• Distributions
• Devices/Embedded

Windows 10 calls home a lot; Russia hikes tech tax and intends to switch to Linux

When it comes to high tech, American companies dominate the Russian market and, perhaps not surprisingly, that doesn’t site well with the Russian government which would prefer to see homegrown offerings such as Yandex and Mail.ru get more market traction. The consequence, according to Bloomberg, is a plan by the Russian government to increase the taxes the American tech giants by 18 percent.

Unixstickers sent me a package!

There’s an old, popular saying, beware geeks bearing gifts. But in this case, I was pleased to see an email in my inbox, from unixstickers.com, asking me if I was interested in reviewing their products. I said ye, and a quick few days later, there was a surprise courier-delivered envelope waiting for me in the post. Coincidentally – or not – the whole thing happened close enough to the 2015 end-of-the-year holidays to classify as poetic justice.

On a slightly more serious note, Unixstickers is a company shipping T-shirts, hoodies, mugs, posters, pins, and stickers to UNIX and Linux aficionados worldwide. Having been identified one and acquired on the company’s PR radar, I am now doing a first-of-a-kind Dedoimedo non-technical technical review of merchandise related to our favorite software. So not sure how it’s gonna work out, but let’s see.

Linux goes to Washington: How the White House/Linux Foundation collaboration will work

No doubt by now you’ve heard about the Obama Administration’s newly announced Cybersecurity National Action Plan (CNAP). You can read more about it on CIO.com here and here.

But what you may not know is that the White House is actively working with the Linux and open source community for CNAP. In a blog post Jim Zemlin, the executive director of the Linux Foundation said, “In the proposal, the White House announced collaboration with The Linux Foundation’s Core Infrastructure Initiative (CII) to better secure Internet ‘utilities’ such as open-source software, protocols and standards.”

Why Linux?

Linux may inspire you to think of coders hunched over their desks (that are littered with Mountain Dew cans) while looking at lines of codes, faintly lit by the yellow glow of old CRT monitors. Maybe Linux sounds like some kind of a wild cat and you have never heard the term before. Maybe you have use it every day. It is an operating system loved by a few and misrepresented to many.

These 3 things are trying to kill Linux containers

For nearly two years, Linux containers have dominated the world of enterprise IT, and for good reason — among others, they take on issues that virtualization simply cannot within application development and computing at scale and allow for the enterprise world to truly embrace concepts like devops and microservices (the Service Oriented Architecture dream from years gone by). That sound you hear is IT vendors stampeding towards the container bandwagon, but, as with every emerging tech trend, this isn’t always a good thing, as not everyone is walking the walk, regardless of what the business might actually say.

Desktop

• Do we need to make better and up-to-date ports of open source Linux apps to Windows and Mac to popularize the Linux desktop?

  Many Linux apps, regardless of whether they are written in Gtk or Qt, have beautiful design and are much more functional than their Windows counterparts. Examples include Rhythmbox, Brasero, Nautilus, and GNOME Desktop(please don’t kill me). However, due to the Linux desktop not gaining majority market share, the people around the world who use computers are not getting the quality of software they deserve. And developers worldwide are not getting the audience they deserve.

• Preliminary Specifications Revised For The Talos Secure Workstation

Kernel Space

• Linux kernel bug delivers corrupt TCP/IP data to Mesos, Kubernetes, Docker containers

  The Linux Kernel has a bug that causes containers that use veth devices for network routing (such as Docker on IPv6, Kubernetes, Google Container Engine, and Mesos) to not check TCP checksums. This results in applications incorrectly receiving corrupt data in a number of situations, such as with bad networking hardware. The bug dates back at least three years and is present in kernels as far back as we’ve tested. Our patch has been reviewed and accepted into the kernel, and is currently being backported to -stable releases back to 3.14 in different distributions (such as Suse, and Canonical). If you use containers in your setup, I recommend you apply this patch or deploy a kernel with this patch when it becomes available. Note: Docker’s default NAT networking is not affected and, in practice, Google Container Engine is likely protected from hardware errors by its virtualized network.

• Performance problems

  Just over a year ago I implemented an optimization to the SPI core code in Linux that avoids some needless context switches to a worker thread in the main data path that most clients use. This was really nice, it was simple to do but saved a bunch of work for most drivers using SPI and made things noticeably faster. The code got merged in v4.0 and that was that, I kept on kicking a few more ideas for optimizations in this area around but that was that until the past month.

• Linux 4.5-rc4

  It’s Valentine’s day, so here I am, making a valentine for everybody in the form of the usual rc release.

  Things look fairly normal – there’s some pending and yet unexplained problem with some of the VM changes in this release cycle (the transparent huge-page cleanups in particular), but at least for now it seems to be s390-specific, so it shouldn’t hold up testing for anybody else.

• Linus Torvalds Announces a Valentine’s Day Linux Kernel 4.5 Release Candidate 4

  Another week has passed and it’s once again Sunday afternoon here in the US, which means that Linus Torvalds has prepared yet another RC (Release Candidate) build of the upcoming Linux 4.5 kernel.

• Linux 4.5-rc4 Is A Valentine’s Day Kernel

  Linus Torvalds has announced the release today of the Linux 4.5-rc4 kernel.

  Linux 4.5-rc4 remains rather a normal release and comes with a number of AMDGPU DRM fixes, Btrfs fixes, audio tweaks, and more.

• Linux Kernel 3.2.77 LTS Has Crypto, x86, and CIFS Improvements, Updated Drivers

  Linux kernel maintainer and developer Ben Hutchings was happy to announce this past weekend the release and immediate availability for download and update of the seventy-seventh maintenance build of the long-term supported Linux 3.2 kernel.

• New FD.io Open Source Project Offers IO Services Framework for Network and Storage Software

  The newly launched FD.io (“Fido”) initiative is an open source project to provide an IO services framework for the next wave of network and storage software. The project is also announcing the availability of its initial software and formation of a validation testing lab.

• Graphics Stack

  • Compute Shader Code Begins Landing For Gallium3D

    Samuel Pitoiset began pushing his Gallium3D Mesa state tracker changes this morning for supporting compute shaders via the GL_ARB_compute_shader extension.

    Before getting too excited, the hardware drivers haven’t yet implemented the support. It was back in December that core Mesa received its treatment for compute shader support and came with Intel’s i965 driver implementing CS.

  • Libav Finally Lands VDPAU Support For Accelerated HEVC Decoding

    While FFmpeg has offered hardware-accelerated HEVC decoding using NVIDIA’s VDPAU API since last summer, this support for the FFmpeg-forked libav landed just today.

    In June was when FFmpeg added support to its libavcodec for handling HEVC/H.265 video decoding via NVIDIA’s Video Decode and Presentation API for Unix interface. Around that same time, developer Philip Langdale who had done the FFmpeg patch, also submitted the patch for Libav for decoding HEVC content through VDPAU where supported.

  • More Nouveau GL4 Feature Patches Published

  • It Looks Like AMD Will Support FreeSync With Their New Linux Display Stack

    While NVIDIA has long supported G-SYNC on Linux as their adaptive sync technology for eliminating screen tearing, AMD hasn’t supported their FreeSync tech via their open or closed-source Linux drivers. Fortunately, it’s looking like that will change.

  • Got tearing with proprietary NVIDIA? Try this.

    If you’re using a reasonably modern NVIDIA graphics card on your Linux box with the proprietary driver, there’s a fair chance you may encounter that nasty thing called ‘screen tearing’. There is a little setting worth trying in NVIDIA’s blob driver called ‘ForceCompositionPipeline’ that can severely reduce tearing to a minimum, perhaps even completely. Here’s how to do it.

  • R600g+SI Dota 2 Benchmarks With Mesa 11.2, Linux 4.5 Show Open Driver Progress

    With now having a workaround for Dota 2 for my benchmarking needs, here are some benchmarks finally of this popular multiplayer online battle arena under Linux when using the R600g and RadeonSI Gallium3D drivers with the latest Linux 4.5 and Mesa 11.2 components.

  • Prevent Horizontal Tearing for NVidia GPUs on KDE Plasma

  • AMDGPU’s xf86-video-amdgpu vs. Mode-Setting DDX Performance

  • VIA OpenChrome X.Org Driver Getting Ready For First Release In Over Two Years

    With a new developer stepping up to the plate, it’s looking like the OpenChrome DDX driver will see its first release in more than two and a half years.

    For those still relying upon the OpenChrome X.Org driver for VIA x86 graphics hardware support, Kevin Brace is hoping to soon release a new version. Kevin started a new mailing list thread to encourage interested VIA hardware enthusiasts to begin testing the latest driver code and reporting their feedback.

• Benchmarks

  • Radeon vs. Nouveau Gallium3D Driver Performance On Mesa 11.2-dev, Linux 4.5

    Here are some fresh comparison benchmarks on Linux 4.5 and Mesa 11.2 when comparing the Radeon and Nouveau (NVIDIA) open-source Linux driver performance.

    Following on from the Nouveau vs. NVIDIA comparison using the latest code and the AMDGPU/Radeon vs. Proprietary Driver benchmarks on the latest code, here are some Radeon vs. Nouveau results using the Linux 4.5 kernel with Mesa 11.2 Git code for a bleeding-edge experience. The NVIDIA hardware tested for this article included the GeForce GTX 460, GTX 550 Ti, GTX 650, GTX 680, and GTX 780 Ti. With all of the NVIDIA GeForce 600/700 Kepler graphics cards, they were re-clocked to their highest power-state manually prior to testing. Unfortunately, there still isn’t any working GeForce 400/500 Fermi re-clocking support with this open-source driver.

Applications

• SOGo v3.0.0 released

  After about 1.5 year of development, Inverse is extremely happy to announce the immediate availability of SOGo v3.0! This release is considered ready for production use.

• Tupi 0.2 revision git06 (Kunumi)

  After a year without significant activity, this release has an special meaning not only because it represents the continuity of the project but our strong intention of making of Tupi a professional tool for educational and young artists communities around the world.

• [RetroShare] Release notes for final 0.6.0

  v0.6.0 is now considered final. This post summarizes the main lines of work since the release of 0.6.0-RC2 (last june).

• OpenShot 2.0.6 (Beta 3) Released!

• OpenShot 2.0 Beta Is Now Available for Public Testing

  The update is the third full beta release of the revamped video editor but only the first to made available for public testing.

  Backers of the OpenShot crowdfunding campaign have been able to use beta builds of the hugely revamped non-linear video editor since January.

• Atom 1.5.0 Has Been Released

  Atom is an open-source, multi-platform text editor developed by GitHub, having a simple and intuitive graphical user interface and a bunch of interesting features for writing: CSS, HTML, JavaScript and other web programming languages. Among others, it has support for macros, auto-completion a split screen feature and it integrates with the file manager.

• HPLIP 3.16.2 Brings Support For Debian 8.3, Linux Mint 17.3 And New Printers

  As you may know, HP Linux Imaging and Printing (HPLIP) is a tool for printing, scanning and faxing for the HP printers.

• Ixion 0.11.0

  Version 0.11.0 of the Ixion library has been just released. You can download it from the project’s home page.

• VLC 2.2.2 media player Weatherwax is here

  VLC development has been fairly invisible during the last year. It took ten months since the previous 2.2.1 release to produce a new egg. Here it is finally: the next stable release. The version 2.2.2 “fixes numerous security issues, notably in the MP4, RealRtsp and Sparkle modules, but also important crashes for the MXF, ADPCM, Telextext, Skins and Qt modules. It also improves our codec support by adding new formats and providing faster decompression. More than 100 fixes for issues reported for 2.2.1” according to the release notes.

• 42 Best Free Linux Audio Software

  There is a huge range of open source free audio software available for Linux which is both mature and feature-laden. Linux has all the tools needed to be a serious contender in music production without a user having to venture into the commercial software world. Linux is a superior platform for professional audio production: rock solid, efficient, and you don’t get fleeced for software licenses. Software that creates music can often be expensive. The heavyweight Cubase, Apple LogicPro, FL Studio, Adobe Audition, and Sony ACID Pro are all impressive software music production environments. Unfortunately, they cost hundreds of dollars and are released under a proprietary software license. Fortunately, there is a good range of open source software that lets you produce professional quality recordings.

  The Linux platform has also matured into a great way of listening to streaming music services. There are clients available for most of the music streaming services. There are also lots of useful audio tools.

• Scribus 1.5.1 Free DTP Software Release Paves the Way for a Rock-Solid 1.6 Build

  The development team behind the powerful, cross-platform, free, and open-source Scribus desktop publishing software has been pleased to announce the release and immediate availability for download of Scribus 1.5.1.

• Zaphod – a LaTeX change tracking tool

• Proprietary

  • Now You Can Use uTorrent Without Ads, Thanks To New Subscription Model

    In the past, the parent company Bittorrent Inc. has relied on an ad-based revenue model to keep uTorrent up and running, but now they have realized the need for a premium experience for the users by charging a nominal amount. Until now, bundled software that hides inside the uTorrent installation package has only consumed space on your computer. The development team is well aware of this issue and that’s why they have come up with the ad-free uTorrent.

• Instructionals/Technical

  • 100 ways to master the command line – Part 2

  • Install PHP 7 on CentOS, RHEL or Fedora

  • Video: Drupal 8 Beginner’s Course

  • Setup Swift as Glance backend on RDO Liberty (CentOS 7.2)

  • Install Flarum on an Ubuntu 14.04 VPS

  • A Beginners Guide To The Nano Editor

  • How To Disable Touchpad While Writing Article Or Documentation In Ubuntu/Linux Mint Or Derivatives Linux

    I am a blogger so most of my time goes in writing articles and tutorials. One problem that I have been facing while typing is that my palm comes in contact with the touchpad and the cursor moves somewhere else on the screen or editor and my article is all messed up. I even have to rethink and rewrite sometime when many lines have got deleted due to this problem. But finally I have found the solution to this problem. Here is how you can fix this.

  • How To Secure Nginx on Ubuntu 14.04

  • Three tools to scan a Linux server for Malware and Rootkits

  • How to install Sylius on Debian 8

  • Making a Non-Spamming Alert using Diff

  • [Short Tip] Use Red Hat Satellite 6 as an inventory resource in Ansible

  • Non-root GPU passthrough setup

  • How To Install Atom 1.6.0 Beta 0 On Ubuntu Systems

  • How to Install Atom 1.5.0 on Fedora 22, Fedora 21 and CentOS 7

  • How to Install Kolab Groupware Server on CentOS 7

  • Understanding Linux w command with examples

  • How to install LiteSpeed web server on CentOS 7

  • How to use Mysql Workbench over MariaDB

  • Hardening Debian for the Desktop Using Grsecurity

  • Backing Up Only Recent Files

  • How To Export & Import Zotero Library

  • Install Remote Desktop Ubuntu Server with X2go | Install X2go ubuntu

  • Three tools to scan a Linux server for Malware and Rootkits

  • LibreOffice 5.1.0 Available via PPA for Ubuntu/Linux Mint

  • Build your own YouTube-like platform in 45 minutes or less

  • How to Setup and Configure Network Bonding or Teaming in RHEL/CentOS 7 – Part 11

• Wine or Emulation

  • Stella 4.7.1 Free Atari 2600 VCS Emulator Improves TV “Jitter” Emulation

    Stella developers announced this past weekend the immediate availability for download of the first point release in the Stella 4.7 series of the free, open-source and cross-platform Atari 2600 VCS emulator.

• Games

  • A Closer Look At Steam For Linux’s Vulnerabilities And How They Affect Windows

    Steam has a large user base — to put it lightly — so if there’s something wrong with the Steam client, users should know about it and even better, such problems should be fixed as soon as possible. Recently, a few supposed vulnerabilities were discovered in the Linux Steam client… but are they really a problem?

  • Steam And Linux Gaming Poised To Thrive As Vulkan API Will Come Gunning For DirectX

  • The Dota 2 Performance On The Latest NVIDIA Linux Graphics Drivers

    If you are a Linux gamer and not using the open-source Radeon driver with an AMD GPU, chances are your Linux gaming system is running a GeForce graphics card with the proprietary NVIDIA driver. So with yesterday’s latest Dota 2 benchmarks with the R600g and RadeonSI drivers, this morning I finished up some complementary Dota 2 OpenGL comparison with the NVIDIA 361.28 proprietary driver with an assortment of Kepler and Maxwell GeForce graphics cards.

  • Street Fighter V will release on Linux & SteamOS this Spring time

    The wait is nearly over to have Street Fighter V on Linux & SteamOS. The developers have confirmed it will be available for us this Spring.

Desktop Environments/WMs

• K Desktop Environment/KDE SC/Qt

  • Season of KDE (3) – KDE Action Restrictions

    To have a working KIOSK tool again, Confine needs to support another key feature of the KIOSK framework: KDE Action Restrictions.

  • GCompris on iPad

  • GCompris: Patreon and New Logo

    A few days ago, I created a page on Patreon to support my work on making new graphics on GCompris. As you may know, last year I started this project, and could make a good start thanks to a little crowd-funding campaign. However there’s a lot of remaining work to finish the task. A lot of activities need to be updated, and new activities will always need some new design and graphics.

  • KDE Applications 16.04 Schedule finalized

    Dependency freeze is in 4 weeks and Feature Freeze in 6 weeks, so hurry up!

  • Launching docs.krita.org: the Krita Learning Place!

• GNOME Desktop/GTK

  • GNOME: Maps shaping up for 3.20

    So, we’re soon approaching the UI freeze for GNOME 3.20. It’s looking quite good when it comes to OpenStreetMap editing in Maps (among other things).

    But first I thought I was going to show-case another improvement, namely the expanded place bubbles (show information about places you search for on the map).

  • GNOME Maps Is Looking Better In GNOME 3.20

    While not yet as versatile as say Google Maps, GNOME Maps for GNOME 3.20. is looking to be a nice upgrade.

    Maps in GNOME 3.20 is making progress with OpenStreetMap editing, expanded place bubbles, adding new places to OSM, support for printing routes, and more.

  • GNOME Maps 3.20 to Allow for OpenStreetMap Editing

    GNOME 20 is almost upon us, and it’s going to be a really impressive release, especially since many of its components are getting important upgrades, like GNOME Maps, for example.

  • My Updated 3.18 Packages for GNOME Extensions

    I started releasing extension updates in 2014 due to a lot of extensions being unmaintained and seemingly break every time GNOME releases a new version of the Desktop Environment (DE). This is my third batch release post for GNOME extensions and these extension packages are for GNOME 3.18.

Distributions

• Distro Wars: It’s All Linux

  This is likely a topic covered plenty of times, and as such I won’t make this a too in-depth article, but I feel it’s something always worth reiterating and remembering that no matter what distribution of Linux (or GNU/Linux if you prefer) you use… it’s all Linux.

  You only have to whiz around the internet in message boards, YouTube comments and the like in regards to any Linux topic and you’ll probably come across a “distro war” often enough. It can happen easy enough – someone mentions their distro of choice, someone else then mentions theirs and then comparisons start. From there, with personal experiences being shared, which quite frankly can differ quite a bit depending on one’s hardware, software choices (or sometimes even luck) a discussion can quite quickly descend into a flame war over ‘my distro is better than your distro’.

