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12.21.14

Links 22/12/2014: GNU/Linux at Sky News, Another Tizen Camera

Posted in News Roundup at 9:53 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

GNOME bluefish

Contents

GNU/Linux

Free Software/Open Source

  • ASF publishes long-overdue Code Of Conduct

    We pride ourselves at The Apache Software Foundation on our principles of “community over code” and “don’t be a jerk”. But, alas, we’ve been slow to codify some of these things in public. Part of this, I’m sure, is that it’s easy to think we all just know how we’re supposed to treat people, and so you shouldn’t have to say, right?

  • Open-Source NFV Group Readying Software Releases for 2015

    In a recent post on the organization’s blog, Chris Price, chairman of the technical steering committee (TSC) for the Open Platform for NFV Project (OPNFV), said the panel is reviewing a broad array of project ideas to see what ones will be pursued by the committee. In addition, the wider OPNFV community will focus on establishing an integration and baseline platform while also creating several NFV-related projects that will find their way into the OPNFV’s second release of 2015.

  • Santa for sysadmins: I/O, shake it all about
  • OpenDaylight Developer Spotlight: Devin Avery

    OpenDaylight accepted seven student interns for the summer of 2014 to work in the community and receive hands-on development experience in SDN. Each intern worked closely with an active OpenDaylight developer as their mentor on a project that suited interest and community need.

  • Google Makes Cloud Dataflow SDK Open Source

    Cloud Dataflow, which it describes as “a platform to democratize large-scale data processing by enabling easier and more scalable access to data,” was just unveiled in June. It’s still an alpha release, but used internally in the company, Google says.

  • Google Open Sources “Cloud Dataflow” SDK, Built to Trump MapReduce

    All the way back in June, at Google I/O, Google pronounced that the venerable MapReduce data crunching scheme was “tired” and launched a service dubbed Cloud Dataflow that analyzes pipelines with “arbitrarily large datasets.” Dataflow was a much talked about star in a set of cloud services discussed at Google I/O and Google officials even confirmed that Dataflow had replaced MapReduce at Google. MapReduce, of course, is built for processing and generating large data sets with a parallel, distributed algorithm on clusters.

  • Events

    • GNOME Asia Summit 2015 to be hosted in Depok Indonesia

      The GNOME Asia Committee is pleased to announce that the upcoming GNOME.Asia Summit 2015 will be hosted in Depok Indonesia May 7-9 2015. It will be a great place to celebrate and explore the many new features and enhancements to GNOME 3.

    • GNOME.Asia Join Kaiyuanshe – Open Source Alliance in China

      We are thrilled to report that GNOME.Asia is a founding member of KAIYUANSHE(开源社) launched Oct 16, 2014. KAIYUANSHE roughly translated as “open source alliance,” is a group of enterprises, communities, and individuals in China supporting and promoting free and open source software (FOSS).

  • Web Browsers

  • Databases

  • Oracle/Java/LibreOffice

    • The Document Foundation announces LibreOffice 4.3.5

      The Document Foundation announces LibreOffice 4.3.5, the fifth minor release of LibreOffice 4.3 “fresh” family, which is a stable release of the more advanced version of the software, targeted to individual and enterprise users. LibreOffice 4.3.5 contains over 70 bug fixes.

    • Public Interest, Software Freedom and Open Standards

      …importance of working with upstream projects and initiatives for a government like the UK Government.

      [...]

      Public interest and software freedom are not always aligned, in the sense that software freedom grant rights to users of Free Software but does not imply users will get what they want; in this case however, these two notions could become very much aligned. The same holds true for Open Standards: if major chunks of the UK’s public sector’s pool of documents is migrated to ODF, there is something close to a liability – and an opportunity- for this Government to ensure the format continues to thrive and be improved.

  • CMS

  • FSF/FSFE/GNU/SFLC

  • Public Services/Government

    • EU to fund Free Software code review

      The European Parliament has approved funding for several projects related to Free Software and privacy. In the EU budget for 2015, which the European Parliament adopted on December 17, the Parliamentarians have allocated up to one million Euro for a project to audit Free Software programs in use at the Commission and the Parliament in order to identify and fix security vulnerabilities.

    • Advocacy group: ‘ICT procurement is broken’

      Public administrations in the EU are hindering competition by asking for specific brands and products when procuring software solutions, says OpenForum Europe, an organisation campaigning for an open, competitive ICT market. “No progress has been made in recent years. In fact the practice of referring to brand names in public procurement has become more widespread”, OFE says.

    • Top Clippings For December 18th

      EU software procurement breaches rules more than ever before – OFE PDF – Because they really do prefer to feed what they perceive as corporate power brokers rather than work to create European value with European money.

      EU allocates half million euros for testing open source – FSFE – It’s a rounding error on the budget, but at least it’s something. Let’s see who gets it.

  • Openness/Sharing

    • The project that wants to bring an open source, print-at-home connected car to a road near you

      If cars are indeed set to become “smartphones on wheels”, able to connect to the internet and each other, there are a few things we need to settle first. What kind of operating system will they run on, for example, and will they use proprietary or open source applications? Will upgrades to the car’s underlying system happen as seamlessly as mobile OS updates do today, or will you have to call out a mechanic?

    • Halo 4 backend, SuperTuxKart, and more

      It looks like our Linux friend Tux enjoys racing karts! The SuperTuxKart team is wishing its gamers a Merry Christmas by releasing SuperTaxKart 0.8.2 beta. SuperTuxKart is a 3D kart racing game licensed under GPLV3 and available on many platforms, including Linux. This new beta release includes a new graphical engine, Antartica. You should really check out the release post and the screenshots of the improved graphics. Another new feature is online accounts in preparation of networked multiplayer gaming—which is still to come.

    • Sharing

      Why do we share? What makes it different from giving? And what does it have to do with strategy and impulse control? Mike talks to the scientist Nikolaus

    • They bonded over video games, now they’re building an open-source laser tag gun

      “We just wanted to play video games in real life,” said Ibrahim Pasha, the youthful CEO of Skirmos — an ambitious open-source laser tag gun started by a handful of former high school pals.

    • 8 open-source holiday gifts

      The holiday season is in full swing and you may still have a few people to check off your gift-giving list. If you’re at a loss for what to buy the open-source-focused engineer or maker in your life, take a gander at these 8 open-source gifts.

    • Open-Source Mixology: Cocktail Recipes by the Numbers

    • Open Data

      • Machine learning can help sift open source intelligence

        U.S. intelligence agencies and the military are increasingly leveraging analytics platforms based on machine learning to sift through data sources like social media. In the vernacular of the Pentagon, these efforts are generally referred to as open source intelligence initiatives.

Leftovers

  • Security

    • New 64-bit Linux Kernel Vulnerabilities Disclosed This Week
    • SSL Version Control

      In the meantime, you can use this extension to turn off SSLv3 in your copy of Firefox. When you install the add-on, it will set the minimum TLS version to TLS 1.0 (disabling SSLv3). If you want to change that setting later, like if you really need to access an SSLv3 site, just go to Tools / Add-ons and click the “Preferences” button next to the add-on. That will give you a drop-down menu to select the minimum TLS version you want to allow.

    • Don’t update NTP – stop using it

      Several severe vulnerabilities have been found in the time setting software NTP. The Network Time Protocol is not secure anyway due to the lack of a secure authentication mechanism. Better use tlsdate.

    • Linux ‘GRINCH’ vuln is AWFUL. Except, er, maybe it isn’t

      Alert Logic admits it has NOT seen any exploits that harness this vulnerability. Other security firms believe Alert Logic is overstating the risk, which Trend Micro characterises as “limited”.

      [...]

      An independent researcher first posted about the vulnerability – which he called PackageKit Privilege Escalation – almost a month ago before Alert Logic picked up on the threat and publicised it.

    • Friday’s security advisories
    • Git thee behind me, Git crit security bug!

      “Linux clients are not affected if they run in a case-sensitive filesystem,” the service’s warning reads, but are nonetheless encouraged to upgrade. Windows and Mac OS users have no excuse not to upgrade, as “Git clients running on OS X (HFS+) or any version of Microsoft Windows (NTFS, FAT) are exploitable through this vulnerability.”

  • Defence/Police/Secrecy/Aggression

    • On Terrorism

      Some politicians seem to act as if “terrorism” means a terrible crime committed by someone who doesn’t fit the speaker’s own racial & religious profile. Just because something induces terror in some or many people, that doesn’t make it terrorism. That diminishes the concept as well as grouping routine crime – for which society has millennia of experience and solutions – into the same bucket as a more subtle and serious phenomenon that preys on the meshed society.

  • Environment/Energy/Wildlife

    • The World’s Biggest Car Company Wants to Get Rid of Gasoline

      The first thing you notice about the Mirai, Toyota’s new $62,000, four-door family sedan, is that it’s no Camry, an international symbol of bland conformity. First there are the in-your-face, angular grilles on the car’s front end. These deliver air to (and cool) a polymer fuel-cell stack under the hood. Then there’s the wavy, layered sides, meant to evoke a droplet of water. It looks like it was driven off the set of the Blade Runner sequel.

  • Finance

    • Gift-Giving Advice From the New York Times

      The Times might offer in its defense that this piece is labeled as one of Sullivan’s “Wealth Matters” columns, a feature specifically set up to give advice to the 1 percent (or the 0.01 percent) on how to “manage not only their money and fortune, but their overall well-being.” To which one can only note that it’s not a coincidence that the Times does not have a “Poverty Matters” column.

  • Censorship

    • BT, Sky, and Virgin “hijacking” browsers to push porn blocks

      BT, Sky, and Virgin Media are hijacking people’s web connections to force customers to make a decision about family-friendly web filters. The move comes as the December deadline imposed by prime minister David Cameron looms, with ISPs struggling to get customers to say yes or no to the controversial adult content blocks.

      [...]

      The hijacking works by intercepting requests for unencrypted websites and rerouting a user to a different page. ISPs are using the technique to communicate with all undecided customers. Attempting to visit WIRED.co.uk, for example, could result in a user being redirected to a page asking them about web filtering. ISPs cannot intercept requests for encrypted websites in the same way.

      BT is blocking people’s browsers until they make a decision, making it impossible for customers to visit any websites once the in-browser notification has appeared. A spokesperson for the UK’s biggest ISP said: “If customers do not make a decision, they are unable to continue browsing. The message will remain until the customer makes a decision.”

  • Privacy

    • Judge: It’s OK for cops to create fake Instagram accounts

      A federal judge in New Jersey has signed off on the practice of law enforcement using a fake Instagram account in order to become “friends” with a suspect—thus obtaining photos and other information that a person posts to their account.

    • Possible upcoming attempts to disable the Tor network

      The Tor Project has learned that there may be an attempt to incapacitate our network in the next few days through the seizure of specialized servers in the network called directory authorities. (Directory authorities help Tor clients learn the list of relays that make up the Tor network.) We are taking steps now to ensure the safety of our users, and our system is already built to be redundant so that users maintain anonymity even if the network is attacked. Tor remains safe to use.

    • [tor-talk] Warning: Do NOT use my mirrors/services until I have reviewed the situation

      Many of you by now are probably aware than I run a large exit node
      cluster for the Tor network and run a collection of mirrors (also ones
      available over hidden services).

      Tonight there has been some unusual activity taking place and I have
      now lost control of all servers under the ISP and my account has been
      suspended. Having reviewed the last available information of the
      sensors, the chassis of the servers was opened and an unknown USB
      device was plugged in only 30-60 seconds before the connection was
      broken. From experience I know this trend of activity is similar to
      the protocol of sophisticated law enforcement who carry out a search
      and seizure of running servers.

      Until I have had the time and information available to review the
      situation, I am strongly recommending my mirrors are not used under
      any circumstances. If they come back online without a PGP signed
      message from myself to further explain the situation, exercise extreme
      caution and treat even any items delivered over TLS to be potentially
      hostile.

  • Civil Rights

    • CIA Travel Advice To Operatives

      Today, 21 December 2014, WikiLeaks releases two classified documents by a previously undisclosed CIA office detailing how to maintain cover while travelling through airports using false ID – including during operations to infiltrate the European Union and the Schengen passport control system. This is the second release within WikiLeaks’ CIA Series, which will continue in the new year.

  • Intellectual Monopolies

    • Copyrights

      • Private Torrent Site Operators Face Criminal Trial

        In 2011, police in two countries coordinated to take down a private torrent site that had largely flown under the radar. This week, 3.5 years after the raid, two alleged operators of the site faced a criminal trial in Sweden. Having uploaded no content themselves, will they be held liable for the actions of their users?

