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02.01.13

Links 1/2/2013: Tablets Growth, PHP Milestone

Posted in News Roundup at 9:07 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

GNOME bluefish

Contents

GNU/Linux

  • A good week

    It’s pretty easy to set up a desktop system with most distros. I use Debian GNU/Linux because it has been around a while and has a huge repository of software. Let’s look at doing other kinds of things with your PC.

  • What’s the next big platform for Linux?

    Glyn Moody wonders whether the car – a currently undeveloped yet important platform with great potential – can provide the inspiration for the next generation of Linux coders.

  • Linux Format 168 On Sale Today – Linux vs Windows 8: The verdict
  • How to Get a Linux (Related) Job

    Working in Information Technology over the last twenty years (and the last ten or so as a senior engineer or team lead in various organizations) has exposed me to a lot of resumes over that time. Over the last five years, one of the more common questions I am asked is “how can I get a Linux related job?”. I will attempt to address that in this space.

    The most important thing to remember is that your quest for a Linux position at any organization is really no different than applying for any other I.T. position. Once you have identified the company and the posting (and a great place to get an idea of who is looking for Linux talent and with what experience, is The Linux Foundation), you need to focus on the attributes and experience you have that are directly applicable to the position you want. Your resume should then be tailored to highlight that experience throughout your career as much as possible.

  • GNU/Linux Inside
  • February 2013 Issue of Linux Journal: System Administration
  • With Open Arms, AccuPOS Embraces the Linux Platform

    As advocates press for more freedom of speech and more open platforms in general, AccuPOS’ POS software is already ahead of the game. Gone are the days of inaccessibility and clandestine operations; the most progressive POS software is now available on the Linux operating system.

  • Desktop

  • Server

  • Kernel Space

  • Applications

  • Desktop Environments/WMs

    • Just 12 More Years to Go: Enlightenment 18 Begins

      E17, “the only software which has taken longer to develop than Duke Nukem Forever,” was released little over a month ago, but today brought clues and news that the reign of E18 has begun. It actually began weeks ago because a new snapshot was released today, as well as an update to E17.

    • New E17 Stable Snapshot and the First of E18

      You read that title right folks. The first showing of Enlightenment DR18 (or E18 for short) has become a reality. Sure, it is nowhere near what the final product is going to look like – but it is a start. If you would like to follow the life cycle of E18 as it develops there is a new release manager blog that can be found here.

    • K Desktop Environment/KDE SC/Qt

      • # Plasma Active 4
      • Desktop Containment moving to Plasma Quick

        As many other components of the Plasma Workspaces, Plasma Desktop’s default Containment is being ported to QML. A technology preview of the containment is being demoed and can be tested by a wider audience now. While the port is mainly replicating the current desktop containment in QML, its interaction scheme to position and manipulate widgets on the desktop has been improved.

      • KTouch fun
      • First Patch Release Of Qt 5.0

        Digia has released Qt 5.0.1, the first patch release of Qt 5. This version brings more than 400 entries in changelog from Qt 5.0.0 to Qt 5.0.1. The most important changes are made to 3 packages – qtbase, qtdeclartive, and qtmultimedia.

      • KDE plans to merge Plasma desktops

        Developers at KDE are planning to merge the code for their Plasma Desktop, Plasma Netbook and Plasma Active user interfaces in the not-too-distant future, according to a blog post by Aaron Seigo. As he explains, individual programs are currently responsible for each shell; their sources, however, consist of just three to ten thousand lines of code, since they otherwise make use of a common code base.

      • ITTIA DB SQL Leverages New Features of Qt 5.0

        Bellevue, WA — The ITTIA DB SQL Qt driver is now compatible with Qt 5.0.0, a major renovation of the popular application development framework. The integration of these technologies allows software developers for embedded systems and devices to take advantage of flexible embedded data management software and an elegant GUI framework. Features such as replication, data distribution, concurrency, logging, and change notification offer applications a unique competitive edge and enable rapid development of user-friendly data-driven applications with a level of performance that is only possible in native code.

      • QtWeb: Not Quite Ready For Full Time Browsing

    • GNOME Desktop/GTK

  • Distributions

    • New Releases

    • Screenshots

    • PCLinuxOS/Mageia/Mandrake/Mandriva Family

    • Red Hat Family

      • Support for RHEL 3 ends one year from … now!

        Red Hat has let it be known that by this time next year it will wash its hands of the third version of its Enterprise Linux.

      • Propaganda, Red Hat-style

        Does opensource.com tell both sides of the story? The short answer is no.

        If someone had reasoned criticism of Red Hat or anything to do with free software or open source, would that be published? Again, the answer is no.

        In September last year, I wrote to Red Hat with some queries about the site. Though I received a reply from one Emily Stancil, promising answers to my questions, nothing arrived.

        Ms Stancil then wrote to say: “I appreciate you reaching out. Unfortunately, since we’re in our quiet period leading into our earnings call next week – we’re not going to be able to provide feedback at this time. Please keep us posted if we can help in the future.”

        To me this meant that Red Hat did not want what could be not-so-positive publicity in the run-up to its big day in the sun.

        Earlier this month, I renewed my correspondence with Ms Stancil. This time, after a week, she sent me replies to my queries from Jackie Yeaney, executive vice president, strategy and corporate marketing, Red Hat. I reproduce them verbatim below:

      • Fedora

        • Kororaa 18 beta progressing well, final touches

          It shouldn’t be long now, firnsy and I are busy fixing the few remaining bugs (that we know about) and then we’ll be releasing it after some final testing. So far, so good. I’ll also be looking into a way to use FedUp to upgrade, but haven’t had time to test that yet. Our primary mirror is also currently down, so that’s causing a few issues.

        • Fedora 18 Gnome 3.6 Desktop Review
        • Fedora To Look At Reviving Apache OpenOffice

          Most Linux distributions have switched over to using LibreOffice in recent years for an office productivity suite on the Linux desktop after disturbances resulting in LibreOffice being forked from OpenOffice.org following Oracle’s acquisition of Sun Microsystems. While Fedora is one of the distributions that has been living with LibreOffice, OpenOffice may come back as an option in Fedora 19.

        • Fedora 19: MariaDB instead of MySQL, but no Btrfs

    • Debian Family

      • Bootstrappable Debian – New Milestone

        This post is about the port bootstrap build ordering tool (naming suggestions welcome) which was started as a Debian Google Summer of Code project in 2012 and continued to be developed afterwards. Sources are available through gitorious.

        In the end of November 2012, I managed to put down an approximation algorithm to the feedback arc set problem which allowed to break the dependency graph into a directed acyclic graph with only few removed build dependencies. I wrote about this effort on our mailinglist but didnt mention it here because it was still too much of a proof-of-concept. Later, in January 2013, I mentioned the result of this algorithm in an email wookey and me wrote to debian-devel mailinglist.

      • Derivatives

        • Canonical/Ubuntu

          • Ubuntu Smart Scopes

            A new feature of Ubuntu was discussed today (which is like an announcement but without overhyping it), it is called Smart Scopes and is documented here https://wiki.ubuntu.com/SmartScopes1304Spec go read that first and then I have a video for you to watch.

          • Ubuntu’s rolling release: Pros and cons

            According to Canonical’s Kernel Team Manager, Leann Ogasawara, it is possible that Ubuntu will get rid of the current “new release every six months” model and move to a rolling release. (You can find more info in this recent video.)

            So, just what is a “rolling release”?

            It’s exactly what it sounds like, really. As individual new/updated packages are ready, they are put up on a repository and made available to everyone. New version of Firefox? No need to wait until the next big release of your operating system…you get it right away. New improvements to the Desktop Environment (such as Ubuntu’s Unity)? BAM! No waiting until next April. Immediately available.

          • 5 Ubuntu alternatives worth checking out

            Linux is a free and open-source desktop operating system, and is recognized as the third most popular desktop operating system in the world. Unlike OS X or Windows, there are many different versions — called distributions (or distros) — that all fall under the “Linux” umbrella. Among the many flavors of Linux, the Debian Linux-based Ubuntu is the distro that tends to receive the majority of mainstream attention. Interestingly, according to the ever-popular DistroWatch, much as Ubuntu has surpassed Debian in popularity, Ubuntu has been overthrown by its own forked distribution: Linux Mint.

          • Ubuntu’s challenge to Android
            and iOS

            THE world’s most famous and popular Linux operating system is making news with their claims to have come up with a smartphone version which it hopes will give Google and Apple a run for their money.

            Recently, during the Consumer Electronic Show in Las Vegas, Canonical, the company behind the Linux-based open source operating system, flagged off its intentions to challenge the might of Android and iOS with a brand new smartphone version which makes better use of gesture control and also enables a handset to double up as a PC when docked.

          • Flavours and Variants

            • Linux Achieves Bodhi Enlightenment

              Until recently, most desktop Linux distros were about the same on the surface. What differentiated them were things like configurability. Some distros, those preferred by Linux purists or designed primarily to be used as servers, required users to open a terminal and change settings with a text editor. Others sought to be newbie friendly, and had devised schemes so that most systems settings could be done point and click, just like with that evil operating system from Redmond.

            • Have some fun with Deepin 12.12 alpha

              Linux Deepin is one of my favorite desktop distributions. A Chinese distro that is based on Ubuntu Desktop, it is not just a rebranded Ubuntu desktop, but offers a desktop computing experience different from that of its parent distribution.

              Its graphical package manager, music and video players, and a cool screen shot tool, are original to it. While previous editions offered a customized GNOME Shell desktop, the next edition, Linux Deepin 12.12, will ship with a new desktop environment called Depth Desktop Environment (DDE). And the graphical package manager, music and video players, and the screen shot have been spiced up. From what I’ve seen, Deepin fans will be very pleased with DDE and everything else that comes with it.

  • Devices/Embedded

    • Raspberry Pi’s Momentum Picks Up, and Google Pitches In
    • Raspberry Pi Foundation receives Google grant for Schools

    • Phones

      • Ballnux

      • Android

        • Five great Android Wi-Fi calling apps

          There are many reasons to enjoy Wi-Fi calling, from starting video chats with family far and wide, to giving your old phone a new lease on life as a Wi-Fi-only device in little Johnny’s hands. However you want to use it, you still need to know which apps are best.

        • Android’s (quiet) killer feature

          It’s no secret that Android has lots of good stuff going for it, but one of the platform’s most useful and distinguishing features is one you rarely hear discussed.

          I’m talking about Android’s system-wide sharing capability — a process built into the operating system that many people take for granted. Android’s sharing function may not sound exciting, but don’t be fooled: It’s one of the most powerful and valuable components the OS has to offer.

        • Sony C530X ‘HuaShan’ smartphone leaks

          Sony’s Xperia Z and Xperia ZL are so far the most interesting Android handsets of the year, but the Japanese company seems to also be working on yet-to-be-announced handsets, such as the C530X, also known as the “HuaShan”.

    • Sub-notebooks/Tablets

      • Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 7.0 Review

        There are tablets and seven-inch tablets and portable devices that wear their Android affiliation on their sleeve, but Samsung has gone and combined the best of all that has come before and pushed it someplace decidedly newer and better with their new Samsung Galaxy Tab 2. As the name will tell, the two models in this line represent a second generation of Samsung’s popular Galaxy Tab, and the 7.0 iteration we tried affirms the evolution away from the ten-inch range and toward a more compact, increasingly common seven-inch screen size that is more affordable and generally easier to handle. (For those who prefer the larger form factor, Samsung does also offer a 10.1-inch second-gen model.)

      • Tablets Mature

        After a year or two of 100% per annum growth we are about where tablets are mature technology.

Free Software/Open Source

  • 10 open source projects to watch this year

    Open source software projects may not typically have the marketing budgets necessary to match launch events like the one Microsoft just held for Office 2013, but that doesn’t mean their products are any less valuable.

  • Opensource.com adds community moderators to team
  • Opengear Expands Open Source Remote Management

    In an age where Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL) is the dominant tech company and proprietary smartphones and tablets account for an ever-growing segment of the market, it can be easy to forget that not all hardware is built on closed standards. Opengear, however, reminded the channel recently that open hardware platforms can be profitable as well with the announcement of two significant achievements in the remote-management market.

    When we last checked in with Opengear, which delivers solutions for remotely accessing and managing IT infrastructure that are built using open source technology, it was making inroads in the security space. Its newest product release, Opengear Lighthouse version 4, continues the company’s focus on security professionals, among others, while also introducing new features designed to enhance the scalability and usability of the platform.

  • How Does Your Workplace Use Open Source Software?

    Earlier this week I wrote about open source pragmatism and how even at an event like Linux.conf.au, there’s less evidence of one-sided tech zealotry than you might expect. Now I’m wondering: how does that actually play out in the workplaces of Lifehacker readers?

  • Web Browsers

    • Chrome

      • Google Makes Chrome OS Launcher More Customizable

        The way Google’s Chrome OS is shaping up is brining it closer to what one would expect from a ‘desktop OS’. Google has just made the launcher of it’s Chrome OS movable. Now, you can place the launcher on either edge of the screen – right, left, top or the default bottom.

    • Mozilla

      • At Mobile World Congress, Expect Firefox OS Phones

        Mobile World Congress–one of the biggest events showcasing mobile devices and platforms and applications for them–is coming up in February, and among the sights and sounds slated for the event, you can expect Firefox OS phones. Among several previews of the conference, Computerworld notes that Chinese phone maker ZTE wil deliver a Firefox OS phone in Barcelona, even as TelefA3nica and Geeksphone are also preparing phones. It looks like these Firefox OS phones will end up serving larger markets than the niche ones that Mozilla initially discussed.

        Notably, Mobile World Congress 2009 was expected to be the big rollout for the first group of phones based on Android. As we noted in this post, the phones didn’t show up there, which caused a lot of confusion.

      • Accepting drones admission of US aggression: Saeed

  • SaaS/Big Data

  • Databases

    • Oracle who? Fedora & openSUSE will replace MySQL with MariaDB

      For years, MySQL has been fundamental to many server applications, especially those using the LAMP (Linux, Apache, MySQL, Perl/PHP/Python) software stack. Those days may be ending. Both Fedora (Red Hat’s community Linux) and openSUSE (SUSE’s community Linux) will be switching out MySQL to MariaDB for their default database management system (DBMS) in their next releases.

  • Oracle/Java/LibreOffice

    • Why I contribute my changes to Libreoffice and won’t re-license them to a non-copyleft license?

      So after reading several times on another mailing list that Libreoffice developers should relicense their patches to make them available to other descendents in the OpenOffice.org ecosystem I’m indirectly responding in this blog post and explaining why I contribute to the Libreoffice project and license my changes only as LGPLv3+/MPL. This reflects of course only my personal opinion.

    • A good week

      It’s been a good and busy week so far, and it’s not over yet with FOSDEM starting in Brussels on Saturday. It started with something I’m quite excited about: I got elected at the Board of Silicon Sentier. Silicon Sentier is the Parisian hub of innovation, collaboration and start-up incubation. Among other initiatives, it runs La Cantine , one of the most famous co-working spaces in the world located in the heart of Paris and Le Camping, the Parisian start-up incubator located in the old stock-exchange building. I feel it’s a true honour , a mark of trust and I look foward to the future discussions and actions of the board with excitement.

    • LibreOffice 3.6.5 Finishes off 3.6

      Today The Document Foundation announced the release of their final 3.6 update, LibreOffice 3.6.5. “This new release is another step forward in the process of improving the overall quality and stability of LibreOffice, and facilitating the migration process to free software.”

    • LibreOffice 3.6.5 arrives ahead of FOSDEM

  • Education

  • Business

  • Funding

    • EZ-EV Open Source Trike Kit Seeks Funding

      An electrical engineer by trade, Krysztopik built his three-wheeled hot rod in-between other gas-to-electric conversions like a Porsche Carrera and a Volkswagen New Beetle. His EZ-EV uses 24 deep-cycle lead-acid batteries powering a MES-DEA 200-250 AC electric motor that can take it up to 100 miles, with a top speed of 60 mph. Krysztopik, who lives in San Antonio, Texas, also plans on release open-source plans and kits, so people can make their own designs based on his work.

    • Help Fund “Producing Open Source Software” 2nd Edition

  • Project Releases

  • Public Services/Government

    • Polish Defence Ministry moving to open source email and groupware

      Poland’s Defence Ministry will move to an email and groupware solution based on free and open source, according to the specification in the tender documents, published last November. The document calls for software that can handle between 15,000 and 50,000 users. The ministry wants to “eliminate licensing fees”, it explains in the request for tender.

    • Danish municipalities using open source to innovate and collaborate

      Danish municipalities are increasingly using free and open source software for collaboration and innovation of ICT solutions. More than 10% of the country’s municipalities last year joined the newly founded Open Website Community OS2. The group has already delivered a Drupal-based municipal content management system (OS2Web) as well as an application offering paperless meetings (OS2dagsorden).

      The twelve municipalities in the OS2 consortium are supported by 19 Danish open source service providers. The group in December started the development of the two next applications, OS2kontactcenter and OS2kle, says Jon Badstue Pedersen, head of section at the Syddjurs municipality.

    • Army C4ISR portal uses open-source software for faster upgrades

      The Army has upgraded its Single Interface to the Field (SIF) web portal using open-source software to make it easier for users to find information and documents.

    • Japan economy ministry launches data site under Creative Commons license

      Japan’s conservative economy ministry has launched a new site that offers its data for download under a Creative Commons license.

      The Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry’s “Open DATA METI” project has gone public under what the government is calling a trial beta version, currently available only in Japanese. The website currently offers data on Japan’s energy use, industrial manufacturing, and intellectual property, as well as government white papers on topics such as small and medium businesses.

  • Licensing

    • VLC Multimedia Player Shows Changing Open Source License Is Hard, But Possible

      Licenses lie at the heart of open source — and many other kinds of “open” too. That’s because they are used to define the rights of users, and to ensure those rights are passed on — that the intellectual commons is not enclosed. Their central importance explains in part the flamewars that erupt periodically over which license is “best” — many people have very strong feelings on the subject.

  • Openness/Sharing

    • Open source initiatives can strengthen cities’ downtown revitalization

      The open government movement in the United States is well underway, though still brand new in terms relative to the pace of the workings of government. Change tends to be delivered slowly, as evident during President Obama’s re-election campaign this year when many of us had to remind ourselves that though some change has trickled down over the past four years, much of it has yet to come to pass due to the inherent processes of government bodies. And yet, it still astonishes me how quickly ‘open’ ideas are being accepted, built, and implemented into city governments from east to west coast.

    • To honor Aaron Swartz‘s transparency fight, supporters submit over 150 public records requests

      MuckRock has begun processing 153 free FOIA requests submitted in honor of Internet pioneer and transparency activist Aaron Swartz, who died earlier this month at age 26.

    • How Aaron Swartz paved way for Jack Andraka’s revolutionary cancer test
    • EU Court annuls EU freezing orders on Iranian bank – and Wikileaks again

      In October 2009, Bank Mellat, an Iranian bank, was effectively excluded from the UK financial market by an Order made by the Treasury, on the basis that it had or might provide banking services to those involved in Iran’s nuclear effort. The Bank challenged the Order, and the challenge failed in the Court of Appeal, albeit with a dissent from Elias LJ: see Rosalind English’s post and read judgment. The Bank’s appeal to the Supreme Court is due to be heard in March 2013; it raises some fascinating issues about common law unfairness, Article 6, and the right to property under A1P1 , given that the Bank was not told of the intention to make the Order prior to its making.

    • ‘Github for recipes’ brings open source into the kitchen

    • Open Access/Content

      • Checking out open access

        Montreal, January 20, 2013 – From Wikipedia to shareware, the Internet has made information and software more widely available than ever. At the heart of this explosion is the simple idea that information should be open and free for anyone. Yet with publishers charging exorbitant fees for subscriptions to academic journals, university libraries are struggling to keep up.

    • Open Hardware

      • The State of Free Hardware for Robotics

        FreeIO.org is currently running a poll to determine what sort of free hardware project the community would most like to see developed. At present the poll is leaning heavily towards robots. So I thought it would be worthwhile to do a quick survey of existing free/open hardware robot projects to see what there is to work with and improve on. There are a lot of FLOSS (Free/Libre Open Source Software) robotics projects out there too but this article will focus on hardware projects that are under free hardware licenses. See the FreeIO.org “about page” to learn more about the concepts of free / open hardware.

  • Programming

    • Linux Foundation Gits Growth

      This week, development firm Perforce joined the Linux Foundation which is of interest for a number of reasons. Perforce build enterprise-grade Git version management software solutions via the Git Fusion solution. For years, I’ve been told by ‘other’ enterprise development firms that Git is all fine and nice but it’s not for enterprise developers (yeaah I know,FUD!).

    • This Old (Open Source) House: Man Renovates Home on GitHub

      When Mark Wainwright visited his friend Francis Irving in Liverpool last May, he nearly locked himself in his small guest room just beneath the attic. The door was missing a knob, but it could still latch shut. Wainwright, a community coordinator with a U.K. non-profit group, wanted to let his host know about the problem. So he filed a bug report on GitHub.

      “The almost-attic room has no handle on the door,” Wainwright wrote. “It would be simple to add a handle and would prevent someone getting locked in the room – quite easy at the moment as the sprung latch is working fine.”

    • Open Source PHP Usage Tops 244 Million Sites

      When I first started building websites in the late 90′s, PHP was my tool of choice. Though many things have change on the web since then, PHP’s popularity has not changed, it has grown.

      A new report from Netcraft puts the current tally as of January 2013 for PHP sites on the web at a staggering 244 million sites. In context that’s nearly 40 percent of the 630 million total sites on the web today.

    • Rubygems site recovers from compromise

      The volunteers that run the Rubygems.org repository of components for Ruby applications are checking those components to ensure they haven’t been tampered with after the platform was compromised. Attackers uploaded a gem to the site which had a metadata file that used the Rails YAML flaws to copy initialisation and configuration information to the Pastie clippings site.

Leftovers

  • WikiMedia Foundation Releases GeoData For Geotagging Wikipedia

    The WikiMedia Foundation has added a new extension to MediaWiki, the foundation for Wikipedia, that adds geographic data for individual wiki articles. Aimed primarily at mobile users, GeoData will make finding information about your present location easy and fun.

  • Security

  • Defence/Police/Secrecy/Aggression

  • Cablegate

    • HP’s first Chromebook revealed in leaked spec sheet

      Update: HP responded to our request with a simple “no comment,” but we also noticed that the PDF has an Ad Embargo date of February 17th of this year — we expect we’ll hear the full story right around then.

    • The Game of Drones: Sahel edition
    • With Assange in Diplomatic Limbo, Sweden in No Rush to Press Rape Charges
    • Video: Watch Julian Assange’s address to the Oxford Union

      WIKILEAKS founder Julian Assange’s address to the Oxford Union is now viewable on the video below.

