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04.04.15

Links 4/4/2015: Rust 1.0 Beta, IceCat 31.6.0

Posted in News Roundup at 11:12 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

GNOME bluefish

Contents

GNU/Linux

  • Get 91% off the Linux Learner Bundle

    Master Linux quickly & efficiently with the next great courseware offer from TNW Deals! The Linux Learner Bundle puts you in command of the basics with 6 elite courses and 50+ hours of interactive learning content.

  • Desktop

    • Meerkat Is a Superb Mini-PC from System76 That Can Be Anything, Including Steam Link

      Meerkat is a mini-PC developed by System76 that is based on the NUC Intel platform and that comes with some insane specifications. The good news is Meerkat is now available for purchase.

    • Ubuntu on the Asus Zenbook UX305 ultrabook

      The Asus Zenbook UX305 is a thin and light laptop that offers a pretty great value. For $699 you get a 2.6 pounds notebook with 8GB of RAM, 256GB of solid state storage, a 13.3 inch full HD matte display, and an Intel Core M Broadwell processor.

    • Vive La France Libre! GNU/Linux Rolls Onwards And Upwards
    • A Linux Paradox Needs Explanation: Making Your Linux OS Look like Windows

      The Linux platform is extremely flexible, and it can be implemented pretty much anywhere, either as a server, a firewall or as an OS for your heating system at home. The same flexibility allows users to customize their operating systems to look like Windows, and that is somewhat of a paradox.

    • Google Unveils 4 New Chromebooks and Chrome OS on a Stick

      Google has unveiled five new computers running its Linux-based Chrome OS, including the first Chrome OS stick computer and the lowest priced touchscreen Chromebook to date.

      The new models move Chrome OS closer to the mobile embedded realm of Android, a trend underscored with Google now opening up its technology for porting Android apps to Chrome OS to any Android app developer. Google also showed off a beta Chrome Launcher 2.0 that switches the UI to a more Android-like Material Design look and feel, as well as Google Now.

    • Five New Chrome OS Computers

      The candy-bar sized Chromebit HDMI stick has some of the same innards as the four new Chromebooks including a Rockchip RK3288, 2GB of RAM, and 16GB of eMMC. The under $100 TV plug-in also sports a USB port, Bluetooth, and WiFi ac.

    • Google announces new Chromebooks and Chromebit HDMI sticks

      Google’s Chromebooks have long been burning up the sales charts on Amazon’s list of bestselling laptops. Now the company has announced four new Chromebooks, new HDMI sticks called Chromebits, and an update to its App Runtime for Chrome.

    • Chromebook Flip: Incentive for Google to improve touch for Chrome OS

      Chromebooks have been available with touch screens since the original Chromebook Pixel. They aren’t common but there are a few models on the market. One reason they aren’t common is that touch support in Chrome OS is not very good, so there’s no incentive for OEMs to build Chromebooks with touch.

  • Kernel Space

    • Graphics Stack

      • The Important X.Org Election Is Ending This Weekend

        For X.Org members that haven’t yet voted in this year’s particularly important elections, there’s just a few days to cast your ballot.

        The elections were supposed to happen back from 9 March to 22 March, but were significantly delayed and didn’t get started until 23 March. As such, they’re now expected to end on 5 April at 23:59 UTC.

  • Applications

  • Distributions

    • Countdown on elementary OS Website Suggests a New Freya Release

      A countdown has appeared today, April 4, on the elementary OS website suggesting that a new release of the highly anticipated operating system will be unveiled in approximately 7 days and 10 hours from the moment of writing this article.

    • New Releases

    • Arch Family

      • BlackArch Linux Offers Wealth of Security Research Tools

        There is no shortage of Linux-based operating systems focused on security research in the market today, including BackBox, Pentoo, CAINE and Kali Linux. While all of those Linux operating systems include a healthy volume of tools, BlackArch is in a category of its own in terms of the sheer number of included applications. BlackArch Linux version 2015.03.29, released March 29, provides users with more than 1,200 security tools. BlackArch is an Arch Linux-based security research operating system. Arch Linux is what is known as a rolling release Linux distribution that is constantly being updated. BlackArch includes anti-forensic, automation, backdoor, crypto, honeypot, networking, scanners, spoofers and wireless security tools. Among the interesting tools that BlackArch includes is Easy Creds, which aims to make it easier for security researchers to obtain user credentials during a penetration test. Within BlackArch’s backdoor tools category is OpenStego, a steganography application, which can be used to hide data inside an image. eWEEK takes a look at some of the features in the BlackArch 2015.03.29 release.

    • Red Hat Family

      • Scientific Linux 7.1 to Offer ZFS on Linux, UEFI Secure Boot Support Still Not Fully Implemented

        The Scientific Linux development team, through Pat Riehecky, has announced a couple of days ago that the first Release Candidate (RC) version of the upcoming Scientific Linux 7.1 computer operating system is available for download and testing.

      • Scientific Linux 7.1 Is Coming Soon, Up To An RC State

        Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7.1 was released in March and since then all of the RHEL derivatives have been busy testing and pushing out their updates. The Scientific Linux development community is close to getting out their SL7.1 release but they’re hoping for some last-minute testing.

        Scientific Linux 7.1 RC1 was released last night with all of the RHEL 7.1 changes incorporated. Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7.1 brought Kpatch support, SSSD for CISF, USB 3.0 support for KVM as a tech preview feature, vCPU support in KVM up to 240 vCPUs, Btrfs improvements, and many package updates throughout. Those wanting to find out about the upstream Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7.1 improvements can find the release notes at RedHat.com.

      • Fedora

    • Debian Family

      • Derivatives

        • Canonical/Ubuntu

          • Hack The Home: creating the home of the future

            These days, the free availability of open source software – take Snappy Ubuntu Core as a great example – means the near future is more sci-fi than DIY. Now, as GE’s company FirstBuild is about to prove, the home is the playground of the inventor, and freely available open source software like Snappy is their toolkit.

          • Canonical Wants Ubuntu to Power the House of the Future

            The home of tomorrow will be smart and it will be a part of the Internet of Things, but what operating systems will be behind everything? Canonical wants to make Ubuntu Snappy Core the engine for the house of the future, and that’s the reason it’s sponsoring the Mega Hackathon: Hack the Home event.

          • Users Report Some Bq Aquaris 4.5 Ubuntu Phones Going into Reboot Loop

            Users have reported that some of the Bq Aquaris 4.5 Ubuntu Edition phones are stuck in a continuous reboot loop and Canonical took notice. They are now investigating the problem, and they are looking for solutions.

          • Lots of GnuPG Vulnerabilities Have Been Closed in All Ubuntu OSes

            Canonical has published details in a security notice about a number of GnuPG vulnerabilities that have been found and fixed in Ubuntu 14.10, Ubuntu 14.04 LTS, Ubuntu 12.04 LTS, and Ubuntu 10.04 LTS operating systems.

          • Cube i7-CM is an Ubuntu tablet with Intel Core M

            Chinese device maker Cube offers a range of tablets with Android, Windows, or both. Now the company’s launching its first tablet running Ubuntu Linux.

            The Cube i7-CM is a tablet with an Intel Core M processor Canonical’s Linux-based operating system. It launches in China this week, but you should be able to have one shipped internationally if you find a seller at AliExpress or a store that exports Chinese tablets.

          • Is Radio Ready for Ubuntu?

            In the early 1990s, it seemed that the major PC operating systems had pretty well marked their territories. Creative endeavors went with Macintosh; business and finance adopted Windows; Linux was embraced by the computer geeks.

            But are those boundaries cast in stone? Andrew (A.J.) Janitscheck, director of program operations and support for Radio Free Asia, thinks it might be time for radio stations to do a rethink.

            His NAB Show presentation “Ubuntu — Radio Ready” describes RFA’s adoption of Linux, which began with system administrators and spread much further. Today, the RFA studios and broadcast network are powered by Ubuntu and Ubuntu Studio.

          • You Can Now Send Web Pages to Your Ubuntu Phone from Any Browser

            A Softpedia user brought to our attention that there’s a new application for Ubuntu Touch OS, as well as corresponding browser extensions, that allow users to send web pages (basically any URL) to their Ubuntu Phone devices.

          • Flavours and Variants

  • Devices/Embedded

    • Tiny SODIMM-style module runs Linux on Cortex-A5

      Denx announced an “MA5D4″ COM that runs Linux on Atmel’s SAMA5D4 SoC, plus a baseboard kit that adds a touchscreen and CAN, serial, HDMI, USB, and camera ports.

      Like Denx Computer Systems’s recent, Freescale i.MX6-based Denx M6R computer-on-module, the MA5D4 is supplied with the Yocto Linux based Embedded Linux Development Kit (ELDK) distribution from sister company Denx Software Engineering. Applications are said to include mobile input and output terminals, measuring instruments, or scanners with simple UIs. Many other types of IoT gizmos could make use of this module, especially those that require low power consumption, which is claimed to be ~500mW on the MA5D4.

    • Open spec x86 SBCs gain prototyping add-ons

      Newark Element14 launched a $20 motor control add-on for AMD’s Gizmo 2 SBC, and MinnowBoard.org tipped a new “Lure” LED add-on for the Minnowboard Max.

    • Tiny SBC runs Linux on Vybrid-based COM

      F&S announced an open-spec “PCOMnetA5″ SBC, combining a carrier board with a Linux-ready COM equipped with Freescale’s Cortex-A5 and -M4 based Vybrid SoC.

    • Phones

      • Tizen

        • IoT on Tizen with IoTivity

          First, what is the Internet of Things? I will try to answer this question based on my personal research and experiments as a Tizen and IoTivity community contributor.

          Many analysts or programmers may feel the “IoT hype” is overrated, since it became one of top buzz word of this year 2015, (it replaced big data which took the place of cloud the year before).

          Believe it or not but I also think something big is happening now in the embedded world, pretty much similar to what happened when local networks were connected together into the Internet.

          This can be a hasty analogy, but I see the very same pattern: while we’re used to connect embedded devices or computers, let’s transpose this one level down, then it’s easy to imagine the connections between each components of the system and the ability to deal with them as network nodes.

      • Android

Free Software/Open Source

  • Meteor: An amazing free, open source Web app platform you have to try

    So, you’re probably wondering what makes Meteor so damn exciting … first of all, you code in JavaScript on both the client- and the server-side. Second, Meteor is real-time even for implementing code updates for running apps. Third, it’s based on Node.js:

    … a platform built on Chrome’s JavaScript runtime for easily building fast, scalable network applications. Node.js uses an event-driven, non-blocking I/O model that makes it lightweight and efficient, perfect for data-intensive real-time applications that run across distributed devices.

  • Hidden Costs of Open Source
  • Open Source as a Force Multiplier

    In essence, the Open Source approach serves as a force multiplier for my development team. Welcome to the team!

  • Open-source eats open-source: Why the innovation will never stop

    Technology only exists thanks to innovation. If nobody was pushing the boundaries with fresh ideas, then technology, and the people who depend on it, would have died out with the neanderthals. But while many people might believe the big tech vendors are the ones responsible for driving most of the innovation in computing today, that assumption couldn’t be further from the truth.

  • OpenIndiana 2015.03 “Hipster” Solaris OS Adds Enlightenment 0.19 as Alternative Desktop

    After half of year of development, Ken Mays has announced earlier this week the availability of a new OpenIndiana release, 2015.03, dubbed Hipster. OpenIndiana is the continuation of the OpenSolaris operating system, and this new release introduces several updated packages, an alternative desktop environment, and various under-the-hood improvements.

  • Events

    • LLVM Microconference Accepted into 2015 Linux Plumbers Conference

      This microconference will cover all things LLVM related to Linux. Discussions will range from progress in compiling the Linux kernel (and changes in clang/LLVM) to support of clang in yocto, and even to compiling an entire distro with clang (while also using the “musl” replacement for glibc and uclibc). The topics will also include LLVM being used for bug hunting and for the extended Berkeley Packet Filter (eBPF).

  • Web Browsers

    • Mozilla

      • Rust 1.0 beta released

        The Rust team at Mozilla Research has announced the first beta release of Rust 1.0. The release notes detail a number of important changes, but the announcement adds some additional noteworthy items.

      • Rust 1.0 Now In Beta
      • Announcing Rust 1.0 Beta

        Today we are excited to announce the release of Rust 1.0 beta! The beta release marks a very significant “state transition” in the move towards 1.0. In particular, with the beta release, all libraries and language features that are planned to be stable for 1.0 have been marked as stable. As such, the beta release represents an accurate preview of what Rust 1.0 will include.

      • Mozilla Firefox 37.0.1 Out Now, Disables HTTP/2 AltSvc and Fixes Bugs

        Mozilla has pushed the first point release of its recently announced Firefox 37.0 web browser to mirrors worldwide. The new version will be available to users via the application’s built-in updater.

      • IceCat 31.6.0 release

        GNUzilla is the GNU version of the Mozilla suite, and GNU IceCat is the GNU version of the Firefox browser. Its main advantage is an ethical one: it is entirely free software. While the Firefox source code from the Mozilla project is free software, they distribute and recommend non-free software as plug-ins and addons. Also their trademark license restricts distribution in several ways incompatible with freedom 0.

  • SaaS/Big Data

    • Survey Results Disagree on the True State of Hadoop Adoption

      How much traction are Hadoop and other Big Data tools getting in enterprises? That depends on which studies you put credence in. A new report from Barclays Bank PLC notes that Hadoop is gaining substantial enterprise traction, but other reports note that many enterprises remain in evaluation stage. Meanwhile, a recent report from Snowflake Computing, a cloud data warehousing company, found that nearly two thirds of the respondents said that they believe Hadoop will not have any impact on their legacy data environments.

    • OpenStack Innovator Nebula Ceases Operations: Is OpenStack in Trouble?

      The company founded by the OpenStack founder (and former NASA CTO) goes bust; what happened and does this mean OpenStack as a whole is in trouble?

  • Databases

    • Open source is better off without FoundationDB

      Database startup FoundationDB mysteriously vanished at the end of last month, along with both the downloads of its proprietary database and its open source projects.

      As it turned out, Apple bought the company for internal use. I was interested in how this was perceived. When Ben Kepes of Forbes initially wrote about the purchase, for example, he erred in characterizing FoundationDB as all open source. It was an easy mistake; the company used the language of developer communities. Many of us assume “open” when we hear “community” because open source is so much the default these days.

  • FSF/FSFE/GNU/SFLC

    • Thousands of Spaniards leave Twitter for GNU social

      Unlike Twitter, which is controlled by a centralized authority, GNU social is a network of independent servers called nodes. Federation technology allows users to communicate between nodes, preserving the unified experience of traditional social media systems, and the free GNU social software allows anybody with an Internet connection to start their own public or private node and join the network. These administrators can even customize their nodes to suit the unique needs of their users.

    • Social FLOSS “Out There”

  • Public Services/Government

    • Overhaul to ensure relevance of projects on Joinup

      The projects shared on the Joinup collaboration platform are being checked for relevance. Over the past 8 years, Joinup and the original two communities, OSOR and SEMIC, have collected over 4000 software solutions and more than 2000 semantic assets. Some of these projects have meanwhile been replaced by new tools, some moved to different repositories, and others have become obsolete.

  • Licensing

    • European Commission finalises the draft EUPL v1.2

      After this presentation, a specific point was still under investigation: the possibility of an “opt out” clause regarding the updated list of compatible licences. This list is not only extended to the GPLv3 and AGPLv3, but also to other copyleft licences like the MPL or the LGPL that protect the covered files or the derivatives of the covered works against exclusive appropriation (prohibition of re-licensing the covered files or their derivatives under a proprietary licence) without any ambition to extend their coverage to the whole work or application in which the covered file is integrated or linked.

  • Openness/Sharing

Leftovers

  • Health/Nutrition

    • Suing EPA for failure to regulate nano-pesticides

      We finally know what the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) will and will not do about regulating the use of nanomaterials in pesticides. It has taken seven years and a lawsuit to force the EPA to act. And unfortunately, its action leaves much to be desired: there are still no requirements to protect nano-pesticide manufacturer workers, farmer workers and those living downwind from nano-pesticide drift. (A 2014 General Accountability Office report stated that the EPA’s oversight of pesticide residue testing laboratories was inadequate. Nano-pesticide residue testing standards have yet to be developed.)