IRC Proceedings: November 30th, 2014 – December 20th, 2014

Posted in IRC Logs at 8:42 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

IRC Proceedings: November 30th – December 6th, 2014

GNOME Gedit

GNOME Gedit

#techrights log

#boycottnovell log

GNOME Gedit

GNOME Gedit

#boycottnovell-social log

#techbytes log

IRC Proceedings: December 7th – December 13th, 2014

GNOME Gedit

GNOME Gedit

#techrights log

#boycottnovell log

GNOME Gedit

GNOME Gedit

#boycottnovell-social log

#techbytes log

IRC Proceedings: December 14th – December 20th, 2014

GNOME Gedit

GNOME Gedit

#techrights log

#boycottnovell log

GNOME Gedit

GNOME Gedit

#boycottnovell-social log

#techbytes log

Enter the IRC channels now

Links 21/12/2014: China and Linux, GNOME Shell 3.15.3

Posted in News Roundup, Site News at 12:30 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

GNOME bluefish

Contents

GNU/Linux

  • Imitate Fake Hollywood Terminal Hacking Melodrama with This Amazing App for Ubuntu

    We all know that Hollywood movies are the worst place to see some accurate depiction of anything from real life and that includes computer terminals. Well, there is a solution for that now and we can only hope that some misguided producer will see the new “hollywood” package made for this exact purpose.

    Hollywood movie producers invest a lot of time and money in custom interfaces and GUIs that don’t really do anything, but they think they’re nice and interesting on film. Most of the time, someone is hacking away by typing frenetically while windows with crazy stuff open and close. This is why this kind of image is now seared into the public’s consciousness and hacking looks more exciting than in real life. It isn’t.

  • China is Planning to Purge Foreign Technology and Replace With Homegrown Suppliers

    The orders from Chinese banking and military commissions coincided with the trial of domestic computer systems in Siping, a city of 3.4 million people in Jilin province. Other cities and agencies in Jilin will now begin testing whether NeoKylin, a Linux-based operating system from China Standard Software Co., can substitute for Windows and servers made by Inspur can replace IBM’s, the two people familiar with the plan said. The trial will then expand across the country, they said.

  • Microsoft and Google in a Post-Snowden World

  • Server

    • Why Docker, Containers and systemd Drive a Wedge Through the Concept of Linux Distributions

      The announcement of Rocket by CoreOS was perceived by many to be a direct challenge to Docker, particularly as it came on the eve of DockerCon Europe and threatened to overshadow news coming out at the event. Docker, Inc. CEO Ben Golub was quick to fire back with his ‘initial thoughts on the Rocket announcement’. This piece isn’t about the politics of ecosystems and VC funded startups, which I’ll leave to Colin Humphreys (and note an excellent response from Docker Founder and CTO Solomon Hykes). It also isn’t about managing open source community, which I’ll leave to Matt Asay. Here I want to look at systemd, which lies at the heart of the technical arguments.

  • Kernel Space

    • Linux 3.19: ThinkPad Muting Redone, New Dell Backlight Support, Acer Is Banging

      The x86 platform driver changes for the Linux 3.19 kernel have been submitted and they include some noteworthy improvements for many Linux laptop owners.

    • Intel Skylake Audio Support For Linux 3.19

      Intel’s next-generation Skylake processors are starting to take shape with the Linux 3.19 kernel.

      Linux 3.19 lands initial Skylake graphics support within the Intel DRM drivers (there’s already initial support on the user-space side too within Mesa) and there’s Skylake MPX support among other Skylake related work that’s been merged for 3.19.

    • Linux 3.19 Merge Window Closes Ahead Of Schedule

      Linus announced on Friday night that he’s closing the merge window early for 3.19. Torvalds said that he’s pulling the last of the pull requests on Saturday — related to KBuild and the READ_ONCE split-up — but is planning to then close the merge window.

    • Graphics Stack

      • X.Org Server 1.16.3 Released To Fix Security Issues

        Julien Cristau of Debian announced the X.Org Server 1.16.3 release on Saturday morning. The primary focus of this release is on correcting the security issues within the GLX, DIX, XV, DRI3, RENDER, and other areas of the xorg-server code-base affected by outstanding security problems.

  • Applications

  • Desktop Environments/WMs

    • K Desktop Environment/KDE SC/Qt

      • kdepim 4.14 + unittest

        As you saw I continue to work on 4.14 branch, in parallel I work on KF5 porting.

      • On Domain Models and Layers in kdepim

        Each application has a “domain” it was created for. KOrganizer has for instance the calendar domain, and kmail the email domain, and each of those domains can be described with domain objects, which make up the domain model. The domain model of an application is essential, because it is what defines how we can represent the problems of that domain. If Korganizer didn’t have a domain model with attendees to events, we wouldn’t have any way to represent attendees internally, and thus couldn’t develop a feature based on that.

      • nOS Infinity Is a Unique-Looking OS Powered by KDE – Gallery

        nOS Infinity is a Linux distribution based on Ubuntu that uses the KDE desktop environment. It’s built for old and new computers and it’s quite different from what you might expect.

    • GNOME Desktop/GTK

  • Distributions

    • New Releases

    • Arch Family

      • Manjaro 0.8.11 Brings Support for Linux Kernel 3.18

        Manjaro 0.8.11 is a Linux distribution based on Arch Linux, which is also 100% compatible with the repositories of the base system. It’s been out for a short time, but developers have already pushed a second major update for it.

    • Red Hat Family

      • Red Hat claims the ‘grinch’ issue isn’t a Linux vulnerability

        The official reply noted that “this report incorrectly classifies expected behavior as a security issue,” through a Red Hat Bulletin released on Wednesday just one day after the report being made public. This was in response to Alert Logic claiming that this Grinch issue may be as large as the previously seen Heartbleed bug, noting that they believe it is a serious design flaw in how Linux handles user permissions.

      • Red Hat’s success aside, it’s hard to profit from free

        Red Hat, which just reported a profit of $47.9 million (or 26 cents a share) on revenue of $456 million for its third quarter, has managed to pull off a tricky feat: It’s been able to make money off of free, well, open-source, software. (It’s profit for the year-ago quarter was $52 million.)

      • Fedora

        • Fedora 21 Desktop Installation Steps with Screenshots

          Fedora is an open source Linux based operating system. As Fedora is free so end users can use it , modify it as per their requirements and distribute it. Fedora Operating system is available for Desktops, Servers and cloud. Fedora project is supported by RedHat. Most of the new softwares and technologies are developed and tested by Redhat in Fedora and then later on these softwares are used in Redhat Stable Versions.

          In this post we will discuss Fedora 21 Desktop or workstation (64 bit) Installation Steps with Screenshots. Below are the minimum requirements to install Fedora 21.

    • Debian Family

      • Derivatives

        • Elive 2.5.0 beta released

          The Elive Team is proud to announce the release of the beta version 2.5.0

        • Canonical/Ubuntu

          • Ubuntu Phone launch delayed until early 2015

            Earlier this year, I reported on the forthcoming release of Ubuntu phones. Ubuntu for phones had just hit “release to manufacturer” status and phones were supposed to launch before the end of 2014.

            Bad news: The phones clearly won’t be here this year. But good news! Canonical told me they’ll be out in early 2015, after a slight delay to clean up some lingering interface and manufacturing snags.

          • Can Ubuntu Click Address Linus Torvalds’ Binary Problems?

            Linux is a dominant player in almost every industry segment, minus one: desktop. We heard Linus Torvalds’ pain when he uttered these words at LinuxCon North America this year, “I still want the desktop”.

          • UNITY TO GET AN OPTION TO ALWAYS SHOW THE MENUS [UBUNTU 15.04 VIVID VERVET]

            Marco’s work involves adding an option to always show the Unity menus (in Unity, the menus are currently displayed on mouse over). Furthermore, this option will work with both the regular Appmenu / global menu, displayed on the top Unity panel, as well as LIM (locally integrated menus), displayed in the application titlebar:

          • Ubuntu 15.04 Alpha, Tanglu 2 Review, and More Red Hat

            Just when you thought you couldn’t get anymore Red Hat news, it once again was the talk of the techtown. An interest blog post from Hanno Böck today says quit using NTP if you care about security. Jack M. Germain discusses the work of Open Invention Network and Jamie Watson reviews Debian-derivative Tanglu 2. Dedoimedio.com shares their best distro of 2014 and Ubuntu 15.04 Alpha 1 was released.

          • Ubuntu Touch to Land with Bq Aquaris e4.5 Phones in February

            The first two companies that have been confirmed to release phones with Ubuntu Touch are Meizu and Bq. Until now, only Meizu showed any kind of involvement with Ubuntu Touch and they were the first to announce a launch window. On the other hand, Bq has been silent, but it seems to have been very busy and to be the first one out the door.

          • Ubuntu 14.10 (Utopic Unicorn) Gets Linux Kernel Regression Fix

            A Linux kernel regression for Ubuntu 14.10 (Utopic Unicorn) has been identified by Canonical and the developers have issued a patch that should be available through regular channels.

          • Flavours and Variants

  • Devices/Embedded

    • Google building full Android IVI stack, says report

      If Android M is for real, the technology would go far beyond its Android Auto initiative announced earlier this year. Android Auto offers Apple CarPlay-like extensions to existing Android apps for customized interactions with a wide variety of IVI navigation and multimedia systems. IVI systems that support Android Auto should begin to appear in cars sometime in 2015.

    • Phones

      • Tizen

        • Tizen IVI 3.0 Gains GENIVI 7.0 Compliance

          It’s not news that open source is rolling through many industries like a well-oiled machine, so of course automotive is no exception. Organizations like GENIVI are helping to move this along, by creating specifications for open source platforms that provide a consistent foundation for the use of open source for In-Vehicle Infotainment systems.

      • Android

        • The best Android phones, tablet, and watch of 2014

          The best thing about Android is that there are lots of choices. The worst thing about Android is that there are lots of choices. There are just too many damn phones to choose from!

        • This is the world’s most stunning new Android phone – and it’ll only cost you $5,000

          While there’s no question that the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus are beautiful smartphones, some might argue that Apple’s 2012 iPhone 5 and last year’s iPhone 5s feature an overall look that is more sleek and sophisticated. Now, imagine that sophisticated design was given harder lines, darker tones and a 5-inch full HD display, and it was built out of titanium and 18k gold instead of aluminum.

Free Software/Open Source

  • Most important open source news of the year

    In 2014, we have seen continued growth for both use and adoption of open source software in the enterprise software market. Cloud takes a big part of that obviously, with project likes Docker and OpenStack who have been in the news frequently. But growth wasn’t limited to increased use and adoption. We also noticed a lot of big names open sourcing their own solutions. Facebook announced a new branch of MySQL built for scalability, NASA released source code for many software projects, GitHub released the Atom text editor under a MIT license, and Google open sourced an email encryption tool and it’s Chrome PDF engine. The biggest news this year when it comes to open sourcing software has been Microsoft with .Net. This list of new open source releases goes on, with companies like LinkedIn, organizations such as DARPA, and more. If this trend continues, we can expect a lot more to be released under an open source license in 2015.

  • CMS

    • WordPress 4.1 for Debian

      Release 4.1 of WordPress came out on Friday so after some work to fit in with the Debian standards, the Debian package 4.1-1 of WordPress will be uploaded shortly. WordPress have also updated their themes with a 14-day early theme called twentyfifteen. This is the default theme for WordPress 4.1 on-wards.

  • BSD

  • FSF/FSFE/GNU/SFLC

    • FSF’s High Priority Project List Now Has A Committee

      The Free Software Foundation has now built up a committee to review their “High Priority Projects” list and they’re looking for more feedback from the community.

      Nearly ten years ago is when the Free Software Foundation began listing what they viewed as the High Priority Free Software Projects in a list. This list has over time contained some definite high-priority projects related to freeing Java and Adobe PDF support and open graphics drivers to some more obscure projects of high priority like a free version of Oracle Forms, a replacement to OpenDWG libraries for CAD files, automatic transcription software, etc. I’ve personally called out many of the FSF HPP for what they’re worth with my thoughts over the years.

    • GnuCash 2.6.5 released

  • Project Releases

  • Public Services/Government

    • Uganda Adopts Free And Open Source Software For E-Governance

      The population in Uganda has been growing rapidly. The country now has 35 million people. In order to provide quality services to its citizens and to improve the national competitiveness through administration innovation, the government has adopted free and open source software as the preferred mode of operation for electronic government (e-government) services and platforms.

  • Licensing

    • As Hollywood Funds a SOPA Revival Through State Officials, Google (And The Internet) Respond

      Almost three years ago, millions of Internet users joined together to defeat the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA), a disastrous bill that would have balkanized the Internet in the name of copyright and trademark enforcement. Over the past week, we’ve been tracking a host of revelations about an insidious campaign to accomplish the goals of SOPA by other means. The latest development: Google has filed a federal lawsuit seeking to block enforcement of an overbroad and punitive subpoena seeking an extraordinary quantity of information about the company and its users. The subpoena, Google warns, is based on legal theories that could have disastrous consequences for the open Internet.

  • Openness/Sharing

    • Open Access/Content

      • Librarians Are Continuing To Defend Open Access To The Web As A Public Service

        Librarians have built up quite a reputation for activism in all the right ways. Whether taking a stand against DRM, expanding libraries’ catalogs to include new digital media and art, or embracing indie authors, librarians come off as much more of a hip crowd than you might expect. These stances occasionally put them at odds with some in the community that they serve, perhaps most notably with parents who have pushed for restrictions on internet access within libraries. It gets all the more unfortunate when a subsection of the citizenry sees fit to ramp up the rhetoric against an institution simply attempting to serve the greatest public good. This typically, unfortunately, devolves into the supposed accusation of librarians “defending” the right for visitors to view “pornography.”

