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04.27.15

Microsoft is Interjecting Itself Into GNU/Linux and Free Software News, Even Events and Foundations

Posted in Debian, Free/Libre Software, GNU/Linux, Microsoft at 4:41 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

“I’ve killed at least two Mac conferences. [...] by injecting Microsoft content into the conference, the conference got shut down. The guy who ran it said, why am I doing this?”

–Microsoft's chief evangelist

Summary: Microsoft’s entryism strategy is proving effective as Microsoft successfully embeds itself inside the idealogical competition, subverting the competition’s overall message and diluting the competition’s focus on Free software

Debian is out and “PCWorld manages to make the event about Microsoft,” iopkh says. IDG’s aggravation in this case is due to Microsoft spin and PR. The headline says “Debian 8.0 ‘Jessie’ is out and even Microsoft is celebrating”; it was preceded by a number of days by Softpedia, which wrote “Microsoft’s Open Source Team Invites You to Celebrate the Release of Debian 8 Jessie”. It turns out that Microsoft is now trying to aggravate the Debian community from within. Articles with concerns about it were too few, let alone anyone who resorted to rebutting Microsoft’s shameless charm offensive. Our interpretation of this is that by interjecting itself into the Debian announcement Microsoft itself became the ‘news’, even though Debian, which runs on many millions of machines (mostly servers), should be huge news in its own right. The only press coverage about this Debian release (a rare occasion) in corporate media is very limited (embarrassingly so). Given just how many servers out there are running Debian and this scarce (very low amount) of press it received, it is clear that corporate media remains disproportionately brand-oriented and unless there’s profit in coverage of some brand, it simply won’t do it. The most ‘mainstream’ article is now simply titled “Debian 8.0 ‘Jessie’ is out and even Microsoft is celebrating”. Well, of course “Microsoft is celebrating” because “Microsoft loves Linux”, according to Microsoft, which is attacking GNU/Linux all the time. Non-’mainstream’ news sites published decent articles, but who is going to notice them? This is a great example of IDG works; it can claim to have covered important GNU/Linux news, but it has spun it as Microsoft news.

“That’s like the US celebrating Russia’s Victory Day,” Cronos wrote.

“I thought they just fired their “open source” team,” Will Hill responded. Microsoft recently shut down its "open" proxy, but the abusive entyrism is not necessarily over.

In our assessment, this is designed to annoy the developers and further alienate critics of Microsoft. It’s a provocative strategy. It’s effective.

Seeing that Microsoft’s previous mole in FOSS, Mr. Sam Ramji, is now appearing in the Linux Foundation site (a bit like is like seeing Ballmer performance or interview in gnu.org) is equally disgusting and it serves nobody except Microsoft. It sells the impression of acceptance by the GNU/Linux community. Ramji is pro-Linux like that Microsoft mole Elop was pro-Linux. Elop received a $20m reward for destroying Nokia and then returned to Microsoft. Ramji too might one day return to Microsoft. We have mentioned him before along with other Microsoft people who entered the Linux Foundation.

“I got a call from Jim Zemlin,” says Ramji. If he got a phonecall from Zemlin, then it means that Zemlin himself is now wilfully allowing people from Microsoft to lead his foundation — an error which we wrote about before.

Zemlin uses the term “right side of history”, as if working for Microsoft and annoying FOSS communities is nothing to be learned about from history.

Let’s face it; Ramji is no stranger. In fact, everyone in FOSS knows him, but not for the reasons he would hope. People who remember what he did would hate him with a true passion, not baselessly. He did a lot of damage and he has a lot of making up to do, more so than Neela (another former Microsoft guy who now leads a group at the Linux Foundation). Neela also worked for VMware, the GPL violator, which is currently openwashing nasty lock-in to seduce developers into proprietary software with back doors. Ramji will help VMware. Unsurprisingly enough, VMware pays the Linux Foundation, which helps it acquire influence. The Linux Foundation used to promote Free software; now it just promotes proprietary software and given the sources of funding, nobody should be so shocked. The focus of the Linux Foundation is long gone, probably ruined from the inside through staff transitions.

Microsoft’s infiltration into its competition shows that no lessons have been learned from the likes of Nokia or Yahoo! If the “right side of history” is Microsoft demolishing rivals from the inside, then Zemlin is correct. █

The Unethical Business of Selling Fear of Free/Libre Software Bugs (Black Duck, Sonatype, and Symantec)

Posted in Free/Libre Software, FUD, Google, Marketing at 4:02 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

Snake oil

Summary: The spreading of fear of Free/Open Source software (FOSS) is now a growth industry, so proprietary opportunists are eager to capitalise on it, even if by distorting the truth

EARLIER THIS month some Black Duck publicity stunt fooled some journalists into promotion of Black Duck FUD. We saw that persisting until April 20th (one week ago), even in pro-FOSS sites (blogs) that did this days later. IDG made a slideshow out of it. Well, sadly, it cites Black Duck, which tries to sell proprietary software under the guise of Free software promotion.

In reality, Black Duck is not just selling fear of GPL violations — the original 'product' which was 'sold' by this firm. It’s a two-faced firm masquerading as pro-FOSS whilst attacking FOSS. Black Duck and Duck Duck Go both give a bad name to ducks. They pretend to be FOSS or at least openwash themselves (a lie) and they pretend to defend users (also a lie, they merely exploit or monetise users).

In other news, Sonatype reportedly compared FOSS to “Public Health Hazard”. To quote one report: “That’s the assessment of Joshua Corman, CTO at Sonatype, who took to the stage at RSA 2015 to characterize insecure software as a kind of “cyber-asbestos,” widely deployed, inherently dangerous, and eventually carrying an astronomical cost in terms of human suffering and cost to clean up because …we just didn’t know how dangerous it was at the time when we embraced it.”

So Sonatype is again on an anti-Free software binge. It is not the first time (see examples in [1, 2, 3, 4]) and it is easy to see why it is doing this. It’s trying to sell its products, which are nothing to do with Free software. Sonatype’s track record of FOSS FUD is expanding and may one day rival the Microsoft-connected Symantec, which continues its FUD campaign against Android, generating misleading headlines such as “One in Five Android Apps Is Malware” in this case. When people install software from Google Play, then there is virtually no risk, but don’t expect Symantec to properly analyse this. Symantec sells insecurity. To quote the misleading article: “According to Symantec’s latest Internet Security Threat Report, “17 percent of all Android apps (nearly one million total) were actually malware in disguise.” In 2013, Symantec uncovered roughly 700,000 virus-laden apps.”

But where are they found? Are any accessible to most Android users? No, so Symantec is defining it wrongly and framing the issue by saying that many applications’ “primary purpose is to bombard you with ads.” That’s not malware, but they made up a new word.

Google has already responded mostly by removing apps with too many ads (that’s not malware) and saying that Android “antivirus” is snake oil, as Google said before (responding to the likes of Symantec several years ago).

Android now has an industry of snake oil around it because there is a lot of market share there. The same can be said about FOSS, which is why Black Duck and Sonatype are busy badmouthing security aspects of it. They’re all just looking for a quick buck; FUD and reputation damage to FOSS are “collateral damage”. █

Patients’ Data at Risk as NHS Reinforces Its Microsoft/Accenture Stockholm Syndrome

Posted in Europe, Mail, Microsoft at 3:24 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

Privatising the NHS and compromising privacy of every Brit with foreign entities

Accenture
CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikipedia

Summary: The worst privacy violator in the world and the firm behind LSE failures are pocketing as much as £0.35 billion of British taxpayers’ money to acquire access to very sensitive data of British people

IT IS being reported in the British media that the NHS, which is gradually moving to adopt more and more Free/libre software, has just given a contract to Microsoft minion Accenture (article by IDG). £0.35 billion are to be spent on mail alone; that’s just crazy! That’s a big — even colossal! — mistake for the NHS to make when budget is tight and the Conservatives try to kill or privatise it. A lot of money for Microsoft/Accenture means that a degree of privatisation is happening here. “The same crew that did in the stock exchange,” iophk notes regarding the role played by Accenture. The article says “NHSmail has almost a million registered accounts and 730,000 active users. It has been running on Microsoft’s Exchange platform since 2009. Accenture is yet to confirm which IT systems it will use.” What a ripoff. £0.35 billion for less than a million users? What a heist! They should have gone with Free software and a British Free software consultancy. But since Conservatives like Cameron insist that encryption is such a nasty thing, no wonder an insecure proprietary alternative might be sought. Need PRISM (and by extension the NSA) be mentioned here?

Several days ago an article was published titled “The NHS must embrace open source to improve”. No doubt that’s true. The article says: “This is according to CIO at Bolton NHS Foundation Trust Rachel Dunscombe, who we recently caught up with to learn more about the transformation facing the UK healthcare system.

“Dunscombe told us that she is a strong supporter of open source in the NHS because it removes many of the risks presented by using proprietary products.”

The risks presented by proprietary products are not just to budget (disproportionately high cost) but also to patients. There have been stories about unencrypted data leaks and this new report from the British press [via Slashdot, which amended the post], calling out Windows, recalls Stuxnet and shows how using Microsoft Windows yourself helps your enemies (espionage): “Malware probers Tillmann Werner, of Crowdstrike, and Felix Leder, of BlueCoat, say the clever cyber-spy tool – said to have put back Iran’s nuclear program by two years – was on the brink of failure thanks to buggy code.

“Stuxnet had to remain undetected to the Iranians or else it would have blown the operation. Unfortunately, a programming blunder would have allowed it to spread to PCs running older and unsupported versions of Windows, and probably causing them to crash as a result. Those blue screens of death would have raised suspicions at the Natanz nuclear lab.”

And Windows continues to be used in British healthcare. This is insane. Another report from IDG in the UK helps Microsoft pretend to care about privacy (see “Microsoft moves to address customers’ concerns about cloud control and transparency”) while it’s actively providing the NSA with back doors, such as those which enabled sabotage in Iran.

If the NHS is serious about money savings and about privacy of patients, then it must immediately drop Windows and other Microsoft traps. As this British report from the other day serves to remind us, Windows ‘sales’ still are falling, largely due to GNU/Linux. It says that “Microsoft has weathered a tough three months, and despite signs of growth in cloud computing, Redmond saw its sales dragged down by dwindling demand from consumers.” Now recall the article above, “Microsoft moves to address customers’ concerns about cloud control and transparency”. Microsoft now wants the NHS to give Microsoft its data, using buzzwords like the ‘cloud’ nonsense. It is clear that the NHS should reject all that and just self-host using Free/libre Open Source software instead. It would cost far less than £0.35 billion and be more reliable, secure, etc. █

04.26.15

Links 26/4/2015: Debian 8, OpenMandriva Lx 3 Alpha, Mageia 5 RC

Posted in News Roundup at 11:31 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

GNOME bluefish

Contents

GNU/Linux

Free Software/Open Source

  • Events

    • The Open Source Community Support System

      Whether you’re a novice Web developer or seasoned CIO, at some point you will require technical support with either a new IT development, task or project. What type of support will you want? With open source software, the flexibility and choice is yours.