      The Union last month invited Mr Assange to speak during the Sam Adams Award ceremony that recognsies people who show devotion to the truth.

    • The New Fourth Estate: Anonymous, Wikileaks, and –archy

      As government and industry collude, the interests of the powerful trample the rights of the multitude. Technology has granted invasive new eyes and ears to government agencies, spurning the right to privacy. Felicitously, the individual has also been empowered with two new tools to check the corporate state: hacktivism and leaks. The press has been captured by a handful of news corporations that are generally uncritical of government and fail to expose corporate injustice. The techno-libertarian culture has birthed the do-it-yourself fourth estate—usurping the illegitimate media and furnishing a viable alternative to the cartelized press. Two entities, Wikileaks and Anonymous, have emerged under this banner. This inquiry seeks to understand their history, methods, and to ascertain whether use of the discrete figurehead is efficacious.

    • Postcards from Sweden

      “Assange has been hiding in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London since June 2012 to avoid extradition to Sweden where he is accused of sex crimes.”

      “Hiding”! A man holding speeches from the Embassy’s balcony, covered by media all around the world! “Accused”! To anybody’s knowledge he is not officially accused of anything; he is absurdly suspected for “sex crimes” against consenting women and wanted for interrogation by a prosecutor.

    • FBI Came to Investigate Wikileaks in Iceland

      ..as revealed by Wikileaks spokesperson Kristinn Hrafnsson on RÚV’s news magazine Kastljós…

    • Minister: Iceland refused to help FBI on WikiLeaks
    • FBI Banned from Iceland

      FBI agents landed in Reykjavík without prior notification in an attempt to investigate WikiLeaks operations in the country, but Home Secretary Ögmundur Jónasson found out about the visit and forced them to leave the country, with the Icelandic government then issuing a formal protest to US authorities, according to Islandsbloggen.

    • Minister: Iceland refused FBI aid over WikiLeaks investigation in 2011

      Iceland’s interior minister says he ordered the country’s national police not to cooperate with FBI agents sent to investigate secret-busting site WikiLeaks and that it escalated into a diplomatic spat.

      Ogmundur Jonasson told The Associated Press that the FBI agents were sent to the country to interview an unidentified WikiLeaks associate in August of 2011.

    • Saluting Bradley Manning

      I am in Berkeley, California, for an event tonight sponsored by KPFA Radio & Courage to Resist called, “Saluting Bradley Manning.” I’ll be speaking with Daniel Ellsberg and Patricia Ellsberg.

    • Update 1/21/13: Defense mounts over-classification defense, Daniel Ellsberg & Kevin Gosztola to speak in Berkeley
    • Lies, Damned Lies, and Newspaper Reporting

      But really, Ms Hill – if you are indeed the same reporter who was threatened with prosecution in 2011 under the OSA – examine your conscience.

      How can you write a hit-piece focusing purely on Assange – a man who has designed a publishing system to protect potential whistleblowers from precisely such draconian secrecy laws as you were hyperbolically threatened with? And how could you, at the same time, airbrush out of history the testimony of so many whistleblowers gathered together, many of whom have indeed been arrested and have faced prosecution under the terms of the OSA or US secrecy legislation?

    • Meteorology class uses UN studies to guide classroom discussions

      Students and professors find the reports online after they have been leaked, then use them to guide the class, Richman said. Sometimes, students are able to get their hands on Wikileaks-type information, or information that hasn’t yet been given to the public, to further their understanding of the issue.

    • WikiLeaks documents used in courts: The case of the Iranian bank
    • Prosecuting Whistleblowers Instead of Criminals

      Long the disclaimer of those bearing bad news, the phrase “don’t shoot the messenger” may soon become a rallying cry of the American public.

    • Assange’s allies

      If the Guardian could “find no allies” of Julian Assange (Report, 24 January), it did not look very hard. They could be found among the appreciative audience at the Oxford Union, and in our group seated at the front: the Sam Adams Associates for Integrity in Intelligence.

    • Assange’s running for office may affect his asylum claims
    • Ecuador Seeking Legal Way To Free Assange

      While he did not go into specifics about what legal steps would be taken, Patino quoted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which allows individuals to be granted asylum, and several other international treaties, indicating the issue may be brought up at the United Nations or the Hague.

    • DOJ Tells Judge WikiLeaks Investigation Details Should Remain Secret

      The U.S. Justice Department today urged a judge in Washington to allow the government to keep secret internal documents and correspondence that would reveal investigative techniques, confidential sources and potential targets of the ongoing WikiLeaks criminal investigation.

    • Defense mounts over-classification defense, Daniel Ellsberg to speak in Berkeley

      Daniel and Patricia Ellsberg, Kevin Goztola, will be speaking about Bradley Manning in Berkeley on January 31st.Kevin Gosztola reports that the government is now attempting to block discussion of materials being inappropriately classified. The government argues that overclassification of documents has no relevance to the charges.

    • Report: FBI Agents Flew to Iceland to Investigate WikiLeaks
    • Iceland Kicked Out FBI Agents Who Flew in Unannounced to Investigate WikiLeaks Operations in the Country

      According to the RUV, the Icelandic National Broadcasting Service, FBI agents landed in Reykjavík in August 2011 without prior notification in an attempt to investigate WikiLeaks operations within the country. However, their plan was interupted when Home Secretary Ögmundur Jónasson learned about the FBI’s visit and sent them packing. The Icelandic government then formally protested the FBI’s activities with U.S. authorities.

  • Environment/Energy/Wildlife

    • Chinese Millionaire Fights Pollution with Fresh Air in a Can

      A Chinese tycoon has taken it upon himself to fight China’s air-pollution problem with a tongue-in-cheek campaign: soda-pop-size cans of fresh air.

      Chen Guangbiao, a Chinese entrepreneur and philanthropist, has launched a line of fresh-air soft-drink cans that retail for about 80¢ and come in a variety of “flavors,” including, according to the Huffington Post, “pristine Tibet” and “post-industrial Taiwan.”

  • Finance

    • Former UK tax chief who ‘lied to MPs’ to advise HSBC bank about honesty

      Sensitive: The controversial appointment had to be rubber-stamped by the Prime Minister David Cameron

      Sensitive: The controversial appointment had to be rubber-stamped by the Prime Minister David Cameron

      Britain’s top taxman – who stepped down after he was accused by MPs of lying – has been hired by HSBC to advise it on honesty, it emerged last night.

    • Spanish prime minister Rajoy accused of hiding secret income

      Mariano Rajoy’s government reeling from claims that he received €250,000 in money that had been hidden from tax authorities

    • Corporate America has Messed with the Wrong People
    • It’s Good to Be a Goldman

      Here’s a get-out-of-jail-free card, and while we’re at it, take this obscenely huge bonus for having wrecked the economy. As the inspector general for the Troubled Asset Relief Program pointed out in a devastating report this week, “excessive” compensation was approved by the Treasury Department for the executives of the three companies that required the largest taxpayer bailouts to survive.

      In a stinging rebuke of Timothy Geithner’s Treasury Department, the report “found that once again, in 2012, Treasury failed to rein in excessive pay.” Whopping pay packages of $5 million or more were allowed by the Treasury Department for a quarter of the top executives at AIG, General Motors and Ally Financial, the former financial arm of GM.

      But that’s nothing compared with the $21 million for last year’s work garnered by Lloyd Blankfein, CEO of Goldman Sachs, which is now free of TARP supervision. In addition to his paltry $2 million in salary, Blankfein received a $19 million bonus for his efforts. Not quite the $67.9 million bonus he got in 2007 before the market crash that his firm did so much to engineer, but times are still hard.

  • Censorship

  • Privacy

  • Civil Rights

    • Multinational miners: magnanimous or malevolent?

      Human Rights Watch recommends implementing legal frameworks, such as a local independent ombudsman, that allow government institutions to monitor the human rights performance of domestic companies when they operate abroad in areas that carry serious human rights risks; to take steps to regulate the human rights conduct of domestic companies operating abroad in complex environments, such as requiring companies to carry out human rights due diligence activity, and to communicate an expectation to the government of Eritrea that companies investing in the mining sector there should be able to implement the outlined recommendations.

    • Washington state’s anti-NDAA bill introduced with viral support

      The “Washington State Preservation of Liberty Act” introduced on Wednesday condemns and criminalizes the use of the 2013 NDAA’s provision purportedly authorizing the indefinite detainment of U.S. citizens.

      After news of H.B. 1581′s introduction caught wind, an Internet campaign went viral asking activists to contact their Washington state representatives to co-sponsor the legislation.

      It worked.

      In less than 24 hours the number of the bill’s co-sponsors tripled.

      Many believe the bill’s success hinges on bipartisanship. While only one of the original sponsors of the bill is a Democrat, Rep. Sharon Tomiko Santos, eight of the later co-sponsors are also House Democrats, making for a fairly even split of nine to 12.

    • Tactical Chat: How the U.S. Military Uses IRC to Wage War

  • Internet/Net Neutrality

    • Google Decides Smartphone Market Share Is More Important Than Net Neutrality

      As a recent post noted, net neutrality is under threat in France, with ISPs like Free asking Google to pay extra for delivery of its traffic. According to this post on the Forbes Web site, Google has already agreed to pay the French telecoms company Orange in precisely this way. As well as damaging the whole principle of net neutrality, something that Google has been championing for many years, this would seem to be a pretty bad business decision. After all, if Orange is now getting paid to carry Google’s traffic, why shouldn’t every other telecom company out there also receive money for delivering Google’s services?

  • Intellectual Monopolies

    • French National Library Privatizes Public Domain Materials

      Copyright is sometimes described as a bargain between two parties: creators and their public. In return for receiving a government-backed monopoly on making copies, creators promise to place their works in the public domain at the end of the copyright term. The problem with that narrative is that time and again, the public is cheated out of what it is due.

    • Don’t Put a Fork in It: On the Perils of Genetically Engineered Salmon

      While most Americans were enjoying the holiday season or stressing out over the nation’s imminent leap off the so-called fiscal cliff, the Food and Drug Administration delivered some big news as quietly as possible.Fishy Genes.

      On December 21, the agency announced that AquaBounty’s genetically engineered salmon had cleared the final hurdle before clinching FDA approval.

    • Copyrights

      • NZ Copyright Tribunal: Accusations Are Presumed Infringement, Despite Denials

        A few weeks ago, we noted that the first “three strikes” case of infringement in New Zealand was set to go to the Copyright Tribunal (an earlier case was dropped after the recording industry (RIANZ) realized it had screwed up). The Tribunal has now issued its first ruling, demanding that the accused pay a grand total of $616.57 NZ (about $515 US). The person was accused of downloading and sharing Rihanna’s Man Down twice, and Hot Chelle Rae’s Tonight Tonight once. The tribunal noted that the first song retailed for $2.39 and the latter at $1.79, so it doubled the first one, and started with $6.57 (all NZ dollars). Then it added $50 to pay for infringement notices being sent out. Another $200 covers the fee that RIANZ paid to bring the case, and then it tacked on a “deterrent sum” of $360 — or $120 per song. Add it all up and you’ve got $616.57.

      • HAVE YOU COMMITTED THE CRIME OF OUTSMARTING?

        Because of the tragic and untimely death of Aaron Swartz, who committed suicide while awaiting trial on charges he violated the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA) by mass downloading academic journal articles, we have an opportunity to amend the CFAA, a federal law that interferes with important and socially beneficial computer security research. We want to revise the CFAA to decriminalize the computer security profession.

      • House puts Spotify on mute

        Spotify apparently hit a wrong note with the House’s Internet overlords, who recently blocked the chamber’s Web users from listening to the famed music-streaming service.

        While Spotify isn’t a peer-to-peer program along the lines of Napster, its inner workings appear subject to the longstanding ban on so-called P2P technology — a blockade lawmakers erected to thwart illegal file-sharing and prevent downloads from infecting computers with malware.

      • Hollywood Lobby Applauds Spain’s Copyright Law

        At a time when news about Spain tends to be pretty bad, the head of the Hollywood lobby came to Madrid to say the country is doing something right–when it comes to efforts to stop illegal file-sharing.

      • Music pirates: $250k reaps $616.57

        Rianz says it has sent out around 6000 notices to alleged pirates, for which the music industry body must pay a $25 fee each for internet companies to send on to their customers.

01.30.13

Links 30/1/2013: Android Market Share at 70%

Posted in News Roundup at 8:57 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

GNOME bluefish

Contents

GNU/Linux

  • Professional Audio Production on Linux

    And now we come to my favorite part of this series, high-end Linux audio production. Linux is a superior platform for professional audio production: stable, efficient, and you don’t get gouged for software licenses. You have to be careful to select audio hardware that is well-supported on Linux, but this is less of a problem than it used to be. Look for USB audio interfaces that don’t need custom proprietary drivers, but stick to the USB spec like they’re supposed to. The hardy FFADO developers toil away developing and improving drivers for Firewire audio interfaces. No, Firewire is not dead, and you can easily add a Firewire card to almost any PC if it doesn’t already have one. I use FFADO for my cherished old Saffire Pro 26 I/O, and neither have let me down.

  • HTG Explains: Why You Don’t Need an Antivirus On Linux (and When You Do)

    Believe it or not, there are antivirus programs targeted at desktop Linux users. If you have just switched to Linux and started looking for an antivirus solution, don’t bother – you do not need an antivirus program on Linux.

    There are some situations when running an antivirus on Linux makes sense, but the average Linux desktop isn’t one of them. You would only want an antivirus program to scan for Windows malware.

  • Desktop

    • Chromebooks on the Rise As Big Hardware Players Announce Devices

      When Google began promoting its Chrome OS platform a couple of years ago, there was lots of criticism. For one thing, Google hadn’t quite ironed out some of the “cloud-only” issues that the operating system imposes on users, many of whom are used to using local applications. Since then, of course, Chromebooks running the operating system have improved dramatically, and are now available at $200 price points that challenge the laptop status quo (a $199 example from Acer is shown here).

  • Server

    • SprezzOS: Linux On A Server In 120 Seconds

      Earlier this month I wrote about SprezzOS, a new Linux distribution where its developers boasted it’s the most robust, beautiful, and performant Linux. Well, SprezzOS is now out in the while. The developers are now boasting they can install a Linux server in 120 seconds with their operating system.

    • Cisco Brings Unified Access to Catalyst Switching

      For the most part, wired and wireless networks on the enterprise campus have been two separate entities controlled by different technologies. That’s about to change, thanks to a new suite of Unified Access technologies announced today by Cisco.

  • Kernel Space

    • QEMU 1.3.1 Brings In A Bunch Of Fixes

      The first (and only planned) point release to QEMU 1.3 is now available. The QEMU 1.3.1 release fixes just over two dozen bugs, including critical issues for OpenBSD guests.

    • Systemd Dreams Up New Feature, Makes It Like Cron

      Lennart Poettering and Kay Sievers at Red Hat hope to work on a handful of new systemd features as part of the Fedora 19 development cycle. One of the features includes work to make systemd have its own time-based job scheduler that’s similar in nature to cron.

    • A wait and see approach that worked

      Wilcox’s first kernel patch was submitted in 1997; he wanted to move some files from his Acorn Archimedes system to a Linux system and he couldn’t do it as the ISO format did not support the necessary extensions.

      The patch was accepted, after a few comments that he deems to be “on target” and his career was more or less decided.

      But things did not fall into place for a while; he was hired as a Java programmer by a bio-informatics start=-up after he graduated. Wilcox then got involved in porting Linux to the PA-RISC platform and he ended up getting hired by LinuxCare.

    • Perforce joins the Linux Foundation

      Enterprise management company Perforce has joined the Linux Foundation, the non-profit organisation dedicated to accelerating the growth of the Linux operating system.

      Perforce see its membership as part of its commitment to encourage collaborative software development on both sides of the firewall.

    • Perforce Joins Linux Foundation, Increases Commitment to Open Source Collaboration
    • KVM: Linux Virtualization That’s Halfway There

      While the KVN infrastructure is built into the Linux OS, you need a modern version of the Linux kernel to use this virtual machine. KVM requires machine extensions. The kernel component of KVM is included in mainline Linux as of version 2.6.20. Even if your Linux distro has the stuff inside, your hardware configuration might not be cooperating. Intel VT or AMD-V support could be disabled by default.

    • Toradex Announce Release of V2.0 Alpha1 Linux BSP for Colibri T30

      Toradex have announced the release of V2.0 Alpha1 Linux BSP for their Colibri T30 Computer on Module. This product is based on the NVIDIA Tegra 3 processor and ARM architecture.

    • Intel Begins Publishing Linux Patches For “Avoton”
    • Intel Still Tidying Up Linux Support For Haswell

      Intel will be introducing their Haswell processors in the coming months. If using the Linux 3.8 kernel, GCC 4.7/4.8, Mesa 9.1, and other recent open-source Linux packages, you should be mostly set for experiencing the full benefits of the Ivy Bridge successor. However, there’s still a few pieces of Haswell’s Linux support still being worked out.

    • Multi-Threading Cairo-Image For Better Performance

      In terms of Chris Wilson’s benchmark results when comparing the threaded cairo-image, UXA with the Intel driver, and his experimental SNA acceleration architecture for the Intel driver, he concludes, “For the cases that are almost entirely GPU bound (for example the firefox-fishbowl, -fishtank, -paintball, -particles), we have virtually eliminated all the previous advantage that the GPU held. In a notable couple of cases, we have improved the image backend to outperform SNA, and for all cases now the threaded image backend beats UXA. However, as can be seen there is still plenty of room for improvement of the image backend, and we can’t let the hardware acceleration be merely equal to a software rasteriser…”

    • Lennart Poettering Takes To Battling Systemd Myths

    • Graphics Stack

      • Running OpenCL On The GPU With Gallium3D

        With all of the recent improvements going into Mesa/Gallium3D, along with some work advancements to the AMD GPU LLVM back-end, it’s slowly becoming a suitable time for enthusiasts wishing to experiment with OpenCL on the open-source Linux graphics stack through Gallium3D and the “Clover” state tracker.

        OpenCL support in Gallium3D is still far from complete and not yet comparable to the proprietary OpenCL/GPGPU offerings bundled within the proprietary AMD and NVIDIA Linux graphics drivers. In reality, it will probably be at least another year before open-source OpenCL is in good shape for the Linux desktop. At this point, there’s just some simple OpenCL demos working for select graphics processors on Nouveau and Radeon.

      • Intel SNA Continues To Be Tweaked

        SNA, Intel’s newest acceleration architecture for their open-source X.Org graphics driver, continues to receive improvements on a near daily basis.

        Intel SNA is what most of the xf86-video-intel driver changes have been about since this 2D acceleration architecture was introduced back in 2011. SNA is the pet project of Chris Wilson at Intel’s Open-Source Technology Center and is the one responsible for a majority of the work.

      • Wayland/Weston 1.0.4 Released; Per-Output Workspaces

        Wayland 1.0.4 was released this week along with an adjoining update to its Weston reference compositor. Separately, a new patch-set has emerged for supporting per-output workspaces.

        The Wayland/Weston 1.0.4 release was a bit behind schedule due to Kristian Høgsberg being ill, but the point releases are out now for those interested. The main 1.0.4 change is for Weston and it’s to address a “CPU eating bug” within the compositor’s plane code. There’s also been a few documentation fixes. With Wayland 1.0.4, destroy signal APIs were added and a more robust version of the event loop test case.

      • Mesa 9.1 Release Reaffirmed For Late February

        Mesa 9.1 should be released by the end of February as the latest version of this bi-annual open-source OpenGL implementation that continues to slowly but surely pickup new functionality for most major graphics drivers.

      • VESA BIOS Extension DRM Kernel Driver Released

        David Herrmann, the open-source developer that has made it a personal crusade to kill the Linux kernel console and to replace it with a user-space solution, has published the code to a new DRM kernel mode-setting driver. This new kernel driver is a generic VESA BIOS Extension DRM implementation like the vesafb VESA frame-buffer driver.

    • Benchmarks

      • Fedora 18 vs. Ubuntu 12.10, Ubuntu 13.04 Benchmarks

        As the next chapter after the Fedora 17 vs. Fedora 18 benchmarks for the Red Hat sponsored Linux distribution, here are benchmarks comparing Fedora 18 to Ubuntu 12.10 and Ubuntu 13.04 on two separate PCs.

        The performance between the latest Fedora and Ubuntu Linux releases aren’t incredibly surprising with many of the key components being the same (or similar) versions, but nevertheless I ran a bunch of benchmarks on a Core i7 3770K “Ivy Bridge” and Core i7 3960X “Sandy Bridge” Extreme Edition system with Fedora 18, Ubuntu 12.10, and Ubuntu 13.04 using the 64-bit Linux releases. Benchmarks in full are on OpenBenchmarking.org.

      • A Number Of New & Updated Linux Benchmarks

        After yesterday writing about recent benchmarking improvements, including over a dozen new open-source benchmarks graciously provided by Intel and then ongoing improvements to the Phoronix Test Suite client, there’s more to talk about this morning for those interested in open-source benchmarking.

  • Applications

  • Desktop Environments/WMs

    • K Desktop Environment/KDE SC/Qt

      • Plasma.next()?

        Sebastian wrote a pair of blog entries in the last week about where we are heading with Plasma in the near future. The first was an overview of the pathway to Frameworks 5 and what we’re provisionally referring to as Plasma Workspaces 2. The second entry covered his work on making it possible to write widget layouts (aka Containments) in QML.

      • Kdenlive 0.9.4 Is Here

        Kdenlive, an advanced video editor for the KDE desktop has been updated to a new version. This version fixes bugs which made the software to crash, so all users are highly advised to install this release as soon as possible. Some other new features of this release has been summarized below:

        * A rewritten DVD wizard
        * Improved clip markers
        * Rewritten Screen Capture
        * Support for multiple streams clips
        * Clip analysis feature
        * Stability and Performance improvements
        * Over 124 bugs fixed

      • Kdenlive 0.9.4 information page

        The DVD Wizard was mostly rewritten, now allowing 16:9 menus. It now also autodetects the format of your videos and proposes a trandcoding if it is necessary. In fact, you can now drop any video in the Wizard and just click transcode to get it in the correct DVD format.

      • What’s Being Brewed For KDE’s Plasma Active

        Aaron Seigo wrote this morning about some of what’s happening next for KDE’s Plasma Active, which reveals some interesting future endeavours.

    • GNOME Desktop/GTK

      • Is GNOME’s Open Source Web Browser Ready for the Masses?

        From Internet Explorer (IE) to Firefox to Google Chrome, there’s no shortage of Web browsers to choose from these days–a luxury that can be easy to take for granted for those who have forgotten what things were a number of years ago, after Netscape collapsed and IE was the only game in town. But GNOME, the open source development community, thinks it can offer a better browser than these bigger-name alternatives in the form of Web, formerly known as Epiphany. Is it right?