      • Libraries ‘Need To Be More Like Coffee Shops’, Says Government Report

        Better Wi-Fi connectivity, alongside hot drinks and comfier seating, could be the key to saving Britain’s libraries

        A government inquiry has called for a “complete reinvigoration” of the UK’s library network, including plans to make the facilities more welcoming by offering free Wi-Fi and hot drinks.

  • Programming

    • Google Announces Open-Source Availability of Cloud Dataflow SDK

      The goal is to let developers integrate applications more easily with its managed data analytics service.

    • Libscore Promises Easy Open Source Code Tracking

      Open source software theoretically ensures that the best code becomes the most widely shared and used code. But how can open source developers know how many other projects are actually making use of their handiwork? An interesting new tool called Libscore aims to provide an answer — at least for Web developers.

    • MIPS R6 Architecture Now Supported By GCC

      As of yesterday, there’s MIPS32R6 and MIPS64R6 support in GCC. The new MIPS R6 CPU architecture support was contributed by Imagination Technologies themselves. MIPS Release 6 features new instructions aimed for enhancing performance for JIT, JavaScript, browsers, PIC for Android, and large workload applications. The MIPS R6 architecture was announced a few months ago and the first products based on the updated MIPS ISA are their new Warrior processors.

  • Standards/Consortia

    • Google Drive now supports ODF

      What a brilliant end of the year for ODF, Google have decided to add support for the file type to it’s Drive service. The new update allows users to edit and save documents on Drive and also import ODF files and edit them from Drive. Prior to this you could only import ODF files to the service but you would have to edit download and edit them locally.

Leftovers

  • Calls growing for referendum on Greater Manchester having elected mayor

    Salford mayor Ian Stewart has already said he is ‘inclined’ towards favouring a public vote on the issue, with his council voting in favour of a motion calling for residents to have their say

  • Security

    • Hackers hit OPM background investigations contractor

      Hackers have gone after KeyPoint Government Solutions and its main customer, the Office of Personnel Management, is issuing a warning that nearly 50,000 people may have had their information compromised.

      An OPM spokeswoman said that the agency has concluded an investigation of the breach and is notifying 48,439 people whose personally identifiable data may have been breached.

      The agency is taking the action “out of an abundance of caution,” the spokeswoman said.

    • Lessons from the Sony Hack

      Earlier this month, a mysterious group that calls itself Guardians of Peace hacked into Sony Pictures Entertainment’s computer systems and began revealing many of the Hollywood studio’s best-kept secrets, from details about unreleased movies to embarrassing emails (notably some racist notes from Sony bigwigs about President Barack Obama’s presumed movie-watching preferences) to the personnel data of employees, including salaries and performance reviews. The Federal Bureau of Investigation now says it has evidence that North Korea was behind the attack, and Sony Pictures pulled its planned release of “The Interview,” a satire targeting that country’s dictator, after the hackers made some ridiculous threats about terrorist violence.

      Your reaction to the massive hacking of such a prominent company will depend on whether you’re fluent in information-technology security. If you’re not, you’re probably wondering how in the world this could happen. If you are, you’re aware that this could happen to any company (though it is still amazing that Sony made it so easy).

    • OpenHardware Random Number Generator

      Before I spend another night reading datasheets; would anyone be interested in an OpenHardware random number generator in an full-size SD card format? The idea being you insert the RNG into the SD slot of your laptop, leave it there, and the kernel module just slurps trusted entropy when required.

    • New fear: ISIS killers use ‘digital AK-47′ malware to hunt victims

      Malware has emerged from war-torn Syria targeting those protesting the rule of ISIS (ISIL, Islamic State, whatever the murderous humanity-hating fanatics are calling themselves these days.)

      The trivial Windows spyware, analyzed by University of Toronto internet watchdog Citizen Lab, was sent out in a small number of emails aimed squarely at members of the group Raqqah is being Slaughtered Silently (RSS) – which is holed up deep in ISIS-controlled territory and campaigning against the medieval terror bastards.

    • North Korea Calls BS on Sony Hacking Scandal

      The offer comes as the FBI formally accused Pyongyang of the attack on Friday and US President Barack Obama promised to “respond proportionally” to the online breach.

    • Obama: North Koreans did it

      US President Barack Obama has declared that Sony “made a mistake” in shelving a satirical film about a plot to assassinate North Korea’s leader, and he pledged that the United States would respond “in a place and manner and time that we choose” to the hacking attack on Sony that led to the withdrawal.

  • Defence/Police/Secrecy/Aggression

    • US drone attack kills at least five Taliban fighters in Pakistan – report

      A US drone fired two missiles at a militant hideout in northwestern Pakistan on Saturday, killing at least five Taliban fighters, two security officials said.

    • Six Militants Killed in US Drone Attacks in Pakistan
    • Drone strikes counterproductive, says secret CIA report

      Drone strikes and other “targeted killings” of terrorist and insurgent leaders favoured by the US and supported by Australia can strengthen extremist groups and be counterproductive, according to a secret CIA report published by WikiLeaks.

    • Wikileaks Reveals CIA Admitted Drone Strikes Ineffective

      The Taliban hasn’t broken a sweat replacing leaders killed by drones, according to a secret CIA report.

      Controversial U.S. drone strikes may be helping rather than hindering the Taliban in Afghanistan, according to a leaked CIA document released by Wikileaks Thursday.

    • Yemen: Whose Law?
    • Drone explosion kills volunteer in Lviv region

      “The drone exploded during its demonstration at the Yavoriv firing ground at around 09.00 on December 18. The blast fatally wounded a volunteer from Kyiv region, which was in the area [of the explosion],” the head of the media center, Oleksandr Poroniuk, said. The causes of the incident are being established. Law enforcers and members of the military prosecutor’s office are working at the scene.

    • In revenge, Pakistani Taliban strike school, killing at least 141

      Pakistan suffered the worst terrorist attack of a seven-year Taliban insurgency Tuesday when militants rampaged through an army-run high school in the northern city of Peshawar, killing at least 141 people, mostly students, in what the militants described as revenge for months of airstrikes on their tribal-area strongholds by Pakistan warplanes and CIA drones.

    • Yemen: Whose Law?

      Yemen’s transitional government, according to analysts and human rights groups, continues to condone extrajudicial killings of people it could arrest, detains people without due process and turns to tribal law to cover up its mistakes.

    • Judge Vacates Order Hushing Up Drone Strike

      A federal judge vacated as moot an order that prevented government disclosure of information about the targeted drone strike that killed U.S. citizen Anwar al-Awlaki in 2011.

    • COMMENTARY: People of faith have legitimate questions about use of lethal drones

      These “targeted” killings are conducted remotely in countries against which we have not declared war. Lethal drone strikes occur without warning, target for death specific individuals who are secretly selected, and are operated remotely by individuals thousands of miles away.

    • The Senate Drone Report of 2019

      Though it was a Friday afternoon, normally a dead zone for media attention, the response was instant and stunning. As had happened five years earlier with the committee’s similarly fought-over report on torture, it became a 24/7 media event. The “revelations” from the report poured out to a stunned nation. There were the CIA’s own figures on the hundreds of children in the backlands of Pakistan and Yemen killed by drone strikes against “terrorists” and “militants.” There were the “double-tap strikes” in which drones returned after initial attacks to go after rescuers of those buried in rubble or to take out the funerals of those previously slain. There were the CIA’s own statistics on the stunning numbers of unknown villagers killed for every significant and known figure targeted and finally taken out (1,147 dead in Pakistan for 41 men specifically targeted). There were the unexpected internal Agency discussions of the imprecision of the robotic weapons always publicly hailed as “surgically precise” (and also of the weakness of much of the intelligence that led them to their targets). There was the joking and commonplace use of dehumanizing language (“bug splat” for those killed) by the teams directing the drones. There were the “signature strikes,” or the targeting of groups of young men of military age about whom nothing specifically was known, and of course there was the raging argument that ensued in the media over the “effectiveness” of it all (including various emails from CIA officials admitting that drone campaigns in Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Yemen had proven to be mechanisms not so much for destroying terrorists as for creating new ones).

    • Are drone strikes more defensible than torture?

      There are lots of hypocrisies surrounding the recently released executive summary of the Senate Intelligence Committee report on the CIA’s detention and interrogation program. But they pale in comparison to the current Democratic silence about President Barack Obama’s policy of targeted drone assassinations.

    • Impunity will persist on CIA torture, killings

      1) CIA director John Brennan vehemently defends the agency – lauding the interrogators as “patriots” and refusing to call their methods torture;

      2) President Obama backs up Brennan (his previous chief counter-terrorism adviser, his choice to head the CIA); and

      3) His administration has desisted from filing charges against those responsible for the torture.

    • To Improve Assassination Operations, CIA Studies Failures of Colonial Powers to Combat Resistance

      In other words, according to the CIA, the white South African apartheid government may have fared better against the struggle for equality and justice if it had assassinated Mandela. Governments, including the US, should murder inspirational leaders if they want to defeat insurgencies.

    • US prepared to veto UN plan for Israeli occupation

      The U.S. is prepared to veto a United Nations Security Council proposal that calls for an end to Israel’s occupation of Palestinian lands in 2017.

      State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said the resolution, offered by Jordan and pushed by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, is unlikely to face an immediate vote.

    • World War II bomb defused in German city

      A World War II bomb has been successfully defused in an eastern German city after some 9,700 people were evacuated from the surrounding area and a meeting of a state legislature was interrupted.

    • John Prescott: Torture by Bush regime is shocking but not surprising

      Former deputy prime minister John Prescott says there’s more to the UK and US “special relationship” than meets the eye

    • Saudi says oil decisions not linked to politics

      Saudi Arabia’s oil chief said in comments published Thursday that there are no links between the kingdom’s decision to oppose production cuts and political objectives – an apparent response to accusations last week from Shiite powerhouse Iran.

      Petroleum Minister Ali Naimi was quoted by the official Saudi Press Agency as saying that there are “incorrect information and analyses … linking petroleum decisions with political objectives.”

    • CIA report reveals failure of Israel’s targeted killing policy

      A secret CIA review published recently by WikiLeaks reveals that Israel has been among the least successful countries regarding the targeted killing of opponents, Lebanese newspaper Al-Akhbar reported on Thursday. The review shows that the killings carried out by the US and its ally Israel have been the least successful among a list of eight countries; the American and Israeli authorities usually laud such assassinations.

    • UK drone net got torture-grade CIA comms

      A computer network that the US Central Intelligence Agency began using a decade ago to conduct the kidnap and torture of terrorist suspects has become an integral part of the system now operating drone strikes in the Middle East and Africa.

      The means to send ‘above top secret’ intelligence communications around the globe without exposure empowered the CIA’s Rendition and Detention Program to snatch and interrogate suspects in the US ‘war on terror’. The same network system became the principal mechanism behind the intelligence-led “targeted killing” of suspected enemies using drone strikes today.

      The technological link between the two sinister programmes, signposted in passing detail by the US Senate Select Committee on Intelligence Study of the Central Intelligence Agency’s Detention and Interrogation Program last week, further confirms that a US military network routed via the UK carried intelligence vital to the US targeted killing programme, and presents evidence that may sway officials deciding whether contractor British Telecommunications Plc should be held to account for building a part of the network used to transmit drone targeting intelligence since 2012.

    • Journalist Robert C. Koehler says: Abolish the CIA!

      BK: The U.S. launched its disastrous war on Iraq based largely on the false intelligence the CIA produced via torture.This intelligence was, of course, what the neocon cabal, which had a pre-9/11 interest in invading Iraq, wanted. So yes, the CIA was just doing its job, but its job wasn’t, and isn’t, to keep American citizens safe.The torture techniques detailed in the report are horrific to read about. They include beatings and waterboarding and something called “rectal rehydration.” They include sleep deprivation, hideous stress (one detainee was chained to the wall in a standing position for 17 days.) They include threats to harm or murder the detainees’ children or wife or mother. As I say, the Senate Intelligence Committee report makes clear that the information extracted by these techniques had no accuracy, belying all justification of them. But more to the point, torture and murder are utterly immoral acts, which rouse fury and hatred that come back to haunt the perpetrators: the American people.

    • Fox News hosts use Sydney siege to defend CIA

      Fox News has plunged itself into the centre of controversy once again for referencing the Sydney siege in an apparent justification for the CIA’s use of “enhanced interrogation”.

    • Wikileaks Releases CIA Report on High Value Targeting

      Wikileaks has released a CIA document from 2009 analyzing the positive and negative effects of strikes against high value targets.

    • Secret CIA report: Drone strikes and targeted killings ‘boost support for terror groups’

      Drone strikes and “targeted killings” of terror targets by the United States can be counterproductive and bolster the support of extremist groups, the CIA has admitted in a secret report released by WikiLeaks.

    • Wikileaks: Classified report detailed assassination shortcomings
    • Leaked report reveals CIA terror strategy
    • Leaked CIA report: Targeting Taliban leaders ‘ineffective’

      he removal of senior Taliban leaders has had little impact on the organisation, a CIA report released by Wikileaks has said.