  • Security

  • Defence/Police/Secrecy/Aggression

    • Nuclear deal: Iranians find ways to celebrate on social media

      As news of Thursday evening’s breakthrough in nuclear negotiations began to sink in, Iranians reacted jubilantly – both in the streets of Iran and online.

    • It Didn’t Happen

      It is so unthinkable, that IT NEVER HAPPENED. Not one British mainstream media report of the debate mentions Trident missiles or nuclear weapons. A Google news search on trident missiles or on nuclear weapons throws up zero references to the leaders’ debate or Nicola Sturgeon in British mainstream media today. Not one of the broadcasters’ highlight packages repeated Nicola’s outrage at the country’s throwing away money on weapons of mass destruction when so many children are living in poverty.

    • Whisper it Gently: Iran Played a Blinder

      Three months ago, I published this: “I remain hopeful that Iran will realise that there is a huge opportunity here. If Iran tactically backs down on its nuclear programme in the current circumstances, that will not be a defeat for Iran but a defeat for the neo-cons.”

      That is precisely what has happened. My own Western diplomatic source with access to the talks, has told me today that he estimates 96% of the movement since December has been on the Iranian side, and only 4% on the international side. At the end, the Iranians took everyone by surprise by agreeing to take 2,000 more centrifuges out of use than anybody ever thought they would.

    • At least 54 Colombian girls sexually abused by immune US military: Report

      US soldiers and military contractors sexually abused at least 54 children in Colombia between 2003 and 2007, according to a recently released historic document on the country’s conflict. The suspects have allegedly not been prosecuted due to immunity clauses in bilateral agreements.

    • US Military’s Sexual Assault of Colombian Children

      …not a single U.S. mainstream domestic news outlet has covered any aspects of the report to date.

    • Five Years On, the WikiLeaks “Collateral Murder” Video Matters More than Ever

      This weekend marks the fifth anniversary of the release of the WikiLeaks “Collateral Murder” video which showed a July 12, 2007 US Apache attack helicopter attack upon individuals in a Baghdad suburb. Amongst the over twelve people killed by the 30mm cannon-fire were two Reuters staff. The video was part of the huge cache of material leaked to WikiLeaks by Chelsea Manning.

    • The Case for Giving Iran’s Scholar-Diplomats a Chance

      Hassan Rouhani, Iran’s president, has more cabinet members with Ph.D. degrees from U.S. universities than Barack Obama does. In fact, Iran has more holders of American Ph.D.s in its presidential cabinet than France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia, or Spain—combined.

    • Top Bush Administration Official Says There’s No Alternative To Diplomacy With Iran

      Gen. Michael Hayden, President George W. Bush’s director of the NSA and CIA, told Fox News on Friday morning that he was “heartened” by the tentative deal the Obama administration and its international partners have reached with Iran in an effort to contain its nuclear program.

    • Iran: US Drone Killed Two of Our Advisers in Iraq
    • Iran US Drone Strike: Revolutionary Guard Claims America Killed 2 ‘Advisers’ In Iraq
    • Iranian Guard says US drone killed 2 of its advisers in Iraq; US says it only struck militants
    • Iran Says U.S. Drone Killed Two Advisers In Iraq
    • Monthly Drone Report, March 2015: US drone strikes drop 50% as chaos envelops Yemen
    • ‘Kill Chain’ holds up the drone and looks at it from every angle

      Recall, fondly, the $435.00 hammer. That was the $15.00 hammer the Pentagon bought back in the 1980s, after $420.00 had been tacked on for research and development. R&D on a hammer (a pause here to reflect on this), a tool that hasn’t changed since the first years of the Iron Age (1200 BC). Good for a laugh, that kind of cheesy, bureaucratic thievery.

      Now consider the drone, as Andrew Cockburn does with mordancy in Kill Chain: an unmanned aerial vehicle that has been with us for some time; imagine a hot-air balloon that escapes its mooring. But the kind that takes pictures and fires a high-explosive missile you do not want to be on the receiving end of (and the receiving end is not necessarily its target).

    • Trusting High-Tech Weapons of War
    • Review of “Kill Chain: Rise of the High-tech Assassins”

      Cockburn has provided a highly readable, and logically devastating story, written from a bottom-up empirical perspective. He explains why our strategy in Yemen was doomed to fail, as indeed it has in recent weeks. His meticulously referenced historical and empirical research makes this book hard to pick apart. No doubt, there are some small errors of fact. For example, not all the drone/bombers deployed in ill starred Operation Aphrodite (which blew up JFK’s elder brother) in 1944 were B-24s as Cockburn incorrectly suggests; the operation also used B-17s. But I defy anyone to find a single thread or family of threads that can be used to unravel his tapestry.

    • Television Commercial in California Asks Drone Pilots to Stop Killing

      The ad was produced by KnowDrones.com, and is cosponsored by Veterans for Peace/Sacramento, and Veterans Democratic Club of Sacramento. It is airing on CNN, FoxNews and other networks starting Tuesday in the Sacramento/Yuba City area, near Beale Air Force Base.

    • Think drones technology is not really the problem? Think again

      While US targeted killing outside international law did not originate with drones, without a doubt it is the technology that has enabled a wholesale expansion of it – so much so that it has almost become normalised. And it is not just ‘anti-drone’ campaigners who are making this point. The 2014 report of the Stimson Task Force on US Drone Policy, authored by former senior US military and administration officials, states “it would be difficult to conclude that US targeted strikes are consistent with core rule of law norms” and declares that “the availability of lethal UAV technologies has enabled US policies that likely would not have been adopted in the absence of UAVs.” (For more on drones and targeted killing see here). But the problem with drones is not just their use for targeted killing as we continue to stress.

    • UG#706 – When Are Terrorists Not Terrorists? (States assassinating by drones)

      We conclude with Wendy Patten, who looks at the US government’s use of drones, specifically the policies which guide it. She begins by describing what is currently known of a May 2013 presidential policy guidance (PPG), which purports to constrain use of drones. Only a 2 page ‘fact sheet’ of this has currently been declassified. Then she looks at what has emerged from the efforts to use litigation as regards drone usage.

    • Mike Tipping: Maine’s senators can help end hypocrisy over war and peace

      Traditionally, Maine’s senators have used positions like these to advocate for steady spending on shipbuilding as a way of safeguarding jobs at Bath Iron Works and the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard. At this crucial moment, however, Maine’s representatives in Washington also should take a broader view and ask deeper questions about our military spending, our foreign policy goals and our priorities as a nation.

    • How Yemen’s US-backed ex-dictator is tearing his country apart

      For years, the Americans saw President Ali Abdullah Saleh as a key ally in the fight against al-Qaeda. He allowed his air bases to be used by US drones to strike at the movement’s operatives, and gladly received Western aid in development cash and arms supplies.

    • The collapse of the Obama doctrine: Yemen war as an opportunity?

      Despite a preliminary nuclear deal agreed upon between Iran and its allies, it is unlikely Obama will enact any major shift in regional policies, but continue to hide behind its allies to achieve muddled objectives

    • Scotland’s biggest public sector pension scheme has £83mn stake in arms trade

      Scotland’s most substantial local authority pension scheme has been sharply criticized for investing £83 million in 11 of the world’s biggest arms firms.

      At the close of 2014, Glasgow City Council’s Strathclyde Pension Fund had shares amounting to £19.6 million in Lockheed Martin and Boeing – two of the biggest arms manufacturers on the planet.

    • US drone programme: ‘Schizophrenia’ comes to the big screen
    • DARPA’s Vision of Future War — Swarms of Missiles and Drones

      One of the most important jobs for an air force is suppressing enemy air defenses. It means hacking, jamming or otherwise blowing up radars and anti-aircraft missile sites — often during the opening stages of a war.

    • DARPA needs drones, fighters, missiles to attack in tandem; wants open systems to make it happen

      Pentagon researchers have decided the most effective way to penetrate state-of-the-art air defenses is the same approach with which users have flummoxed large-scale IT security operations for years:

    • DARPA wants modular, specialized, cheaper and drop in upgradable swarm cloud of drones, missiles and mothership airplanes
    • Religious leaders urge a ban on fully autonomous weapons

      Diplomats, soldiers, scholars and concerned citizens will meet in Geneva immediately after Easter to discuss these and other implications of a new class of arms known as “lethal autonomous weapons”, or “killer robots”.

    • The West and its flawed anti-IS strategy

      Finally, there is a need for introspection inside Europe, the U.S., and even Australia, which have seen growing numbers of their citizens get through Turkey to join IS. While the brutality of the Assad regime and economic distress in the region have been blamed for the thousands of Arab youth taking up arms for IS, what explains the hundreds of citizens joining it from the U.K., France and the U.S.? According to the U.S. National Counterterrorism Center, 3,400 of the 20,000 IS foreign fighters are from Western countries. Why are British and French girls becoming jihadi brides, schoolboys and young doctors learning to kill, and teenage Americans travelling all the way just to join IS ranks? Could it be that in the early years of a push for regime change and sanctions against Syria, Western governments themselves promoted the propaganda against Mr. Assad’s government, allowing many of their Muslim citizens to think they had not just religious but national sanction to join the war?

    • Blackwater: One of the Pentagon’s Top Contractors for Afghanistan Training

      Despite a sordid and deadly reputation in Iraq, the mercenary army that began as Blackwater and is now known as Academi was a top recipient of Pentagon contracts for training Afghanistan’s security forces from 2002 to 2014, a government watchdog reported Tuesday.

    • America is still fighting the Cold War: Why its military “strategy” is hopeless

      Current levels of Pentagon spending simply aren’t sustainable. The time is now to abandon our global war on terror

    • There is nothing conservative about the Republican ‘War’ Party

      Neocons have so corrupted the Republican Party that in order to be considered a viable national presidential candidate and to be embraced by the rank and file and Tea Party right, one must openly advocate for an open-ended continuation of the war on terror and a de facto war against Iran.

    • Yemen’s Houthis seize central Aden district, presidential site

      China’s Xinhua news agency said a Chinese missile frigate evacuated 225 people, all non-Chinese nationals, from Aden on Thursday to Djibouti.

    • 35 dead, 88 wounded as Saudi-led air strikes hit Yemen for fifth day

      The Health Ministry, loyal to the Houthi fighters who control the capital, said Saudi-led air strikes had killed 35 people and wounded 88 overnight. The figures could not be independently confirmed.

    • Freedom Rider: American Hell for Yemen

      The U.S.-spawned whirlwind of carnage and destruction has wrecked the societies of Iraq, Libya, Syria, Somalia and Yemen, yet most Americans feel themselves blameless. “The people, the corporate media and the political system all accept that their government has the right to intervene in the affairs of other nations and that it is always right and moral in its claims.” They behave like zombified cogs in an imperial death machine.

    • COMMENT: The bodies pile up in Yemen’s civil war and Saudi Arabia’s bombing campaign, but who is counting the casualties?

      Between 29 and 45 people were reported killed by an apparent air attack at the al Mazraq camp – some were said to have been burned beyond recognition. Depressingly, the victims also included children.

      Although the attack came shortly after Saudi Arabia had launched an aerial bombardment of Yemen, Yemen’s foreign minister, speaking from Riyadh, blamed artillery fired by the Houthi militia which stormed the country’s capital Sanaa late last year. A Saudi spokesman meanwhile said that rebels had been firing from a residential area in response to a question about the bombing.

    • Causing genocide to protect us from terror

      A report called Body Count has revealed that at least 1.3 million people have lost their lives as a result of the US-led “war on terror” in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan. It’s a report which should have made front page news across the world.

    • Report: At Least 1.3 Million People Killed In US War On Terror

      A recent report found that in the estimated number of casualties from the United States’ “War on Terror,” at least 1.3 million people were killed in Afghanistan, Iraq and Pakistan. While the report emphasizes that this is a “conservative estimate,” 1.3 million is 10 times higher than the number of casualties previously reported by mainstream media in the US.

    • US War on Terror Leaves 1.3 Million Dead in Three Countries
    • The ‘War on Terror’ has killed 1.3 million people, report finds

      A report has found that 1.3m people have lost their lives as a direct or indirect result of the ‘War on Terror’.

    • Muslim vs. White Mass Murderers

      There is no blame attributed to the French socioeconomic system, which relegates most of France’s Arab population to a permanent underclass of unemployment and poverty. As racial minorities in a country that holds few opportunities for people with their background, the brothers worked dead-end jobs like delivering pizzas and fish mongering. They were not able to get jobs at French investment banks or in the fashion industry. Certainly this must have produced adverse mental health effects.

    • Land safely? ‘Let’s wait and see:’ Alps co-pilot’s last words revealed

      The co-pilot who investigators believe deliberately crashed Germany Wings Flight 9252 gave clues to what he was about to do in the last few sentences he uttered before his actions killed all 150 people on board.

      In transcripts obtained by the German press, Andreas Lubitz repeatedly tells Captain Patrick Sondeimer that he is ready to take over “any time,” the Independent reported.

      Sondheimer then orders his co-pilot to prepare the plane for landing, to which Lubitz responds to with “hopefully” and “let’s wait and see.”

  • Transparency Reporting

    • Julian Assange: ‘I still enjoy crushing bastards’

      Five years after ‘Collateral Murder’, the secret US military video which made the Pentagon furious and WikiLeaks famous around the world, l’Espresso meets the WikiLeaks founder in the Ecuadorian embassy in London where he is holed up to ask whether he has changed his mind and goals

    • eymour Hersh on My Lai and the state of investigative journalism

      When he first reported the My Lai story, Hersh was a freelancer. Magazines including Life turned down his initial account of the massacre, which included a difficult-to-obtain interview with Lieutenant William L. Calley, the commander who led the slaughter. Hersh initially published his blockbuster scoop with a small antiwar newswire called the Dispatch News Service.

    • Latest Wikileaks TPP Document Release Has Obama Administration on the Defensive

      The White House is once again on the defensive. Last week, Wikileaks released a document from the Trans-Pacific Partnership negotiations, which have been notoriously private and closed off to the public, and hours later, the White House posted a lengthy blog to defend the most controversial aspect of the document, the Investor-State Dispute Settlement (ISDS) provision.

      For a while now, we have known that the TPP was going to include the ISDS, which allows corporations and other investors to sue foreign governments when a new law or regulation hurts the companies investment or when a government expropriates the property all together. But the public has also been clueless as to whether the provision would be worded differently than in previous trade agreements that had the ISDS, such as NAFTA. The Obama administration has quite adamantly insisted that the TPP will be transparent and that governments will not have to worry about challenges to health or environmental regulations, which has happened in previous trade agreements with the ISDS.

    • Zimbabwe: Politics – Where the Media Goes Against Journalism

      It must be a very difficult period for America, Obama especially. There is no rhyme, no reason, to the workings of the world that America has made.

      Everything looks Frankensteinian, all proving runaway, unknown and unknowable.

      Not such a burden for mere mortals, whose very humanity is founded on a limited ken. But not so for gods, who should know, make and determine everything. And America regards itself as a god, the only one in fact.

      A real monotheist god, politically that is. Godliness rests in the power to make reality, to write and dispose of rules of life and nations, as meets the creator’s caprices. And Shakespeare had his finger on the whimsical proclivity of gods. He wrote: “As flies to wanton boys are we to th’ gods/ They kill us for their sport”.

    • Chinese ‘Thunderbolt’ copters to replace US Cobras in Pakistan

      In line with a January 2015 contract, Pakistan has received three Chinese Z-10 “Thunderbolt” attack helicopters to replace its American Cobra helicopter.

    • Chinese attack helicopters could soon replace American Cobras in Pakistan
    • Drone Warfare: Death Delivered From a Location Near You

      On March 7th, my Family and 20 or so other people protested drone warfare in front of the main gate of the Battle Creek Air National Guard base in Michigan. In 2013, the base was named a Reaper Drone Operating Station and should be operational any day, if not already. Weaponized drone operators are dropping bombs from my backyard.