  • Databases

    • Deep Engine Brings Enterprise-Level Performance to MySQL Databases

      Deep Information Sciences has launched Deep Engine, a plug-and-play storage engine that brings scale and performance to MySQL databases, without the need for recoding or redeploying applications that use MySQL as a data source. What’s more, Deep Engine is installed as a simple 10M-byte plug-in, which can run alongside other storage engines or replace them entirely. Deep Engine brings hybrid transactional and analytical processing (HTAP) capabilities to MySQL, making it suitable for big data and other data-intensive projects that require billions of rows of information in both structured and unstructured record formats. Substantial performance improvements and exponentially greater levels of scale are offered, thanks to compression technology, as well as machine learning routines that leverage intelligent heuristics to better organize queries and storage elements. Taken altogether, Deep Engine can potentially delay or prevent the need to transition to more expensive server and database platforms to handle big data or other data-intensive projects.

  • Oracle/Java/LibreOffice

  • CMS

  • BSD

  • Openness/Sharing

Leftovers

  • Hilarious random startup website generator is pretty damn realistic

    A pair of Georgia Tech computer science students have created a Random Startup Website Generator that spits out a different jargon-laden startup website every time you click on the URL.

  • Science

    • The huge flaw in Moore’s Law? It’s NOT a law after all

      Critics have had half a century to pick apart and predict the end of Moore’s Law, which marked its Big Five Zero birthday this week.

      It’s unlikely that Gordon Earle Moore, the former electrical engineer who authored the eponymous law for a 1965 article, and who two-years later co-founded Intel, has any doubts over its value.

  • Security

    • IoT ‘Security Hopscotch’ Is No Game: Chris Roberts

      Chris Roberts has been in the news a lot this week, for all the wrong reasons. Roberts was banned from United Airlines after tweeting on a flight about his theoretical ability to hack into a plane’s WiFi system. FBI agents detained him for an interview after his flight, and there is now a federal advisory alerting airline staff to look for passengers trying to hack into airplane WiFi.

    • Home router security 2015 – 9 settings that will keep the bad guys out
    • 6 Most Dangerous New Attack Techniques in 2015

      Experts with the SANS Institute convened at RSA Conference for their annual threats panel, this time dishing on the six most dangerous new attack techniques. Led by SANS Director John Pescatore, the panel featured Ed Skoudis, SANS faculty fellow and CEO of CounterHack Challenges, Johannes Ullrich, dean of research for SANS, and Michael Assante, SANS project lead for Industrial Control System (ICS) and Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) security. Each offered up thoughts on how they’ve seen threats evolving and which techniques they expect to gain steam over the next year.

  • Defence/Police/Secrecy/Aggression

    • Miliband Goes the Full Henry Jackson

      Full on neo-con philosophy underpinned Miliband’s “speech” to the Royal Institute of International Affairs yesterday. Miliband acknowledged that our bombing of Libya back to the stone age was the root cause of the boat people crisis.

    • Bishop says Britain has a moral duty to accept refugees from its wars

      Rt Rev David Walker, bishop of Manchester, says it is ‘unworthy’ for politicians to label displaced migrants as criminals, and country should take in ‘fair share’

    • Migrant boat crisis: the story of the Greek hero on the beach

      It was an image that came to symbolise desperation and valour: the desperation of those who will take on the sea – and the men who ferry human cargo across it – to flee the ills that cannot keep them in their own countries. And the valour of those on Europe’s southern shores who rush to save them when tragedy strikes.

      Last week on the island of Rhodes, war, repression, dictatorship in distant Eritrea were far from the mind of army sergeant Antonis Deligiorgis. The world inhabited by Wegasi Nebiat, a 24-year-old Eritrean in the cabin of a yacht sailing towards the isle, was still far away.

    • ‘The more civilians US drones kill in the Mideast, the more radicals they create’

      American drone-strike strategy in the Middle East is counterproductive because killing civilians, even if it’s accidentally, breeds more al-Qaeda or other radical militants, defense analyst Ivan Eland told RT.

    • Warren Weinstein Death Puts U.S. Drone Strikes in Uncomfortable Spotlight

      The U.S. government’s use of drone strikes came under mounting pressure on Friday, as Pakistan joined a chorus of criticism over the policy following the accidental killings of two al Qaeda hostages.

      The White House said it was conducting “a thorough independent review to understand fully what happened and how we can prevent this type of tragic incident in the future” after it emerged that U.S. aid worker Warren Weinstein and Italian national Giovanni Lo Porto were killed by a CIA drone strike near the Pakistan-Afghanistan border.

    • A Drone Program That Has Killed Hundreds Of Civilians Finally Killed Some That The White House Regrets

      This morning, the White House disclosed that a January 2015 drone strike, conducted in Pakistan by the CIA with the intention of taking out an al Qaeda compound, resulted in the deaths of two al Qaeda hostages who were not known to have been in the line of fire at the time of the attack. “The killing of American development expert Warren Weinstein and Italian aid worker Giovanni Lo Porto is the first known instance in which the U.S. has accidentally killed a hostage in a drone strike,” Wall Street Journal’s Adam Entous reported Thursday.

    • Killing of Americans Deepens Debate Over Use of Drone Strikes

      The Obama administration said Thursday that two American Qaeda operatives killed in Pakistan in January had not been “specifically targeted,” and officials added that the Central Intelligence Agency had no idea the two men were hiding in compounds under surveillance by armed drones when orders were given to carry out the strikes.

    • Obama: US was not ‘cavalier’ over hostage drone killings

      Barack Obama has insisted the US was not “cavalier” in its assessment of the risks to civilians as the accidental deaths of two hostages in a drone strike against al-Qaida overshadowed a planned pep talk for intelligence chiefs.

    • American, Italian Hostages Killed in CIA Drone Strike in January

      A U.S. drone killed an American and an Italian held hostage in a January attack on an al Qaeda compound in Pakistan, sparking new questions about the use of the controversial and still-evolving weapon.

      The intelligence that underpinned the drone strike turned out to have been tragically incomplete, U.S. officials and lawmakers said Thursday. As a result, American development expert Warren Weinstein and Italian aid worker Giovanni Lo Porto lost their lives after years as captives of the militants.

    • Obama regrets drone strike that killed hostages but hails US for transparency

      The White House was forced to concede on Thursday that it killed two innocent hostages – one American, one Italian – in a drone strike that targeted an al-Qaida compound despite officials not knowing precisely who was in the vicinity.

    • Drones Kill Innocent People All the Time

      But now the White House can’t deny it

    • CIA Drones Kill Two Hostages
    • Drone Strikes Reveal Uncomfortable Truth: U.S. Is Often Unsure About Who Will Die

      Barack Obama inherited two ugly, intractable wars in Iraq and Afghanistan when he became president and set to work to end them. But a third, more covert war he made his own, escalating drone strikes in Pakistan and expanding them to Yemen and Somalia.

      The drone’s vaunted capability for pinpoint killing appealed to a president intrigued by a new technology and determined to try to keep the United States out of new quagmires. Aides said Mr. Obama liked the idea of picking off dangerous terrorists a few at a time, without endangering American lives or risking the yearslong bloodshed of conventional war.

    • The U.S. Is Still Dropping Bombs Without Knowing Who Is Under Them

      For those who took seriously President Obama’s stated goals of restoring accountability and legal legitimacy to U.S. counterterrorism operations, the 2013 speech at the National Defense University was one of the most significant watersheds of his presidency. In retrospect, though, it was one of the biggest disappointments.

    • Washington yawns at an American atrocity: Why the latest drone fiasco won’t change anything

      You would have thought yesterday, upon hearing President Obama’s admission that a U.S. drone strike in Pakistan killed an American held hostage by al-Qaida, would rank among the most serious (and legitimate) scandals of his presidency. A disaster of this nature was bound to happen, given the White House’s loose standards for green-lighting drone strikes.

      Yet the reaction was fairly ho-hum. Media coverage of the event and statements from members of Congress, allies and critics of the president alike, were basically, Well isn’t that sad. Also: It’s al-Qaida’s fault. Is al-Qaida in control of the United States’ drones? There are some pretty good hackers out there, but they haven’t mastered that capability yet.

    • Deep Support in Washington for C.I.A.’s Drone Missions

      About once a month, staff members of the congressional intelligence committees drive across the Potomac River to C.I.A. headquarters in Langley, Va., and watch videos of people being blown up.

    • GOP strongly backs drone strikes, despite accident

      Senate Armed Services Chairman John McCain (R-Ariz.) said it would be “crazy” to curtail drone usage because of the two deaths, though he urged significant review of this particular incident.

    • The ‘kill/capture’ approach ain’t working for us: Narratives do better than drones
    • US drone kills own citizen, Italian national

      The White House on Thursday broke its silence after four months and admitted to have accidentally killed its elderly national Dr Warren Weinstein and Italian citizen Giovanni Lo Porto in January this year in the tribal areas straddling the Pak-Afghan border in pursuit of senior al-Qaeda leaders.

    • The Word That Cannot Be Uttered (It’s Drones)

      President Obama has chosen to operate his drone war in such unprecedented, absurd and arguably illegal secrecy that even in a rare burst of compelled transparency yesterday, neither he nor his press secretary could actually bring themselves to say the word “drone.”

    • Drones Are Illegal Beyond the Battlefield
    • The United States Does Not Know Who It’s Killing
    • Existential Meets Exponential

      This is one of the ugly realities of the war on terror. By using drones to kill members and leaders of some of the most evil organizations the world has ever known, innocent bystanders, children and woman are blown to bits along with the targeted foe. And I wish I had an answer, or even an alternative to this carnage. Do nothing and let these terrorists operate unmolested? Is it any of our business? Allies ask for our help; sometimes we’re bound by treaties. Should we send in our special forces and take these monsters out one at a time, surgically? Do we have that many SEALS and Green Berets? For every soulless, bloodthirsty terrorist we kill with a drone strike, we create hundreds more. And another issue, when do drones show up in the terrorist arsenal? More than one American drone has been shot down and captured by terrorist organizations. What happens when one of those Muslim countries with the technological capability steals our technology and manufactures their own drones on a large scale and send them to attack our friends such as Israel. What I know for sure is World War III is getting off to a fine start and so far there’s no end in sight. As in all wars I’ve lived through, I have more questions than answers, and I wish I could solve the problems, but I’m just an observer. I have one more question; is all this killing of innocents worth it? Oh, and one more question. How do we know when it’s over?

    • Obama’s Orwellian language on drones

      There is an eerie Orwellian cost to the Obama administration’s refusal to use the term “War on Terror” to describe its … war on terror. In his briefing after the White House’s admission that two hostages – one American, one Italian – were killed in a U.S. “operation,” press secretary Josh Earnest struggled mightily to avoid the word “war” to describe exactly what the U.S.is up to. Finally he gave in and stated that under the Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Terrorists, the nation is “at war” with al Qaeda.

