• Distributions
• Devices/Embedded

Best Universal Package Manager for Linux?

In fact, considering that Flatpak, Fedora and Red Hat’s candidate for a universal package manager, was rushed out a few days after Snappy was announced, it appears that the issue is not necessity so much as a corporate rivalry that is being played out in the Linux community — the last place that it belongs.

Still, accepting the claims about universal package managers at face value, which one would benefit Linux the most? Some choice must surely be made, or the main result of trying to implement a universal package manager, as many point out, would be to replace the longtime rivalry between Debian and RPM packages with yet another conflict between competing standards, which would remove one of the main rationalizations for raising the issue.

You & Linux, Small Business Distros, FreeDOS

The Linux Voice asked readers today, “How did you discover Linux?” Many of the comments are from those who started in the mid 1990′s or earlier. ComputerWorld featured an interview with Jim Hall who’s been spearheading the project to keep FreeDOS alive and TechRadar recommended the best distributions for small business. Elsewhere, the next Slackware will use UTF-8 by default and Dedoimedo said, “Linux is slowly killing itself.”

Linux User? The US Government May Classify You an Extremist

Do you use decentralized, open source software? The US government considers you an extremist.

According to leaked documents related to the XKeyscore spying program, the National Security Agency (NSA) flags as an “extremist” anyone who uses Tor or Tails Linux, or who subscribes to Linux Journal.

Desktop

• Linux 2017 – The Road to Hell

  The Year of Linux is the year that you look at your distribution, compare to the year before, and you have that sense of stability, the knowledge that no matter what you do, you can rely on your operating system. Which is definitely not the case today. If anything, the issues are worsening and multiplying. You don’t need a degree in math to see the problem.

  I find the lack of consistency to be the public enemy no. 1 in the open-source world. In the long run, it will be the one deciding factor that will determine the success of Linux. Sure, applications, but if the operating system is not transparent, people will not choose it. They will seek simpler, possibly less glamorous, but ultimately more stable solutions, because no one wants to install a patch and dread what will happen after a reboot. It’s very PTSD. And we know Linux can do better than that. We’ve seen it. Not that long ago. That’s all.

• Voice of the Masses: How did you discover Linux?

  For our next podcast, we want to hear how you got into GNU/Linux. Where did your journey begin? Maybe you saw it on the coverdisc of a magazine somewhere, or a friend recommended that you try it. Perhaps your company switched to Linux which encouraged you to install it at home, or you simply became so enraged with Windows that you had to find something else.

• Ubuntu MATE, Pithos and the Sounds of Popcorn

  My trusty old Sony Vaio laptop has been saddled up with Ubuntu MATE for a little over a month now. For the most part, it’s running just as smoothly as it ever did on Windows XP — and definitely better than it ran with the lovingly installed bloatware that came included with it shiny and new from the factory.

  Upon the suggestion of FOSS Force reader Jeff, I invested in a recent upgrade of RAM that fulfills its maximum potential of a single gigabyte. Compared to its performance in the past, it’s definitely noticeable. But compared to my main work computer with a humble (by modern standards) 4 GB RAM, it can feel a little sluggish if I try to do do something unreasonable — like having two programs open at once.

Server

• Xen Project Release Strengthens Security and Pushes New Use Cases

  Xen Project technology supports more than 10 million users and is a staple in some of the largest clouds in production today, including Amazon Web Service, Tencent, and Alibaba’s Aliyun. Recently, the project announced the arrival of Xen Project Hypervisor 4.7. This new release focuses on improving code quality, security hardening and features, and support for the latest hardware. It is also the first release of the project’s fixed-term June – December release cycles. The fixed-term release cycles provide more predictability making it easier for consumers of Xen to plan ahead.

Kernel Space

• Linux Kernel 4.1.28 LTS Is a Massive Update with XFS, MIPS and ARM Improvements

  Linux kernel developer Sasha Levin has announced the release of the twenty-eighth maintenance update for the Linux 4.1 long-term supported kernel series, version 4.1.28.

  Linux kernel 4.1.28 LTS has been in development for the past three weeks since the June 23 debut of the previous maintenance release, Linux 4.1.27 LTS. During all this time, it has received a huge number of improvements, updated drivers, and core kernel changes. According to the appended shortlog, the update changes a total of 334 files, with 3,165 insertions and 2,032 deletions.

• AT&T’s ECOMP code to land soon at Linux Foundation

  AT&T says it’s just about ready to release its virtualisation automation software, amounting to more than eight million lines of code: its Enhanced Control, Orchestration, Management and Policy platform – ECOMP – will soon land at the Linux Foundation.

  The company says the platform is the basis for its target to virtualise 75 per cent of its network by 2020, something chief strategy officer John Donovan says is necessary to respond to huge and unpredictable traffic growth.

• AT&T ECOMP SDN platform move to open source community

• AT&T to open source its SDN platform, as SDN test consortium launches

• AT&T Offers ‘Mature’ ECOMP as Open Source MANO

• AT&T Goes Open Source With SDN Development Platform

• Linux Kernel 3.18.37 LTS Updates the Networking & Sound Stacks, Adds MIPS Fixes

• Linux Is The Future Operating System For Cars — Automotive Grade Linux

• Automotive Grade Linux Releases 2.0 Spec Amid Growing Support

• Linux Has Seen 30k+ Commits So Far This Year

  Being half-way now through the year and Linux 4.7 coming later this month, I figured it would be fun to run some statistics on the Linux kernel Git repository to see how this year is stacking up compared to past years.

  When running GitStats on the mainline kernel tree as of yesterday, there were 21,718,865 lines of code reported across 603,345 commits by 15,430 different authors.

• Thunderbolt Networking Support Is Still Being Worked On For Linux

  Thunderbolt networking support is still being worked on for the mainline Linux kernel.

  The set of patches for implementing Thunderbolt networking for Linux is up to its third revision. These patches are for enabling networking of computer-to-computer over a Thunderbolt cable for non-Apple hardware. This adds the Thunderbolt networking support for hardware with a firmware-based controller, namely the Intel Connection Manager (ICM). These Linux kernel patches continue to be worked on by Intel with Amir Levy sending them out.

• Graphics Stack

  • H.264 VA-API Encode Comes To Gallium3D

    Thanks to work by AMD developers, there is support for accelerated H.264 video encoding with the VA-API implementation in Gallium3D.

    Particularly for benefiting the RadeonSI Gallium3D driver, there is H.264 VA-API acceleration in Gallium3D. The 11 patches for this support with the Gallium3D Video Acceleration API were published today by AMD’s Boyuan Zhang.

  • NVIDIA Releases “The World’s Most Advanced VR Game”, Will Be Open-Sourced

  • Why We Made the World’s Most Advanced VR Game – NVIDIA VR Funhouse

    Today’s release of NVIDIA VR Funhouse extends our role in the gaming ecosystem to that of a game creator.

    Our first game, NVIDIA VR Funhouse is built on Epic’s Unreal Engine 4, and is the brainchild of NVIDIA’s LightSpeed Studios. It was created with a dual-purpose.

    First, we wanted it to be fun. To be enjoyed by people of all ages, whether or not they’ve tried VR, whether or not they’re an early adopter.

    Second, it was created to show how immersive VR can be when physics simulation is fully integrated into an experience.