      We stood in the mud on the side of the four-lane highway from Noon to 1pm. A few of us held signs with slogans like “Stop Drone Warfare” while others offered conversation to each other or waved at honking cars. One father and fellow protester brought fresh-popped popcorn, which he passed out in little blue bowls to the few children that were present. In between piling kernels in their mouths, the kids stomped in the water and slid on the ice behind us that had accumulated at the base of a mountain of plowed snow.

    • Luftwaffe Fighter Pilots Learn to Fly Israeli Drones by Mouse

      The German pilot simply presses a key on a keyboard to make his approach to land on the airfield at the military base at Mazar-e-Sharif in northern

    • Just Say No

      Why the United States can’t kick the bad habit of repeating failed campaigns in its war against terror.

    • America That We Need (3-5)

      American airpower has blown away parts or all of at least eight wedding parties in three countries

    • Terrorism, Violence, and the Culture of Madness

      Chris Hedges crystalizes this premise in arguing that Americans now live in a society in which “violence is the habitual response by the state to every dilemma,” legitimizing war as a permanent feature of society and violence as the organizing principle of politics. Under such circumstances, malevolent modes of rationality now impose the values of a militarized neoliberal regime on everyone, shattering viable modes of agency, solidarity, and hope. Amid the bleakness and despair, the discourses of militarism, danger and war now fuel a war on terrorism “that represents the negation of politics—since all interaction is reduced to a test of military strength war brings death and destruction, not only to the adversary but also to one’s side, and without distinguishing between guilty and innocent.” Human barbarity is no longer invisible, hidden under the bureaucratic language of Orwellian doublespeak. Its conspicuousness, if not celebration, emerged in the new editions of American exceptionalism ushered in by the post 9/11 exacerbation of the war on terror.

    • State Department found 4 emails about drones sent by Clinton
    • Hillary Clinton also used iPad for e-mail

  • Environment/Energy/Wildlife

    • 15 ways the world will be terrifying in 2050

      But despite our technological advances, humanity has failed to solve many of its problems. The world hasn’t weaned itself off fossil fuels or antibiotics, protected the rain forest, or reduced the stigma surrounding mental illness. We haven’t flood-proofed our cities or protected our energy grids from natural disasters.

    • Instagram endangers rhinos

      Posting your rhino pictures from your game reserve getaway on social media might be inadvertently giving poachers directions to their next kill.

  • PR/AstroTurf/Lobbying

    • Britain Used Spy Team to Shape Latin American Public Opinion on Falklands

      Faced with mounting international pressure over the Falkland Islands territorial dispute, the British government enlisted its spy service, including a highly secretive unit known for using “dirty tricks,” to covertly launch offensive cyberoperations to prevent Argentina from taking the islands.

      A shadowy unit of the British spy agency Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) had been preparing a bold, covert plan called “Operation QUITO” since at least 2009. Documents provided to The Intercept by National Security Agency whistleblower Edward Snowden, published in partnership with Argentine news site Todo Notícias, refer to the mission as a “long-running, large scale, pioneering effects operation.”

  • Censorship

  • Privacy

    • Truecrypt report

      The NCC audit found no evidence of deliberate backdoors…

    • Tor Summer of Privacy–Accepting Applications Now

      The Tor Project, in collaboration with ​The Electronic Frontier Foundation, has taken part in Google Summer of Code for 2007 through 2014, mentoring a total of 53 students. But this year ​https://lists.torproject.org/pipermail/tor-dev/2015-March/008358.html, the program was trimmed back and room was needed for new organizations. We think that is important, too.

    • HTTPS Everywhere Version 5: Sixteen New Languages and Thousands of New Rules

      This week we released the latest version of HTTPS Everywhere to all of our users. Compared to the previous major release, this version introduces thousands of new rules, translations of the interface into sixteen new languages, and support for “Block All HTTP Requests” in Chrome. If you already use HTTPS Everywhere, you will automatically be updated to the latest version. If you don’t have HTTPS Everywhere installed, you can get it here.

    • Bill would stop feds from mandating ‘backdoor’ to data

      A bipartisan group of lawmakers is set to push for legislation that would bar federal agents from forcing tech companies to give them access to customers’ emails, texts and photos.

      “I think you have the right to go about your business without government — in a Big Brother way — listening to your phone calls or reading your emails,” said Rep. Mark Pocan, D-Wis.

      Pocan is sponsoring the Surveillance State Repeal Act with Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky. The bill includes a provision that the federal government cannot require electronics or software manufacturers to build in a mechanism to allow the government to bypass privacy technology.

    • Pm Has Us Report On Nsa Interception Of Phone Calls

      AMERICAN officials presented Prime Minister Perry Christie with a formal communication regarding reports that the US’ National Security Agency had been intercepting and monitoring the telephone conversations of Bahamians, Foreign Affairs and Immigration Minister Fred Mitchell confirmed yesterday.

      #The official correspondence, The Tribune understands, contained an assurance from the United States that consideration would be given to changing America’s oversees telephone monitoring procedures.

      #However, Mr Mitchell declined comment on this saying he had yet to formally present the communication to Cabinet. He said once this was done, it was his intention to make a formal statement in Parliament when it meets next, pending instructions from Cabinet.

    • Your Parents Just Became The NSA With This Car Manufacturer’s Spying App

      GM has a message for teenagers who want to drive its cars: even if your older sibling has left for college, Big Brother is still watching you.

    • Destroyed Snowden laptop: the curatorial view
    • A British Museum Is Showing Off a MacBook Air — But Not Because of Apple’s Design
    • Smashed Snowden laptop on display in British museum

      A laptop that was used to store leaked files from Edward Snowden and then destroyed under watch from U.K. intelligence officers is now on display at a prominent London museum.

      The smashed MacBook Air is on display at the Victoria and Albert Museum as part of an exhibition examining “the role of public institutions in contemporary life and what it means to be responsible for a national collection.”

    • In New Video, Congressman Explains Why His Fellow Lawmakers Couldn’t Be Trusted with NSA Oversight

      Congressmen who asked about oversight of NSA mass surveillance and domestic spying in 2013 could have “compromise[d] security” and were denied the records they sought because of concerns they lacked formal government security clearance, a former member of the House Intelligence Committee says in a newly-released video.

      The footage, from an August 29, 2013 town hall meeting, sheds new light on why lawmakers were denied key rulings and reports from the secret courts overseeing the National Security Agency — even as the Obama administration and intelligence officials claimed that all NSA programs were subject to strict congressional oversight and therefore could be held accountable.

    • When Will the NSA Stop Spying on Innocent Americans?

      Unless Congress acts, Americans will soon benefit from one of the Patriot Act’s most important safeguards against abuse: Language in Section 215 of the law is scheduled to expire in June, depriving the FBI and NSA of a provision they’ve used to justify monitoring the phone calls of tens of millions of innocents (though a primary author of the law insists that it grants no such authority). If you’ve used a landline to call an abortion clinic, a gun store, a suicide hotline, a therapist, an oncologist, a phone sex operator, an investigative journalist, or a union organizer, odds are the government has logged a record of the call. If your Congressional representative has a spouse or child who has made an embarrassing phone call, the executive branch may well possess the ability to document it, though government apologists insist that they’d never do so and are strangely confident that future governments composed of unknown people won’t either.

    • NY Times Reporter Demands Access to NSA Inspector General Reports

      Savage says the NSA denied expedited processing of his request, and then never followed up on it.

    • The simple math problem that blows apart the NSA’s surveillance justifications

      At any rate, as I’ve argued before, simple bureaucratic competence and bog-standard detective work are vastly underrated compared to piling up gigantic quantities of irrelevant data. But the false positive problem ought to be the final nail in the dragnet coffin. Unless terrorism becomes thousands of times more common than it is today, such broad techniques will be utterly useless against real terrorism.

    • Advancing cyber bills spark fresh NSA worries

      The House Intelligence panel is preparing to move a cybersecurity bill that privacy advocates argue would embolden the National Security Agency (NSA).

      Before the contentious bill hits the floor, though, Intelligence Committee leaders want to join forces with their Homeland Security panel colleagues who are considering a bill of their own.

    • NSA looks to continue cybersecurity partnership with private sector

      The National Security Agency has helped investigate every major cyber intrusion in the private sector in the last six months, Director Adm. Michael Rogers said, adding that he wants that collaboration to get faster and more anticipatory.

    • Mozilla warns against data-storage rules in NSA reform

      Mozilla on Friday warned against a government policy that could require phone companies to hold on to customer data longer than their business purposes require.

      Advocates for National Security Agency reform have cautioned against such a measure for the past year. Lawmakers are considering ending the government’s bulk collection of U.S. phone records in exchange for a system where officials could search records stored with the private companies themselves with approval from the surveillance court.
      The data retention provision did not make it into reform bills last year, including one in the Senate that narrowly failed on a procedural vote. Mozilla’s director of public policy, Chris Riley, wants it to stay that way.

      “It is an unnecessary, and harmful, posture for any democratic government to take. Data retention mandates are not a missing piece of the long-term surveillance ecosystem; they are a bridge too far,” he wrote in a blog post. Riley asserted that kind of deal would amount to “misguided pragmatism.”

    • NSA spying caused 9 percent of foreign firms to dump U.S. clouds

      In the weeks following Edward Snowden’s revelations of the NSA’s massive web surveillance program PRISM, speculation was raised about the negative implications it could have on U.S. cloud companies.

      Now, Forrester Research has taken the time to see just what kind of impact it has had, asking a host of foreign firms whether or not PRISM has caused them to scale back their spending on U.S. cloud services, and the answer makes for some uneasy reading.

    • ​Snowden, PRISM fallout will cost U.S. tech vendors $47 billion, less than expected
    • How To Make A Secret Phone Call

      To show how hard phone privacy can be, one artist examined the CIA, consulted hackers, and went far off the map (with a stop at Rite Aid).

    • Why Is Obama Keeping Secret Four Seconds of a Nixon-Era Tape?

      Releasing it “would reveal information that would impair U.S. cryptologic systems or activities,” a National Security Agency spokeswoman says.

    • The Dutch “Surveillance Kings of Europe” Are About to Get Even Nosier

      The Netherlands is considering a new law that would give its spooks unprecedented access to global data, including yours and mine.

    • Off the Cuff: Dean Baquet, executive editor of The New York Times

      You’ve expressed regret that Edward Snowden went to The Guardian and The Washington Post to make his NSA disclosures instead of going to The New York Times. But looking at the Times’ history, when it sat on the warrantless wiretapping story during the Bush administration, and also during your career, when you sat on an NSA story at the LA Times, didn’t Snowden make the right choice? Why should the next big whistleblower come to the Times?

      Was he right? No, I don’t think he was right. I understand why he made his decision. I don’t think he was right. First off — and I wasn’t at The New York Times for the [warrantless wiretapping] NSA story — it did publish it, it didn’t kill it.

      But only after the [2004] election.

      It had nothing to do with the election. If you read the accounts at the time, Jim Risen was about to put it in a book. It wasn’t because of the election; it was because Risen was about to put it in a book and that forced the hand of the editors of The New York Times. I wasn’t there, so I’m not going to judge how they made the decision. I was at the LA Times at the time, but they did publish it.

      If you were to say one reason he didn’t come [was because] The New York Times screwed up in the post-war coverage before the US went to war in Iraq, he’s right, The New York Times did. So did the LA Times, which I ran at the time. Everybody did. … But I think that if he looks at our overall track record, we publish stuff very aggressively. We published the NSA stuff, we’ve published other Risen stories, we’ve published hard-hitting reports about the Obama administration that they hate, we’ve published lots of stories about drones [and] we’ve published other stories about surveillance. And it breaks my heart that he went elsewhere. But I think my appeal to him and future Snowdens would be, ‘we do publish.’ You’re isolating a couple of things where you thought we were too slow or did something off, but if you look at the whole history of The New York Times, you have to include the Pentagon Papers, you got to include coverage of Vietnam [and] you got to include our aggressive coverage of the world. I think our track record is really good.

      The LA Times thing has always been misunderstood. The allegation was that when I was editor of the LA Times, an engineer in AT&T or an employee of AT&T became very suspicious about a room at the headquarters in San Francisco, where he was convinced there was some surveillance going on. Nobody could go into the room and the room was always locked. So he came to the LA Times and we reported the hell out of it. We went nuts to report it, but we could never prove it was anything other than a mysterious closed door. This is before people realized how much spying there was, before people realized what the NSA had become. So all we had, with all that reporting, was that there was closed door, it was mysterious, and the government wouldn’t talk about it. And I don’t think that was enough for a story. So we didn’t write a story. It wasn’t because the government told us not to write a story; it was because I didn’t think we had enough for a story. If you look at what people wrote at the time, because eventually The New York Times wrote a modest inside story about the guy’s allegations, all it said was that an engineer at AT&T thinks that there’s a door down the hall that’s locked, etc. So I don’t have any regrets about that one. It turned out it was part of NSA spying, but, jeez, if we published everything where people are concerned about closed doors and mysteries like that, mostly we’d be wrong.

    • Whistleblower’s Legacy: President Reforms Key Surveillance Law; Europe Questions Safe Harbor Regime

      On June 1, 2015, Section 215 of the U.S. PATRIOT Act (50 U.S.C. § 1861) (“Section 215”) is set to expire. Section 215 is the authority that allows the NSA, with assistance from the Federal Bureau of Investigation (“FBI”), to collect “metadata” of every phone call that originated or terminated in the United States. Some of the first documents revealed by Edward Snowden were orders by the U.S. Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (“FISC”) (the court that entertains applications submitted by the U.S. government for electronic surveillance for foreign intelligence purposes) requiring Verizon, Sprint and AT&T to hand over such metadata. The FBI obtained these orders for the benefit of the NSA.

    • Is Big Brother Watching Our Campuses?

      At Georgia State University, algorithms alert advisers when a student falls behind in class. Course-planning tools tell students the classes and majors they’re likely to complete, based on the performance of other students like them. When students swipe their ID cards to attend a tutoring or financial-literacy session, the university can send attendance data to advisers and staff.

    • The Brennan Center Report on the FISA Court and Proposals for FISA Reform

      As Wells noted when it first came out last month, the Brennan Center has a new report: What Went Wrong With the FISA Court. Despite the title, the report is really a condensed history of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC or the Court), with the Brennan Center’s judgements about what has gone wrong with the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) itself. The report also provides a vehicle for the Brennan Center to highlight proposals for surveillance reform, some, but not all of which, relate to the upcoming sunset of certain FISA provisions, unless Congress extends them this spring.

      [...]

      For all the criticisms of the USA Patriot Act of 2001, changing FISA’s standard to “a significant purpose” and removing the justification for the old “wall” is one that has been overwhelmingly understood as an important substantive correction. There is no reason to go backwards.

    • Why ‘The Nation’ Is Suing the Federal Government

      The NSA is monitoring almost all of our international communications. This is a fundamental violation of First and Fourth Amendment rights.

    • A mayday mystery and secrets of the NSA

      “We were monitored every second of everyday and we sent those tapes to NSA, headquarters Fort Meade Maryland and the British GCHQ in London. So both the tape and the logs went off to both of them but the way the NSA talks they have everything.”

    • Maine Bill Taking On NSA Scheduled For Important Committee Hearing

      A Maine bill that would turn off support and resources to the NSA in the Pine Tree State will have an important committee hearing Thursday.

      Sen. Eric Brakey (R-Androscoggin) introduced LD531 On Feb. 26. His seven cosponsors literally span the political spectrum, including Republicans, Democrats and an Independent.

      [...]

      Reuters revealed the extent of such NSA data sharing with state and local law enforcement in an August 2013 article. According to documents obtained by the news agency, the NSA passes information to police through a formerly secret DEA unit known Special Operations Divisions and the cases “rarely involve national security issues.” Almost all of the information involves regular criminal investigations, not terror-related investigations.

      In other words, not only does the NSA collect and store this data, using it to build profiles. The agency encourages state and local law enforcement to violate the Fourth Amendment by making use of this information in their day-to-day investigations.

    • Lawmakers Consider Bill That Could Hinder NSA Operations in Maine

      On Thursday, the House Judiciary Committee will hold a hearing on the Maine Fourth Amendment Protection Act, a bill introduced by freshman Senator Eric Brakey (R-Androscoggin).