      Why do the words matter? Because the inevitability of civilian casualties, even in the most justified of wars, is accepted both in international law and in the ethics of war. Civilian casualties are never good. They are a tragedy, a terrible cost that must be avoided whenever possible. But in wars, they happen.

    • The Art of War: Sculpting God, Guns and Drones

      Dominic Sansone is a cast and industrial-fabrication sculptor concerned about militarized and cultural violence.

    • Nasir Shansab: Drone Strikes Manifest Afghans’ Hatred of US

      American Drone strikes that inadvertently kill civilians are breeding distrust and even hatred for the United States in Afghanistan, according to Nasir Shansab, a former Afghan industrialist forced to flee his country.

      “They believe that civilians are suffering more by drone attacks than real fighters do,” he said during an appearance Friday on Newsmax TV’s “America’s Forum.”

    • US drone strikes have traumatised a generation of Yemenis and will push them towards militancy

      A year ago today, Hussein Ahmed Saleh Abu Bakr, a labourer, was travelling to work in Al-Bayda, central Yemen, with 11 colleagues including family members when a drone struck the car. When the attack was over, Hussein emerged from where he had taken cover to look for the other passengers and found his father, 65, slumped in the road with shrapnel injuries to his head and chest. The bodies of the other passengers were scattered around the area, with some injuries so severe, Hussein was only able to identify them from their clothing. Four of the passengers were killed: Sanad Nasser Hussein Al-Khushm, Abdullah Nasser Abu Bakr Al-Khushm, Yasser Ali Abed Rabbo Al-Azzani and Ahmed Saleh Abu Bakr.

    • Drone warfare

      The botched drone strike resulting in the death of two foreign hostages has once again brought the controversial nature of this tactic to the forefront. It is very sad that the death of two US men in a drone attack made headlines but other civilian deaths were swept under the carpet by describing them as collateral damage. The US does not realize the cost of these drone strikes and the resultant civilian causalities. These drone attacks are fueling the fire of radicalism in the Muslim world. Washington on and off expresses concern over the growing anti-America sentiments in the Muslim world but fails to identify the factors that lead to such a situation.

    • From the Left: Eugene Robinson — Strikes against morality

      Drone strikes, by their nature, are bound to kill innocent civilians. It is all too easy to ignore this ugly fact — and the dubious morality of the whole enterprise — until the unfortunate victims happen to be Westerners.

    • Rise of robotic killing machines has a cautious world talking

      They’re called lethal autonomous weapons, or LAWs, and their military mission would be to seek out, identify and kill a human target independent of human control. Human decision would not be in the loop, and the only button a military commander would push would be the “on” button. In military terms, it’s called “fire and forget.”

    • Understanding the Suffering War Brings

      Now, it’s hard to separate deaths due to disease and starvation, from the direct effects of warfare, with warfare creating refugee crises and destroying farms and so forth. It’s also true that the financial resources to address human needs could be found in another place other than war, namely in the pockets of the greediest 400 people in the United States. Their hoarding of wealth, even those of them not principally funded by the war machine, can certainly be blamed as well when a child starves to death anywhere on earth. But blame is not a finite quantity. You can blame plutocracy or militarism, and niether one exculpates the other. Military spending could end starvation for the price of a small rounding error and is therefore culpable.

    • Hillary the Hawk

      Announcing her latest campaign for the presidency, Hillary Clinton declared she was entering the race to be the champion for “everyday Americans.” As a lawmaker and diplomat, however, Clinton has long championed military campaigns that have killed scores of “everyday” people abroad, from Iraq to Yemen. As commander-in-chief, there’s no reason to believe she’d be any less a hawk than she was as the senator who backed George W. Bush’s war in Iraq, or the Secretary of State who encouraged Barack Obama to escalate the war in Afghanistan. If her nomination is as sure a thing as people say, then antiwar organizing needs to start right away.

    • When Hillary Clinton Pitched The Iraq War To CodePink – OpEd
    • Bring back the drone debate, Sen. Paul

      When Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) declared his candidacy for the presidency, I will admit to having a certain excitement. In part, this feeling is based on the opportunity he offered to literally blanket myself in the Constitution. Another is the opportunity to read a political comic book — but the real reason is that he clearly embraces his willingness to be a voice of concern about American use of drones. In other words, Paul’s campaign offers the most likely possibility that discussion and debate around the U.S. counterterrorism, military and diplomatic use of drones will reemerge. Despite the fact that the drone debate has quieted dramatically in the recent past, there are several reasons why the American populace needs to reengage with this important policy space prior to choosing our next president.

    • Waging Electoral Warfare – Analysis

      Democracies do not go to war with each other – or so it has been argued since 1795. But what if politics is, as Michel Foucault once claimed, the continuation of war by other means? And what if the boundaries between “violence” and “legitimate force” are blurred as they are in the German word Gewalt? That might enable us to imagine a “peaceful war” involving several aspects of the modern state, including elections. Whenever states engage in a “bloodless military confrontation” over elections, they are actually waging electoral warfare (EW). Indeed, the ‘existence’ of EW also suggests that international relations possess an electoral dimension that must be acknowledged and analyzed without prejudice.

    • The Decline and Fall of the United States

      After a speech I gave this past weekend, a young woman asked me whether a failure by the United States to properly surround and intimidate China might result in instability. I explained why I thought the opposite was true. Imagine if China had military bases along the Canadian and Mexican borders with the United States and ships in Bermuda and the Bahamas, Nova Scotia and Vancouver. Would you feel stabilized? Or might you feel something else?

    • Encouraging Arabs and other Muslims to Kill each other is Good for U.S. Weapons Industry

      The Saudi Arabia-led Sunni coalition versus the Iran-backed Shiite Houthi rebels in Yemen. The United Arab Emirates (UAE) versus ISIS in Syria. Qatar arming Islamist militias in Libya and rebels in Syria to battle government forces. It’s all good in the eyes of American merchants of war.

      The raging conflicts in the Middle East have involved all kinds of U.S. weaponry built by and sold by defense contractors. They’ve made millions of dollars off weapons sales to the oil-rich Persian Gulf states, and they’re likely to make even more as these governments seek to replenish or upgrade their arsenals.

      Saudi Arabia’s attacks on Yemeni rebels were made possible by F-15 fighter jets purchased from Boeing, while the UAE air force has hit ISIS in Syria using F-16s made by Lockheed Martin. The UAE also wants General Atomics’ Predator drones “to run spying missions in their neighborhood,” according to The New York Times.

    • With Obama Under Heat, New York Times Defends Drone Strikes

      The cover of Saturday’s New York Times featured the article discussed below with an updated headline, “Despite Errors, Drones Decimate Weakened Al Qaeda,” which adds in its sub-headline that the al Qaeda “leadership is ‘in tatters.’”

      Also published on Saturday was the opinion of the editorial board that “it was important to see candor and remorse from President Obama in his apology” for the strikes that killed hostages. The editorial board, however, called for more than just an apology, urging the administration to release more information about how many civilians have been killed in Obama’s drone-based counterterrorism campaign.

    • US Drone Killed Two Hostages: Reprieve Comment

      “It’s right that the White House has come clean and admitted its tragic mistake in killing these hostages, and our hearts go out to their families.

      “It’s worth remembering, however, that Dr. Weinstein and Mr Lo Porto are far from the first innocents to die by our drones, and in no other case has the US apologized for its mistake.

    • Obama Should Hand Back Peace Prize as Civilians Killed by US Drones

      The reaction came a day after President Obama announced that two innocent hostages had been killed in a US counter-terrorism operation using lethal drones to target an al-Qaeda compound in Pakistan in January.

    • Hostages’ death in drone attack shocking: FO

      The Foreign Office expressed on Friday shock at the death of two western hostages in a US drone attack in tribal areas in January and recalled its criticism of the US drone war for causing collateral damage.

    • Three Quick Thoughts on the Drone Strike in Pakistan That Killed Two Innocent Civilians

      Why the sudden transparency about the American and Italian civilian victims but not the many non-Western civilians killed in US operations?

    • 1,600 US bombs dropped in Syria and Iraq during March cost $8.5m a day

      Obama’s foreign policy has come under fire as it was revealed that the US dropped 1,600 bombs in Syria and Iraq last month alone at a cost of $8.5m (£5.6m) a day, according to the Times newspaper.

    • US Should Make Public Number of Civilian Deaths Caused by Drone Strikes

      US Senate Intelligence Committee Vice Chairman Dianne Feinstein said that an annual report on the number of deaths, both combatant and civilian, from US airstrikes should be public.

    • US Should Make Public Number of Civilian Deaths Caused by Drone Strikes

      The United States should review counterterrorism procedures and develop an annual report on the number of terrorist and civilian deaths as a result of drone strikes, US Senate Intelligence Committee Vice Chairman Dianne Feinstein stated on Thursday.

      “To the greatest extent possible, more information on US counterterrorism operations should be made public,” Feinstein said. “I believe this should include an annual report on the number of deaths — both combatant and civilian — from US strikes.”

  • Environment/Energy/Wildlife

  • Finance

  • PR/AstroTurf/Lobbying

  • Censorship

    • New Russian Anti-Piracy Law Could Block Sites “Forever”

      People who run ‘pirate’ sites out of Russia have been given a final warning by the government. Amendments to local copyright law that come into force May 1 not only protect more content than ever before, but also contain provisions to permanently block sites that continually make unauthorized content available.

  • Privacy

    • White House releases report on NSA surveillance six years later

      With debate gearing up over the coming expiration of the Patriot Act surveillance law, the Obama administration on Saturday unveiled a six-year-old report examining the once-secret programme to collect information on Americans’ calls and emails.

      The Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) publicly released the redacted report following a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit by the New York Times. The basics of the National Security Agency (NSA) programme already had been declassified, but the lengthy report includes some new details about the secrecy surrounding it.

    • House Passes Cybersecurity Bill Despite Privacy Protests

      Congress is hellbent on passing a cybersecurity bill that can stop the wave of hacker breaches hitting American corporations. And they’re not letting the protests of a few dozen privacy and civil liberties organizations get in their way.

    • DHS Opening Office In Silicon Valley To More Efficiently Complain To Tech Companies About Encryption

      “Let me be clear: I understand the importance of what doors bring to privacy. But, imagine the problems if, well after humanity moved out of caves, the warrant authority of the government to investigate crime had only extended to dwellings without doors.”

      Bullshit. The DHS, along with other law enforcement agencies — is seeking is the path of least resistance. It can get warrants to search encrypted devices. It just may not be able to immediately crack them open and feast on the innards. It may also get court orders to compel decryption. This is far less assured and risks dragging the Fifth Amendment down to the Fourth’s level, but it’s still an option.