• Reviews

  • RebeccaBlackOS 2016-02-08 Review. Why? Because it’s Friday.

    These are the types of problems found in an independent distro build from scratch. I cannot understand how a system built on Debian could be this buggy and apparently have zero VM support which Debian comes with by default. I can take some solace in the fact that it was built by one person and that one person is a Rebecca Black fan but as far as a Linux Distribution is concerned there is not much here. Some could say “Well its not supposed to be taken as a serious Distribution.” True except it is listed and kept up with on DistroWatch therefor it should be held as a system ready distribution especially when it was not released as a beta or an RC. If this distribution is ever going to be considered a real platform it has a long way to go. I give it about as many thumbs down as the Rebecca Black Friday video.

• New Releases

  • Welcome to Parsix GNU/Linux 8.5r0 Release Notes

    Parsix GNU/Linux is a live and installation DVD based on Debian. Our goal is to provide a ready to use and easy to install desktop and laptop optimized operating system based on Debian’s stable branch and the latest stable release of GNOME desktop environment. Users can easily install extra software packages from Parsix APT repositories. Our annual release cycle consists of two major and four minor versions. We have our own software repositories and build servers to build and provide all the necessary updates and missing features in Debian stable branch.

  • Parsix GNU/Linux 8.5 (Atticus) Officially Released, Based on Debian 8 “Jessie”

    The development team of the Debian-based Parsix GNU/Linux computer operating system has announced today, February 14, 2016, the release and immediate availability for download of Parsix GNU/Linux 8.5r0.

  • 4MParted 16.0 Distrolette Ships with GParted 0.25.0, Now Ready for Beta Testing

    Zbigniew Konojacki, the developer of the 4MLinux project, has sent us an email earlier today, February 14, 2016, informing Softpedia about the availability for download and testing of his 4MParted 16.0 Beta Live CD.

  • Zorin OS 11 Lite & Business Get Valentine’s Day Release for Windows Refugees

    Only ten days after the release of the Zorin OS 11 Core and Ultimate editions, the development team of the Windows lookalike Linux-based operating system are proud to announce the release of the Lite and Business flavors.

    While the Zorin OS 11 Lite Edition is based on the Lubuntu 15.10 (Wily Werewolf) operating system and built around the lightweight LXDE desktop environment, Zorin OS 11 Business is pretty much the same as the Ultimate Edition, but with more advanced tools and improved hardware support.

• PCLinuxOS/Mageia/Mandriva Family

  • Sound problems in Mageia 5

    Long time ago, I experienced a problem with the sound in Mageia 5. Some videos would play without sound after I applied an update.

    Back then, I discovered the problem was caused because ffmpeg had been updated but, I never found out why, the tainted repository did not pick up the correct package, so I was using the common ffmpeg package, not the tainted version that allows me to play sound for the videos.

• Arch Family

  • Manjaro Update 2016-02-13 (stable)

    I’m happy to announce our eighth update of Manjaro 15.12 (Capella)!

    With this we updated eric, flightgear, firefox, haskell, jdk8, calamares, linux42 and the free intel driver.

  • Manjaro Linux 15.12 (Capella) Receives Its Eighth Update with Linux Kernel 4.4.1

    The Manjaro Linux development team, through Philip Müller, was happy to announce this past weekend the general availability of the eighth update for their stable Manjaro Linux 15.12 (Capella) operating system.

• Slackware Family

  • LibreOffice 5.1.0 for slackware-current

    The Document Foundation statement about this release: “LibreOffice 5.1 represents the bleeding edge in term of features for open source office suites, and as such is targeted at technology enthusiasts, early adopters and power users. For enterprise class deployments, TDF maintains the more mature 5.0.x branch (soon at 5.0.5)“.

  • taper.alienbase.nl mirror will lose rsync access

    For the sixth time in just 5 days I had do a system_reset on my virtual machine which runs “taper.alienbase.nl” as well as “docs.slackware.com“. The virtual machine is crashing under the load that is put on it by demanding rsync processes. According to my pal who donated the use of this VM to me for free, the rsync download rate is at a continuous 100 Mbit/sec for most of the time. This is apparently too much for the server, as well as for my pal who had not anticipated this kind of bandwidth consumption. He has been paying quite a bit of extra money for the excess bandwidth during the past months.

• Red Hat Family

  • Red Hat Inc (RHT) Position Raised by Chevy Chase Trust Holdings

    Chevy Chase Trust Holdings raised its stake in shares of Red Hat Inc (NYSE:RHT) by 4.9% during the fourth quarter, according to its most recent 13F filing with the SEC. The fund owned 407,946 shares of the open-source software company’s stock after buying an additional 19,132 shares during the period. Chevy Chase Trust Holdings’ holdings in Red Hat were worth $33,782,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

  • Market View On Red Hat, Inc. (NYSE:RHT)

    Few brokerages covering Red Hat, Inc. (NYSE:RHT) have recently released its earnings and stock price target. As per the experts, the stock can touch 89.63 in the coming twelve months. The company’s earnings in the past one year was recorded at 1.03 per share. Now, in the coming quarter, First Call anticipates the company to deliver EPS of 0.50. The EPS estimates for the ongoing fiscal and the next year is reported to come at 1.86 and 2.19 respectively.

• Debian Family

  • Debian LTS Work January 2016

    This was my ninth month as a Freexian sponsored LTS contributor. I was assigned 8 hours for the month of January.

    My time this month was spent preparing updates for clamav and the associated libclamunrar for squeeze and wheezy. For wheezy, I’ve only helped a little, mostly I worked on squeeze.

  • Reproducible builds: week 42 in Stretch cycle

    What happened in the reproducible builds effort between February 7th and February 13th 2016:

  • Freexian’s report about Debian Long Term Support, January 2016

    Like each month, here comes a report about the work of paid contributors to Debian LTS.

  • I love Free Software Day 2016: Show your love for Free Software

    Today February 14th, the Free Software Foundation Europe (FSFE) celebrates the “I Love Free Software” day. I Love Free Software day is a day for Free Software users to appreciate and thank the contributors of their favourite software applications, projects and organisations.

  • Derivatives

    • Tails 2.0 Debian-Based Linux OS Will Keep You Anonymous Online

      Tails, a Live operating system that is built for the declared purpose of keeping users safe and anonymous while going online, is now at version 2.0.1 and is ready for download.

    • Canonical/Ubuntu

      • Early Ubuntu 14.04 vs. Ubuntu 16.04 Intel Xeon E5 Benchmarks

        This morning I posted some Ubuntu 14.04 vs. 16.04 LTS Radeon graphics benchmarks while if open-source AMD graphics driver evolution doesn’t get you excited, in this article are results from other non-graphics benchmarks in comparing the Ubuntu 14.04 vs. 16.04 performance for these long-term support releases in their current form.

        For getting an idea how the overall Ubuntu Linux performance has evolved over the past two years for those solely riding Long-Term Support releases, I compared the performance of Ubuntu 14.04.0 to Ubuntu 16.04 LTS in its current daily ISO form. The tests were done on the same Intel Xeon E5-2687W v3 (Haswell) system with MSI X99S SLI PLUS motherboard, 16GB of RAM, and AMD FirePro V7900 graphics.

      • ‘Android OEMs Will Ship Ubuntu Phones This Year’, Say Canonical

        Several Android phone makers will release Ubuntu phones this year, Canonical’s CEO has revealed.

      • Meizu Pro 5 Ubuntu prospect for February 22 launch

        In September last year Meizu officially introduced the Pro 5 flagship, an Android smartphone running the 5.1 Lollipop-based Flyme OS 5.0. Although Android and iOS are the dominant operating platforms there are always those who want to try something different. Now there’s a Meizu Pro 5 Ubuntu prospect for a February 22 launch.

      • Meizu teases new Ubuntu device for MWC 2016

        Chinese smartphone manufacture Meizu will likely unveil a new Ubuntu-powered phone at the Mobile World Congress next week. The company recently released a teaser that suggests the same, although it doesn’t reveal anything specific about the device.

      • Meizu Might Unveil a New Ubuntu Phone Device at MWC 2016

        Meizu, the popular Chinese consumer electronics company, which most Ubuntu users better know for its awesome Meizu MX4 Ubuntu Edition smartphone, has teased us earlier on Twitter with what it would appear to be the launch of a new device.

      • Flavours and Variants

        • Ubuntu Studio 16.04 Wallpaper Contest

          This poll is for the selection of 16 desktop wallpapers for Ubuntu Studio 16.04.

Devices/Embedded

• Another new Raspbian release

• How do geeks control their lights?

  We made this setup to test our capabilities to control Arduino with Raspberry Pi in our upcoming big project. We did not have spare keyboard and screen for RPi, so we ended up ssh-ing into the Pi via Wi-Fi router.

• How To Start A Pirate FM Radio Station Using Your Raspberry Pi

  Continuing our Raspberry DIY series, we are here with a simple tutorial that tells you how to start your own pirate FM station using Raspberry Pi. Take a look and broadcast your tunes — anytime, anywhere.

• Embedded 14nm Atom x5-E8000 debuts on Congatec boards

  Intel released several new 14nm Atom SoCs, including an embedded, quad-core x5-E8000 part with 5W TDP, now available in four Congatec boards.

  Intel released the Atom x5-E8000, the first truly embedded system-on-chip using its 14nm Airmont architecture. Airmont is also the design that fuels Intel’s Celeron N3000 “Braswell” SoCs and its mobile-focused Atom x5 and x7 Z8000 “Cherry Trail” SoCs. The x5-E8000 is the heir to the 22nm Bay Trail generation Atom E3800 family.

• Linux-Based Low-Latency Multichannel Audio System

  Audio system based on BeagleBone Green (TI AM335X) and AD1938 audio codec by Analog Devices with 2 stereo inputs and 4 stereo outputs

• Phones

  • Tizen

    • Tizen 3.0 on the Raspberry Pi 2

      The Samsung Open Source Group is currently in the process of porting Tizen 3.0 to the Raspberry Pi 2 (RPi2). Our goal is to create a device capable of running a fully-functional Tizen 3.0 operating system, and we chose the RPi2 because it is the most popular single-board computer with more than 5 million sold. There are numerous Linux Distributions that run on the RPi2 including Raspbian, Pidora, Ubuntu, OSMC, and OpenElec , and we will add Tizen to this lineup. We face a number of obstacles in accomplishing this, but we hope this will serve as a model for bringing Tizen to a broader range of hardware platforms.

  • Android

    • PPSSPP, the Best Free PSP Emulator, Gets 64-Bit Android Support in Version 1.2

      Remember PPSSPP? It’s the best free PSP (PlayStation Portable) emulator software available right now, and today, February 14, 2016, it has been updated to version 1.2 for all supported operating systems.

    • Verizon rolls out Android 6.0 Marshmallow for Droid Turbo 2

      Verizon has begun rolling out the latest Android 6.0 Marshmallow upgrade for the Motorola Droid Turbo 2. The release comes two months after the initial soak test began, and it brings a whole host of improvements and new features.

      Marshmallow for the Droid Turbo 2 isn’t too dissimilar to Google’s stock software on the latest Nexus smartphones. It packs big additions like Google Now on Tap, Doze, and revamped app permissions — plus small but welcome improvements like better volume controls.

    • Samsung Galaxy Note 5 International Giveaway!

      Welcome to the Sunday Giveaway, the place where we giveaway a new Android phone or tablet each and every Sunday!

    • Moto G (2014) Android 6.0 Marshmallow Update Begins Rolling Out

    • At last, BlackBerry launches android phones in Nigeria

    • This underrated Android feature crushes the iPhone in one key area

      The ability to give our phones a big chunk of battery life in a short amount of time is key, as charging them for long periods of time, like we might overnight, can damage them permanently.

      If we want to do it properly, we need to charge them whenever we can throughout the day and keep them charged around 40% to 80% to prevent permanent damage.

    • MyShake Android App Helps Detect Earthquakes

    • What Are The Best Android N Features To Expect? Multi-Window Mode, Stylus Support, OpenJDK And More

    • 5 Android apps and games you shouldn’t miss this week! – Apps Weekly

    • New Android App Turns Smartphones Into Earthquake Detectors

    • BlackBerry 10 Android Runtime Update: Fixes Android Uninstall Bug For BB10

    • Maru OS auf dem Nexus 5 (deutsch)

    • 3 Ways of Managing Parental Control on Android

      Gone are the days when smartphones or tablets were just for adults. Children and teens now have almost unrestricted access to those devices and, with Internet access becoming easier as the days go by, this means that there is more to worry about in terms of what kids do on their mobile devices, both online and offline.

    • Maru os takes convergence in a different direction

      There are several attempts at turning a mobile phone into a viable computer. Ubuntu Convergence and Mircosoft’s Continuum are the main ones in this field, but not the only. Maru OS is taking the idea in a different direction.

      Its common knowledge now that your average mobile phone has as much power as a standard desktop PC from between 2000 and 2010. If leveraged right, they can replace PC’ and laptops for most people, but only if it works as a laptop or desktop.

      Before we get to Maru OS, we will look at the attempts at this ideal which have come first.

    • Top Android apps for your Raspberry Pi

      Mostly, our tutorials are about completing a specific project and reaching a particular goal. However, this time we’re doing something a bit different. We are showing you some Android apps that you can use along with your Ras Pi. These apps aren’t tied to particular projects – you can use them whenever and as often as you like – but we think they can add something to your whole experience with the Pi.

      Some of the apps in our list are Pi-specific, while others are more general but have a Pi relevance. Chances are you might already know or use one or two, but we hope that you can discover something new from the selection on offer. If you have an Android phone or tablet and have not explored the range of apps available for your Raspberry Pi, you might be missing out on some cool and very useful options.

    • Microsoft wants Office apps on all Android phones [Ed: and uses extortion with patents to make it so]

    • MyShake: Android quake app now available on Google Play Store

    • Android app turns your phone into an earthquake detector

    • WhatsApp Android update with new emojis to be available in India soon

    • How to find a lost or stolen Android gadget

    • DROID Turbo 2 Receiving Update to Android 6.0 Marshmallow (Updated)

    • Android N features: everything confirmed, rumored and expected

    • Don’t Miss These Android Stories: February 13, 2016

    • Original Moto 360 Smartwatch Getting Android Wear Marshmallow Treat

    • Chipotle’s Free Burrito Coupon Uses The “Save To Android Pay” Button, Something I Wish Was More Common

    • Top Android apps for your Raspberry Pi

      Mostly, our tutorials are about completing a specific project and reaching a particular goal. However, this time we’re doing something a bit different. We are showing you some Android apps that you can use along with your Ras Pi. These apps aren’t tied to particular projects – you can use them whenever and as often as you like – but we think they can add something to your whole experience with the Pi.

Events

• A Selection of Talks from FOSDEM 2016

  It’s that time of the year where I go to FOSDEM (Free and Open Source Software Developers’ European Meeting). The keynotes and the maintracks are very good, with good presentations and contents.

• Tech experts guide workshop on open source software

  “The potential of open-source software is huge. For instance, a lot of people in our country cannot afford to purchase MS Office because they are very expensive. OSS can be a boon to people in software development and even in the field of education in general,” said Lalit Kathpalia, director of Symbiosis Institute of Computer Science and Research (SICSR), which organised the seminar along with the Pune Linux Users Group.

Web Browsers

• Mozilla

  • Expect A 20% Rise In Your RAM Usage As Multi-process Feature Is Coming To Firefox

    Stepping up its game in the war of browsers, Mozilla is moving ahead to bring multi-process architecture in Firefox this April. While users are having reservations about the resultant RAM increase, a Mozilla engineer has performed benchmarking tests and claimed that users will notice a memory hike between 10% to 20%.

Education

• Open source is now ready to compete with Mathematica for use in the classroom

  When I think about what makes SageMath different, one of the most fundamental things is that it was created by people who use it every day. It was created by people doing research math, by people teaching math at universities, and by computer programmers and engineers using it for research. It was created by people who really understand computational problems because we live them. We understand the needs of math research, teaching courses, and managing an open source project that users can contribute to and customize to work for their own unique needs.

• The scarcity of college graduates with FOSS experience

  In the education track at SCALE 14x in Pasadena, Gina Likins spoke about the surprisingly difficult task of getting information about open-source development practices into undergraduate college classrooms. That scarcity makes it hard to find new college graduates who have experience with open source. Although the conventional wisdom is that open source “is everywhere,” the college computer-science (CS) or software-engineering (SE) classroom has proven to be a tough nut to crack—and may remain so for quite some time.

  Likins works on Red Hat’s University Outreach team—a group that does not do recruiting, she emphasized. Rather, the team travels to campuses around the United States and engages with teachers, administrators, and students about open source in the classroom. The surprise is how little open source one finds, at least in CS and SE degrees. Employers expect graduates to be familiar with open-source projects and tools (e.g., using Git, bug trackers, and so forth), she said, and incoming students report expecting to find it in the curriculum, but it remains a rarity.

BSD

• Our 2016 Fundraising Campaign

  The OpenBSD Foundation needs your help to achieve our fundraising goal of $250,000 for 2016.

  Reaching this goal will ensure the continued health of the projects we support, will enable us to help them do more, and will avoid the distraction of financial emergencies that could spell the end of the projects.

  2015 was a good year for the foundation financially, with funding coming almost equally from corporate and community donations. While the total was down significantly after 2014′s blockbuster year, we again exceeded our goal.

  [...]

  If a penny was donated for every pf or OpenSSH installed with a mainstream operating system or phone in the last year we would be at our goal.

FSF/FSFE/GNU/SFLC

• Winning the copyleft fight

  Bradley Kuhn started off his linux.conf.au 2016 talk by stating a goal that, he hoped, he shared with the audience: a world where more (or most) software is free software. The community has one key strategy toward that goal: copyleft licensing. He was there to talk about whether that strategy is working, and what can be done to make it more effective; the picture he painted was not entirely rosy, but there is hope if software developers are willing to make some changes.

  Copyleft licensing is still an effective strategy, he said; that can be seen because we’ve had the chance to run a real-world parallel experiment — an opportunity that doesn’t come often. A lot of non-copyleft software has been written over the years; if proprietary forks of that software don’t exist, then it seems clear that there is no need for copyleft; we just have to look to see whether proprietary versions of non-copyleft software exist. But, he said, he has yet to find a non-trivial non-copyleft program that lacks proprietary forks; without copyleft, companies will indeed take free software and make it proprietary.

• The Trouble With the TPP, Day 27: Source Code Disclosure Confusion

  Another Trouble with the TPP is its foray into the software industry. One of the more surprising provisions in the TPP’s e-commerce chapter was the inclusion of a restriction on mandated source code disclosure. Article 14.17 states:

  No Party shall require the transfer of, or access to, source code of software owned by a person of another Party, as a condition for the import, distribution, sale or use of such software, or of products containing such software, in its territory.

• I love Free Software Day 2016

  In the Free Software society we exchange a lot of criticism. We write bug reports, tell others how they can improve the software, ask them for new features, and generally are not shy about criticising others. There is nothing wrong about that. It helps us to constantly improve. But sometimes we forget to show the hardworking people behind the software our appreciation. We should not underestimate the power of a simple “thank you” to motivate Free Software contributors in their important work for society. The 14th of February (a Sunday this year) is the ideal day to do that.

