a new decision is pending after the court accepted the government’s petition to rehear the dispute.

    • Subway photographer connects random photos to people’s social media profiles

      Егор Цветков (Egor Tsvetkov), a photographer in Russia, has taken photos of random people on the subway and connected them to social media portraits and complete profiles using face matching technology. This is a game changer.

      It used to be that technology was good enough to say whether two photos appeared to be of the same person. We’ve now reached an inflection point where one input photo can (mostly) be used to find the matching person among tens of millions of people, and where the processing power used is low enough for that service to be free. This is a complete game changer.

      The gravity of this doesn’t really hit you until you see the examples, where the photos are taken under radically different lighting and angles than the portrait photos, and sometimes with different facial hair, too. What’s more, this photographer used a freely available photo matching service – FindFace.ru – which has already imported a vast amount of (all?) photos on vKontakte, which is Russia’s equivalent of Facebook, and let a neural network study all of those photos.

    • Harry Potter Publisher Goes on a Bizarre Anti-Piracy Rampage

      The publishing platform responsible for marketing J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series has gone on a bizarre anti-piracy rampage. Pottermore and its anti-piracy partners told Google that J.K. Rowling’s Wikipedia page was infringing, but sadly that’s just the tip of a ridiculous DMCA notice iceberg.

    • So GCHQ is already spying on behalf of the copyright industry. Why isn’t there an outcry over this change of mission?

      It was a little-noticed story in the Entertainment and Oddities section: The GCHQ is using its spying network to help the copyright industry prevent “unauthorized distribution of creative works” – meaning ordinary people sharing interesting things with each other. Yes, that spying network which was supposed to prevent horrible terror attacks, and only to prevent horrible terror attacks, to safeguard our very lives as a last line of defense, is now in the service of the copyright industry.

    • Burr-Feinstein encryption bill is officially here in all its scary glory

      Senators Richard Burr and Dianne Feinstein released the official version of their anti-encryption bill today after a draft appeared online last week. The bill, titled the Compliance with Court Orders Act of 2016, would require tech firms to decrypt customers’ data at a court’s request.

      The Burr-Feinstein proposal has already faced heavy criticism from the tech and legislative communities and is not expected to get anywhere in the Senate. President Obama has also indicated that he will not support the bill, Reuters reports.

    • Impeachment or NSA-Led Coup? Alarming Efforts to Oust Brazil’s Rousseff

      Over 60% of Brazilians do not believe that President Dilma Rousseff should be subject to impeachment proceedings, but a cadre of corrupt far right politicians armed with NSA surveillance documents continue to push for her ouster.

      On Monday, a 65-member congressional committee in Brazil voted to advance impeachment proceedings against President Dilma Rousseff, in relation to the “carwash” corruption investigation. Although President Rousseff is not herself implicated in illegal or corrupt activity, the impeachment is proceeding on the grounds of “a crime of responsibility,” suggesting that she should have taken action to prevent corruption.

    • NSA, other feds using innovation to improve security [Ed: this site has just reaffirmed status as useless, shallow stenography for Feds and spies]
    • US Attorney Suggests Solution To Open Source Encryption: Ban Importation Of Open Source Encryption

      If you can’t read that, she said: “I think it would be reasonable to ban the import of open-source encryption software.” This is idiotic on any number of levels, and that an actual representative of law enforcement would make such a claim is immensely troubling and raises serious questions about the competency of the US Attorney’s Office in Eastern Michigan.

      First off, the Open Technology Institute released a paper late last year showing that there was a ton of both open source and foreign encryption products that weren’t subject to US regulations. Another paper, released earlier this year by the Berkman Center and written by Bruce Schneier (along with Kathleen Seidel and Saranya Vijayakumar), found that there were 865 encryption products from 55 different countries on the market when they wrote the paper (it could be more by now), with 546 of those from outside the US. In other words, there are a lot of these kinds of products. So, at the very least, they’d be used by people outside of the US.

      But, more to the point, a ban on importing them? We already had that legal fight, though back then it was on the question of exporting encryption. In Bernstein v. the US Department of Justice, the government sought to block Daniel Bernstein from publishing his algorithm for his Snuffle encryption system, saying it violated export laws related to exporting weapons. Eventually, the 9th Circuit ruled that software source code was speech protected by the First Amendment and any regulations preventing publication would be unconstitutional.