    • You Should Google Everyone, Even Your Therapist

      When I first met my shrink, I wasn’t so sure about him. He’s handsome, fit, not much taller than me, reticent. I couldn’t tell if his reticence was disapproval and judgment or if he was just doing his job: staying quiet, staying neutral. I’m new to therapy, and, frankly, had wanted a woman therapist, but here I was with this silent, unreadable man and I didn’t know how to feel comfy about it.

      So I Googled him. I found his Facebook page, saw that he might be a band geek (like me), that he seems generally empathetic and that he has a cute dog that sometimes wears clothes.

      That’s how I got comfortable.

      A couple of weeks ago, Anna Fels wrote for the New York Times about patients Googling their therapists. Written from the perspective of a Googled therapist, the piece cautions against the ways in which knowing about your doctor’s personal life can affect the experience of therapy. She also acknowledged it happens in the other direction, too: ER nurses, for instance, are Googling their patients to find out if they’re criminals, or if they’re famous, or just if they’re anything interesting at all.

    • The CIA couldn’t properly use a mass surveillance program for years

      Whatever you think about the morality of using mass surveillance to catch evildoers, the technology only works if people can use it — just ask the CIA. The New York Times has obtained a declassified report revealing that that the agency was largely kept in the dark about the President’s Surveillance Program (aka Stellarwind), which allows for bulk data collection, until at least 2009. Only the highest-ranking officials could use PSP as a general rule, and those few agents that did have access often didn’t know enough to use it properly, faced “competing priorities” or had other tools at their disposal. To boot, there wasn’t documentation showing how effective the program was in fighting terrorism.

    • CIA couldn’t fully use NSA spy program as most analysts didn’t know about it

      A newly-released document from the Central Intelligence Agency’s (CIA) own internal watchdog found that the government’s controversial warrantless surveillance and bulk data collection program was so secretive that the agency was unable to make “full use” of its capabilities even several years after the September 11 attacks. Initially, only top-level CIA officials were cleared on its use, rather than rank-and-file “CIA analysts and targeting officers.”

    • When the Schmidt hits The Man: Look what the NSA made Google do

      In an interview at the BoxDEV developer event in San Francisco today, Google executive chairman Eric Schmidt said end-to-end encryption for services like Google’s is the solution to mass online government surveillance.

      “What do you think of the state of cyber security in the USA today?” Box CEO Aaron Levie asked Schmidt during an onstage talk at BoxDEV on Wednesday.

    • Google is Keeping the NSA Out of Your Data, Eric Schmidt Brags

      Google (GOOGL) Chairman Eric Schmidt boasted on Wednesday about how improving the encryption of Google’s products has successfully shut out warrantless surveillance by the NSA and other law enforcement. Schmidt talked about the encryption advances, and how former NSA contractor Edward Snowden’s leaks prompted them, at BoxDev, a yearly developers conference for Box.

    • Surveillance reform bill returns with concessions to NSA on data collection

      Modifications made on behalf of the National Security Agency have paved the way for the return of a major piece of surveillance reform legislation, the Guardian has learned.

    • New bill proposes 5-year extension of Patriot Act and permission for NSA data collection
    • Former NSA head Alexander asks agency to review patents

      Former National Security Agency Director Keith Alexander has asked the U.S. intelligence agency to review patent filings by his company to make sure that they do not reveal any secrets or misappropriate any government work.

    • NSA surveillance needed to prevent Isis attack, claims former intelligence chair

      Mike Rogers, former chairman of the House intelligence committee, says the NSA needs to preserve its wide powers in case of an attack on US homeland

    • Declassified Report Shows Doubts About Value of N.S.A.’s Warrantless Spying

      The secrecy surrounding the National Security Agency’s post-9/11 warrantless surveillance and bulk data collection program hampered its effectiveness, and many members of the intelligence community later struggled to identify any specific terrorist attacks it thwarted, a newly declassified document shows.

    • It Started With a Hack: How an NSA Director Became a Four-Star General

      “Someone hacked into the Department of Defense [DoD] network,” he said.

    • Bush-Era Documents Show Official Misled Congress About NSA Spying

      Former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales downplayed a dispute between the White House and Justice Department over the program’s legality, previously classified documents say.

    • NSA spied on EU politicians and companies with help from German intelligence

      Germany’s intelligence service, the Bundesnachrichtendienst (BND), has been helping the NSA spy on European politicians and companies for years, according to the German news magazine Der Spiegel. The NSA has been sending lists of “selectors”—identifying telephone numbers, e-mail and IP addresses—to the BND, which then provides related information that it holds in its surveillance databases. According to the German newspaper Die Zeit, the NSA sent selector lists several times a day, and altogether 800,000 selectors have been requested.

    • The big boys made us do it: US used German spooks to snoop on EU defence industry
    • German parliament may limit intelligence agency communications with the NSA

      Germany was in an uproar when news broke that the National Security Agency (NSA) had been monitoring Chancellor Angela Merkel’s phone calls and communications. Now it turns out that German intelligence agency BND (Bundesnachrichtendienst) was passing select information — including phone numbers and IP addresses — to the NSA on politicians and defense contractors in Europe, reports Der Spiegel.

    • German Intelligence Agency Helped NSA Spy on EU Targets

      The German intelligence agency has found itself in the middle of another scandal following the 2014 revelations that the NSA had tapped the German chancellor’s cellphone.

    • Infosec bods can now sniff out the NSA’s Quantum Insert hacks

      Security researchers have developed a method for detecting NSA Quantum Insert-style hacks.

      Fox-IT has published free open-source tools to detect duplicate sequence numbers of HTTP packets, with different data sizes, that are the hallmarks of Quantum Insert.

      The utilities developed by Fox-IT are capable of exposing fiddling with HTTP packets but are no by no means perfect and might themselves be circumvented, as a blog post by Fox-IT explains.

    • Fox-IT releases answer to NSA’s ‘Quantum Insert’ attack
    • How to Detect Sneaky NSA ‘Quantum Insert’ Attacks

      Among all of the NSA hacking operations exposed by whistleblower Edward Snowden over the last two years, one in particular has stood out for its sophistication and stealthiness. Known as Quantum Insert, the man-on-the-side hacking technique has been used to great effect since 2005 by the NSA and its partner spy agency, Britain’s GCHQ, to hack into high-value, hard-to-reach systems and implant malware.

    • Rootpipe exploit still an issue in Mac OS X, security expert finds
    • OS X Yosemite still open to Rootpipe hijacking, says ex-NSA bod

      Apple hasn’t patched admin privilege backdoor in 10.10.3, it’s claimed

    • OS X 10.10.3 update failed to fix Rootpipe vulnerability, says former NSA staffer

      A former NSA staffer says that the OS X 10.10.3 update which Apple claims fixed a significant security vulnerability has failed to do so, reports Forbes. Patrick Wardle, who now heads up research at security firm Synack, demonstrated the vulnerability in a video (without revealing exactly how it was done) to allow Apple time to issue a further fix.

    • Jeb Bush praises Obama over NSA spying

      Jeb Bush, a likely presidential contender, said Tuesday that President Obama’s greatest accomplishment was keeping in place controversial spying programs at the National Security Agency.

      “I would say the best part of the Obama administration would be his continuance of the protections of the homeland using the big metadata programs,” Bush said in an interview on the Michael Medved radio show.

    • Jeb Bush Praises Obama’s Expansion of NSA Surveillance

      One of the most glaring myths propagated by Washington — especially the two parties’ media loyalists — is that bipartisanship is basically impossible, that the two parties agree on so little, that they are constantly at each other’s throats over everything. As is so often the case for Washington partisan propaganda, the reality is exactly the opposite: from trade deals to Wall Street bailouts to a massive National Security and Penal State, the two parties are in full agreement on the bulk of the most significant D.C. policies (which is why the leading candidates of the two parties (from America’s two ruling royal families) will have the same funding base). But because policies that command the agreement of the two parties’ establishments are largely ignored by the D.C. press in favor of the issues where they have some disagreements, the illusion is created that they agree on nothing.

    • Rand Paul targets Obama, Jeb Bush in NSA rant

      Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) says the National Security Agency’s domestic spying program is “one of the worst parts of the Obama administration,” a jab not only at the current president but also fellow Republican Jeb Bush.

    • Rand Paul on NSA: ‘Our Founding Fathers would be mortified’
    • Privacy advocates urge more transparency about how NSA keeps an eye on people

      As Congress considers whether to extend the life of a program that sweeps up American phone records, privacy advocates and civil liberties groups say too much about government surveillance remains secret for the public to fully evaluate its reach or effectiveness.

    • Hello Barbie, Amazon win big in Germany’s “Big Brother” awards for privacy abuses

      Germans by and large are wary of surveillance in all its forms, and nowhere is that more apparent than at the Big Brother Awards, which awards “prizes” to organizations and individuals around the world making especially egregious use of Germans’ private personal data.

    • Hello Barbie, NSA Win Big in Germany’s ‘Big Brother’ Awards for Privacy Abuses

      Germans by and large are wary of surveillance in all its forms, and nowhere is that more apparent than at the Big Brother Awards, which awards “prizes” to organizations and individuals around the world making especially egregious use of Germans’ private personal data.

    • Senate’s NSA skirmish stalling cyber bill

      A Senate skirmish over National Security Agency (NSA) reform has stalled the upper chamber’s plan to move a major cyber bill.

    • House Passes Major Cybersecurity Bill Despite Fears It Will Bolster NSA Spying

      The House on Wednesday passed major legislation intended to improve the nation’s defenses against cyberattacks, Congress’s first significant step toward attempting to limit the kind of debilitating hacks that brought Sony Pictures to its knees five months ago.

    • Congressional Battle Brews Over Bill To Extend NSA Data Collection
    • Key Republican Is Not on Board With NSA Reform
    • Congress Doesn’t Seem Totally Sure Who Should Deal With NSA Reform
    • Rubio: NSA spying concerns are overblown
    • Citizenfour: A must see for U.S. activists
    • Millennials worldwide show broad support of Edward Snowden – poll
    • Pirate Bay’s Peter Sunde Kills NSA-Proof Messenger App

      After promising so much the highly anticipated encrypted chat project Hemlis has come to an end. The software was left with too many obstacles to overcome, not least the absence of former Pirate Bay spokesman Peter Sunde who was arrested and taken away to serve his jail sentence for copyright infringement last summer.

    • Snowden docs: NSA, New Zealand plotted to hack Chinese

      The National Security Agency (NSA) collaborated with New Zealand on a plan to digitally monitor Chinese diplomats, according to documents obtained by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden.

      The operation centered on breaking into a data link between two Chinese diplomatic offices in Auckland, New Zealand’s largest city.

      While it is unclear whether the break-in ever took place, Snowden’s documents reveal that the NSA and New Zealand were “formally coordinating” on the plan in 2013.