      The 2009 report analyses “high value targeting” in a number of conflicts – the assassination of senior insurgents.

      It said the Taliban’s ability to replace lost leaders has hampered the effectiveness of coalition operations against its leadership.

      The CIA would not comment on the leaked documents.

    • CIA report reveals setbacks in ‘high value’ targeted assassinations
    • Leaked CIA report says targeted killing programs could backfire
    • The CIA’s Secret Killers

      Some time in early or mid-1949 a CIA officer named Bill (his surname is blacked out in the file, which was surfaced by our friend John Kelly back in the early 1990s) asked an outside contractor for input on how to kill people. Requirements included the appearance of an accidental or purely fortuitous terminal experience suffered by the Agency’s victim.

    • Obama taps CIA No. 2 Haines for White House job

      President Barack Obama is naming the CIA’s second-ranking official to a top White House national security post.

      Obama says Avril Haines is a “model public servant” who is respected across the government. He says that as deputy national security adviser, she will play a critical role in keeping the country save and promoting American interests around the world.

  • Transparency Reporting

    • ISIS Leaders Killed as WikiLeaks Publishes Docs on CIA Doubts About “High-Value” Assassinations

      U.S. military leaders say three top figures from the Islamic State have been killed by U.S. airstrikes, including a military chief and a deputy of Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. The news comes as the whistleblowing website WikiLeaks has published an internal CIA document which reveals the agency’s doubts about the effectiveness of such killings. The document, which is from 2009, describes both the positive and negative impacts of assassinating so-called high-value targets. It warns that such operations can “[increase] the level of insurgent support,” “[strengthen] an armed group’s bond with the population,” “[radicalize] an insurgent group’s remaining leaders.” WikiLeaks notes, “After the report was prepared, U.S. drone strike killings rose to an all-time high.”

    • Freedom under US arrest

      The US policy exposed by Julian Assange and Edward Snowden through the dissemination of classified information gained vital importance for the entire world.

    • Assange: US prosecuting Barrett Brown for quoting assassination threats against me

      The charges against journalist and activist Barrett Brown, accused of threatening an FBI agent, are partially based on his quoting another person’s threat to assassinate the WikiLeaks founder, Julian Assange said.

      Brown, 33, whose sentencing was delayed until January on Tuesday, faced federal charges including computer-related crimes, obstruction of justice and publicly threatening an FBI agent performing his duty. He’s now looking at up to eight years in prison for aiding hackers in breaching corporate computers, after pleading guilty in April to being an accessory.

    • WikiLeaks’ Assange Expresses Support for US Journalist Accused of Hacking

      Julian Assange wrote in a statement that the case of Dallas journalist Barrett Brown involves him personally and the work of WikiLeaks.

    • Brought to You by Wikileaks: Mandela Shows Better to Kill Than Imprison

      A study by the Central Intelligence Agency that evaluated the pros and cons of assassination programs has revealed significant insights into the agency’s thinking about targeted killings, including potential backlash. The study was published by Wikileaks on Thursday.

    • WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange weighs in on Barrett Brown sentencing delay

      Brown has been in federal custody since his arrest more than two years ago.

    • Wikileaks pins accused spy Rolando ‘Roly’ Sarraff Trujillo as Cuban political prisoner

      Rolando “Roly” Sarraff Trujillo was arrested on espionage charges in Cuba in 1995.

  • Finance

    • China proposes broadening use of Yuan for trade with Russia: report

      China’s trade minister proposed more use of China’s currency in settling trade with Russia in the face of a falling rouble to ensure safe and reliable trade, Hong Kong broadcaster Phoenix TV reported on Saturday.

    • Foreign Bankers Rape Ukraine

      If it were not for the fact that the lives of some 45 million people are at stake, Ukrainian national politics could be laughed off as a very sick joke. Any pretenses that the October national elections would bring a semblance of genuine democracy of the sort thousands of ordinary Ukrainians demonstrated for on Maidan Square just one year ago vanished with the announcement by Victoria Nuland’s darling Prime Minister, “Yat” Yatsenyuk, of his new cabinet.

  • PR/AstroTurf/Lobbying

    • Sailing through a scandal

      Why the phone-hacking affair has left Rupert Murdoch better off

      IT MUST all seem like a distant nightmare now. After the revelations of phone-hacking at the News of the World emerged in 2011, Rupert Murdoch was hauled before Parliament, calling it “the most humble day of my life”. Executives and journalists were arrested. The scandal prompted Mr Murdoch’s News Corp to drop a cherished plan to buy out the other investors in BSkyB, a satellite broadcaster (since renamed Sky). Some predicted that the affair, which included the hacking of a murdered schoolgirl’s voicemails, could be Mr Murdoch’s and his firm’s undoing.

    • Pew Admits Flaw In Poll Being Used To Attack Stronger Gun Laws

      The research group whose misleading poll question was heavily touted by the media to suggest “growing public support for gun rights” has acknowledged that the question was flawed.

      Last week, the Pew Research Center released the results of a survey that asked respondents whether it is more important to “control gun ownership” or to “protect the right of Americans to own guns.” The poll showed increased support for the gun rights answer and a drop in support for regulating guns. The results were reported by numerous media outlets, especially by the conservative press.

    • eBay Becomes 100th Company to Cut Ties to “Controversial” ALEC

      The Center for Media and Democracy (CMD) had joined the climate change awareness group Forecast the Facts, Credo Action, and others in asking eBay to leave what Reuters called the “controversial political group ALEC” in recent weeks. A Twitterstorm on December 17 was followed by the delivery of a petition containing nearly 100,000 petitions to eBay’s headquarters in San Jose, California on December 18. eBay’s announcement came shortly after.

  • Censorship

  • Privacy

    • Pew: Internet privacy is a fantasy, will merely be a ‘fetish’ by 2025, according to experts

      If you’re still holding out hope for the preservation of “Internet privacy,” you may need to adjust your ideals a bit. The future of online privacy is cloudy, and policymakers and technology innovators have a weighty task on their hands – one they’re likely to fumble. This is one of the overarching findings of a recent canvassing of more than 2,500 experts by Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project.

    • Judge questions evidence on whether NSA spying is too broad

      Judge Jeffrey White heard oral arguments by attorneys from the Electronic Frontier Foundation, which filed the suit, and the government, during a hearing in a federal district court in Oakland, California. The EFF says its suit is the first challenge in public court to the government’s upstream data program, which copies online data from the main cables connecting Internet networks around the world.

    • NSA to defend Internet collection in court
    • Privacy Advocates Battle DOJ in NSA Spying Case

      The National Security Agency is illegally searching and seizing Americans’ Internet communications, privacy advocates told a federal judge at a hearing on Friday.

    • It’s a Big Day in Court for Privacy and Surveillance

      On Friday, privacy advocates at the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) are attempting a new strategy in their six-year-old lawsuit against the National Security Agency. Filed in 2008, Jewel v. NSA is a suit calling for the end of the surveillance of millions of AT&T customers’ internet traffic and emails. Despite evidence provided by an AT&T whistle-blower, the US district court, under pressure from the federal government defendants, has delayed and avoided judgment, suggesting that the case raises issues too secret for the federal courts even to rule upon and too important for national security to shut down anyway.

    • Global Privacy Fears Increase After NSA Leaks

      An international survey shows a growing demand for privacy and Internet access.

    • Digital Rights Group Goes After NSA

      In its ongoing public relations struggle, the NSA will soon have to defend itself in court. A digital rights group, Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) is bringing forth a motion against the National Security Agency on Friday over the agency’s Internet data collection program.

    • NSA’s internet surveillance faces constitutional challenge in court

      The Electronic Frontier Foundation says the government’s upstream data collection violates the Fourth Amendment

    • NSA and EFF to square off in court over internet surveillance

      ​A digital rights group in the United States plans to argue in federal court this week that the National Security Agency’s internet surveillance operations violate the US Constitution’s ban against unlawful searches and seizures.

    • Google Says 2015 Will Be the ‘Moment’ To Reform NSA Spying

      Google is already beginning to lay the groundwork for another push next year to rein in government spying ahead of a crucial summer deadline to some of the National Security Agency’s surveillance authority.

    • Snowden’s surveillance disclosures helping change user behaviors

      Millions of Internet users have changed their Internet behavior and are doing more to keep their own personal data secure from possible surveillance, according to a survey from the Center for International Governance Innovation (CIGI). The survey revealed 64 percent of respondents have increased privacy worries over just one year ago, as the NSA, GCHQ, and other organized surveillance programs target Web users.

    • After the Snowden leaks, 700m act to avoid NSA spying

      Nearly 700 million people worldwide have taken steps to protect their privacy from NSA surveillance, according to an international internet security survey

    • More people may be dodging NSA surveillance than you think – Open thread

      In November, a study released by the Canadian Centre for International Governance claimed that while 60% of internet users had heard of NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden, only 39% of those people had taken additional steps to protect their online privacy as a result.

    • Snowden spying leaks prompt millions to protect data

      Recent revelations about government-backed surveillance have prompted millions of people to do more to keep their data private, suggests a survey.

      Many people now regularly change passwords or avoid certain websites or apps, said the Centre for International Governance Innovation (CIGI).

      It also found that 64% of the 23,000 people questioned are more worried about their privacy than a year ago.

    • Congress expands NSA domestic spying programs and nobody cares

      While the media was busy lining up to congratulate Obama for lawlessly granting amnesty to millions of illegal immigrants and cuddling up to one of the six state sponsors of terrorism in the world, Congress passed legislation that, according to one House Republican, “grants the executive branch virtually unlimited access to the communications of every American.” Republican leadership in the House inserted language into the Intelligence Authorization bill at the very last minute which includes a phrase to allow for “the acquisition, retention, and dissemination” of U.S. phone and Internet data.

    • In 2007, One Judge Said No to the NSA

      Last week, the government quietly released a new cache of court filings and orders from late 2006 and early 2007 that together reveal a watershed moment in the government’s effort to secretly expand its authority to conduct surveillance on American soil—without ever asking Congress or the public. Instead, the government once again asked the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) to belatedly bless certain aspects of the President’s Surveillance Program, which was initiated by President Bush without judicial or legislative approval in 2001.

    • Edward Snowden and the NSA Disclosures

      Disclosures from the vast trove of NSA documents obtained by Edward Snowden were first published in The Guardian exactly 560 days ago, and it’s worth asking ourselves whether we have gained anything from the revelations since then. The answer to that question increasingly seems clear: no.

    • Looking for a Hoodie With NSA Documents on It? This Is Your Store
    • Edward Snowden gets human rights award in Berlin

      The trio responsible for breaking last year’s NSA spying scandal have been honored for defending human rights. Prominent Germans praised the work of Edward Snowden, journalist Glenn Greenwald and filmmaker Laura Poitras.

    • Troubled Ties: Snowden, Germany and the NSA

      The government argued by way of contrast that allowing Snowden onto German soil would hamper international relationships, notably with the United States. It would also corner the government in Berlin: extradite Snowden, or face the unpleasant transatlantic music.

    • The CIA Probably Won’t Get Punished For Spying On The Senate
    • CIA unlikely to penalise staff over search of Senate computers – report

      A panel investigating the CIA’s search of a computer network used by Senate staff will not recommend disciplining the agency officials involved in the incident, according to the New York Times.

      The review panel is looking into the search by agency officials of staffers from the Senate intelligence committee who were investigating the CIA’s use of torture in interrogations of detainees after the 9/11 attacks on the US.

      The Times, citing current and former government officials, said the panel was likely to fault the CIA for missteps. But the newspaper said the decision not to recommend anyone for disciplinary action was likely to anger members of the intelligence committee, who have accused the agency of interfering with its investigation of agency wrongdoing.

    • Missouri seeks to block NSA

      A bill filed today in Missouri would not only support efforts to turn off NSA’s water in Utah….

    • Interview: ‘Citizenfour’ Director Laura Poitras on Storytelling in Docs
    • Are Electronic ‘Back Doors’ Unintentionally Helping Hackers?

      For global insurance firms, cyberattacks have become the most threatening of all emerging risks, according to a survey conducted recently by Guy Carpenter & Co., the risk and reinsurance specialists. Over the past two years, hackers have infiltrated major airlines, energy companies and defense firms, among many other businesses.

    • The Global Cell Network Is Wildly Insecure. Anyone Could Be Listening To Your Calls.
    • German Researchers: Cellphone Calls, Messages Easy to Crack
    • German researchers discover a flaw that could let anyone listen to your cell calls.

      German researchers have discovered security flaws that could let hackers, spies and criminals listen to private phone calls and intercept text messages on a potentially massive scale – even when cellular networks are using the most advanced encryption now available.

  • Civil Rights

    • The Bureaucratic Nightmare That Cost Matt DeHart His Liberty — And His Family $10,000 CAD

      Matt DeHart faces a very depressing and lonely Christmas in jail this year for reasons that are at best down to an extreme bureaucratic SNAFU, and at worst (and more likely) down to collusion between the Canadian and American authorities to stop the whistleblower talking to the press.