Programming

• Why I am not touching node.js [Ed: from Ferrari]

  Dear node.js/node-webkit people, what’s the matter with you?

  I wanted to try out some stuff that requires node-webkit. So I try to use npm to download, build and install it, like CPAN would do.

  But then I see that the nodewebkit package is just a stub that downloads a 37MB file (using HTTP without TLS) containing pre-compiled binaries. Are you guys out of your minds?

  This is enough for me to never again get close to node.js and friends. I had already heard some awful stories, but this is just insane.

• The next Generation of Code Hosting Platforms

  The last few weeks there has been a lot of rumors about GitHub. GitHub is a code hosting platform which tries to make it as easy as possible to develop software and collaborate with people. The main achievement from GitHub is probably to moved the social part of software development to a complete new level. As more and more Free Software initiatives started using GitHub it became really easy to contribute a bug fix or a new feature to the 3rd party library or application you use. With a few clicks you can create a fork, add your changes and send them back to the original project as a pull request. You don’t need to create a new account, don’t need to learn the tools used by the project, etc. Everybody is on the same platform and you can contribute immediately. In many cases this improves the collaboration between projects a lot. Also the ability to mention the developer of other projects easily in your pull request or issue improved the social interactions between developers and makes collaboration across different projects the default.

• Choose GitLab for your next open source project

  GitLab.com is a competitor of GIthub. It’s a service provider for git-based source code repositories that offers much more than it’s bigger brother. In this post I will try to convince you to try it out for your next project.

  GitLab is not only a simple git hosting; its features impact the whole development process, the way of contributing to a project, executing and running tests, protecting source code from changes, more and more.

• Write code that is easy to delete, not easy to extend.

  Every line of code written comes at a price: maintenance. To avoid paying for a lot of code, we build reusable software. The problem with code re-use is that it gets in the way of changing your mind later on.

  The more consumers of an API you have, the more code you must rewrite to introduce changes. Similarly, the more you rely on an third-party api, the more you suffer when it changes. Managing how the code fits together, or which parts depend on others, is a significant problem in large scale systems, and it gets harder as your project grows older.

Billion-dollar mistake: How inferior IT killed Target Canada

Additionally, the idea of trying to open an entire nation of stores, rather than opening them incrementally, was bound to fail. Scaling everything at once doesn’t allow for flaws to be discovered and mediated, but instead leads to cascading failures like the ones that overtook Target Canada’s supply chain.

Science

• I no longer understand my PhD dissertation (and what this means for Mathematics Education)

  Earlier this week I read through my PhD dissertation. My research was in an area of Pure Mathematics called Functional Analysis which, in short, meant it was self-motivated and void of tangible real-world application. I submitted the thesis in 2011 and after a successful ‘defense’ made a swift exit from research mathematics.

• Gender Bias In Open-Source Coding May Be Tech’s Latest Setback

  The researchers’ findings are published on PeerJ PrePrints’ website under the title: “Gender bias in open source: Pull request acceptance of women versus men.” A pull request happens when someone proposes changes to a project that’s hosted on GitHub.

• Women considered better coders than men

• Are women better coders than men?

• Study Suggests Women Write Better Code Than Men

• Women may write better code

• Women coders do better than men in gender-blind study

• Suck It Dudes. Science Proves Women Are Better Coders.

• Female coders are rated more highly than men—except when people know they’re women

  A group of computer scientists, when studying the acceptance of contributions on the software repository GitHub, found open source code written by women is actually more often approved than code written by men.

• What Happened When a NASA Astronaut Got Harassed on Twitter

  Time and time again, those who have been harassed on Twitter have pleaded for the social media network and law enforcement to take threats against them seriously. What has to happen, some openly wonder, to take meaningful steps to curb harassment? Well, apparently it helps if you’re an astronaut.

  In late 2013 and early 2014, Twitter, Google, and three law enforcement agencies in two countries tracked down a British woman who allegedly harassed a NASA astronaut over the course of several months in 2013, according to documents obtained by Motherboard using a Freedom of Information Act request.

Data Loss

• Vellum: UK’s last producer of calf-skin parchment fights on after losing Parliament’s business

  In the company’s original office, with its 1855 safe, overlooked by a photograph of the firm’s founding father, the general manager of parchment and vellum makers William Cowley receives a steady stream of phone calls from sympathisers and customers.

  Paul Wright tells them how parchment and vellum are “the earliest writing materials, in use since man stepped out of a cave, wrapped some skins round a few sticks to make a tepee, and started scribbling on his tent walls”. He added: “All of humankind’s history is on parchment and vellum. Magna Carta was written on parchment. The Dead Sea Scrolls: parchment, in 435BC.”

• Google is shutting down Picasa in favor of Photos

  The Picasa desktop app will continue to function, but after March 15th, you shouldn’t expect any more updates. It also sounds like the download link will be going away, so you might want to also keep the install file stashed somewhere safe.

• Google Is Shutting Down Picasa On May 1, 2016

  Google has finally decided to kill Picasa Web albums on May 1, 2016. This step was expected by many as it doesn’t make sense investing time and resources in a product similar to Google Photos.

• Changing your iPhone settings to this date will kill it

  Don’t try this at home. Changing the date on recent models of the iPhone to January 1 1970 will render it completely useless and unable to reboot.

Health/Nutrition

• Jeremy Hunt ‘misrepresenting’ data on weekend death rates at NHS hospitals, says research surgeon

  A doctor who was part of a study on links between staffing and deaths in the NHS has accused the Government of “continually misrepresenting” the findings to support its push to change junior contracts.

  Dr Peter Holt, a vascular surgeon at St George’s University of London, said he had written to Jeremy Hunt, the Health Select Committee and shadow Health Secretary Heidi Alexander raising his objection.

  In a post on the Junior Doctors contract forum Facebook group, he wrote that the research published in December “could never have shown that higher staffing on weekends reduced mortality”.

• The “tough nerd” owns this calamity: Rick Snyder’s anti-government, authoritarian ideology has been nothing but bad news for Flint

  Snyder has since won two general elections. As the world now knows, turning our state government over to a business executive who never held public office before hasn’t turned out so well. The “tough nerd” is the man who presided over a colossal, avoidable and entirely man-made public health disaster. For more than a year, more than 100,000 citizens of Flint have been exposed to a toxic water supply, laced with lead and other contaminants.

  Eight thousand children under the age of 5 who live in the city are most at risk; even at low levels, exposure to lead can cause irreversible damage to their brains. That translates, over time, into reduced intellectual capacity and higher incidence of multiple problems: attention deficit disorder, hypertension, aggressive and impulsive behavior – eventually, according to some researchers, higher rates of violent crime.

  Lead poisoning is no picnic for adults. The substance is a neurotoxin, linked to anemia, brain damage, kidney failure and reproductive disorders for both genders.

  This scandal has bodies, too. There’s been a spike in cases of Legionnaires’ disease – including 10 deaths – in and around Flint since the city’s water troubles began, nearly two years ago. The syndrome can be transmitted through mist or vapor from a contaminated water supply. High-ranking state officials knew about the outbreak in March of 2015, but Snyder didn’t say anything publicly until January 2016. “We can’t conclude the increase is related to the water switch in Flint,” said a state health department spokesperson on Feb. 3, “nor can we rule out a possible association.”

  Trust me: Nobody in Flint now trusts a word state officials have to say about water quality.

• Flint water crisis: governor’s aides knew of issues within weeks, records suggest

  Among 21,000 documents released by Michigan’s governor one shows officials due to discuss Flint ‘water issues’ in June 2014, within weeks of supply switch

• Flint: The Legionnaires Will Be What Brings Criminal Charges

  In my discussions about Flint’s water crisis, I keep pointing out that Rick Snyder was largely just making a show of responding until the US Attorney revealed it had started an investigation on January 5.

  The Detroit News has an utterly damning report today about the part of the story that gets less national attention: local and state officials started discussing an outbreak of Legionnaires disease back in October 2014, and national experts offered help as early as March 2015, but the state did not accept assistance offered by both the EPA and CDC until January.

• Detroit has highest number of abandoned homes, Flint second, website reports

  Flint, the Michigan city that is struggling with a public health crisis involving its water supply, has another issue that is threatening its future: abandoned homes, the Huffington Post reports.

  Flint had the highest rate of vacancy in February at 7.5 percent, according to a report released by RealtyTrac.

  “The real estate data company broke down the data by individual city for The Huffington Post, revealing a more extreme picture of abandonment: 9,800 homes are empty in Flint, 16.5 percent of all residential properties. At the city level, Detroit had the highest vacancy rate, with 53,000 empty houses, nearly one in five. Nationally, close to one of every 63 residential properties that RealtyTrac analyzed are vacant.”

• Flint’s problems didn’t start with water

  A third of the property in the city of Flint is vacant.

  That’s according to the Genesee County Land Bank, the organization charged with pushing back against the encroaching wave of blight that touches nearly every neighborhood in this struggling city — of 56,000 parcels in Flint, about 20,000 are empty or blighted.

  And it’s going to get worse.

Security

• Fysbis: The Linux Backdoor Used by Russian Hackers

  Fysbis (or Linux.BackDoor.Fysbis) is a new malware family that targets Linux machines, on which it sets up a backdoor that allows the malware’s author to spy on victims and carry out further attacks.

• Russian Hackers Spying On Your Linux PC Using Sophisticated Malware “Fysbis”

  A new malware family known as Fysbis (or Linux.BackDoor.Fysbis) is aiming Linux machines by setting up a backdoor that allows the malware’s author to snoop on victims and perform further attacks.

• Warning: Bug in Adobe Creative Cloud deletes Mac user data without warning

  Adobe Systems has stopped distributing a recently issued update to its Creative Cloud graphics service amid reports a Mac version can delete important user data without warning or permission.

  The deletions happen whenever Mac users log in to the Adobe service after the update has been installed, according to officials from Backblaze, a data backup service whose users are being disproportionately inconvenienced by the bug. Upon sign in, a script activated by Creative Cloud deletes the contents in the alphabetically first folder in a Mac’s root directory. Backblaze users are being especially hit by the bug because the backup service relies on data stored in a hidden root folder called .bzvol. Because the folder is the alphabetically top-most hidden folder at the root of so many users’ drives, they are affected more than users of many other software packages.

  “This caused a lot of our customers to freak out,” Backblaze Marketing Manager Yev Pusin wrote in an e-mail. “The reason we saw a huge uptick from our customers is because Backblaze’s .bzvol is higher up the alphabet. We tested it again by creating a hidden file with an ‘.a’ name, and the files inside were removed as well.”

Defence/Police/Secrecy/Aggression

• U.S. Supported Shia Militias in Iraq Lead Ethnic Cleansing

  Oh, yes, and also civil war. Here’s a preview of what to expect in Iraq after ISIS is mostly run out of the country.

  Set the scene: the country formerly known as Iraq was basically an steaming pile of ethnic/religious tension in 2003 when the U.S. invaded. It was divided among three broad groups we didn’t seem to know much about then, but damn well do now: Sunnis, Shias and Kurds. The Kurds, who always wanted to be independent, like from nearly the time of the dinosaurs always, saw their opportunity and broke away and are now essentially their own country. The Sunnis and Shia both wanted the same land and resources and freaking hate each other, and so have been fighting one another since 2003 when the post-U.S. invasion chaos unleashed them.

• “Where to Invade Next” Is the Most Subversive Movie Michael Moore Has Ever Made

  I CAN’T CLAIM this is a neutral review of Where to Invade Next, Michael Moore’s latest movie. Beyond the fact that I worked for Moore for six years, including on his previous documentary Capitalism: A Love Story, I may literally owe my life to the high-quality, zero-deductible health insurance he provides employees.

  What I’ve lost in objectivity, I’ve gained in knowledge of Moore’s career. I even know his darkest, most closely guarded secret: the original name of the 1970s alternative newspaper he started in Flint, Michigan. So I can say this for sure: Where to Invade Next is the most profoundly subversive thing he’s ever done. It’s so sneaky that you may not even notice exactly what it’s subverting.

• Deconstructing America’s ‘Deep State’

  Americans perceive what has happened to their democratic Republic only dimly, tricked by rightists who call all collective government actions bad and by neoliberals who make “markets” a new-age god. But ex-congressional budget official Mike Lofgren shows how this “Deep State” really works, writes Chuck Spinney.

• Long live Empire!

  Indians don’t care whether the statue of Queen Victoria stays put or is consigned to a junkyard. Many agree with Ferguson that the British Empire had some plus points.

• Hillary’s Admission Diplomacy Couldn’t Get Pakistan To Hand Over Bin Laden

  In last night’s debate, Sanders responded — after talking about what good friends he is with the woman who just claimed he had supported regime change — that he had supported more democracy in Libya, not regime change.

• The anti-US military base struggle in Okinawa, Japan

  Kamoshita and Aihara at their talk in London on 1 February jointly organised and hosted by Voices for Creative Non-Violence UK (VCNV), Nipponzan Myohoji and SOAS CND Society. Native Nomad Pictures Ltd./ Jason Verney. All rights reserved.Not many people outside Japan have even heard of the place called Okinawa, a semi-tropical archipelago of numerous islands with unique and invaluable biodiversity situated in the East China Sea – let alone have any knowledge of its modern history, dominated by the sequence of invasion, colonisation, war and militarisation.

• ‘ISIS militants shave beards, dress as women to escape Ramadi’

  has arrested a group of ISIS fighters when they tried to escape from the fallen city of Ramadi after shaving their beards and dressing up as women.

  “The terrorists had shaved their beards and dressed as women in a bid to fool our forces and escape the liberated city of Ramadi. However, they were all arrested before escaping the city,” the Iraqi security command was quoted as saying by ARA News.

  The Iraqi army announced on Tuesday the “full liberation” of Ramadi city, capital of Anbar province, from ISIS militants.

• The Neoconservatives Are Brewing A Wider War In Syria

  Their invasion plan frustrated, the neoconservatives sent the jihadists they had used to overthrow Gaddafi in Libya to overthrow Assad. Initially known as ISIS, then ISIL, then the Islamist State, and now Daesh, a term that can be interpreted as an insult. Perhaps the intention of the name changes is to keep the Western public thoroughly confused about who is who and what is what.

• Democrats Use Debate To Embrace History’s Warmongers

  With some important exceptions, such as the issue of regime change, Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s foreign policies were largely on the same page, as they have been throughout the campaign. Sanders joined in with the prevailing fear of Russia, praising NATO’s recent provocative amassing of troops along Russia’s border, its largest deployment since the Cold War. The candidates then went on to separately embrace two of history’s worst war mongers.

  Clinton went first. After Sanders criticized her earlier embrace of her predecessor Henry Kissinger, calling him “one of the most destructive secretaries of state in the modern history of this country,” Clinton doubled down, arguing that whatever complaints one may have of Kissinger, “his opening up of China and his ongoing relationships with the leaders of China is an incredibly useful relationship.”

  Clinton’s earlier mention of Kissinger wasn’t just name-dropping. She appears to genuinely view him as a role model while serving as Secretary of State.

• The 10 most ghoulish quotes of Henry Kissinger’s gruesome career

  Henry Kissinger’s quote released by Wikileaks, “The illegal we do immediately; the unconstitutional takes a little longer,” likely brought a smile to his legions of elite media, government, corporate and high society admirers. Oh that Henry! That rapier wit! That trademark insouciance! It is unlikely, however, that the descendants of his more than 6 million victims in Indochina, and Americans of conscience appalled by his murder of non-Americans, will share in the amusement. His illegal and unconstitutional actions had real-world consequences: the ruined lives of millions of Indochinese innocents in a new form of secret, automated U.S. executive warfare. (Read Branfman’s extended related essay on Kissinger.)

• Sanders proudly declaring “Kissinger is not my friend” totally destroys notion that Clinton’s better on foreign policy

  “I am proud to say that Henry Kissinger is not my friend. I will not take advice from Henry Kissinger,” Bernie Sanders declared in the Milwaukee presidential debate Thursday night.

  “Where the secretary and I have a very profound difference,” Sanders explained, “in her book and in this last debate, she talked about getting the approval or the support or the mentoring of Henry Kissinger. Now, I find it rather amazing, because I happen to believe that Henry Kissinger was one of the most destructive secretaries of state in the modern history of this country.”

  These are some of the most important words Sanders has ever uttered about foreign policy. And they show he is appreciably better on the issue than Hillary Clinton, in all the ways that matter.

  The historical facts make it clear that Sanders is absolutely correct; Kissinger was, hands down, one of the most destructive secretaries of state in the modern history of the U.S.

• Should Henry Kissinger Mentor a Presidential Candidate?

  At the February 11 Democratic Debate, Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton had a spirited exchange about an unlikely topic: the 92-year old former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger. Sanders berated Clinton for saying that she appreciated the foreign policy mentoring she got from Henry Kissinger. “I happen to believe,” said Sanders, “that Henry Kissinger was one of the most destructive secretaries of state in the modern history of this country.”

  In one of Sanders’ rare outbursts of enmity, he added, “I am proud to say that Henry Kissinger is not my friend. I will not take advice from Henry Kissinger. And in fact, Kissinger’s actions in Cambodia, when the United States bombed that country, overthrew Prince Sihanouk, created the instability for Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge to come in, who then butchered some three million innocent people, was one of the worst genocides in the history of the world. So count me in as somebody who will not be listening to Henry Kissinger.”

Environment/Energy/Wildlife

• Coal mining has flattened Appalachia by 40%: Scientists reveal dramatic extent of damage done by mountaintop removal

  For more than forty years, mining companies have been destroying entire mountain peaks in West Virginia, Kentucky and other areas of Central Appalachia.

  The technique, known as mountaintop mining, practice provides much-needed jobs and the steady supply of coal that America relies on for more than half of its electricity needs.

  But residents say they are paying a high price, with the practice destroying forests, polluting streams and flooding communities – and now a new study has backed up their claims.

  Scientists have found mountaintop coal mining has made parts of Central Appalachia 40 per cent flatter than they were before excavation.

Finance

• Watch Carrier Workers Find Out Their Jobs Are Moving to Mexico

  Workers at a Carrier Air Conditioner plant in Indianapolis were summoned to a group assembly this week to be told their jobs would soon be moving to Monterrey, Mexico. In all, 1,400 jobs are expected to be lost.

  [...]

  “Now the promise of America has always been you work hard, you do your job, you help your company be profitable and then in return, you hope to have a decent retirement,” he said. “So how do we tell workers who have put their whole heart and soul into a company, who have provided them with over $6.1 billion in sales, that it is not enough? I mean, the reason folks are here is because there has always been a promise: If you work hard, the company in return will stand up and do right by you. So, how is doing right having $6.1 billion in earnings and shipping 2,100 Indiana jobs off to Mexico?”

  Yellen, who has come under fire for rate hikes many fear will undermine the unemployment situation, replied: “This is a miserable and burdensome situation that many households have faced.”