    • NSA Spying Scandal Sparks a New European Smart Home Platform to Protect Privacy

      In Germany, a country considering broad new regulations to prevent citizens’ data from being passed through U.S.-based servers, a new consortium is promising a home automation platform that will keep its customers’ data within European borders.

    • Top 3 Apps to prevent your smartphone from being snooped.

      Ultimate privacy Apps : Top three Apps to prevent NSA and cyber criminals snooping on you

    • The NSA’s Split-Key Encryption Proposal is Not Serious

      The US Government has been busy on the encryption front in both positive and negative ways. On the positive front, there is a major effort underway to move all government websites to HTTPS; I’ll discuss that in a future post. But on the problematic and negative side of the ledger, we once again turn to the NSA.

    • Chinese Spies With Poor Grammar Tried Hacking NSA Historian

      Over the last four months, hackers traced back to the Chinese regime have been trying to breach the computers of NSA historian Matthew Aid. He recently detected two attempted breaches, one on April 2 and another on April 11, which he documented Monday on his blog.

    • Beijing Demands NSA Stop Trying to Hack Chinese Consulate

      The Chinese Foreign Ministry said Monday that they were “seriously concerned” by reports that New Zealand spies collaborated with the US National Security Agency to spy on Chinese diplomats.

    • U.S. Secretary Of Homeland Security Warns About The Dangers Of Pervasive Encryption

      In a speech at cybersecurity conference RSA, U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security Jeh Johnson outlined the government’s discomfort with increasing implementation of encryption by technology companies, and what impact the shift might have on national security.

    • How NATO Kills Africans in the Club Med

      Humanitarian imperialism as applied to what the Pentagon loves to define as MENA (Middle East-Northern Africa) has led, according to Amnesty International, “to the largest refugee disaster since the Second World War.”

  • Civil Rights

    • Latest on Baltimore police-custody death: Protests wind down
    • POGO Adds its Voice to Calls for Secret Law Oversight

      We urge you to end mass surveillance of Americans. Among us are civil liberties organizations from across the political spectrum that speak for millions of people, businesses, whistleblowers, and experts. The impending expiration of three USA PATRIOT Act provisions on June 1 is a golden opportunity to end mass surveillance and enact additional reforms.

    • We must disband the police: Body cameras aren’t enough — only radical change will stop cops who kill

      After Michael Slager gunned down Walter Scott in a North Charleston park, a deafening chorus of voices has emerged, insisting that “the system worked.” And they are right. The system did work, just not in the way that they mean.

      The system didn’t only begin to work when the video of the shooting emerged days later: it went into motion immediately. The system began to work when Slager cuffed a dying man and then ran (ran!) back to grab his alibi, the Taser he would then plant near Scott’s failing body (as some have noticed, Slager did so in an eminently practiced way).

    • The Key War on Terror Propaganda Tool: Only Western Victims Are Acknowledged

      The British-Yemeni journalist Abubakr Al-Shamahi put it succinctly: “It makes me angry that non-Western civilian victims of drone strikes are not given the same recognition by the US administration.” The independent journalist Naheed Mustafa said she was “hugely irritated by the ‘drone strikes have killed good Westerners so now we know there are issues with drones’ stories.” The Washington Post’s Eugene Robinson this morning observed: “It is all too easy to ignore … the dubious morality of the whole enterprise — until the unfortunate victims happen to be Westerners. Only then does ‘collateral damage’ become big news and an occasion for public sorrow.”

    • New Zealand Prime Minister John Key Apologizes for Pulling Waitress’s Hair

      New Zealand Prime Minister John Key apologized on Wednesday for pulling the ponytail of a waitress who accused him of bullying, media reported.

      The unnamed waitress in an Auckland cafe said on a blog site that Key had pulled her hair over several months and initially she thought he was being “playful and jolly.” However, she said Key kept pulling her hair when he visited the cafe over a six-month period and she became increasingly annoyed.

    • Woman who hit Venezuelan president with mango rewarded with house

      Marleny Olivo scrawled a note on the fruit and hurled it at the head of the passing Nicolás Maduro – and has now been promised a place to live

    • Licence to chill: Ex-CIA spyboss Petraeus gets probation for leaking US secrets to his mistress

      General David Petraeus – the former head of US forces in Iraq and Afghanistan and briefly the head of the CIA – has been sentenced to two years’ probation and fined $100,000 after admitting leaking America’s secrets to his lover.

      Married Petraeus, 62, handed over military logs containing classified material to his official biographer, and mistress, Paula Broadwell. He also lied to FBI agents during their investigating into the case, and faced charges that could have put him behind bars for up to five years.

    • Former CIA Director David Petraeus escapes jail for leaking military secrets to his mistress
    • Ex-CIA head David Petraeus sentenced over military leak

      David Petraeus, a retired US four-star general and former CIA director, has been put on probation and fined for leaking material to his mistress.

    • Petraeus Gets Leniency for Leaking — And Risen’s CIA Source Should Too, His Lawyers Say

      Lawyers for Jeffrey Sterling, convicted earlier this year of leaking classified information to New York Times reporter James Risen, urged today that Sterling “not receive a different form of justice” than David Petraeus, the former general and CIA director who has pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor for leaking classified information to his biographer.

    • Ford Foundation and its alleged CIA connections

      The US based Ford Foundation is not new to controversies. Many call it a front for the American external spying agency CIA. There have been thousands of articles and research papers on Ford Foundation’s CIA links. Even in India, the Ford Foundation is accused of funding the NGOs and movements which actually work against India’s socio, political and economic interests.

    • Obama Admin. Seeks “Severe Sentence” for Ex-CIA Officer Convicted of Leaking
    • Federal prosecutors urge ‘severe’ sentence for ex-CIA officer in leak case
    • CIA Worked With China To Attack Russia

      On Thursday, the U.S. Defense Secretary Ashton Carter admitted that Russian hackers had infiltrated into Pentagon’s computer network earlier this year. It was the latest high-profile hack of the U.S. government networks by Russian hackers. Over the past few months, Washington has also accused China of hacking the U.S. satellite network, weather systems, and the U.S. Postal Service network.

    • Spy shocker: CIA cooperated with Chinese intelligence to target Russia
    • PACE President welcomes former Romanian President’s CIA secret prison admission

      President of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE), Anne Brasseur, welcomed in a press release on Friday the admission of former Romanian President Ion Iliescu of his knowledge of a secret CIA (United States Central Intelligence Agency) prison in Romania.

    • Ion Iliescu for Der Spiegel: I approved CIA request for location in Romania

      Ion Iliescu said, in an interview granted to Der Spiegel, that he approved “in principle” over 2002-2003, a request made by the USA to set up a CIA center in Romania, but he did not know it was a unit meant for detention. Details of the project were established by Ioan Talpes, the head of the presidential Administration, Der Spiegel writes.

    • CIA Interrogator Convicted For Torture Speaks Out

      In the long debate over torture, there remains only one instance when a CIA interrogator ever faced trial for torture – and he was convicted. That CIA contractor, David Passaro, is now speaking out in a new Retro Report documentary.

    • Sheriff Joe Arpaio was concerned about CIA wiretaps on MCSO phones

      A bizarre twist came during the fourth day of testimony in the civil contempt trial against Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio and four of his top deputies.

      Speaking on the stand and taking questions from the judge, MCSO chief deputy Jerry Sheridan said the department was working with a man named Dennis Montgomery who was identified as a former employee of the Central Intelligence Agency.

      Montgomery was a confidential informant, or CI for the sheriff’s office. While living in Seattle, he purportedly gave information to MCSO about a CIA operation that was secretly gathering personal information on United States citizens, according to Sheridan.

    • Ex-CIA officer Ray McGovern: V-E Day celebration spoiled by Washington’s support for Ukrainian revolution

      The controversy over alleged Russian “aggression” in Ukraine is already raining on the Kremlin parade with which Russia will mark the 70th anniversary of the Allies’ victory over Adolf Hitler and the Nazis on May 9. U.S. President Barack Obama set the tone by turning down the Kremlin’s invitation to take part in the celebration, and allies in Western Europe have been equally uncouth in saying No.

    • CIA Daughter On the Anniversary of the Coup Her Dad Helped

      Today is the forty eighth anniversary of the military coup.

    • Was Putin Right About Internet As CIA Project?

      “The Internet is not a CIA creation,” Tim Berners-Lee, a London-born computer scientist who invented the Web in 1989 – the year that the Berlin Wall collapsed – told media when asked about Putin’s CIA comment.

      Berners-Lee said the Internet was invented with the help of U.S. state funding, but was spread by academics.

      “It was the academic community who wired up their universities so it was put together by smart, well-meaning people who thought it was a good idea,” he said.

      Berners-Lee has previously scolded the United States and Britain for undermining the Internet’s foundations with their surveillance program. He has also called on China to tear down the “great firewall” that limits its people’s access to the Internet.

  • Intellectual Monopolies

    • Liberals furious with Obama’s trade comments

      The already bitter fight between the White House and the progressive base over trade policy has turned ugly after President Obama said his critics on the left “don’t know what they’re talking about” and compared their arguments to conspiracy theories about “death panels.”

      Progressives trade critics are up in arms over the comments, made Thursday night to a gathering of Organizing for Action, the grassroots group that spun off of Obama’s presidential campaign, at the Ritz Carlton hotel in Washington, D.C.

    • Copyrights

      • BitTorrent Inc. Lays Off Close to a Third of its Workforce

        BitTorrent Inc., the company behind the popular uTorrent file-sharing client, has laid off close to a third of its U.S. workforce. Speaking with TorrentFreak a source close to the company says that up to 45 workers had their contracts terminated Thursday, “gutting” the company’s advertising team and pushing more work to its offices in Minsk, Belarus.

04.25.15

Links 25/4/2015: Debian LTS Plans, Turing Phone Runs Linux

Posted in News Roundup at 3:27 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

GNOME bluefish

Contents

GNU/Linux

  • Desktop

  • Server

  • Kernel Space

    • Btrfs In Linux 4.1 Has Fixes For File-Systems Of 20 Terabytes & Up

      It’s nearing the end of the Linux 4.1 kernel and Chris Mason has now sent in his pull request of Btrfs file-system updates for this next kernel update.

      This pull request is coming in late in part due to him running a longer series of load tests than normal. For this cycle he changed around the free space cache writeout and wanted to ensure the code is properly conditioned. Changing the free space cache writeout should fix stalls on large file-systems. In particular, over at Facebook they were seeing 10+ second stalls during commits on file-systems with around twenty terabytes of space and greater. Should you happen to have a 20TB+ Btrfs file-system, Linux 4.1 will perform better.

  • Applications

  • Desktop Environments/WMs

    • K Desktop Environment/KDE SC/Qt

      • こんにちは日本！ Krita Launches Japanese Site

        We are happy to announce that we have launched a Krita site in Japanese! Over the coming months, this website will be evolving to help the Japanese community stay current with all things Krita. Currently, almost everything online is in English, so it can be difficult for other countries to learn about and use Krita. With this Japanese site, we can provide specialized instructions and resources to help them get started. We are still finishing up translations, but are far enough along that we want to release it in the wild.