      The bill’s purpose is to withhold material support or other assistance to a federal agency, specifically the National Security Administration, in its efforts “in the collection or use of a person’s electronic data or metadata” without informed consent, a warrant, or a legally recognized exemption.

    • IT Independence is National Security

      The NSA’s “Equation Group” is apparently behind the infection with malware of hard drive firmware on computers used by nations considered “enemies” by the United State. The installation of the malware is believed to have required access to trade secrets of IT manufacturers as well as physical access to the soon-to-be infected computers. Popular Science in their article “The World’s Most Sophisticated Malware Ever Infects Hard Drive Firmware“suggests that the NSA intercepted computers in transit through global logistical chains.

      However, a simpler and more logical explanation remains, though it is one manufacturers vehemently deny; that the NSA had/has direct access to the factory floors of several IT giants. These include Western Digital Corpororation, Seagate Technology, Toshiba Corporation, IBM, Micron Technology and Samsung Electronics.

      The infection of hardware starting on the factory floor is nothing new. Australia’s Financial Review revealed in 2013 in an article titled, “Intel chips could let US spies inside: expert,” that, “one of Silicon Valley’s most respected technology experts, Steve Blank, says he would be “surprised” if the US National Security Agency was not embedding “back doors” inside chips produced by Intel and AMD, two of the world’s largest semiconductor firms, giving them the possibility to access and control machines.”
      First appeared: http://journal-neo.org/2015/03/29/it-independence-is-national-security/

    • 3 Reasons Apple Is Pushing for NSA Spying Reforms

      As the owner of the world’s most valuable brand, Apple is probably keenly aware that appearing to help the government with its controversial bulk data collection programs would tarnish its carefully crafted image as the consumer electronics brand for those who dare to “Think Different.” In this sense, Apple’s public opposition to the government’s surveillance programs is an effort to protect its brand from losing its appeal to consumers.

    • Documents on NSA’s zero-day policy provide little insight, EFF says

      When the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) sued the National Security Agency (NSA) over records regarding the government’s alleged prior knowledge of Heartbleed, the privacy group hoped to gain insight into the agency’s zero-day exploitation policy.

      Within the heavily redacted pages of the obtained documents, however, a policy was nowhere to be found, the EFF wrote in a blog post on Monday.

    • Freddy Martinez Is Exposing Chicago Cops’ NSA-Style Surveillance Gear

      It took the curiosity of a skinny, fidgeting 27-year-old to force the Chicago Police Department to admit they purchased controversial surveillance technology. The department, legally boxed into a corner over its use of a device known as the StingRay, finally admitted to acquiring the cell-phone tracking product last summer, six years after actually buying the thing. The watchdog work came not from a newspaper or any other media outlet in the city, but Freddy Martinez, an information technology worker who oversees websites for a private company from a downtown office building.

    • Snowden-endorsed security software has no NSA backdoors

      An independent audit has concluded that popular encryption software TrueCrypt has no government backdoors or serious security flaws.

    • Audit Concludes No NSA Backdoors in TrueCrypt Software
    • TrueCrypt doesn’t contain NSA backdoors

      However, the software was found to contain a few other security vulnerabilities, including one relating to the use of the Windows API to generate random numbers for master encryption key material.

    • TrueCrypt audit shows no sign of NSA backdoors, just some minor glitches

  • Civil Rights

    • The Limits of Ken Roth’s Criticism of Obama

      Roth’s view seems optimistic, but it is inappropriate to argue that Obama should engage in a number of tasks while not criticizing increased presidential power. In fact, the actions he recommends could be used to justify a further expansion of executive power. At the same time, Roth’s support for “limits” on mass surveillance and “rules” for drone use, are even worse. This is because these measures would be ineffective in stopping the death and suffering caused by the reign of terror brought on by drone assassinations or in efforts protecting the inherent right of privacy of not only Americans, but people of the world.

    • Under President’s New Cybersecurity Executive Order… Is Wikileaks Now An Evil Cyberhacker For Releasing Trade Deal?

      Yesterday we talked about the ridiculousness of President Obama’s new cybersecurity executive order, in which he declares a national emergency around “malicious cyber-enabled activities” and enables his own government to do mean things to anyone they think is responsible for cyber badness (that his own NSA is the primary instigator of serious cyberattacks gets left ignored, of course). One of the points we made is that the definitions in the executive agreement were really vague, meaning that it’s likely that they could be abused in all sorts of ways that we wouldn’t normally think of as malicious hacking.

    • New Executive Order Could Sanction Cyber Activists, Wikileaks

      After spending a week trying to narrow its scope, President Obama on Wednesday released an executive order that still grants the White House broad authority to sanction individuals and organizations engaged in civil society online.

      The order targets entities located partially or wholly outside the United States “directly or indirectly” responsible for cyber-activities “harming, or otherwise significantly compromising…entities in a critical infrastructure sector.”

      “I’m for the first time authorizing targeted sanctions against individuals or entities whose actions in cyberspace result in significant threats to the national security, foreign policy, or economic health or financial stability of the United States,” the President wrote in an article published on Medium to accompany the executive order. He also described the threat of such attacks as a “national emergency.”

    • Saudi Arabia warns Canada to not support blogger sentenced to 1,000 lashes

      Saudi Arabia’s aggressive response to international criticism of its human rights and justice system continues with a warning to Canadian politicians. According to CBC News, the Saudi ambassador to Canada, Naif Bin Bandir Al-Sudairy, sent a letter to Quebec’s National Assembly telling it not to interfere in the case of blogger Raif Badawi.

    • Legislators Trying To Shield Cops From Accountability Are Running Into Unexpected Opposition: Cops

      Police misconduct has never been more visible, thanks to the internet and advancements in cell phone technology. Between this and increased use of public records requests, there’s a wealth of information surfacing daily on the misdeeds of law enforcement personnel. In theory, this should be raising the level of accountability. In practice, however, it’s a different story.

    • Police Chief Unable To Simply Do Nothing Over Reported Teen Sexting, Brings Child Porn Charges Against Four Minors

      Good, old-fashioned “sexting” has netted more teens some child pornography charges. Despite the teens involved claiming the photographed behavior was consensual, Joliet’s (IL) police chief still believes the only way to address a situation he and the laws he enforces aren’t built to handle, is to handle it as poorly as possible.

    • Final Four, the Madness Continues

      Yes, the NCAA Tournament is in full swing and nothing has changed. Once again, unpaid, logo-covered young men race up and down the court on every channel round the clock, creating billions in revenue for some, millions in salary for others and little for themselves.

      Of course, this is far from a new revelation. The ludicrous injustice of big time college athletics has been uncovered, covered, and re-covered. And the tide of public perception is slowly but unmistakably shifting. More and more people are seeing college amateurism for what is has always been: a thinly veiled attempt to avoid paying workers compensation for injuries as well as compensation in the broader sense.

    • Automakers Say You Don’t Really Own Your Car

      EFF is fighting for vehicle owners’ rights to inspect the code that runs their vehicles and to repair and modify their vehicles, or have a mechanic of their choice do the work. At the moment, the anti-circumvention prohibition in the Digital Millennium Copyright Act arguably restricts vehicle inspection, repair, and modification. If EFF is successful then vehicle owners will be free to inspect and tinker, as long as they don’t run afoul of other regulations, such as those governing vehicle emissions, safety, or copyright law.

    • The Real Monopoly Board: The Victimization of Students by the College Board

      Have you ever applied to college? If so, you probably found yourself in the same situation that many of us have, whether or not to take standardized admission tests. Sadly, this isn’t actually a question because the answer is handed to you; you must take standardized tests in order to apply to a competitive college. Because of this monopoly, standardized test companies can charge any price they want. Being a senior in high school who is (almost) done with the college application process, I have spent hundreds of dollars on the College Board. I have been the victim on countless occasions of their unfair prices, and have found my bank account suffering as a result. It is completely wrong that students are the victims of this monopoly, and College Board should be stopped.

    • Statement on the suspension of Barrett Brown’s e-mail access and BOP retaliation

      An hour or so after having used the system to contact a journalist about potential BOP wrongdoing, Barrett Brown’s access to the TRULINCS prisoner e-mail system was restricted, for a full year until April 2016, without explanation.

      This is contrary to the BOP’s own policy on several points, as noted in their 2009 documentation — the administration is only allowed to remove access to TRULINCS for thirty days pending an investigation of any potential misuse, and the inmate is supposed to be informed in writing of the reason for that.

    • Informant Provided Bomb-Making Manual to Alleged “ISIS-Inspired” Plotters

      In what has been widely described in the media as the breakup of an “ISIS-inspired” plot, on April 2 the Department of Justice announced that Noelle Velentzas, 28, and Asia Siddiqui, 31, both of New York, had been arrested and charged with conspiracy to use a weapon of mass destruction. The defendants “plotted to wreak terror by creating explosive devices” for use in New York City and sought “bomb-making instructions and materials” for an attack, the Justice Department statement said.

    • Obama’s NSA Reforms, One Year Later

      In February, the Director of National Intelligence issued a report summarizing the changes that President Obama has implemented since pledging major surveillance reforms in January 2014. The report chronicles a dizzying number of developments and contains links to several hundreds of pages of supporting documentation. But does this impressive accumulation of activity translate to meaningful reform?

    • U.S. Supreme Court: GPS Trackers Are a Form of Search and Seizure

      The Supreme Court clarified and affirmed that law on Monday, when it ruled on Torrey Dale Grady v. North Carolina, before sending the case back to that state’s high court. The Court’s short but unanimous opinion helps make sense of how the Fourth Amendment, which protects against unreasonable search and seizure, interacts with the expanding technological powers of the U.S. government.

    • [Australia] The security paradox: individual privacy versus digital driftnets

      The great irony of the Abbott government’s plan enforce the mandatory data retention legislation is that while this is being done to make us safer, in fact it creates new data security risks for us all.

    • [Australia] E-mail autofill blunder leaks personal details of G20 world leaders

      A mistake with Microsoft Outlook’s autofill feature sent personal details of the world’s top leaders attending the G20 summit in Brisbane, Australia, to organizers of the Asian Cup soccer tournament. Those affected include the presidents of the US, China, Russia, Brazil, the European Commission, France, and Mexico; the prime ministers of Japan, India, the UK, Italy, and Canada; and the German Chancellor. Among the information disclosed was the passport numbers, visa details, and other personal identifiers.

    • Bolivia’s Contested Process of Change: Views From a Regional Election
    • Deterring Cyberattacks with Sanctions

      The White House has announced a new sanctions program that will authorize the executive branch to penalize malicious cyber “actors” whose behavior endangers “the national security, foreign policy, or economic health or financial stability of the United States.” Sadly the President is opting for theater that creates the perception of security rather than actually making it more difficult for attacks to succeed.

      Obama’s new executive order rests on a strategy of deterrence, a cold war idea that’s been revived by the likes of former NSA director Mike McConnell and more recently by current NSA Director Mike Rogers. The basic idea is this: if enemies fear retaliation they’re less likely to launch an attack (nuclear, cyber, or otherwise).

    • Barack Obama’s press freedom legacy

      According to the CPJ report, the Obama administration’s policies have undermined the role of the press in three fundamental ways.

    • Leading Bahraini activist Nabeel Rajab arrested for highlighting prison abuse

      Head of Bahrain Center for Human Rights detained by police after speaking out over allegations of human rights abuses after riots in Jaw prison

    • Index condemns Bahrain’s continuing harassment of human rights defender

      Index on Censorship condemns the latest arrest and continued harrassment of prominent Bahraini human rights defender Nabeel Rajab.

    • Empathy, rage, and resistance

      I live in a consumer culture that distracts me from the plight of others with images of beautiful bodies wearing beautiful clothes that I am encouraged to buy. I live a life of relative comfort, and I don’t know anyone who’s been killed by a drone or starved to death. But despite having been subject to soul-destroying consumer culture for twenty years, if I saw someone drowning in a pond ten feet away from me, I would not hesitate to help them. Confronted with a fellow being facing imminent death, and having the ability to help, my instincts for empathy and care would spring into action.

    • Idaho Man Charged With Felony for Posting Non-Threatening Rant Against Cop on Facebook (Updated)

      On February 2, Matthew Townsend was standing on the sidewalk near a Liberty Tax Service office in Meridian, Idaho dressed as the Grim Reaper, holding a sign that said “Taxes ≠ liberty, Taxes fund terrorism.”

      For this simple display of activism, which was a play off the usual characters dressed in Statue of Liberty costumers, Townsend would find himself arrested and jailed, charged with resisting and obstruction by a Meridian cop named Richard Brockbank.

      Seven weeks later, a day after attending a hearing for that arrest, Townsend was arrested a second time after police banged on his door at 10 p.m., rousing him from his sleep, charging him with witness intimidation over a Facebook post he had made two nights earlier that police described as a “terrorist threat.”

      In that post, which you can read below, he tagged several journalists, activists, friends as well as some of Brockbank’s family members.

    • When the Government Views Its Own Population as the Enemy

      One could go on listing such facts indefinitely. For instance, the sordid lesson to draw from the Hurricane Katrina debacle in 2005 is that protecting Americans from a natural disaster was not a priority of government at any level, at least not of the governments involved.

    • The Reflective Voter’s Fear

      It is hardly news that American voters don’t choose candidates the way democratic theorists say they should; candidates are sold to them, in much the way that consumer goods are.

    • Pakistan military court sentences 6 Islamic militants to death on terrorism charges

      Pakistani military courts have sentenced six Islamic militants to death on charges including terrorism, murder, suicide bombing and kidnapping for ransom.

    • John Brennan’s reforms would turn the CIA into a paramilitary organization

      After 70 years, it’s time for some major restructuring at the CIA — at least according to its director, John Brennan, who announced earlier this month his plan to overhaul the agency by creating “mission centers” that would concentrate resources on specific challenges or geographic areas. Brennan also announced the formation of a new “Directorate of Digital Innovation” to lead efforts to track and implement new intelligence-gathering cyber tools.

    • India asks Saudi to help evacuate citizens from Yemen

      India asked Saudi Arabia on Monday to help evacuate its citizens from Yemen, where more than 4,000 Indians, over half of them nurses, are caught up in fighting.

    • UN says remaining international staffers leave chaotic Yemen

      The United Nations says the last of its international staffers have now left Yemen as the U.N. human rights chief warns of a “total collapse” in the Arab world’s poorest country.

  • Internet/Net Neutrality

    • Despite Claims Title II Will Kill Investment, Comcast Launches Major New 2 Gigabit Deployment

      While broadband ISPs have repeatedly claimed that being reclassified as common carriers under Title II will crush sector innovation, investment, and destroy the Internet as we know it — they simultaneously continue to do a bang up job highlighting how these claims are complete and utter nonsense. For example, while Verizon was busy proclaiming that Title II would ruin, well, everything, it’s been using Title II to reap massive tax benefits. Similarly, despite the fact wireless voice has been classified under Title II for years, that didn’t stop the industry from investing massive amounts during that period or spending record amounts at the FCC’s latest spectrum auction.

    • Brace Yourselves, The Net Neutrality Legal Challenges Are Coming

      On Wednesday afternoon the Federal Communications Commission filed its net neutrality order to the Federal Register, an FCC official confirmed to TechCrunch. Once published by the Register, the filing opens the gates to an inevitable outpouring of legal challenges from net neutrality opponents.

      The FCC’s filing comes a week-and-a-half after the agency was slammed with the first lawsuits attempting to block the new rules. An FCC official said the lawsuits from both The United States Telecom Association and Alamo Broadband — which were filed just 12 days after the rules were published — jumped the gun and may be dismissed on the grounds they were filed too early.

    • Bigger is better — for telecom companies, not Internet users

      Charter Communications’ merger further consolidates an industry characterized by scant competition and unacceptably slow Internet access speeds

04.03.15

The EPO’s Dutch Appeal Court Judgment Controversy: List of Political Interventions

Posted in Europe, Patents at 6:18 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

Epicenter of EPO controversy, not just windmills

A windmill

Summary: Dutch Socialist Party and Labour Party (among others) denounce the EPO’s actions after newspaper articles in the Netherlands

SEVERAL sources contacted Techrights last month, sharing with the site a lot of documents that relate to the Dutch scandals. One source said s/he would send “press releases and questions raised by Dutch parliamentary members of the PvdA (Labour Party) and SP (Socialist Party) in the Dutch Parliament (Tweede Kamer) and the European Parliament.”