    • FBI investigates suspicious death of North Carolina teen Lennon Lacy

      People who knew Lacy don’t think he committed suicide. Others are unsure what to believe. But many here say the possibility that Lacy, a popular high school senior who moved easily between black and white social circles, was the victim of a racially motivated killing demands more investigation.

    • The FBI told their story about North Korea attacking Sony. Before we retaliate, read what they didn’t tell you.

      While most journalists report official government statements, and cite only approving voices, there are a few who quote dissenters. We should pay attention to these few, considering the long list of government lies attributing evil deeds to designated foes. Learning from experience is the beginning of strength.

    • Is Torture a ‘Conservative’ Value?

      Conservatives who usually hail individual liberties are leading the televised defense of the U.S. government’s torture of terror suspects, including many who were completely innocent. But some conservatives are troubled by this knee-jerk defense of the Bush administration, as Independent Institute’s Ivan Eland explains.

    • The ‘Exceptionalism’ of US Torture

      Americans like to think of themselves as the ultimate “good guys” and anyone who gets in their way as a “bad guy.” Under this theory of U.S. “exceptionalism,” whatever “we” do must be moral or at least morally defensible, from sponsoring coups around the world to torture, as William Blum describes.

    • Torture scraps values US once held dear

      American exceptionalism has always maintained a moral imperative. The conduct of the world’s foremost liberal democracy is guaranteed by a fierce commitment to liberty and the security of individual rights.

    • US-Cuba thaw shows power of talking

      The world has often seemed on fire of late. There has been a horrific massacre in a Pakistani school. A cyber-hacking apparently organised by North Korea, which might come to look very familiar in years to come. The Sydney siege. The barbarians of Isis unbowed. Ebola continuing to spool out. Russia’s economy tumbling.

      So it’s well to note a milestone of huge positive significance when it occurs. The United States’ detente with Cuba, announced all of a sudden by the presidents of both countries late last week, was such a moment.

    • North Korea proposes joint investigation with U.S. into hacking attack against Sony

      Pyongyang warns of ‘serious’ consequences if Washington rejects a probe that it believes will prove North Korea had nothing to do with the cyberattack. An unidentified Foreign Ministry spokesman said North Korea knows how to prove it’s not responsible for the hacking, so the U.S. must accept its proposal for the joint investigation.

    • CIA torture report: Europe must come clean about its own complicity

      As the world awaited the US Senate report on the CIA’s detention and interrogation programme under the George W Bush administration, there was very little introspection in Europe. As if European countries had nothing to do with what went on in the hunt for al-Qaida in the years after 9/11. In fact, many of America’s European allies were deeply involved in the CIA programme. And they have managed to stay very quiet about it. Could this change now?

    • Victims of Diego Garcia base: Islanders forcibly evicted by UK plead to return home

      Residents of the Chagos Islands who were kicked out of their homes in the 1960s by the British government to make way for a US military base fear they may never return home, despite politicians’ promises, RT’s Polly Boiko reports.

      “You have to go back where you belong. That’s me, as a Chagossian,” says Bernard Nourrice, a former resident of Diego Garcia, one of the Chagos Islands, now a closed US military base.

      Diego Garcia has recently made headlines after the CIA torture report revealed the US used the so-called “black sites” based in other countries for detention. Though the report did not mention the names of the locations, it’s been alleged Diego Garcia could be one such site.

    • Torture’s Time for Accountability

      America’s reputation for cognitive dissonance is being tested by the Senate report documenting the U.S. government’s torture of detainees and the fact that nothing is happening to those responsible. Ex-CIA analyst Ray McGovern says the nation must choose between crossing the Delaware or the Rubicon.

    • Why must we tolerate police spies in our midst?

      When you are in a radical movement, it’s wise to assume that the person arguing for the most extreme action is an agent provocateur. The question for opponents of fracking is on whose behalf are the agents provocateurs provoking.

      Nato and the Romanian and Lithuanian governments have alleged that Russia is urging on opponents of the new technology. Not because Putin gives a damn about global warming, but because he wants Europe to remain dependent on Russian gas. They have no conclusive proof. But the prominence the Kremlin’s apparatchik journalists on RT, the state-funded television channel, give to fracking protests suggests Russian agents may be seeking to manipulate the green movement.

    • Barrett Brown: why his sentencing hearing was sabotaged; his case should now be thrown out

      On Tuesday the sentencing of Barrett Brown, a US journalist, was delayed for a second time and postponed until January 22 of next year. At the hearing the prosecution dramatically presented 500 pages of new evidence, seemingly unrelated to the charges to which Brown was awaiting sentencing. The only explanation for this is that it was a clumsy attempt by the prosecution to provide the judge with a basis for awarding a maximum sentence at the January hearing. But the behaviour of the prosecution at the hearing revealed several important ambiguities that can only be described as (unintended) prosecutional sabotage. (See also video at end.)

    • Judge: Boy, 14, Shouldn’t Have Been Executed

      More than 70 years after South Carolina sent a 14-year-old black boy to the electric chair in the killings of two white girls in a segregated mill town, a judge threw out the conviction, saying the state committed a great injustice.

      George Stinney was arrested, convicted of murder in a one-day trial and executed in 1944 – all in the span of about three months and without an appeal. The speed in which the state meted out justice against the youngest person executed in the United States in the 20th century was shocking and extremely unfair, Circuit Judge Carmen Mullen wrote in her ruling Wednesday.

    • Cops’ last hope at credibility: Why an American crisis is teetering on the edge

      Police are killing unarmed teens, and demanding apologies from critics. Here’s the only way they will ever change

    • Incendiary footage emerges of NYPD officer repeatedly punching a 16-year-old black suspect in the back during street arrest as onlookers beg him to stop

      Footage has emerged of a plain-clothed New York police officer punching a teenage boy repeatedly in the back as he was being handcuffed by four other police on Monday.

      Witnesses claim the suspect was just 12. The NYPD says he is actually 16 years old and has a history of arrests.

      The case has been referred to the Internal Affairs Bureau for investigation and the NYPD is saying very little about the details of the arrest.

      Scene caused outrage on the streets of the Lower East Side of Manhattan on Monday afternoon. The NYPD has come under increasing scrutiny for its use of force in the wake of the Eric Garner case.

    • Clueless cop targets liberal: NYPD union chief says mayor thinks he’s running “a f**ing revolution”

      If you thought nothing could top Cleveland police union chief Jeff Follmer’s brazen defense of police authority – “the nation needs to realize, when we tell you to do something, do it” – you need to read this story about New York Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association head Patrick Lynch’s meltdown in the wake of criticism over the NYPD’s killing of Eric Garner in Staten Island.

    • Officer Put On Leave For Tweeting To Bait Public Into Violence

      It seems like there are so many police-behaving-badly stories that have come out recently, it’s no longer all that noteworthy. Mind you, I don’t know that the policing situation is generally actually getting worse, as it might seem, or if there is just simply a greater willingness to shine a spotlight in some very uncomfortable places within our own society. That said, what does remain interesting is watching how police around the country react to this spotlight. Watching the unfortunate reactions to athletes showing support for protesters, for instance, would be hysterical if it weren’t so sad. Those stories appear to indicate that some within law enforcement appear to think that protecting some members of the population is a task with which they can be selective.

    • Deputies: Woman, 72, slapped over Facebook snub

      A 27-year-old woman is accused of slapping a 72-year-old woman who denied her friend request on Facebook.

      The Tampa Bay Times reports Rachel Anne Hayes became angry on Wednesday when the woman said the Facebook name she uses is inappropriate.

    • Ex-detectives who claimed VIP paedophiles were protected in cover-ups to present dossier to inquiry

      Ex-cops who claim VIP paedophile investigations were axed in a cover-up are to hand a dossier to Britain’s most senior police officer.

      They have agreed to ­compile formal statements on what they knew of ­operations being shut down.

      The file will be presented to Met Commissioner Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe.

    • Finnish Police fired a gun only six times in 2013

      Chief Inspector Jukka Salminen says that the Finnish Police use guns very infrequently on a comparative scale. Last year in Finland, the police fired their weapons in an official capacity a total of six times.

    • Protesters Mass at Mall of America on Busy Shopping Day

      Parts of the massive Mall of America were temporarily closed Saturday following a demonstration against racial profiling and police brutality at one of the nation’s largest shopping centers. A large crowd gathered in the Bloomington, Minnesota, mall rotunda just before 2 p.m. local time and staged a “die-in,” despite warnings from mall officials that the protest was not permitted and could lead to arrests.

    • #BlackLivesMatter is shutting down the Mall of America

      “Join us at the Mall of America in solidarity with #BlackLivesMatter,” read a Facebook invitation to protest a year of police brutality this afternoon at the massive Bloomington, Minn., shopping center that bills itself as “the place for fun in your life.”

    • Police brutality protesters rally at Mall of America

      The group Black Lives Matter Minneapolis had more than 3,000 people confirm on Facebook that they would attend. Official crowd estimates weren’t immediately available, but pictures posted to social media by local news organizations showed the rotunda was full. Organizer Mica Grimm estimated about 3,000 people participated.

    • 15 reasons America’s police are so brutal

      Tamir Rice and Eric Garner aren’t anomalies. Cops aren’t properly trained and now routinely use maximum force

    • Nothing Changes: Cops Still Threatening Citizens, Breaking Laws To Shut Down Recordings

      The NYPD should know better. In August, it handed a $125,000 settlement to a man it arrested for recording officers performing a stop-and-frisk. A month earlier, the ACLU sued the NYPD in federal court to prevent the NYPD from arresting the people recording them. It’s even clearly stated in the NYPD policy manual that “bystanders are allowed to film [officers] as long as they’re not interfering with the officers’ duties and/or police operations.”

    • Should Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld & CIA Officials Be Tried for Torture? War Crimes Case Filed in Germany

      A human rights group in Berlin, Germany, has filed a criminal complaint against the architects of the George W. Bush administration’s torture program. The European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights has accused former Bush administration officials, including CIA Director George Tenet and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, of war crimes, and called for an immediate investigation by a German prosecutor. The move follows the release of a Senate report on CIA torture which includes the case of a German citizen, Khalid El-Masri, who was captured by CIA agents in 2004 due to mistaken identity and tortured at a secret prison in Afghanistan. So far, no one involved in the CIA torture program has been charged with a crime — except the whistleblower John Kiriakou, who exposed it. We speak to Michael Ratner, president emeritus of the Center for Constitutional Rights and chairman of the European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights, and longtime defense attorney Martin Garbus.

    • Obama asks US Congress to work for closure of Guantanamo base
    • Will a GOP Senate Let Obama Close Guantanamo?
    • Obama Wants to Close Guantanamo. Will a GOP Senate Let Him Do It?
    • Will Obama close Gitmo alone?

      President Obama is unlikely to go against the will of Congress and unilaterally shutter the prison in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, lawmakers from both parties predict.

      “I don’t know that he can,” Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) said. “I know that there are enough congressional restrictions on the books that limit his options.”

    • Fears build as CIA’s ‘ghost prisoners’ vanish into Afghan jails

      A CIA prisoner whose treatment set the torture template in the agency’s notorious Salt Pit jail outside Kabul, and another known as a “ghost prisoner” – held in such secrecy that for years even his name was classified information – have disappeared into Afghanistan’s prison system, where they are once more at risk of torture.

    • CIA interrogators didn’t just break detainees’ bodies — they also attacked their souls

      When reports about abuse at the Abu Ghraib prison first came out more than a decade ago, Michael Peppard started researching every account of mistreatment and torture he could find. He soon noticed a pattern missed by most journalists: American interrogators were using the religious faith of Muslim detainees as a weapon to abuse them.

    • John Yoo: If the Torture Report Is True, CIA Officers Are at Legal Risk

      The debate over the CIA interrogation program pits critics who insist illegal torture took place against defenders who say the treatment of prisoners was legal. These defenders cite guidance that the spy agency got from the Bush Administration. Former CIA Director Michael Hayden phrased it this way: “It needs be said that on multiple occasions all of the techniques were determined lawful by the Department of Justice and judged appropriate for the circumstances.”

    • Torture memo author John Yoo admits CIA may have gone too far

      John Yoo, the former Justice Department lawyer who authored a series of notorious memos cited by the Bush administration to justify the torture of terrorism detainees, acknowledged on Sunday that the CIA may have broken the law.

    • Jailed Former CIA Officer Thinks Interrogators Should Be Prosecuted
    • Why CIA torturers won’t be punished
    • Obama decision to withhold ‘thousands’ of pictures of prisoner torture abuse to be challenged in court

      Thousands of images depicting U.S. soldiers abusing prisoners in Iraq and Afghanistan may be released this week following the Senate’s ‘torture report’.

    • Whitewashing the CIA torture regimen

      The logic that torture is a “stain” on U.S. history is the heart of the problem, since it blocks an honest reading of whatever “values” Washington actually stands for.

    • The CIA’s Covert War Against Fidel Castro

      Released in 1975 and 1976, the Church Commission report revealed that the CIA had been secretly trying to assassinate foreign leaders, including Fidel Castro, for years. It’s a murky chapter in American history that’s worth looking back at this week, as America prepares for an epochal shift in its relationship with the Cuban leader and Cuba itself.