      • Turning the world upside down

        So what do I mean when saying that I’m running a kwin_wayland session? Does it mean that everything is already using Wayland? No, unfortunately not, rather the opposite: all running applications are still using X11, but we use a rootless Xwayland server. The only Wayland application in this setup is Xwayland and KWin itself.

    • GNOME Desktop/GTK

  • Distributions

    • PCLinuxOS/Mageia/Mandriva Family

    • Gentoo Family

    • Red Hat Family

      • Red Hat broadens programming language support

        Potentially making work easier for system administrators, Red Hat has updated its development packages to support running multiple versions of the same programming language on its flagship enterprise operating system, Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL).

      • Why Red Hat is tackling BPM

        In today’s business environment, as enterprises seek to do more work with limited resources, orchestrating and planning daily business operations to optimize resources can be a big challenge.

        This environment is putting new pressure on developers and IT, according to a Forrester Consulting survey commissioned by Red Hat.

      • Storage VP: Red Hat Gluster, Ceph see faster start than Linux

        Red Hat vows to improve file and database-as-a-service features for its open source storage software while also planning to tackle hyper-convergence.

      • Fedora

        • Fedora Security Team’s 90-day Challenge

          Earlier this month the Fedora Security Team started a 90-day challenge to close all critical and important CVEs in Fedora that came out in 2014 and before. These bugs include packages affected in both Fedora and EPEL repositories. Since we started the process we’ve made some good progress.

        • Red Hat launches beta of Linux distro Fedora 22

          RED HAT has announced the beta availability of Fedora 22, the newest iteration of its free Linux operating system that’s so hot off the press it hasn’t been christened with a codename yet.

          The OS, which runs on an incredibly short update cycle, forms the basis of Red Hat’s own products and forks into Red Hat Enterprise Linux and Tizen, the embedded system being used in Samsung smart products.

        • Instant Messaging in Fedora Workstation 2

          Last week I wrote about the suboptimal state of instant messaging in Fedora Workstation with some thoughts how it could be improved. I also asked Fedora users on Facebook and Google+ what IM clients they use. Especially in the case of Google+, I gathered votes from a number of people which is large enough to draw some conclusions.

    • Debian Family

      • The #newinjessie game: new forensic packages in Debian/jessie

        Debian/jessie AKA Debian 8.0 includes a bunch of packages for people interested in digital forensics.

      • What to expect on Jessie release day

        Release day is a nerve-wracking time for several teams. Happily we’ve done it a few times now*, so we have a rough idea of how the process should go.

      • Debian 7 Wheezy and Debian 8 Jessie Might Become LTS Releases

        Following on the success of the Squeeze LTS project, the Debian LTS team had the pleasure of announcing that they are preparing to support the Debian 7 (Wheezy) operating system with security patches for a longer period.

      • Join the LTS project to help shape Wheezy and Jessie LTS

        Almost a year after the birth of the Debian Long Term Support (LTS) project, Squeeze LTS can be considered a success. Thanks go to the many volunteers and sponsors! Debian 6 “Squeeze” has seen more than 200 security uploads since the start of its extended support period. The most widely used packages have been fixed in a timely fashion and many organizations can thus safely rely on the continued maintenance of Squeeze LTS.

      • Release Critical Bug report for Week 17

      • Derivatives

        • Canonical/Ubuntu

          • Five Easy Steps to Greatly Improve Your Ubuntu 15.04 Experience

            Now that Ubuntu 15.04 has been officially released, we can advise new users regarding a few extra steps that they need to take in order to get the most out of their system.

          • Hidden Options in Ubuntu 15.04 Can Make It Much Better

            Ubuntu 15.04 is a complete operating system and can be used just as Canonical has intended, but some very interesting options and features are hidden inside the OS and the not usually accessible, unless you install a couple of applications.

          • Firefox 37.0.2 Arrives in Ubuntu 15.04

            Canonical has just announced a Firefox vulnerability has been corrected and that version 37.0.2 of the browser has been integrated into Ubuntu 15.04 and all the other supported Ubuntu versions.

          • Ubuntu Kylin 15.04 Continues the Process of Conquering China

            Ubuntu Kylin 15.04 (Vivid Vervet), the Chinese Linux distribution developed in collaboration with Canonical that’s based Ubuntu, has been released and is now ready for download.

          • Ubuntu 15.04 hands-on: One giant leap for developers and the cloud, but one small step for the desktop

            If you’re running Ubuntu on the cloud, there’s a lot to like here. In this release, the distribution boasts a new light-weight snappy Ubuntu Core version for devices, micro-servers, and containers. It also includes updated developer tools and the latest frameworks, languages, databases and packages. This cloud brand of Ubuntu also comes with superior Docker support, Canonical’s own new container-based hypervisor, LXD, and built-in support for the Chef DevOps program.

          • Scientists Use Ubuntu to Interpret Hubble Telescope Data

            A new documentary about the Hubble space telescope was just released on Nova, and a Reddit user pointed out that one of the scientists was using Linux to manage the date provided by the telescope.

          • BQ Aquaris E4.5 Ubuntu Edition review

            The BQ Aquaris e4.5 Ubuntu Edition is not the debut Canonical must have envisaged for Ubuntu Phone, in the early days of the platform’s development.

            It’s a perfectly functional smartphone for the most part, and we like the concept of scopes, but the hardware is humdrum, performance is sluggish, and the software running on it is rough and ready, and full of holes.

            We’ll be tracking the progress of Ubuntu Phone with interest – it surely must get better than this – but this first device is one to write off to experience.

  • Devices/Embedded

    • Mini-PC Intel Compute Stick Launches Only with Windows, Linux Users Need to Wait

      Intel Compute Stick, the mini-PC that runs a quad-core Intel processor and that fits inside a case the size of a USB flash drive, is now available for purchase, although just with Windows.

    • World’s smallest i.MX6 module has onboard WiFi, eMMC

      Variscite unveiled a 50 x 20mm “DART-MX6″ module that runs Linux or Android on the Freescale i.MX6, with up to 64GB eMMC flash and -40 to 85°C support.

      Variscite’s claim that the 50 x 20mm DART-MX6 is the world’s smallest computer-on-module based on Freescale’s i.MX6 system-on-chip appears to be a valid one. It beats the smallest ones we’ve seen to date: TechNexion’s 40 x 36mm PICO-IMX6, and Solid-Run’s 47 x 30mm microSOM i4. It’s also just a hair larger than Variscite’s own 52 x 17mm DART-4460, which is based on a dual-core TI OMAP4460 SoC, and Gumstix’s slightly larger 58 x 17mm Overo modules, which use TI Sitara AM37xx SoCs.

    • Open-source IoT kit runs OpenWRT, mimics Arduino Yun

      A “Domino.IO” Kickstarter project offers an Atheros AR9331 module running OpenWRT Linux, plus two tiny baseboards, one of which is Arduino Yun compatible.

      To stand out from the growing number of OpenWRT Linux-based computer-on-modules and tiny, com-LIKE single board computers running Qualcomm’s WiFi-ready Atheros AR9331 system-on-chip, startups are now offering entire modular kit families based on an AR9331. Last month, we saw an Onion OmegaKickstarter project, which has since been funded, based on an AR9331 COM with stackable expansion modules. Now a Hong Kong based startup called Domino.IO has gone on Kickstarter to sell its own kit that expands on a Domino Core COM with Domino Pi and Domino Qi expansion boards, as well as smaller I/O modules that enable further customization.

    • Phones

      • Tizen

      • Android

        • Android Candy: Intercoms

          Ever since my “tiny $20 tablet” project (see my Open-Source Classroom column in the March 2015 issue), I’ve been looking for more and more cool things to do with cheap Android devices. Although the few obvious ones like XBMC or Plex remotes work well, I’ve recently found that having Android devices around the house means I can gain back an old-school ability that went out of style in the late 1980s—namely, an intercom system.

        • There’s a wild prank hidden in Google Maps that insults Apple in the most childishly inappropriate way

          Rawalpindi is a vibrant Pakistani city known for its bazaars, ancient ruins, and array of religious shrines. But if you pay it a visit on Google Maps, you’re going to notice something very unusual on the outskirts of the city — the Android “droid” mascot urinating on the Apple logo.

        • There’s an Android bot peeing on an Apple logo on Google Maps

          Sick of all the Apple Watch news today? You’re in luck, because we have something completely different for you. An image of an Android mascot, also known as an Android bot or Bugdroid, peeing on an Apple logo has been discovered on Google Maps.

        • An Android robot is peeing on an Apple logo in Google Maps
        • An Android is urinating on the Apple logo in Google Maps (update)

          Google and Apple have always had their differences, but a new Easter egg inside Google Maps has just taken their rivalry to a whole new level. As spotted by Team Android, if you head to these coordinates with the regular Map view enabled, you’ll see Google’s iconic Android mascot taking a leak on the Apple logo. At the moment, it’s unclear who created this little piece of mischief and whether Google is taking action. But if this hidden message is any indication, it was snuck through by a member of the public using Google’s Map Maker service, rather than a Google employee. Regardless, it’s a crazy (and pretty hilarious) addition that’s sure to rile some of the employees in Cupertino. Shots fired!

        • Sony’s Android TV-powered 4K televisions are ridiculously thin

          Four models from Sony’s 2015 Android TV-powered 4K television range are now available for pre-order, with shipping to begin in May.

          The Japanese electronics giant unveiled its 4K TV lineup for 2015 at the Consumer Electronics Show in January, but kept pricing and release information to itself, only saying the new sets would be available sometime in the spring. Those details are finally here and the TVs themselves aren’t far off.

        • Android Wear v1.1 APK has Apple references in it, but when is iOS support coming?

          That Google is working on iOS support for Android Wear is nearly undeniable at this point, but even more evidence has surfaced in case you aren’t a believer. We peeked inside the latest Android Wear update APK to see what hidden bits were swarming about, and we came across some very interesting references.

        • 5 Things to Expect from the Nexus 5 Android 5.1.1 Release

          A few weeks ago, an Android 5.1.1 update mysteriously appeared alongside an update for Google’s Android SDK. Earlier this week, Google finally confirmed the Nexus Android 5.1.1 release with an update for its Nexus Player. With an Android 5.1.1 update now on the minds of Nexus users, particularly Nexus 5 users dealing with Android 5.0 Lollipop problems, we want to take a look at what we expect from the Nexus 5 Android 5.1 release from Google.

        • The Turing Phone Is Super Durable and Ultra Secure

          The device also sports a 13MP/8MP camera combo, 64GB / 128GB of internal storage and runs Android 5.0 Lollipop out of the box.

    • Sub-notebooks/Tablets

      • Jolla Tablet Ship Date Slips

        According to the Jolla Blog the ship date for the much anticipated Jolla Tablet has slipped: From June-ish to July-ish. (The original ship date was expected to be May).