Now that we finally have it all organised chronologically and logically we can present it in the interest of retention and future reference. We shall start with the Socialist Party, then proceed to other parties and some bodies outside of Netherlands. A lot of interventions could be found all over the place.

The European Federation of Public Service Unions was probably the latest to intervene. There was also the Dutch Labour Party, among others. Then there is the response from SP (Socialist Party). SP stated the following: (English translation [PDF])

SP: GOVERNMENT MUST NOT PERMIT HUMAN RIGHTS ABUSES

26 Feb 2015 • The Court of Justice in The Hague last week ruled that the European Patents Organisation (EPO) is in conflict with important European fundamental rights, such as the right to strike. Security and Justice Minister Ivo Opstelten is, however, refusing to give effect to the judgment, on the grounds that the EPO – not an EU institution, but one with thirty-eight member states, including all EU countries – is an independent organisation and therefore enjoys immunity. SP Member of Parliament Michiel van Nispen finds this reasoning absurd, he says. ‘The minister is thus approving the silencing of trade unions and the fact that workers can’t in the end enforce their rights,’ he points out. ‘Independent organisations should not be hampered in their functioning, but that doesn’t mean that they have carte blanche to transgress human rights and ignore judicial rulings.’

The EPO has for a number of years been the site of conflict between management and workers. The organisation’s director refuses to recognise trade unions and even seeks to ensure that there is no contact between unions and EPO employees. The Court of Justice has ruled that this represents a limitation on the right to strike and in doing so transgresses fundamental principles of an open democracy and the democratic rule of law. SP Member of Parliament and labour specialist Paul Ulenbelt agrees, complaining that ‘this problem isn’t new. In the past, I’ve worked with the main Dutch trade union federation, the FNV, to hold the EPO liable for an occupational disease. The action failed because of their immunity. Social Affairs and Employment Minister Lodewijk Asscher should be persuading the European Union to limit the immunity of independent organisations to what this exception was intended for.’

Van Nispen and Ulenbelt both insist that the immunity and inviolability enjoyed by independent organisations must not lead to human rights abuses. They have asked the two government ministers responsible respectively for Justice and Employment, Opstelten and Asscher, to explain how to ensure that the workforce can access their rights and unions are not outlawed.

Here is the English translation (with original) [PDF] of additional questions put forth by the Socialist Party (see English-only version [PDF]):

Questions by the members Van Nispen and Ulenbelt (both SP) to the Ministers of Security and Justice and Social Affairs and Employment on the failure to respect the rights of staff unions (submitted March 2, 2015).

Question 1
Is it true that a conflict has been taking places for years between the management and a large part of the workforce at the European Patent Office (EPO) in Rijswijk? Is it true that the Director of the EPO does not recognize the staff unions and refuses to engage in dialogue with them, that e-mail traffic is blocked between the unions and members, that the right to strike has been restricted and that employees who express their disagreement are threatened with dismissal? 1 What is your reaction to this?

Question 2
What is your reaction to the ruling of the Appeal Court in The Hague that the EPO is violating the fundamental principles of an open and democratic state based on the rule of law and that its failure to respect the rights of trade unions to engage in collective action and collective bargaining is contrary to the European Convention on Human Rights? 2 How can this judgment, in which the Court ordered the contested measures to be revoked, be implemented?

Question 3
Why have you ordered that bailiffs cannot execute the judgment because of the immunity that this international organization is purported to have in the contracting states? 3 On what grounds exactly? Can you explain your decision in detail?

Question 4
Does this mean that a clear judgment such as that issued by the court last week is to have no consequences? Do you not find this to be an undesirable situation?

Question 5
What procedures exist for the staff and unions to enforce their rights? Are these effective?

Question 6
How far precisely, in your opinion, should the inviolability and immunity of an international organization extend?

Question 7
Do you believe that this immunity may ever extend to the point that an organization such as the EPO can violate fundamental rights which are generally recognized in Europe, without parties such as staff unions having access to an effective means of legal recourse against it?

Question 8
Do you agree that the rules regarding inviolability and immunity were never intended to be used to violate rights with impunity and to muzzle staff unions?

Question 9
Are you willing to do something as quickly as possible, but in any case to make use of the Dutch Presidency of the European Union to impel the EU to limit the immunity to serve the purpose for which it was intended? If not, why not?

Question 10
How can we prevent an international organization that enjoys immunity from doing whatever it wants? How is it ensured that the staff and the unions are not treated as “outlaws”?

Explanation:

These questions are in addition to previous questions from the members Kerstens and Maij (both PvdA), submitted February 27, 2015 (question number 2015Z03533 ).

1: Volkskrant, 26 februari 2015: «Opstelten negeert vonnis gerechtshof». http://www.volkskrant.nl/politiek/opstelten-bureau-mag-vakbond-weren~a3873491/
2: Gerechtshof Den Haag, 17 februari 2015, C/09/453749/KG ZA 13-1239
3: Aanzegging ex artikel 3a, tweede lid, van de Gerechtsdeurwaarderswet, 23 februari 2015

Also see these original questions in Dutch [PDF].

PvdA’s Kerstens and Maij asked the following questions [PDF], as mentioned the other day:

Questions by the members Kerstens and Maij (both PvdA) to the Minister of Security and Justice in the matter of the Judgment issued by the Appeal Court of the Hague against the European Patent Organisation (submitted 27 February 2015).

Question 1. Are you aware of the article “Opstelten: Appeal Court Judgment does not apply to European institution” published in the Volkskrant on 26 February 2015?

http://www.volkskrant.nl/binnenland/opstelten-bureau-mag-vakbondweren~a3873491/

Question 2. Do you remember the earlier questions regarding working conditions at the EPO? Is it true that the tense situation continues to exist, including the restriction of the right to strike?

Question 3. Is it true that the EPO refuses to revoke the controversial measures in accordance with the judgment of the Appeal Court? If yes, what are the reasons for this?

Question 4. Is it true that you are not willing to facilitate the execution of the judgment as is usual in The Netherlands? If yes, can you explain your position? What is the legal basis of your power to prevent the judgment’s execution? How often have you made use of this power in the last five years?

Question 5. On which legislation and international treaties does your decision to block the judgment’s execution rely? Have you considered a more dynamic application of the existing legislation?

Question 6. Can you give an overview of recent European and Dutch jurisprudence relating to conflicts between the immunity of international organisations and the judgments of domestic courts?

Question 7. What is your reaction to the opinion of experts that your position is at odds with the rule of law and that you prioritise immunity over human rights? What is your reaction to the statement that this erodes the authority of the courts? What is your reaction to the statement that this leads to a further worsening of the existing problem of international organisations that place themselves above the law?

Question 8. What exactly do you mean when you say that the matter has “our attention” and “that of other member states”? What does this attention consist of and what is it aimed at?

Question 9. Is it possible that one of the parties appeals to the Hoge Raad (Dutch Supreme Court) or that “cassation in the interest of the law” is requested? Do you intend to request cassation in the interest of the law?

Question 10. Have you taken note of the recent ILO agreement between employers and employees regarding the right to strike and ILO Convention 87?
Can you explain how the situation at the EPO relates to ILO Convention 87?

The Dutch Labour Party has also responded and here is the English translation of the press release [PDF]:

Conflict about social rights at the European Patent Office Is Europe applying double standards?

Why do employees of the European Patent Office in Rijswijk not have the same social rights as other workers in the Netherlands?

That is the question put by Dutch Labour Party MEP Agnes Jongerius to the European Commission in reaction to the long-running conflict between management and staff at the European Patent Office.

The employees of the patent office have no say, never mind co-determination, in relation to their working conditions at the Office. Their right to strike is severely curtailed. According to
the management, the EPO is an international organization, which may determine its own staff regulations completely independently.

“Obviously that is crazy,” says Agnes Jongerius. “In Europe we recognise the European Charter and the European Convention on Human Rights. In those legal instruments matters such as the right to strike are well-defined. And these norms are not supposed to apply to employees of what is – nota bene – a European agency. Is Europe applying double standards?”

The workers received some support in their fight this week from the Appeal Court in the Hague. The Court agreed with the staff that the EPO was violating fundamental principles of the rule of law. But VVD Minister Ivo Opstelten decided to consign this verdict to the wastepaper-basket. He is of the opinion that the EPO as an international organization is immune to the judgments of a national court.

Agnes Jongerius now wants the European Commission to intervene in the matter. And, also in the interests of all other European offices and agencies, to establish that European workers cannot and should not be deprived of their social rights. 2700 employees work at [the Hague sub-office of] the European Patent Office which processes patent applications for the entire European Union.

For further information:
Paul Sneijder, Press Officer, Dutch Labour Party, Euro-Delegation, +32 475 386675

Agnes Jongerius was later mentioned by the following statement [PDF] (see original in Dutch [PDF]):

From: SD.Delegation NL Press
Sent: Friday, February 27, 2015 15:35
To:
Subject: Agnes Jongerius on the conflict at the EPO

Conflict about social rights at the European Patent Office Is Europe applying double standards?

Why do employees of the European Patent Office in Rijswijk not have the same social rights as other workers in the Netherlands?

That is the question put by Dutch Labour Party MEP Agnes Jongerius to the European Commission as a reaction to the long-running conflict between management and staff at the European Patent Office.

The employees of the patent office have no say, never mind co-determination, in relation to their working conditions at the Office. Their right to strike is severely curtailed. According to the management, the EPO is an international organization, which may determine its own staff regulations completely independently.

“That is of course crazy,” says Agnes Jongerius, “In Europe we recognise the European Charter and the European Convention on Human Rights. In those instruments matters such as the right to strike are well-defined. And that is not supposed to apply to employees of what is – nota bene – a European agency. Is this a case where Europe is applying double standards?”

The workers received some support in their fight this week from the Court in the Hague. The court agreed with the staff that the Office was violating fundamental principles of the rule of law. But VVD Minister Ivo Opstelten decided to consign this verdict to the wastepaperbasket. He is of the opinion that the EPO as an international organization is immune to the judgments of a national court.

Agnes Jongerius now wants the European Commission to intervene in the matter. And, also in the interests of all other European offices and agencies, to establish that European workers cannot and should not be deprived of their social rights.

2700 employees work at [the Hague sub-office of] the European Patent Office which processes patent applications for the entire European Union.

For further information:
Paul Sneijder, Press Officer, Dutch Labour Party, Euro-Delegation, +32 475 386675

Lastly, here is a letter sent by Agnes Jongerius [PDF]:

EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT

FORM FOR THE SUBMISSION OF A QUESTION WITH A REQUEST FOR A WRITTEN ANSWER (Article 130)

SUBMITTED BY: Agnes JONGERIUS

SUBJECT: Injustices at the European Patent Office (EPO) in The Hague

TEXT:
Following a case brought by the staff of the European Patent Office in The Hague complaining inter alia that they were not involved or had any say in (labour) matters of the Office, and that their right to strike had been restricted by the management, the Court held that as a European body the EPO can not fall outside the legal order created by the standards of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) and those to which the EU is bound to adhere. The EPO set this judgment aside on 17 February.

1. In view of the fact that the Commission has delegated certain powers to the EPO, does the Commission agree that the EPO must adhere to the European Charter and the ECHR as a minimum requirement in all its activities, including its cooperation with the EU and its relations with the staff and unions?

2. Can the Commission confirm that it has expressed its concerns about the conduct of the EPO Administration and has requested it to restore social dialogue in line with the norms and values of the EU?

3. What steps does the Commission intend to undertake if the EPO does not follow the court’s ruling and continues to place itself outside European legal norms.

“The European Federation of Public Service Unions (EPSU) has also [showed interest in] an intervention,” a source told us. “Details can be found here and the EPSU page refers to a further intervention by the Dutch MEP Agnes Jongerius.” (original Dutch press release and translation above). There are documents in this page (letters, questions, etc.) and the introductory text states:

European Patent Office Management places itself outside of European legal order

Management of the European Patent Office stated that they would not respect the verdict of a Dutch court arguing immunity from the European legal order. This is not acceptable and EPSU has written to management in support of the unions demands.

Relations between the unions in the European Patent Office (represented by SUEPO, an affiliate of EPSU affiliated union USF) have not been well for sometime as management of EPO is blocking access of the union to negotiations, does not allow access to the email system and blocks the union’s emails to members and workers and is threatening workers that want to engage in industrial action with repercussions. Staff representatives that speak out openly also fear disciplinary action. The branch of the union in The Hague brought its case to the attention of the Dutch Court. It ruled in favour of the union, referring to the European legal order of the European Court of Human Rights (and the Social Charter of the Council of Europe).

The Dutch Court ruled that the European Patent Office:
- Has to grant access to the email system to the union. Trade union representatives that use their work email address for trade union related activities can not be threatened with disciplinary action. The union should be allowed to send bulk mails to members and workers;

- Prohibits management of EPO to impose a maximum duration of possible strikes;

- Management of EPO should allow the union to participate in collective bargaining within 14 days after the ruling.

The Director Mr. Batistelli however issued an internal communication in which he argued that EPO has immunity being an international organisation of Member States, that the verdict of the Dutch court does not apply and that he therefore does not intend to grant the demands of the Court. A conservative minister in the Dutch government approved this vision. It is contested by experts in international law. EPSU has written to management of EPO to respect the verdict and questions have been raised in the European Parliament.

More EPO interventions or public objections may have taken place and we would love to know if we missed important ones. More questions in the Dutch Parliament are in official sites, with original and English translations shown above. █

English, French and German Translations of De Telegraaf Article About Ivo Opstelten’s Defence of Benoît Battistelli

Posted in Europe, Patents at 6:04 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

A newspaper

Summary: An article from “De Telegraaf” (with translations) helps provide insight into Battistelli and his disgraced allies

THE EPO has had a calm week. Easter offers no major news, except some minor bits about the boards, so we wish to finally share a lot of material which needs to be meticulously documented.

Articles from “De Volkskrant” (see press coverage) and “De Telegraaf”, along with multiple translations, were sent to us last month, contextually accompanying despite them preceding reports about the disgraced (over payment to drug traffickers) Ivo Opstelten. “Recent Dutch newspaper articles with translations,” as one source put it, had been made available (we don’t know who made the translations), with “publication date of the original articles [being] 26 Feb. 2015.”

Here is the article in English, French and German [PDF]. To quote the English version in full:

Thursday 26 February 2015

Opstelten ignores Court of Appeal ruling

THE HAGUE – Minister of Justice Ivo Opstelten has binned a ruling of the Court of Appeal in The Hague. According to the Court of Appeal, the European Patent Organisation (EPOrg) breaches the rule of law. However, Opstelten states that the European organisation enjoys immunity.

Photo: Serge LIGTENBERG
According to de Volkskrant.

For years there has been a conflict at the EPOrg between management and a large portion of the employees. In order to counter organised opposition, the management of the organisation has, amongst other things, blocked email communication between the unions and their members. The trade unions are also not welcome at the negotiation table.

According to the Court of Appeal, those measures are in conflict with the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR). The Court of Appeal acknowledges that the Patent Office can claim immunity but this autonomy does not stretch so far ‘that the EPOrg could breach generally recognised fundamental rights in Europe’.