    • Apparently Hacking Syed Farook’s iPhone Accomplished Nothing (Other Than Making Everyone Less Safe)

      Remember, this was the same iPhone that the DOJ and the FBI said was critical in their investigation. This is the same iPhone that the San Bernardino District Attorney, Michael Ramos, insisted could be hiding evidence of a “dormant cyber pathogen” destined to destroy San Bernardino County’s computer network.

    • How the NSA’s CryptoKids Stole My FOIA Innocence

      The CryptoKids, if you’re not aware, was a mid-2000s attempt by the NSA to appeal to the youth of today by creating a crazy cartoon cadre of codebreakers that’s one pair of rollerblades away from a cease and desist from Burger King. It was generally considered a terrible idea, and then after news broke about the whole “spying on citizens” thing, an absolutely terrible idea.

    • Brussels Terrorist Laptop Included Details Of Planned Attack In Unencrypted Folder Titled ‘Target’

      As the push to backdoor or ban encryption heats up, kneejerk politicians have rushed to embrace each and every recent attack and to immediately point fingers at encryption. Right after the Paris attacks, politicians started blaming encryption, even though evidence suggested they communicated by unencrypted SMS. Even months later, the press was ridiculously using the total lack of evidence of any encryption… as evidence of encryption. Then with the Brussels attacks from a few weeks ago politicians like Rep. Adam Schiff immediately tried to blame encryption insisting that “we can be sure that terrorists will continue to use what they perceive to be the most secure means to plot their attacks.”

    • The CIA Is Investing in Firms That Mine Your Tweets and Instagram Photos

      SOFT ROBOTS THAT can grasp delicate objects, computer algorithms designed to spot an “insider threat,” and artificial intelligence that will sift through large data sets — these are just a few of the technologies being pursued by companies with investment from In-Q-Tel, the CIA’s venture capital firm, according to a document obtained by The Intercept.

      Yet among the 38 previously undisclosed companies receiving In-Q-Tel funding, the research focus that stands out is social media mining and surveillance; the portfolio document lists several tech companies pursuing work in this area, including Dataminr, Geofeedia, PATHAR, and TransVoyant.

  • Civil Rights/Policing

    • Matthew Keys Gets 2 Years In Jail For 40 Minute Web Defacement He Didn’t Even Commit

      The latest in the Matthe Keys case is that Keys has been sentenced to two years in federal prison for his involvement in a minor incomprehensible web defacement of an LA Times story that lasted for all of about 40 minutes. The prosecution was asking for 5 years, while Keys’ lawyers asked for nothing more than probation. As we noted, the whole thing seems fairly crazy. It is entirely possible that Keys acted like an immature jackass regarding his former employer, but the actual case revolved around a single action: the claimed sharing of login credentials for the content management system of the Tribune Company, which another person (who is apparently known to law enforcement, but has never been charged with anything) used to do a minor defacement of a single story to have the headline read: Pressure builds in House to elect CHIPPY 1337.

      This minor defacement was up for about 40 minutes before being taken down. When the government tried to add up the damages, the Tribune Company at first admitted that there were basically none. After being pushed, they “found” more damages and somehow it turned into nearly a million dollars, by making emails that “cost” $225 and talking about something totally unrelated to this hack — some alleged harassment Key did by emailing people in a database from his former employer. If he actually did this (he denies it), it was a really shitty thing to do, but it also was not what he was on trial for.

    • Journalist gets two-year sentence for helping Anonymous hack LA Times

      Matthew Keys was convicted of giving login credentials to the hacking group, in a decision civil liberties group calls ‘prosecutorial discretion run amok’

    • Swedish prosecutors argue for upholding Assange arrest warrant

      Swedish prosecutors still believe an arrest warrant for WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange should be upheld, they said on Thursday in reply to the Stockholm District Court that will decide whether to lift the warrant.

    • Indonesia’s Aceh province canes non-Muslim for selling booze

      An elderly Christian woman has been caned in a conservative Indonesian province for selling alcohol, the first time someone from outside the Islamic faith has been punished there under strict religious laws.

      The 60-year-old was whipped nearly 30 times with a rattan cane before a crowd of hundreds in Aceh province Tuesday (Apr 12), an official said, along with a couple who were subjected to 100 lashes for committing adultery.