  • Intel Has A Final Round Of Graphics Updates For Linux 4.8, Broxton Is Ready

    Daniel Vetter of Intel’s Open-Source Technology Center has submitted the final round of feature updates for the i915 DRM driver for DRM-Next to in turn target the Linux 4.8 kernel.

    The Intel DRM code already had some pull requests of material in DRM-Next for Linux 4.8. The previous pulls included work on DisplayPort++ dongles, more GuC stuff, panel-related work and one end-user feature that’s new is the GVT-g para-virtualization support for Broadwell and newer.

  • The Founder Of Wayland Has Joined Google

    Last week we reported on Kristian Høgsberg, the founder of Wayland and a long-time Linux graphics developer, leaving his position at Intel. We now know he headed off to Google.

    Through his LinkedIn profile he has confirmed that he’s now working for Google in the Portland area as a software engineer.

Applications

• Cubemap 1.3.0 released

  I just released version 1.3.0 of Cubemap, my high-performance video reflector. For a change, both new features are from (indirect) user requests; someone wanted support for raw TS inputs and it was easy enough to add.

• MKVToolNix 9.3 “Second Sight” Released with Several Enhancements and Features

  MKVToolNix developer Moritz Bunkus proudly announced the other day the release of the MKVToolNix 9.3.0 “Second Sight” maintenance update of the popular open-source MKV (Matroska) manipulation utility, promising to implement many of the user-requested features, as well as to fix numerous reported bugs.

  MKVToolNix 9.3 brought a new chapter generation feature with two placeholders, better support when opening a saved configuration via the merge tool, along with the ability to specify how much a TS or MPEG-PS file will be probed for tracks by using the new “–probe-range-percentage” option.

• Proprietary

  • After years of neglect, A new Skype for Linux Client emerges [Ed: key point is neglect of something inherited upon buyout]

  • Microsoft is replacing Skype’s ancient Linux client with a web app (sort of) [iophk: "in other words, eliminating the native client"]

  • New Vivaldi Web Browser Snapshot Improves Proprietary Media Support on Linux

    Ruarí Ødegaard informs Softpedia today, July 14, 2016, about the availability of yet another snapshot towards the Vivaldi 1.3 cross-platform web browser, bringing more improvements to Linux support.

    According to Mr. Ødegaard, Vivaldi Snapshot 1.3.537.5 has been released only a few days after the previous snapshot, version 1.3.534.3, mostly to improve the broken HTML5 proprietary media support on Linux kernel-based operating systems, which was made more robust on the Ubuntu Linux distribution but now works on Slackware and openSUSE, SLES, and derivatives.

• Instructionals/Technical

  • Encrypt sensitive information with Ccrypt on Ubuntu Linux

  • Implementing Mandatory Access Control with SELinux or AppArmor in Linux

  • Writing screenplays with Linux and open source tools

  • How to install Manjaro Linux

  • Windows 10 Anniversary Treats: How To Install The Ubuntu Linux On Windows

  • How to configure and use OpenSSH on CentOS 7

  • How to Modify a Raw Disk Image of Your Custom Linux Distro

  • Selecting key packages via UDD

  • How To Fix Linux Mint Wi-Fi Issues

  • xinput resolves device names and property names

• Games

  • Stealth-action hybrid DEADBOLT is now available for Linux on Steam

    The announcement goes on to say that while custom maps are playable on Linux, it is unlikely that Linux users will ever be able to make their own maps, due to a limitation in the GameMaker: Studio engine.

    You can grab DEADBOLT on Steam now, but the DRM free version on the Humble Store is for now only available for Windows.

  • Developers of Turmoil looking for SteamOS testers

    The developers of Turmoil, a simulation game about digging for oil are looking for testers using SteamOS.

    We mentioned a while ago it would come to Linux and it’s good to see them now moving to do it! They already have enough testers for Mac and Linux, but now they specifically need people using SteamOS.

  • Tahira: Echoes of the Astral Empire, a a tactical turn-based RPG is coming to Linux in August

    Tahira: Echoes of the Astral Empire, a tactical turn-based RPG in which a 20-year-old princess must save her people from a genocidal empire, launches on Linux on August 31, 2016.

Desktop Environments/WMs

• K Desktop Environment/KDE SC/Qt

  • Released DigiKam 5.0 and completely ported with Qt5

    The photos are organized in albums which can be sorted chronologically, by folder layout or by custom collections.You can tag your images which can be spread out across multiple folders, and digiKam provides fast and intuitive ways to browse these tagged images. You can also add comments to your images.

• GNOME Desktop/GTK

  • GNOME Board of Directors Announced

    This year we had 253 registered voters, 142 of which sent in valid ballots. Elections ran during the months of May and June, and the new Board was officially announced on June 18, 2016.

    The Board of Directors is a team of volunteers who are elected for a one-year term by GNOME Foundation members. The Board is an important part of the GNOME Foundation and ensures the health of the organization by working on operational and legal items that help keep the Foundation in order. It also helps to manage the relationship with the Advisory Board and promotes the overall well-being of the GNOME Project. This year’s Board has experience that spans the GNOME project including expertise in design, development, usability, and communications.

Distributions

• New Releases

  • Untangle NG 12.1 Linux Firewall Released with New Geolocation Capabilities, More

    Today, July 13, 2016, Untangle Inc. security software and appliance company proudly announced the release of the Untangle Next Generation (NG) Firewall 12.1 operating system.

  • netOS Server 7 Service Pack 1 Released, netOS Core Server Available for Download

    Roberto J. Dohnert from Black Lab Software (PC/OpenSystems LLC) has informed Softpedia today, July 14, about the immediate availability of the first Service Pack (SP) for the netOS Server 7 operating system, as well as the GA of netOS Core Server.

• OpenSUSE/SUSE

  • GCC 6 & Mesa 12.0 Land In Tumbleweed, 42.2 Leap To Have GNOME 3.20

  • openSUSE Leap 42.2 to Ship with GNOME 3.20, KDE Plasma 5.6, Linux Kernel 4.4 LTS

    We told you last week that users of the openSUSE Tumbleweed rolling release operating system received fewer yet very important milestones of essential core components and open-source applications, and now it’s time to take a look at what’s coming to openSUSE Leap 42.2 this fall.

    While openSUSE Tumbleweed users are currently enjoying cutting-edge software releases like the LibreOffice 5.2 RC1 office suite, Mesa 3D Graphics Library 12.0.0, Linux kernel 4.6.3, the PulseAudio 9.0 sound system, python3-setuptools 24.0.2, and the latest systemd init system update, openSUSE Leap users will have a surprise later this year when the 42.2 major version is announced.

  • Systemd updates in Tumbleweed, Leap to have GNOME 3.20

    The last update provided on Tumbleweed was almost a month ago and a lot has happened since then.

    Besides the release of a an Alpha 2 for openSUSE Leap 42.2 and the five-day openSUSE Conference in Nuremberg, Tumbleweed snapshots have been rolling along with 10 snapshots since the last update, which highlighted the addition of GNU Compiler Collection 6 as the default compiler for Tumbleweed.

    The latest snapshot, 20160710, brought a major release for python3-setuptools to version 24.0.2. Systemd also added some subpackages and python3-numpy squashed some bugs.