“Basically,” said our source for this, “the material consists of recent newspaper articles,” but as we shall show in the next post, these articles were only the beginning as they soon led to a major national debate in the Netherlands and shortly thereafter Opstelten resigned in shame. It is quite miraculous that Benoît Battistelli has not resigned in shame too (not yet anyway). █

FUD Alliance: VeraCode Co-founder Joins Black Duck

Posted in Free/Libre Software, FUD, Microsoft, Security at 5:56 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

Rusted

Summary: Two sources of fear uncertainty and doubt (FUD) against Free/Open Source software (FOSS) find themselves fused together

THE firm known as Black Duck recently admitted its roots in GPL FUD, not just in Microsoft (the founder's employer for many years). Black Duck recently took advantage of perceptions of FOSS security issues (using bugs with “branding”) to market its proprietary software products. A press release now informs us that VeraCode’s co-founder is joining Black Duck. We wrote about Veracode at Techrights several times before. Black Duck and Veracode have much in common, with examples such as security FUD that has “branding” to act as a stigma against Free software, as we recently (earlier this year) saw (both Black Duck and Veracode have been doing this in recent months). We are sure they’ll have a lot of experiences to share and many strategies to sell based on fear, or even create this fear by appearing in the media with famous brands such as “GHOST”, “Shellshock”, and “Heartbleed”. █

Links 3/4/2015: ‘Atomic’ Distribution, System76′s Broadwell-Powered Lemur

Posted in News Roundup at 5:43 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

GNOME bluefish

Contents

GNU/Linux

  • Desktop

    • Can Linux learn anything from Windows 10?

      Microsoft’s Windows 10 operating system is available as a preview release. One Linux user at Network World decided to take the plunge and see if there was anything Windows 10 had to teach Linux.

    • 10 Truly Amusing Easter Eggs in Linux

      Back in 1979, a video game was being developed for the Atari 2600 — Adventure.

      The programmer working on Adventure slipped a secret feature into the game which, when the user moved an “invisible square” to a particular wall, allowed entry into a “secret room”. That room contained a simple phrase: “Created by Warren Robinett”.

  • Server

    • RancherOS: A Minimal OS for Docker in Production

      RancherOS, the latest minimal Linux-based operating system for running Docker containers, was recently launched by Darren Shepherd, Rancher Lab’s CTO. In contrast with Boot2Docker (another lightweight Docker-centric distribution) which openly discourages production use, RancherOS’s announcement claims the new OS is production and scale-ready.

  • Kernel Space

    • Linux Brought to Canon DSLRs by Magic Lantern

      Members of the Magic Lantern community are saying that this development will open the door to a universe of possibilities. While Magic Lantern was previously a set of hacks running on top of Canon code, being able to run Linux on a Canon DSLR means the developers will be able to implement new features cleanly and access the camera’s hardware directly.

    • Linux Kernel Ported to Canon DSLRs, Thanks to the Magic Lantern Developers – Video

      It’s no longer April Fools Day, so what we are about to tell you is no joke, but the real deal. The awesome developers behind the well-known and acclaimed Magic Lantern third-party software add-on that brings a wide range of new features to Canon EOS cameras, have announced that they’ve managed to port the Linux kernel to Canon DSLRs.

    • Graphics Stack

  • Applications

  • Desktop Environments/WMs

    • K Desktop Environment/KDE SC/Qt

      • Calligra 2.9.2 Released

        The Calligra team has released version 2.9.2, a the bugfix release of the Calligra Suite, Calligra Active and the Calligra Office Engine. Updating the software is recommended to everybody.

      • Calligra Office Suite 2.9.2 Out Now with Major Improvements for Krita Digital Painting Tool

        The Calligra Team, through Jarosław Staniek, was proud to announce today, April 2, that the second maintenance release of their Calligra office suite for KDE desktop environments has been released with a great number of improvements to the Krita digital painting software, for which we have a separate announcement.

    • GNOME Desktop/GTK

  • Distributions

    • Evolve OS Changes Names to Solus, an Old Community Favorite

      The Evolve OS project has just changed its name to Solus after a trademark spat over a name owned by UK’s Secretary of State office.

    • New Releases

    • Screenshots

    • Red Hat Family

      • PHP version 5.5.24RC1 and 5.6.8RC1

        NEW : Release Candidate versions are now available in remi-test repository for Fedora and Enterprise Linux (RHEL / CentOS) to allow more people to test them. They are only available as Software Collections, for a parallel installation, perfect solution for such tests.

      • Red Hat Enterprise Linux Atomic Host: Updates Made Easy

        Earlier in March we announced the general availability of Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 Atomic Host, a small footprint, container host based on Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7. It provides a stable host platform, optimized for running application containers, and brings a number of application software packaging and deployment benefits to customers. In my previous container blog I gave the top seven reasons to deploy Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 Atomic Host. One reason was the ability to do atomic updates and rollbacks. In this blog I provide an in-depth look into atomic updating and how it differs from a yum update. And, speaking of atomic updates… it just so happens that our first atomic update was made available yesterday.

      • Fedora

        • FLOCK 2015 is in Rochester NY

          This is a short blog post to get over my writer’s block. For the last 2 years, Fedora has had a computer festival called FLOCK in either Europe or North America. The first FLOCK happened in beautiful Charleston SC in 2013. The second FLOCK was in the wonderful capital of the Czech Republic, Prague. This years FLOCK is to be held from August 12-15 in Rochester New York. The main website is having some issues (various links aren’t pointing to the correct places because WordPress is being obstinate) but these are being worked on as I write and hopefully will be fixed soon.

        • Fedora under construction?

          Fedora’s quality makes complacency easy. But in truth, we’re always under construction — or we should be. You could call that constant disruption by different names. Risk positive. Forward leaning. Embracing change. Since inception, Fedora was intended to avoid the status quo. So what’s next for shaking up said status?

        • Fedora May Move to Project Atomic Distribution

          Fedora 22 was different from other releases most significantly by the way it was distributed – namely in three purpose-designed editions. However, Paul Frields is floating another method for future Fedora releases. He suggest Fedora 23 or 24 may consist of “some combination of a strongly managed center, curated stacks, and an expanding nebula of containers.”

        • Fedora 22 Beta Is Now in Freeze, Will Be Released on April 14

          Dennis Gilmore has announced the other day that the upcoming Beta release of the Fedora 22 Linux operating system is now in freeze and no other packages than the ones who fix the accepted blocker or repair two bugs that have been declared exceptions to the freeze.

    • Debian Family

      • Derivatives

        • Canonical/Ubuntu

          • Canonical Refuses to Fix a 5-Year-Old Bug in Ubuntu, Related to Notification System

            Recent reports show us that a known Ubuntu bug, which was submitted to Canonical’s Launchpad bug-tracking website about half a decade ago, still exists in the current version of the Ubuntu Linux operating system and Canonical refuses to fix it for unknown reasons.

          • System76 unveils all-new Broadwell-powered Lemur — an affordable Ubuntu Linux laptop

            While many computer manufacturers are in a race to the bottom — both in price and quality — some makers continue to produce reliable high-quality machines. One of these manufacturers is System76. If you aren’t familiar, it manufactures and sells desktops and laptops running the Ubuntu operating system. In other words, Linux fans can buy one of these machines and have it running the Linux distro out of the box — no need to format the drive to remove Windows.

  • Devices/Embedded

Free Software/Open Source

  • The Building Blocks of Open Source Innovation

    Open source code creation opens the door for IT developers across varied industries to adopt, modify and customize technology to their organization’s specific needs. Companies are free to contribute to and adopt code so long as resources—such as intellectual property software audit services—are applied to ensure that the ground rules established by the code’s originator are acknowledged and followed.

  • What does the future hold for the Internet of Things?

    I started getting involved with open source as a Computer Science (CS) grad student. I was using a combination of open source and proprietary software in my research. Given the nature of research, being able to rapidly prototype a concept and customize the tools involved are both hugely important goals. I found that open source tools often gave our team this win-win scenario where we were able to quickly try a variety of tools at no cost while also being empowered to modify or even combine solutions. This was a big advantage over using closed proprietary software.

  • ON.Lab Releases ‘Blackbird’ Open Source SDN Operating System

    ONOS’ community today announced the availability of the second release of its open source SDN Open Network Operating System (ONOS), named Blackbird, that is focused on performance, scale and high availability. ONOS is the first open source platform to define a comprehensive set of metrics for effectively evaluating the “carrier-grade quotient” of SDN control plane platforms/controllers and to publicly publish the performance evaluation of its Blackbird release using these metrics.

  • ONOS Project Unveils Second Release of Open SDN Platform
  • Instagram’s open-source library could make it easier for app makers to build for Apple Watch

    The library is known as IGInterfaceDataTable, and is intended to make “configuring tables with multi-dimensional data easier.” In other words, Instagram said, like its own app for Apple’s forthcoming smart watch.

  • Open Xchange teams with PowerDNS and Dovecot to create open source powerhouse

    OPEN-XCHANGE, the security conscious open source white label productivity provider from Germany, has announced a three-way merger to create one of the largest open source companies in Europe.

    The deal sees the company join up with Dutch DNS software vendor PowerDNS and Finnish IMAP server provider Dovecot to form a pan-European powerhouse.

    The new deal sees the combined Open-Xchange take a 90 percent market share in the secure DNS market and some 130 million user accounts.

    We caught up with Open-Xchange CEO Rafael Laguna to get his thoughts on the news, starting with the advantages that the combined company will bring to the open source market.

  • Web Browsers

  • SaaS/Big Data

  • Oracle/Java/LibreOffice

  • Project Releases

  • Openness/Sharing

    • How open source software builds strong roots for better governance

      Open data and going digital are subjects high on the international agenda for global development, particularly when it comes to financing improved services and infrastructure for the poorest people in the world. Young people from Laos to Lagos aspire to become software developers, and smartphones are set to put unprecedented computing power into every corner of the earth. But the paradox is that many governments still only have rudimentary information technology infrastructure and often can’t find trained and skilled staff to design and run it.

    • Open Data

      • Slovakia project to reduce administrative burden

        The Slovak Republic wants to reduce the administrative burden on citizens and companies, and to avoid the need to repeatedly request information. The Ministry of Finance in February signed a contract for a base registry to make it possible for public administrations to exchange data and information. The EUR 13 million project will also result in standards for data sharing between public administrations.

    • Open Hardware

  • Programming

Leftovers

  • Security

    • Thursday’s security updates
    • Why Unikernels Can Improve Internet Security

      The creator of MirageOS, Anil Madhavapeddy, says it’s “simply irresponsible to continue to knowingly provision code that is potentially unsafe, and especially so as we head into a year full of promise about smart cities and ubiquitous Internet of Things. We wouldn’t build a bridge on top of quicksand, and should treat our online infrastructure with the same level of respect and attention as we give our physical structures.”

      In the hopes of improving security, performance and scalability, there’s a flurry of interesting work taking place around blocking out functionality into containers and lighter-weight unikernel alternatives. Galois, which specializes in R&D for new technologies, says enterprises are increasingly interested in the ability to cleanly separate functionality to limit the effect of a breach to just the component affected, rather than infecting the whole system.

  • PR/AstroTurf/Lobbying

  • Privacy

    • Consent That Goes Both Ways

      In client-server, we’re calves and sites are cows. We go to sites to suckle “content” and get lots of little unwanted files, most of which are meant to train advertising crosshairs on us. Having Do Not Track in the world has done nothing to change the power asymmetry of client-server. But it’s not the only tool, nor is it finished. In fact, the client-side revolution in this space has barely started.

    • China’s CNNIC issues false certificates in serious breach of crypto trust

      In a major breach of public trust and confidence, the Chinese digital certificate authority China Internet Network Information Center (CNNIC) certified false credentials for numerous domains, including several owned by Google. The deliberate breach had the potential to seriously endanger vulnerable users, such as journalists communicating with sources. The breach was discovered by Google and published on its security blog on March 23. Despite this serious lapse, it appears CNNIC’s authority will not be revoked, and that its credentials will continue to be trusted by almost all computers around the world.

    • What’s the Cost of NSA Spying?

      By design, the research company’s numbers don’t reflect the amount of money spent by U.S. taxpayers funding the NSA’s operations. Nor do they indicate how much of this $47 billion is being born by the likes of Microsoft and Oracle, as far as I can tell. What I do know is that many foreign governments have been publicly investing in Linux and open source projects since Snowden’s revelations that back doors for the NSA have been built into many proprietary U.S. enterprise software products.

    • Google Strikes Back Against Chinese Certificate Authority

      Both Google and Mozilla are taking aggressive measures against Chinese certificate authority CNNIC.

    • Invizbox (hands-on): Another flawed Tor “privacy” router debuts

      Invizbox aims to do exactly that. The project follows in the footsteps of Anonabox, the crowdsourced effort that raised hundreds of thousands of dollars to bring a router that anonymizes Internet traffic to market, but was later pulled by Kickstarter after its custom hardware claim came under scrutiny.

    • EFF General Counsel Takes On NSA Spying

      Kurt Opsahl talks to Dark Reading about government surveillance and privacy in anticipation of his Interop keynote.

    • Matt DeHart formally arraigned today

      Matt DeHart, Anonymous activist and alleged WikiLeaks courier, was formally arraigned today, but he did not appear in court. Matt is pleading not guilty to all charges against him, so he waved his formal court appearance and pled not guilty by submitting papers to the court. He remains imprisoned in Bowling Green, Kentucky.

    • A year after firestorm, DHS wants access to license-plate tracking system

      The Department of Homeland Security is seeking bids from companies able to provide law enforcement officials with access to a national license-plate tracking system — a year after canceling a similar solicitation over privacy issues.

      [...]

      In a privacy impact assessment issued Thursday, the DHS says that it is not seeking to build a national database or contribute data to an existing system.

  • Civil Rights

    • NarcoNews: CIA Veteran Sees Big Hole in Sterling Espionage Conviction

      A former CIA spy manager is raising a serious question about the way the intelligence agency handled the national-security risk raised in the case of Jeffrey Sterling, a former CIA officer who was recently convicted on espionage charges for leaking classified information to New York Times reporter James Risen.

    • The VICE News Interview: John Kiriakou

      In 2007, John Kiriakou became the first Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) official to publicly confirm that agency interrogators waterboarded a high-value detainee, terrorism suspect Abu Zubaydah — a revelation that had previously been a closely guarded secret.

      Five years after this unauthorized disclosure to ABC News, the veteran CIA officer pleaded guilty to leaking to journalists the identity of certain individuals who were involved with the CIA’s rendition, detention, and interrogation program. He was sentenced to two and a half years in federal prison.

    • Guantánamo Bay detainees’ release upon end of Afghanistan war ‘unlikely’

      Typically, when a war ends, so does the combatants’ authority to detain the other side’s fighters. But as the conclusion of the US war in Afghanistan approaches, the inmate population of Guantánamo Bay is likely to be an exception – and, for the Obama administration, the latest complication to its attempt to close the infamous wartime detention complex.

    • With combat over, lawyers for Afghan captives ask Obama to let them go

      With U.S. combat operations officially ended in Afghanistan, some U.S. lawyers for five Afghan detainees at Guantánamo wrote the Obama administration Monday asking that the captives be freed.

  • Internet/Net Neutrality

    • Proposals on European net neutrality open ‘two-speed’ internet

      European internet providers would be allowed to profit from “two-speed” data services under proposals being considered in Brussels, opening a transatlantic divide on telecoms regulation after the US banned similar tactics last week.

      In documents seen by the Financial Times, EU member states are proposing rules that would establish a principle of “net neutrality” but still allow telecoms groups to manage the flow of internet traffic to ensure the network worked efficiently.

    • Epic Awards One Of Three Unreal Dev Grants To Makers Of Net Neutrality Game

      It’s been a unique experience for me as a Techdirt writer, one who does not delve into the net neutrality debates and posts very often, to watch the effect the wider coverage about net neutrality has had on the general public. Without being scientific about it, there are certain markers for story penetration I notice and have noticed specifically when it comes to net neutrality. For instance, a couple of months ago, my father called me up with a simple question: “What should my position be on net neutrality?” The question itself isn’t generally useful, but the simple fact that a grandfather is even asking about it means something when it comes to the public consciousness of the topic itself. So too is the appearance of the topic and debates on the Sunday news programs. But maybe the most important indication that net neutrality has become, at the very least, a thing the public is discussing is the topic’s appearance in seemingly unrelated venues. Even if the take was wrong, coverage in political cartoons was something cool to see, for instance. But the topic coming up as the theme of a politically-motivated video game is even more exciting.