      • Researching the GNOME3 experience: Question by Question

        The work that has happened ever since I wrote the last post, is actually the work which would take atleast 5 posts, but it has to start somewhere, so I am starting it off with this post.

      • GNOME 3: A new perspective

        GNOME 3: A desktop that brings a certain level of ire to the hearts and minds of many a Linux user. When this desktop first arrived, my opinion was fairly high. Why? It was new, fresh, and seemed like it could easily take the desktop world by storm. But then the developers stopped listening to the users and things seemed to fall apart.

      • Epiphany Web Browser may ditch tabs
      • Running in the office with Gnome!

  • Distributions

    • Slax 7.0 – Slax Is Back

      December 2012 saw the final release of Slax 7.0 after more than three years without an update, quickly followed by several bug-fix point releases. In 7.0.3 the ability to act as PXE server was re-introduced, which had been present in earlier versions but was missing from the early 7.0 branch. I tried it in VMware Player, VirtualBox, from Live CD as intended and installed to external USB connected to an Acer 5551 laptop with ATI graphics, 4 GB Ram and a Phenom II X3 processor.

    • New Releases

      • SparkyLinux 2.1 “Eris” Ultra Edition

        The system is built as all 2.x releases on Debian testing “Wheezy”.
        All packages have been synchronized with Debian testing repositories of 23/01/2013.
        It features customized ultra light and fast Openbox desktop.

      • Clonezilla 2.1.0-12
      • Linux Deepin 12.12
      • New Products

        ROSA Desktop 2012

        The fact that Russia’s ROSA Labs once collaborated with Mandriva is evident in the company’s latest release, ROSA Desktop 2012. Nevertheless, since breaking from Mandriva, ROSA Labs has forked the distro onto its own unique development path. ROSA Desktop 2012 is an LSB-compliant distro that features a customized KDE desktop. The free edition sports only free software; the Extended Edition includes nonfree components and proprietary software, such as codecs. ROSA Labs says that by developing ROSA Desktop 2012 with its own software development and build environment—ROSA ABF—the company is able to achieve unmatched technological independence, high quality and up to five years of technical support. Examples of new features include EFI/UEFI support, improved hardware detection and improved compatibility with Windows 8. Supported languages include English, French, German, Italian, Portuguese, Romanian, Russian, Spanish and Ukrainian.

      • Parted Magic 2013_01_29

    • Screenshots

    • PCLinuxOS/Mageia/Mandrake/Mandriva Family

    • Red Hat Family

    • Debian Family

  • Devices/Embedded

Free Software/Open Source

Leftovers

  • Ann Coulter Refuses to Board Airplane With Black Pilot

    Conservative commentator and author Ann Coulter refused to stay on board a Miami to New York commercial airline flight today after learning the pilot was a woman of African-American descent.

    According to witness reports Coulter was concerned the experienced, decorated pilot in question may have gained her position as a result of affirmative action and wasn’t fully qualified to fly.

  • Is Egypt on the Brink of Collapse? Sharif Abdel Kouddous Reports from Restive City of Port Said

    Ongoing mass protests have led the Egyptian government to declare a state of emergency and the country’s defense minister to warn of the potential “collapse of the state.”

  • the real wikipedia of maps

    In the wake of Google’s CEO Schmidt going to North Korea on an official visit, American media has been abuzz with stories. Yesterday, CNN carried a story about how Google Maps is expanding in North Korea thanks to “a community of citizen cartographers” (that is Google’s claim) allowing it work “in a similar way to Wikipedia, allowing users to add, edit and review information” (that is CNN’s take on it).

  • Security

    • Latest VLC version has dangerous hole

      The developers of the VLC video player have warned of a crashing bug in the latest 2.0.5 version of the application, which might be exploited to execute arbitrary code. The issue is a problem in the ASF demuxer (libasf_plugin.*), which can be tricked into overflowing a buffer with a specially crafted ASF movie. The developers note that users would have to open that specially crafted file to be vulnerable and advise users to not open files from untrusted third parties or untrusted sites.

    • Unseen, all-out cyber war on the U.S. has begun

      There’s a war going on, and it’s raging here at home — not in the streets or the fields, but on the Internet. You can think of it as a war on the digital homeland. If you work for a power company, bank, defense contractor, transportation provider, or other critical infrastructure type of operation, your organization might be in the direct line of fire. And everyone can become collateral damage.

    • Oracle: ‘We Have to Fix Java’
    • Disable This Buggy Feature On Your Router Now To Avoid A Serious Set Of Security Vulnerabilities.
    • Pentagon’s New Massive Expansion of ‘Cyber-Security’ Unit is About Everything Except Defense

      Cyber-threats are the new pretext to justify expansion of power and profit for the public-private National Security State

    • A Line Has Been Crossed: Anonymous Hacks DOJ

      Launching “Operation Last Resort,” Anonymous twice hacked the Justice Department’s Sentencing Commission this weekend to protest the death of Aaron Swartz and a legal system “wielded less and less to uphold justice, and more and more to exercise control (and) power.” The group threatened to release Justice Department data if the government fails to reform flawed cyber crime laws that allow almost unfettered prosecutorial power, and then turned the website into a videogame and Guy Fawkes mask proclaiming, “We do not forgive. We do not forget.”

  • Defence/Police/Secrecy/Aggression

  • Cablegate

    • Amelia Hill is a Dirty Liar

      The Guardian hit a new low in Amelia Hill’s report on Julian Assange’s appearance at the Oxford Union. Hill moved beyond propaganda to downright lies.

      [...]

      Just that hearty applause is sufficient to show that the entire thrust and argument of Amelia Hill’s article moves beyong distortion or misreprentation – in themselves dreadful sins in a journalist – and into the field of outright lies. Her entire piece is intended to give the impression that the event was a failure and the audience were hostile to Assange. That is completely untrue.

    • Step inside the Ecuadorian Embassy with Julian Assange

      It’s just been announced that WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange will run for a seat in the Australian Senate during this year’s elections. He is currently avoiding arrest by living in the Ecuadorian Embassy and a little while ago I photographed a note held by a police officer detailing the lengths they would go to in order to arrest him. Including what to do if he came out ‘in a diplomatic bag’… This photograph made news around the world because it appeared to show police would ignore any laws governing diplomatic immunity. What it didn’t do was shed any more light on the conditions inside the Embassy for Assange himself.

    • Ellsberg at Berkeley Salute to US Soldier Accused of Aiding WikiLeaks

      A “Salute to Bradley Manning,” the Army Pfc. accused of leaking classified documents to WikiLeaks, will be held in Berkeley Thursday with Daniel and Patricia Ellsberg and Kevin Gosztola, co-author of a book on the Manning case.

    • Assange confirms Senate run

      Julian Assange will run for a Senate seat in the 2013 federal election and his mum reckons he’ll be awesome.

      Christine Assange confirmed her son’s candidacy on Wednesday after WikiLeaks tweeted the news.
      “He will be awesome,” she said.

    • Julian Assange to run for Senate seat as his mother says he will be ‘awesome’

      WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange will run for a seat in the Australian Senate during this year’s elections, his organisation announced Wednesday, with his mother saying he would be “awesome” in the role.

    • Prosecuting Whistleblowers Instead of Criminals

      Long the disclaimer of those bearing bad news, the phrase “don’t shoot the messenger” may soon become a rallying cry of the American public.

      Under an ostensibly liberal, Democratic president, government prosecutors have ushered in a new era of targeting whistleblowers. Prosecuting those responsible for the wrongdoings, meanwhile, has been made no such priority. The recent sentencing of former CIA officer John Kiriakou represents the latest example in the crackdown on leaks to the media and public.

    • Stand Up for Julian Assange

      Last month, on December 13th, 2012, I visited Julian Assange, Australian founder and editor-in-chief of WikiLeaks, in the Ecuadorian embassy, in Knightsbridge, London.

      It’s been seven months now since Julian Assange entered the Ecuadorian embassy and was given political asylum.

      He entered the embassy after the British Courts shamefully refused his appeal against extradition to Sweden where he is wanted for questioning about sexual molestation (no criminal charges have been made against him). Julian Assange has said he is willing to answer questions in the U.K. relating to accusations against him, or alternatively, to go to Sweden, provided that the Swedish government guarantee he will not be extradited to the U.S. where plans are being made to try him for conspiracy to commit espionage. The Swedish Government refuses to give such assurances.

      [....]

      Mairead Corrigan Maguire won the 1976 Nobel Peace Prize for her work for peace in Northern Ireland. Her book,

    • Chagos cable chronology
    • Judge orders cross-examination of officials over WikiLeaks documents

      Unprecedented step in Chagos Islands case is first time one of the WikiLeaks cables has featured in a UK court case

    • The Guardian’s obsession with sullying the reputation of Julian Assange

      After Julian Assange gave a speech at the Oxford Union on January 23, 2012, The Guardian published an article criticizing his appearance, saying “he refused to be gracious”. At the time, video had not been uploaded of the event, so it was impossible to contradict The Guardian’s claims. Now that the Oxford Union has uploaded the full speech and Q&A session (albeit only after editing out footage of “Collateral Murder” due to copyright fears), The Guardian’s blatant smear tactics can be revealed.

    • Assange’s allies
    • Farewell to McClelland, a ministerial cipher for the security state

      But more than ASIO has changed. Between Murphy’s raids on ASIO in search of information about Croatian terrorism he believed the agency was hiding from him, and Robert McClelland expanding ASIO’s powers via the “WikiLeaks amendment”, something has changed in Labor’s relationship with the national security apparatus of the country.

    • FBI Investigation into Leaks & the Threat to Press Freedom (VIDEO)

  • Finance

  • PR/AstroTurf/Lobbying

    • Rupert Murdoch links sympathy for Palestinians to anti-Semitism. The truth is more complex

      In a futile bid to preempt the allegation that automatically follows an article of this nature, I begin with a clarification. It is lifted from the Curb Your Enthusiasm episode where a man in a cinema queue berates Larry David as “a self-hating Jew” for whistling an aria from Wagner. I certainly do hate myself, is Larry’s reply, but it has absolutely nothing to do with being a Jew.

      There was a time when a writer could address the spirited disputes sparked by World Holocaust Day in a tone sympathetic to the Palestinian cause without feeling the need to absolve himself of any form of anti-Semitism, though it feels like a distant age now. It is more than 10 years since the Labour MP Sir Gerald Kaufman, for decades as passionate a friend of Israel as parliament knew, was jostled at St John’s Wood synagogue, on Yom Kippur, by congregants enraged by his criticisms of Ariel Sharon.

    • The 50 million dollar lie

      Bill Gates has spent $50 million for a three year project known as the MET (Measures of Effective Teaching) project. They just concluded the study and released a final report which can be found here. In the final report they conclude that teacher evaluations have an ideal weighting of 33% value-added, 33% principal observations, and 33% student surveys. They justify the 33% value-added because they have analyzed the data and found, contrary to everyone else’s analysis of similar data, that teachers DO have similar value-added scores from one year to the next. To prove their point, they print on page 8 this very compelling set of graphs.

      [...]

      As even a ‘paint ball’ produces such a nice line when subjected to the principle of averaging, we can safely assume that the Gates data, if we were to see it in its un-averaged form would be just as volatile as my first graph.

      It seems like the point of this ‘research’ is to simply ‘prove’ that Gates was right about what he expected to be true. He hired some pretty famous economists, people who certainly know enough about math to know that their conclusions are invalid.

  • Privacy

  • Civil Rights

  • DRM

  • Intellectual Monopolies

    • Porn trolling firm accused of colluding with defendant in sham lawsuit

      Every time we think Prenda Law can’t get in any more hot water, the firm behind dozens of mass copyright lawsuits proves us wrong. In recent months we’ve written about a Florida judge blasting Prenda for “attempted fraud on the court.” We’ve covered a Minnesota man’s charge that Prenda named him the head of one of its shell companies without his knowledge or permission. And we’ve covered Prenda’s efforts to avoid answering questions about these allegations by claiming that California defense lawyer Morgan Pietz invented his “John Doe” client. Prenda also unsuccessfully sought the dismissal of a California judge who started asking questions about Prenda’s alleged misconduct.

    • Copyrights

      • Meet the money behind Dotcom

        Who is the mysterious millionaire, who left school at age 15, who is now listed as the new CEO of Kim Dotcom’s latest venture? Geraldine Johns gets a glimpse into the world of the elusive Tony Lentino.

      • Anita Busch, Michael Ovitz At War in Anthony Pellicano Civil Case

        Hollywood’s most powerful figures had ordered the intimidation attempt.

      • Court Says Trial Needed To Determine If Universal Music Violated DMCA With Dancing Baby Takedown

        We’ve covered the Stephanie Lenz / dancing baby / fair use case for years — but now it looks like there’s finally going to be a trial to consider if Universal Music can be punished for sending a DMCA takedown notice on a video of Lenz’s infant son dancing to 29 seconds of a song by Prince, which Lenz asserts was clearly fair use. If you haven’t followed the case, it’s been argued back and forth for years. At one point, the court ruled that a copyright holder does need to take fair use into account before sending a DMCA takedown, but that there needs to be “subjective bad faith” by Universal Music in sending the takedown. In other words, Lenz (and the EFF, who is representing her) needs to show, effectively, that Universal knew that it was sending bogus takedowns. The EFF has argued that willful blindness by Universal meant that it had knowledge (amusingly, using precedents in copyright cases in the other direction, where copyright holders argue that willful blindness can be infringement).

      • Dealing With Aaron Swartz in the Nixonian Tradition: Overzealous Overcharging Leads to a Tragic Result
      • Government Persecution, From Aaron Swartz to Bradley Manning

        The Justice Department’s legal assault on Swartz is of a vindictive piece with the prosecution of others who have carried important information into the public realm. Front and center is 25-year-old Bradley Manning, the Iraq War enlistee accused of being WikiLeaks’s source in the military. The restricted foreign policy documents that Manning allegedly released don’t amount to even 1 percent of the 92 million items the government classified last year, but the young private faces life in prison at his court-martial in June for the charge, among twenty-one others, of “aiding the enemy.” Then there’s Jeremy Hammond, age 28, who in his freshman year at the University of Illinois hacked the computer science department’s home page, then told them how they could fix its problem. He got thrown out of school for that; now he’s in a federal prison facing thirty-nine years to life, charged with various hacks and leaks (all apparently led by an FBI informant) including the 5 million internal e-mails of Stratfor, a private security firm hired by corporations to surveil private citizens, among other activities.

      • Critical Fixes for the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act
      • Human Rights Lawyer Explains Why He’s Working For Kim Dotcom: Exposing American Corruption

        We recently wrote about how Kim Dotcom has retained famed human rights lawyer Robert Amsterdam to explore whether or not there’s a human rights angle to his case, specifically alleging “contract prosecution” by the entertainment industry. I’m still somewhat skeptical that such an argument could go anywhere, but Amsterdam himself has put up a rather detailed blog post, explaining why he’s taking the case, which may seem quite different than his usual fare: taking on corruption and human rights violations in far flung parts of the world, including Africa and Latin America. After highlighting the many problems with the case (and the continued failures in court to date), as well as the close ties prosecutor Neil MacBride has with big copyright holders, he points out that he sees some serious similarities to what’s happening here with the kind of corruption he’s witnessed in third world nations.

      • Picking up Aaron Swartz’s dropped flags

        My first quality time with Aaron Swartz was at the last Comdex, in the Fall of 2002. He had just turned 16, but looked about 10. His old Mac laptop featured a screen with no working backlight. Only he could read it, which he rationalized, with a smile, as a “security precaution.” When I asked him about school, he said he had moved on. He was still learning all kinds of stuff, but he didn’t need school for that. And hey, there was work to be done, and he was too busy with that.

      • Congress Demands Justice Department Explain Aaron Swartz Prosecution
      • Memorial for Aaron Swartz at the Internet Archive
      • Part 2: EFF’s Additional Improvements to Aaron’s Law

        Now we present part two: suggestions to address the CFAA’s penalty structure. The CFAA, which is the primary federal computer crime law, allows for harsh punishments and makes too many offenses felonies. The statute is also structured so that the same behavior can violate multiple provisions of the law, which prosecutors often combine to beef up the potential penalties.

      • O’Brien blasts feds for dusting off statutes used on mafia

        The lawyers for disgraced former Probation commissioner John O’Brien blasted prosecutors in a filing yesterday, calling their decision to charge O’Brien and two of his top deputies as if they were greedy mobsters “breathtaking” while accusing them of not turning over key evidence.

        The attorneys, writing in a 29-page motion requesting documents from the US Attorney’s office, said their clients are confident they will beat the accusations they created a “rigged” hiring system catering to the requests of state lawmakers and others.

      • Triumphant motel owner slams Carmen Ortiz

        …latest critic to accuse the Hub’s top fed of prosecutorial bullying.

      • the next words: A Lecture on Aaron’s Law

        When a law professor is given a “chair” s/he gives a lecture in honor of the honor. I am the Roy L. Furman Professor of Law and Leadership. On February 19, at 5pm @ HLS, I was scheduled to give my chair lecture. After Aaron’s death, I asked the Dean to let me reschedule the lecture. But after some more thought, I’ve decided to make the lecture about Aaron, and about how we need to honor his work. Anyone is invited. More details to follow. And the event will be webcast.

      • Aaron’s Army

        Aaron wasn’t a lone wolf, he was part of an army, and I had the honor of serving with him for a decade.

      • Feds Hounded ‘Net Activist Aaron Swartz, Says EFF’s Parker Higgins
      • How to honor Aaron Swartz

        Rarely does the name of one person, lacking political office or seat of power, echo across the internet so thoroughly as it did in the wake of Aaron Swartz’s death. How was the work of one person revered by so many, from the front page of every major paper in the US, to radical communities working against various axis of oppression?

      • Aaron’s Law, Drafting the Best Limits of the CFAA, And A Reader Poll on A Few Examples
      • More Thoughts on the Six CFAA Scenarios About Authorized Access vs. Unauthorized Access

01.29.13

Links 30/1/2013: Axis Communications, D-Link, O.S. Systems and Perforce Join Linux Foundation

Posted in News Roundup at 9:25 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

GNOME bluefish

Contents

GNU/Linux

  • Linux Top 3: Alan Cox, CloudForms and KDE
  • 5 Dilemmas of Linux Evangelists

    Stereotyping on the Internet is almost unavoidable due to the opacity of the medium and there are now hundreds of types of “fanbois” online since the dawn of the Internet. For tech enthusiasts with plenty of time on their hands, it’s easy to troll for the occasional MacOSX, Microsoft, Android, iOS, and Apple fanboi (and yes, Apple has several categories on its own). I’m an unabashed Linux user and Linux evangelist despite being platform agnostic (the industry where I work in requires a certain level of MacOSX and Windows proficiency). Although Linux evangelists make up a small percentage (even smaller than the alleged percentage of Linux desktop users) of computer users out there, there are still hazards to attempting to promote Linux. The difficulties aren’t always associated with the freakishly crazy Mac worshipers who would skewer you at any negative comment about their beloved Apple devices:

  • Desktop

    • Chrome OS gains on Windows 8′s pains

      After only a few months Acer’s Chromebook already accounts for 5 to 10 percent of Acer’s US shipments and HP will soon be launching its own Chromebook. In the meantime, Windows 8 PC sales remain anemic.

    • M$ Drives More To GNU/Linux and FLOSS

      News: You can get a great desktop or server operating system for $0 from Debian and a great office suite for $0 from The Document Foundation. Buy pizzas with your savings or whatever you want to boost the economy locally.

    • User Abuse

      At some point, I discovered Linux. I can recall the thrill of getting my mouse to work when I stumbled across a RedHat 5.0 book with the disks in the back. I always thought Another Level was a great desktop, if lacking the highly integrated functions of Windows. I surfed with Netscape Navigator 3.06 for several months before I discovered updates. Nor can I forget buying Applix 4, then the thrill of getting my hands on the retail box of WordPerfect 8 for Linux. Despite the occasional crash with it on RedHat 6.3, I thought it was wonderful, a real advancement over 6.1 on Windows. Applix 5 was cool, too. I still have the boxed sets for WP8, Applix 5, and RH 6.3. I’m currently running WP8 on Ubuntu Hardy in a virtual machine with VMware.

  • Server

    • R.I.P. Boxee Box: 2010-2013

      When Boxee announced its new Boxee TV product last October, it also stated that the original Boxee Box, which had already ceased being manufactured, would soon transition into “maintenance mode.” Additionally, the company promised one last firmware update, which would “update the Flash player and fix some key bugs.”

    • HP Extends Serviceguard to Linux

  • Audiocasts/Shows

    • Podcast Season 5 Episode 1

      In this episode: Canonical is to launch a phone. Fedora 18 has been released. Friends of Gnome are looking for money and Valve is to make a Linux-powered games console. Hear our first discoveries of 2013 and how you’d like the podcast to improve in season 5.

    • Linux Outlaws 295 – Veneering the Planet
    • Tech Tuesday: Open Source Software

      Tech Geeks from around the world are meeting in the nation’s capital this week for the Linux Conference.

      It’s a five-day love-in for fans of open source software—non-commercial software where the source code can be modified and redistributed for free.

  • Kernel Space

    • Torvalds slams prosecutor for Swartz’s suicide
    • 32 bit Vs 64 bit OS architecture in Linux
    • Btrfs Still Working To Address Corruption Issue

      Another bug-fix pull request was sent in on Tuesday for the Btrfs file-system in the yet-to-be-released Linux 3.8 kernel. Chris Mason notes that he’s still working out an older CRC corruption issue.

    • Google Wants Fast Queue Spinlocks For The Linux Kernel

      A Google engineer has proposed “Fast Queue Spinlocks” for the Linux kernel as an alternative in select cases to the default ticket spinlock.

    • ACPI Support Continues To Be Improved In Linux

      There’s a number of ACPI updates that are being shown off and will likely make their debut in the Linux 3.9 kernel for improving the power management support.

    • Linux Foundation Announces New Members

      Axis Communications, D-Link, O.S. Systems and Perforce

    • Graphics Stack

      • Wayland’s Weston DRM Back-End Now Supports Pixman

        A set of seven patches published today allow Wayland’s Weston compositor with its DRM back-end to support rendering through Pixman.

        Earlier this month I wrote about the work being done on software rendering in Weston using Pixman. The pixel manipulation library was used to achieve “pure software rendering” and was combined with work on MIT-SHM shared memory support for the X11 back-end. This work allows for Wayland/Weston to run better in non-hardware-accelerated environments.

      • Mesa 9.0.2 Officially Released

        For most Phoronix readers out there that are Linux enthusiasts into hardware tweaking, performance optimizations, and getting the most out of your Linux box, Mesa 9.0.2 is rather boring. It’s just the usual bug-fixing and stable changes that were back-ported from Git master. Most of you reading Phoronix are likely already on Mesa 9.1-devel from Mesa Git master, which is where the exciting work happens.