• Slackware Family

  • Next Slackware will use UTF-8 by default

    Besides taking security updates, Patrick already started minor changes in Slackware-Current which probably have big impact for users. The first one is enabling UTF-8 support by default in /etc/profile.d/lang.{csh,sh} script which are loaded by default and also in lilo dialog. It will not prompt you about UTF-8 anymore since it will use it by default and the kernel is already UTF-8 compliance. We will have less installation dialog in the next Slackware release

    The second change is mesa upgrade to 12.0.1. This is requested in LQ, but surprisingly Patrick approved it. Normally, current will not be active for some time besides security updates.

• Red Hat Family

  • Finance

    • Price Target Update: Red Hat, Inc. (NYSE:RHT)

  • Fedora

    • Fedora mirror at home with improved hardware

      It was always a dream to have a fully functional Fedora mirror in the local network which I can use. I tried many times before, mostly with copying rpms from office, carrying them around in hard drive, etc. But never managed to setup a working mirror which will just work (even though setting it up was not that difficult). My house currently has 3 different network (from 3 different providers) and at any point of time 1 of them stays down

    • Fedora 24 Release Party: Bangalore, India

      Over the past few months, many of us in the Bangalore open source community have focused our efforts of writing test cases for Fedora, organizing a few sessions where one can learn about testing, and how we can do things together. All this while, it has been fun: I’ve met new people, learned things, and realized that sharing even small pieces of knowledge and experiences makes it easier for newcomers to feel welcome.

    • FAD Kuala Lumpur

      Every year again, could be said if the budget.next not would enforce the Ambasadors to meet in summer instead of the end of the calendar year to come together and working on the budget plan for the next year. So after Singapore in December the APAC ambassadors came in Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia again together. For me is the way to KL just one hour longer as to Singapore, but there is one hour time difference, so I arrived again very late.

      The first day was mostly for discussions how to cut the budget of this year so that it fits to the huge budget cut. Having 11.5k US$ budget for the whole year and paying the regional FAD out of it, means for the APAC region after the FAD and paying the media the budget is gone. The next bigger agreement was how to continue with FUDCon in APAC, if it is a good idea to switch to FUDCon APAC with an bi-annually cycle.

    • Fedora at FISL

      Today, july 12, was the first day of the seventeenth edition of FISL – International Forum Free Software, this event was my entrance door to Fedora in 2008 and in 2016 this is my seventh participation here in Porto Alegre, capital of state Rio Grande do Sul.

    • Saying Goodbye to F23 updated Respins

    • FESCo Elections: Interview with Stephen Gallagher (sgallagh)

      I’ve been a software developer working on applications and services for Linux-based systems since around the turn of the millennium. For the last eight years, I’ve been working for Red Hat in various software development roles. During that time, I’ve contributed to a number of open source projects; in particular: Fedora Server, the System Security Services Daemon, and OpenShift Origin.

    • You’re invited: FOSCo Brainstorm Meeting, 2016-07-18, 13:00 UTC

      For some time now, Fedora has discussed the idea of the Fedora Outreach Steering Committee (FOSCo), a body to coordinate all our outreach efforts. Now it’s time to make it happen!

• Debian Family

  • Derivatives

    • Canonical/Ubuntu

      • Ubuntu 16.10 Getting Nautilus 3.20 Soon, Radiance Theme Fully Ported to GTK 3.20

        We reported two weeks ago on the upcoming availability of a major GTK+ 3.20 / GNOME Stack 3.20 update for the now-in-development Ubuntu 16.10 (Yakkety Yak) operating system.

        At that moment in time, Ubuntu developer Iain Lane told us that he managed to port the Ambiance theme to the latest GTK+ 3.20 technologies, and that he also updated some of the GNOME components Ubuntu is using, such as the Nautilus file manager, and Baobab disk usage analyzer tool, along with the GTK+ port of Mozilla Firefox 47.0 for Ubuntu 16.10.

Devices/Embedded

• 8 open source point of sale systems

  Running a small business isn’t easy, and especially so for retailers, restaurant owners, and others who have a brick-and-mortar storefront. Managing purchases and cash flow, keeping inventory stocked, making sure your employees are happy, and above all else serving your customers needs requires dedication, a solid business plan, and a bit of luck to be successful.

• ELC video explains the mystery of modern caches

  In his recent ELC talk, ARM kernel developer Mark Rutland traced the evolution of caches over the last decade or so, and explained how to manage them.

  “If you’re a bit tired, this is a presentation on cache maintenance, so there will be plenty of opportunity to sleep,” began Rutland. Despite this warning, Rutland’s presentation, titled Embedded Linux Conference presentation titled Stale Data, or How We (Mis-)manage Modern Caches, was actually kind of an eye opener — at least as far as cache management presentations go.

• Phones

  • Android

    • 5 Reasons I’m Excited By Nokia’s Upcoming Android Phones

      Nokia used to be the world’s biggest phone maker. When you thought of mobile phones you thought of Nokia. The brand was synonymous with mobile technology, just as Apple iand Samsung are right now.

    • How well does Pokemon Go run on Android phones?

    • Pokemon Go update finally adds support for Android N [Update: Intel x86 support, live in Germany]

    • Do not fake your location in Pokemon Go

    • Android Nougat 7.0 UK release date rumours | Android Nougat Developer Preview | Android Nougat new features: When will my phone get Android Nougat?

    • Android 6.0 Marshmallow Distribution Continues Sedate Rollout

    • Google Hangouts for Android removes merged SMS conversations, adds video

    • Android Auto launches in Japan today

    • Android Pay launches in Australia with ANZ and American Express on board

    • Google launches Android Pay in Australia with more banks than Apple or Samsung

    • Android Pay launches in Australia

    • ANZ Bank steals march on big competitors with Android Pay

    • HTC Nexus 9 Reportedly Getting Android 7.0 Nougat Soon

    • Clock app update delivers support for multi-window and Direct Boot in Android N [APK Download]

Free Tools for Driving an Open Source Project to Success

How can you showcase the fact that your open source project follows best practices and is secure? The Core Infrastructure Initiative (CII) Badge Program is a free program that is good to know about on this front. Its Best Practices Badge is a symbol of open source secure development maturity. Projects having a CII badge showcase the project’s commitment to security, and The Linux Foundation is the steward of this program.

Note that The Linux Foundation also has a collection of very useful free resources pertaining to open source compliance topics. For example, Publishing Source Code for FOSS Compliance: Lightweight Process and Checklists and Generic FOSS Policy can align your project’s development with best practices and policies.

8 answers to management questions from an open point of view

I recently saw the following questions on a survey about organizational management, and decided to answer them from my open organization point of view. I’d love to hear how others in the open source world would answer these questions, so leave some comments and tell us what you think!

IBM Forms Impactful IoT Partnership with AT&T, Focused on Open Source

The Internet of Things (IoT) is finally ramping up in a big way, and many of the biggest tech companies are announcing partnerships. The latest two players to cozy up to each other are IBM and AT&T. They are in partnership to meld AT&T’s connectivity with IBM’s Watson and Bluemix analytics platforms. Via APIs and development environments, including a number of open source tools, the tech titans want to make life easier for developers focused on IoT.

How (and why) FreeDOS keeps DOS alive

Jim Hall’s day job is chief information officer for Ramsey County in the US state of Minnesota. But outside of work, the CIO is also a contributor to a number of free software/open source projects, including FreeDOS: The project to create an open source, drop-in replacement for MS-DOS.