      Aceh is the only province in the predominantly Muslim country that applies sharia law, and public canings for breaches of Islamic code happen on a regular basis and often attract huge crowds.

      Those caught engaging in adultery, same-sex relationships, drinking and even associating with unmarried members of the opposite sex can end up facing the cane.

    • The Government’s Unprecedented Position in CIA Torture Lawsuit Is Very Good News

      Those responsible for the CIA torture program have never had to face their victims’ claims in a U.S. court because the government has always shielded the perpetrators. Until now.

    • Two Election Scandals That CNN Won’t Touch

      In 1968, Richard Nixon’s operatives derailed President Lyndon Johnson’s Vietnam peace talks which could have brought that bloody conflict to an end that year – rather than four years later and saved millions of lives – but peace might have meant Nixon’s defeat. A sordid tale described in declassified U.S. government records.

      In 1980, it was Ronald Reagan’s operatives who went behind President Jimmy Carter’s back to disrupt his negotiations to free 52 American hostages held by Iranian radicals and thus doom Carter’s reelection chances, a story described by more than two dozen sources from a range of different perspectives.

      But these two well-documented cases apparently touch too raw a nerve, so they are not on CNN’s roster. Still, you can learn about them at Consortiumnews.com by clicking on the “October Surprise Series” tab and reading the stories there.

    • How the Clarence Thomas Confirmation Hearings Changed How America Talks About Sexual Harassment

      On Saturday, HBO will premiere the film “Confirmation” starring Kerry Washington as Anita Hill and Wendell Pierce as then-judge, now–Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas. The movie recreates the three days of Supreme Court confirmation hearings that riveted the country in October 1991, launching a national conversation about sexual harassment in the workplace and helping to lead to a watershed year for women in elected office. Twenty-five years later, these hearings still resonate as one of the greatest political, sexual, and racial dramas in modern history. Slate senior legal correspondent Dahlia Lithwick recently spoke with Gillian Thomas, a senior staff attorney with the ACLU Women’s Rights Project and author of Because of Sex, about Confirmation. (The two writers were also college roommates, graduating in 1990.)

    • Black Lives Don’t Matter, Black Votes Do: the Racial Hypocrisy of Hillary and Bill Clinton

      The Clintons have always cultivated a warm affection for African-Americans. One iconic image shows Bill riffing on his saxophone for Arsenio Hall. Another pictures Hillary hugging parishioners in black churches. Similar beguiling images appear daily in the media as her presidential campaign progresses.

    • The Single Most Important Thing That Hillary Clinton Did Not Say Last Night

      Hillary Clinton doesn’t want you to know who she would name to the Supreme Court.

    • EU rulings on whistleblowers and right-to-be-forgotten laws puts press freedom at risk

      European journalists were reminded today that their freedom to report is not only determined by national laws, but increasingly by European institutions. Today, after years of political battle, the European Parliament adopted the Passenger Name Record directive, the Data Protection Package, and the Trade Secrets Protection Act. The stakes were immense and the debates long and heated, leading to dissent and divisions within many political groups-and campaigns about the potential impact from journalists.

    • Sit-Ins, Arrests, and Escalation: Student Divestment Movement Springs into Action

      The fossil fuel divestment movement continued its momentum this week as students across the U.S. highlighted the need for their institutions to dump “support of global climate disaster, exploitation, and human suffering.”

      On Tuesday, for example, four members of Divest Harvard were arrested after staging a sit-in at the Federal Reserve Bank building, where the Harvard Management Company, which manages that university’s endowment, is located.

      That company “is the entity that actually does the day-to-day work investing in fossil fuel companies, so we thought it would be appropriate to take our message to this other important actor,” Harvard Law School student and Divest Harvard student Kelsey Skaggs, told the Crimson.

    • Anonymous hacktivist Matt DeHart gets credit from U.S. authorities for time served in Canadian prison

      An Anonymous hacktivist and former U.S. airman, who sought asylum in Canada claiming torture by American officials over his access to secret government documents, has unexpectedly had two years he spent in prison in Canada deducted from his sentence.