      • R600 LLVM Back-End Gets Indirect Addressing Support

        The open-source Radeon R600 LLVM back-end has finally received support for indirect memory addressing.

    • Benchmarks

      • Linux 3.2 To 3.8 Kernels With Intel Ivy Bridge Graphics

        With the Intel Haswell product launch coming up soon, here’s a look at how the Intel “Ivy Bridge” HD 4000 graphics support has matured on the seven most recent Linux kernel releases. This benchmarking shows how the performance of the Intel DRM driver has changed between the Linux 3.2 kernel and the Linux 3.8 kernel that’s presently under development when using the integrated graphics found on the latest-generation Core i7 CPU.

  • Applications

  • Desktop Environments/WMs

    • Introducing LXDE

      Let us be non-mainstream. In the world of Linux desktop environments, Lightweight X11 Desktop Environment (LXDE) is not your typical first or second choice. Most people will mention Gnome, KDE, perhaps Unity. You may have heard of Cinnamon and MATE lately, and Xfce is also a solid, longtime niche player. LXDE keeps slipping under the radar.

      The thing is, without decent financial backing by the big names, it is very hard creating and maintaining a robust and bug-free desktop environment that can address the needs of the common user, if a Linux user can ever be classified as common in any way. Still, deviating from the usual formula is very tricky, and few distributions manage to balance beauty and functionality well. And the more exotic the desktop environment gets, the more difficult the challenge. For example, in the world of Xfce, Dreamlinux was one of the few players to tackle it properly. Even the big shot struggle, Gnome 3 and KDE being no exceptions. So what happens when you take LXDE and skin your desktop with it?

    • K Desktop Environment/KDE SC/Qt

      • Plasma Active 4

        At the end of March, we will be releasing Plasma Active 4. Since Plasma Active 3, We’ve made improvements to the Files, eBook reader (Okular), Settings and Alarms applications along with a large number of bug fixes and performance improvements. We’re also in the middle of moving to the KDE Platform 4.10 release as well as getting closer in line with other Mer based efforts, such as sharing the description files with Nemo that are used when building images for different device targets and adapting to a systemd driven user session. These two changes introduced a relatively large number of regressions that are being ironed out. In fact, we paused on the feature development and turned focus to fit and finish work before continuing on.

      • rekonq 2.1
      • Rekonq 2.1 Web-Browser Brings More Features

        Less than one month after the release of the Rekonq 2.0 web-browser for the KDE desktop as an alternative to Konqueror, Rekonq 2.1 has surfaced and it brings more features to this open-source WebKit-powered project.

      • KScreen Sees Its First Alpha Release

        KScreen, the new way of managing monitors/outputs on Linux when running the KDE Plasma desktop, saw its first alpha release this weekend.

      • KScreen Sees Its First Alpha Release

    • GNOME Desktop/GTK

  • Distributions

    • Pear Linux 6.1 – Review

      One of the biggest draw backs of Linux adoptions for home users is that it looks so clunky and fearfully difficult to use. Pear Linux is one promising distro that is out to change that perception. And so far, it is doing an outstanding job.

    • New Releases

      • Elive 2.1.27 development released

        We appreciate your feedbacks about the overall speed/lightness of the system compared to last stable version of Elive. You can say something in our chat channel directly from the running system. If you detect any lagging in the system please consider different setups like disabling composite (which you can select on the startup of the graphical system) in order to report improvements. We would also appreciate feedbacks about composite enabled or disabled in old computers, suggestions for better performances, and memory usage compared to Topaz.

      • Groovy 2.1.0 arrives ready to invoke dynamically

        The developers of Groovy have announced the release of Groovy 2.1. The new release of the JVM-based language now has full support for Java 7′s “invoke dynamic” byte code and API, which allows dynamic languages on the JVM to make dynamic method calls as efficiently as Java programs make static method calls. Groovy 2.0 had support for most method calls using “invoke dynamic”, but now all method calls make use of it. The GPars concurrency framework is also now bundled with Groovy 2.1.

      • SolusOS 2 Alpha 7 Previews Its GNOME Fork

        Announced last week was a new fork of GNOME Classic as the Consort Desktop. Released today by the Linux distribution behind this project, SolusOS, is the first alpha version of their next Linux release that integrates this forked GNOME desktop.

    • Screenshots

      • Netrunner 12.12.1 Screenshots (01/24/2013)

        Netrunner is a Linux distribution based on Ubuntu with a focus on options that won’t make it into mainline Ubuntu and alternatives to some mainline Ubuntu decisions. Some features are WINE included by default, some selected Qt/KDE applications in the GNOME desktop, and no Mono.

      • Descent OS 3.0.2 Screenshots

    • PCLinuxOS/Mageia/Mandrake/Mandriva Family

      • Mageia 3 Beta 2 Released

        Mageia 3 Beta 2 was announced a wee bit late last Friday with some major version jumps. The team say they’re in the final run, but they still have time to clean up those bugs before Final. The live image returned a release or two ago, but today it finally worked on my hardware.

    • Red Hat Family

      • Fedora

        • The fashionably late Fedora

          During my week with Fedora there was a nagging feeling in the back of my mind and it took a while to figure out what it was that bothered me about this release. What I think was troubling me is that the components of this release don’t feel integrated nor coordinated. Perhaps Fedora is going through a more tumultuous stage than usual as will happen from time to time with an experimental distribution. Still, I couldn’t help but notice that some applications use the GNOME Shell integrated menu and some do not; the system admin tools have distinctly different styles of interface when compared side-by-side and even parts of the installation process feel like they were designed by different people. This approach is in contrast to other mainstream distributions such as Ubuntu, openSUSE and Mageia where system components tend to hold to a central, integrated design. This feeling of disunity added to the overall impression that Fedora 18 feels very experimental and not yet finished. There were a lot of little bugs and a few big ones in this release and it led me to believe that even with the two month delay Fedora 18 was released too early.

    • Debian Family

      • Debian guru’s plea for sane computing future

        CANBERRA: When Bdale Garbee talks about the future of the Linux desktop, it is not so much a visionary view as a view of how he would like computing to evolve.

      • Derivatives

        • Canonical/Ubuntu

          • Ubuntu smartphone to launch without app store, won’t support Android apps

            One of the most exciting announcements of the beginning of the year is the Ubuntu phone – not to be confused with Ubuntu for Android. Canonical is ready to make a serious play for the mobile business – at least part of it – that’s dominated by Android and iOS, with Windows Phone and BlackBerry left to battle for third place.

            And the Ubuntu phone certainly looks like an interesting alternative. The new mobile platform will surely appeal to current PC users that choose Ubuntu as their desktop OS, but not only.

            As you already know, any Android device that runs Google’s OS will be able to run Ubuntu, as long as you’ll be willing to perform the installing part, and the Galaxy Nexus could soon get its first Ubuntu phone code.

          • Canonical Wants Help With Ubuntu Phone Apps
          • Ubuntu phones to come with a terminal—prepare your command line skills
          • Things You Should Know About Ubuntu Phone

            Canonical is all set to break new grounds with its Ubuntu Phone, which the company was developing in utter secrecy for couple of months. The announcement got a mixed response. It excited the hard-core Ubuntu users who look forward to the idea of running Ubuntu on their phones; it excited a typical user due to the refreshing and well polished inter face.

          • This Week’s Ubuntu Q&A
          • issue 69
          • Ubuntu 13.04 Will Improve Gaming On Open-Source GPU Drivers

            While still a ways from being comparable to the proprietary graphics drivers in terms of features and OpenGL performance, the open-source GPU drivers found by default in the forthcoming Ubuntu 13.04 release are a big improvement over the out-of-the-box graphics drivers found in earlier Ubuntu Linux releases. The Ubuntu desktop is also faster thanks to improvements to its Unity desktop environment and Compiz compositing window manager. In this article are Linux gaming benchmarks looking at the performance of Fedora 17, Fedora 18, Ubuntu 12.10, and a preliminary Ubuntu 13.04 development snapshot. In this first article, the OpenGL performance of Intel and Radeon graphics are being benchmarked.

          • Ubuntu Phone Will Come Complete With a Terminal App, If You’re Into That Sort of Thing

            The terminal isn’t the kind of thing casual users will get a lot of use out of, and that’s true of the terminal in the desktop version of Ubuntu as well. I’m not an experienced or particularly skilled Linux user, but the times I’ve needed to do anything in the terminal I’ve been glad it’s there, and I’ve gotten a lot of mileage out of the few terminal commands I do know. Instead of digging through menus or utilities, with a few lines in the terminal you can do just about anything in Linux.

          • Canonical Commits to Regular Updates for Ubuntu Cloud

          • Flavours and Variants

            • Linux Mint 15 Codenamed “Olivia”, Will Be Available In May

              Linux Mint team has announced the codename of Linux Mint 15 and future plans on Github. Linux Mint 15 is named as “Olivia” – pronounced as “oh-LIV-ee-ah” – Latin origin. Meaning of Olivia is “olive tree”. The olive tree is a symbol of fruitfulness, beauty, and dignity. As name suggests this release will focus on beauty and user interface, as well as improvements in Cinnamon, Nemo, MDM, Live installer, Mint tools.

  • Devices/Embedded

Free Software/Open Source

  • Events

    • Closed minds of “Open Source” eject iTWire from Linux conference

      In the more than 30 years that I have been involved with the tech industry I have seen a lot of strange things but none stranger than the events of today at the Linux Conference Australia. iTWire senior Linux writer Sam Varghese has been ejected from the conference. Why? Well, you may ask and then wonder what the Linux community in Australia has come to.

  • SaaS/Big Data

    • Hortonworks Signs on to OpenStack Foundation

      As 2013 begins, there is continued momentum for OpenStack, the open source cloud computing framework. As we reported last September, OpenStack has its very own foundation, which is packed with heavy-hitting technology titans among its members. And now, the newest member of the OpenStack Foundation is Hortonworks, which provides an enterprise-class Hadoop distribution and resources for Hadoop. As a member of the foundation, Hortonworks has an opportunity to marry open source Big Data crunching with cutting-edge cloud computing.

    • OpenNebula open-sources service management layer with enterprise in mind

      OpenNebula, the European answer to the likes of Eucalyptus and OpenStack that counts CERN and China Mobile among its customers, is moving to differentiate itself from competitors by freely releasing OpenNebulaApps, a suite of cloud application management tools that sit on top of its traditional infrastructure management toolkit.

  • Oracle/Java/LibreOffice

  • CMS

    • WordPress 3.5.1 tightens security and stops HTML from disappearing

      The WordPress developers have announced a maintenance update to the popular open source blogging software. WordPress 3.5.1 fixes 37 bugs and addresses three security issues, including two cross-site scripting vulnerabilities. Users running WordPress on IIS might run into a problem that prevents the upgrade; the developers have prepared documentation to help users work around this problem.

  • BSD

    • Arch BSD: Arch Linux Atop The FreeBSD Kernel

      The Arch BSD operating system is moving forward, an attempt at a BSD platform that’s inspired by the Arch Linux distribution and using its package-set.

      An email arrived at Phoronix this morning that the ArchBSD.net web-site is now online. This new site looks just like ArchLinux.org, but Linux references are replaced by BSD. Right now there isn’t too much information available on Arch BSD, but the news from this week states that a test ISO should be available shortly.

    • NetBSD is here!

  • FSF/FSFE/GNU/SFLC

  • Public Services/Government

    • Using Technology To Transform Government

      What’s going on? They are accepting FLOSS to do the lion’s share of the IT in government and small businesses to work on smaller slices of IT instead of getting some large business to slap Wintel and “partners” into a pig barn. The plan is to replace the web presence with FLOSS and not just to add a server. They are cutting through paperwork wherever they can from top to bottom.

    • FLOSS In Action In Government

      The UK developed a “Fix My Street” web application as FLOSS. Source code is on GitHub (GNU Affero General Public License). It’s now being copied by Switzerland and Norway is using it to allow citizens to report potholes and such, giving government the ability to respond quickly and to keep on top of the overall situation with roads. Beautiful.

    • Open source policy no guarantee governments will actually use open source

      The distance between government policy favoring open source technology and solicitations that don’t actively discriminate against it can be great.

    • Sweden follows Norway with open source “Fix My Street”

      According to a report on the EC’s open source portal, Joinup, Sweden is following the example of Norway in using the “Fix My Street” open source software that was developed in the UK. The software enables citizens to easily report problems and helps authorities identify and prioritise them. A pilot version of the national service, “Fixa Min Gata”Swedish language link, is expected to become operational in March or April and will allow citizens to report such things as potholes, broken pavements, graffiti or non-functional street lighting.

  • Openness/Sharing

    • Open source ecology explained

      Tristan sez, “Open Source Ecology founder Marcin Jakubowski and the OSE team explain the philosophy behind their work and the open source movement as a whole. We’re always looking for remote collaborators to pick up and run with our designs. If you’re interested in building or improving on our work, please visit the OSE wiki.”

    • Open Data

      • Open data economy: Eight business models for open data and insight from Deloitte UK

        When I asked whether the push to free up government data was resulting in economic activity and startup creation, I started to receive emails from people around the United States and Europe. I’ll be publishing more of what I learned in our ongoing series of open data interviews and profiles over the next month, but two responses are worth sharing now.

    • Open Hardware

      • Interview: Kyle Rankin

        We had a chance to sit down with Kyle Rankin, SCALE 11x keynote speaker, to discuss his upcoming keynote as well as a host of other topics including 3D printing, Linux desktops and whether Jorge Castro is the barometer for cool technology.

  • Programming

    • Automating translation of software using the Microsoft Translator and Python

      January 25, 2013 at 07:40 AM | categories: Sysadmin, Tips, Unix, Linux | View Comments

      The Microsoft translator provides an API that you can use for automated translation. It currently supports about 39 languages.

      True to the nature of open source i found that someone had already written a python wrapper to the API. I extended the wrapper to use the requests and pofile packages.

Leftovers

  • On Data Tagging

  • Security

  • Defence/Police/Secrecy/Aggression

  • Cablegate

  • Environment/Energy/Wildlife

  • Finance

    • Goldman Sachs Proof that God hates its Customers

      The chief executive of Goldman Sachs, which has attracted widespread media attention over the size of its staff bonuses, says he believes banks serve a social purpose and are “doing God’s work.”

    • JPMorgan bet against itself in “Whale” trade

      There is a new twist in the London Whale trading scandal that cost JPMorgan Chase $6.2 billion in trading losses last year. Some of the firm’s own traders bet against the very derivatives positions placed by its chief investment office, said three people familiar with the matter.

    • Iceland wins legal battle over failed bank

      Iceland has won a legal battle over its reponsibilities to British and Dutch savers who lost money when an online savings bank collapsed.

      The European Free Trade Association court said Iceland did not have to guarantee minimum levels of compensation when Icesave went bust.

      Jóhanna Sigurdardóttir, the country’s prime minister said: “It is quite clear that this judgement will add force to the economic rebuilding in Iceland. Possibly the ratings agencies will revise their results. This will also have a positive influence on the lifting of capital controls.”

  • PR/AstroTurf/Lobbying

    • GOP Vote Rigging Stalls in Virginia and Florida but Pushes On in Wisconsin and Michigan — Why?

      Virginia’s governor has come out against a partisan effort to reallocate electoral college votes by Congressional district, but the plan is far from dead in other states, with governors in Wisconsin and Michigan voicing support for similar measures. The split between Virginia and other states on this issue may not be explained entirely by cooler heads prevailing — it might be part of a political calculation about how best to elect a Republican president in 2016.

  • Censorship

  • Privacy

    • Happy Data Privacy Day!

      Happy Data Privacy Day! To mark the day the Market Research Society (MRS) has launched ‘Fair Data, a new ethical mark they claim will help members of the public to easily identify between those organisations which collect, use and retain personal data properly and ethically, and those that do not.

      MRS hope that all organisations that collect and use personal data will be able to use the Fair Data mark which will become the instantly recognisable standard for an organisation that can be trusted to do the right think with all individuals’ data.

    • Facebook Graph Search: Privacy Control You Still Don’t Have

      Facebook’s Graph Search has certainly caused quite a stir since it was first announced two weeks ago. We wrote earlier about how Graph Search, still in beta, presents new privacy problems by making shared information discoverable when previously it was hard—if not impossible—to find at a large scale. We also put out a call to action—and even created a handy how-to guide—urging people to reassess their privacy settings.

    • How to Protect Your Privacy from Facebook’s Graph Search

  • Civil Rights

    • Unlocking new cell phones to become illegal on Saturday

      An edict from the Library of Congress is about to make phone unlocking illegal for the first time in 6 years. The decision, issued in October, is part of a triennial process whereby the Librarian of Congress hands out exemptions from the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.

    • How Unlocking Your Phone May Now Be A Crime: $500,000 Fines And 5 Years In Prison For First Offense

      Last week, we warned about the impending deadline if you wanted to unlock your phone “legally.” That’s because the Librarian of Congress took away the DMCA anti-circumvention exemption that allowed phone unlocking. If you’re wondering why we even have the Librarian of Congress deciding such things, that’s a much longer discussion. In the meantime, though, Derek Khanna has written an interesting piece of at The Atlantic, in which he points out that, not only is it illegal now to unlock your phone, it’s possibly criminal thanks to some broad and ridiculous readings of today’s copyright law. Until now, most people had been regarding this as purely a civil matter — and one where it seemed (mostly) unlikely that companies would take too many people to court.

    • Israel Stays Away from U.N. Human Rights Review

  • DRM

    • Macmillan will sell e-books to libraries in pilot program at $25 per title

      While the e-book market has certainly skyrocketed in recent years, it’s still not always easy to get digital books from your local library. Yet unlike physical books, which obviously degrade over time—digital books won’t. So publishers have figured out that they need to start selling a license to the book, rather than the book itself, to our venerable institutions of public learning.

  • Intellectual Monopolies

    • Briefs Filed by Petitioner and His Amici in Bowman v. Monsanto

      Center for Food Safety argues that extending patent exhaustion to progeny seeds will benefit farmers by curtailing Monsanto’s patent enforcement actions targeting farmers. The Center also claims that extending the patent exhaustion doctrine in this way will benefit scientific research and innovation in agriculture, and lower the cost of farming. The Center further contends the Federal Circuit’s decision is contrary to Quanta, and reiterates petitioner’s argument that producing progeny seed constitutes use of the patented seed, not making it, and hence falls within the scope of patent exhaustion. The amici voice is concerned that farmers whose fields have been “contaminated” by Monsanto’s patented seeds could be subject to infringement lawsuits.

    • US Government Brief: Farmer who Purchases Commodity Soybeans Cannot Replant Those Beans Without Committing Patent Infringement

    • Trademarks

      • The International Olympic Committee Has Already Staked A Trademark Claim On The Number ’2014′

        Man, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) sure loves its trademarks. Many, many, many, many, many, many, many cases of the IOC’s fierce brand protection have been detailed here, including taping over non-sponsor logos and seeking the power to enter homes to remove “unapproved signage.” This has also rubbed off on a few Olympians, triggering trademark office filings to protect made-up words stolen from middling hip hop artists and self-given nicknames.

        [...]

        So, with the kind of efficiency you only find in the most brutal of trademark bullies, the IOC has trademarked a number many people were planning to use starting next January, nine years in advance. And the IOC isn’t leaving anything to chance. It has staked a claim on all 45 of the possible registration classes, including (but good god, certainly not limited to) chemicals, pharmaceuticals, metals/alloys, machines, tools, scientific equipment, surgical instruments, lighting, heating, vehicles, firearms, musical instruments, furniture, ropes, tarps, string, textiles, toys, coffee, fresh fruits and vegetables, beer, other alcoholic beverages, tobacco, insurance, conferences and seminars, design and development of computer programs, restaurant services, asbestos and security.

    • Copyrights

      • Antigua’s Legal “Pirate Site” Authorized by the World Trade Organization

        During a meeting in Geneva today the World Trade organization (WTO) authorized Antigua’s request to suspend U.S. copyrights. The decision confirmed the preliminary authorization the Caribbean island received in 2007, and means that the local authorities can move forward with their plan to start a download portal which offers movies, music and software without compensating the American companies that make them.

      • Ortiz to motel owner: We’re not done yet

        U.S. Attorney Carmen Ortiz said her office is weighing an appeal against a Tewksbury motel owner who criticized her for prosecutorial bullying last week after he won his battle in the feds’ three-year bid to seize his business, citing drug busts on the property.

      • House panel demands answers regarding Swartz prosecution

        Letter to Attorney General Eric Holder says committee has “many questions” about the Justice Department’s handling of prosecution of the Internet activist, who committed suicide earlier this month.

      • Linus Blames Prosecutor For Aaron Swartz’ Suicide

        Linus Torvalds, the father of Linux kernel, says that prosecutor Carmen Ortiz “zealously prosecuted” the 26 years old hacker-activist Aaron Swartz, pushing him to the suicidal path that ended mid-January.

      • BitTorrent Launches Private and Secure Dropbox Alternative
      • Bad Week For Carmen Ortiz: Admits To Botched Gang Arrest As Congress Kicks Off Swartz Investigation

        Carmen Ortiz is not having a good month. The US Attorney who was in charge of the ridiculous Aaron Swartz prosecution — and now has over 50,000 people asking the White House to fire her — now will have to deal with an official investigation by Congress into that particular case. A bipartisan pair of Congressional representatives, Darrell Issa and Elijah Cummings — who are basically the top dogs from each party on the House Oversight and Government Reform committee — have officially kicked off their investigation.

      • Ortiz says suicide will not change handling of cases
      • Carmen Ortiz’s Sordid Rap Sheet

        The suicide last Friday of information activist, computer hacker and technical wunderkind Aaron Swartz has focused attention on Carmen Ortiz, the U.S. Attorney for Massachusetts, whose overzealous prosecution may have led to his death. Swartz, co-founder of a website later acquired by Reddit as well as a prime developer of the online publishing infrastructure known as Rich Site Summary (RSS), was under federal indictment for logging into JSTOR—a database of scholarly articles accessible from universities across the country—and downloading its content with the intent to distribute the articles online free of charge.

      • Glenn Reynolds: “Ham Sandwich Nation: Due Process When Everything is a Crime”
      • How Aaron Swartz helped to defeat Hollywood on SOPA

        Aaron Swartz’s former roommate, Peter Eckersley, says the late activist started Demand Progress because from D.C.’s perspective, it “doesn’t matter” if their laws break the Internet.

      • Senator disputes Aaron Swartz’s SOPA, Protect IP role
      • Honouring Aaron Swartz, Internet Activist

        Digital rights advocate’s death places spotlight on more open access to info.