• Hillary Is a High-Ranking Member of the DC Power Elite — and That’s Why She Can’t Comprehend Bernie’s Revolution

  Let me figure this out. Last year, the Clintons couldn’t believe their good fortune. They were going to face a “democratic socialist” from the marginal state of Vermont and cruise to victory. It would be a romp, with Hillary winning the primaries and then going full mainstream against a reactionary, out of touch Republican opponent on the way to the White House.

  As many commentators are saying now, a serious miscalculation was at the heart of Hillary’s plan. Clinton, Cruz, Bush, Rubio and others are all part of the wealthy elite. Although Trump is as well, he is channeling the anger of the working class American. Bernie Sanders also gets it. He knows what happened to the American dream.

  Hillary Clinton thinks, in her gut, that America is a prosperous country, and that the policies that led to our prosperity should simply be continued, that they work. But this hasn’t been true since the 1970’s, back when America was the world’s economic powerhouse, with a manufacturing base that was the envy of the world, highly paid unionized workers and a booming housing market.

• John Kasich and the Clintons Collaborated on Law That Helped Double Extreme Poverty

  Republican presidential candidate John Kasich has promoted himself both as a friend of the working poor and as a foe of Hillary Clinton, but as House Budget Committee chairman in the 1990s, he worked with the Clintons to roll back welfare programs, helping double extreme poverty in America.

  In 1996, the Clinton administration and congressional Republicans worked hand in hand to pass what they called the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act, colloquially known as “welfare reform.”

  The legislation famously “ended welfare as we know it,” replacing Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) with Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF). The newly-created TANF placed a time limit on how long the federal government would extend financial assistance to poor families.

• 7 Reasons I’m Not On Board With Uber

  It’s common practice in the tech world to rush your product to market, picking up the pieces as you go. This works fine when you’re in the business of selling ideas, or soft-serve ice cream delivery (somebody do this, please), or artisanal organic laundry service. Get it out there, apologize in advance that nothing’s perfect, do better next time. No harm done.

  Then there’s a product like Uber. Uber, if you’re just joining the conversation, is supposed to change the way city dwellers think about transportation. It’s supposed to put taxis out of business, or at least make them change their wicked ways.

• Taxes on trial

  Demands for tax justice have resounded worldwide, with inequality at historic and unsustainable levels and increased attention towards the tax practices of major multinational corporations from Google to Starbucks.

  Governments must be able to change their tax systems to ensure multinationals pay their fair share and to ensure that critical public services are well funded. States must also be able to reconsider and withdraw tax breaks previously granted to multinationals if they no longer fit with national priorities.

  But their ability to do so, to change tax laws and pursue progressive tax policies, is limited, thanks to trade and investments agreements. In rapidly developing ‘corporate courts’, formally known as investor-state dispute settlement system (or ISDS), foreign investors can sue states directly at international tribunals.

PR/AstroTurf/Lobbying

• Donald Trump Blames George W. Bush for 9/11

  “I lost hundreds of friends, the World Trade Center came down during the reign of George Bush,” Trump said, while the crowd’s boos nearly drowned him out. “That is not safe, Marco, that is not safe,”

  Trump has made this claim before, but this time Bush’s brother Jeb pushed back. “This is a man who insults his way to the nomination,” he said. “I am sick and tired of him going after my family.”

• Hillary Clinton’s Congressional Black Caucus PAC Endorsement Approved By Board Awash in Lobbyists

  Ben Branch, the executive director of the Congressional Black Caucus PAC told The Intercept that his group made the decision after a vote from its 20-member board. The board includes 11 lobbyists, seven elected officials, and two officials who work for the PAC. Branch confirmed that the lobbyists were involved in the endorsement, but would not go into detail about the process.

  Members of the CBC PAC board include Daron Watts, a lobbyist for Purdue Pharma, the makers of highly addictive opioid OxyContin; Mike Mckay and Chaka Burgess, both lobbyists for Navient, the student loan giant that was spun off of Sallie Mae; former Rep. Al Wynn, D-Md., a lobbyist who represents a range of clients, including work last year on behalf of Lorillard Tobacco, the makers of Newport cigarettes; and William A. Kirk, who lobbies for a cigar industry trade group on a range of tobacco regulations.

  And a significant percentage of the $7,000 raised this cycle by the CBC PAC was donated by white lobbyists, including Vic Fazio, who represents Philip Morris and served for years as a lobbyist to Corrections Corporation of America, and David Adams, a former Clinton aide who now lobbies for Wal-Mart, the largest gun distributor in America.

• Why Brother Bernie Is Better for Black People Than Sister Hillary

• Bernie Sanders is a Candidate for, Not of, Today’s Movements

  Yesterday, The Atlantic’s Eric Liu asked what it would take to move presidential candidate Bernie Sanders’s ambitious proposals from “we’re gonna” to “we’ve done it,” outlining seven steps to bridge the gap. First among Liu’s recommendations is a call for a “Bernie’s 30” of progressive congressional Democrats to oust Republican incumbents, throwing the weight of the Sanders campaign’s small donor base into strategic races around the country.

• ‘Bomb the Sh*t out of ‘Em’: Inside the Madness of a Donald Trump Rally

  After Roy Wood Jr., skipped out on a Donald Trump rally on Wednesday night’s “Daily Show,” I felt as if I had an itch left unscratched. So you can imagine how excited I was when another correspondent, Jordan Klepper, made the “the circus that is Donald Trump” the centerpiece of his profile on last night’s “Daily Show.” (And by some divine stroke of luck, Klepper ended up at the now-infamous rally at which Trump almost-kinda-sorta called Ted Cruz a “pussy.”)
  To build a contextual foundation, Klepper spoke to a Adam Realman (not to be confused with John Q. Sample), a Coney Island sideshow performer about the proper elements of a compelling circus act.

Censorship

• Facebook to face trial in France over nude painting – Gustave Courbet’s ‘The Origin of the World’

• Facebook Nude-Painting Case Can Face Trial in France

• What Facebook’s Policy on Nudity Means in Practice

• Court says Facebook nude painting case can be tried in France

• Facebook Nudity Policy

• Facebook in landmark censorship case after banning French user who posted naked artwork

• Facebook nude painting case can be tried in France: Court

• Facebook nude-painting case can face trial in France

• Facebook defeated in French court ruling

• Facebook loses vital legal battle over nude painting

• Facebook’s rules on nudity exposed

• Oh là là – does French ruling mean more nude pictures on Facebook?

• Facebook bans Frederic Durand-Baissas’ ‘erotic’ art post of naked woman

• Court: Facebook can be sued in France in nude painting case

• Court: Facebook’s nudity policy can face trial in France

• Facebook faces court over nude painting

• Facebook Can Be Sued for Removing Image of Nude Painting

• Nude painting case: Facebook can be tried in France, rules Paris court

• Facebook Can Be Sued for Removing Nude Painting, French Court Rules

• Facebook loses battle after user was suspended for posting painting of naked woman

• Facebook loses French ruling in nude painting case

• Court: Facebook should not have banned nude painting

• Facebook Can Now Be Sued in France in Dispute Over Nude Painting

• Nude painting furore: court rules Facebook can be sued in France

• Paris court rules against Facebook in French nudity case

• Facebook Nude Painting: Social Media User Posts Nude Art, Gets Banned. Now Case Will Go To Trial In France

• Facebook on trial in France

• Facebook can be sued in nude painting case: French court

• Suspended user to sue Facebook over nude art

• Facebook Loses Gustave Courbet Nudity Case In French Appeal Court

• Facebook vagina row will be settled in France, court says

• Facebook Nudity Policy Versus Free Speech

• Nude painting case: Facebook can be tried in France: Paris court

• Facebook can be sued over censorship of nudes, Paris court rules

• Paris Court Rules against Facebook in Painting Case

• Facebook loses legal battle, can be sued in nude painting case

• France says Facebook must face French law in nudity censorship case

• Facebook: Nude Painting Policy Nets Site Lawsuit In France

• Facebook nude painting case: French court rules against FB over female nude

• France Facebook Lawsuit Update: Paris Court Rules Over Social Media Removal Of Painting Depicting Vagina

• Facebook can be sued in France in nude painting case, court rules

• Court says Facebook nude painting case can be tried in France – Yahoo7

• French Court Rules Against Facebook in Gustave Courbet Lawsuit

• Facebook loses appeal as court rules in favor of nudity

• Paris Court Says Facebook Inc (FB) Can Be Sued in France Over Nude Image

• Cleveland Jock Quits. Accuses CBS Radio of Censorship.

• Kevin Kiley is wrong, but not about censorship

  I agree with Kevin Kiley. No, not about his thoughts on how women should remain largely on the sidelines in men’s sports. I don’t agree with those sentiments, but I do agree with his thoughts on censorship in radio. According to Kevin Kiley, CBS radio censored him after he made controversial statements about the Buffalo Bills’ hiring of Kathryn Smith to their coaching staff. Kiley told Tony Zarella on Sports Extra that he received a letter threatening his job if he continued to talk. It’s this alleged letter and all that it represents that drove me to bother talking about this at all. Kiley announced his resignation, effective at the end of February and was off the air a day later. As Kiley tells it, with each piece of criticism that he received after his sexist diatribe he was denied the opportunity to defend his point or himself. He received criticism from Mike Florio of Pro Football Talk to Mary Kay Cabot of the Cleveland Plain Dealer to name two. Kiley says that he wanted to continue to discuss it and CBS wouldn’t allow it. Even if you think Kevin Kiley is a villain in this story, I don’t think he’s alone.

• The DMCA is Broken for Filmmakers Like Me

  The Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) was signed into law by President Clinton in 1998 as an attempt to update copyright law in accordance with the changing technology of the times. Part of the legislation, Section 1201, makes it illegal to break digital locks placed on copyrighted material, even if the intended use of the work is legal.

  Starting to see some red flags?

  As a filmmaker who regularly incorporates copyrighted material into my documentaries, I sure do. Filmmakers and authors have long held the right to make fair use of copyrighted material, transforming it for uses like criticism and commentary, making arguments, and providing historical context. But the DMCA made it illegal—and, in some cases, a crime—to access this content by breaking encryption. As a result, the DMCA inadvertently chills fair use and other lawful activities that are central to free expression in a democracy and the livelihoods of other filmmakers like me. In a democracy, we cannot keep culture locked up.

  The DMCA’s built-in solution, which requires content creators and filmmakers like me to petition for an exemption to this rule every three years, is problematic in its own right. For the past several years, my Kartemquin Films colleague Jim Morrissette and I have been part of the team led by Jack Lerner and the students from his law clinic at UC Irvine, along with Chris Perez from Donaldson & Callif LLP, that demonstrates to the Copyright Office why the documentary filmmaking community should be exempt from this harmful DMCA provision. We first learned about the importance of defending fair use when we helped to create the Documentary Filmmakers’ Statement of Best Practices in Fair Use, which was coordinated by Patricia Aufderheide and Peter Jaszi from American University.

• U.S. ISPs and Rightsholders Work on Improved Anti-Piracy Measures

  The MPAA, RIAA and five large U.S. Internet providers have extended the “Six Strikes” anti-piracy system until late next month, TorrentFreak has learned. The agreement expired last summer but has been extended several times while the parties involved work towards making it future-proof.

• Court Orders Web-Blocking Monitoring Site To Be Blocked

  A human rights organization that monitors web-censorship and pirate site blockades in Russia has been ordered to be blocked by a local court. After a legal challenge failed to convince prosecutors, RuBlacklist was advised this week that it has just three days left before local Internet service providers block the site .

• College Speaker ‘Triggers’ Outrage at Rutgers, What Feminists Do to Him with Fake Blood Triggers No One

• Milo Yiannopoulos: ‘Outright Terrifying’ That Facebook Teamed Up with Government to Censor Users

• I Brought Milo Yiannopoulos to Rutgers and Liberals Freaked Out

• Twitter in ‘war against conservative points of view’

• Lead the fight against campus censorship

  From New Jersey to California, last year was a tough year for student journalists. Student media has been defunded, penalized, and denied public information only for harnessing their first amendment right to the fullest.

  Protesters blocked journalists from covering a rally at the University of Missouri last November. In a viral video, the protesters chanted “hey, hey, ho, ho, reporters have to go” as they tried to block student journalists from taking photos. Signs by protesters (which were later removed) read: “No media. Safe space.”

• No Sex Please, We’re British: Pandora Blake Battles UK Censorship

  Feminist porn producer/performer Pandora Blake is one of the more high profile victims of the Orwellian Audiovisual Media Services Regulations 2014, an amendment to the UK’s 2003 Communications Act – which basically bans the country’s porn producers from showing a long and seemingly arbitrary list of run-of-the-mill BDSM practices. Though Blake’s award-winning website Dreams of Spanking was shut down last August – after she’d done a whirlwind of media interviews decrying the legislation and even organized a fundraiser for Backlash, the sexual freedom-defending nonprofit – she’s refused to take the attack on her livelihood lying down, so to speak. I was fortunate enough to catch up with the kink-positive activist, who’s currently appealing the Dreams of Spanking ruling, a few days before Valentine’s Day.

Privacy

• Why I don’t like smartphones

  They have led to massive centralization. Part of the “cloud” movement is probably driven by the fact that while smartphones have substantial computational resources, you can’t actually use them because of battery life. So instead the computation is done in the cloud, creating a dependency on a centralized entity.

  How many of these smartphone applications being sold would still work if their makers went bust? By comparison, there is much PC software no longer sold but which is still cherished and used.

• For Analysts, Loving LinkedIn Was Wrong

  LinkedIn is unlikely to be the last company hit by a pitch, says Sanwal. Investors in private companies often base their valuations on publicly traded stocks like LinkedIn. With even Apple and Amazon.com being punished mightily for their recent quarterly disappointments, companies in the spotlight can’t afford many missteps, says SunTrust’s Peck. As for his own line of work, he says: “At the end of the day analysts need to rely on their research, not what the company says.”

• How Google Searches Pretty Much Nailed the New Hampshire Primary

  Google’s ability to look into the future of political contests just notched another win: New Hampshire.

  Searches of presidential candidates conducted by Google users in New Hampshire on Feb. 9 corresponded closely with the voting results of the state’s primary. The top-searched Democratic candidate was Bernie Sanders, who won with 60 percent of the vote in New Hampshire, according to the Associated Press. He got 72 percent of the searches, according to Google, while Hillary Clinton got 28 percent of the queries and 38 percent of the vote.

• Google isn’t your diary – stop trusting it with your secrets

  If you have a problem in the 21st century, the typical first port of call is Google. It doesn’t matter if it’s about your health or your embarrassing crush – the search engine will be there to answer your questions.

  My recent search history varies from ‘my iPhone won’t charge abroad’ to ‘do I have cystitis’? But that’s nothing compared to what I’d pour out to Google as a teenager. Back then, the search engine wasn’t just a substitute for rubbish PSHE lessons at school – it was the big sister I never had.

• Four men—including a pair of pastors—sue Tacoma police over stingray documents

  The American Civil Liberties Union of Washington state has sued the Tacoma Police Department (TPD) on behalf of four community leaders, claiming that TPD has not adequately responded to their public records requests concerning the use of cell-site simulators, or stingrays.

  The Thursday lawsuit comes nine months after Washington imposed a new warrant requirement for stingray use in the state and about 15 months after local Pierce County judges imposed stricter guidelines for their use.

  Stingrays are in use by both local and federal law enforcement agencies nationwide. The devices determine a target phone’s location by spoofing or simulating a cell tower. Mobile phones in range of the stingray then connect to it and exchange data with the device as they would with a real cell tower. Once deployed, stingrays intercept data from the target phone along with information from other phones within the vicinity—up to and including full calls and text messages. At times, police have falsely claimed that information gathered from a stingray has instead come from a confidential informant.

• Austrians Need Constitutional Right to Pay in Cash, Mahrer Says

  Austrians should have the constitutional right to use cash to protect their privacy, Deputy Economy Minister Harald Mahrer said, as the European Union considers curbing the use of banknotes and coins.

  “We don’t want someone to be able to track digitally what we buy, eat and drink, what books we read and what movies we watch,” Mahrer said on Austrian public radio station Oe1. “We will fight everywhere against rules” including caps on cash purchases, he said.

• New York Police Have Used Stingrays Widely, New Documents Show

  The NYPD has used cell-site simulators, commonly known as Stingrays, more than 1,000 times since 2008, according to documents turned over to the New York Civil Liberties Union. The documents represent the first time the department has acknowledged using the devices.

  The NYPD also disclosed that it does not get a warrant before using a Stingray, which sweeps up massive amounts of data. Instead, the police obtain a “pen register order” from a court, more typically used to collect call data for a specific phone. Those orders do not require the police to establish probable cause. Additionally, the NYPD has no written policy guidelines on the use of Stingrays.

• Lawyers Speak Out About Massive Hack of Prisoners’ Phone Records

  Last fall, Bukowsky received an unexpected phone call related to McKim’s case. The call came from The Intercept, following our November 11, 2015, report on a massive hack of Securus Technologies, a Texas-based prison telecommunications company that does business with the Missouri Department of Corrections. As we reported at the time, The Intercept received a massive database of more than 70 million call records belonging to Securus and coming from prison facilities that used the company’s so-called Secure Call Platform. Leaked via SecureDrop by a hacker who was concerned that Securus might be violating prisoners’ rights, the call records span a 2 1/2-year period beginning in late 2011 (the year Securus won its contract with the Missouri DOC) and ending in the spring of 2014.

• Apple: Dear judge, please tell us if gov’t can compel us to unlock an iPhone

  In a new letter, Apple has asked a judge to finally rule in a case where the government is trying to force the company to unlock a seized iPhone 5S running iOS 7. Currently, United States Magistrate Judge James Orenstein has been sitting on the case for nearly three months.

  In the Friday letter, Apple attorney Marc Zwillinger says that ruling now is important, as the government plans to make similar requests of Apple in the future. Prosecutors have invoked the All Writs Act, an 18th-century federal law that simply allows courts to issue a writ (or order) that compels a person or company to do something. For some time now, prosecutors have turned to courts to try to force companies to help in situations where authorities are otherwise stymied.

• At Berkeley, students learn ins and outs of NSA surveillance

  This spring, computer science lecturer Nicholas Weaver will give a class of UC Berkeley undergraduates a novel yet practical assignment: build a National Security Agency-style surveillance system.

• House bill would kill state, local bills that aim to weaken smartphone crypto

  On Wednesday, Rep. Ted Lieu (D-Calif.) and Rep. Blake Farenthold (R-Tex.) introduced a new bill in Congress that attempts to halt state-level efforts that would weaken encryption.

  The federal bill comes just weeks after two nearly identical state bills in New York state and California proposed to ban the sale of modern smartphones equipped with strong crypto that cannot be unlocked by the manufacturer. If the state bills are signed into law, current iPhone and Android phones would need to be substantially redesigned for those two states.

• UK Privacy Campaigners Lose Hacking Case Against GCHQ

  Handed down by the Investigative Powers Tribunal (IPT), the ruling dismissed complaints from campaign group Privacy International. The group had teamed up with seven internet service providers to challenge GCHQ’s surveillance of phones and other electronic devices both within the U.K. and internationally.