    • Letters: CIA violations must not be ignored
    • Sturgeon backs calls for inquiry into Scots and UK part in CIA flights

      The First Minister has backed calls for a judicial inquiry into the possibility of Scottish and British involvement in the torture or rendition of terror suspects.

      The UK Government is facing pressure for a judge-led inquiry after new revelations in a US Senate report on CIA interrogation.

    • Nick Clegg: Tony Blair should face charges if he collaborated in CIA torture
    • Tony Blair said to be prepared to face inquiry over CIA torture report
    • ​Blair whitewash? Ex-PM prepared to face CIA torture inquiry into UK complicity
    • Thailand Says It Was Unaware Of CIA ‘Black Site’ On Its Soil

      Thailand’s prime minister says his government had no knowledge of a secret location inside the country where the CIA is said to have waterboarded top al-Qaida operatives in 2002.

      Prime Minister Prayut Chan-ocha was responding to the so-called “torture report” released by the Senate Intelligence Committee earlier this month that detailed the treatment of terrorism suspects at secret locations — black sites– around the world.

    • Not just the CIA: special forces in Iraq fought a shadow war that led to rise of IS

      The controversy over the CIA torture report has moved on to calls for the UK government to be open about its own involvement. The arguments have also been widened to include other elements of CIA activities, especially in Iraq.

    • Former US Army psychiatrist says CIA questioning was driven by pressure link Saddam to 9/11 to justify invasion of Iraq
    • CIA ‘torture report’: Agency conduct was driven by pressure to link Iraq to al-Qaeda following 9/11

      The CIA tortured al-Qaeda suspects because it wanted evidence that Saddam Hussein was linked to 9/11 in order to justify the invasion of Iraq in 2003. The agency was under intense pressure from the White House and senior figures in the Bush administration to extract confessions confirming co-operation between the Iraqi leader and al-Qaeda, although no significant evidence was ever found.

    • Outsourced Terror

      The horrific stories of CIA-sponsored torture that aren’t in the Senate report.

    • The CIA torture report: through Arab eyes

      The fear that the US has lost its moral compass is vastly exaggerated, for the simple reason that the US – at least in the Arab World – never possessed this moral legitimacy in the first place.

    • Torture program linked to discredited, illegal CIA techniques

      Torture methods employed by the CIA under the guise of its “enhanced interrogation techniques” program can be traced back — through personnel and decades of research — to human experiments designed to induce the subjugation of prisoners through use of isolation, sleep and sensory deprivation, psychoactive drugs and other means, according to details contained in the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence report, a summary of which was released last week.

    • MFÍK Urges Investigation Of Iceland’s Role In CIA Torture

      “Being an accomplice to torture is a war crime,” says MFÍK Chair Þórhildur Sunna Sævarsdóttir

    • White House oversight of CIA program lacking

      In July 2004, despite growing internal concerns about the CIA’s brutal interrogation methods, senior members of George W. Bush’s national security team gave the agency permission to employ the harsh tactics against an al-Qaida facilitator whom the agency suspected was linked to a plot to disrupt the upcoming presidential election.

    • CIA interrogation report: Just what did the UK know?

      In March 2004, a Boeing 737, registration number N313P, lifted off from Baghdad International Airport with two prisoners on board – captured by the SAS after a shoot-out in the city.

    • Romania agreed to host CIA ‘black sites’ to be accepted into NATO – ex spy chief

      Romania allowed the CIA to use a number of sites on its territory, a former head of the country’s intelligence confessed. He added that Bucharest’s bid to join NATO at the time prevented it from asking the US about the purposes of the sites.

    • Romanian ex-spy chief acknowledges CIA had ‘black prisons’ in country

      A top official from Romania has for the first time confirmed that the CIA had “at least” one prison in the country.

      Ioan Talpes, the former head of the country’s intelligence service said the CIA had “centres” in Romania, including a transit camp or compound, where prisoners were kept before being moved to other locations. He is the first Romanian official to confirm the information in the CIA torture report last week, which stated the existence of at least one “black site” in which prisoners were held and probably tortured.

    • The CIA tortured Abu Zubaydah, my client. Now charge him or let him go

      Abu Zubaydah has now been held incommunicado for 12 years without trial. This is gross injustice

    • CIA torture report: UK intelligence agencies questioned over redactions

      The British parliament’s intelligence and security committee (ISC) has started to question intelligence agencies over whether they requested redactions in the explosive US Senate report on CIA torture.

      The ISC has already been investigating broader allegations of UK agencies’ involvement in torture or mistreatment.

    • UK torture inquiry could summon Blair and Straw
    • North Korea Calls for U.N. Probe of CIA ‘Torture Crimes’
    • Accused of rights abuses, N.Korea urges UN meeting on CIA torture
    • North Korea asks UN to ‘urgently’ investigates CIA torture claims
    • North Korea asks United Nations to investigate CIA torture ‘crimes’

  • Internet/Net Neutrality

    • It Doesn’t Matter Who Does the Lobbying: Trade Agreements Aren’t the Place for Internet Regulations

      The Associated Whistleblowing Press released portions of draft text proposed by the United States for the Trade in Services Agreement (TISA) this week, revealing some alarming provisions that indicate how tech companies have been involved in influencing a secret international deal. The language of the leaked treaty shows provisions that could impact privacy online, and net neutrality—with no public consultation or opportunities for open debate. What is dispiriting is some of the language of these Internet regulations almost certainly comes from tech companies, who have joined the many other lobbyists fighting for their special interests behind closed doors.

  • DRM

    • Be Cautious About ‘Digital Handcuffs’, Says Stallman

      Cautioning the tech-savvy people about the universal snooping propaganda of the technology giants, president of Free Software Foundation Richard Stallman spoke about the unholy nexus of the states with the corporates, in the city.

      Stallman, a reputed cyberspace activist and a champion of the free software movement, lashed out at the malpractices of technology giants like Apple and Microsoft, who, according to him, take the users hostage using ‘digital handcuffs’.

      Advocating freedom of computing and the Internet, he said that the apparent technology providers often exercise ‘Orwellian Justice’, which peeps into the privacy of users. “Amazon’s Kindle, the e-reader application, is infamous for remotely erasing the purchased copies of the book ‘1984’,” said Stallman.

  • Intellectual Monopolies

    • TTIP Update XLV

      The TTIP negotiations are in trouble. After 18 months of talks, the EU and US have precious little to show for all their jetting to and fro across the Atlantic. And external factors such as the imminent Presidential race in the US means that time is running out to get the deal signed and sealed. Against that background, there are signs of a (rather feeble) attempt to put “rocket boosters” under the negotiations, as David Cameron likes to phrase it – although he forgets that rocket boosters can also explode on take-off, destroying their cargo completely.

    • EU-Canada Trade Agreement May Be Incompatible With EU Law

      Of course, this is just one legal opinion, and doubtless the European Commission would beg to differ. But it does indicate that the very ambition of CETA — and therefore also TAFTA/TTIP, which is very similar in this respect — may be its downfall. By seeking to move “behind the borders”, tackling “non-tariff barriers” that are actually regulations protecting health, safety, the environment, etc., these agreements may interfere with too many core functions of how a democracy works, and be struck down by the courts as a result.

    • Copyrights

      • Pirate Bay alternatives

        As you may have heard, the Pirate Bay was raided and is down as I write this post. The closure of the Pirate Bay has generated a lot of discussions online, and many people have been looking for alternative torrenting sites. Fortunately, there was an interesting thread on Reddit about that very topic and one redditor was kind enough to post a list of alternative torrent sites:

      • Hollywood v. Goliath: Inside the aggressive studio effort to bring Google to heel

        To get the same results in a post-SOPA world, MPAA has hired some of the nation’s most well-connected lawyers. The project is spearheaded by Thomas Perrelli, a Jenner & Block partner and former Obama Administration lawyer. Perrelli has given attorneys general (AGs) across the country their talking points, suggesting realistic “asks” prior to key meetings with Google. Frustrated with a lack of results, Perrelli and top MPAA lawyers then authorized an “expanded Goliath strategy” in which they would push the AGs to move beyond mere letter writing. Instead, they would seek full-bore investigations against Google.

      • Update On Ten-Year Campaign To Give Copyright Industry Another Monopoly: WIPO’s Broadcasting Treaty

        Say what you will about the copyright industry, but it certainly doesn’t give up. No matter how many times a bad idea is fought off, sooner or later, it comes back again. The best example of this is probably WIPO’s Broadcasting Treaty, which Techdirt has been covereing for a decade: in 2004, 2005, 2008, 2011 and 2013.

The New Age of Games for UNIX/Linux But Not for Windows, Microsoft is Openwashing Windows-Only Games

Posted in GNU/Linux, Microsoft, Windows at 6:35 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

Summary: The world is moving to GNU- and Linux-powered platforms, so Microsoft withdraws GNU/Linux support from games it buys and starts openwashing its Windows-only games

GNU/Linux sure is a growing force in the world of gaming. The embrace by Steam helped a lot, but it did not single-handedly change things. Other companies foresaw the demise of Windows. Microsoft knows what’s going on as its domination slipped away and gamers are now able to move to GNU/Linux by the millions while games get ported to GNU/Linux by the hundreds (if not thousands). This includes some very high-profile games.

According to this new article from Sam Machkovech, “Bluetooth on Windows is a mess.”

The article from Machkovech is titled “Microsoft tells J.S. Joust devs their game is “NOT possible” on Windows” and our reader said: “Development on Windows is hard to the point of being impractical if not impossible. The mono-culture for years kept that flaw hidden. People realize that as they are now getting back into cross-platform development.”

So here we have a game for GNU/Linux that won’t be available on Windows. That’s quite a twist of fate. Windows is now the neglected platform. Developers find it hard to work with.

Microsoft recently found itself buying a company that makes cross-platform games, killing the GNU/Linux versions. So Minecraft drops the platform which Microsoft publicly claims to ‘love’ (it’s a lie) after Microsoft takes over, based on this report: “Minecraft: Story Mode is a brand new adventure being created around Minecraft, but sadly Linux has been left out in the cold it seems.

“Minecraft: Story mode will be a narrative-driven video game created by Telltale Games. It will be about Minecraft. Telltale have made some pretty highly rated games, so for general gamers this will probably be exciting news.”

Microsoft, which lies about “loving” Linux, sure is not showing any love.

On the contrary, as the Windows monopoly is eroding, largely thanks to Android, which uses Linux, Microsoft is now openwashing its Windows-only games, misusing the “open source” label. IDG appears to have just hired one of Microsoft’s most fanboyish person as ‘reporter’ to do this openwashing and there were plenty of Microsoft puff pieces after that, e.g. [1, 2, 3, 4]. What Microsoft calls “open source” here is the server side (not desktop side) of a Windows-only proprietary game. Compare that to truly Free software games or games for GNU/Linux (not just through Steam) and Android. Microsoft’s PR fooled a lot of its moles inside the media, including apologists like Adrian Bridgwater, but it should be clear that this is fake “open source” (just like .NET). It is about deceiving the public and changing perceptions. █

12.20.14

Microsoft Essentially Sends Malware to Windows and Bricks It

Posted in Microsoft, Windows at 12:24 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

The cost of cheap and/or underqualified staff?

Summary: Microsoft is once again bricking Vista 7, demonstrating lack of reliability or very low quality programming

Jason Evangelho said that “New Windows 7 Patch Is Effectively Malware”. This is how he put it in the headline at Forbes, showing just how “professional” Microsoft has become. It is so “people-ready” that it bricks computers. A Microsoft booster told the story like this: “Microsoft withdraws bad Windows 7 update that broke future Windows 7 updates”. Actually, it’s not just about future updates. It’s a a lot worse than that. Vista 7 becomes like a brick, unable to change. The full details are found further down in smaller fonts:

One of this week’s Patch Tuesday updates for Windows 7 has been withdrawn after some users discovered that it blocked installation of software containing digital signatures, including first- and third-party software, and even other Windows updates.

[...]

With Windows Update so important to keeping Windows users secure, a loss of confidence would be very bad news. But if this kind of problem continues, that seems like an inevitable outcome. While IT departments might be able to test updates in a lab before deploying them, providing some protection against faulty fixes, home users have no such luxury. Users have to have confidence that installing an update won’t break their machine. Broken, withdrawn updates shake that confidence.

Years ago (more than half a decade back) we warned that Vista 7 was basically just a lump of hype, perceptions distortion, and shameless lies. Now we see more evidence of this.

Microsoft Peter’s praises of Vista 7 and other Microsoft spyware continue nonetheless. Even when there is a serious problem he is belittling the problem rather than giving Microsoft a hard time. That is the role of Microsoft boosters. “Botched KB 3004394 triggers error messages, but no response from Microsoft” said the heading from IDG, showing that Microsoft is silent on such a serious matter. They’re speechless! Years ago we warned that a lot of key Windows developers were leaving and then often being replaced by cheap or poorly qualified staff. We said this would harm the quality of patches, not just of future versions of Windows. We were right.