      • Memory to myth: tracing Aaron Swartz through the 21st century

        “However, it was extremely funny that in such a formal setting, with imposing red drapes surrounding the room and the Justices sitting high above the supplicants in big chairs that the Justices were so informal. They interrupted each other, spun around and tipped back and forth in their chairs, and some even pretended to go to sleep with their head on their desks. The whole thing looked like a bunch of kids and school, all of which would almost certainly be diagnosed with ADD for their curiosity and inability to resist asking questions. Macki mentioned that Justice Clarence Thomas looked like he was chewing gum, trying hard to hide it from the teacher.

01.28.13

Links 28/1/2013: Galaxy S4 Rumours, Counter-Strike and Half-Life for GNU/Linux

Posted in News Roundup at 11:58 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

GNOME bluefish

Contents

GNU/Linux

Free Software/Open Source

  • Cool thing Thursday: Contribute to opensource without leaving your browser

  • Web Browsers

  • SaaS/Big Data

  • Oracle/Java/LibreOffice

    • The meaning of the 4.0

      The Document Foundation will be releasing LibreOffice 4.0 in the beginning of February. It is a big and important release for us, and a major symbolic milestone. We have received questions and comments, however, that were basically about our reasons to change the major number, from the 3.x to the 4.x . I believe it’s important to explain why we are doing this, and what the 4.0 release is all about.

    • Will Oracle Wake Up & Smell the Java?

  • Funding

  • FSF/FSFE/GNU/SFLC

    • Making Your Code Walk: GNU Autotools
    • Understanding Free and Open Source Software

      We received an email from Richard M. Stallman (RMS), after publishing the article about the Egyptian demonstration calling for the government to adopt Free Software. I can’t deny that one of the motives behind writing this article is to show off that someone as important to the history of computers as RMS is reading what we write here. Nevertheless, the main reason for writing this article is the following:

  • Public Services/Government

  • Openness/Sharing

    • OpenOakland: Another city learns the value of open communication

      I recently co-founded an organization called OpenOakland with Code for America alumni Eddie Tejeda. One of our passions was that we both believe that government can and should be much more than a vending machine. It’s no secret that current local governments have a ton of changing to do, but we think it is unlikely that these changes will come about swiftly without all of us being involved and engaged; and supporting our government staff and leaders to make these changes.

    • Open Access/Content

      • Digital Activist’s Suicide Casts Spotlight on Growth of Open Access Movement

        Aaron Swartz was threatened with criminal trial for downloading millions of academic articles. Although he may have employed questionable methods, the data-access principles he fought for are becoming widely embraced

      • AG Eric Holder Agrees to Stick Around (At Least for Now)

        Attorney General Eric Holder Jr. has agreed to serve at the helm of the U.S. Justice Department as President Barack Obama prepares to begin his second term, the White House said today.

      • How academia betrayed and continues to betray Aaron Swartz

        As news spread last week that digital rights activist Aaron Swartz had killed himself ahead of a federal trial on charges that he illegally downloaded a large database of scholarly articles with the intent to freely disseminate its contents, thousands of academics began posting free copies of their work online, coalescing around the Twitter hashtag #pdftribute.

        This was a touching tribute: a collective effort to complete the task Swartz had tried – and many people felt died trying – to accomplish himself. But it is a tragic irony that the only reason Swartz had to break the law to fulfill his quest to liberate human knowledge was that the same academic community that rose up to support his cause after he died had routinely betrayed it while he was alive.

      • Access denied

        ON JANUARY 1st each year the Centre for the Study of the Public Domain at Duke University fetes Public Domain Day. It is a joyous occasion, celebrating the end of copyright protection for works that at long last leave the bosom of legal monopoly for the commonweal. The centre does, however, temper the elation with an important caveat: while much of the rest of the world may take cheer from mass migration of material to the public domain each year, America has not seen one since the 1970s, nor will it until 2019.
        The public domain is a catch-all term for material outside of the strictures of reproductive limits, or for which rights were formally foresworn. The centre promotes a balance between a creator’s and the public’s interest, says Duke’s James Boyle. Mr Boyle, one of the drafters of the set of liberal copyright assignment licences known as Creative Commons, invokes countless studies arguing that tight copyright makes sense over short periods, to encourage creative endeavour, but can be counterproductive if extended too far. Yet rightsholders lobby for greater control (and legislators often oblige them) “even when it turns out that it hurts their interest,” says Mr Boyle.

      • Aaron Swartz: Opening access to knowledge

        He did so through his work on the RSS (Rich Site Summary) Web-syndication protocol, building essential technology for the copyright open-licensing project, Creative Commons, and his activism against the Stop Online Piracy Act, which would have authorized blocking access to Internet sites that were alleged to be hosting infringing materials.
        He faced quite a hurdle in opening access to academic works: For almost all academic and scientific research, the public is asked to pay for it essentially twice. First, when government agencies or public universities sponsor the research, and a second time, when users must pay for access to the article, often via subscribing to a journal. Subscription fees often amount to tens of thousands of dollars. And most of those journals do not pay the authors; instead, they keep the fees as profits.

    • Open Hardware

  • Programming

Leftovers

  • Things I learned by pretending to be blind for a week

    I’m a full visually-able user and I love looking at websites. I know though, that not everyone experiences websites in the same way. Browsing websites at different screen sizes is a hot topic at the moment, but lets not forget that it’s not just mobile users that experience websites differently, blind users experience them in a way you might not even realise.

  • Hardware

    • China wants eight new Lenovos by 2015

      Western technology companies’ view of China as the biggest pool of potential customers ever is looking less accurate than ever, after the Chinese government called for the formation of up to eight super-companies through mergers and acquisition by 2015.

  • Security

    • Anonymous threatens Justice Department over hacktivist death
    • Hackers take over gov’t website to avenge Swartz
    • Hacktavist Group Anonymous Defaced USSC Site

      Aaron Swartz was a well known author and founder of Demand Progress, who launched the campaign against the Internet censorship bills SOPA and PIPA which now has over a million members. He was also well known for his frequent television appearances and articles on a variety of topics, particularly the corrupting influence of big money on institutions and politics. He is best now known as the first martyr of the internet freedom fight after committing suicide to avoid what most would call unjust prosecution for victimless crimes.

    • Anonymous Strikes Again

      In the world of Hacktavism it would appear that they seldom have a dull moment or minute to spare. Just hours after hijacking and defacing USSC.gov in the United States in response to Aaron Swarz suicide, Anonymous turned their attention to the government of Turkey. Once again attacking and defacing a government sites in what they are calling “OPBigBrother”.

    • Backdoors in many Barracuda appliances

      Security researcher S. Viehboeck from SEC Consult Vulnerability Lab discovered that the /etc/shadow and /etc/password files on the appliances had user accounts with names such as product, support and websupport. These accounts were protected with weak passwords and the researcher says he produced a usable list of passwords in a short time. It is not possible to delete these accounts easily as they appear to be used for remote maintenance.

    • Github Search Exposes Passwords

  • Defence/Police/Secrecy/Aggression

    • Kiriakou and Stuxnet: the danger of the still-escalating Obama whistleblower war
    • FBI is increasing pressure on suspects in Stuxnet inquiry

      Federal investigators looking into disclosures of classified information about a cyberoperation that targeted Iran’s nuclear program have increased pressure on current and former senior government officials suspected of involvement, according to people familiar with the investigation.

    • Talking to Reporters Is Not A Crime: New Leak Investigation Threatens Press Freedom

      A disturbing report in Saturday’s Washington Post describes an FBI investigation of a large number of government officials suspected of leaking classified information to the press, engulfing an unknown group of reporters along the way. The investigation includes data-mining officials’ personal and professional communications to find any contact with journalists. Just to be clear: It seems officials are being targeted for just talking to the press.

      While the Obama administration has already shamefully prosecuted more whistleblowers than all other administrations combined, this investigation—given its unprecedented scope and scale—has the potential to permanently chill both press freedom and the public’s right to kno

    • Marine gets no jail time in killing of 24 Iraqi civilians

      Marine Staff Sgt. Frank Wuterich will not serve a jail sentence following his guilty plea in the killing of 24 Iraqis in 2005, a military judge said Tuesday.

      The announcement by Lt. Col. David Jones came after Wuterich took responsibility during his sentencing hearing at Camp Pendleton for the killings in the Euphrates River town of Haditha and expressed remorse to the victims’ families.

    • David Hicks Tells His Story
    • Prison Population Can Shrink When Police Crowd Streets

      …2.3 million people behind bars in America…

    • When Police Violate the Constitution

      The judge excoriated the city for flagrant indifference to the Fourth Amendment. The amendment has been interpreted by the courts to mean that police officers can legally stop and detain a person only when they have a reasonable suspicion that the person is committing, has committed or is about to commit a crime.

    • Pentagon cybersecurity force to grow fivefold under multi-year expansion

      The Pentagon has just approved a major expansion for its cybersecurity force, increasing the headcount from 900 to 4,900 over the next several years, reports The Washington Post. While yet to be formally announced, the enlargement is said to come at the request of Gen. Keith B. Alexander, the Defense Department’s head of Cyber Command, and director of the NSA.

    • Pentagon Announces Cyber Force Expansion As Anonymous Hacks Government Websites
    • Report: Cyber Command to Expand to Nearly 5,000
    • Kill Him Silently

      The story behind Mossad’s bungled bid to assassinate Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal.

    • Preserve CIA prisons as evidence, lawyers for 9/11 suspects ask
    • Former CIA officer: Jail sentence a ‘badge of honor’

      A federal judge has sentenced former CIA officer John Kiriakou to 30 months in jail, making him the first officer to be sent to jail for leaking classified secrets. NBC’s Andrea Mitchell reports on the case and Kiriakou says he leaked the information to speak out against torture, calling himself a “whistleblower.”

    • Explosion at Fordow: Israeli propaganda or Iran’s biggest secret?

      Contradictory reports of an explosion at Iran’s uranium enrichment site have been emerging. Iran denies it ever happened, calling it “Western propaganda” while Israel confirms it, putting tensions around upcoming nuclear talks.

    • Ex-CIA man: Iran blast largest sabotage in decades

      Iranian dissident-turned CIA operative Reza Kahlili told The Jerusalem Post on Monday that an alleged blast at the Fordow nuclear installation in Iran is “the largest case of sabotage in decades.”

    • The CIA’s Secret Prisons in Poland

      Reportedly, the results of this investigation could link some of Poland’s most senior politicians with illegal detention and torture, as well as impact negatively on the relationship between Poland and its key ally, the US, according to Reuters.

      The news agency’s sources, including lawyers and human rights activists, reveal that the investigation was halted after the original investigators were taken off the case early last year.

    • Three Days of the Condor: 1975 – The CIA in the movies
    • CIA Thriller ‘Argo’ Leads SAG Awards
    • SYRIA: CIA-MI6 Intel Ops and Sabotage

      In late 2003, the year of the Iraq invasion, Matthew Jones, a Reader in International History, at London’s Royal Holloway College, discovered “frighteningly frank” documents:1957 plans between then UK Prime Minister, Harold Macmillan, and then President, Dwight Eisenhower, endorsing: “a CIA-MI6 plan to stage fake border incidents as an excuse for an invasion (of Syria) by Syria’s pro-western neighbours.” (ii)

      At the heart of the plan was the assassination of the perceived power behind then President Shukri al-Quwatli. Those targeted were: Abd al-Hamid Sarraj, Head of Military Intelligence; Afif al-Bizri, Chief of Syrian General Staff: and Khalid Bakdash, who headed the Syrian Communist Party.

      The document was drawn up in Washington in the September of 1957:

      “In order to facilitate the action of liberative (sic) forces, reduce the capabilities of the regime to organize and direct its military actions … to bring about the desired results in the shortest possible time, a special effort should be made to eliminate certain key individuals.

    • White House keeps its secrets as CIA agent goes to prison

      When he receives an expected sentence of 30 months in federal prison later this week, John Kiriakou will pay the price for a catastrophic error in judgment. But he shouldn’t suffer alone: The Obama administration, too, needs to do a little penance if it hopes to live up to the president’s famous promise to “usher in a new era of open government.”

  • Cablegate

  • Environment/Energy/Wildlife

  • Finance

    • Greg Smith: On Wall Street, Goldman Sachs and students entering finance

      Greg Smith ’01 is a former executive director and vice president of investing banking firm Goldman Sachs. In March 2012, he resigned from the firm in an op-ed in The New York Times decrying the firm’s change in culture and loss of client focus. He has since written “Why I Left Goldman Sachs: A Wall Street Story.” Smith spoke to The Stanford Daily about his time at the firm, Stanford students on Wall Street and the difference between Wall Street and Silicon Valley.

    • How Iceland Overthrew The Banks: The Only 3 Minutes Of Any Worth From Davos

      “Why do we consider banks to be like holy churches?” is the rhetorical question that Iceland’s President Olafur Ragnar Grimson asks (and answers) in this truly epic three minutes of truthiness from the farce that is the World Economic Forum in Davos. Amid a week of back-slapping and self-congratulatory party-outdoing, as John Aziz notes, the Icelandic President explains why his nation is growing strongly, why unemployment is negligible, and how they moved from the world’s poster-child for banking crisis 5 years ago to a thriving nation once again. Simply put, he says, “we didn’t follow the prevailing orthodoxies of the last 30 years in the Western world.” There are lessons here for everyone – as Grimson explains the process of creative destruction that remains much needed in Western economies – though we suspect his holographic pass for next year’s Swiss fun will be reneged…

    • Bill Black: Why the World Economic Forum and Goldman Sachs are Capitalism’s Worst Enemies

      It is fitting that Goldman Sachs is the recipient of this year’s “Public Eye” designation, but it is even more fitting that it is being announced during the World Economic Forum (WEF) at Davos. Goldman Sachs exemplifies the travesty that WEF has created. It is not the worst of the worst. It is representative of the financial world of systemically dangerous institutions (SDIs) that are spreading crony capitalism through the West. The SDIs are the so-called “too big to fail (or prosecute)” banks.

  • PR/AstroTurf/Lobbying

    • A CNET Reporter Resigns Amid CBS-Dish Tussle

      A CNET reporter has quit in the wake of CNET parent CBS ’ statement that it blocked the technology news website from considering Dish Network ’s controversial ad-skipping device for its annual Consumer Electronics Show awards.
      “Sad to report that I’ve resigned from CNET,” CNET senior writer Greg Sandoval announced via Twitter Monday morning. “I no longer have confidence that CBS is committed to editorial independence.”
      CBS Interactive, which owns CNET, said Friday that Dish’s device, “Hopper with Sling,” was “removed from consideration due to active litigation involving our parent company CBS Corp,” as the Journal reported at the time. The device is the latest version of Dish’s digital video recorder that makes it easy for viewers to skip over television commercials.

  • Censorship

    • Freedom Of Speech Is Primarily The Right For Stupid People To Say Dumb Things (And That’s A GOOD Thing)

      Yesterday, a French court decided that people on Twitter have no right to anonymity when posting xenophobic comments. This is deeply troubling: the court says that unpopular opinions don’t have the same protection from freedom of speech as popular ones. Further, and more troubling still, this is a pan-European trend.

    • WH: Piers Morgan has free speech rights

      The White House is defending the right of Piers Morgan to speak out on gun control.
      The forum: A formal response to a White House petition calling on President Obama to deport the CNN host for advocating new restrictions on guns after the Dec. 14 mass killing at an elementary school in Newtown, Conn.
      “Let’s not let arguments over the Constitution’s Second Amendment violate the spirit of its First,” said the response written by White House press secretary Jay Carney.

    • Facebook Apologizes for Tolerating Violent Imagery Toward Women

      Today, a Facebook spokesman reached out to Wired to reverse its previous stance on imagery that promoted violence toward women, stating that a photo it had previously deemed acceptable for the social networking site “should have been taken down when it was reported to us and we apologize for the mistake.”

    • Buffy vs Edward Remix Unfairly Removed by Lionsgate
    • Burma dissolves censorship office, but needs to do more for press freedom

      Burma (Myanmar) announced that it has dissolved the press censorship board which was officially known as Press Scrutiny and Registration Division (PSRD), the state-run New Light of Myanmar said Friday. The termination of PSRD has been approved during Thursday’s cabinet meeting, the newspaper said.

      “The division under the Printing and Publishing Enterprise has stopped functioning since 20 August, 2012 to pave ways for freedom of press,” according to the report. However, in place of PSRD, “Copyrights and Registration Division” will be shaped under the Information and Public Relations Department, NLM newspaper said.

  • Privacy

    • Hack turns the Cisco phone on your desk into a remote bugging device

      No fix yet for attack that allows eavesdropping on private conversations.

    • EU lawmakers seek to limit use of data by internet firms

      Internet companies such as Facebook and Google may have to get more permission to use information if European Union lawmakers give users more control over their personal data.

    • Facebook Blocks Vine, Wonder Apps

      A mere day after Facebook extolled the benefits of integrating Facebook Login as a user registration option for developers’ apps, the social networking giant also managed to highlight the risks of relying on third-party platforms by blocking two apps that had integrated Facebook data.

    • Berlin activists create CCTV-smashing street game
    • Google, Microsoft, Yahoo, and Facebook say they require warrants to give over private content

      While the policies are somewhat reassuring, they don’t have the full force of the law yet

    • Dining with spies

      At their yearly conference the Dutch The National Cyber ​​Security Center stated this week they want to listen more to the hacker community. It is fine that the government will at last listen to the people who have been ahead of the curve for decades, although the question remains – why it has waited to do this until 2013? Even if this had been done as recently as 5 or 10 years ago it would have saved an incredible amount of trouble and public money. I sincerely hope that the consultations with the hack(tivist) community are about more than just technical tricks, because most benefits to society are derived from discussing policy. For purely technical issues the usual consulting companies can always be hired and then simply pay hackers for their knowledge and advice, just like any other experts.

  • Civil Rights

    • Bahais cannot enroll in public schools, education minister says

      The education minister has repeated remarks that Bahais cannot enroll in public schools, saying it violates the Constitution.

    • Ottawa’s anti-spam proposals prohibit secret monitoring software

      After more than a year of closed-door consultations, the government has finally released an updated draft proposal for those long-awaited anti-spam regulations.

      The latest proposed rules, which were published in the Canada Gazette over the weekend, would add several new exemptions to the law, including inter-organizational email — messages sent by one employee to another, for instance, or to a contractor or franchisee.

    • Two New Decisions on the Wiretap Act and Secondary Liability

      The last two weeks have brought two important decisions in the ongoing litigation over behavioral advertising firm NebuAd’s alleged use of a device to intercept data from ISP networks. Several ISPs allegedly permitted NebuAd to install an “appliance” on their networks in order to collect and analyze subscriber data for ad targeting purposes. In lawsuits that began to be filed in 2008, plaintiffs have alleged that NebuAd–and the ISPs with which it allegedly partnered– violated Title I of the Electronic Communications Privacy Act (i.e., the Wiretap Act) as well as other federal and state laws. Plaintiffs have sued the ISPs in separate suits around the country. Two of these suits–against ISPs Embarq and WideOpen West (“WOW”)–yielded decisions in favor of the ISPs last week.

    • Evidence of things not seen

      This week, Big Brother Watch submitted our response to the consultation on Judicial Review. In conclusion, we say:

      “An overwhelming number of points in the consultation document are anecdotal and unsubstantiated; indeed many are contradicted by official figures. This consultation is absolutely not a document that should be relied upon when embarking on reform of one of our most fundamental legal rights.”

    • Iran giving out condoms for criminals to rape us, say jailed activists

      Rape victims in Iran usually stay quiet in order to protect the honour of their family but at the time when journalists based in the country are facing strict restrictions, these letters have become one of the only sources of information about the situation of hundreds of imprisoned activists.

    • Unauthorized unlocking of smartphones becomes illegal Saturday

      The feds mandate fidelity between carriers and users: New rule under DMCA outlaws unlocking new handsets without carrier permission.

  • Internet/Net Neutrality

  • Drones

  • Intellectual Monopolies

    • India flouts patent for blockbuster biologic

      India’s generic industry received a windfall on November 2 when the Intellectual Property Appellate Board (IPAB) withdrew a patent granted to Pegasys (pegylated interferon alfa-2a; IFN-alpha2a), marketed by the multinational Roche of Basel, for use in combination with ribavirin (Rebetol, Virazole, Copegus) in treating hepatitis C virus (HCV). The board ruled, after hearing an appeal by Mumbai-based Sankalp Rehabilitation Trust, a patient advocacy group, that the drug is not a new invention, as the process by which polyethylene glycol (PEG) is added to IFN-alpha2a was already known at the time of the patent grant. The appellate board also cited the drug’s high cost (over $8,000 for a 6-month course) as a reason for revocation. The decision makes it possible for generic drugmakers to introduce low-cost copies of Pegasys. It also sets a precedent for advocacy groups to challenge the validity of previously granted patents on the grounds of patients’ rights to affordable access to lifesaving treatments.

    • Copyrights

01.26.13

Links 26/1/2013: Half-Life for GNU/Linux, More News

Posted in News Roundup at 12:31 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

GNOME bluefish

Contents

GNU/Linux

Free Software/Open Source

  • BusyBox 1.21.0 Is Busy With Many Changes

    BusyBox, the lightweight open-source project that provides several Unix/Linux tools in a single executable for POSIX systems, had its first unstable release in the 1.21 series on Monday.

  • Free, Open-Source Digital Textbook Provider, Boundless, Releases Its Content Under Creative Commons

    Since first emerging early last year, Boston-based startup Boundless has been on a mission to give students a free alternative to the financial and physical costs of bulky backpacks brimming with pricey hard-copy textbooks. Co-founders Ariel Diaz, Brian Balfour and Aaron White believe that the incumbents, the old-school textbook publishers (the top four of which still control the market) have been driving up the cost of educational content for years, so Boundless has been fighting the Powers That Be by offering a free, digital alternative culled from existing, open educational resources.

  • United States: Monetizing Open Source Platforms – Something New?

    Sharing software code via free open source has been around since the 1980s and has enjoyed much success. Open source has been applied to content, websites, technological parts, and other materials. Can and should an open source platform be monetized?

  • Less bounce with Mongo for Youwin gamblers

    The online betting industry is adopting enterprise level open source technologies where there is still come reticence among perhaps more traditional firms.

    Youwin has been using open-source big-data technology MongoDB to improve its business outcomes — the firm has:

    • Halved its bounce rate and increased turnover by 10 per cent
    • Cut its project costs
    • Boosted active player numbers by 22 per cent

    NOTE: The term “bounce rate” is part of web analytics terminology and refers to the number of website visitors who will leave a site after only visiting one page. The inference here is that the landing page a user sees first is therefore not relevant to them.

  • GCW-Zero Open Source Gaming Handheld: Straight out of Pandora’s Box
  • Open Source Software Movement Supported by Ernst Publishing

    Ernst Publishing Company, a provider of technology and closing cost data for the real estate and home finance industries for the past 20 years, has announced that the company’s technology development team has begun leveraging the power and capabilities presented by the communities of Open-Source software.