FreeDOS (it was originally dubbed ‘PD-DOS’ for ‘Public Domain DOS’, but the name was changed to reflect that it’s actually released under the GNU General Public License) dates back to June 1994, meaning it is just over 22 years old — a formidable lifespan compared to many open source projects.

Where Open Source fits in New Zealand

NZ Open Source Society president Dave Lane is a frequent and articulate promoter of his cause. He can also be a scathing critic of proprietary software.

In keeping with the Open Source philosophy, his presentation from this year’s ITX conference is online.

You can read the slides, or hit the S key to see the slides and his speaker notes.

Lane’s presentation has a Creative Commons licence. You can copy, adapt and share the work to your heart’s content so long as you credit the author.

It’s well worth a read if you need a crash course in Open Source. It also works as a refresher.

Web Browsers

• Mozilla

  • Next month’s Firefox 48 is looking Rusty – and that’s a very good thing

    Mozilla says it will next month ship the first official Firefox build that sports code written in its more-secure-than-C Rust programming language.

    The Firefox 48 build – due out August 2 – will include components developed using Rust, Moz’s C/C++-like systems language that focuses on safety, speed and concurrency.

CMS

• How Drupal can save taxpayers’ time and money

  Providing web services for the government of one of the most populous U.S. states (Georgia) is no small task, but it’s made a bit easier thanks to Drupal, open source software, and the work of Kendra Skeene and the GeorgiaGov Interactive team.

  In her lightning talk at Great Wide Open 2016, Skeene explains the role Drupal and open source software play in the Georgia’s efforts to save taxpayer time and money.

• Serious flaw fixed in widely used WordPress plug-in

  If you’re running a WordPress website and you have the hugely popular All in One SEO Pack plug-in installed, it’s a good idea to update it as soon as possible. The latest version released Friday fixes a flaw that could be used to hijack the site’s admin account.

  The vulnerability is in the plug-in’s Bot Blocker functionality and can be exploited remotely by sending HTTP requests with specifically crafted headers to the website.

  The Bot Blocker feature is designed to detect and block spam bots based on their user agent and referer header values, according to security researcher David Vaartjes, who found and reported the issue.

Pseudo-Open Source (Openwashing)

• Microsoft R Client provides a free taste of R Server [iophk: "not quite real R"]

• Microsoft announces the new Microsoft and Open Source Partner Community [Ed: Microsoft runs patent trolls (including an in-house one) to attack FOSS with patents but now this?]

• Running Ubuntu on top of Windows 10 is a thing thanks to Bash [Ed: Microsoft sites continue to ‘linuxwash’ Vista 10 which is a piece of malware]

Funding

• Open Source Software for Enterprise File Access ownCloud Secures Financing

  ownCloud, a Nürnberg, Germany-based provider an open source software for enterprise file access, secured millions in financing.

• ownCloud Secures Financing and Expands its Management Team

FSF/FSFE/GNU/SFLC

• GNU Health 3.0.2 patchset released !

  We provide “patchsets” to stable releases. Patchsets allow applying bug fixes and updates on production systems. Always try to keep your production system up-to-date with the latest patches.

  Patches and Patchsets maximize uptime for production systems, and keep your system updated, without the need to do a whole installation.

• GIMP 2.8.18 Open-Source Image Editor Released with Script-Fu Improvements, More

• GIMP 2.9.4 Released

  We have just released the second development version of GIMP in the 2.9.x series. After half a year in the works, GIMP 2.9.4 delivers a massive update: revamped look and feel, major improvements in color management, as well as production-ready MyPaint Brush tool, symmetric painting, and split preview for GEGL-based filters. Additionally, dozens of bugs have been fixed, and numerous small improvements have been applied.

  GIMP 2.9.4 is quite reliable for production work, but there are still loose ends to tie, which is why releasing stable v2.10 will take a while. Please refer to the Roadmap for the list of major pending changes.

• Photoshop vs. GIMP: Which Photo Editor Do You Need?

  Just about every image you encounter in the world has been manipulated or processed in some way. Headline images, fine art photography, and advertisements all rely to some extent on image editing software. Many of these manipulations are so subtle that they’re nearly imperceptible: Slight cropping, adjusting contrast, and color correction are all standard procedures. Others are more drastic, like altering shapes and removing (or inserting) certain elements.

Openness/Sharing/Collaboration

• Open Hardware/Modding

  • This open source CNC system integrates high-tech automation into backyard farming

    This story might more properly belong on RobotHugger, but with its open source DIY approach to small-scale food production, FarmBot is worth a look.

    The old-school gardener in me is battling my high-tech early adopter side over whether or not this robotic farming device is a step toward greater food sovereignty or toward a dystopian future where robot overlords rule backyard farms. Sure, it’s easy enough to learn to garden the old fashioned way, on your hands and knees with your hands in the soil, but considering that one of the excuses for not growing some our own food is lack of time and lack of skills and knowledge, perhaps this automated and optimized small-scale farming approach could be a feasible solution for the techie foodies who would like homegrown food without having to have a green thumb.

  • Tropical Labs Offers a Powerful Open Source Servo for Makers

    Joe Church from Tropical Labs wanted low cost, accurate servo motors for a project but was unable to find the right parts for his need. The team began to develop motors and recording their progress on hackaday.io. The motor project eventually turned into Mechaduino, and Tropical Labs is running a highly successful Kickstarter campaign to fund the first run of production motors.

  • SiFive – the open-source hardware company

    Customisation periods end with ICs becoming complex and expensive and, at that point, standardisation comes in and returns ICs to affordability.

    Or that’s the theory.

    Over the years there have been many ways to bring the cost of custom silicon down – MPW, ASIC, P-SOC, FPGAs and, latterly, ARM’s offer of free access to Cortex-M0 processor IP through DesignStart which aims to deliver test chips for $16,000.

  • Open-source Bluetooth sensor beacon offers “IoT for everyone”

    Finnish startup Ruuvi Innovations has successfully crowdfunded the first fully open-sourced Bluetooth Smart (Bluetooth 5 ready) sensor beacon. The device, RuuviTag, is claimed to be the only sensor beacon with a one kilometer open-air range and offers unlimited possibilities for makers, developers, Internet of Things (IoT) companies and educational institutions.

Health/Nutrition

• ‘Abortion Is a Fundamental Component of a Full Spectrum of Healthcare’

  When a wire piece headlined “Supreme Court Strikes Down Texas Abortion Law, Dooms Women to Substandard Care” is bylined Operation Rescue, readers are tipped off as to how genuinely to take the piece’s stated concern that by reversing a Fifth Circuit ruling that upheld restrictions Texas placed on abortion providers, the Supreme Court “relegated women to second-class citizens when it comes to abortion by allowing abortionists to evade meeting basic safety standards that are proven to save lives.”

Security

• David A. Wheeler: Working to Prevent the Next Heartbleed

  The Heartbleed bug revealed that some important open source projects were so understaffed that they were unable to properly implement best security practices. The Linux Foundation’s Core Infrastructure Initiative , formed to help open source projects have the ability to adopt these practices, uses a lot of carrot and very little stick.

• The First iPhone Hacker Shows How Easy It Is To Hack A Computer

  Viceland is known for its extensive security-focused coverage and videos. In the latest CYBERWAR series, it’s showing us different kinds of cyber threats present in the world around us. From the same series, recently, we covered the story of an ex-NSA spy that showed us how to hack a car.