        Jolla had one of the most successful Crowdfunded projects run by IndieGOGO. It ended up being over funded by 480%, exhibiting strong support for another tablet that isn’t IOS, isn’t Android, and isn’t Windows.

Free Software/Open Source

Leftovers

  • Security

    • Friday’s security updates
    • An Incredibly Insecure Voting Machine

      If asked for a password, the administrator password is “admin” (VITA provided that).

      Download the Microsoft Access database using Windows Explorer.
      Use a free tool to extract the hardwired key (“shoup”), which VITA also did for us.

      Use Microsoft Access to add, delete, or change any of the votes in the database.

      Upload the modified copy of the Microsoft Access database back to the voting machine.

    • Bug in Wi-Fi software could open Android, Linux and BSD to wireless attacks

      A flaw in a component used to authenticate client devices on Wi-Fi networks could potentially expose devices running on Android, Linux and BSD to hackers. The security problem resides in wpa_supplicant, a widely used open-source software implementation of the IEEE 802.11i specification for Wi-Fi clients.

  • Transparency Reporting

    • DoD’s New ‘Transparent’ Policy on Cybersecurity Is Still Opaque

      When the U.S. Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter laid out the Pentagon’s new cybersecurity strategy this week, few were expecting it to break news. And, indeed, his talk at Stanford’s Hoover Institution on Thursday offered no surprises. But the secretary did set up an expectation during his speech on which he ultimately failed to deliver.

  • Environment/Energy/Wildlife

    • Koch Funding of Universities Shrouded in Secrecy

      In a recent column entitled “The Campus Climate Crusade,” The Wall Street Journal’s Kimberly Strassel spent over 800 words arguing the basic conceit of UnKochMyCampus, a campaign uniting students at universities around the country who are working to increase transparency on their campuses and fight attempts by corporate donors like Charles and David Koch from influencing their education.

  • Finance

    • Newly Leaked TTIP Draft Reveals Far-Reaching Assault on US/EU Democracy

      A freshly-leaked chapter from the highly secretive Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) agreement, currently under negotiation between the United States and European Union, reveals that the so-called “free trade” deal poses an even greater threat to environmental and human rights protections—and democracy itself—than previously known, civil society organizations warn.

      The revelation comes on the heels of global protests against the mammoth deal over the weekend and coincides with the reconvening of negotiations between the parties on Monday in New York.

      The European Commission’s latest proposed chapter (pdf) on “regulatory cooperation” was first leaked to Friends of the Earth and dates to the month of March. It follows previous leaks of the chapter, and experts say the most recent iteration is even worse.

    • Slovakia earmarks EUR 12 million for central bankruptcy portal

      Slovakia’s Ministry of Finance signed a contract worth nearly EUR 12 million in March for the creation of a portal on bankruptcies, financial restructuring and debt reduction. By creating this portal, the Ministry aims to assist citizens, companies and legal professionals, by bringing together information that is already available in the systems of public administrations.

  • PR/AstroTurf/Lobbying

    • It’s Not the 1 Percent Controlling Politics. It’s the 0.01 Percent.

      Even before presidential candidates started lining up billionaires to kick-start their campaigns, it was clear that the 2016 election could be the biggest big-money election yet. This chart from the political data shop Crowdpac illustrates where we may be headed: Between 1980 and 2012, the share of federal campaign contributions coming from the very, very biggest political spenders—the top 0.01 percent of donors—nearly tripled…

    • Kochs, Corps, and Monsanto Trade Group Have Bankrolled Group Attacking Dr. Oz

      A group of ten doctors has called for NBC’s Dr. Oz (Dr. Mehmet Oz) to be fired from Columbia University, where he is vice chairman of the surgery department.

      The Center for Media and Democracy (CMD) has long tracked the group that is connected to several of the signers attacking Dr. Oz, and CMD’s Executive Director Lisa Graves spoke with the Dr. Oz show about the background of that group and some of the signers. (CMD does not receive any funding from Dr. Oz or NBC.)

  • Privacy

    • Cybersecurity Official Believes Encryption Can Be Backdoored Safely; Can’t Think Of Single Expert Who Agrees With Him

      The government continues to looks for ways to route around Apple and Google’s phone encryption. The plans range from legislated backdoors to a mythical “golden key” to split-key escrow where the user holds one key and the government shares the other with device makers.

      None of these are solutions. And there’s no consensus that this is a problem in search of one. Law enforcement and intelligence agencies will still find ways to get what they want from these phones, but it may involve more legwork/paperwork and the development of new tools and exploits. Without a doubt, encryption will not leave law enforcement unable to pursue investigations. Cellphones are a relatively recent development in the lifespan of law enforcement and no crime prior to the rise of cellphone usage went uninvestigated because suspects weren’t walking around with the entirety of their lives in their pockets.

      But still the government continues to believe there’s some way to undermine this encryption in a way that won’t allow criminals to exploit it. This belief is based on nothing tangible. One can only imagine how many deafening silent beats passed between question and answer during White House cybersecurity policy coordinator Michael Daniel’s conversation with reporters following the recent RSA conference.

    • NSA had German spies target Euro allies

      German spies targeted politicians in friendly European nations and inside Germany for surveillance on behalf of the US National Security Agency (NSA), a media report revealed on Thursday.

  • Civil Rights

    • Cop Smash & Grab: Houston Police Caught on Video Kicking in Door to Business, Stealing Cash

      Two Houston Police officers were caught on camera kicking down the door of local business owner Marcquette Jones last Wednesday.

      Jones, the 36-year-old owner of The South Side Game Room, says this isn’t the first time the officers unlawfully entered his business. According to the business owner, the two cops paid him the first visit on January 20, claiming they were there to “check building code compliance.”

    • FBI tortured US citizen in foreign prison for months for refusing to become an informant, man claims

      An Eritrean-born American citizen has filed suit against the FBI, alleging the agency was responsible for having him detained and tortured for years in an Arab country for refusing to become an informant in his mosque in Portland, Oregon.

    • A Psychedelic History of the CIA

      What went entirely unmentioned by the American press was that 37 years ago Stanley Faulder had been the unwitting victim of medical experiments partially funded by the CIA. According to Faulder’s sister, Pat Nicholl, who lives in Jaspar, Alberta, “At 15 Stanley was arrested for stealing a watch and sent to a boys’ home for six months. At 17, another theft got him six months in jail. At 22 he was caught in a stolen car and sent to jail in New Westminster, B.C. for two years. There, he asked for psychiatric help and was put in an experimental drug program which involved doses of LSD”.

    • A Residence With Locking Doors And A Working Toilet Is All That’s Needed To Justify A No-Knock Warrant

      No-knock warrants have become the strategy of first choice for many police departments. Most of these target those suspected of drug possession or sales, rather than the truly dangerous situations they should be reserved for. The rise in no-knock warrants has resulted in an increased number of deadly altercations. Cops have been shot in self-defense by residents who thought their homes were being invaded by criminals. Innocent parties have been wounded or killed because the element of surprise police feel is so essential in preventing the destruction of evidence puts cops — often duded up in military gear — into a mindset that demands violent reaction to any perceived threat. In these situations, the noise and confusion turns everything into a possible threat, even the motions of frightened people who don’t have time to grasp the reality — and severity — of the situation.

    • Former CIA head’s no-jail sentence for leaking called “gross hypocrisy”

      Yesterday, former CIA Director David Petraeus was handed two years of probation and a $100,000 fine after agreeing to a plea deal that ends in no jail time for leaking classified information to Paula Broadwell, his biographer and lover.

      “I now look forward to moving on with the next phase of my life and continuing to serve our great nation as a private citizen,” Petraeus said outside the federal courthouse in Charlotte, North Carolina on Thursday.

      Lower-level government leakers have not, however, been as likely to walk out of a courthouse applauding the US as Petraeus did. Trevor Timm, executive director of the Freedom of the Press Foundation, called the Petraeus plea deal a “gross hypocrisy.”

      “At the same time as Petraeus got off virtually scot-free, the Justice Department has been bringing the hammer down upon other leakers who talk to journalists—sometimes for disclosing information much less sensitive than Petraeus did,” he said.

      The Petraeus sentencing came days after the Justice Department demanded (PDF) up to a 24-year-term for Jeffrey Sterling, a former CIA agent who leaked information to a Pulitzer Prize-winning writer about a botched mission to sell nuclear plans to Iran in order to hinder its nuclear-weapons progress.

  • Internet/Net Neutrality

    • Comcast Plans to Drop Time Warner Cable Deal

      Fourteen months after unveiling a $45.2 billion merger that would create a new Internet and cable giant, Comcast Corp. is planning to walk away from its proposed takeover of Time Warner Cable Inc., people with knowledge of the matter said.

  • DRM

    • All about PlayReady 3.0, Microsoft’s secret plan to lock down 4K movies to your PC

      The name of the movie might as well be Digital Rights Management: The New Nightmare. It stars Microsoft, who is working with chip vendors Intel, AMD, Nvidia, and Qualcomm to protect Hollywood’s movies from piracy as they travel through your PC. The technology it’s promoting is called PlayReady 3.0.

      Microsoft is also dangling promises for consumers: Buy a Windows 10 system with PlayReady, Microsoft says, and you’ll be able to view Hollywood’s latest movies in all their 4K glory. Without Microsoft’s hardware DRM technology—pay attention, those of you with older PCs—you may only be able to view a lower-quality version of the film.

  • Intellectual Monopolies

    • Copyrights

      • Canadian Recording Industry: Works Entering the Public Domain Are Not in the Public Interest

        On World Book and Copyright Day, it is worth noting how Graham Henderson, the President of Music Canada (formerly the Canadian Recording Industry Association) characterized the government’s decision to extend the term of copyright in sound recordings and performances:

        With each passing day, Canadian treasures like Universal Soldier by Buffy Sainte-Marie are lost to the public domain. This is not in the public interest. It does not benefit the creator or their investors and it will have an adverse impact on the Canadian economy.”

        This statement raises several issues. First, it should be noted that the song Universal Soldier by Buffy Sainte-Marie is not in the public domain nor will it be entering the public domain for decades. As the songwriter, Buffy Sainte-Marie still holds copyright in the song and will do so for her entire lifetime plus an additional 50 years (Howard Knopf further explains the issue of copyright term in songs in this post).

04.24.15

Who Kills Yahoo? It’s Microsoft, Not Yahoo!

Posted in Deception, Microsoft, Search at 11:27 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

A quiz

Summary: The media should blame Microsoft, not Marissa Mayer, for what’s going on (and has been going on for 7 years) at Yahoo!

HAVING essentially killed Nokia and Novell by infiltrating them and taking control of them, Microsoft would like to have history rewritten. This is true also when it comes to Yahoo!, which Microsoft systematically killed from the inside and Yahoo! is now trying to push away to regain some independence.