  • Open Source Nexus You Can Visit

    FOSDEM is the most important meeting ground for the world’s open source developers, and you can attend free of charge. Will you be there?

  • Is open source the missing building block to improved nutrition for schoolkids?

    At the start of every new year resolutions on diet and health abound. Yet there seems to be little discussion on schoolchildren’s health and nutrition, and taking a more open education approach to it. This is remarkable since childhood obesity and diabetes are at record levels in the US. Today there are 12.5 million obese children—three times as many as there were in the 1980s—according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

  • How to make app stores open source-friendly

    App stores have their roots in open source — and they can return to those roots with scant business disruption. Just ask … Microsoft?

  • Three great years of sharing the open source story

    Three years ago today we flipped the switch on at opensource.com. Technically, we removed the htaccess file to allow anyone to access the site. Since that point, we’ve been steadily providing stories that highlight how open source is having a positive impact on the world and building a community around that mission.

  • Microsoft Potential Dell Investment: Bad for Linux, FOSS?

    Amid rumors that Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) may invest in Dell (NASDAQ: DELL), a massive question has emerged: If such an investment occurs, will Dell maintain its extremely close relationships with Canonical (Ubuntu), Red Hat (NYSE: RHT), SUSE and other open source providers? Hmmm… Here’s The VAR Guy’s spin.

    First, a little background. As you may have heard, Dell may go private. Investors could include Silver Lake Partners (a private equity firm), Microsoft, Michael Dell and others. If Microsoft pumps money into Dell, the software giant could strain relationships with Hewlett-Packard, Lenovo, Acer and other PC makers. Acer has already been critical of Microsoft’s Windows Surface RT and Surface Pro tablet launches.

  • Microsoft claims Munich’s jump to Linux wasted cash

    Software giant Microsoft has gone to Munich with a piece of paper claiming that the city wasted a fortune dumping its software in favour of Linux. However, the company refused to tell the world what it has on its piece of paper so you will just have to take its word for it.

    Microsoft and its chum HP insist that the German city of Munich had its numbers wrong when it calculated switching from Windows to Linux saved the city millions.

  • Why “community” is key to open source’s success

    Montcheuil’s full title for his thoughts here was fully entitled “Working for a Common Good” – Why Community is Key to Open Source’s Success.

  • Events

  • Web Browsers

    • Mozilla

      • Presentation Mode protects you from embarrassing situations in Firefox

        Have you ever had a friend over who wanted to use your computer to look something up on the Internet? Or did you use your laptop for a presentation at work or school and had to use the Firefox browser as part of it? These situations can become embarrassing if the browsing history reveals more about you than you are normally willing to share. I’m not talking about the obvious here, NSFW sites that you have visited, but regular sites as well. Maybe you have visited a support group website, a political site or a religious site; the sheer fact that you visited such a site may reveal personal information about you that you may not want to share.

      • Remove duplicate bookmarks in Firefox
      • Firefox OS Gets Developer Preview Phones
      • Open-source Firefox phone to launch this year
      • Mozilla Lures Devs to Firefox OS With Shiny New Toys

        It hardly seems likely that an open source mobile OS upstart could make any waves in a market dominated by Android and iOS. Windows Phone and BlackBerry may find a following, but Firefox OS? Not likely — at least, not in the developed world. Firefox may be able to sink its teeth into emerging markets, however, which are hungry for lower-cost devices.

      • Mozilla Launching Open-Source Smartphones to Challenge Apple’s iPhone

        Mozilla, the nonprofit that created Firefox OS, plans to further its mission to make the web accessible to everyone with two new open-source smartphones. The company will leverage Firefox OS, along with the power of open standards and an open community, to launch a rival to Apple’s iOS and Google’s Android, and it is inviting web developers to join in its mission.

  • SaaS/Big Data

    • On First Anniversary, ownCloud Boasts Strong Growth

      It’s now been a full year since ownCloud, the open source data syncing platform, launched as a commercial entity. I’ll admit, I was a bit skeptical back then that the company would be able to succeed in a market already inundated with competing products. But ownCloud managed to hold its own and more in 2012, and has its sights set on continued expansion in 2013, according to recent statements from the company.

    • Hey Big Brother, Get Off of My Cloud

      How secure is your sensitive data online? If you ask Richard Stallman and many others, they’ll tell you that it’s probably not very secure. And, of course, few organizations on the planet would be better equipped to answer the question than Google. That’s why Google’s latest semi-annual Internet transparency report is worth taking note of. Disturbingly, it shows that Internet surveillance on a global basis is steadily rising, and the United States leads all other nations in demands for user data. Meanwhile, Google itself has clarified how it handles law enforcement requests for sensitive personal data online.

    • Mirantis Extends Its OpenStack Boot Camp Instructional Series

      As we reported earlier this month, Mirantis, which is well-known to numerous technology titans as a consulting firm that knows its way around the OpenStack cloud computing platform, recently announced that it has received $10 million in funding from Dell, Intel and WestSummit. The small firm has a big and impressive list of customers working with it on OpenStack projects. The customers include AT&T, PayPal and The Gap. For IT professionals or individuals interested in picking up OpenStack skills quickly, Mirantis offers notable two-day Boot Camp events that are worth considering. Here are more details.

  • Databases

    • OpenSUSE also considers switching from MySQL to MariaDB

      MySQL may still be the “most popular open-source database” for now, but its day may be ending. Just like Fedora, which is considering switching out MySQL for the MySQL fork MariaDB, openSUSE is also considering making MariaDB its default database management system (DBMS).

  • Oracle/Java/LibreOffice

    • LibreOffice and OpenClipart.org

      For several years I have been very fond of clip arts from the Open Clipart Library (OCAL) and when LibreOffice now has built in usage of SVG files I was very happy. Now I could use these exelent cliparts in scalable format. Until then the only way was to convert to bitmap (png or jpg) format first.

    • LibreOffice 4.0: An Existential Release

      LibreOffice 4.0 is right around the bend and today Charles H. Schulz wrote why this particular version is “an existential release.” Folks were wondering why the big jump in version numbers, but Schulz says there are two big reasons why the time is now. Besides the additions that will be seen by the users, his reasons go a bit deeper.

  • Business

  • Funding

    • Open Source Outfit Bags $30M in Funding — And That Seems Small

      Attitudes towards open source software have changed so much in recent years, some outfits are now swimming in venture capital. Code hosting service GitHub grabbed $100 million dollars from Andreessen-Horowitz this past July. 10gen — maker of the MongoDB database — has raised $81 million. Cloudera — one of several companies developing the open source big data system Hadoop — has stuffed $141 million into its war chest.

  • FSF/FSFE/GNU/SFLC

    • Join the FSF and friends in updating the Free Software Directory

      Join the FSF and friends, today, Friday January 25th, from 2:00pm to 5pm EDT (19:00 to 22:00 UTC) to help improve the Free Software Directory by adding new entries and updating existing ones. We will be on IRC in the #fsf channel on freenode.

    • Free and Open Source Software

      We received an email from Richard M. Stallman (RMS), after publishing the article about the Egyptian demonstration calling for the government to adopt Free Software. I can’t deny that one of the motives behind writing this article is to show off that someone as important to the history of computers as RMS is reading what we write here.

    • Egypt: Why Open Source Software?

      In the book “Access to Knowledge in Egypt“, Nagla Rizk (@naglarzk) and Sherif El-Kassas dedicated a chapter to the software industry in Egypt and the role F/OSS play there. They started by highlighting that just like any other economy, there are the two opposing forces that characterise the growth of the digital economy.

  • Project Releases

  • Public Services/Government

    • Open Source Battle Over Obama’s Reelection Software

      One of President Obama’s advantages in the 2012 presidential race – besides running against a horrible candidate – was his campaign’s technology. While the Romney campaign had epic technology failures the President sailed to re-election with a fully functioning and innovative data management system.

    • The War Over Obama’s Election Tech

      The Democratic Party is fighting with coders over the fate of President Obama’s revolutionary fundraising software from the 2012 campaign.

    • Obama’s Techies Want To Open Source Their Work, But Politicians Want To Keep It Secret

      Right after the election, we noted the stories showing how Obama’s technology advantage was impressive, while the get-out-the-vote technology that the Romney campaign built up appeared to fail spectacularly. However, there’s an interesting post mortem to this, which shows how techies and politicians still usually come from very, very different worlds.

  • Licensing

    • Another Reason to Use Open Source: Sane Licensing

      A couple of weeks ago, I pointed out how a decision in Norway involving cash registers emphasised one of the advantages of open source – its natural auditability. Here’s another interesting situation that points out a further reason for choosing openness.

  • Openness/Sharing

Leftovers

01.23.13

Links 23/1/2013: Cinnarch 2013.01.23, BackBox 3.01

Posted in News Roundup at 11:25 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

GNOME bluefish

Contents

GNU/Linux

  • Linux pros saw a giant salary leap in 2012: Dice

    Following up on its January 2012 study that found tech salaries had finally started to climb again, IT careers site Dice today published an annual update showing not just a continuing trend in that respect, but also a huge boost for those in the Linux field.

  • Will 2013 finally be the Year of Linux ?

    There has been some debate and consideration in recent years about when the Linux gaming platform will officially gain ground? Critics and market skeptics have wondered when it will really take off and it will be Linux’s turn to procure large portions of the market share. New games and gaming consoles geared toward this system have left many asserting that 2013 will finally be the “year of Linux.” But why?

  • OpenArtist Is a Linux Distro Prodigy

    Despite its youth, openArtist is the picture of a full-fledged Linux distro with a slew of specialty features for graphics production. Among its strong points is the universal approach it takes toward bundling software. If it’s useful to graphic artists, openArtist makes it accessible. Open source, freeware, public domain, abandonware, commercial, even — gasp — Windows programs are included.

  • Kernel Space

    • Linux Foundation Puts Out Linux 3.4 “LTSI” Kernel

      From the Linux Foundation’s Consumer Electronics Workgroup is a Linux 3.4 kernel that’s part of their Long-Term Support Initiative. The LTSI Linux 3.4 kernel will be maintained for two years while back-porting some of the features of newer Linux kernel releases.

    • Graphics Stack

      • Nouveau Can Beat NVIDIA With Cairo In Select Cases

        Chris Wilson has shared his testing experience of Cairo with NVIDIA ION hardware on the open-source Nouveau driver and the closed-source NVIDIA blob. In certain situations, the Cairo performance does better with Nouveau than the official NVIDIA Linux driver.

  • Applications

  • Desktop Environments/WMs

    • The many Profiles of Enlightenment’s E17

      There are many desktop environments in active development, but none is as customizable as the E or Enlightenment Desktop Environment. But of all those desktop environments, its development (or public releases) has been comparatively slow.

      Enlightenment is one of those projects that caught my attention years ago, but which I decided, after playing with it for sometime, that it was not yet ready for prime time. I’ve been quietly tracking its development since.

    • GNOME Desktop/GTK

      • NetworkManager in GNOME beta supports AP operation

        In the latest GNOME 3.8 beta, NetworkManager makes the transition from version 0.9.6.4 to a pre-release version of NetworkManager 0.9.8. In addition to setting up an ad-hoc Wi-Fi network, where the Wi-Fi hardware and drivers support it, it is now able to set up an access point. The next major release of the network configuration program, which is used in many other desktop environments, also supports 4G LTE network modes, bridge master devices and bridge ports. It is also able to automatically activate a VPN for certain network connections. The recently released Fedora 18 already uses a pre-release version of NetworkManager 0.9.8 which includes these features.

  • Distributions

    • Kali Linux – A Teaser into the Future.

      Originally, BackTrack Linux was developed for our personal use but over the past several years, it has grown in popularity far greater than we ever imagined. We still develop BackTrack for ourselves because we use it every day. However, with growth and a huge user base, we have an obligation to ourselves, our users, and the open source community to create the best distribution we possibly can.

      With this in mind, about a year ago a bunch of us at Offensive Security started thinking about the future of BackTrack and brainstormed about the features and functionality we’d like to see in the next and future revisions. One of our main topics of conversation was the option of swapping out our custom development environment for a fully fledged Debian-compliant packaging and repository system.

    • BackTrack rebuilt as Kali Linux

      Penetration testing platform BackTrack has been relaunched as Kali Linux after a major restructure.

      The creators of Backtrack told SC details of the new Debian platform are being kept under wraps, adding the system is a “fully fledged Debian-compliant packaging and repository system”.

    • Exe GNU/Linux, New Distro with Trinity

      No three letters look any more strange to Linux users than exe, which is why a new distro named Exe GNU/Linux caught me by surprise in today’s Distrowatch Weekly. Ladislav Bodnar, our exalted Keeper of the Record, recently added Exe to the Distrowatch.com database and that was my cue to boot it up.

    • SolusOS Shows off GNOME Fork in New Alpha

      It’s hardly been a week since the developers at SolusOS announced their fork of GNOME Classic. Dubbed Consort, it set the Linux world abuzz last week. Today the team announced the first release with that new desktop: SolusOS 2 Alpha 7.

    • New Releases

    • Red Hat Family

      • Red Hat expands cloud management services

        Today, anyone can set up a cloud. Managing it, though, is another story. So it came as no surprise last year, when Linux-giant Red Hat announced updates to its open hybrid cloud solutions portfolio, following the acquisition of ManageIQ, a leading provider of enterprise cloud management and automation solutions.

      • Red Hat Strengthens Its Presence In Cloud With ManageIQ

        Cloud is the future and depending on who you are and how you use it, it can be good or bad for you. Talking strictly about enterprises cloud is the way to go. Red Hat, the most successful open source company continues to strengthen it’s cloud portfolio and signed an agreement to acquire ManageIQ last moth.

      • Fedora

        • Fedora Linux considering switching out MySQL for MariaDB
        • Blu Ray Ripping on Fedora 18

          After doing so searching on Blu Ray ripping on Linux I found that no one seemed to have a good how to for Blu Ray Ripping on Fedora 18. I also was not finding a method that worked consistently for free, or close to free. I found a great piece of software called MakeMKV. I was able to get Blu Ray ripping working fast and easy.

          MakeMKV is free to try for 30 days, after that the ask for 50$ for the purchase. I really think this is a good buy. It was one of the better programs I have found for Blu Ray ripping and they support Linux.

        • Fedora 18 revisited: Cinnamon, Xfce, LXDM, and a ‘wow’ for anaconda
        • Gnome 3.6 System Settings Changes for Fedora 18

          The system settings manager has received some attention for the release of Gnome 3.6. The settings manager itself has been improved with larger and more visible icons. Many of the settings modules have been upgraded as well. There are now several new options and preferences to choose from, so be sure to look around.

        • Fedora 18 Spherical Cow Gnome Review: Stable and efficient with professional looks but has Gnome 3 agonies!

          Fedora has always intrigued me to keep track of the latest happenings in the Linux world and especially what’s brewing at the RHEL stable! Also, if I think of a comparable distro to Ubuntu, Fedora is the only legitimate choice! Just like Ubuntu, Fedora also inspires innumerable spins (like Kororaa, Fuduntu, of which I am a big fan now!). So, when the release note of Fedora came on 15th Jan, I was quick to download all the four versions (Gnome, KDE, XFCE and LXDE). This is the first review of the series and I start with the Gnome spin.

        • Weekend Project: Setting up MythTV on Fedora 18
        • Anaconda “fun” moment
        • End Of MySQL Begins? Fedora Linux Switches To MariaDB

          There is serious time ahead for Oracle owned technologies such as MySQL, Java and many more. MySQL’s open source nature was questioned recently and now Fedora seems to be putting the first nail as the project is planning to switch to MariaDB. Jaroslav Reznik (Red Hat’s Fedora project manager) stated that “MariaDB, which was founded by some of the original MySQL developers, has a more open-source attitude and an active community. We have found them to be much easier to work with, especially in regards to security matters.”

    • Debian Family

  • Devices/Embedded

Free Software/Open Source

  • Fifty shades of open source

    To many, open source is black and white — software is either open or not. Jack Wallen sees the new world order in shades of gray and begs the open source community to be more open in their attitude.

  • Monetizing open source platforms — something new?

    Sharing software code via free open source has been around since the 1980s and has enjoyed much success. Open source has been applied to content, websites, technological parts, and other materials. Can and should an open source platform be monetized?

  • element22 Launches φmod Open Source Conceptual Data Model Project
  • 9 Things That Are Never Admitted About Open Source

    You might think that a group of intelligent people like the members of the free and open source software (FOSS) community would be free of hidden taboos. You might expect that such a group of intellectuals would find no thought forbidden or uncomfortable—but if you did, you would be wrong.

    Like any sub-culture, FOSS is held together by shared beliefs. Such beliefs help to create a shared identity, which means that questioning them also means questioning that identity.

  • Open Source Camera On Its Way

    Because when we talk about software, we don’t talk about something made of physical objects, we talk about basically ideas and concepts, that never get out of the digital realm (or don’t usually get out). Making hardware is not easy — there are so many external factors over which you have no control – and usually it requires decent financial investment. So it’s a really big thing when someone actually makes open source hardware.

  • Open Source Skills Continue to Have Clout in the Job Market

    Career site Dice.com is out with results from its 2013-2012 Salary Survey, which confirms that times are getting much better for people seeking technology-focused jobs. And, in particular, the results reflect a trend that we saw gaining pace last year, which is that skills with open source platforms and tools can greatly increase your likelihood of getting hired and commanding a top salary. Here is more on what Dice found.

  • 2013-2012 Dice Salary Survey

  • Events

    • PowerLinux Users Group: Founding Meeting

      Every renaissance starts with one thing that you can point your finger at and say “that’s where it all began.” Sometimes you realize that moment while you are right in the middle of it, but most times you can’t define it until well after it happens.

  • Web Browsers

    • Mozilla

      • Mozilla Unveils Firefox OS Developer Phones

        Mozilla today unveiled two new developer preview phones that feature the browser maker’s Firefox OS.

        The phones – dubbed Keon and Peak – are being developed via Spanish phone maker GeeksPhone in partnership with Telefonica.

        “This week we are announcing our new Firefox OS developer preview phones because we believe that developers will help bring the power of the web to mobile,” Mozilla said in a blog post.

      • Mozilla unveils open source Firefox smartphone
      • Mozilla Unveils First Two Firefox OS Phones

        After news of its development throughout all of last year, Mozilla’s Firefox OS platform for smartphones has made an official debut on two phones that will ship to developers working on apps. The phones will ship to developers in February, but won’t become available to everybody until later this year. As we’ve reported, Mozilla is primarily targeting emerging markets with the phones, but there have been signs that they may be marketed throughout Europe and in the U.S. Here are more details.

        You can find Mozilla Hacks’ post on the new phones here. According to the post, the phones have the following specs and names:

  • Business

    • Small Business Trends: Linux & Open Source in 2013

      A lot of small businesses are reluctant to try Linux because they think it means moving away from Microsoft Windows, and you can’t blame them. Change is disruptive, and while a lot of software applications are cross-platform, most aren’t, so leaving Windows often means leaving favorite software behind.

  • Funding

  • Public Services/Government

  • Openness/Sharing

    • Open Source Design Tools for Human Rights Activists

      The world’s premier human rights organizations often have entire communications teams with dedicated graphic designers to celebrate their work. But not every organization can afford to have a designer. Even those organizations that do have design gurus may decide, for strategic reasons, to keep tight control over their workflow so that they are not bombarded with too many requests. Not to worry! There are several open source design tools that allow anyone to create killer flyers, posters, icons, or campaign — the only limit is your imagination. More importantly, learning basic design allows you to approach your human rights work more creatively and reach audiences with more diverse forms of storytelling.

    • Open Hardware

      • Interview with Jenn Karson, co-founder of Vermont Makers

        I am the founder of two small studios, Sesamedia and Studio Ju Ju. I’m also a co-founder of Vermont Makers. I was introduced to open source technologies and Arduino (and SparkFun) in 2007 when I was working toward an MFA in Design and Technology at the San Francisco Art Institute. I mainly use the Arduino to build interactive sound installations and sound art pieces, and I also help creative and community initiatives use open-source software like Joomla! and WordPress.

      • How Electric Vehicles Could Gain From Open Sourcing

        Can carmakers learn from the open source industry? Yes, if they build a strong business model around it and throw away discarded business practices.

  • Programming

Leftovers

01.22.13

Links 22/1/2013: Linux Outpaces Market Share of Windows, Mozilla Phone, Fedora Reviews Aplenty

Posted in News Roundup at 8:40 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

GNOME bluefish

Contents

GNU/Linux

Free Software/Open Source

  • IF YOU CARE ABOUT FREEDOM, RAMP UP YOUR HAM

    I think it’s interesting how most people who claim to care about freedom don’t have a ham radio (amateur radio) license, especially you folks in open source.

    You reject and rebel against the Monopolists in Redmond and the Fruit Devices from Cupertino recognizing that they are dictating how you will and will not use the thing you are spending all your money on.

  • cbarylick
    The open source movement, marketing and finally saying “Hello” to the mainstream

    It goes without saying that the open source software movement has created some amazing things in the decades it’s been active and running. Where code has been shared, random developers have come up with some great new ideas and features and the open source goal of contribution has achieved its mission.

  • ITA signs agreement with Intel to promote open source software

    In line with ITA’s efforts in spreading a Free and Open Source software culture for the past two years, a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) in support of the Open Source Intel Global Challenge in Oman was signed here recently between the Information Technology Authority (ITA) and Intel Corporation.

  • Vert.x heading for Eclipse Foundation

    The future home of Vert.x will most likely be at the Eclipse Foundation. Project leader Tim Fox recommended that the JVM-polyglot asynchronous event-driven framework should look to the Eclipse Foundation as a “little more ‘business friendly’” home for the project’s assets and governance. Mike Millinkovich, executive director of the Eclipse Foundation, welcomed Fox’s recommendation. A call for a +1/-1 vote from the original Vert.x community, seems so far to be predominantly +1, with no serious objections.

  • Wikipedia is moving

    On the Wikimedia Foundation’s tech blog, Technical Communications Manager Guillaume Paumier has announced that Wikipedia and other services will move from Tampa, Florida to the company’s new primary data centre in Ashburn, Virginia over the coming days. With this move, the company aims to “improve the technical performance and reliability of all Wikimedia sites”. Paumier said that service limitations are expected during the transition: “Our sites will be in read-only mode for some time, and may be intermittently inaccessible.” Migration will begin on 22 January and is scheduled to be completed by 24 January.

  • ITA to support Intel’s Open Source competition
  • Opening up the open source community

    I’ve mentioned the reported decline in Wikipedia contributors, and wondered out loud whether the organization sees the dip as an acceptable price to pay for heightening the standards for content contributions to its open source encyclopedia. “Our No. 1 strategic priority, as a movement,” she continues, tapping the table for emphasis, “is to increase contributorship.”