  In another spooky addition to the series, we got to see how easily the famous iPhone hacker George Hotz hacked a computer.

  George Hotz, also known as geohot, is the American hacker known for unlocking the iPhone. He developed bootrom exploit and limera1n jailbreak tool for Apple’s iOS operating system. Recently, he even built his own self-driving car in his garage.

• Beware; Adwind RAT infecting Windows, OS X, Linux and Android Devices

  Cyber criminals always develop malware filled with unbelievable features but hardly ever you will find something that targets different operating systems simultaneously. Now, researchers have discovered a malware based on Java infecting companies in Denmark but it’s only a matter of time before it will probably hit other countries.

• 7 Computers Fighting Against Each Other To Become “The Perfect Hacker”

  Are automated “computer hackers” better than human hackers? DARPA is answering this question in positive and looking to prove its point with the help of its Cyber Grand Challenge. The contest finale will feature seven powerful computer fighting against each other. The winner of the contest will challenge human hackers at the annual DEF CON hacking conference.

• Security advisories for Thursday

Defence/Aggression

• Are We in for Another Increase in Military Spending?

  At the present time, an increase in U.S. military spending seems as superfluous as a third leg. The United States, armed with the latest in advanced weaponry, has more military might than any other nation in world history. Moreover, it has begun a $1 trillion program to refurbish its entire nuclear weapons complex.

• South Sudan is Not Africa

  This is not an article on South Sudan, which is just as well because the conflicts there are almost fractal in their complexity. The mini-war last weekend between the forces of President Salva Kiir and Vice-President Riek Machar, which killed more than 270 people and saw tanks, artillery and helicopter gunships used in the capital, Juba, is part of a pattern that embraces the whole country.

  [...]

  The real reason for its poverty, however, is war: the country that is now South Sudan has been at war for 42 of the past 60 years. British colonialists included it in what we now call Sudan for administrative convenience, but the dominant population in the much bigger northern part was Muslim and Arabic-speaking, while the south was mostly Christian and culturally, ethnically and linguistically African.

• Ramstein: A Key Link in the Kill Chain

  As the U.S. military relies more and more on remote-controlled drones to kill people half a world away, one of the key links in the chain of death is in southwest Germany, the Ramstein Air Base, reports Norman Solomon for The Nation.

• GOP Ups Ante on Clinton’s Israel Pander

  By inserting Israel-first promises in the Republican platform, GOP regulars challenge Donald Trump’s America-first policies and open a possible bidding war with Hillary Clinton over pandering to Israel, as Chuck Spinney explains.

• Don’t Call Him “Bernie” Anymore: the Sanders Sell-Out and the Clinton Wars to Come

  The worst disservice Sanders has done to his supporters, other than to lead them on a wild goose chase for real change, is to virtually ignore his rival’s vaunted “experience.” He need not have mentioned Hillary Clinton’s Senate record, since there was nothing there; her stint as law-maker was merely intended to position her for a run for the presidency, according to the family plan. But there was a lot in her record as Secretary of State.

  As she recounts in her memoir, she wanted a heftier “surge” in Afghanistan than Obama was prepared to order. Anyone paying attention knows that the entire military mission in that broken country has been a dismal failure producing blow-back on a mind-boggling scale, even as the Taliban has become stronger, and controls more territory, than at any time since its toppling in 2001-2002.

  Hillary wanted to impose regime change on Syria in 2011, by stepping up assistance to armed groups whom (again) anyone paying attention knows are in cahoots with al-Nusra (which is to say, al-Qaeda). In an email dated Nov. 30, 2015, she states her reason: “The best way to help Israel…is to help the people of Syria overthrow the regime of Bashar Assad.”

• In Attempt to Dodge Suit, White House Argues Funding War Makes War Legal

  A lawsuit filed earlier this year charging President Barack Obama with waging an illegal war against the Islamic State (or ISIS) was met on Tuesday with a motion from the Obama administration asking the court to dismiss it.

  In its motion to dismiss (pdf), the administration argues that congressional funding for the war amounts to congressional approval for it.

  The lawsuit (pdf) was filed in U.S. district court by Capt. Nathan Michael Smith, an intelligence official stationed in Kuwait, in May. Smith has been assigned to work for “Operation Inherent Resolve,” the administration’s name for the nebulous conflict against the terrorist group ISIS.

Environment/Energy/Wildlife/Nature

• Koch Brothers’ Congressman Seeks To Block Efforts to Prevent Chemical Catastrophe

  Republican congressman Mike Pompeo of Kansas, who represents Wichita, seems to be doing the bidding of the Koch Brothers once again: He has introduced legislation to prohibit the Environmental Protection Agency from issuing or enforcing a rule to improve the safety of America’s most dangerous chemical plants. Wichita is the home of Koch Industries, which has been the most aggressive opponent of efforts to make these plants safer.

  The Obama EPA’s proposed rule, issued in March, is — in the opinion of former George W. Bush EPA head Christine Todd Whitman, experienced retired generals, the U.S. Chemical Safety Board, community and labor leaders and many others — far too weak to adequately protect the public from the serious dangers represented by hazardous chemical facilities, which Senator Barack Obama once called “stationary weapons of mass destruction spread all across the country.” But at least the rule takes some steps toward requiring chemical plant operators to address the problem. And that’s apparently too much for Pompeo to tolerate.

• Leaked: The strategy behind Shell’s low emissions PR push

  Shell is targeting journalists, policy-makers and millennials with a new strategy to position the oil major as a leading light on the path to a ‘net-zero emissions’ future, according to a leaked document seen by Energydesk.

  The document – a project brief for PR companies – outlines Shell’s aims for the communications project, which include:

  “Help ‘open doors’ in building relationships with key stakeholders in support of business objectives”
  “Build Shell’s reputation as an innovative, competitive and forward-thinking energy company of the future”
  “Brand perception and advocacy”

  The communications campaign, which the briefing suggests should include a range of interactive online media and events, centres around a scenario outlined in a recent report entitled A Better Life with a Healthy Planet: Pathways to Net-Zero Emissions.

• Americans Are Becoming More Worried About Climate Change. Here’s Why.

  Another major public opinion analysis confirms that Americans are growing substantially more “Alarmed” and “Concerned” about global warming, while at the same time becoming less “Doubtful” and “Dismissive.”

• GOP Subpoenas in ExxonKnew Probe Decried as Oil-Soaked ‘Abuse of Power’

  The GOP is amping up its campaign against those seeking to hold Big Oil accountable for climate deception, with House Science, Space, and Technology Committee chairman Lamar Smith (R-Tex.) announcing Wednesday that his panel has issued subpoenas to the New York and Massachusetts attorneys general and climate groups demanding information on their ExxonKnew investigations.

• Republicans just escalated the war over ExxonMobil and climate change

  Call it a tit for tat over subpoenas, one that escalates an ongoing spat over what the biggest U.S. oil company knew and when it knew it.

  House Science, Space and Technology Committee Chairman Lamar Smith (R-Tex.) said Wednesday his committee was issuing subpoenas to the New York and Massachusetts state attorneys general, who have issued their own subpoenas as part of probes into whether ExxonMobil misled the public and investors about what it knew about the dangers of climate change decades ago.

Finance

• Article 50 and Brexit: Are Estragon and Vladimir on the move?