Watch Marissa Mayer receiving heat for laying off a lot of Yahoo! staff. How about blaming those who induced this destruction in the first place? Microsoft has deliberately destroyed a lot of companies over the years, causing many people to become jobless and for their projects/work/code to be abandoned. To Microsoft, this is the strategy, which is why Microsoft layoffs are great news; they provide an opportunity for some other (law-abiding) companies to turn up and provide jobs to the unemployed engineers/programmers.

To repeat what Mayer has done, she made it possible for Yahoo! to altogether terminate the search ‘deal’ with Microsoft in 6 months. As one site put it: “The two companies have amended the terms of the Search and Advertising Sales agreement whereby the agreement could be terminated any time on or after October 1. The term of the deal was 10 years from its commencement date, February 23, 2010.”

Microsoft did to Yahoo! what it had done to Nokia, although the attack on Yahoo’s sovereignty in many ways and by several years predates the latter. The reason Mayer needs to lay off a lot of staff (no matter how she puts it or announces it, there’s no easy way!) is Microsoft’s abusive attacks on the company. As one article put it, “Yahoo! missed Wall Street’s revenue and profit forecasts as slight growth in its online advertising businesses was outweighed by higher payments to websites that send readers to the site. ”

Here is how Wall Street media put it: “Yahoo! Inc. Chief Executive Officer Marissa Mayer outlined plans to explore options for the company’s stake in its Japanese division, heartening investors dismayed by another report showing disappointing sales and profit.”

As with every ‘partnership’ in which Microsoft is involved, only one party benefits. It’s no wonder Yahoo! is going broke. The sooner it quits Microsoft and restores/bolsters its search teams, the faster it will manage to get out of this hole. Mayer inherited a total mess wherein Yahoo! is contractually committed to carry water (traffic) for Microsoft; it seems like she has been trying her best (since February) to escape this mess by all means necessary.

Appalling revisionism says that Yahoo! was failing before Microsoft attacked it and the same is being said about Nokia. This horrible case of misplaced blame is an insult to history. █

EPO Management is Trying Hard to Appease Its Critics While Pushing Forth Unitary Patent Agenda

Posted in Europe, Patents at 11:08 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

Lives of ordinary Europeans silently compromised

Canal and house

Summary: The European Patent Office and European Commission promote the agenda of large multinational corporations (at the expense or European citizens) and critics are being kept at bay

Ahead of the May 5th Unitary Patent decision we have been hoping for stronger action and a push/effort that puts the underlying issues in European media. Sadly, however, it has been quiet on this front. Secrecy plays a role in this relative calm. If Europeans knew what was going on and what was really at stake, they would be up in arms, marching in the streets everywhere (hundreds of millions of them). Ignorance — induced by silence or passivity — works in favour of the rich looters. Most people are just too lazy or too apathetic to study these issues, which tie into several other issues that do in fact have Europeans marching in the streets (many protests reported last week and this week).

For the uninitiated, the Unitary Patent can lead to software patents (and with them patent trolls) in Europe. The Unitary Patent offers a lot to large corporations and just about nothing to ordinary European citizens. It’s corporations-led and plutocrats-steered globalisation — like that which we find in TPP and similar treaties that have nothing to do with ‘freedom’ or ‘trade’, just passage of wealth from the bottom to the top (trickle-up effect).

Over in the United States, software patents continue getting weaker, but it doesn’t prevent opportunists from making self-promotional noise. Here is press releases celebrating software patents earlier this month and another couple of brags about software patents. As we shall show another day, however, the real trend is the demise of software patents, especially once they reach the court. This is why the vocation of patent courts in Europe matters so much. It’s a hugely important decision, but the public is not contacting European officials.

In the US, even automobile companies (remember where the first software patent came from, granted to Martin Goetz) acquire patents on software. As this month’s report from “Fortune” Magazine put it, “the automaker has also been getting into the software space, according to patenting data, which shows that GM filed 592 software patents over the past five years, accounting for over 15% of their patenting activity.”

Well, Europe has a large automobile industry (engines manufacturing for example) and with it there’s the risk of patents on software creeping in. Some companies sure are working on it and amid USPTO misconduct (glorifying patents by manipulating the process; see this related new propaganda from patent lawyers’ media) we should keep alert. Those who are familiar with controversial ‘trade’ treaties in the EU ought to know by now the role of automobile giants in selling out European citizens.

The EPO, whose current management is dominated by large and greedy corporations, increasingly copies the USPTO for increased private profits, introduced by poor quality patents that include software patents.

Referring to the Unitary Patent, Dr. Glyn Moody now writes that it shows “Why is EU Pushing Itself into Irrelevance” (he frames this as a question).

“Although I haven’t written about the Unitary Patent for a while now,” Moody says, “it hasn’t gone away – alas. Instead, it is still grinding through the ratification process that is necessary before it comes into force. There are many questions about how it will work in practice, and whether it will offer any real benefits to European companies. So it’s strange that the European Commission recently came out with a total puff-piece on the subject, which tries to convince people that it’s all going to be great. As you will see if you click on that link, that puff-piece also seems to have disappeared, which is rather telling (if anyone finds it again, please let me know.)”

Moody refers to text which can still be found here. He concludes as follows: “Assuming the Unitary Patent ever comes into being – and a legal challenge from Spain at the Court of Justice of the European Union is just one reason why it might not – the new Unitary Patent and the Unified Patent Court that will rule on disputes are both essentially outside the control of the European Commission, existing in a bizarre political limbo that is one of the most problematic aspects of the whole idea, as I’ve noted before. Leaving aside the fact that many statements on the vanished page are/were simply wrong, the larger question has to be: why on earth is the European Commission pushing an idea that will not only marginalise its own role, but make it highly likely that European companies will be forced to start paying an exorbitant patent troll tax like their American colleagues? One, moreover, that will be particularly problematic for the open source world which has few resources to fight back.”

It sure looks like the European Commission, which has been defending the EPO (and by extension software patents in Europe), is working hard to make the Unitary Patent a reality. This is really bad. The only thing worse is that SUEPO has been almost silenced and EPO staff has not been so active in fighting back as of late. Based on this April 23rd press release: “At a round table meeting jointly initiated by the Chairman of the Administrative Council, Jesper Kongstad, and EPO President Benoît Battistelli, the SUEPO and FFPE entered into a process which could eventually lead to their formal recognition as trade unions at the Office for the first time in EPO history. The meeting’s aim was to re-launch social dialogue to overcome disputes that have arisen over the inner reform agenda of the EPO.”

This does deal with some rights of staff, but it still does not deal with corruption in the EPO, appointment of criminals, expansion of patent scope, etc. The EPO’s management not only crushes EPO staff (leading many to suicide); it is crushing top people from the Enlarged Board of Appeal and on April 21st we learned from the EPO’s site about bizarre amendments that include: “In proceedings under Article 112 EPC the Board may, on its own initiative or at the written, reasoned request of the President of the European Patent Office, invite him to comment in writing or orally on questions of general interest which arise in the course of proceedings pending before it. The parties shall be entitled to submit their observations on the President’s comments.”

Why is the EPO run like a tyrannical regime where the so-called ‘President’ (with capital P) can exercise total power and intervene even in the processes of peripheral and presumably independent bodies? The EPO is corrupt and to make matters worse, it now seems as though many who are supposed to act as regulating forces are now complicit in making it more powerful — empowered to help the super-rich at the expense of everyone else. █

Real Patent Reform Will Not Come From Biggest Backers of GNU/Linux, Not Even Google

Posted in Google, Patents at 10:30 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

ChromeOS and Android (Linux) cannot coexist with software patents, or patents on mathematics

Mathematics

Summary: A look at the ‘new’ Google, the company which is hoarding patents (2,566 last year alone) instead of fighting for reform

ONE OF IBM’s biggest or most prominent proponents of software patents (and ironically one of the original promoters of GNU/Linux over there) may now be retired, but he (Irving Wladawsky-Berger) is still writing long essays, even for notoriously anti-Google and anti-Free software publications like the News Corp.-owned Wall Street Journal. As we have pointed out before, IBM continues to be one of the biggest lobbyists for software patents. It’s not apathetic towards them. So what about other big proponents of GNU/Linux, such as Google (with ChromeOS and Android)?

According to this recent article from “Fortune” Magazine (another magazine which targets wealth people, just like the Wall Street Journal), Google has really changed a lot in recent years. “Similarly,” it says, “Google (GOOG), a software company, is rapidly moving into manufacturing. Thirty-nine percent of its patents from 2007-2012 have been in hardware — computer hardware, yes, but also power and energy devices, as well as mechanical hardware—many originating from their ambitious autonomous car project.”

Google has hired lawyers and it increasingly turns into a big proponent of these lawyers’ business: patents. We contacted Google executives before they did this, but to no avail. The company which helps make many Android devices, Qualcomm, is itself turning into somewhat of a patent troll. Consider this Wall Street-oriented publication which titled its analysis “Qualcomm: The Enemy Of My Enemy May Not Be My FRAND”. It says that “Jana Partners, one of Qualcomm’s largest investors, has called for the company to spin-off its chip-making business from its patent-licensing business.” It also says that “Qualcomm’s patent-licensing business, which primarily licenses standard-essential patents, drives most of its profits.”

Here is where Google comes into play: “A pending decision from the Ninth Circuit in a case between Microsoft and Motorola is expected to clarify the scope of royalty rates a company can seek when licensing standard-essential.”

The Microsoft-funded Florian Müller recently wrote about what he called the “real Google”, having done a lot of Oracle lobbying (anti-Google) in his blog, especially in the month March. He published something titled “The Google that has joined Via Licensing’s LTE pool is the real Google–not the FRAND abuser”.

Well, here is the thing; there’s no doubt Google is no longer much of a resistor of patents. There were changes there several years back, regretful changes no doubt. According to another recent article from from “Fortune” Magazine, “Google even uses analytics to prioritize its patent portfolio”. It gives some numbers too: “Google’s intellectual property portfolio is relatively modest compared with the monster one managed by IBM—just 2,566 added last year compared with the 7,534 added by the older company.”

That’s a lot of patents: 2,566. Google made a lot of headlines (more than a hundred of the press alone, including [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32], about one single patent regarding spoiler prevention) and it is now facing a lawsuit, as we’ve just learned, targeting word recognition (included as standard in many Linux-based Google software such as operating systems). “Google Inc. and Motorola Mobility LLC,” says this report from Law 360, “opened fire Tuesday on two software patents covering word-recognition technology owned by Luxembourg-based Arendi S.A.R.L., telling a Patent Trial and Appeals Board panel that key claims in the patents are obvious in light of prior inventions.”

These are software patents. If Google wants things to shift in its favour, perhaps it’s time to put some effort into battling patents on software, not amassing software patents as it currently does. Since the US increasingly turns against software patents (owing to the Alice case and widely-cited SCOTUS ruling), this is not a futile battle. █

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