Perhaps it is time to switch off Microsoft boosters like Microsoft Peter. Over the years he has done little more than mock Microsoft’s critics, including regulators (he still publishes revisionism about Microsoft’s browser abuses), so if we ever pursue the truth, we need to steer away from Microsoft’s media moles. █

Microsoft Lays Off Staff, Cheapens Labour as More Companies Are Dumping Microsoft’s Lock-in, NSA-Friendly Services, and Windows

Posted in Microsoft at 11:56 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

Summary: A look at some of Microsoft’s latest woes, including an appeal for cheaper labour amid decrease in business

MICROSOFT HAS not been having a good year, irrespective of what its shareholders wish to believe. The NSA leaks have not done this monopolistic informant any good and Ballmer was pushed out. So was a lot of the workforce, as Microsoft had announced massive layoffs, even bigger than in prior years. It’s a company that is shrinking, based on several parameters.

Putting aside the publicity stunt ‘lawsuit’ from Microsoft (over data in Ireland, not just a tax haven to Microsoft), the company is fading away. Microsoft fails to make the news as much as it used to (we used to observe the company very closely) and when it makes the news it’s not often rosy. Microsoft is a proprietary software company that uses software to spy on the entire world. If information (or knowledge is power), then a lot of information facilitates domination of one group over another. That’s what NSA is about. Microsoft is basically an apparatus of imperialism and a lot of nations, including China and Russia, seem to be getting it, whereupon they migrate to GNU/Linux. Microsoft is now paying the price of sucking up to its government.

On the subject of Microsoft layoffs, their true extent has been impacted by a strategy from around 5 years ago. Microsoft hides the scale of layoffs by hiring cheap/temporary staff without worker protections/privileges (pension, compensation etc.) and sometimes by recruiting overseas (countries with lower salaries) while laying off ‘expensive’ — albeit usually more skilled — staff. Here is a new report’s summary: “The federal government has granted an exemption to Microsoft Canada that will allow the company to bring in an unspecified number of temporary foreign workers to British Columbia as trainees without first looking for Canadians to fill the jobs.

“A notice posted on the Citizenship and Immigration Canada website says foreign workers will receive specialized training in a new human resources development centre in the province. The tech giant will not have to perform a labour market impact assessment (LMIA) — a rigorous process that would include a search for Canadians who could fill the positions.”

As we showed here several years ago, Microsoft uses British Columbia to bypass visa restrictions in the United States (where Gates does plenty of lobbying on visa issues so as to enrich himself further at the expense of the middle class). People who will be working in British Columbia will be mostly immigrants if history is anything to judge by. Also notice that the report says “foreign workers” and “foreign trainees”. It’s a race to the bottom. It’s a race game – a game of globalists who deprive workers and take away their rights.

“Perhaps Canadian citizens are too smart or honest to qualify,” wrote one of our readers.

Regarding Microsoft’s influence, it is rapidly diminishing. Binstock’s site will finally stop advertising Microsoft under the guise of ‘news’. “Killed by sucking up to Microsoft” said a reader of ours about this news regarding the death of Dr. Dobb’s, whose Web site is not to be confused with the paper publication. The Web site basically became a Microsoft mouthpiece in recent years, after a Microsoft booster, Andrew Binstock (editor), drove it to the ground along with its credibility (we gave many examples), just like Elop did at Nokia. The death of the site was mourned by a Microsoft booster, Tim Anderson, who labelled it “specialist programming site” although in recent years it was run almost single-handedly by a Microsoft booster. It is actually not too shocking that Dr. Dobb’s put a Microsoft booster in charge; its new owner, a partner of Microsoft (UBM), put a Microsoft advertiser in charge perhaps in order to attract more advertising money. UBM merely committed suicide or shot the site at the back of the head when it chose bias over news, but either way, it’s all over now.

What happened at Dr. Dobb’s is not the exception. Many pro-Microsoft sites died or went silent. Remember Microsoft Watch, which was Microsoft advertising disguised as “watching”? Not only the sites died; their authors too went away or turned to other areas. Quite a few Microsoft boosters, including major ones like Joe Wilcox and Ian Fried (no typo), have left the scene or turned to other areas. Microsoft media proxy is quickly eroding. Other memorable examples include Microsoft Emil, Microsoft Nick, and Microsoft Jack, who is not very active anymore and sometimes covers Google or Linux these days (not necessarily bashing them, either).

This does not mean that Microsoft has run out of moles in the media. Here for instance we have Microsoft .NET advertisements and openwashing. This was published a few days ago in a Microsoft-funded British news site and it was authored by the Microsoft-bribed Tim Anderson (the same guy who mourns the loss of yet another Microsoft propaganda site, as noted above). This “Exclusive Interview” from Anderson is basically giving Microsoft a platform and dubbing it ‘news’. Complete nonsense. Please also note that Microsoft’s proxy in the UK (Accenture) wants to keep bamboozling managers under the guise of “advice” because it’s a very lucrative market in financial terms. One of Microsoft’s many moles at CBS reminded us that it’s all about Microsoft. The timing seems right because a lot of the British public sector and exploring and even moving to Free software, more standards (such as ODF), and greater technological autonomy.

“The timing seems right because a lot of the British public sector and exploring and even moving to Free software, more standards (such as ODF), and greater technological autonomy.”Not just the public sector moves away from Microsoft. Some of the biggest companies in the private sector are increasingly doing the same thing. Earlier this year we wrote about Ford dumping Microsoft after Ford had been Microsoft’s close ally for years. “Good news,” called it a reader, “except for the fact that it is inflicting “infotainment” systems on buyers.”

As asked: “Is QNX still hybrid?” Well, it is not Free software like Linux, but alas, the main problem is that BlackBerry is becoming a patent troll and this is where Ford is heading. As Simon Sharwood put it the other day:

As foreshadowed in February, Ford has announced a new in-car entertainment and communications system that will run on BlackBerry’s QNX real-time operating system, not Windows as is the case for the company’s current efforts.

Ford Sync 3 will offer touch-screen and voice recognition controls. The latter will allow drivers to command both their vehicle and apps on their phone. Siri control is another feature.

The auto-maker’s offered a touch-screen system for some time now, but it’s widely regarded as one of its weak points. A complete refresh on a new operating system therefore looks like a good move.

It’s certainly one BlackBerry will appreciate, as broader uptake of QNX is one of its hoped-for exit routes from the mucky world of smartphones. A few million highly-visible QNX machines shipped each year will therefore be most appreciated.

Just because Ford left Microsoft doesn’t mean it made the right choice. It just chose a lesser evil.

We were gratified to learn that Facebook, which uses GNU/Linux in its servers, rid itself of Microsoft as well. Microsoft is so yesterday that even Facebook dumps it. As the media in California put it, “Facebook confirmed that it’s no longer including search results from Bing on its site. The Bing deal began around the time Microsoft bought its Facebook stake, and was renewed in 2010.

“The move will hurt Bing’s search market share, which was already ailing after a recent redesign of Microsoft’s consumer web site, MSN.”

Will Microsoft shares in Facebook also be returned (forcibly)? They cannot be turned into private ownership, sadly enough, which harms self determination at Facebook. Microsoft has held Facebook hostage for many years. Either way, traffic in Facebook very rapidly declines these days (that’s a story for another day), so we don’t expect the company to be around for much longer. Incidentally, Mac Asay, writing in the Microsoft-centric media, calls Facebook “largest open-source company”, which is utter nonsense. Mac Asay also dubs people he does not agree with “jerks”, but that’s quite typical of him (he is the only person in Twitter whom I know blocked me). Mr. Asay — it is worth reminding readers — had applied for a job at Microsoft before he worked for Novell.

The bottom line is, Microsoft is rotting and we are hoping that it will go down the same path in years to come. Its once-large empire is now just a fort begging for survival and sacrificing its own staff. █

12.19.14

Links 19/12/2014: Robolinux 7.7.1 LXDE, Red Hat Thriving

Posted in News Roundup at 12:22 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

GNOME bluefish

Contents

GNU/Linux

  • Linux & FOSS Predictions for 2015

    You can tell it’s the holiday season — a lot of people are focusing more on the guy with the red suit who looks quite a bit like Jon ‘maddog’ Hall than they are on digital matters. This also is the time of year, naturally, where pundits make their predictions for the following year.

    However, I should admit something here. Truth in advertising: I don’t have a good record in predicting the future. I have a hard enough time predicting what to wear the following day — oh, right: clothes. But Linux and FOSS being, well, Linux and FOSS, these projections are as good as any prediction now being foisted on the FOSS public by the army of digital pundits out there.

    So what’s going to happen in 2015?

  • Slovakia – Yet Another Government Discovers GNU/Linux Is The Right Way To Do IT

    They put GNU/Linux on those PCs although they could have used that other OS and they found they saved money. The PCs are easy to manage thanks to FLOSS package-management. They were in total control of the PCs because it’s FLOSS, not code designed by some corporate salesmen, but folks who make software that works for the user. That’s been my experience in schools. That’s the experience of other folks who use GNU/Linux in the real world.

  • Desktop

    • Tipping Points

      The last few years has been some kind of a tipping point. Most OEMs are shipping some GNU/Linux units. Many retailers sell them to consumers. European governments are getting behind a move to accept FLOSS and GNU/Linux for purchases. China, India, Russia, Brazil, and several other governments have committed to FLOSS. The preferences for that other OS and its way of doing things are dying. Many schools run GNU/Linux because it is very affordable and their graduates are filling a demand for an educated workforce. Android/Linux is thriving. There’s no reason GNU/Linux cannot as well. It is better suited to run on legacy PCs than Android/Linux. Large screens matter. Mice and keyboards matter. GNU/Linux works very well with them and the performance continues to improve.

    • ​Free software GNU/Linux laptop in development

      Linux laptops are available from major computer OEMs such as Dell and Lenovo and specialized Linux vendors such as System76 and ZaReason, but the Free Software Foundation (FSF), which would prefer it if I referred to Linux as GNU/Linux, doesn’t approve of any of them thanks to their use of proprietary firmware. That may not continue to be the case.

    • Purism discovered how to make open-source software laptops even more open

      You may be rolling an obscure flavor of Linux on your new laptop and sporting a Free Software Foundation bumper sticker on your bio-diesel powered V-Dub, but chances are your open-source laptop isn’t really that “free,” thanks to closed firmware binaries hidden deep inside hardware itself.

  • Server

    • Docker CTO Solomon Hykes to Devs: Have It Your Way

      “We made a very conscious effort with Docker to insert the technology into an existing toolbox. We did not want to turn the developer’s world upside down on the first day. … We showed them incremental improvements so that over time the developers discovered more things they could do with Docker. So the developers could transition into the new architecture using the new tools at their own pace.”

    • OPNFV – Our First 90 Days

      In 2014, the widespread interest in creating a platform for Network Functions Virtualization (NFV) was evident across all sectors. NFV is moving out of the labs and into the field. A recent study by Infonetics predicts that the SDN and NFV markets are expected to exceed $11 billion by 2018. We’re excited to see the industry embrace open source as the way to bring NFV to market faster.

  • Applications

  • Desktop Environments/WMs

    • WTFTW: A Tiling Window Manager Written In Rust

      The WTFTW project is an X tiling window manager written in Rust. The WTFTW name is short for Window Tiling For The Win. WTFTW is written against the latest Rust nightly code, with Rust 1.0 approaching next year. This tiling window manager can be easily tested in Xnest or Xephyr.

    • K Desktop Environment/KDE SC/Qt

      • digiKam Software Collection 4.6.0 released…

        The digiKam Team is proud to announce the release of digiKam Software Collection 4.6.0. This release includes many bugs fixes in Image Editor and Batch Queue Mananger. Thanks to Maik Qualmann and Jan Wolter to propose patches in KDE bugzilla.

        See the new list of the issues closed in digiKam 4.6.0 available through the KDE Bugs-tracking System.

      • KDAB contributions to Qt 5.4

        Qt 5.4 was released just last week! The new release comes right on schedule (following the 6-months development cycle of the Qt 5 series), and brings a huge number of new features.

    • GNOME Desktop/GTK

  • Distributions

    • A declining number of Linux distros might be killing distrohopping

    • New Releases

    • Red Hat Family

    • Debian Family

      • Derivatives

        • Canonical/Ubuntu

          • GTK 3.14, Nautilus 3.14 Land In Ubuntu 15.04 Vivid Vervet [Quick Update]

            Quick update for Ubuntu users planning to use Ubuntu 15.04: GTK 3.14 has landed in Ubuntu 15.04 Vivid Vervet. And of course, the default Ubuntu themes, Ambiance and Radiance, have been updated with GTK 3.14 support.

            Furthermore, Nautilus, an application that wasn’t updated in quite a while and was still at version 3.10, has been updated to version 3.14:

          • Ubuntu 15.04 Alpha 1 For Its Various Flavors

            While Ubuntu itself no longer puts out alpha/beta releases in favor of just testing out the daily Live ISOs, the various Ubuntu flavors still participating in the traditional release process have done their first alpha releases this afternoon for Ubuntu 15.04.

          • What is Ubuntu Snappy?

            If you’re anything like me, you’ve probably heard about this new thing from Canonical called “Snappy” Ubuntu Core, but at the same time trying to understand exactly what it is may leave you cross-eyed, especially with the buzzwords such as “cloud”, “containers” and “apps” floating about. Once you get a handle on it, it’s obvious that Canonical’s new baby isn’t terribly useful for those of us who are simply users, but perhaps it provides an interesting preview of what could come to the desktop version of Ubuntu in the future.