  Of the three appointments, the one which should worry Remainers is that of David Davis. It is a serious appointment. He was an outstanding Chair of the main Commons watchdog committee, the Public Accounts Committee, and a competent Europe minister. He is not a politician to underestimate.

  That said: there is the irony that, because of his genuine civil liberties concerns, he is currently suing the UK government at the European Court of Justice so as to enforce EU law. Not the most appropriate thing a Brexit minister should be doing, one may say.

  But what difference will the appointment make?

• Are Obama and Clinton Counting on Republican Majorities to Pass TPP?

  Or should we ask whether the Pope is Catholic? Why else would President Barack Obama be so determined that November/December’s lame duck Congress, with Republican majorities in both House and Senate, vote on the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP)? And, why did Hillary Clinton and Debbie Wasserman-Schultz’s majority representatives on the Democratic platform committee block any opposition to a vote by the lame duck Congress? What else explains either phenomenon? Support for the TPP has always been majority Republican, despite considerable Democratic support in the Senate and Obama’s own unflagging dedication. If lame duck Republican majorities pass the TPP, Obama can claim his vicious, anti-worker trade legacy, and Hillary can take office without taking the heat. So much for Obama’s 2014 plea to get Cousin Pookie off the couch to vote for the Democrats.

  Horrible things often happen between presidential elections in November and the inauguration of new presidents in January. In 2000, in the final months of his presidency, Bill Clinton worked with Republicans to pass the Commodities Futures Modernization Act, the Wall Street deregulation bill that tanked the economy and allowed the banks to drive millions of Americans out of their homes. On his last day in office in 2001, Clinton pardoned fugitive commodities dealer and Glencore International founder Mark Rich, who had been on the FBI’s 10 Most Wanted Fugitives list for years for charges that included buying $200 million worth of oil from Iran while it was holding 53 American hostages in 1979 and selling it to Israel. In 2008, as Obama prepared to take office, Israel pounded Gaza with Operation Cast Lead between December 27th and January 18th. The bombardment ended just two days before Obama’s inauguration. Then, on Inauguration Day, when all eyes were on the U.S.A.’s first African American President, U.S. allies Rwanda and Uganda invaded the Democratic Republic of the Congo again with U.S. blessing.

  So, why not ram through the TPP when everyone’s trying to get home for the holidays? Much as Republicans hate handing Obama any kind of victory, and much as Mitch McConnell, R-KY, Richard Burr, R-NC, and Thomas Till, R-NC, dislike exemptions that would allow TPP-participating nations to issue health warnings without compensating tobacco farmers, they might see this as their last chance too.

AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics

• Wikipedia Is Shockingly Biased: 5 Lessons From An Admin

  Unless you’re one of those freaks with attentive parents and a good education, Wikipedia has probably taught you more than school and family combined. It’s society’s go-to source for knowledge, from settling disputes at the bar to cranking out term papers hours before they’re due. But as Chris, a veteran Wikipedia administrator explained to us, this is a problem. That’s because …

• Western Propaganda for a New Cold War

  Western propaganda portrays Russia as the aggressor and NATO as the victim, but the reality looks almost opposite from the ground level, Rick Sterling found on a recent fact-finding trip.

• A Perfect Couple: Sanders and Clinton

  So much for Mr. Sanders’ ‘progressive’ platform.

  Difficult as it is to say anything positive about the Republican Party, at least its voters thought ‘outside of the box’ this year. There was no decent candidate running, so rather than choosing some tired career politician, they selected a billionaire racist, homophobic, Islamophopic misogynist. The Democrats played by their rigged rulebook, and are about to nominate the quintessential Washington insider.

  Is there a lesser evil between these two? Hardly! Each, in his or her own way, will cause untold suffering at home and abroad; do nothing to assist those who are struggling; enrich their friends and associates, and leave a trail of blood and carnage in their wake.

• In Campaign Against Venezuela, NYT Cites Former Member of Death Squad Alliance

  Even more bizarre is the Times editorial’s reliance on Paraguay’s foreign minister, Eladio Loizaga, a diplomat left over from the decades-long dictatorship of Gen. Alfredo Stroessner. The foreign minister is accused by Latin Americans (E’a, 8/12/13) of involvement in the hit squad operations of the World Anti-Communist League and Operation Condor.

  Loizaga, whom the Times apparently interviewed and treats favorably in its editorial (“We can’t condone any action that silences dissident voices,” the editorial quotes him), was an important Latin American member of WACL, an extreme right-wing organization incorporating fascist and Nazi elements and involved in murders around the globe.

• The Entirely Fake Owen Smith

  Note “to pitch himself”. For PR professional Smith, political stance is nothing to do with personal belief, it is to do with brand positioning. On Channel 4 News last night, an incredulous Michael Crick pointed out that the “soft left” Smith had previously given interviews supporting PFI and privatisation in the health service. He also strongly supported Blair’s city academies.

• Progressives Have Raised Expectations, and Democrats Have Fought Desperately to Lower Them

  When Barack Obama won the presidential election in 2008, expectations were high.

  What occupied the minds of the president-elect’s advisers, however, was not how to live up to those expectations, but how to temper them.

• WikiLeaks cable: Boris Johnson’s career ‘defies the laws of political gravity’, say US officials

  On 14 July, the world was still digesting the fact that former London mayor and pro-Brexit conservative Boris Johnson had been assigned the role of Foreign Secretary in Prime Minister Theresa May’s new cabinet.

  That means, for better or worse, Johnson is suddenly the minister responsible for the activities of MI6 and GCHQ while also having to represent the UK in its numerous dealings abroad. The reaction, as expected, was mixed.

• Boris Johnson is in charge of GCHQ and Twitter is …concerned

  The intelligence agency, based in Cheltenham, is the responsibility of the Foreign Secretary, the job Mr Johnson was unexpectedly given yesterday by new Prime Minister Theresa May.

Censorship/Free Speech

• China Forbids The Use Of English Words In Mobile Games

  And that is probably the real reason for this latest move: big companies tend to be far more willing to toe the government line than smaller independents, since they have far more to lose. So, as with other apparently arbitrary moves, the latest unexpected clampdown by the Chinese government looks to be yet another example of its shrewd and subtle control of the online world.

• Expanding Pirate Site Blocks Spark Censorship Fears

• Khadija Ismayilova: Unsent letter from prison

• The Big Story You Cannot Read About

• Chinese censorship: Communist Party and military at war with ideas online

• Stopping online abuse isn’t censorship: it’s the least we can do

• Bahraini Officials Urged to Drop Charges Against Nabeel Rajab

• Four Things President Obama Should Do Immediately About Bahrain

• Crackdown In Bahrain

• Human rights organisations demand release of Bahraini activist

• Bahrain: Twenty-Six NGOs Call for Immediate and Unconditional Release of Bahraini Human Rights Defender Nabeel Rajab, Prior to His Trial Tomorrow

• Bahrain regime extends arbitrary detention of Nabeel Rajab, trial postpones to 2 August

• Bahrain activist’s trial postponed, rights groups call for his release

• Bahraini activist Rajab remains jailed as trial is postponed

  Supporters of Bahraini human rights activist Nabeel Rajab say he will remain behind bars for now after a judge postponed a court hearing over comments he posted online.

• Bahrain turning into a police state as vicious and arbitrary as Egypt

  Bahrainis are calling their government’s intensified repression of all opposition “the Egyptian strategy”, believing that it is modelled on the ruthless campaign by the Egyptian security forces to crush even the smallest signs of dissent.