  Privacy International said it was “disappointed” with the ruling, but said the case had raised public debate on some of the GCHQ’s most controversial practices.

• GCHQ hacking does not violate the UK’s human rights laws, rules tribunal

  Hacking of smartphone, computer and network by the British security and intelligence agency Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) is legal, says a security tribunal. The investigatory power tribunal (IPT) has recently ruled the computer network exploitation (CNE) technique, which might include remotely activating microphones and cameras on electronic devices without the owner’s knowledge, is legal.

Civil Rights

• Justice Antonin Scalia dead

  There is likely to be significant pressure on the Senate, which is in Republican hands, to hold off on confirming anyone nominated by President Obama, who is in his last year in office.

• Justice Scalia Unexpectedly Dies, Scrambling Balance Of U.S. Supreme Court

  Associate Justice Antonin Scalia was found dead at a West Texas ranch on Saturday. He was 79 years old. Scalia died in his sleep during a hunting trip, apparently of natural causes.

  The sudden death of Scalia, one of the Court’s most outspoken conservatives, potentially shifts the balance of the Supreme Court, currently 5-4 in favor of conservatives, setting up an enormous battle in the Republican-controlled Senate that will play out simultaneously with the presidential campaign.

• Conservatives: GOP Senate Should Block Any Obama Selection For Supreme Court

  Scalia was part of a conservative bloc on the Supreme Court that regularly overturned progressive legislation and precedent, making any replacement a contested issue in both the Senate and the 2016 presidential election with major national implications.

• Why Scalia’s Death Is a Huge Blow to the Right-Wing Agenda in Washington

  Justice Antonin Scalia is dead, and his passing is nothing less than a legal and political earthquake. It will have a huge impact, not only on the court’s present term but on the course of constitutional law.

  Beginning with his appointment to the high court in 1986, Scalia was the intellectual leader of what I and many other legal commentators have termed a conservative “judicial counterrevolution,” aimed at wresting control of the nation’s most powerful legal body from the legacy of the liberal jurists who rose to power in the 1950s and ’60s under the leadership of then-Chief Justice Earl Warren.

• CNN Analyst: Potential SCOTUS Nominees “Have Impeccable Qualifications,” But GOP Doesn’t Want To Vote For “An Obama Nominee”

• Iran says it is cracking down on Valentine’s Day celebrations and shops engaging in them will be guilty of a crime

  Iran says it is cracking down on Valentine’s Day celebrations and shops engaging in them will be guilty of a crime.

  Iranian news outlets reported the police directive Friday warning retailers against promoting “decadent Western culture through Valentine’s Day rituals.” Police informed Tehran’s coffee and ice cream shops trade union to avoid any gatherings in which boys and girls exchange Valentine’s Day gifts.

  The annual Feb. 14 homage to romance, which tradition says is named after an early Christian martyr, has become popular in recent years in Iran and other Middle East countries.

• Amid Anti-Semitism Controversy, NRA’s Nugent Attacks His “Mentally Challenged” “Devil” Critics

  National Rifle Association (NRA) board member Ted Nugent participated in a softball interview to attack his critics as “mentally challenged” and “the devil” following outrage over his promotion of an anti-Semitic image.

  On February 8, Nugent posted an anti-Semitic image to his Facebook page alleging that Jews were behind a conspiracy to enact gun regulations. After being condemned by civil rights organization the Anti-Defamation League, Nugent doubled down by posting more inflammatory content, including an image of Jews being rounded up by Nazis alongside his comment “Soulless sheep to slaughter. Not me.”

Internet/Net Neutrality

• Republican Anti-Net Neutrality Crusade Advances in Congress

  The Republican crusade to sabotage federal net neutrality protections took a significant step forward on Thursday when a key House subcommittee approved a bill that could severely limit the Federal Communications Commission’s ability to police the nation’s largest cable and phone companies.

  Under the guise of prohibiting the FCC from regulating broadband internet prices, the legislation could ultimately kneecap the FCC’s authority over a variety of potentially abusive industry practices, according to open internet advocates.

  The bill, innocuously titled the “No Rate Regulation of Broadband Internet Access Act,” is just the latest effort in a multi-pronged Republican campaign to undermine the FCC’s ability to protect net neutrality, the principle that all content on the internet should be equally accessible.

Intellectual Monopolies

• Copyrights

  • 82-Year-Old Great-Grandmother is a Pirate, Trolls Say

    People who’ve managed to live for more than eight decades should be enjoying a peaceful and uncomplicated existence but for UK-based Sky customer Sheila Drew things are not so straightforward. She’s being accused of being an Internet pirate – and has two letters and a £600 bill to prove it.

• Distributions
• Devices/Embedded

Linux for your Loved Ones

Few things in this life are more frustrating than trying to provide tech support to loved ones. If you’re reading this, odds are you’ve run into this experience yourself at some point in your life. Now, I should point out that no operating system is completely free from bugs. Even the most locked down devices, such as tablets or Chromebooks can still experience challenges due to connectivity.

4 things every Linux beginner should know

Linux-based operating systems are popular due to the wide range of flexibility they offer in terms of software and abilities.

It can be a bit daunting to try to learn a new operating system and explore all of its benefits, or even know where to start. Since everything works a little different on Linux, there is quite a learning curve in order to get started.

If you’re interested in the word of Linux, here are four things every first timer must know. Plus, if you want to dive more into Linux, there’s a sweet deal at the end of this article to help you learn the command line in Linux.

Russian government abandoning Windows for Linux

Over 22,000 Russian government agencies and municipalities are ready to make the switch from Windows to Linux, according to President Vladimir Putin’s top Internet adviser.

In an interview with Bloomberg, German Klimenko, Putin’s so-called “Internet czar,” said the decision to switch the nation’s official operating system was prompted when U.S. companies like Microsoft, Google, and Apple complied with American sanctions against Russia over Putin’s annexation of Crimea.

“It’s like a wife seeing her husband with another woman—he can swear an oath afterward, but the trust is lost,” Klimenko said.

Russia to ditch Windows OS, decides to join the Linux club

Tired of security and snooping issues associated with Windows run PCs, the Russian Government is all set to shift to Linux from Windows for its agency PCs to Linux.

However it has not named the Linux distro it will use or clarified whether it will be building its own distro like Indian government is doing with Boss.

Russia might switch thousands of government computers to Linux to spite Microsoft

Russia Plans to Move to Linux

In an unexpected turn of events, it would appear that the Russian government is planning on moving all of their computers and IT infrastructure to a Linux kernel-based operating system, also known as GNU/Linux distribution.

Desktop

• Dell Needs to Know If You Want to Upgrade the Firmware from Linux Systems

  Dell wants to provide support for upgrading the firmware for its products from Linux systems, but the company wants to focus its efforts in the right direction and is trying to gather more data with an online poll.

Server

• Google has quietly launched its answer to AWS Lambda

  The Google Cloud Platform, the public cloud infrastructure from Google that developers can use to build and run their own apps, last night released a fascinating service called Google Cloud Functions. The tool, which allows developers to set up functions that get triggered in response to certain events, is notable because it’s quite similar to the well-received Lambda service from public cloud market leader Amazon Web Services.

• HPE extends Integrity server line with MC990 X system for scale-out Linux workloads

  Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) has expanded its range of mission-critical Integrity servers with a new line based on Intel’s Xeon E7-8800 v3 processors, designed to operate Linux-based workloads and especially those calling for in-memory database handling.

Audiocasts/Shows

• Podcast Season 4 Episode 3

Kernel Space

• The Project To Compile The Linux Kernel With LLVM Clang Is Still Alive

  While for years there has been ongoing work to build the Linux kernel with Clang, in 2015 there wasn’t much progress to report and the mainline LLVM Clang compiler still can’t build the mainline Linux kernel tree successfully. What’s going on?

• Linux 4.6 Will Finally Bring GPU Switching For Pre-Retina MacBook Pros

• The Year of the Open Blockchain

  Just before the holidays, we announced a new open source effort to advance blockchain technology for a distributed ledger that could be used across industries. Blockchain is about harnessing one of the core technologies behind Bitcoin, but developed in an organized, collaborative environment and optimized for myriad use cases. In the quiet depth of late December, we received more than 3,000 inquiries in response to this news. This was the biggest response we’ve ever experienced for a new open source project.

• Linux Foundation Partners with Industry Leaders to Drive IoT, Cloud and Software Defined Networking Initiatives

• The Linux Foundation and Partners Strive to Advance Storage, Networking

• Linux Foundation’s Hyperledger Project boasts new members and code contributions

• The Linux Foundation Forms Open Source Effort to Advance IO Services

• Graphics Stack

  • 2016 Wayland Experiences: GNOME: Perfect, KDE: Bad, Enlightenment: Good

  • The Review of Wayland Progress In 2016: Weston, GNOME, KDE, Enlightenment

    We live in time of Linux graphic revolution and it’s not a scenario of popular blockbuster. X Window System from the 1980’s with old architecture isn’t good as 10 or 20 years ago. Wayland provides the modern speedy protocol without tons of legacy code and make the Linux desktop better and faster. Time to testing the most popular Linux desktop environment on Wayland. If you have interested working experience with Wayland – I’m will happy to read it in the comments.

  • Mesa 11.1.2 Offers A Platter Of Bug Fixes

  • Latest Mesa Update Lands In Ubuntu 16.04, Enables OpenGL 4.1 With LLVM 3.8

  • Mesa 3D 11.1.2 Is Out with Nouveau, Intel i965, and RadeonSI Improvements

    Collabora’s Emil Velikov has proudly announced earlier today, February 11, 2016, the release and immediate availability for download of the second maintenance build in the Mesa 3D Graphics Library 11.1 stable series.

  • ARM HDLCD Driver Merged Into DRM-Next

  • AMD Sends Out Patches For New AMDGPU DAL Display Driver, Adds 93k Lines Of Code

  • AMD’s Massive New DAL Display Driver Is Facing An Uphill Battle

  • Trying Out The VC4 OpenGL Gallium3D Driver On The Raspberry Pi 2

  • The Latest Intel Graphics Code Lands In DRM-Next For Linux 4.6

    This week a batch of Intel DRM graphics driver updates landed in DRM-Next for in turn hitting the Linux 4.6 kernel when that merge window opens in a few weeks.

    The latest Intel DRM driver changes in this Git merge include support for v3 VBT DSI blocks, reorganizing a fair amount of code, more kerneldoc integration, and a variety of bug fixes and numerous low-level code improvements.

• Benchmarks

  • Benchmarks Of The ODROID-C2 64-Bit ARM Development Board

    Earlier this month Hardkernel announced the ODROID-C2 as a 64-bit ARM development board that would begin shipping in March. Fortunately, you don’t need to wait until next month to find out how this $40 USD 64-bit ARM development board is performing: here are some benchmarks.

  • Ubuntu 14.04 vs. 16.04 LTS AMD FirePro Performance On Open-Source

    As some complementary data to this week’s Radeon Gallium3D OpenGL Performance From Fedora 18 To Fedora 23 and the earlier Ubuntu 6.06 LTS to 16.04 LTS benchmarks is a look at the Ubuntu 14.04 vs. 16.04 (in its current development state) performance with an AMD FirePro graphics card.

    Just as another extra data point to toss out there this weekend for those sticking to Ubuntu LTS bases (such as Linux Mint users), here’s a look at how the performance has evolved over the past two years for this Cayman-derived graphics card. However, don’t put too much weight into the results as while they are now on LLVM 3.8 SVN with Mesa 11.1.2, Mesa 11.2 will still hopefully end up landing in time for the April release of Ubuntu 16.04. They though are now using the Linux 4.4 kernel for Ubuntu 16.04 LTS, which is expected to be the major version shipping with the Xenial Xerus as there isn’t enough time for them to stabilize Linux 4.5.

Applications

• ownCloud 9 Self-Hosting Cloud Server Now in Beta, Here’s What’s New for Users

  Today, Frank Karlitschek, founder, maintainer, and CTO of ownCloud, has teased users on Twitter with a download link for the first Beta build of the upcoming ownCloud 9 self-hosting cloud server.

• Openshot Video Editor 2.0.6 Beta 3 Is a Massive Release

  Openshot is a video editor that features 3D animation, curve-based camera motion, compositing, transitions, audio mixing, vector titles, and many others features. A new beta build is now available for download and testing

• Calibre eBook Reader and Editor Gets Better Sorting for Multiple eBooks

  A new version of the Calibre eBook editor, viewer, and converter is now out, and the developer has added a couple of new features and quite a few fixes.

• News from mu

  I have been writing several posts about emacs but today I would like to specifically tell my readers about the nifty tool I use for email management, mu and its main component, mu4e. Just before I start, let me briefly remind a few things about email on emacs: there’s not a single tool to do everything around email. In fact, there’s quite a lot of different tools, related or not, that perform one job but does it quite well. As an example, there is one tool to fetch the emails from your IMAP servers, one tool to index them on your system, another one you could call an email client, but wait, here’s at least one more: a tool to compose and send emails. Sometimes, the tools are integrated with one another, sometimes they are not, but they are always a collection of disctinct parts.

• Cockpit 0.95 Released

  Cockpit releases every week. Here are the highlights from 0.90 through 0.95.

• Proprietary

  • Opera Browser Receives Buy Out Offer For $1.2 Billion USD

  • Opera Vows to Remain the Same After Chinese Buyout

    Opera Software revealed yesterday that a proposal to buy the company has been made by a Chinese consortium, and they are most likely going to accept it. The company is now trying to convince the community that it’s a good thing.

• Instructionals/Technical

  • GPG: Using Your Key

    Welcome back to the GPG series, where we explore how to make use of GPG with other applications to secure and protect your data. In the first installment, we covered the functions of GPG. You learned about integrity, non-repudiation and authenticity. In the second installment, key creation and publication were covered, as well as revocation certificate creation. This installment will cover using your key to sign and encrypt files or communications.

  • 100 ways to master the command line – Part 1

  • uGet 2.0.5 Download Manager Released, Install/Update In Ubuntu/Linux mint

  • Getting started with web app accelerator Varnish Cache

  • Install Htop 2.0 – Linux Process Monitoring for RHEL, CentOS & Fedora

  • Linux Commands to manage Local Accounts – useradd, usermod, chage & passwd

  • Everything You Need To Know About The sudo Command

  • Run science experiments on the ExpEYES kit

  • Linux: Load kernel modules at boot-up

  • How to use secure shell from your Chromebook

  • Install CumulusClips on CentOS 7

  • 11 fc, bg and jobs commands you should know

  • File types In Linux/Unix explained in detail.

  • What to Do If Linux Plesk Server Gets Exhausted?

  • Getting to Know Linux File Permissions

    At this point, you should now have a solid understand of the basic Linux file permissions. There are more advanced issues that you can now easily study, such as setuid and setgid and ACLs. Without a good foundation of the basics, however, you’d quickly get lost with those next-level topics.

    Linux file permissions haven’t changed much, since the early days. And, they most likely won’t change much going into the future.

  • How to run Windows programs on Linux with CrossOver

    Will your program run on Linux, or for that matter CrossOver Mac? CrossOver keeps a complete listing of what runs, and what doesn’t. You can also try CrossOver with a 15-day free trial to make sure the software you need works well on a Linux system.

    CrossOver is based on the open-source project Wine, an implementation of the Windows application programming interface (API) on top of the Unix/Linux operating system family. Wine is a mature project with 20 plus years of work behind it.

• Games

  • Gaming on Linux, Steam machines set to soar with DirectX competitor Vulkan

    The look of games on Linux-based Steam machines and mobile devices should improve significantly with the soon-to-be-released Vulkan API (application programming interface).

    Vulkan can be used for many applications, but is most relevant to games, much like DirectX for Windows. The new API is a much-needed upgrade from the aging OpenGL, which was first introduced in 1991 by Silicon Graphics.

  • Release of Xcom 2, Elliot Quest, the Mesa graphics library, and more open gaming news

  • Talos Principle Is Still Struggling On The RadeonSI Driver

    While the RadeonSI Gallium3D driver stack is capable of running The Talos Principle puzzle game by Croteam, the performance is rather poor and there are some bugs.

    Following yesterday’s 11-way Talos Principle comparison on NVIDIA using the latest drivers, I proceeded to run some AMD tests… Catalyst had to be left out though since I was just getting a black screen when running it on the box with the proprietary driver enabled. So that left the open-source driver stack: it worked, but wasn’t perfect.

  • 11-Way GPU Benchmarks For Linux Puzzle Gamers

    While first person shooter games tend to dominate the Linux gaming landscape, if you are curious about some numbers for a puzzle video game like Talos Principle, here are some fresh benchmark results for a slew of different GeForce graphics cards on the latest Linux driver.

    Almost two years ago I was working on a test profile for The Talos Principle, but only recently got around to restoring it and making it available on OpenBenchmarking.org for automated benchmarking via the Phoronix Test Suite. With Steam installed and owning the rights to the game, it should be as easy as phoronix-test-suite benchmark talos-principle.

  • XCOM 2 strategy game reviewed on Linux

    XCOM 2 has been well reviewed for Windows, but exactly how is it on Linux? I spent many hours defending the earth to find out.

  • Dying Light hotfix released, should fix major texture issue on Linux, no co-op fixes yet

    Well, looks like Techland are at least paying some sort of attention to their Linux port, not much mind. They just released a hotfix to Dying Light that should fix up the low resolution texture issue. I did a quick test, and it does indeed look like it’s fixed (for me at least). See the update at the bottom too.

  • Frozen Synapse 2 announced, dev confirmed to us it will be on Linux

    Sorry for being a bit late on this, but a few days ago I asked the developers mode7 if Frozen Synapse 2 will be on Linux, and they kindly replied.

  • Xenonauts 2 being made, developer tells us should be on Linux

  • Sunless Sea looks like it may get an official Linux build, game looks creepy & awesome

Desktop Environments/WMs

• K Desktop Environment/KDE SC/Qt

  • Neon and Plasma Relationship

    As we saw neon, a new and fresh Linux distribution was launched last week. This project is incubated by the KDE Community, sharing KDE’s hosting and community. Hopefully we’ll see neon flourish into an awesome distribution over time.

• GNOME Desktop/GTK

  • Remembering Thomas Wood

    It is with great sadness that we announce the passing of our friend, Thomas Wood. Commonly known as ‘thos’ on irc, Thomas was a long time contributor to the GNOME Art project, where he curated GTK+ Themes, backgrounds, login screens, and icons. In later years, he also worked on the control center and maintained the GNOME Backgrounds module. Outside of GNOME, he worked on the Moblin platform, which enabled various technologies key to GNOME 3, like GNOME Shell and Clutter.

  • GNOME 3.20 to Enter Feature Freeze Soon

    The GNOME 3.20 desktop environment is getting closer to release, and the developers are preparing for the UI and Feature Addition freeze.

Distributions

• New Releases

  • Tiny Core Linux 7.0 Up to Release Candidate Phase, Adds Linux Kernel 4.2.9

    Robert Shingledecker announced the release and immediate availability for download and testing of the first RC (Release Candidate) build of the upcoming Tiny Core Linux 7.0 operating system.