          • China Mobile launches Ubuntu contest for developers

            China Mobile and Canonical have launched the ‘Ubuntu Developer Innovation Contest’ to engage developers “with the next generation of mobile experiences on Ubuntu – which don’t revolve around apps and the app icon grid”.

            Contest submissions can include Scopes and Apps (HTML5 and QML native), and finalists will be selected for two tracks – student and independent developers.

          • First Ubuntu Phone Will Launch In Europe This February

            The first Ubuntu Phone will go on sale in Europe in the second week of February.

          • Flavours and Variants

  • Devices/Embedded

    • LG’s webOS 2.0 TVs are coming to CES

      LG’s attempt to resurrect webOS for smart TVs is entering a new phase at CES 2015. A wide range of webOS 2.0 TVs will be displayed in Vegas, and LG is focusing on performance; the company says that starting the YouTube app from the home screen is 70 percent faster, for example, and overall boot times should be up to 60 percent quicker.

    • Phones

      • Jolla’s Sailfish OS Update 10 Is Now Available

        The tenth update to Jolla’s Sailfish mobile operating system is now available. This update is version 1.1.1.26 and is codenamed Vaarainjärvi.

      • Tizen

        • Quick Notes – Hand-Written Note App for Samsung Gear

          The application Quick Notes was created by Application Developer Piotr Walczuk. The idea behind the app is to have the ablity to write down handwritten notes on your wrist, anywhere (well almost), and is available for the Samsung Gear / Gear 2 and Gear S Tizen Smart watches.

    • Sub-notebooks/Tablets

      • Can Jolla Deliver the First Open Source Tablet?

        Some dreams die hard. After the KDE-based Vivaldi tablet failed to appear after three years of anticipation, Jolla is planning a free software tablet of its own. The product is off to a roaring start, having just raised $1,824,055 in its crowdfunding campaign– almost five times the original target. So, this time, we might actually see some hardware.

        Mind you, whether the tablet will satisfy everyone remains open to doubt. Although Jolla is talking loudly about being “people powered” and listening to want users want, some requests, especially for hardware, may be impossible to fulfill. The manufacturing capacity of advanced features is limited world-wide, and monopolized by large companies like Apple and Samsung.

        More importantly, exactly how free the tablet will be has yet to be announced.

Free Software/Open Source

  • The helpful stranger and meaning of open source

    I’ve been a software engineer for almost 15 years now, and although I didn’t realize it at the time, I’ve been working with open source software from the get-go. From basic GNU command line utilities to C compilers, open source was there from the start.

    Even though my professional focus has changed over the years, in one form or another I’ve been living in a open source ecosystem—be it the operating system I used, the libraries I worked with, or even the integrated development environment (IDE) I used on a daily basis. Despite that, it never occurred to me to contribute to open source software until I joined Red Hat three years ago and began working on oVirt, an open source data center virtualization project.

  • Geeks give back: Be an open source tester

    Are you using open source software for free? Do you wish you could contribute, but don’t have the time to learn how a new developer community works?

    Giving cash donations is not necessarily the best way to give back to an open source community. Instead, try channeling any frustration you may feel with open source software and help with testing. It’s good for your blood pressure and good for the rest of the users of the code!

  • Eure-et-Loir department now using Nuxeo document system

    The administration of France’s Eure-et-Loir Department has implemented Nuxeo, an open source enterprise document and content management system. The solution is used to exchange documents between the department’s services and, sometime next year, also with partner-organisations.

  • Events

  • Web Browsers

  • SaaS/Big Data

  • Databases

    • PostgreSQL 9.4 released

      Version 9.4 of the PostgreSQL relational database management system is out. “This release adds many new features which enhance PostgreSQL’s flexibility, scalability and performance for many different types of database users, including improvements to JSON support, replication and index performance.”

    • PostgreSQL 9.4 Increases Flexibility, Scalability and Performance

      The PostgreSQL Global Development Group announces the release of PostgreSQL 9.4, the latest version of the world’s leading open source database system. This release adds many new features which enhance PostgreSQL’s flexibility, scalability and performance for many different types of database users, including improvements to JSON support, replication and index performance.

  • Oracle/Java/LibreOffice

  • CMS

    • WordPress 4.1 and distraction free writing mode

      WordPress 4.1 is out and one of its new features is a revised “distraction free writing mode.” I seem to remember that it had something like this before, but it was not as well implemented as it is in WordPress 4.1. Now, when you push the distraction free writing mode button, everything else fades away except what you need to write your post.

  • Business

    • Semi-Open Source

      • Open Source vs. Hosted Shopping Cart Solutions

        Given all the options and varying needs of stores, there is no right or wrong answer. Keep in mind that beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Having said that, stores seeking the greatest bang for the buck (as in sales generated to investment spent), and those seeking the most flexibility for growth in the future, should highly consider open source for their ecommerce engine.

  • FSF/FSFE/GNU/SFLC

    • What Does It Mean for Your Computer to Be Loyal?

      We say that running free software on your computer means that its operation is under your control. Implicitly this presupposes that your computer will do what your programs tell it to do, and no more. In other words, that your computer will be loyal to you.

      In 1990 we took that for granted; nowadays, many computers are designed to be disloyal to their users. It has become necessary to spell out what it means for your computer to be a loyal platform that obeys your decisions, which you express by telling it to run certain programs.

    • FisicaLab update

      Well, I just want to share the progress in the development of FisicaLab. As you know I want a module for thermodynamics in version 0.4.0. This means that FisicaLab needs the ability to handle data from steam tables.

  • Public Services/Government

    • Sandia looks to open-source robot tech

      Researchers at federal defense and energy laboratories are open sourcing some of the electronics and software for two advanced ambulatory robots in hopes of boosting their ability to handle perilous situations.

      In a Dec. 16 announcement, the Energy Department’s Sandia National Laboratories said it is developing more energy-efficient motors to dramatically improve the endurance of legged robots performing the types of motions that are crucial in disaster response situations. The project is supported by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency.

  • Openness/Sharing

  • Programming

  • Standards/Consortia

    • OpenSocial Foundation Moving Standards Work to W3C Social Web Activity

      Building on the 31 July 2014 announcement of the W3C Social Web Working Group, the OpenSocial Foundation and W3C today announce the transfer of OpenSocial specifications and assets to the W3C. As of 1 January 2015, OpenSocial Foundation will close and future work will take place within the W3C Social Web Activity, chartered to make it easier to build and integrate social applications into the Open Web Platform.

    • Google delivers an early Christmas gift: Google Drive support for ODF

      Google, in a surprise move, today announced support for ODF (Open Document Format) in its products.

      I remember the days when I had to sheepishly asked people who wanted to share files with me to go back to .doc or .docx as none of the Google properties would talk to ODF files. That was quite embarrassing because I invested a lot of time in liberating those people from Microsoft’s vendor-locked file formats.

Leftovers

  • Security

  • Defence/Police/Secrecy/Aggression

    • People Who Live in ‘Flyspecks’ Shouldn’t Fling Metaphors

      I suppose you could argue that Cuba was a threat to the United States during 1962′s Cuban missile crisis–which was very long ago indeed. I’m more struck by Post reporters Juliet Eilperin and Greg Jaffe’s little geography lesson, comparing Cuba to a “flyspeck”–or, in other words, insect excrement.

      Cuba, as it happens, is 42,426 square miles in area–making it bigger than Iceland or Ireland, neither of which would probably like to be compared to fly poop.

  • Privacy

  • Civil Rights

    • Corrupt Greater Manchester Police Officer Jailed

      A corrupt Greater Manchester Police has been jailed after accessing police computer systems and passing on confidential information.

      Pc Katie Murray (born 22/04/1984) of Dunkirk Street, Droylsden was found guilty of two counts of conspiracy to commit misconduct in a public office and one count of breaching the Data Protection Act. She was jailed for two years and nine months.

      The information was passed on to her sister Lyndsey Murray, (born 10/05/1981) of Ruskin Road, Droylsden, and former partner, Jason Lloyd, (born 20/11/1970) of Peregrine Close, Droylsden, who were both found guilty of conspiracy to commit misconduct in a public office. Lynsey Murray was jailed for six months.

    • CIA Torture report

      If the history of this century has been about anything so far, then it is the bargain of national security. A constant state of war carried out on a need-to-know basis.

  • Internet/Net Neutrality

    • Making the Internet a utility—what’s the worst that could happen?

      Title II gives the Federal Communications Commission power to regulate telecommunications providers as utilities or “common carriers.” Like landline phone providers, common carriers must offer service to the public on reasonable terms. To regulate Internet service providers (ISPs) as utilities, the FCC must reclassify broadband as a telecommunications service, a move that consumer advocacy groups and even President Obama have pushed the FCC to take.

  • Intellectual Monopolies

    • Copyrights

      • Don’t make Google the whipping boy for others’ failings

        Google’s motto “do no evil” never meant that much. Google always did what it had to do for its own benefit, but it was seen as — and arguably was — a company changing the world for the better. Now it appears that governments around the world are taking the position that Google can’t do anything right.

      • Paulo Coelho Wants to Give The Interview Away Using BitTorrent

        Sony may have withdrawn The Interview but not everyone is scared of releasing the movie. Author Paulo Coelho, whose book The Alchemist has sold in excess of 165 million copies, has just offered to buy the rights to the movie from Sony. He informs TorrentFreak that it would go straight on BitTorrent, for free.

      • Researchers Make BitTorrent Anonymous and Impossible to Shut Down

        While the BitTorrent ecosystem is filled with uncertainty and doubt, researchers at Delft University of Technology have released the first version of their anonymous and decentralized BitTorrent network. “Tribler makes BitTorrent anonymous and impossible to shut down,” lead researcher Prof. Pouwelse says.

Another Microsoft Partner Markets Linux FUD Using Logo, Name, and Lies

Posted in FUD, Microsoft, Red Hat, Security at 12:14 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

The great power of lies and gullible journalists

Christmas lights

Summary: Microsoft’s partner Alert Logic is trying to label a feature of Linux a security flaw and even makes marketing buzz for it

IF A reporter or two can be bamboozled into printing a lie (digitally distributing it), this can lend some credibility/legitimacy to the lie and then it is possible that the lie will spread and be echoed in other reports. Hence the importance of this matter.

“They are trying to change perceptions around Free software security.”Several journalists have already rebutted something that I debunked some days ago when I first saw some nonsense about “Grinch” with a suitable “marketing” image. Here is one rebuttal among a few:

The Grinch flaw was reported by Stephen Cody, chief security evangelist at Alert Logic. Cody alleges that the Grinch flaw enables users on a local machine to escalate privileges. Leading Linux vendor Red Hat, however, disagrees that the Grinch issue is even a bug and instead notes in a Red Hat knowledge base article that the Grinch report “incorrectly classifies expected behavior as a security issue.”

The original security researcher that reported the Grinch found that if a user logs into a Linux system as the local administrator, the user could run a certain command that would enable the user to install a package, explained Josh Bressers, lead of the Red Hat Product Security Team.

“Local administrators are trusted users,” Bressers told eWEEK. “This isn’t something you hand out to everybody.”

We believe it was Joab Jackson (IDG) who first gave a platform to the Microsoft partner (Alert Logic) that used marketing buzz and a lie against Linux, soon to be rebutted by Red Hat. I had contacted Mr. Jackson, who later told me that he posted a follow-up (or correction).

Jackson’s correction may have come too late as we saw the lie spreading to a few other news sites later on (thankfully not too many sites). Here is one example of garbage ‘reporting’ (FUD and lies), generated by the FUD firm with with a catchy name, sort of logo etc. (generated by a Microsoft partner we might add). Apart from Jackson’s piece we saw at least 3 more such articles (which came afterwards). How many are going to post a correction? How many articles will be withdrawn? How many follow-ups will be published? Tumbleweed. Silence.

It is usually Windows that has zero-days during Christmas, not GNU or Linux. There was recently other nonsense with a name, claiming to be a flaw when it was actually some other malware (potentially developed by the Russian government) that users actually have to install (not from repositories) to be infected by. It was akin to a phishing attack, but it was widely used in the press (even in IDG, Jackson’s employer) to characterise GNU/Linux as insecure.

Remember what the Microsoft-connected firm did with "Heartbleed" (the name it made up with a promotional logo). It’s all about marketing and hype. They are trying to change perceptions around Free software security. What matters is what people remember, not the truth. This is all about discouraging users or buyers.

A reader has alerted us about this article from Armenia . “Note the job title of the ‘softer,” he said. Here is the relevant portion:

Armenia’s Minister of Defense Seyran Ohanyan received Microsoft Corporation’s Regional Director for Public Safety/National Security/Defense Robert Kosla.

Joke or real? It sounds like a joke, but they are definitely not joking. Armenia talks to the NSA’s biggest partner and back doors-loving company about ‘security’, so seeing the job title from Microsoft is truly hilarious! Microsoft is good at insecurity and lies, not security. █

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

–Brian Valentine, Microsoft executive

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