04.02.15

Governments Adopt Free Software and Standards, So Microsoft Distorts the Press for Propaganda and Lies About Microsoft’s Proprietary ‘Products’

Posted in Free/Libre Software, Microsoft, Open XML, OpenDocument at 11:29 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

Summary: Microsoft’s lobbying apparatus is trying to hook entire nations into PRISM (i.e. NSA espionage) with proprietary Microsoft formats and proprietary software, especially now that nations have policies in place and Free software available which renders Microsoft obsolete

DESPITE Microsoft’s gross behaviour and sheer influence in the Indian government, the Government of India recently managed to pass new laws in relation to software, making Free software a necessity (to what degree depends on the article one trusts the most, as there have been at least a dozen of them in English). This makes perfect sense for a software powerhouse like India. It would benefit local industries. India can be self-sufficient in the software sense.

Meanwhile, here in the UK the government managed to pass pro-ODF policies, despite lobbying by Microsoft, its proxies, and its British partners. We covered this last year and we played a role in giving feedback to the government, at the expense of many hours and as much as one day’s work. We now have what can be cautiously labelled Free software-friendly procurement policy even in the UK, which has historically been one of the most Microsoft-friendly countries in the world.

“We now have what can be cautiously labelled Free software-friendly procurement policy even in the UK, which has historically been one of the most Microsoft-friendly countries in the world.”Microsoft is of course not accepting defeat. It is now pretending to be “Open Source”, starting with lies about the status of .NET, accompanied by concealment patent issues (as with OOXML) and openwashing of Visual Studio — an integral part of .NET — even though it’s a mischievous distortion of facts. Microsoft pretends to be “Open Source” because it wants a loophole into government contracts even where governments strictly require Free software and open standards. A new article by Liu Qihao & Ciaran O’Riordan highlights the reality behind so-called ‘Open Source’ .NET. The instruction states:

Microsoft is publishing the source code to certain parts of .NET. The terms of distribution (the licence) is the combination of the MIT licence and a separate patent promise. Given that Microsoft has a history of aggressively using software patents against free software, we decided to take a look at the legal details.

The conclusion is as follows:

If you only intend to use the software as published by Microsoft, then everything looks fine. The patent promise (if it’s even necessary) will apply. If you intend to modify the code, then the protections of the patent promise may be necessary or useful and you should take care. And if you’re looking for a project to contribute to, then it would be worth giving your preference to projects which don’t contain conditions which create or suggest patent risks if the code is used in other free software projects (outside of the set of .NET Runtime projects).

So it’s basically false marketing, as one should expect from Microsoft. The Economist has just released a horrible Microsoft puff piece (more like an advertisement in article form), misleadingly titled “Opening Windows”. Opening, really? As in “Open Source”? The article, written in Redmond, says: “At an event in San Francisco last October Mr Nadella showed a slide that read: “Microsoft loves Linux”. In contrast, Mr Ballmer once called the open-source operating system a “cancer”.”

Paul Krill, a Microsoft-friendly writer (for many years now), has meanwhile published “Windows goes open source?” (not April’s Fool). Paul Krill consciously (or not) helps Microsoft openwash Windows, pretending there are such legitimate claims as policies in governments change to require “Open Source”.

What we have here is a misinformation campaign. You love Open Source? Then you will love Microsoft. That’s the (almost) daily message from your Microsoft-affiliated and at times Microsoft-bribed friends (acting as ‘reporters’).

Here in the UK our government is apparently so dumb that even when it adopts ODF as the editable documents standard and asks for Free/Open Source software it remains stuck with the prospect of blobs from Microsoft. Regarding an article that seeks to associate Microsoft with ODF, iophk told us: “In practice it is unlikely that it will actually comply with the standard.”

This relates to statements like this one from Linda Humphries, titled “Making document formats open, it makes them better” (the same applies to software, not just data).

Francis Maude has just met (i.e. lobbying) with a Microsoft liar, Michel Van der Bel (see her mentioned in this older post). Microsoft pretends that it can deliver ODF support and that therefore the government’s requirement (ODF) and preference (Free software) should be compatible with Windows and Office. To quote the article: “Stanchak said Cabinet Officer minister Francis Maude met with Microsoft’s UK country manager, Michel Van der Bel, to discuss the company’s work on open standards to enable universal document access across government departments.

“Maude said the use of ODF will deliver significant savings to the public sector.

“”This will give people more choice about the software they use. This supports our digital by default agenda, which is helping save citizens, businesses and taxpayers £1.2bn over this Parliament as part of our long-term economic plan,” he said.

“The update comes despite Microsoft arguing last year that its own Open XML file format is more widely adopted than ODF and therefore should be on the government’s approved format list.”

So Microsoft attacked ODF and now it wants to be part of ODF. Is that how it works? The UK government should shun Microsoft. As this other new article reminds us: “In 2014, Microsoft went against the government’s request to support ODF, claiming its own XML format was more heavily adopted. The UK government refutes the claim, stating that ODF allows users to not be boxed into one ecosystem.”

Microsoft now pretends otherwise. More lies from Microsoft UK, an opportunist with NSA connections. The British government’s decision on office suites (if they’re needed at all) shouldn’t be about picking a ‘cloud’; it would be a privacy farce. If the government was ever to adopt Microsoft ‘cloud’ (i.e. NSA PRISM with that glorified ‘cloud’ buzzword which appeases non-technical people), would it be sued by any British citizens for supporting espionage by foreign spies? A lot of personal data is being encoded and stored in such documents. In the past, for NSA to acquire data/files from Office it needed to use Microsoft’s Windows back doors. With Office 360 [sic.] it’s becoming trivial. Microsoft is in PRISM.

The British government needs to adopt Free software such as LibreOffice and stop wasting time being lobbied by the company that attacked open standards and Open Source software like no other company in the history of computing. █

Links 2/4/2015: Linux Lite 2.4, Ubuntu Phone Jailbreak

Posted in News Roundup at 11:02 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

GNOME bluefish

Contents

GNU/Linux

  • Desktop

    • Google Goes Crazy for Chromebooks

      Google on Tuesday announced two new budget-busting Chromebook computers, a tablet/notebook convertible with a full swivel screen, and a Chrome computer-on-a-stick.

      The Haier Chromebook 11 (pictured above) and the Hisense Chromebook both are available for preorder for US$149.

    • Choosing Software to Work Remotely from Your Linux Dev Station

      In the previous article, I gave an overview of how I’ve managed to go mobile. In this installment, I’m going to talk about the software I’m using on my different devices. Then in the third and final installment, I’ll explain how I set up my Linux servers, what software I’m using, and how I set up the security. Before getting started, however, I want to address one important point: While downtime and family time are necessary (as some of you wisely pointed out in the comments!) one great use for this is if you have to do a lot of business traveling, and if you’re on call. So continuing our story…

    • A Linux user tries out Windows 10

      Long answer: Are you kidding me? I couldn’t repartition that drive fast enough and re-install Linux.

  • Server

    • ​Canonical to integrate Chef DevOps into Ubuntu

      You may think of Ubuntu as a desktop Linux, and it is, but it’s also the most popular Linux on Amazon EC2 cloud and very popular on most other cloud platforms. So it only makes good sense that Canonical, Ubuntu’s parent company, has partnered with Chef, one of the most popular DevOps companies.

  • Audiocasts/Shows

    • Docker

      Solomon Hykes, CTO and chief architect of Docker, joins Randal and Gareth this week to talk about Docker’s 2nd birthday and the vast ecosystem it has developed during the time. Docker is an open platform for developers and sysadmins to build, ship, and run distributed applications.

  • Kernel Space

    • Slow April Fools’ Day for Linux

      This certainly hasn’t been a record year for Linux and Open Source April Fools’ jokes. In days of yore distributions would come up with crazy spins or psychedelic themes. Sites would deploy eye-straining colors and heads of projects would announce defections. Every now and again a prank would be so convincing that folks would believe it. However, we did find a few community members getting into the spirit.

    • Virtual GEM Is Coming For Linux 4.1

      There’s already been a fair amount of code building up for the DRM graphics subsystem for the Linux 4.1 kernel and a new feature was just committed to Git last night.

      Virtual GEM (vGEM) is coming! VGEM can increase Mesa’s software rasterizer performance and this fake GEM memory management support was devised by a Google engineer, Zach Reizner.

  • Applications

  • Desktop Environments/WMs

    • K Desktop Environment/KDE SC/Qt

      • There is no KEndorsements

        The next idea is about monitioring the usage behavior of the user. For this I must say that in a Wayland world KWin would have enough information to do that, but we don’t look at the information at all. We do not care what an application is: we don’t know that a given window is “Krita”, we don’t know that it should be used with a drawing tablet, we don’t analyze any input and just pass it through to the application. KWin is completely ignorant on what the application does with input events passed to them and as ignorant to what a window content looks like. To us a window is just a texture we render to the screen. We don’t know that there is a “drawing area” or a “video” element, it’s just one texture. Similarly we do not know (and care) about input events. All we do is determine which window should get the event and pass it to it. We are quite aware that by passing all input events through KWin we could do evil things. The good thing is that our software is open source and you can see what we do (relevant code file is called input.cpp, events come in from the files under the libinput/ directory).

    • GNOME Desktop/GTK

      • Another release, another release video

        Huge credits goes to the GNOME Design Team for awesome assets, Anitek for the awesome music, engagement team for the awesome feedback and translation team for the awesome subtitles. Also thanks to everyone who helped me by fixing visual bugs early so I could record the new improvements. GNOME 3.18 will be amazing.

      • JdLL 2015

        Last week-end, in the Salle des Rancy in Lyon, GNOME folks (Fred Peters, Mathieu Bridon and myself) set up our booth at the top of the stairs, the space graciously offered by Ubuntu-FR and Fedora being a tad bit small. The JdLL were starting.

  • Distributions

    • New Releases

      • Simplicity Linux 15.4 Beta Is Now Based on LXPup, Includes the Latest Tor Browser

        The Simplicity Linux development team, through David Purse, had the pleasure of announcing the immediate availability for download and testing of the Beta version of the upcoming Simplicity Linux 15.4 computer operating system. Simplicity Linux aims to be a small, fast, and versatile Linux distro based on Puppy Linux.

      • Antivirus Live CD 12.0 Has Been Released, Promises to Protect Computers Against Viruses

        Zbigniew Konojacki, the creator of the 4MLinux series of distributions, has announced recently the immediate availability for download of Antivirus Live CD 12.0, an open source distribution that provides users with a live Linux computing environment built around the popular ClamAV (Clam AntiVirus) virus scanner.

      • Emmabuntus 3 Linux Distribution Is Now Based on Xubuntu 14.04.2 LTS

        Patrick Emmabuntus had the pleasure of informing Softpedia about a new maintenance release of his Emmabuntüs 3 Linux distribution, which is now based on the upstream Xubuntu LTS operating system.

      • Black Lab Enterprise Desktop 6.5 RC1 RELEASED

        Today we are releasing Black Lab Enterprise Desktop 6.5 RC1. This is the first Release Candidate of what will become the final product of Black Lab Enterprise Desktop 6.5. We are now in feature freeze meaning there will be no more changes to the application lineup and we will be working on polish. We have introduced quite a few new features. Enterprise Filesystem support, Built in virtualization utilities, and webapp integration.

    • Linux Lite

    • Ballnux/SUSE

      • openSUSE Tumbleweed Is Moving To Systemd’s Journal, GNOME 3.16, Plasma 5

        The openSUSE Tumbleweed rolling-release distribution has already been using systemd for some time, but they’ve kept to using syslog for system messaging logging. However, that’s going to change as Tumbleweed integrates systemd’s journal.

      • Gnome 3.16, systemd-journal coming in next Tumbleweed snapshot

        It’s official, Gnome will be in the next Tumbleweed snapshot and the development experience is highly anticipated. A clean installation works, but the guys are working on one last test before its released. We’re not promising an early Easter gift, but Tumbleweed users won’t have to wait long for Gnome’s latest upgrade.

    • Debian Family

      • Surviving systemd: Lucas Nussbaum satisfied with init system outcome

        It would not be an exaggeration to say that no leader of the Debian GNU/Linux Project has had to cope with more troubling times than Lucas Nussbaum.

        The extent of debate and acrimony that broke out within the project last year over the decision to adopt systemd as the default init system for the next release, Jessie, would have taxed the patience of even the most suave diplomat.

      • Derivatives

        • Canonical/Ubuntu

          • Vendors queuing to launch Ubuntu smartphones – Shuttleworth

            There is a “queue of vendors” looking to launch Ubuntu-powered devices, following the launch of the first commercial smartphone by vendor BQ last month, Mark Shuttleworth, founder of Canonical, told Mobile World Live.

          • See What’s New in Ubuntu 15.04 Vivid Vervet

            The stable edition of Ubuntu 15.04 (Vivid Vervet) is just around the corner, so this is a good time to take a look at the features that are going to be implemented in the new release and see what important packages have been updated.

          • Ubuntu Phone Jailbreak Now Available, Third-Party App Store Created

            Believe it or not, Ubuntu Phones can be jailbroken too, sort of. In a recent blog post, Ubuntu Touch OS developer Michael Zanetti explains how he managed to create a third-part App Store for the Ubuntu Touch mobile operating system that will allow some open doors for power users and developers who want to explore the platform beyond what’s offered to the normal user.

  • Devices/Embedded

    • ODROID C1 review

      The ODROID C1 is a true alternative to the Raspberry Pi 2. It costs the same but brings Gigabit Ethernet, the option of using a high-speed eMMC storage module, and support for Android!

      The Single Board Computer (SBC) movement is still going strong and with the recent release of the Raspberry Pi 2, it doesn’t seem as if it will lose any of its current momentum. The key selling point of the Raspberry Pi has always been its price. While there are lots of other companies that make these nimble little boards, there aren’t that many who seem to be able to match the Pi’s price point. Of course, some of the boards are only slightly more expensive than the Pi and do offer more functionality. For example, the MIPS Creator CI20 costs just $65 and includes built-in Wi-Fi and 8GB of on-board storage, two things missing from the Pi.

    • Android IVI system serves up to 56 bus passengers

      The Via BLISS (Bus Line In-Seat System) Platform provides an in-vehicle infotainment (IVI) VOD network of the type typically found only on airlines, says Via Technologies. The Android-based system has been deployed by long-distance bus operators in Taiwan and Turkey, and is now open for general availability.

    • Lumenera Announces the Release of Their ‘Lumenera Linux SDK 2.0’

      Lumenera, a leading manufacturer and developer of high performance digital cameras and custom imaging solutions, is pleased to announce the launch of Lumenera Linux SDK 2.0— their new software development kit that supports the popular Ubuntu Linux operating system.

    • Phones

Free Software/Open Source

  • Studying polar data with the help of Apache Tika

    For the past 10 years, I have straddled the divide between Earth science and informatics. My PhD focused on remote sensing and snow hydrology, but I entered the world of data science and software development when faced by challenges in processing and distributing the immense amounts of data produced by my research. Fortunately, I was lucky. I had the opportunity to collaborate with a group of computer scientists at NASA/JPL who helped guide me into the world of open source software and the Apache way.

  • Coherent UNIX clone goes Open Source

    We missed this earlier this year, but Coherent has been released as open source. Coherent is a UNIX clone originally developed for the PDP-11, but later ported to a number of other platforms, including the IBM PC. It was developed by the Mark Williams Company, and despite an official investigation by AT&T, no signs of copied code were ever found.

  • Open-source ethos moves from code to wider world

    As powerful as that sounds, the company already has something that could be even more potent: a huge sharing of its once-proprietary information, the kind of thing that would bring a traditional Silicon Valley patent lawyer to tears.

  • Goddard releases open source core flight software suite to public

    The Innovative Technology Partnerships Office at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, announced the release of its core Flight System (cFS) Application Suite to the public. The cFS application suite is composed of 12 individual Command and Data Handling (C and DH) flight software applications that together create a reusable library of common C and DH functions.