• Arch Family

  • Hands-On: More adventures with Manjaro-ARM for the Raspberry Pi 2

    In my previous post I celebrated the announcement of Manjaro-ARM Linux for the Raspberry Pi 2. I installed it on my Pi 2 with no problems, and I was ready to continue experimenting and investigating with two major objectives – how complete/stable is it, and what are the chances of getting the i3 window manager working on it?

• Ballnux/SUSE

  • OpenSUSE Developers Tackle Redesigning YaST

• Red Hat Family

  • Red Hat Drives FPGAs, ARM Servers

    FPGA vendors and users will meet next month in an effort to define a standard software interface for accelerators. The meeting is being convened by Red Hat’s chief ARM architect, who gave an update (Wednesday) on efforts to establish ARM servers.

    “There’s a trend towards high-level synthesis so an FPGA programmer can write in OpenCL up front but the little piece that’s been ignored is how OpenCL talks to Linux,” said Jon Masters, speaking at the Linley Data Center event here.

  • Rackspace Launches Private Cloud Powered by Red Hat

  • Rackspace now hosts Red Hat’s Enterprise Linux OpenStack on its private cloud

  • Everence Capital Management Inc. Buys 3,232 Shares of Red Hat Inc (RHT)

    Everence Capital Management Inc. increased its position in Red Hat Inc (NYSE:RHT) by 105.1% during the fourth quarter, according to its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The fund owned 6,307 shares of the open-source software company’s stock after buying an additional 3,232 shares during the period. Everence Capital Management Inc.’s holdings in Red Hat were worth $522,000 as of its most recent filing with the SEC.

  • Red Hat Inc (RHT) Cut to Hold at TheStreet

  • Red Hat Inc (RHT) Downgraded by TheStreet to “Hold”

  • Capital Fund Management S.A. Sells 190,975 Shares of Red Hat Inc (RHT)

  • A Third Way: Private Cloud, Outsourced Management

  • Rackspace and Red Hat buddy-up for OpenStack private cloud

  • Rackspace Partners with Red Hat for Private OpenStack Cloud Deployment

  • You can leave your hat on, warbles Rackspace to OpenStack users

  • PLUMgrid CEO Joined Industry Luminaries on OpenStack Cloud Panel at Rackspace::Solve Event — Q & A Follows

  • OpenStack Service Targets Deployment Hassles

  • Rackspace launches private cloud with Red Hat OpenStack help

  • Extra cloudy: The cloud provider that wants to support other clouds

  • Rackspace launches private cloud powered by Red Hat

  • Rackspace cloud extends OpenStack management to Red Hat

  • Rackspace launches Red Hat driven Private Cloud

  • Rackspace pivots to sell competitor’s private cloud, bolstered by customer support centers

  • Rackspace Embraces Red Hat in its Cloud Portfolio

    You have to hand it to Rackspace, even though it was among the early players on the OpenStack cloud computing scene–and offers its own public and private clouds–it is actively pursuing supporting other clouds as well. The comany has partnered up with Linux vendor Red Hat to add another Openstack-as-a-Service solution to its mix of cloud offerings.

  • Fedora

    • New standing desk set up

    • Fedora News Channel on Telegram

      I and Justin Flory have created a Fedora News channel on Telegram. It’s a new way to follow news about the Fedora Project and it’s supplementary to the news channels we’re already using (Planet Fedora/RSS, Facebook, Google+, Twitter, mailing lists). The Telegram channel is a one-way communication, there is no way to reply or comment on news messages. For discussion, we already have a Fedora group chat.

    • More Fedora 24 Changes Approved, Including GNOME 3.20 & Glibc 2.23

      The Fedora Engineering and Steering Committee (FESCo) approved another round of features/changes for Fedora 24 at their weekly meeting.

• Debian Family

  • OpenPHT 1.5.1 for Debian/sid

    I have updated the openpht repository with builds of OpenPHT 1.5.1 for Debian/sid for both amd64 and i386 architecture. For those who have forgotten it, OpenPHT is the open source fork of Plex Home Theater that is used on RasPlex, see my last post concerning OpenPHT for details.

  • The Influence of Debian in Linux Open Source Community

    The Linux community, and the technology world in general, were shocked by the news of Ian’s Murdock tragic death a couple of weeks ago – and rightfully so. Ian’s legacy and vision as the founder of the Debian project not only influenced many others who went on to start their own distributions, but also were the means to create a rock-solid operating system that many individuals and businesses of all sizes have used for more than 20 years.

  • Debian 6.0 Long Term Support reaching end-of-life

    The Debian Long Term Support (LTS) Team hereby announces that Debian 6.0 (“squeeze”) support will reach its end-of-life on February 29, 2016, five years after its initial release on February 6, 2011.

    There will be no further security support for Debian 6.0.

    The LTS Team will prepare the transition to Debian 7 (“wheezy”), which is the current oldstable release. The LTS team will take over support from the Security Team on April 26, 2016.

  • Debian 6 LTS reaches end-of-life on February 29 – it’s time to upgrade

    The Debian Long Term Support team has announced that Debian 6 – a long term support release – will stop receiving updates on February 29, 2016. Debian 6 was first released on February 6, 2011, and saw ten point releases while it was supported by the main nucleus of the Debian community. Since July 19, 2014, maintenance of Debian 6 has been left to the Long Term Support team.

  • Debian GNU/Linux 6.0 LTS “Squeeze” to Reach End-of-Life on February 29, 2016

    Today, February 12, 2016, the Debian Project has announced that the long-term supported Debian GNU/Linux 6.0 (Squeeze) is about to reach end-of-life (EOL) in approximately two weeks, on February 29, 2016.

  • Derivatives

    • Debian Makes It a Lot Easier for Users to Install the Tails Anonymous Live CD

      As many of you may know, Tails, also dubbed by its authors “the amnesic incognito live system,” is a GNU/Linux Live CD distribution based on the Debian operating system and designed to keep you anonymous online at all times.

    • Canonical/Ubuntu

      • Ubuntu 18.04 LTS to Be Fully in Sync with Debian, Without Ubuntu Specific Patches

        Immediately after the release of the systemd 229 init system on February 11, Canonical’s Martin Pitt announced earlier that he uploaded the new systemd version to the Ubuntu 16.04 LTS and Debian Testing repositories.

      • Firefox 44.0.2 Arrives in All Supported Ubuntu OSes

        Canonical has just announced that the latest version of the Firefox Internet browser has just landed for Ubuntu 15.10, Ubuntu 14.04 LTS, and Ubuntu 12.04 LTS.

      • Canonical Will Be Present at MWC 2016 to Showcase Its Ubuntu Convergence

        MWC (Mobile World Congress) 2016 is almost upon us, and one of the biggest attraction there will be, of course, Canonical’s latest Ubuntu convergence features, which the company behind the world’s most popular free operating system will showcase on the new BQ Aquaris M10 Ubuntu Edition tablet device.

      • Ubuntu Touch OTA-9.1 Hotfix Lands in Two Weeks to Patch the Incoming Calls Issue

        We have just been informed by Łukasz Zemczak of Canonical about the latest work done by Ubuntu Touch development team in preparation for the upcoming OTA updates for Ubuntu Phone devices.

      • Watch: Ubuntu 16.04 LTS Will Properly Integrate the Unity Launcher with Nautilus

        Canonical’s Marco Trevisan has just published a new video on his Google+ page to show us all the latest features developed in the Unity 7 user interface for the upcoming Ubuntu 16.04 LTS (Xenial Xerus) operating system.

      • Poll: You Say, ‘Ship Ubuntu Tablets by the Boatload’

        Granted, you’re a special audience with a special interest. For the most part you use Linux, and not because you’re a mooch and it doesn’t cost you anything, but because you recognize it as the best that’s available. Certainly it doesn’t hurt that it’s free and open source software. Indeed, you probably think that’s what makes it best, as you most likely see FOSS as the best software development model.

      • Canonical Might Drop Ubuntu Discourse

        Ubuntu Discourse was supposed to be a community hub for all things Ubuntu, but the project never really came out of prototype stage, and it’s probably going to be closed.

      • Canonical Releases Snappy Ubuntu Core Images for Intel’s NUC

      • Canonical releases Snappy Ubuntu Core for the Intel NUC IoT starter kit

        CANONICAL HAS announced the release of the Snappy Ubuntu Core lightweight operating system for another starter kit.

        The Intel NUS DE3815TY version is the first fruit of a Canonical and Intel project to create a standardised development platform for creating and testing x86 Internet of Things (IoT) projects.

      • OpenStack Solution Provider Awnix Joins Canonical’s Cloud Partner Programme

        Canonical has been excited to announce that Awnix, an OpenStack solution provider with over 25 years of experience designing systems for enterprise data center environments, has joined its Partner Reseller Programme for cloud solutions.

      • Docker Has No Plans to Ditch Ubuntu in Favor of Alpine Linux – Report

        If you’ve been reading the news lately, you may have heard rumors that Docker founders hired the developer of Alpine Linux, a small, text-based distribution, to move the official Docker images away from the Ubuntu infrastructure.

      • More Android Vendors Said To Be Eyeing Ubuntu Phones This Year

        A greater number of Android smartphone/tablet vendors are said to be eyeing Ubuntu Phone for new devices later this year.

        In an interview published this morning by The Register, Canonical CEO Jane Silber talked about their communications with more (unnamed) Android vendors and supposedly seeing some other vendors offering Ubuntu Phone products later in 2016.

Devices/Embedded

• A man with his Fingers in many millions of pies

  At the time of writing, over five million Raspberry Pis have been sold. That’s the same as the number of ZX Spectrums sold in the 80s. And like the Spectrum, the Pi is likely to have a far-reaching legacy, helping the next generation of games designers and computer scientists find their feet.

  Countless numbers of people have helped make this happen, but Eben Upton has been there from the beginning. He’s the founder and the CEO of the Raspberry Pi Foundation, and he’s still shaping every aspect of the Raspberry Pi, from its hardware to the software. We met Eben shortly before the launch of the model 2. He told us about the effort they’ve put into making the Pi better and how a chance conversation with the boss of Google shaped the Pi’s future.

• Our Linux-powered robotic future, data overload and management, and more news

• Phones

  • Android

    • Android-x86 4.4-r5 Screencast and Screenshots

    • Qualcomm rolls out new Snapdragon trio and wearable platform

    • New Qualcomm Snapdragons target wearables and more

      Qualcomm unveiled a Snapdragon Wear 2100 chip for wearables, plus a 14nm octacore Snapdragon 625, and 28nm Snapdragon 435 and 425 SoCs.

      Only a few years ago, announcements of new Qualcomm Snapdragon announcements were somewhat tangential to embedded Linux and Android developers. Increasingly, however, Snapdragons are appearing on embedded SBCs and COMs and finding their way to devices beyond smartphones.

    • Video: Android 6.0.1 Android Wear Gestures and Features Tour!

    • Google gives My Maps for Android a much-needed revamp

    • Transform Your Android Smartphone Into A Linux Desktop PC Using MaruOS

    • Maru, the Debian for Android Project, Goes Open Source

    • The Debian For Android Maru Project Is Being Open-Sourced

    • Moto 360 Generation 2 Smartwatch Review

      So, what’s the Bad Voltage verdict? The Moto 360 generation 2 is a sleek, well built, reasonably priced device with enough customization options to appeal to traditional watch enthusiasts. If you’ve been holding out on getting a smartwatch, it may well be time to take another look.

    • A new Android app could detect earthquakes

      Smarthphone technology is shaking up earthquake research with a new app that may soon connect millions of users around the world to create an early-warning network.

      Researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, have released a crowdsourcing Android application called MyShake that uses data from a smartphone’s built-in vibration sensor to detect the presence of a quak

    • 7 Android tools that can help your personal security

      Most articles about Android security tools focus on malware-scanning suites like Lookout, Norton and AVG. But with the layers of protection already built into the platform, those sorts of apps are arguably unnecessary and often counterproductive — or even needlessly expensive.

    • Creator of Android wants to give you a free dashcam

      Years ago, Andy Rubin gave us Android. Today, he wants to give people free dashcams to stick in their vehicles. That’s right. Free dashcams.

      You may not have heard much about Rubin since he left Google in 2014. He’s been busy with Playground Global, which he co-founded shortly after his exit. Playground’s mission is “to make it even easier to bring innovative hardware to market.” They raised more than $350 million in funding to do that, and this free dashcam (that’s not it pictured above, it’s a Gadstone GS3000) could be the first product they turn out.

    • Chrome For Android Finally Getting Physical Web Support: Here’s The Deal

    • Physical Web Support Comes To Chrome 49 Beta For Android

    • India has the most malware-infected Android devices: Report

    • When it comes to spaffing your login creds, Android biz apps are the business

    • Microsoft: 74 Device Partners Will Bring Office To Android [Ed: or else Microsoft will sue them using patents.]

    • Microsoft Brings Bloatware to Android, Time Inc. Buys MySpace… [Tech News Digest]

      Microsoft is talking this up as a good thing for you and I, saying the pre-installation of these apps “increase the value of those devices by delivering the rich productivity experiences customers want.” However, we suspect most people will disagree with that assessment, and would prefer instead to choose which apps they install by themselves.

    • Add missing places to your Google Maps Timeline on Android

    • Google Clock v4.3 Update For Android Brings Resizable Widgets And More: What To Expect

    • A simple free Android app that will make your phone much faster

    • Sony Xperia Z5 and Moto G 2014 got Updated to Android 6.0 Marshmallow Update

Pinterest open-sources its Teletraan tool for deploying code

As promised last year when the company introduced it, Pinterest today announced that it has released its Teletraan tool for deploying source code on GitHub under an open source Apache license.

“Teletraan is designed to do one thing, deploy code,” Pinterest software engineer Baogang Song wrote in a blog post. “Not only does it support critical features such as zero downtime deploy, rollback, staging and continuous deploy, but it also has convenient features, such as displaying commit details, comparing different deploys, notifying deploy state changes through either email or chat room, displaying OpenTSDB metrics and more.”

Split Emerges in Open Source MANO Efforts

A broad attempt to create a single open source effort around managing and orchestrating NFV is now bifurcating into two separate groups, based on irreconcilable views of how to best standardize the MANO going forward.

Events

• Share your love for free software

  Yes, we love Free Software and this readily means that we love technology, people, social equanimity, and the various meanings one may take on for the word “freedom”. We care about it and we all want to bear witness of the growth and consolidation of new projects, and the progress of elder ones into full-fledged solutions driven by healthy and thriving communities. Free Software communities are inherently diverse and put together people with different motivations, expectations, and interests. Some are there to make friends and advance their technical and social skills, while others want to pursue the dream of an open world or even have Free Software as their daily paid job. In spite of such a diversity, one thing unite all of us in this Free Software odyssey: we love what we do.

• Encryption: probably better than a box of chocolates

  This is a fun activity, but it can also make a difference. The right to encrypt is endangered around the world, with governments threatening our security and freedom by demanding legal or technological crippling of encryption. Resist with the power of love — encrypt with your valentine, and tell the world!

  And as we’ve discussed at length, free software is necessary for privacy online. Because nonfree software’s code can’t be audited publicly, we can never trust it to be free of back doors inserted by accident or by design. We’re thankful to all the hardworking free software developers who give us a fighting chance at digital privacy. It goes without saying, but we do love FS.

• Sharing the free software love #ilovefs

  I like to think of every day on Opensource.com as I love Free Software Day, but we couldn’t miss celebrating the official I love Free Software Day 2016, too. Granted, the official day to say “thank you” is on February 14th, so we’re showing our love a little early to make sure you don’t miss it.

• OpenStack Summit Austin 2016 Presentation Votes (ends Feb. 17th, 2016)

  Open voting is available for all session submissions until Wednesday, Feb 17, 2016 at 11:59PM PST. This is a great way for the community to decide what they want to hear.

  I have submitted a handful of sessions which I hope will be voted for. Below are some short summary’s and links to their voting pages.

Web Browsers

• Mozilla

  • Firefox 44.0.2 Arrives for Linux, Windows, and Mac OS X

    Mozilla launched a second update for the Firefox 44.0 branch, but this is a smaller release with just a couple of smaller fixes, albeit the security issue is quite important.

  • Mozilla Thunderbird 45.0 to Finally Bring GTK3 Integration for Linux, Sort Of

    Earlier today, Mozilla has come out with the sixth point release of the stable 38.0 branch of its Thunderbird e-mail, news, and chat client, fixing a few minor issues reported by users since the 38.5.x series.

  • Make your own Firefox OS TV

    Mozilla may not be actively developing Firefox OS for smartphones anymore… but the company is still pushing the operating system as an option for smart TVs and Internet-of Things products.

    Don’t want to spend money on a TV that comes with Firefox OS? You can build your own Firefox-based smart TV device… sort of.

  • Mozilla refocuses Firefox OS on connected devices

    One by one, the promising new smartphone operating systems, which hoped to chip away at the Android/iOS duopoly, are admitting defeat and refocusing on the less entrenched world of wearables and the Internet of Things. Mozilla has joined that sad procession, in the wake of Samsung Tizen, webOS and Baidu Cloud OS, and perhaps just ahead of Windows Phone, to judge by that platform’s increasingly tiny showing in Microsoft’s results.

Oracle/Java/LibreOffice

• LibreOffice 5.1 Looks Better and Plays Nicer with Other Office Apps

• LibreOffice 5.1 shows first signs of a new user interface

  The Document Foundation today announced the release of LibreOffice (LO) 5.1. With this release, LO is moving toward a totally reorganized user interface.

  In earlier conversations with LibreOffice developers and The Document Foundation whenever I would ask about modernizing the UI they told me that their first priority was to clean up the code they inherited from OpenOffice. And once the codebase is clean they would start to focus in UI.

  That day has finally come.

Education

• Feedback on teaching open source usability

  I was pleased that ten students signed up for the elective. This may seem small, but it is a significant number for a campus of some 1,900 students and a small computer science department. The same number of students also signed up for other electives that semester, including a course on databases. I organized the class similarly to the usability projects I mentor for Outreachy. Over thirteen weeks, students learned about open source software and usability testing. Most weeks included two assignments: summarizing several assigned articles, and exercising their knowledge of that week’s topic. Later in the semester, students moderated two in-person usability tests; the second was their final project.

  At the end of each semester, students responded to a course evaluation, called the Student Rating of Teaching. The evaluation is totally anonymous. I don’t know which students made which comments, or indeed which students chose to respond to the survey.

Pseudo-/Semi-Open Source (Openwashing)

• Swift’s Benchmarking Suite is Now Open Source [Ed: to help Apple lock-in]

  Apple has open sourced Swift’s benchmarking suite, a key piece in tracking Swift performance and catching performance regressions when adding new features to the language.

  Swift’s benchmarking suite is a collection of Swift source files that implement test suites and benchmarking helper functions, plus a number of Python scripts that implement a test harness and facilities for metrics comparison.

Funding

• Faking Open, Debian Influence, Da Linux

  Matt Asay today said that there is no money in Open Source software because the “open source companies” that get rich don’t do it with Open Source software. The big story today must be the Russian government’s plan to dump Windows for Linux. Debian 6.0 will reach its end-of-life at the end of the month and Tecmint.com recently looked at the influence Debian has had on the Linux community. A new website helps you decide what you can do for Fedora and I Love Free Software day approacheth. New openSUSE Board member Bryan Lunduke sees some problems in KDE Neonland and Swapnil Bhartiya shared his picks for best distros of 2016.