  • Open Source Computing Brings Everybody’s Favorite Droid To Life

    I think we can all agree that R2-D2 is one of the most lovable robots ever created. Compared to his more terrifying contemporaries, the little guy just oozes charm. Now one man has made his very own R2-D2 using a Raspberry Pi linux computer.

  • CommuniGate Updates Open-Source cPanel Adaptor Kit
  • Twitter’s Whisper Systems now an open source project

    Whisper Systems, the mobile security startup Twitter acquired in late 2011, is now an open source project which has a new official home outside the microblogging service.

  • Events

    • Free Geek provides jobs and free classes to the community

      Here in the District of Columbia, a loosely-knit group comprised of social workers, librarians, technologists, environmentalists, disability rights advocates, and educators has come together in the past few years. This coalition, known as the Broadband Bridge, sees digital justice and digital inclusion as a cornerstone towards self-determination in traditionally underserved communities.

    • Kyle Rankin to Keynote SCALE 11x

  • Web Browsers

    • Mozilla

      • Mozilla Announces Firefox OS Developer Phone

        Three major players are battling for a spot in the highly competitive smartphone market with their open source operating systems — Jolla, Mozilla and Canonical. While Jolla has some deals to bring their devices to the market, Mozilla has a lead here.

      • Mozilla Announces Firefox OS Developer Phone

        Three major players are battling for a spot in the highly competitive smartphone market with their open source operating systems — Jolla, Mozilla and Canonical. While Jolla has some deals to bring their devices to the market, Mozilla has a lead here.

      • Mozilla Announces Firefox OS Developer Phone

        Three major players are battling for a spot in the highly competitive smartphone market with their open source operating systems — Jolla, Mozilla and Canonical. While Jolla has some deals to bring their devices to the market, Mozilla has a lead here.

      • Announcing the Firefox OS Developer Preview Phone!
      • Mozilla develops Minion security testing framework

        The Mozilla Foundation is developing an open source security framework called Minion and plans to release a beta version in the first quarter of 2013. Minion will allow developers to subject their web applications to a security check. The framework will target applications with well-established pen testing tools such as OWASP’s Zed Attack Proxy (ZAP), Skipfish and NMAP. Further testing tools are planned to be incorporated into the framework as plugins.

      • Mozilla stabilises Firefox 18

        Mozilla has released Firefox 18.0.1, a first update to Firefox 18, which was released ten days ago. According to the release notes, and the lack of any additional entries on the security advisories page, the release is a stability update addressing three issues.

      • Mozilla picks JavaScript titan Eich to lead charge against ‘Droid, iOS

        He’s taking over as Mozilla fights for the hearts and minds of devs who might once have defaulted to Firefox, but are now being dazzled with open-source choices.

  • SaaS/Big Data

    • WiFi + USB Drive = Your Own Mini-Internet (Freedom)

      Worried about draconian Internet laws? Creeping surveillance? The inability to share with others without being criminalized? The Internet is still a tool of tremendous power, but a deep rot has set in. We have caught it early and we are fighting to stop this rot, but there are other options we can begin exploring to hedge our bets, enhance our current efforts of fighting against corporate monopolies, and eventually, build an Internet of the people, by the people, for the people – big-telecom monopolies not welcomed.

    • Open Compute Summit: New Members, Technologies

      The Open Compute Project, backed by Facebook (NASDAQ: FB), is gaining momentum, as evidenced by the increasing attendance at the Open Compute Summit. This week, the summit attracted more than 1,900 attendees that were interested in checking out the latest and greatest in Open Compute Project technologies, innovations and products. There has been a bit of buzz about some of the innovations unveiled at the show, and this can only mean good things for the open source cloud computing market.

    • HP Cloud Leader Biri Singh Exits: Should Partners Worry?

  • Databases

  • Oracle/Java/LibreOffice

    • Six new features coming in LibreOffice 4.0

      It’s hard to believe LibreOffice has only been around about two years, so thoroughly has it come to dominate as the leading free and open source productivity suite, but late last week a release candidate for its next major version appeared.

  • BSD

    • FreeBSD And NetBSD Images Available For Raspberry Pi

      FreeBSD and NetBSD are UNIX variants that are known for their stability and performance. If you are using a GNU/Linux distro in Raspberry Pi for sometime, and want to try something new, you can now download these images from the Raspberry Pi site and try them. Make sure you have a 4 gB or more SD card to dd these images into. Also, as they are bleeding edge releases, be sure to expect some bugs and crashes.

  • FSF/FSFE/GNU/SFLC

    • GNU Hurd Is Still Moving, Albeit Slowly

      Since last week when writing about the LLVM/Clang compiler being ported to GNU Hurd, readers have asked via the forums, email, etc about the state of this open-source kernel backed by the Free Software Foundation. GNU Hurd and its Mach micro-kernel continue to be developed, just not at a rapid pace like the Linux kernel.

    • The Year in Emacs
    • Gnuaccounting 0.8.2 improves its document management

      Version 0.8.2 of the cross-platform accounting and bookkeeping package Gnuaccounting has been released. The Java-based application supports the creation of invoices, shipping notices and receipts with OpenOffice and LibreOffice and can interface with online banking accounts through FinTS (formerly HBCI) as well as store data in MySQL and PostgreSQL databases.

  • Project Releases

    • OpenCart v1.5.5 released

      OpenCart v1.5.5, a free PHP shopping cart system, released with a lot of new features and fixed issues.

  • Public Services/Government

    • Government tech stakeholders gather at state hackathon

      Great things for open government happened last year on November 15-16 at the 4th annual Capitol Camp event, organized and hosted by the New York State Senate and the New York State Office of Information Technology Services, in collaboration with the Center for Technology in Government.

    • Norway’s municipalities run open source apps from open source cloud

      The Norwegian free software association for municipalities, Friprogforeningen, is starting to offer cloud-based open source applications. This means municipalities can use open source tools such as the Redmine project management and bug-tracking tool and the OTRS service management and helpdesk software, without having to install and maintain the applications. The cloud itself is running free and open source software.

  • Openness/Sharing

    • Crowdfunding push for EZ-EV open source electric kit car

      Electrical engineer Gary Krysztopik has been driving his self-built, open-framed, three-wheeled electric “hotrod” on the roads and highways of San Antonio (TX) for over three years now, but folks still can’t help staring as he zooms past. While also working on gas-to-electric conversions (including a VW Bug and a Porsche Carrera), he’s been busy refining and tweaking the design for his “battery box on wheels” and is now preparing to release the EZ-EV car as open source plans, build-it-yourself kits and complete vehicles.

    • Open Access/Content

      • Hiding your research behind a paywall is immoral

        As a scientist your job is to bring new knowledge into the world. Hiding it behind a journal’s paywall is unacceptable

      • For Our Information: Politicians Need To Let Go
      • How M.I.T. Ensnared a Hacker, Bucking a Freewheeling Culture

        The visitor was clever — switching identifications to avoid being blocked by M.I.T.’s security system — but eventually the university believed it had shut down the intrusion, then spent weeks reassuring furious officials at Jstor that the downloading had been stopped.

        [...]

        He described attending two meetings with the chancellor of M.I.T., Eric Grimson. Each time there also was a representative of the general counsel’s office. At both meetings, he said, members of M.I.T.’s legal team assured him and the chancellor that the government had compelled M.I.T. to collect and hand over the material. In that first meeting, he recalled, “I said to the chancellor, ‘Why are you destroying my son?’ He said, ‘We are not.’ ”

      • Carmen Ortiz’s Husband Criticizes Swartz Family For Suggesting Prosecution Of Their Son Contributed To His Suicide

        Dolan has since deleted his entire account after he either came to his senses or someone suggested strongly that he think better of it. While you can understand his desire to defend his wife’s efforts, the tweets aren’t just somewhat offensive following Aaron’s suicide, but misleading as well. To argue that the prosecution was fair because they offered him a 6 month plea deal is complete and utter hogwash. As many have pointed out, it doesn’t appear that Aaron should have been facing any federal charges at all. The 35 years is completely relevant, because that’s part of the hammer that his wife was using to pressure him into taking the 6 month plea deal so that she and her assistant could get a big headline about another “guilty” plea. To act like the 6 month offer is some sort of “leniency” is insane when you know the details of the case and everything else that came with it.

        Dolan also — conveniently — ignores that the government supposedly told Aaron’s lawyers that if he didn’t take the deal, the next one they’d come back with would be worse, and that if the case actually got to court, they’d try to get the judge (notorious for strict sentences) to throw the book at Swartz.

  • Programming

    • 9 of the Best Free PHP Books

      Learning the PHP: Hypertext Preprocessor (PHP) programming language from scratch can be an arduous affair. Fortunately, budding developers that want to code in this language have a good range of introductory texts available to read, both in-print and to download. There are also many quality books that help programmers that have reached an intermediate level deepen their understanding of the language.

  • Standards/Consortia

    • W3C Invites Chinese Web Developers, Industry, Academia to Assume Greater Role in Global Web Innovation

      W3C announces Beihang University as a new center for W3C technical staff and leadership activities in China. W3C anticipates that a dedicated presence in China will enhance opportunities for collaboration among Chinese companies, Web developers, and research institutes, and W3C’s full international community, including Members from more than 40 countries.

      “China is in the midst of an innovation boom,” said Jeff Jaffe, W3C CEO. “In IT, Chinese companies have excelled in instant messaging, online games, smartphones, and search, and there is a flourishing Chinese browser ecosystem. In the past two years W3C has benefited from greater Chinese participation, and we look forward to that trend accelerating through the efforts of local industry and Beihang University. Global participation in W3C enables our community to identify global needs for the Web, and drive solutions.”

      In its new capacity, Beihang University invites Chinese Web developers, industry, and academia to assume a greater role in global Web innovation.

    • Vint Cerf appointed to National Science Board by President Obama

Leftovers

  • Is Facebook Graph Search A Concerning Matter?

    Is Facebook Graph Search A Concerning Matter?
    Syn Waker’s picture
    Posted by Syn Waker on20Jan2013

    As we all heard about, Facebook started to roll out a beta version of its Graph Search, a feature that “gives people the power and the tools they need to search through the content on the site”. At what cost?

    We’ve already seen how Facebook “handles” the privacy of the humble Facebook users (see face recognition and social web), but now, Mark’s social network has made a bold step by making impossible to hide your timeline from being indexed in the ‘walled’ search results (altough individual posts can be hidden), and those who opted out before this feature would be disabled, they would still be forced to change the privacy settings for every single post they wanted to be hidden from curious eyes.

  • Media freedom is a delicate flower

    I am delighted to have read over the weekend, and to have been officially presented today, with a keenly awaited report into the practice of media freedom and pluralism in the European Union. The lead author is Prof. Vaire Vike Freiberga (The other members were Professor Herta Däubler-Gmelin, Professor Luís Miguel Poiares Pessoa Maduro and Ben Hammersley)

    It is remarkably wide-ranging; it touches on the work of many of my Commission colleagues.

  • Google Handwrite gets easier and faster

    Since we launched Google Handwrite last summer for smartphones and tablets, we’ve been improving recognition quality and also working on a number of features to make it easier and faster to handwrite your searches on Google. You can now distinguish between ambiguous characters, overlap your characters, and write multiple characters at a time in Chinese.

  • What Gates Foundation Should Have Said in Its MET Teacher Evaluation Report

    No matter how you mix it, it’s better to go with Value-Added, student surveys, or both: As Dropout Nation noted last year, the accuracy of classroom observations is so low that even in a multiple measures approach to evaluation in which value-added data and student surveys account for the overwhelming majority of the data culled from the model (72.9 percent, and 17.2 percent of the evaluation in one case), the classroom observations are of such low quality that they bring down the accuracy of the overall performance review. This point is raised again in the latest group of models floated by Gates in its final MET study. Only one model matches the level of accuracy Value-Added has on its own — and that’s because observations only account for two percent of the data in the model. The usefulness of the next model, one of the three Gates prefers because observations account for a quarter of the data used (while Value-Added accounts for half), declines by nine-hundreds of a standard deviation based on Dropout Nation‘s analysis of the MET report’s data; another model, in observations, Value-Added and student surveys account for one-third each, the loss of accuracy is nearly two-tenths of a standard deviation.

    Yet the Gates Foundation insists on pushing a “multiple measures approach” that is useless to teachers, school leaders, families, and children alike:

  • Science

  • Health/Nutrition

  • Security

    • Security advisories for Monday
    • The ghost of a Spring Framework bug haunts old code

      There are reports of the discovery of a remote code execution flaw in the Spring Framework, but many are not mentioning that the flaw in question was fixed over a year ago and that what has been found is actually a new way to exploit that old flaw. In 2011, a “variable” severity flaw, identified as CVE-2011-2730, was discovered by two researchers in versions 3.0.0 to 3.0.5, 2.5.0 to 2.5.6SEC02 and 2.5.0 to 2.5.7SR01. The flaw involved Expression Language (EL) and its use in JSP; EL expressions were evaluated by default and in some circumstances were evaluated twice, which could lead to information disclosure to an attacker if there was a location in an application where an unfiltered parameter was placed in a tag that would be evaluated. A paper covered the details.

    • No, availability is not security!

      Security is a very important factor in my choice of distributions and software solutions, and I tend to hold a very strict view of what it means from a modern computing standpoint. In one sentence, my stance on security is this: A sound and complete security posture has to take both physical and network security into account.

      Anything less will not fly. So when I came across an article that attempts to sell that view short for the sole purpose of promoting a product, it didn’t sit well with me. The offending article was written by Frank Karlitschek, founder and CTO of Owncloud, a cloud storage service and solution.

      In More to Security than Encryption, he takes this skewed stance that it is (somewhat) ok to say something is secure even though it lacks encryption. He then makes several points to support that stance.

    • Oracle’s Java patch leaves a loophole
    • 29c3: Hacking Politics

      Every year at the end of December, computer hackers from all over the world gather in Germany – this time in Hamburg – for the Chaos Communication Congress, four days of talks, meetings and workshops.

      With “Not my department,” as the theme of the year – a tongue in cheek reminder that hackers should accept their responsibilities when it comes to politics and social justice – 29c3, short for 29th Chaos Communication Congress, reveals the growing influence of a certain type of hacker, one increasingly aware of its political role.

    • Security guards attack man for shooting video of subway track

  • Defence/Police/Secrecy/Aggression

  • Cablegate

  • Environment/Energy/Wildlife

    • Minamata Convention Agreed by Nations

      International effort to address mercury-a notorious heavy metal with significant health and environmental effects-was today delivered a significant boost with governments agreeing to a global, legally-binding treaty to prevent emissions and releases.

    • If Right-Wing Violence Is Up 400%, Why Is the #FBI Targeting Environmentalists?

      Violent attacks by right-wing groups and individuals have increased by 400% since 1990, and dramatically in the last five years, according to a new report by West Point’s Combating Terrorism Center.

      When examined side-by-side with FBI reports on domestic terrorism, the data from this study shows that the FBI has been either grossly miscalculating, or intentionally downplaying, murders and violent attacks by right-wing extremists while exaggerating the threat posed by animal rights activists and environmentalists, who have only destroyed property.

  • Finance

    • Oxfam seeks ‘new deal’ on inequality from world leaders

      The 100 richest people in the world earned enough last year to end extreme poverty suffered by the poorest on the planet four times over, Oxfam has said.

      Ahead of next week’s World Economic Forum in Switzerland, the charity urged world leaders to tackle inequality.

      Extreme wealth was “economically inefficient, politically corrosive, socially divisive”, the report said.

      [...]

      “From tax havens to weak employment laws, the richest benefit from a global economic system which is rigged in their favour.”

    • How to get $12 billion of gold to Venezuela

      Ever since the news broke last week that Hugo Chávez wanted to transport 211 tons of physical gold from Europe to Caracas, I’ve been wondering how on earth he possibly intends to do such a thing.

    • Goldman Raises CEO’s Stock Bonus 90% to $13.3 Million

      Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (GS) boosted Chief Executive Officer Lloyd C. Blankfein’s stock bonus 90 percent to $13.3 million, topping JPMorgan Chase & Co. (JPM)’s Jamie Dimon for the first time in five years, as profit climbed (GS).

    • Snakes and Ladders: Investment Banking on the Brink

      Banks manipulated the LIBOR interest rate, which affects financial transactions worth hundreds of trillions of dollars. They foisted risky assets on customers and became involved in money laundering and tax fraud. Traders like Kweku Adoboli (UBS), Jérôme Kerviel (Société Générale) and Bruno Iksil (JPMorgan Chase) gambled away billions through risky transactions, either on their own or with their departments.

    • Rich Pickings: Goldman Sachs cashes in, world on brink of food crisis
    • Goldman Sachs made up to £250 million from betting on food prices in 2012

      Goldman Sachs made up to an estimated £251 million (US$400 million) in 2012 from speculating on food including wheat, maize and soy, prompting campaigners to accuse the bank of contributing to a growing global food crisis.
      Goldman Sachs is recognised as the leading global player in financial speculation on food and other commodities, and created the first commodity index funds which allow huge amounts of money to be gambled on prices.

    • The “Swiss Bank Accounts” of the 2012 Elections: How Secret Donors Are Corrupting Democracy

      The corrosive influence of money in politics was amplified in 2012 by the fact that in many cases we don’t know which individuals or which corporations actually provided much of the funding to affect election results. “Dark money” — election spending where we don’t know the source of the funds — played a bigger role in 2012 than in any other presidential election since Richard Nixon’s.

      A new report from the Center for Media and Democracy and the U.S. Public Interest Research Group (USPIRG) has helped expose more about what we call “the swiss bank account” of American elections, where wealthy elites attempt to secretly influence the outcome of our elections through non-profit groups that keep their donations hidden, and increasingly, through “straw” or “shell” corporations that appear to exist for no reason other than to anonymously pour millions into elections.

    • Open Letter to Mike Duke, CEO of Walmart

      Walmart, your gigantic company, is increasingly being challenged by your workers, government prosecutors, civil lawsuits, communities (that do not want a Walmart), taxpayers learning about your drain on government services and corporate welfare, and small businesses and groups working with unions such as SEIU and UFCW. Thus far, Walmart is successfully playing rope-a-dope, conceding little while expecting to wear down its opposition.

    • Goldman bankers get rich betting on food prices as millions starve

      Goldman Sachs made more than a quarter of a billion pounds last year by speculating on food staples, reigniting the controversy over banks profiting from the global food crisis.

  • PR/AstroTurf/Lobbying

    • Researcher Tears Apart Gates Foundation Teacher Evaluation Study

      University of Arkansas education professor Jay P. Greene has weighed in on the BIll and Melinda Gates Foundation’s conclusions about its teacher evaluation study.

      Greene says the foundation’s conclusions were based on the politics of convincing teachers and school districts of the merits of evaluations, and not data.

    • Understanding the Gates Foundation’s Measuring Effective Teachers Project

      But the folks at the Gates Foundation, afflicted with PLDD, don’t see things this way. They’ve been working with politicians in Illinois, Los Angeles, and elsewhere to centrally impose teacher evaluation systems, but they’ve encountered stiff resistance. In particular, they’ve noticed that teachers and others have expressed strong reservations about any evaluation system that relies too heavily on student test scores.

    • THE CIA AND THE MEDIA

      How Americas Most Powerful News Media Worked Hand in Glove with the Central Intelligence Agency and Why the Church Committee Covered It Up

  • Censorship

    • EU Group Says Brussels Should Control Press Regulation, Attacks Cameron For Rejecting Leveson
    • Leveson: EU wants power to sack journalists

      Douglas Carswell, the Conservative MP for Clacton, attacked the report for making an “extraordinary, and deeply disturbing proposal”.
      “Having EU officials overseeing our free press – and monitoring newspapers to ensure they comply with “European values” – would be quite simply intolerable,” he said.
      “This is the sort of mind-set that I would expect to find in Iran, not the West. This kooky idea tells us little about the future of press regulation. It does suggest that the European project is ultimately incompatible with the notion of a free society.”

  • Privacy

    • Ministers Express Doubts on Expanding Data Protection Laws

      E.U. justice ministers reacted coolly on Friday to a plan that would give consumers the ability to expunge the personal details Internet businesses have collected on them, essentially allowing individuals to block most kinds of online ads.

      During an informal meeting in Dublin, the ministers expressed reservations about elements of the proposal, which would impose new limits on data collection and profiling and give national regulators the ability to levy hefty fines equal to 2 percent of sales on companies that failed to comply.

    • PayPal Gets A Slice Of £25m DWP Identity Contract
    • I conceal my identity the same way Aaron was indicted for

      According to his indictment, Aaron Swartz was charged with wirefraud for concealing/changing his “true identity”. It sent chills down my back, because I do everything on that list (and more).

    • Graph Search’s Dirty Promise and the Con of the Facebook “Like”

      It turns out as much as half of the links between objects and interests contained in FB are dirty—i.e. there is no true affinity between the like and the object or it’s stale. Never mind does the data not really represent user intent… but the user did not even ‘like’ what she was liking.
      How is this possible? Let me explain.

  • Civil Rights

    • Terror Threat Prompts U.S. Rethink on Africa
    • Student Expelled From Montreal College For Finding “Sloppy Coding”

      In what appears to be a more-and-more common occurrence, Ahmed Al-Khabez has been expelled from Dawson College in Montreal after he discovered a flaw in the software that the college (and apparently all other colleges across Quebec) uses to track student information.

    • NDAA Would Have Sent MLK to Gitmo, Says Cornel West

      Firebrand black activist Dr. Cornel West gave a speech at the Tavis Smiley Presents Poverty In America series on Thursday that may surprise libertarians – in how much they agree with the “socialist radical.”

      Decrying the erosion of civil liberties today, Dr. West loudly lamented the “crypto-fascist” state developing in America – contrasting the federal government to crack addicts, whom he said at least “are honest about their addiction. The White House is addicted to power!”

  • Internet/Net Neutrality

    • Cable Industry Finally Admits Caps Not About Congestion

      For years the cable industry insisted that they imposed usage caps because network congestion made them necessary. You’ll recall that Time Warner Cable insisted that if they weren’t allowed to impose caps and overages the Internet would face “brown outs.” Cable operators also paid countless think tanks, consultants and fauxcademics to spin scary yarns about a looming network congestion “exaflood,” only averted if cable operators were allowed to raise rates, impose caps, eliminate regulation or (insert pretty much anything here).

  • Intellectual Monopolies

    • Supreme Court conundrum: How far does a soybean seed patent go?