      After his deportation from Canada last year when his refugee claim was rejected, Matt DeHart entered a plea bargain with U.S. prosecutors, admitting to possession of sexually explicit photos of two underaged teenagers and avoiding court by fleeing across the border.

  • Internet Policy/Net Neutrality

    • Wireless Industry Survey: Everybody Really Loves Zero Rating

      With the FCC glacially pondering whether or not zero rating (exempting some content from usage caps) is a bad idea, the wireless industry has decided to try and settle the argument. According to a new study by the wireless industry, 94% of Millennials are more likely to try a new online service if it’s part of a free data offering, 98% are more likely to stay with a carrier that offers such services, and 94% of Millennials are likely to use more data if it doesn’t count against their data plan. As intended, the survey resulted in a lot of varied news headlines insisting that “consumers actually like ISPs to play favorites on mobile data caps.”

    • White House Threatens To Veto Bill Attempting To Gut Net Neutrality, Defang FCC

      As we just noted, the House has been pushing yet another bill that attempts to punish the FCC for its uncharacteristic new habit of actually standing up to giant ISPs. The “No Rate Regulation of Broadband Internet Access Act” (pdf) professes to be a bill focused on curtailing government run amok; with a particular eye on preventing the FCC from being able to regulate broadband rates (not-coincidentally just as ISPs begin heavily pursuing usage caps). But the bill uses a unique definition of “rate regulation” to, in reality, ban the FCC from doing, well, pretty much anything.

    • The Untold Story of the Teen Hackers Who Transformed the Early Internet

      On October 12th, 1983, Bill Landreth called his friend Chris in Detroit to chat. Chris frantically explained that the FBI had raided his house. “Don’t call me anymore,” Chris said in what would be a very short conversation. Bill didn’t know exactly what was happening, but he did know this: If the FBI had come for Chris, then he might be next.

      The next day, around a dozen FBI agents stormed Bill’s parent’s house just outside of San Diego, amassing piles of evidence including a computer that Bill, then 18, had hidden under his sister’s bed. Bill and Chris, who was 14 at the time, were the leaders of a coalition of teen hackers known as The Inner Circle. In a single day, the FBI conducted coordinated raids of group members across nine states, taking computers, modems, and copious handwritten notes detailing ways to access various networks on what was then a rudimentary version of the internet.

    • House Passes Bill to Sabotage Net Neutrality

      In a disappointing turn of events, the U.S. House of Representatives voted 241 to 173 to pass H.R. 2666, the No Rate Regulation of Broadband Internet Access Act, a bill that would undermine the FCC’s ability to enforce key net neutrality protections.

      As we’ve mentioned previously, the bill’s ostensible purpose is to bar the FCC from regulating the rates of broadband Internet providers, thus locking into law a promise that the agency made when it introduced its new net neutrality rules last year. On its face, that’s not necessarily a bad idea.

      The problem is that the bill is worded in such a way that it could be used to keep the FCC from enforcing many important protections of users’ rights. At best, H.R. 2666 is a poorly written bill that brings a host of unintended consequences. At worst, it’s a calculated attempt to undermine the net neutrality principles we’ve all been fighting for.

      As the bill moves to the Senate this session, it’s crucial that senators reject it. Fortunately, President Obama has said that he will veto the bill if it reaches his desk.

  • DRM

  • Intellectual Monopolies

    • Analysis: WTO Amendment On Access To Medicines Faces EU Conundrum

      After waiting for over a decade, the World Trade Organization is finally close to achieving the first ever amendment to its rule-book, with only a handful of members still needing to formally accept new intellectual property provisions dealing with one aspect of access to medicines.

    • WIPO Members Flirt With Agreement On WIPO Technical Assistance

      South Africa commended WIPO on the interventions provided on successful technology licensing, intellectual property marketing, and IP valuation, in the document. South Africa suggested, as the way forward after the project, that WIPO set up a programme with the objective of advancing the skill set of individuals within offices of technology transfer in institutions, small and medium sized enterprises, and innovators.