• Face it: There’s no money in open source [Ed: says Asay from Adobe]

FSF/FSFE/GNU/SFLC

• FSF: You did it! The fundraiser was a success — are you ready for what’s next?

  Once again, the free software community helped put the FSF in a strong position to tackle our list of free software initiatives in 2016, by giving $5 or $10,000, becoming a member for the first time, donating a little bit extra this year, and simply helping spread the word. We’ve said it before, but we’ll say it again: we really can’t do this work without your passion and generosity.

• [denemo] Release 2.0.2 is out now.

Openness/Sharing

• Open Access/Content

  • Open-Source Textbooks Gain Support to Improve College Affordability

    Universities and state governments are supporting open-source textbooks as a way to make college more affordable.

    The open textbooks are produced with publicly available material. They are issued to students for free or a small fraction of the hundreds of dollars they typically spend annually on books.

  • OUR VIEW: Making college texts — if not college — affordable

    We’re all familiar with the high cost of a college education: estimated expenses for a year at the University of Connecticut, including on-campus housing, is, according to the school’s website, $25,802. So that’s a little over $100,000 for a four-year education. And that’s only the beginning.

    If a student takes four courses each semester and each requires one or more textbooks, the annual cost for books and supplies could be as much as $1,200, according to the College Board. Of course, if more than one book is required or if the student selects one of the high-cost majors, it could be far more. The standard textbook for Fundamentals of General Chemistry I at the University of Connecticut has a list price of $303.

  • Researcher illegally shares millions of science papers free online to spread knowledge

    A researcher in Russia has made more than 48 million journal articles – almost every single peer-reviewed paper every published – freely available online. And she’s now refusing to shut the site down, despite a court injunction and a lawsuit from Elsevier, one of the world’s biggest publishers.

    For those of you who aren’t already using it, the site in question is Sci-Hub, and it’s sort of like a Pirate Bay of the science world. It was established in 2011 by neuroscientist Alexandra Elbakyan, who was frustrated that she couldn’t afford to access the articles needed for her research, and it’s since gone viral, with hundreds of thousands of papers being downloaded daily. But at the end of last year, the site was ordered to be taken down by a New York district court – a ruling that Elbakyan has decided to fight, triggering a debate over who really owns science.

  • WHO Full Speed On Zika R&D, Two Candidate Vaccines Emerging; Funders, Journals Commit To Sharing Of Data

• Open Hardware

  • $99 CowTech Ciclop Open Source 3D Scanner Hits Kickstarter (video)

    So if you think CowTech Ciclop 3D scanner is something you could benefit from, visit the Kickstarter website now to make a pledge and help this awesome $99 open soruce 3D scanner become a reality.

  • Faircap Project: Open source 3D printed water filter aims to solve global crisis for just $1

    The Faircap Project is a collaborative, clean water initiative, whose aim is to create an affordable open source 3D printed water filtration device that could provide clean, safe, drinkable water to those in need. The startup has already created a working prototype, but is now calling on engineers, designers, microbiologists, or anyone interested in helping to pitch their own open source ideas and make the Faircap filter as low cost and accessible as possible.

Standards/Consortia

• Is the vinyl LP an open music format?

  This is my first article for a new column here on Opensource.com about music from an open point of view. Some things I won’t be doing: I won’t be concentrating solely on music released under an open license. I won’t be writing (much) about making one’s own music. I won’t be writing (much) about music theory or professional matters, or probably really very much of anything of interest to professional musicians.

  I will write about music I encounter that interests me for one reason or another. I’ll tell you about how to enjoy music in an open environment, like on a Linux-based laptop, desktop, or server. I’ll share hardware I’ve purchased or tried out that works well, and some that doesn’t, in an open environment. I promise to write about good places to buy music that are Linux-friendly (that is, those that don’t require installing downloaders that only run on other operating systems). And I will point out some other websites, and occasionally print media, that increases my enjoyment of music.

Rolf Harris charged with seven counts of indecent assault

The disgraced entertainer Rolf Harris has been charged in relation to new allegations of indecent assault against seven victims.

Harris, who is serving five and a half years in prison for a string of sex attacks on girls as young as seven, will be brought before magistrates next month. He is charged with seven further offences of indecent assault against seven young girls and women aged between 12 and 27 between 1971 and 2004.

The charges come as a result of further information investigated by Operation Yewtree, the Met police inquiry into Jimmy Savile and other high-profile individuals suspected of child sex abuse.

UK Court Tells Online Mapping Company It’s Not Illegal For Google To Also Offer Online Maps

It’s still somewhat strange to me to see how badly some companies react to basic competition. Yes, sometimes that means companies lose, but it doesn’t automatically make any and all competition unfair. An online map company, StreetMap.Eu sued Google a few years ago, claiming that Google’s entrance into the online mapping world, and specifically including maps in search results, was unfair competition. However, the UK High Court has now, rightfully, rejected such a claim.

Science

• 70 years ago, six Philly women became the world’s first digital computer programmers

  For most of us born with both feet firmly planted in the information age, it’s far too easy to take modern computers and the internet for granted. We’ll complain about the latest comic book movie’s less-than-perfect CGI, sigh loudly if our movie doesn’t load instantly on Netflix, and we can’t even imagine life without smartphones anymore.

• USDA inspector general to investigate alleged censorship of scientists

  The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s inspector general said Friday that she plans to investigate alleged censorship of agency scientists working on controversial issues.

  USDA Inspector General Phyllis Fong told a U.S. House subcommittee her office will soon open a broad investigation following a “significant volume” of complaints from the department’s scientists.

• USDA Inspector General may survey agency scientists about censorship

  “In a growing number of cases, USDA managers are interfering, intimidating, harassing, and in some cases punishing civil service scientists for doing work that has inconvenient implications for industry and could have direct policy/regulatory ramifications,” the petition said.

Health/Nutrition

• ‘Selling off NHS for profit’: Full list of MPs with links to private healthcare firms

  PM David Cameron and Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt, Lib Dems Nick Clegg and Vince Cable are also on the list – here is the full rundown. Is your MP on there?

• Jeremy Hunt launches urgent inquiry into junior doctors’ morale

  Jeremy Hunt has launched an urgent inquiry into the level of junior doctors’ morale and welfare as large numbers threaten to quit the profession over being forced to accept a new contract.

  The Health Secretary appointed Dame Sue Bailey of the Academy of Medical Royal Colleges to lead the review.

  Mr Hunt has been widely criticised by junior doctors, who voted to strike over his new proposed contract by 98 per cent.

• Petition calling for vote of no confidence in Jeremy Hunt to be considered for debate in Parliament after reaching 100,000 signatures

  A petition calling for a vote of no confidence in Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt will be considered for debate in Parliament after reaching more than 100,000 signatures in less than 24 hours.

  The backlash follows the Health Secretary’s controversial decision to impose the new junior doctor’s contract without further negotiations with the medical profession.

  The petition says: “Mr Hunt recently gave totally inappropriate advice to Google conditions before seeking medical opinion.”

• E-cigs shut down hundreds of immune system genes—regular cigs don’t

  It’s widely assumed that swapping cigarette puffing for vapor huffing is better for health—after all, electronic cigarettes that heat up and atomize a liquid concoction can skip all the hazards of combustion and smoke. But researchers are still scrambling to understand the health effects of e-cig use (aka vaping) and to track down the variable and undisclosed components of those vaporized mixtures. The most recent data hints at unexpected health effects unique to e-cig use.

  After comparing genetic information swabbed from the noses of smokers, vapers, and non-users of both, researchers found that smoking suppresses the activity of 53 genes involved in the immune system. Vaping also suppressed those 53 immune genes—along with 305 others. The results were presented Friday at the annual conference of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in Washington.

• Reporting on Zika When You Have Zika

  There’s a lot we don’t know about the Zika virus, but there’s one thing I’m sure of: I had it last month. I got to Haiti in early January, a few days before the first cases were confirmed in the country’s capital, Port-au-Prince. Two weeks later, my wife started developing symptoms. A blood test confirmed she had the disease. By then, I was experiencing the same symptoms: the low-grade fever, then a mild rash covering my face and chest, pinkish eyes, and when those cleared up, stiff fingers and toes that plumped up like sausages.

  Even before either of us had heard of the virus, we were taking all the precautions. Dengue and the also newly arrived chikungunya virus piggyback on the same Aedes aegypti mosquito; others species carry malaria. Having had dengue years ago, I had no interest in revisiting it or experiencing any of the other offerings. I slathered myself multiple times a day with DEET and wore one of those olive-drab insect-repellent bands. We slept under a Permethrin-treated bed net weighted down on the corners with history books. But Aedes are determined suckers. And once a nonfatal virus starts moving through a population with no immunity to it, especially in a place with little air-conditioning and no organized pest control, it’s all but impossible not to be exposed.

Security

• Friday’s security updates

• Internet Providers to Use Private Routers as Public Hotspots

  The Juniper report highlighted the consumer benefits that the policy offers, such as free or reduced-fee access to the operator’s homespot network.
  At least one in three home routers will be used as public WiFi hotspots by 2017, and the total installed base of such dual-use routers will reach 366 million globally by the end of 2020, according to a report from Juniper Research.

• Will you be my cryptovalentine?

  Over the last few year Free Software Foundation Europe runs a campaign called “I love Free Software Day”. It’s an opportunity to share your appreciation (or love) with the developers of your favorite Free Software project. So after you are done reading this post, choose your favorite project and send its developer(s) an appreciation email.

  Last year Zak Rogoff , had a great similar idea. On a post he wrote he suggested we use the Valentine’s Day as an opportunity to use Free Software in order to setup secure and private communications with our significant other.

• Pwn2Own Hacking Contest Returns as Joint HPE-Trend Micro Effort

  Over a half million dollars in prize money is up for grabs as the Zero Day Initiative browser hacking contest continues even as corporate ownership shifts.
  The annual Pwn2Own browser hacking competition that takes place at the CanSecWest conference is one of the premier security events in any given year, as security researchers attempt to demonstrate in real time zero-day exploits against modern Web browsers. This year there was initial concern that the event wouldn’t happen, as the Zero Day Initiative (ZDI), which is the primary sponsor of Pwn2Own, is currently in a state of transition.

• Kaspersky Researcher Shows How He Hacked His Hospital While Sitting In His Car

  When we visit a hospital, we put our complete trust in our doctor and the medical equipment that he/she uses. With advancement in technology, these equipment have become more complex and interconnected. Sadly, ensuring standard cybersecurity measures is not a top priority of the medical professionals. This fact was recently outlined by a Kaspersky security researcher who hacked a hospital while sitting in his car.

• Amazon Cloud is Prepared for the Zombie Apocalypse

  There are a number of reasons why an Amazon Web Services (AWS) user might need to violate the acceptable terms of use – including the onset of a zombie apocalypse.

  Amazon updated its terms of service this week alongside its Lumberyard gaming development platform, with a new provision about acceptable use in connection with safety-critical systems.

Defence/Police/Secrecy/Aggression

• Sanders Slams Clinton’s Admiration for “Destructive” Former U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger

  During Thursday’s Democratic debate, Bernie Sanders picked up on a point that Hillary Clinton made during last week’s face-off in New Hampshire about her admiration for former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger. “She talked about getting the approval or the support or the mentoring of Henry Kissinger,” Sanders said. “Now, I find it rather amazing, because I happen to believe that Henry Kissinger was one of the most destructive secretaries of state in the modern history of this country. … I am proud to say that Henry Kissinger is not my friend. I will not take advice from Henry Kissinger.” Clinton responded that Sanders has failed to answer questions about whom he would have advise him on foreign policy. Sanders told her, “Well, it ain’t Henry Kissinger. That’s for sure.” We get reaction from economist Jeffrey Sachs, whose recent article is headlined “Hillary is the Candidate of the War Machine,” and from Congressmember Gregory Meeks, Democrat of New York and chair of the Congressional Black Caucus political action committee, which has endorsed Hillary Clinton.

• Henry Kissinger’s War Crimes Are Central to the Divide Between Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders

  The sparring during Thursday’s Democratic presidential debate between Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders over whether Henry Kissinger is an elder statesman or a pariah has laid bare a major foreign policy divide within the Democratic Party.

  Clinton and Sanders stand on opposite sides of that divide. One represents the hawkish Washington foreign policy establishment, which reveres and in some cases actually works for Kissinger. The other represents the marginalized non-interventionists, who can’t possibly forgive someone with the blood of millions of brown people on his hands.

  Kissinger is an amazing and appropriate lens through which to see what’s at stake in the choice between Clinton and Sanders. But that only works, of course, if you understand who Kissinger is — which surely many of today’s voters don’t.

  Some may only dimly recall that Kissinger won a Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts to end the Vietnam War (comedian Tom Lehrer famously said the award made political satire obsolete), and that he played a central role in President Nixon’s opening of relations with China.

• Lobbyists, Consultants Fret Over Bernie Sanders Victory

  Bernie Sanders won an overwhelming victory in the New Hampshire Democratic presidential primary, capturing nearly every demographic group and 60 percent of the vote. The insurgent democratic socialist from Vermont, however, was not celebrated in some quarters of Washington, D.C., as a number of lobbyists and business political consultants took to Twitter to complain.

  Tony Fratto, the co-founder of Hamilton Place Strategies, a political consulting firm that has previously represented a variety of Wall Street interests including recent work to promote the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade agreement on behalf of large corporations, tweeted in disapproval of Sanders’s rhetoric against the excesses of Wall Street…

Environment/Energy/Wildlife

• It turns out this police wildlife officer is really into hunting

  Animal rights groups have called for the immediate dismissal of a police officer charged with investigating illegal fox hunting after it emerged that she quite likes a bit of hunting herself.

  Pc Sharon Roscoe, 46, is both a wildlife officer for Leicestershire Police, which involves looking into allegations of animal trapping, game poaching, and illegal fox hunting among others, and a member of the Duke of Rutland’s Belvoir Hunt in Lincolnshire.

  The Belvoir Hunt was targeted by animal rights groups in December after a video of a dehydrated fox – said to have been held captive for two days in an outbuilding – was released. Now the Hunt Saboteurs Association has launched a petition which calls for the immediate removal of Pc Roscoe, who they say has a conflict of interests.

Finance

• Watch Google U.K.’s boss conveniently forget how much he gets paid

  Matt Brittin is the man at the top of Google’s U.K. operation, and he’s either very coy or very forgetful, because he can’t answer the question of how much he gets paid. Brittin was asked during a grilling by the Public Accounts Committee, where he was appearing on behalf of Google U.K. in an ongoing tax row.

  Meg Hillier, head of the committee, led the questioning, asking, “What do you get paid, Mr. Brittin?” She prefaced it by wondering if he really understood the anger over the agreed payment of £130 million ($187 million) in back taxes, which many say is too low. Brittin doesn’t answer, saying that he’ll disclose the figure privately “if it was relevant,” but was shot down by Hillier, who responded, “I’m asking you, so it’s a relevant matter.”

• Desperately seeking signs of inflation

  Now markets have delivered their verdict on inflation – it’s not picking up any time soon – economic data due next week will show whether price pressures are rising meaningfully or falling back in some of the world’s major economies.

  A global rout in stock markets, currencies, commodities and bond yields has so far defined 2016 as investors have seemingly lost faith in central banks’ abilities to boost inflation, with signs the world economy is stalling.

• Under-35s in the UK face becoming permanent renters, warns thinktank

  Nine out of 10 Britons on modest incomes under the age of 35 will be frozen out of home ownership within a decade, according to a study from a leading thinktank that lays bare the impact of surging property prices on the young.

• A TPP protester’s open letter to Steven Joyce

  Dear Steven Joyce. As a speaker at the recent TPPA public rally I’d like to respond to your ‘open letter to TPPA protesters’.

  First, I am not ‘protesting’ – a pejorative term you use to undermine those who disagree with you.

  I am refuting your Government’s policy. Now to the substance.

• The Trouble With the TPP, Day 28: Privacy Risks From the Source Code Rules

  Yesterday’s Trouble with the TPP post examined some of the uncertainty created by the surprising e-commerce provision that involves restrictions on source code disclosures. KEI notes that governments have not been shy about requiring source code disclosures in other contexts, such as competition worries. Yet this rule will establish new restrictions, creating concerns about the implications in areas such as privacy. For example, security and Internet experts have been sounding the alarm on the risks associated with exploited wifi routers and pointing to source code disclosures as potential solution.

PR/AstroTurf/Lobbying

• Corrupt journalism doesn’t pay. Nor does abetting it.

  Former Atlantic contributing editor* Marc Ambinder is showing appropriate contrition for having participated in some dubious journalistic practices back in July 2009. As exposed by some Freedom Of Information Act documents secured by J.K. Trotter of Gawker, Ambinder was pursuing a copy of the speech that then- Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was to make at the Council on Foreign Relations. So he emailed renowned Clinton advocate and spokesperson Philippe Reines.

• Hillary at Selma? Not in 2015…

  Oh, wait, she wasn’t there that year. Obama and his family were there. Hell, even George W. Bush and his wife Laura attended. Where was Hillary (and for that matter, Bill) on this very important 50th anniversary?

• The BBC in the brave new China

  Will it work? According to Shi Lan, the Assistant General manager of SMG Pictures, the Chinese company that imported the Sherlock special, the BBC’s cultural programming is seen by Chinese audiences as “high-class spiritual food”. Shi explains that the BBC was already prestigious among the higher educated population in China due to the reliability of its information, as well as its unmatched documentaries and dramas. Meanwhile, shows like Sherlock have attracted younger audiences. There is particularly high demand for non-commercial, first-class cultural programming in the first-tier Chinese cities, like Beijing and Guangzhou, though the market remains small. Following the success of Sherlock’s ‘The Abominable Bride’, SGM Pictures will co-produce ‘Earth: One Amazing Day’ with BBC Earth Films and BBC World Service, for release in cinemas in 2017.

Censorship

• What Facebook’s policy on nudity means in practice

• French Court Rules Facebook Can Be Sued for Censorship in Nude Painting Case

• Facebook could be sued for censoring this 19th-century nude painting

• Facebook loses nudity appeal in French court

• France says Facebook must face French law in nudity censorship case

  Facebook will have to face a censorship lawsuit over a 19th century oil painting of a woman’s genitalia, a Paris appeals court ruled on Friday.

  The ruling favored a French teacher whose Facebook account was suspended when he posted an image (NSFW) of a famous Gustave Courbet painting called L’Origine du monde. The portrait depicts a woman naked from the waist down at a graphic angle, and it hangs in the Musée d’Orsay in Paris.

  The teacher claimed that Facebook censored him, and he is asking for €20,000 (or about $22,500) in damages. Facebook countered that the man’s lawsuit was invalid because Facebook’s Terms of Service stipulate (section 15) that all users must resolve disputes with the social network, “in the US District Court for the Northern District of California or a state court located in San Mateo County.”