  • Web Browsers

  • Oracle/Java/LibreOffice

    • LibreOffice Continues To Gain Mindshare

      According to Google Trends, LibreOffice is holding a substantial mindshare while openoffice.org is in decline

    • LibreOffice – the Cloud edition

      While I do not believe that office suites will disappear, I do believe that the need to be completely integrated into cloud-like environments, whether centralized or distributed, is key to insure potential and an actual future for any desktop software. Because of these trends, the news are of strategic importance to LibreOffice and to software freedom and digital rights in general. At a time when the Internet and cloud services become more and more centralized, the competition diminishes and so do users’rights. “LibreOffice Online” is really good news, and it should make you happy. More specifically, what was announced leads to two distinct outcomes:

  • CMS

    • Higher ed finds increasing value in open source CMS options

      “The university has since launched somewhere between 350 and 400 websites, all built on Drupal 7,” writes Schaffhauser “While the CMS is centrally managed to keep the system updated, it grants individual colleges, programs and departments the flexibility to put up their own images, update text as they want, add and move site objects (themes, content types and Drupal “modules”) and “essentially have a custom look with a managed system,” [director of university Web services, Mark] Albert explained to Campus Technology.

  • Public Services/Government

  • Openness/Sharing

    • Open Source ‘CloudRouter’ Aims to Simplify Cloud Migration

      Several small networking and software companies are teaming up to introduce CloudRouter, an open source router to simplify cloud migration.

    • Open source CloudRouter goes into beta with OpenDayLight’s backing

      An open source project is getting under way that could, if it lives up to its design goals, ease the enterprise transition between on-premise networking solutions to cloud networking services.

    • Unicorns are real in open source
    • 5 reasons we said YES to the first Open Source//Open Society

      For two days in April, Wellington will be home to some of the biggest influencers in open source development and open society thinking. Building on the success of open source software in powering the growth of the internet Open Source // Open Society will explore developments in open government, open innovation, open education, open data, and open business.

    • What is Open Source? Digital tech heavyweights head to Wellington

      Wellington will host a collaboration this month between open source developers, democracy activists, government officials and digital tech heavyweights at the Open Source // Open Society (OS//OS) conference.



    • Conference to discuss open source and open society in Wellington

      Wellington, New Zealand, will be on the world stage on the 16th and 17th of April when it plays host to a collaboration between open source developers, democracy activists, government officials and digital tech heavyweights at the Open Source // Open Society (OS//OS) conference.

    • Wellington hosts NZ Open Source Conference

      Wellington will be on the world stage on the 16th and 17th of April when it plays host to a collaboration between open source developers, democracy activists, government officials and digital tech heavyweights at the Open Source // Open Society (OS//OS) conference.

    • Open for thinking, open for participation, open for collaboration
    • The Blender Institute’s sixth open film project

      The Blender Institute’s sixth film project, codenamed Gooseberry, is in deep into the most open production from the Blender Institute yet. If you’ve been following the project so far, then you already have a sense of what Blender means by an “open production”—lots of sharing.

    • Open Hardware

      • 3D Printing an Open Source Spectrometer

        As an undergraduate and graduate student, Ben Hickman, under the advisorship of Dr. Jack Summers, began developing an affordable chemistry instrument called a potentiostat. This sparked his interest in electronics and programming. After a number of people expressed interest in the potentiostat, including high school science teachers and ordinary citizens interested in monitoring their local water quality, it was evident that there was a demand for affordable chemistry instrumentation. One of the most useful instruments, yet financially out of reach for most, was a UV/Vis spectrometer.

      • Unchained with Open Source: Michigan Tech 3D Printing Course Teaches Students to Build 3D Printers

        Hats off to Michigan Tech, and Dr. Joshua Pearce, for creating such a unique course that comes full circle in teaching their undergraduate engineering students about the world of 3D printing in a new and comprehensive way. Thrusting engineering students not only into the world of 3D design and 3D printing, they immediately enter the open-source world of the growing ‘maker community’ as well.

      • Open source electromagnetic trackers

        Traneus Rex (a.k.a. Peter) will be presenting a Fantastical Theatre talk titled Open-source electromagnetic trackers and the unusual requirements for the embedded system.

      • 5 DIY hardware platforms for physiological computing

        Physiological computing focuses on the use of biosignals for the development of interactive software and hardware systems capable of sensing, processing, reacting, and interfacing the digital and analog worlds.

        However, biosignals have specific requirements for which typical physical computing platforms are not particularly tuned. Until recently, many projects ended up hindered by high costs and limited access to suitable hardware materials. That scenario is different today, thanks to DIY hardware platforms.

  • Standards/Consortia

    • ‘EC should replace PDF by HTML5 for its online forms‘

      The European Commission should stop using PDF for online application forms, say five European groups campaigning for open standards and free and open source software. The EC should instead switch to modern web tools such as HMTL5 and XForms. The EC’s PDF forms often include elements that are only implemented in proprietary software from a particular vendor, the groups say.

Leftovers

  • Report: EU preparing to bring antitrust case against Google

    The member of the European Commission in charge of competition, Margrethe Vestager, is preparing to file a formal antitrust action against Google in the next few weeks accusing it of abusing a dominant market position, according to the Wall Street Journal. Sources said that the European Commission has been contacting companies that had filed complaints against Google, asking them for permission to publish information submitted confidentially, which is seen as a preliminary move before announcing the antitrust action. A spokesperson for Commissioner Vestager told Ars, “The Google investigation is ongoing. We have no further comments and we do not comment on speculations.” Google had not responded to a request for comment at press time.

  • Defence/Police/Secrecy/Aggression

    • Why Iran Distrusts the US in Nuke Talks

      The mainstream U.S. media portrays the Iran nuclear talks as “our good guys” imposing some sanity on “their bad guys.” But the real history of the West’s dealings on Iran’s nuclear program shows bad faith by the U.S. government, as ex-CIA analyst Ray McGovern describes.

  • Environment/Energy/Wildlife

    • Pemex oil platform fire kills four in Gulf of Mexico, 302 evacuated

      At least four people died after a fire broke out on a Pemex oil processing platform in the Gulf of Mexico early on Wednesday, leading to the evacuation of 302 workers, the Mexican state-run oil company said.

      The fire, which burned throughout the day, erupted overnight on the Abkatun Permanente platform in the oil-rich Bay of Campeche. Forty-five people were treated for injuries and 16 of them were hospitalized, two with serious injuries, Pemex said.

    • Fukushima’s Solution to Potential Melt Down? Frozen Ice Walls

      On December 14th, 2014, RT News published an alarming article explaining that Japan’s destroyed Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant must decontaminate and then dump into the Pacific Ocean its stored radioactive water from the 2011 tsunami and meltdown disaster. According to the RT piece, the Fukushima Prefectural Federation of Fisheries Co-operative Associations is calling on the Japanese government and TEPCO (Tokyo Electric Power Company) to ensure that the release of toxic water is safely below the required radiation levels. However local Japanese fishermen have expressed concerns over issues with radiation and water waste management at the Fukushima Daiichi plant.

    • Fukushima No. 1′s never-ending battle with radioactive water

      The disaster that struck four years ago may have abated for most of the Tohoku region, but the nightmare continues at Tokyo Electric Power Co.’s Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant, which suffered three reactor core meltdowns and is plagued daily by increasing amounts of radioactive water.

    • Greenland’s Meltwater: Europe’s Next Little Ice Age?

      In February 2015, the Guardian published an article which stated that atmospheric warming is capable of reaching thousands of meters below Greenland’s ice sheet, potentially increasing the glacier’s rate of flow and creating pools of “meltwater” trapped below the ice. As a result, Greenland’s meltpools are contributing to rising sea levels. Cornell University Geologist Michael Willis and Ohio State University Glaciologist Ian Howat authored the report, on which the Guardian story is based, and Penn State University Earth Scientist Patrick Applegate confirmed it.

  • Finance

    • Hong Kong murders: Trial of Rurik Jutting adjourned

      The trial of a British banker accused of murdering two women found in his Hong Kong flat has been adjourned.

      Prosecution lawyers asked for the extra time to obtain further documents for their case against 29-year-old former Bank of America employee Rurik Jutting.

  • Censorship

  • Privacy

    • Scots say no to SNP super database

      Civil liberties groups fear the scheme – which last month narrowly survived a Holyrood vote – would be only a small step away from an ID card system.

  • Civil Rights

    • Lee Kuan Yew leaves a legacy of authoritarian pragmatism

      For some, Lee Kuan Yew’s death marks the passing of a ruthless tyrant. For others, it is the tireless leader’s final reward.

    • Singapore’s autocracy-for-prosperity compact under strain

      To give his government a free hand to fashion a new society, Lee systematically crushed dissent, muzzled the press and imprisoned political opponents. A social compact of authoritarian government in exchange for a guarantee of prosperity has endured for two generations.

    • Behind Singapore’s growth story lies a human rights tragedy

      By lauding the success of these developmental states, we are in effect saying the end justifies the means

    • The Curse of Lee Kuan Yew

      The leader eulogized by Obama as a ‘giant of history’ is being used to re-legitimize tyranny.

    • Benevolent autocracy: India is drawing the wrong lesson from Lee Kuan Yew

      One of the favourite arguments offered by middle class Indian men (especially when all other arguments fail) is that “India needs a benevolent autocrat,” if the economy has to grow at a fast pace. The word “autocrat” is often used interchangeably with the world “dictator”.

    • Obama authorises penalties for foreign cyber attackers

      President Barack Obama has today signed an executive order extending the U.S. administration’s power to respond to malicious cyberattacks and espionage campaigns. The order enforces financial sanctions on foreign hackers who action attacks against American businesses, institutions and citizens.

    • Snowden Lawyer Discusses Whistleblowing in Panel

      At a panel Tuesday afternoon in Boylston Hall, Jesselyn A. Radack and Walt L. Tamosaitis shared their experiences as whistleblowers and pointed to exposing institutional misconduct as an important method for confronting injustice.

    • The Blood Sacrifice of Sergeant Bergdahl

      Last week charges of Desertion and Misbehavior Before the Enemy were recommended against Sergeant Bowe Bergdahl. Tragically, Sergeant Bergdahl was once again crucified, without evidence or trial, throughout mainstream, alternative and social media. That same day Sergeant Bergdahl was offered as a sacrifice to primarily Republican politicians, bloggers, pundits, chicken hawks and jingoists, while Democrats mostly kept silent as Sergeant Bergdahl was paraded electronically and digitally in the latest Triumph of the Global War on Terror, President Ashraf Ghani was applauded, in person, by the American Congress. Such coincidences, whether they are arranged or accidental, often appear in literary or cinematic tales, but they do, occasionally, manifest themselves in real life, often appearing to juxtapose the virtues and vices of a society for the sake and advancement of political narratives.

    • The Native American Genocide and the Teaching of US History

      One of the things that happened in the United States, Riding In points out, “was to take Indian children away from their parents, away from their tribes, away from their religious people, away from their nurturing environment of their communities and place them in these distant boarding schools where the Indian would be beat out of them if necessary. That policy falls within the definition of genocide, the plan to bring about the physical destruction of a … people. This was aimed at the children.”

    • Venezuelan Coup Plotter Gustavo Cisneros Donated $1M to Clinton Foundation

      A recent report has emerged revealing that Venezuelan billionaire and media tycoon, Gustavo Cisneros, donated up to US$ 1 million dollars to the Bill, Hillary and Chelsea Clinton Foundation between 2009-2013, while Hillary Clinton served as Secretary of State for the Obama administration.

      A recent review of the foundation’s disclosures, carried out by the Wall Street Journal, brings to light a number of donators that were previously unknown to the public.

      The figures include Argentinian and Ukrainian businesspeople, as well as Prince Turki al-Faisal of the Saudi Arabian Royal Family, who collectively donated up to US$68 million to the organisation over the course of four years. The majority of large donations came from residents in the Ukraine (US$10 million), England (US$8.4 million) and Saudi Arabia (US$7.3 million), according to the report.

    • Noam Chomsky on Institutional Stupidity

      Stupidity comes in many forms. Generally it is easier to spot when other people are being stupid and harder to notice when we ourselves are being stupid, in the sense of relying on unexamined assumptions, entrenched mental habits or poor reasoning. Yet we’re all guilty of these sometimes. Trying not to fool ourselves in these ways is central to philosophy.

      So how can Chomsky help us with this? One of the world’s best-known intellectuals, he first gained fame for his work as a linguist, and in particular for his theory that we have an in-born or ‘innate’ grammar that underlies all of the world’s natural languages. He has gone on to do important original work on many other topics, including machine translation, logic, philosophy, and the nature of the media. A tireless social commentator, he also does a great deal of highly controversial political activism.

    • George Soros Would Invest $1bn in Ukraine With Western Backing
    • The Ukraine crisis is not what it seems

      In the West, the prevailing interpretation of the Ukraine crisis is that Russia — specifically President Putin — started it and controls most of the military forces fighting the Ukrainian army, often described in the media as “Russian separatists”. Martin Wolf of The Financial Times (11 February 2015) claims Russia started it because its leaders fear having a stable, prosperous and West-leaning democracy on their doorstep; they saw this as a distinct possibility after their ally, President Yanukovich, was ousted in a coup in February 2014. By one means or other, Russia’s leaders will keep destabilizing Ukraine to prevent such a democracy until stopped by western force or sanctions.

    • Google Street View flasher censored then arrested after showing breasts to camera car

      A woman who gained brief fame by flashing her breasts at a Google Street View car has been charged by police, who say that her actions “were the same as someone flashing their genitals”.

    • New Silk Road docs show how site got looted by cop who hijacked dealers’ accounts

      On January 26, 2013, Dread Pirate Roberts received a series of urgent messages from one of his top lieutenants, Inigo. His online drug marketplace, Silk Road, was being robbed blind.

      “I hope you get online soon,” Inigo wrote. “We are under attack over 100k stolen, shits hitting the fan you need to pull the plug on withdrawals.”

      But there was no “kill switch” for withdrawals, and Inigo couldn’t stop the bleeding. He and DPR would later lament lacking this critical security feature. One by one, the drug dealers who relied on Silk Road to make money were having their accounts broken into, their passwords changed, and their bitcoins looted.

      “Over 300k stolen,” Inigo wrote later. He was up late, frantic, trying to contain the theft. He kept sending messages to DPR, but the boss wasn’t online.

    • SEC finds that KBR confidentiality agreements ‘stifled’ whistleblowers

      In what is being called a landmark ruling for whistleblowers, the Securities and Exchange Commission announced Wednesday that one of the nation’s largest government contractors used confidentiality agreements that had the potential to intimidate and “muzzle” workers from reporting allegations of fraud.

  • Intellectual Monopolies

    • Trademarks

    • Copyrights

      • Movie Licensing Group Demands $350K From Schools

        Fears that teachers and pupils might breach Spain’s new copyright law if strict guidelines aren’t adhered to have led to some schools being presented with an enormous bill. The worldwide Motion Picture Licensing Corporation is now offering a blanket license to one region in return for a payment of $350,000 a year.

When Battistelli’s Defender Ivo Opstelten Turned Out to be Also Defending (Paying) Narcotics Traffickers

Posted in Europe, Fraud, Patents at 3:55 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

Ivo Opstelten

Summary: Battistelli faces yet another embarrassment as the man who defended his assaults on EPO staff, Ivo Opstelten, turns out to be little more than a thug in a suit

WHY does Battistelli tend to find himself surrounded by thugs and corrupt officials? Željko Topić, EPO Vice-President and Battistelli's right-hand man, faces many criminal charges. And that’s just one of several men. Perhaps it takes thugs to defend a thug, but the reasons could go deeper than this when exploring the networks and power of influence, especially in Europe. Battistelli is strongly connected to ENA (Ecole Nationale d’Administration) and there seems to be a link between Topić and Ivan Šimonović, both of whom are strongly linked to Ivo Sanader, who is in prison.

The Dutch Justice Minister, Ivo Opstelten (not to be mixed with Ivo Sanader), who intervened to prevent execution of the judgment in favour of EPO staff, fits a pattern.

“Newsflash from the Netherlands,” told us a reader nearly a month ago, “Dutch ministers Opstelten and Teeven quit over payment to drug-trafficker” (quitting under such circumstances can help evade legal action).

Links to some news reports (British and Dutch media):

To quote the BBC, “Dutch Justice Minister Ivo Opstelten and his state secretary, Fred Teeven, have resigned after misleading parliament over a 2001 compensation payment to a convicted drug trafficker.”

So here, once again, Battistelli is basically defended by a bunch of opportunistic corrupt/crooked people in positions of power. █

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