      Vernon Hugh Bowman is the rare Indiana soybean farmer destined for immortality as a U.S. Supreme Court caption.
      Bowman had the temerity to attempt to outwit Monsanto, the giant agriculture company that, as you surely know, invested hundreds of millions of dollars and years of research in the creation of soybean seeds that are genetically modified to withstand the herbicide glyphosate, which Monsanto markets as Roundup. The genetically modified seeds, according to the Supreme Court brief Monsanto filed Wednesday, have been such a hit with farmers that more than 90 percent of the U.S. soybean crop begins with Monsanto’s Roundup Ready seeds. Given that every soybean plant produces enough seeds to grow 80 more plants — and that soybeans grown from Roundup Ready seeds contain the genetic modification of glyphosate resistance — Monsanto has insisted that farmers sign licensing agreements with strict restrictions. Soybean producers are only supposed to use the Roundup Ready seeds they buy to grow crops in a single season, and they’re forbidden from planting second-generation seeds harvested from first-generation crops.

    • US FTC Finds Sharp Rise In ‘Pay-For-Delay’ Deals Blocking Generics

      The Federal Trade Commission staff report [pdf] found that drug companies made 40 potential pay-for-delay deals in FY 2012 (1 October 2011 through 30 September 2012).

    • The dynamics of free culture and the danger of noncommercial clauses

      Free licensing lowers the barrier of entry to creating cultural works, which unlocks a dynamic where people can realize their ideas much easier – and where culture can actually live, creating memes, adjusting them to new situations and using new approaches with old topics.

      But for that to really take off, people have to be able to make a living from their creations – which build on other works. Then we have people who make a living by reshaping culture again and again – instead of the current culture where only a few (rich or funded by rich ones) can afford to reuse old works and all others have to start from scratch again and again.

    • Open, pop culture R&D lab for the public domain
    • Court Definitively Rejects AFP’s Argument That Posting a Photo to Twitter Grants AFP a License to Freely Use It — AFP v. Morel
    • It Will Be Awesome if They Don’t Screw it Up: 3D Printing
    • Nokia backs 3D printing for mobile phone cases
    • After a year in the grave, can SOPA and Protect IP return?

      CNET asked the leaders of the congressional committees that write U.S. copyright law, plus the groups that backed the controversial legislation a year ago, to tell us what will happen next.

    • Copyrights

      • Fighting Back Against The DOJ

        They demurred on prosecuting war criminals (hey, they’re all government buddies and what’s a few prisoners tortured to death among friends?), but they sure as hell hounded Aaron Swartz to his death. It really speaks to how justice is so often these days a weapon of the powerful, not a defense for the powerless. The petition to hold Carmen Ortiz accountable for her bullying has now reached 38,000. Please sign it – and let the Obama administration know that this attack on dissemination of academic information is not acceptable.

      • Was Aaron Swartz Really ‘Killed by the Government’?

        Swartz’s case may not be as black-and-white as his loved ones suggest; no one person or entity “killed” Swartz. Suicide is caused by mental illness. But in bringing such tough charges against him, prosecutors do seem to have wrongly used their discretion. There is still more to be learned about how the Boston U.S. Attorney’s office made the choices it did, and Representative Darrell Issa, chairman of the House Oversight Committee, has announced that his committee is investigating. Swartz’s actions were not above reproach. He appears to have been in the middle of a plan to “liberate” and disseminate privately owned articles. But the offense he was engaged in was not crime of violence or greed. It seems, rather, to have been an act of civil disobedience, or lawbreaking in the service of Swartz’s (and many people’s) idea of a more just world. That does not mean that Swartz had a right to do what he did or not to be punished. But his motives should have been an important part of the government’s calculus.

      • Aaron Swartz: cannon fodder in the war against internet freedom

        On 11 January, a young American geek named Aaron Swartz killed himself, and most of the world paid no attention. In the ordinary run of things, “it was not an important failure”, as Auden put it in Musée des Beaux Arts.

        About suffering they were never wrong,
        The old Masters: how well they understood
        Its human position: how it takes place
        While someone else is eating or opening a window or just walking dully along

      • Aaron Swartz memorial evokes strong emotions and political urgency

        Friends, family, and colleagues share their stories of the activist’s life and work

      • Dotcom’s Mega Launches To Unprecedented Demand

        The much anticipated rebirth of Megaupload took place in the last few hours with interest living up to expectations. In less than one hour the site picked up 100,000 new registrations, going on to 500,000 and beyond just a few hours later. As the site struggled to cope with demand it became unresponsive in the face of an unprecedented flood of users eager to test out the new file-hosting site. Just a few minutes ago the launch party at Kim Dotcom’s mansion began, with some interesting reveals.

      • Kim Dotcom’s Mega Gets 1 Million Users During Launch, Should You Use It?

        The Internet superhero Kim Dotcom has returned with MEGA, after the US government – under the influence of Hollywood — seized Megaupload servers and took ownership of legit user data. After initially hiccups (where under US influence the government of the African nation of Gabon seized Me.ga domain) Dotcom has released MEGA with a lavish and mega launch party.

      • Dotcom’s Mega Launches To Unprecedented Demand
      • Senator John Cornyn accuses Eric Holder of prosecuting Aaron Swartz as ‘retaliation’
      • Feds Hounded ‘Net Activist Aaron Swartz, Says EFF’s Parker Higgins
      • The Folly of Obama National Security Officials Making Their Own Drone ‘Rules’
      • Attack on Sovereignty

        Those concerned about “The New World Order” speak as if the United States is coming under the control of an outside conspiratorial force. In fact, it is the US that is the New World Order. That is what the American unipolar world, about which China, Russia, and Iran complain, is all about.

      • The International Relations Academy and the Beltway “Foreign Policy Community”—Why the Disconnect?
      • Carmen Ortiz Strikes Out

        Congress prepares to slap down prosecutors linked to the suicide of Aaron Swartz

      • Dick Cheney Sounds Off on CIA Torture, Iraq, and More in New Sundance Documentary

        The World According to Dick Cheney, a new documentary by R.J. Cutler and Greg Finton, will make its premiere at the 2013 Sundance Film Festival. The film boasts hours of exclusive interviews with the ex–vice president, who remains unapologetic about his legacy—including CIA torture and the Iraq War.

      • The Fishing Expedition into WikiLeaks

        If, as WikiLeaks claims, Aaron Swartz:

        Assisted WikiLeaks
        Communicated with Julian Assange in 2010 and 2011
        May have contributed material to WikiLeaks
        Then it strongly indicates the US government used the grand jury investigation into Aaron’s JSTOR downloads as a premise to investigate WikiLeaks. And they did so, apparently, only after the main grand jury investigation into WikiLeaks had stalled.

      • Our Government’s UnPATRIOTic Investigation of Aaron Swartz

        As I noted back in December 2010, as soon as Eric Holder declared WikiLeaks’ purported crime to be Espionage, it opened up a whole slew of investigative methods associated with the PATRIOT Act. It allowed the government to use National Security Letters to get financial and call records. It allowed them to use Section 215 orders to get “any tangible thing.” And all that’s after FISA Amendments Act, which permits the government to bulk collect “foreign intelligence” on a target overseas–whether or not that foreign target is suspected of Espionage–that includes that target’s communications with Americans. The government may well be using Section 215 to later access the US person communications that have been collected under an FAA order, though that detail is one the government refuses to share with the American people.

      • Last picture of tragic internet guru: Reddit founder’s girlfriend tells of their last hours

        Taren insists Swartz killed himself because he was ‘tired’ of facing up to a merciless justice system that has ‘lost all sense of mercy’ and is driven by ‘vindictiveness’

      • Mega arrives: Hands-on with Kim Dotcom’s new cloud storage site

        Nearly one year after Kim Dotcom’s Megaupload storage site was shuttered on criminal charges filed by the United States government, the big man is back with a new cloud storage service, called simply Mega.

      • Australian Pirate Party Gets Approved and Russians are Denied (Again)

        It’s been an up and down week for Pirates, as official party status has been decided in two countries. In Australia it’s a big G’day to their Pirate Party, while the Russians yet again heard ‘Nyet’ from their Ministry of Justice.

        There is a certain level of symmetry to the world. When one part of the world has day, the other half has night. And more importantly, when one hemisphere gets summer, the other has winter. Right now it’s summer in the southern hemisphere and the sun is certainly shining on Australian Pirates.

      • Aussie Pirate Party Officially Enters Politics

        The Pirate Party officially becomes an Australian political organisation, stating that it “passed all tests by the Australian Electoral Commission”. For those who don’t know, a Pirate Party is, according to Wikipedia, a label adopted by political parties in different countries that supports civil rights, direct democracy and participation, free sharing of knowledge and freedom of information, advocating network neutrality and universal Internet access.

      • Mega hits 1 million users after one day as Kim Dotcom officially launches the service
      • Martin Luther King’s ‘I Have A Dream’ Video Taken Down On Internet Freedom Day

        We’ve been talking a lot today about Internet Freedom Day, and the anniversary of the SOPA/PIPA blackout. The folks at Fight for the Future noticed the proximity of Internet Freedom Day to Martin Luther King Jr. Day, and decided an interesting form of celebrating internet freedom would be to share a video of MLK’s famous “I have a dream…” speech. As you may or may not know, Martin Luther King Jr.’s heirs have been ridiculously aggressive in claiming copyright over every aspect of anything related to MLK — and they seek large sums of money from people for doing things like quoting him. When the MLK Memorial was recently built in Washington DC, the family was able to get nearly $800,000 just to use his words and likeness.

      • Law Professor James Grimmelmann Explains How He Probably Violated The Same Laws As Aaron Swartz

        We’ve been discussing the ridiculousness of the prosecution against Aaron Swartz, including the fact that if a federal prosecutor decides to take you down, it’s not at all difficult to find something they can try to pin on you, especially when it comes to “computer” crimes. Law professor James Grimmelmann explains how it’s quite possible that prosecutors could go after him under the same laws as it went after Swartz. He notes that he used to run the (excellent) blog LawMeme (which we used to link to frequently). After it died, he wanted to preserve many of the articles, and so he wrote a script to pull the articles off of the Internet Archive.

      • Toward a Revolutionary Transformation of Society
      • isoHunt Turns 10 Years Old, Keeps on Fighting Copyright Cartels

        IsoHunt, one of the oldest BitTorrent sites on the Internet, turns 10 years old today. The site has been fighting Hollywood in court for more than seven years but has not backed down. IsoHunt founder Gary Fung is determined to protect and facilitate people’s right to share culture legitimately. “One would think the people of the Internet are losing to the copyright cartels, but I think different,” he says.

      • In memory of Aaron Swartz: Stealing is not stealing

        If Swartz had knocked over a bookstore with the intent of depositing the books in a library, he’d have received a mental health evaluation and been threatened with less time. Moreover, if he was caught in the act of knocking over the bookstore, he’d be guilty of an attempted crime and face even lesser penalties. But for some reason, cyber crime is considered deadly serious. He was facing 35 years. You could murder someone and get less time.

      • After Aaron Swartz

        Brilliant young hackers, striving to build tools to change the world, are killing themselves. Just last week: Aaron Swartz, co-founder of Reddit and fierce open access activist, took his life at 26. There have been other high-profile suicides in the tech world in recent years: Ilya Zhitomirskiy, co-founder of the distributed social network Diaspora, dead at 22. Len Sassaman, a highly-regarded cypherpunk who believed in cryptography and privacy as tools of freedom, dead at 31. Dan Haubert, co-founder of the Y-Combinator funded startup Ticketstumbler, dead at 25. If these young men were like the 100 people who kill themselves in this country every day, the biggest factor contributing to their deaths was likely under-treated depression.

      • Aaron Swartz’s Father: MIT Put ‘Institutional Concerns Ahead Of Compassion’
      • Fighting Back Against The DOJ
      • The Impact of “Aaron’s Law” on Aaron Swartz’s Case
      • The pushback against Aaron Swartz misses the point
      • Edward Tufte’s defense of Aaron Swartz and the “marvelously different”
      • A Moment of Silence for Aaron Swartz

01.19.13

Links 19/1/2013: Aaron Swartz-Bradley Manning/Wikileaks Link Publicised

Posted in News Roundup at 12:31 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

GNOME bluefish

Contents

GNU/Linux

Free Software/Open Source

  • MobileDevHQ’s Ian Sefferman: So You Built an App – Now What?

    “Our starting point was obviously all open source. Our main framework was Ruby on Rails. We do a lot of processing in Hadoop. We are standing on the shoulders of giants here. Wherever we can find little bits and pieces that are easy for us to open source and do fixes that we can put back, we are happy to do it,” said Ian Sefferman, CEO of MobileDevHQ.

  • Vert.x’s journey teaches invaluable governance lessons

    As the Vert.x community selects its future home, it offers a fascinating illustration of the role of governance

  • SmartFile Announces Open Source App Contest for Indiana College Students

  • Web Browsers

    • Mozilla

      • Firefox’s Move To a Rapid Release Cycle Didn’t Just Upset Users

        Purportedly, one of the best lessons in software development to have come from the open source movement is the rapid release cycle, and partly because the Google Chrome browser was benefiting from rapid releases, in February of 2011, Mozilla announced that it was moving the Firefox browser to a rapid release cycle. As you can see if you look at the comments on this OStatic post from April of 2011, not every user of Firefox was pleased with the arrangement, due to performance problems that were showing up in the browser.

      • Firefox 18.0.1 coming soon

        Critics of the Firefox web browser might say that Mozilla never gets it right the first time and base that assumption on the version updates the company releases shortly after Firefox moves to a new version.It happened several times in the past that Mozilla had to release an update after releasing a new version of the browser, and it appears that this streak won’t break with the release of Firefox 18.0

      • Silent installs of add-ons still possible in Firefox

        A security researcher has demonstrated how it is still possible to silently install extensions, or as Mozilla calls them add-ons, for the open source Firefox web browser. In a blog post, Julian Sobrier of ZScaler detailed the process, which makes use of the fact that Firefox uses an Sqlite3 database to maintain information about which add-ons are installed and, of those, which ones have been approved by the user.

  • Oracle/Java/LibreOffice

    • OpenOffice Writer English Grammar Checkers

      If you wish there was an English grammar checker for OpenOffice Writer, you’re in luck. Two popular extensions let you add an English grammar check to OpenOffice for free.

  • CMS

    • 10 free Drupal modules that make development easier

      When it comes to open-source content management systems, Drupal really stands apart from Joomla and WordPress, its closest competitors, for several reasons.

      The payoff for using Drupal is the development of very tightly configured sites that perform well and scale excellently. This is why many developers are willing to put up with its idiosyncrasies.

  • Education

  • Business

  • FSF/FSFE/GNU/SFLC

    • FSF

      Internet Freedom Day isn’t just about celebrating; it’s about action:

      * A free Internet needs free JavaScript: You can help by installing the LibreJS plugin.
      * Join millions of others in the actions at InternetFreedomDay.net.
      * Internet activist Aaron Swartz was a leader in the SOPA/PIPA protest. Watch and share this video:

    • GNU Press now selling GNU/Linux Inside stickers!

      By popular demand, we are now selling the GNU/Linux Inside sticker pack. For $15, you receive 10 GNU/Linux stickers. Because these stickers are high-quality and durable, they won’t fade away or scratch off your computer, making it the ideal way to rep your use of free software!

    • GCC 4.8 Improves Its Runtime Library (libstdc++)

  • Openness/Sharing

    • Open Access/Content

      • Mathematicians aim to take publishers out of publishing

        Episciences Project to launch series of community-run, open-access journals.

      • The Growing Adoption of Creative Commons Textbooks

        Cable Green doesn’t have to look very far to find an example of an education system weighed down by what he considers a bloated and inefficient textbook industry. The director of global learning for Creative Commons simply points to his home state of Washington. “My state spends $130 million per year buying textbooks,” he says. “We only have a million public school kids in the state, so we’re spending $130 per kid per year.” Because each book is expected to last half a decade, the kids aren’t permitted to keep them or write in them. The books are only available in one format, paper, and are sometimes seven to 10 years out of date. If one of Green’s kids loses a textbook, as a parent Green is expected to fork over the money to replace it.

    • Open Hardware

  • Programming

Leftovers

  • Security

  • Defence/Police/Secrecy/Aggression

  • Cablegate

  • Environment/Energy/Wildlife

    • Japan to start building world’s biggest offshore wind farm this summer
    • Fracking Industry Goes After Promised Land Film

      The film chronicles the story of a gas industry salesman, played by Matt Damon, and his attempt to convince the residents of a rural Pennsylvania town to agree to fracking development. The questions raised by actors in the film mirror the debates taking place in communities across the country. What type of chemicals are used in fracking? What is the effect of fracking on air and water? While the industry may make a few struggling families rich, what is the cost for the community as a whole?

  • Finance

    • 20 Infamous Quotes That Wall Street Wishes Were Never Made Public
    • Ex-treasurer of Spain’s PP had €22m in Swiss bank

      The beleaguered government of Mariano Rajoy has been embarrassed by revelations that its party’s former treasurer had a bank account in Switzerland containing up to €22 million.

      Luis Bárcenas held the treasury post in the conservative Partido Popular (PP) from 2008 until 2009, when he resigned because of an investigation into his part in a massive fraud network. He stepped down from the party in 2010. The inquiry into that case continues and information a Spanish judge has requested from Swiss authorities shows details of an account held under the politician’s name which coincides with the time he was managing the PP’s finances.

    • What Is Goldman Sachs?

      …it derives about half of its income from things that many people would consider trading.

    • Finland: A nation in debt

      People in the 25–34 year-old age group carry the heaviest home mortgage burden.

      Sixty percent of all households owe money to the bank, with home loans accounting for 70 percent of this debt.

      Those in their thirties are the most saddled by debt, with 119,000 euros being the average amount owed. On the other hand, half of young families are debt-free, according to the statisticians.

  • PR/AstroTurf/Lobbying

  • Privacy

  • Civil Rights

    • Naked-Image Scanners to Be Removed From U.S. Airports

      The U.S. Transportation Security Administration will remove airport body scanners that privacy advocates likened to strip searches after OSI Systems Inc. (OSIS) couldn’t write software to make passenger images less revealing.

  • Internet/Net Neutrality

    • European Commission Backtracks On Net Neutrality

      European Commissioner for Digital Agenda Neelie Kroes has stated that it should be up to ISPs to decide how they manage their traffic, essentially admitting that Net Neutrality wouldn’t become part of EU legislation.

      Without appropriate laws, network operators will be able to offer cheaper, ‘tiered’ Internet connections with limited capabilities, alongside full strength Internet services. Before taking responsibility for the EU Digital Agenda, Kroes insisted that ISPs should be regulated in order to ensure that companies are not limiting access to online content “out of commercial motivation”, but critics say she has now backtracked.

    • Internet and filtering applications: a tale of choice and revenues

      That does not mean more pages to your 100-page contract! The Commission has been encouraging the advertising industry to ensure users get a clear choice about cookies, based on short, digestible information. The Commission is also working with a wider set of online actors to develop a “Do Not track” standard, so that consumers who make this choice can be sure it is respected.

      On net neutrality, consumers need effective choice on the type of internet subscription they sign up to. That means real clarity, in non-technical language. About effective speeds in normal conditions, and about any restrictions imposed on traffic – and a realistic option to switch to a “full” service, without such restrictions, offered by their own provider or another. Ensuring consumer choice can mean constraints on others – in this case, an obligation for all internet service providers to offer an accessible “full” option to their customers. But such choice should also drive innovation and investment by internet providers, with benefits for all. I am preparing a Commission initiative to secure this effective consumer choice in Europe.

  • Intellectual Monopolies

    • Copyrights

      • A time for silence

        I hate my perpetual optimism about our government. Aaron was buried on the tenth anniversary of the time that optimism bit me hardest — Eldred v. Ashcroft. But how many other examples are there, and why don’t I ever learn? The dumbest-fucking-naive-allegedly-smart person you will ever know: that guy thought this tragedy would at least shake for one second the facade of certainty that is our government, and allow at least a tiny light of recognition to shine through, and in that tiny ray, maybe a question, a pause, a moment of “ok, we need to look at this carefully.” I wasn’t dumb enough to believe that Ortiz could achieve the grace of Reif. But the single gift I wanted was at least a clumsy, hesitating, “we’re going to look at this carefully, and think about whether mistakes might have been made.”

      • ‘I Have a Dream’ Posted in Defiance of Copyright for Internet Freedom Day

        As Friday is one year since the Internet blackout against the Stop Online Piracy Act, some Internet activists are marking the date by declaring “Internet Freedom Day.”

      • Ahimsa: Sita Sings The Blues Now CC-0 ‘Public Domain’

        A few years ago I started thinking about taking a vow of non-violence: a commitment to never sue anyone over Knowledge (or Culture, Cultural Works, Art, Intellectual Pooperty, whatever you call it). Copyright law is hopelessly broken; indeed, the Law in the US is broken all over the place. Why would I resort to the same broken law to try to fix abuses that occur within it?

      • Kim Dotcom on Mega, Hollywood, the internet and copyright enforcement – video
      • Senator John Cornyn Asks Eric Holder To Explain DOJ Prosecution Of Aaron Swartz

        While we’ve seen some politicians in Congress speak out about the prosecution against Aaron Swartz, for the most part, it had been the “usual crew” of folks who had formed the core of the anti-SOPA alliance — Reps. Lofgren, Issa and Polis. That’s great, but it also made it unfortunately easy for some to dismiss their complaints. However, it appears that this may be getting bigger.

      • The Six Week Delay in the Swartz Investigation

        As I noted, the same day that Aaron Swartz resubmitted his FOIA on Bradley Manning’s treatment, the Secret Service got a warrant to search most of the hardware captured on the day he was arrested (a USB on his person and a laptop and hard drive found elsewhere on MIT’s campus), as well as his home (and they subsequently got a warrant to search his office at Harvard).

      • Was Aaron Swartz’ Effort to FOIA Bradley Manning’s Treatment Why DOJ Treated Him So Harshly?

        I have shown earlier how, during the period when the Grand Jury was investigating Swartz, Swartz was FOIAing stuff that the prosecutor seems to have subpoeaned as part of a fishing expedition into Swartz. I have also shown that a FOIA response he got in January 2011 suggests he may have been discussed in a (presumably different) grand jury investigation between October 8 and December 10, 2010. And Jason Leopold has also pointed to some interesting coincidences in Swartz’ FOIAs.

      • The Prosecution of Aaron: A Response to Orin Kerr

        He had co-written a basic RSS spec the year before, when he was 14. He was to go on to play a fundamental role in Creative Commons. When you now search for stuff online, using its legal status as a search prerequisite, not just a text query (Physics textbook, available to use or share, even commercially) you are doing something that Aaron’s volunteer work helped to enable. People talk of him now as some kind of Data Liberation activist, which he certainly was, but principally he was and is one of the great architects of the commons, a builder, as Dave Weinberger stresses, not just a hacker — though hacker, of course, is actually a name that programmers wear with pride. The guy who invented the World Wide Web had this to say about him. “Aaron dead. World wanderers, we have lost a wise elder. Hackers for right, we are one down. Parents all, we have lost a child. Let us weep.”

      • Aaron Swartz
      • Hacktivism: Civil disobedience or cyber crime?

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