• Wikimedia Takes Down Diary Of Anne Frank, Uses It To Highlight Idiocy Of DMCA Rules, Copyright Terms

  We’ve written a few times about the copyright status of the Diary of Anne Frank lately, mainly because it’s pretty clear that the original work was supposed to enter the public domain in Europe on January 1st of this year, as it was 70 years after Frank’s tragic death. However, the copyright holder, The Anne Frank Fonds organization in Switzerland has been trying to claim that the work is still under copyright, and that Anne’s father, Otto Frank, is a co-author of the work. Either way, the work is not in the public domain in the US, because the US (ridiculously) grants copyrights for an even longer term than Europe.

• Tel Aviv Museum Director Rejects Accusations of ‘Self-censorship’ Over Nixed Ai Weiwei Exhibit

  Tel Aviv Museum of Art director Suzanne Landau defends her organization’s recent actions, and says she isn’t afraid to resign if the culture minister tells her to censor something.

• When comedy and censorship collide, who laughs longest?

  The question of when comedy crosses the line will be central to a debate looking at the relationship between jokes and freedom of speech.

  On Sunday 14 February, Say What You Like: Comedy, Politics and Free Speech, organised by Brunel University London’s Centre for Comedy Studies and Magna Carta Institute, will ask a panel made up of comedians and academics to discuss the relationship between comedy and censorship.

• Italy’s Gesture of ‘Respectful’ Self-Censorship for Iran Ends Up Offending Italians

  As soon as a nuclear agreement was signed in Vienna between Iran and the so-called P5+1 countries putting an end to the trade sanctions against the Islamic Republic, the visits of western industrialists and political representatives looking for contracts began in Tehran.

  Then it was Iranian President Hassan Rouhani‘s turn to visit European countries, accompanied by six ministers and 120 entrepreneurs of various economic sectors. He concluded his first stop-over in Rome, signing contracts for a total value of more than 17 billions euros in a wide range of sectors.

  This official visit in the Italian capital aimed to strengthen the relationship between Italy and Iran after the end of the sanctions. A gesture of “respect” towards Iran, however, seemed to undermine that very relationship, at least in the public’s eyes: Many naked sculptures in the Capitoline Museums were covered up by large white panels so as “to not offend the sensitivity of the Iranian President”, as Italian news website Ansa explained.

• Kevin Kiley out at 92.3 The Fan: ‘You shouldn’t accept censorship ever’

• Cleveland Radio Dummy Cries Censorship

• Cleveland radio host who blasted NFL women resigns over ‘censorship’

• Cleveland radio host resigns

• Philadelphia Museum of Art Pushes Back Against Yet More Facebook Censorship

• Evelyne Axell’s ‘Ice Cream’ picture is ‘too suggestive’ for Facebook

• Facebook Thought This Image Of A Woman Eating Ice Cream Was So Vulgar, It Deleted It!

• Facebook doesn’t want you to see this picture

• Missouri Lawmakers Push To Punish Mizzou Because Students Protested

• Mo. Lawmaker Limits Univ. Budget Over Campus Protests

• Missouri professor calls her protest actions embarrassing

• Student who shot Melissa Click video asks lawmakers to relent on University of Missouri budget

• Melissa Click breaks silence, apologizes for censorship incident at Univ. of Missouri

• Professor breaks her silence after notorious censorship video

• Student Journalist Disputes Claims Made By Melissa Click

• Lawmakers upset over Melissa Click and protests deny budget boost to University of Missouri

• Communications Professor Who Tried to Block Journalist During Student Protest Speaks to KMIZ

• Missouri lawmakers act to block home care worker wage hike

• Mizzou Professor ‘Embarrassed’ About Actions During Protests

• Failure to fire teacher could cut state funds to University of Missouri system

• Mizzou Professor ‘Embarrassed’ by Actions

• MU Professor Professor Speaks Out About Student Protests

• Missouri professor says she was not calling for violence during protests

• MU professor Melissa Click is ‘embarrassed’ by campus protest video

• Missouri professor who called for ‘muscle’ in video regrets her behavior

• TheChat: Melissa Click says she was `flustered’

• Mizzou prof. who called for ‘muscle’ apologizes again

• Google to scrub web search results more widely to soothe EU

• Google Search Results In Europe Will Be Filtered Across Domains

• Google To Remove Right-To-Be-Forgotten Links Worldwide, For Searchers In European Countries

• Google Updates Right To Be Forgotten To Appease The EU

• Google Partially Caves To French Demands For More Global Censorship Of ‘Forgotten’ Links

• How Google’s personalized results could influence your search rankings

• Google to change its implementation of EU’s ‘right to be forgotten’ ruling

• Google to extend ‘right to be forgotten’ to all search sites for EU users

• Google to comply more strictly with EU’s ‘right to be forgotten’ act

• Google expands ‘right to be forgotten’ to all global search results

• Google Blocks Right to Be Forgotten Removed Results from All EU Searchers

• Google filters IPs to comply EU’s Right To Be Forgotten rules globally next week

• Google Makes a Final Step Towards EU Acceptance

• Google gives more ground in battle against Europe’s ‘right to be forgotten’

• Google will remove search results for searches outside European Union starting March

• Google To Delete Links Under Right To Be Forgotten More Widely

• Google Extending Scope Of Europeans’ ‘Right To Be Forgotten’ Requests To Censor US Search Results

• Google to narrowly expand Europeans’ ‘right to be forgotten’

• In response to EU data concerns, Google to clean search results

• Google Focuses On IP Address To Censor European Search Results

• Google Implements Right To Be Forgotton Across EU

• Google Expands ‘Right To Be Forgotten’ To More Websites

• Privacy victory, as Google removes ‘right to be forgotten’ content across EU

• Google finally complies with ‘right to be forgotten’- but on its terms

• Google expands right to be forgotten across all Its domains

• Google to extend ‘right to be forgotten’ to all domains

• Google pacifies Euro privacy advocates with Google.com fudge

• Two Years Later, Google Fixes Right-To-Be-Forgotten Implementation – Reuters

• Google to Expand ‘Right to be Forgotten’ Effort to Soothe EU Objectives

• EU’s “Right to Be Forgotten” Policy Sets Bad Precedent for Free Expression Worldwide

• Google Expands the Right to be Forgotten to All of Europe

• Is Europe’s privacy crackdown working?

• Google expands the ‘right to be forgotten’ in Europe

• Google Will Eliminate Search Results to Comply with European Law – The Right to Be Forgotten

• Google Reportedly to Further Enforce EU’s Right to Be Forgotten Mandate

• Google Right To Be Forgotten Coverage Expands

• In response to European Union data concerns, Google to clean search results

• Google.com Extends ‘Right To Be Forgotten’ for Europeans

• Google To Further Block Some European Search Results

• Google just made a major expansion to Europe’s ‘right to be forgotten’

• Google just closed a major loophole in Europe’s ‘right to be forgotten’

• Google extends ‘right to be forgotten’ to all domains

• Google Doubles Down on ‘Right to be Forgotten’ Removals

• Google to Strictly Adhere to EU’s “Right to be Forgotten” Principle

• Google widens scope of “right to be forgotten” due to pressure from EU privacy laws

• ‘Right to be forgotten’ extended to all Google domains in EU

• Google’s Censorship Compromise Panned By Digital Rights Group

• Google Proceeds To Blocking Search Results In Europe

• Google Agrees To Censor Search Results More Broadly For Europeans

• Google To Censor US Search Site For European Users

• Google to scrub web search results more widely to soothe EU objections

• Google will make it easier to be ‘forgotten’ online in Europe

• Google takes wider action on ‘right to be forgotten’

• Google Will Further Block Some European Search Results

• Google to extend ‘right to be forgotten’ to all its domains accessed in EU

• Google is expanding coverage of the ‘right to be forgotten’ ruling

• Google to hide content across all versions

• Google extends block on ‘right to be forgotten’ search results

• Google extends users’ ‘right to be forgotten’ to calm regulators

• Google will hide content removed using ‘right to be forgotten’ ruling in all versions

• ‘Right to Be Forgotten’ Expanding to Google.com in EU

• Google will extend the Right to be Forgotten to Google.com

• In Europe, Google will now remove ‘right to be forgotten’ search results from all its sites

• Why is Google scrubbing some of it search results in Europe?

• Google Finally Expands Europe’s Search Delisting To Google.com Domain

• Google extends European Right to Be Forgotten link blocks

• Google ‘Right to Be Forgotten’ to Be Applied More Widely

• Google Is Taking More Steps to Enforce Europe’s ‘Right To Be Forgotten’

• Google Bends to European Pressure on Right to be Forgotten Rule

• Google to expand right-to-be-forgotten search rules in Europe

• Google to hide content on all versions

• Google expands right-to-be-forgotten removals under Europe rules

• Censorship is becoming ‘the new normal’, warns journalist and feminist activist Julie Bindel

  Censorship is quickly becoming “the new normal,” not only on university campuses, but in society as a whole, according to a leading British journalist and feminist activist.

  Voicing her opinions in a short video clip, recorded by The Guardian, Julie Bindel has spoken out after more than half a million people signed a petition last month to ban US presidential hopeful Donald Trump from entering the UK.

  In the video, which has gone viral since its publication on Wednesday, Bindel also makes reference to the “pick-up artist” known as Roosh V – who called for rape to become legalised in certain circumstances – whom protesters have been calling to be banned from Britain after he announced a series of “meet-up” events for his followers across the country.

• Our Response To Yet Another Bogus Legal Threat From Australia: Go Learn Some Law

  So… you may recall that, back in December, we received and responded to a ridiculous and bogus legal threat sent by one Milorad “Michael” Trkulja from Australia. Mr. Trkulja had sent the almost incomprehensible letter to us and to Google, making a bunch of claims, many of which made absolutely no sense at all. The crux of the issue, however, was that, back in November of 2012, we had an article about a legal victory by Mr. Trkulja against Google. The issue was that when you searched on things like “sydney underworld criminal mafia” in Google’s Image search, sometimes a picture of Trkulja would show up. His argument was that this was Google defaming him, because its algorithms included him in the results of such a search and he was not, in fact, a part of the “underworld criminal mafia.”

Privacy

• Administration denies playing ‘shell game’ with spy programs

  The Obama administration on Friday attempted to bat down charges that it is playing a “shell game” with various intelligence powers.

  In the course of a court hearing on a long-running lawsuit over the National Security Agency’s (NSA) collection powers, conservative legal gadfly Larry Klayman accused the government of switching up the legal justifications it uses to gather Americans’ data.

  The NSA “played a shell game,” Klayman said. As soon as scrutiny mounted on one program to collect Americans’ phone records, he alleged, it quickly switched to an alternate surveillance mechanism to stay one step ahead.

• Government Asks Judge to Toss NSA Surveillance Lawsuits

  Rhetoric heated up Friday in the courtroom of the judge who blocked the government’s bulk collection of cellphone metadata, as the government and a conservative activist argued over what to do with three cases against the agency while waiting on an appeals court ruling.

• Feds Throw Kitchen Sink at NSA Lawsuits

  Government attorneys moved in for the kill Friday, seeking to end the relative luck of legal activist Larry Klayman in his lawsuits against government surveillance.

  The audience was smaller than at past hearings, perhaps because of the USA Freedom Act-ordered end to automatic bulk collection of domestic call records in November, but Klayman pressed ahead, urging U.S. District Judge Richard Leon to keep the fight alive.

• Bill Would Ban State Efforts to Weaken Encryption

• Schneier: terrorists will switch to more secure alternatives to avoid encryption backdoors

• All the president’s spies: Which candidates back the NSA

  National security, and the role that government surveillance plays in it, has been one of the hot-button issues of this presidential campaign.

  The USA Freedom Act — which was passed last June with overwhelming bipartisan support — may have ended the NSA’s mass collection of American’s phone records, but telecom companies will continue to amass your phone data. The only difference is now the NSA must go to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance (FISA) court for permission to gain access. (Documents leaked by Edward Snowden show that same secret court gave the NSA permission to indiscriminately collect Americans’ phone records in the first place.)

• Edward Snowden Inspires NSA-Style Surveillance Video Game

  Whistleblower Edward Snowden has inspired a new video game that aims to expose the “suffocating privacy invasions” carried out by intelligence agencies.

  Need to Know, developed by Australia-based Monomyth Games, requires players to climb the ranks of the Department of Liberty, a government agency based on the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA), whose mass surveillance practises Snowden exposed through his 2013 leaks.

• Marsh names former U.K. intelligence director as cyber risk adviser

• GCHQ hacking phones and computers is legal, says top UK court

• Spies win the right to hack smartphones of suspects

• UK tribunal rules that GCHQ hacking does not violate human rights

• GCHQ hacking does not breach human rights, security tribunal rules

• GCHQ did not break the law when it hacked networks, says tribunal

• Fifth of GCHQ intelligence comes from hacking

• Tribunal rules computer hacking by GCHQ is not illegal

• GCHQ ‘equipment interference’ legal under human rights law, Investigatory Powers Tribunal rules

• GCHQ ‘equipment interference’ legal under human rights law – tribunal

• Brit spies can legally hack PCs and phones, say Brit spies’ overseers

• Court rules it is not illegal for GCHQ to hack computers

• UK’s Draconian GCHQ Given Unimpeachable Powers To Hack, Track And Steal Data From Citizens

• UK court: GCHQ hacking phones and computers is legal

• UK Surveillance Oversight Board Says It’s All Cool When GCHQ Hacks Basically Anyone

  This isn’t a huge surprise, but the UK’s Investigatory Powers Tribunal — which is a sort of extremely weak “oversight” board, charged with making sure that the GCHQ isn’t violating the law, but with no real powers over GCHQ and a history of supporting its spying, has now said that the GCHQ’s hacking of computers, networks and phones is perfectly fine.

• How The Dark Net Is Making Drug Purchases Safer By Eliminating Associated Violence And Improving Quality

  That blinkered attitude ignores the important advantages moving drug sales from the physical world to the digital one brings not just for for users and dealers, but also for society as a whole, which does not have to deal with the social and economic consequences of violence on the streets, or with the long-term damage caused by poor-quality products. Along the way, his remarks inevitably and unhelpfully reinforce the view that the dark net is evil, and thus is something to be destroyed.

• Should you get rid of your smartphone? [Ed: does not cover privacy aspects.]

  So I think it’s possible to keep using a smartphone, but in a way that doesn’t lend itself to wasting vast amounts of time being constantly distracted by middling notifications, text messages, social media, etc.

Civil Rights

• If The CIA Apologizes For Lying About Torture, But Doesn’t Tell Anyone About The Apology, Does It Really Count?

  Remember the Senate Intelligence Committee’s massive CIA torture report, that details how the CIA conducted a vast program of torturing people, which had no actual benefit, and then lied to Congress (repeatedly) about it? The same report that, when the heavily redacted executive summary was released, ex-CIA officials insisted would result in attacks on America that never actually happened?

  This was also the same CIA torture report that the CIA vehemently disagreed with. Even prior to the (again, heavily redacted) executive summary being released, CIA Director John Brennan had responded to the report, insisting that it was full of lies and misleading claims. That initial response, which happened in the summer of 2013 took issue with many of the claims in the report. When the redacted executive summary of the report was finally released, the CIA apparently publicly posted a “correction” about its claims concerning the report, in which it noted that many of the statements the CIA had made in attacking the torture report were actually… not true.

• ‘Declaration of Independence of Cyberspace’ Turns 20, Opera Fetches $1.2 Billion & More…

  Two important Internet events happened 20 years ago this week and a web browser gets an unexpected — to us — windfall.

• Court Won’t Let Government Screw Forfeiture Victim Out Of Legal Fees

  The government has made one last attempt to screw over a victim of an IRS bank account seizure. The screwing began in December of 2014, when the IRS — despite stating it would not perform forfeitures if there was no clear evidence of wrongdoing — lifted $107,000 from convenience store owner Lyndon McLellan. This was yet another one of the IRS’s “structuring” cases, predicated solely on the fact that multiple deposits under $10,000 were made. ($10,000 triggers automatic reporting to the federal government.)

  After the IRS announced it would not be pursuing questionable structuring seizures — thanks mainly to several rounds of negative press — it still continued to pursue McLellan’s case, despite IRS Commissioner John Koskinen telling a Congressional subcommittee that this was exactly the sort of case the IRS would no longer be pursuing.

• Aviva Chomsky on Immigrant Workers & the Newspaper Business

  This week on CounterSpin: US politicians and media talk about immigration all the time, but unless Thomas Friedman meets a chatty cab driver, we don’t very often hear from immigrants themselves—and rarely at any length or with much substance. That’s a problem in its own right, but the invisibility also makes it much easier to demonize immigrants, particularly the undocumented, and to tell stories about the role of immigration in US history that simply aren’t true.

Internet/Net Neutrality

• CenturyLink Follows Comcast’s Lead, To Start Charging Broadband Overage Fees

  You can add CenturyLink to the growing number of ISPs charging more money for the same product thanks to limited broadband competition.

• Congress Passes Permanent Internet Access Tax Ban… But May Enable More e-Commerce Sales Tax

  In 1998, Congress passed the Internet Tax Freedom Act (ITFA), which placed a ban on taxing internet access. The bill was temporary, and every few years had to be extended by Congress to stop attempts to add taxes to the cost of your internet access. For a long time, there’s been a push to make the ITFA permanent, and Congress finally did that yesterday, when the Senate approved such a bill (the House approved its version last summer). As Senator Ron Wyden noted in response to this passing, this inevitably saves the public a lot of money on a vital service. He notes that mobile phone service is taxable, and average consumers pay a 17% tax on such service. The President still needs to sign the bill, but it would be a surprise if he vetoed it.

• Stop Mega-Cable Merger to Avoid a Second Comcast

  Americans are divided in many ways, but there are some points of convergence—one of which seems to be hatred of the cable company Comcast. Notoriously terrible customer service, a pricing system described as “absurd” and a stranglehold on internet speeds garner the cable behemoth a remarkable amount of dislike and distrust, which played a role in the quashing of its recent effort to merge with perennial runner-up for worst company in America, Time Warner Cable.

DRM/Restrictions

• People are deliberately bricking their iPhones by going back in time

  According to a thread on Reddit, any 64-bit iOS devices suffer from a problem that renders them unusable if the time and date settings are set to a specific point.

  Needless to say, though I will anyway, you shouldn’t try this at home, or work, or anywhere else really – unless you fancy a trip to your local Apple Store.

• Setting the date to 1 January 1970 will brick your iPhone, iPad or iPod touch

  Manually setting the date of your iPhone or iPad to 1 January 1970, or tricking your friends into doing it, will cause it to get permanently stuck while trying to boot back up if it’s switched off.

  The bug within Apple’s date and time settings within iOS causes such an issue that users are reporting that the fail-safe restore techniques using iTunes are not able to repair the problem.

• A New Advocacy Group Is Lobbying for the Right to Repair Everything

  Last summer, when the Copyright Office asked if anyone wanted to defend the right for video game console jailbreakers to mod or repair their systems, no one had a formal legal argument prepared. A new association representing repairmen and women across all industries was just formed to make sure nothing like that ever happens again.