    • Trademarks

      • Bernie Sanders’ Campaign Joins Too Many Other Presidential Campaigns In Abusing Trademark Law

        I shouldn’t have to start this post this way, but after someone flipped out in my last post about the treatment of Hillary Clinton and her emails, accusing me of being nothing more than a “BernieBro,” I’ll just make this explicit: I don’t currently support any of the current Presidential candidates, and am pretty sure I’ve mocked all of them for ignorance around issues that concern those of us at Techdirt. Either way, I wonder how the guy insisting I was just a secret Bernie supporter will respond to this article…

        Yes, because now Bernie Sanders’ campaign is the latest in a long list of presidential candidates to abuse trademark law to try to stifle criticism. His campaign joins those of Hillary Clinton, Ben Carson, Ron Paul and more as presidential candidates, past and present, abusing trademark law.

      • Delhi High Court steps into India trade mark row

        The Delhi High Court has come to the rescue of trade mark applicants, who are aggrieved that the Indian Trade Marks Registry has abandoned nearly 200,000 pending applications

      • Own name defence narrowed in Europe

        The recently introduced EU trade mark reforms limit the scope of the own name defence. James Whymark and Rachel Boakes explain why the change was introduced, and ask if it is really necessary

      • UK Trademark Battle Over The Number 3

        Anyone reading this site will know by now that the alcohol business has a trademark problem. As a quick refresher, what used to be an industry largely dominated by massive macro-companies has since evolved into one of small players, with craft breweries and distilleries exploding in popularity. With the increased amount of brands and inventory on the market, so too has the practice of creatively named brands come into vogue. And with that has come the trademark squabbles. Examples of the trademark disputes centered around these creative names for brands will include a beer called ‘Strikes Bock’, a brew entitled ‘Mus Knuckle’, and a brewery called ‘Innovation Brewing’.

      • Interview: Om Prakash Gupta on India’s trade mark troubles

        The Controller General of India’s Patent and Trade Mark Registry responded to Managing IP’s questions by email regarding the concerns over nearly 200,000 abandoned trade mark applications

    • Copyrights

      • You Wouldn’t Steal a Carouselambra (other Led Zeppelin songs are available)

        The essence of the recent ruling was not an investigation of stealing, but a finding that there is sufficiently substantial similarity between the pieces of music for a further trial. So why do so many news sources that should know better continue to frame the issues into a theft narrative?

      • MPAA Wants ISPs to Disconnect Persistent Pirates

        The MPAA wants Internet providers and services to take stronger actions against persistent copyright infringers. Ideally, the most egregious pirates should lose their accounts permanently, the group says. To accomplish this ISPs should be required to track the number of notices they receive for each account.

      • Can Lawyers ‘Overcome’ The Bogus Copyright On ‘We Shall Overcome’ And Free It To The Public Domain?

        Earlier this year, after a bit of a roller coaster ride of a legal fight over the copyright status of the song “Happy Birthday,” the two key parties finally reached a settlement that declared the song in the public domain. While many news reports had earlier claimed that the judge in the case had done the same, that wasn’t really true. The judge simply declared that Warner Chappell did not hold the copyright, leaving it an open question as to whether or not anyone else did — and some quickly raised their hands to claim the copyright.

        Either way, the legal team that helped achieve this eventual victory has apparently decided to go for it again. Representing a group calling itself the We Shall Overcome Foundation (WSOF), they are claiming that The Richmond Organization (TRO Inc.) and Ludlow Music are falsely claiming copyright over the famous civil rights anthem “We Shall Overcome,” because that song is in the public domain. The case has tremendous similarities to the Happy Birthday case. As in that case, the plaintiffs say they’re making a documentary about the song. In this case, they sought a license for the song and were denied without explanation. TRO-Ludlow had first told WSOF that the song was “very difficult” to clear and they had to approve any use. WSOF recorded someone singing just one short verse, and then TRO-Ludlow flat out refused, but would not give any further explanation.

      • Judge Tosses Rick Ross’ Copyright Suit Over LMFAO’s Use Of Derivative Three-Word Phrase

        It’s been less than a year since we discussed LMFAO, the band, and its attempt to bully a brewery into renaming its beer called LMFAO with intellectual property threats. Well, the bro-rock duo is back in the IP spotlight again, but this time with a win. Rick Ross had long ago sued LMFAO over its hit song Party Rock Anthem for including a line, “Everyday I’m shufflin’.” Ross had his own hit song called Hustlin, which famously contained the line “Everyday I’m hustlin’,” and Ross argued for copyright infringement, claiming LMFAO’s lyric was an unauthorized derivative work.

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