• Bahrain court denies bail for top human rights activist

• Bahrain court denies rights activist bail

• Index protests judicial harassment of Bahraini human rights defender

  Index strongly protests the continued judicial harassment of Nabeel Rajab, a respected Bahraini human rights defender, and calls for his immediate and unconditional release.

  Rajab was arrested on 13 June 2016 and later charged with “spreading false news and rumors about the internal situation in a bid to discredit Bahrain.” This charge was in response to statements he gave during past television interviews in early 2015 and 2016.

  On Tuesday, 12 July 2016, Rajab’s trial was set to begin but the Court adjourned the hearing and postponed the case until 2 August 2016, ordering the continued detention of the human rights defender.

• Facebook briefly blocks extreme athlete Baumgartner, sparks accusations of ‘censorship’

• Pam Geller Sues The US Gov’t Because Facebook Blocked Her Page; Says CDA 230 Violates First Amendment

  Well known anti-Muslim troll Pamela Geller has teamed up with a group called the American Freedom Law Center to file one of the dumbest lawsuits we’ve ever seen. There’s so much wrong here it’s difficult to know where to start. Here’s the lawsuit itself, which is filed against US Attorney General Loretta Lynch, even though Geller’s own story about the lawsuit falsely claims she’s suing Facebook. She’s not. She’s suing the US government because Facebook relies on Section 230 of the CDA in taking down some of her pages, and she claims, ridiculously, that Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act violates the First Amendment. The lawsuit is wrong on so many levels it’s not even funny. Let’s start with this, though — Geller has long positioned herself as an extreme supporter of the First Amendment. And yet, she’s now suing the government over CDA 230, a law which has probably done more than any other to guarantee that the First Amendment works on the internet.

• Anti-Muslim Pam Geller Suing Over Social Media Censorship

• Federal Government Authorizes Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube to Censor “Anti-Islam” Speech; Lawsuit Filed

• Lawsuit: Facebook, Twitter and YouTube censor voices they dislike

• Pamela Geller: Why I Am Suing Facebook

• Pamela Geller tweets: ‘We are SUING FACEBOOK’

• Lawsuit: Facebook, Twitter and YouTube censor voices they dislike

• Pamela Geller Suing Facebook Over Censorship

• We’re Going To Reveal The Political Biases Of Facebook’s Trending News Team

• Union threatens SACP, backs SABC over censorship row

• South African public broadcaster accused of censorship

• Pressure mounts on Parliament to deal with SABC

• CWU rallies behind SABC’s Motsoeneng

• Anti-SABC protest goes to ANC’s doorstep

  The sustained clamour to have the “delinquent” SABC board removed will be brought to the ANC’s doorstep as civil-society organisations are expected to protest outside the party’s Luthuli House headquarters in central Joburg on Friday.

• SABC staff desperate to get out of CWU – Vavi

Privacy/Surveillance

• In Privacy Win, Federal Judge Rejects ‘Stingray’ Evidence for First Time

  For the first time, a federal judge has thrown out evidence obtained by police without a warrant using the controversial “Stingray” device that mimics cell phone towers to trick nearby devices into connecting with them, revealing private information.

  U.S. District Judge William Pauley said the defendant’s rights were violated when the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) used a Stingray to figure out his home address during a drug investigation.

• The Pokémon Fad Shows the Unnerving Future of Augmenting Reality

  On a recent summer evening, something strange happened in Prospect Park in Brooklyn. As usual, joggers zipped along the edge of Long Meadow and dog owners did their postprandial duty. But this time they were joined by a dozen people shuffling about haphazardly, zombie eyes fixed on their glowing phone screens. This ad hoc crowd was busy catching Pokémon, the virtual creatures at the heart of the latest, out-of-nowhere smartphone craze.

• Visiting a Website against the Owner’s Wishes Is Now a Federal Crime

• Appeals Court: It Violates CFAA For Service To Access Facebook On Behalf Of Users, Because Facebook Sent Cease & Desist

  Another week, another CFAA (Computer Fraud & Abuse Act) ruling out of the 9th Circuit Appeals Court. This time it’s the infamous Facebook v. Power.com case that’s been going on since 2008. When we first came across the case, in early 2009, we insisted that it made no sense. Power.com was trying to set itself up as a sort of “meta” social network, or perhaps a social network management system, where users could have a dashboard for all their different social networks. Facebook didn’t like this and sued over a long list of things, including copyright and trademark infringement, unlawful competition, violation of anti-spam laws… and the CFAA. Most of the claims went nowhere, but the CFAA and anti-spam ones lived on (because Power.com had systems for sending emails to users). The copyright claims were troubling, but the CFAA claims were the ones that concerned us the most.

  Of course, it’s taken many, many years for the case to make its way through the courts, and Power.com ceased even existing about five years ago. And the latest ruling is not just a nail in the coffin, but a potentially problematic CFAA ruling. While the court tosses out the CAN SPAM arguments, it does say that Power’s actions were a CFAA violation. It’s not as bad as it could have been, because the court doesn’t say that merely violating Facebook’s terms of service violates the CFAA, but instead narrows it slightly. It says that because Facebook sent a cease and desist letter to Power, from that point on it was on notice that it was not authorized to access Facebook’s servers. It was the move to continue getting Facebook user data that sealed the CFAA claim.

• ‘Google, FB compile more data than NSA’

• ‘Google, FB compile more data than NSA’ [Ed: This article is not just wrong but also inane and exposes author as unaware of where NSA extracts its data from]

  WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange says Silicon Valley companies Google and Facebook now compile more information than the US’ National Security Agency.

  Speaking via a videoconference at the embassy of Ecuador in London, where he was granted asylum in 2012, Assange said the new global economic template was what he called Surveillance Capitalism.

  The Australian spoke during a Freedom of Expression seminar organised in Santiago by the Chilean College of Journalists that was celebrating its 60th anniversary.

  The cyberactivist said although the information was channelled through the two companies, the NSA still monitored the content and finally ended up “knowing everything”.

• Agent’s Testimony Shows FBI Not All That Interested In Ensuring The Integrity Of Its Forensic Evidence

  Security researcher Jonathan Zdziarski has been picking apart the FBI’s oral testimony on the NIT it deployed in the Matish/Playpen case. The judge presiding over that case denied Matish’s suppression request for a number of reasons — including the fact that Matish’s residence in Virginia meant that Rule 41 jurisdiction rules weren’t violated by the FBI’s NIT warrant. Judge Morgan Jr. then went off script and suggested the FBI didn’t even need to obtain a warrant to deploy a hacking tool that exposed end user computer info because computers get hacked all the time.

  He equated this to police peering through broken blinds and seeing something illegal inside a house, while failing to recognize that his analogy meant the FBI could let themselves inside the house first to break the blinds, then peer in from the outside and claim “plain sight.”

  The oral arguments [PDF] — using FBI Special Agent Daniel Alfin’s testimony — were submitted in yet another case tied to the seizure of a child porn website, this one also taking place in Virginia and where the presiding judge has similarly denied the defendant’s motion to suppress. The DOJ has added the transcript of the agent’s oral testimony in the Matish prosecution as an exhibit to this case, presumably to help thwart the defendant’s motion to compel the FBI to turn over the NIT’s source code.

  Many assertions are made by Agent Alfin in support of the FBI’s claim that its hacking tool — which strips away any anonymity-protecting efforts put into place by the end user and sends this information to a remote computer — is not malware. And many of them verge on laughable. Or would be laughable, if Alfin wasn’t in the position of collecting and submitting forensic evidence.

• Private Internet Access Leaves Russia, Following Encryption Ban And Seized Servers

  A few years ago, I got to travel to Moscow to present some of our research at an event. Having heard more than a few stories about internet access issues in Russia, before going I made sure that I had three separate VPNs lined up in case any of them were blocked. I ended up using Private Internet Access — which was already quite well-known and reliable. That’s my regular VPN, but I had been worried that maybe it wouldn’t work in Moscow. I was wrong. It worked flawlessly. But apparently that’s no longer the case. Just after Russia’s new surveillance bill passed, complete with mandates for encryption backdoors and data retention (along with a demand that all encryption be openly accessible for the government within two weeks), apparently Russian officials seized Private Internet Access’s servers in Russia, causing the company to send an email to all its subscribers, announcing what happened, what it was doing to fix things… and also that it was no longer doing business in Russia.

• Tor Project Elects All-New Board of Directors

• The Tor Project Elects New Board of Directors

  Today, the board of directors of the Tor Project is announcing a bold decision in keeping with its commitment to the best possible health of the organization.

  Says Tor’s Executive Director Shari Steele, “I think this was an incredibly brave and selfless thing for the board to do. They’re making a clear statement that they want the organization to become its best self.”

• Tor Project installs new board of directors after Jacob Appelbaum controversy

  The Tor Project today announced that it has elected an entirely new board of directors, as the nonprofit privacy organization continues seeing the fallout from accusations of sexual misconduct by prominent former employee Jacob Appelbaum.

• Tor Project, a Digital Privacy Group, Reboots With New Board

  The Tor Project, a nonprofit digital privacy group, on Wednesday replaced its board with a new slate of directors as part of a larger shake-up after allegations of sexual misconduct by a prominent employee.

• In wake of Appelbaum fiasco, Tor Project shakes up board of directors

  New team includes Cindy Cohn, Biella Coleman, Matt Blaze, and Bruce Schneier.

Civil Rights/Policing

• ACLU Sues Baton Rouge Police for Violating Rights at Alton Sterling Protests

  Baton Rouge police showed excessive force when they arrived at this weekend’s Black Lives Matter demonstration in riot gear and bearing machine guns, the lawsuit (pdf) alleges. The officers also violated protesters’ First Amendment rights when they used “physical and verbal abuse and wrongful arrests to disperse protestors who were gathered peacefully to speak out against the police killing of Alton Sterling,” the ACLU wrote.

• The Police in Baton Rouge Don’t Like It When Protesters Exercise Their Rights, So We’re Taking Them to Court

  The ACLU of Louisiana has filed an emergency order to make Baton Rouge police respect protester’s First Amendment rights.

  Since our very founding, the American people have taken to the streets and sidewalks to make their voices heard. Unfortunately, this week it’s the residents of Baton Rouge, Louisiana, who have good reason to partake in this historical tradition. On July 5, 2016, a Black Baton Rouge resident named Alton Sterling — a man who had committed no crime — was tackled, Tasered, incapacitated, and fatally shot at point blank range by two white Baton Rouge police officers.

  The anger at Mr. Sterling’s death is immense. It is real. It is justified. And it deserves a voice.

  So in our grand American tradition, residents sought to make their voices heard, to speak truth to power about police use of force, to object to the death of Black men in police custody, and to say that Black lives matter. To do this, they spilled out onto the city’s streets and sidewalks — the very places which the Supreme Court has described as having “immemorially been held in trust for the use of the public” as the place to exercise our constitutional liberties.

  But it doesn’t appear that the law enforcement agencies in Baton Rouge care much for our Constitution, or for the liberties of its own citizens. Instead officers have shown naked hostility to the constitutional rights of the citizens they have a duty to serve. That’s why today the ACLU of Louisiana is going to court on behalf of community organizations like Black Youth Power 100 New Orleans, New Orleans Workers’ Center for Racial Justice, and Louisiana Chapter of the National Lawyers’ Guild to seek an emergency order to ensure that the police in Baton Rouge obey the Constitution. It’s not the first time an ACLU affiliate has stepped up to challenge the cops reacting to protests over police accountability — and while I hope it’s the last, it won’t be.

• Was Hillary Clinton’s Email Hacked? The Case

  Hillary Clinton traveled to 19 foreign locations during her first three months in office, inlcuding China, South Korea, Egypt, Israel, Palestine, and a meeting in Switzerland with her Russian counterpart. During that period of time her email system was unencrypted. She transmitted data over wireless networks in those countries, networks almost certainly already monitored 24/7 by intelligence and security officials. To say her email was not collected is to say the Russian, Chinese, Israeli and other intelligence services are complete amateurs.

• Hillary Clinton’s Email Absolution: Two Parties, One Criminal Regime

  What was your reaction when you heard FBI Director James Comey announce to the world that the Bureau would not be recommending that charges be filed against Hillary Clinton over her handling of emails while she was Secretary of State? Did you do a humorous spit take with your coffee like some modern day Danny Thomas? Were you frozen in place like Americans were on November 22, 1963? Did your jaw hit the floor with your tongue rolling out like a flabbergasted cartoon character?

  Chances are you weren’t the least bit surprised that no charges were recommended. But what does that tell you about our political system?

  That millions of Americans weren’t remotely caught off guard by the exculpation of Hillary Clinton is less a commentary about American attitudes than it is a clear indication of the all-pervasive criminality that is at the heart of America’s political ruling class. And the fact that such criminality is seen as par for the course demonstrates once again that the rule of law is more a rhetorical veneer than a juridical reality.

  But consider further what the developments of recent days tell us both about the US and, perhaps even more importantly, the perception of the US internationally. For while Washington consistently wields as weapons political abstractions such as transparency, corruption, and freedom, it is unwilling to apply to itself those same cornerstones of America’s collective self-conception. Hypocrisy is perhaps not strong enough a word.

• ‘Trustworthy’ Trump? Plagued by Email Controversy, Clinton’s Lead Plummets

  The race between the two presidential frontrunners remains too close to call in the final stretch leading to the two major party conventions, as new polling shows that Donald Trump has overtaken Hillary Clinton in key battleground states while her national lead has shrunk to just three points.

  A McClatchy-Marist survey released Wednesday found that in a head-to-head match-up, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee is currently ahead 42 to 39, which McClatchy notes, marks the first time that support for Clinton has dropped beneath 50 percentage points.

• FBI Agents Were Told To Sign A “Very, Very Unusual” NDA In Hillary Email Case

  The State Department restarted their investigation into Hillary Clinton’s emails following the DoJ’s unanimous recommendation that Attorney General Loretta Lynch not pursue criminal charges for Hillary’s negligence in handling classified documents. FBI insiders now believe a deal was struck when Bill Clinton met Loretta Lynch on a Phoenix airport tarmac in June. Agents have also said they were forced to sign a document that went above and beyond the typical NDA signed when performing investigations

  When news broke of the infamous tarmac Lynch-Clinton meeting we said: “Well then, if Lynch says it was a completely random encounter with Hillary Clinton’s husband on a tarmac (admit it, that happens often to most people), and nothing was discussed that pertains to official business, then that certainly must be the truth.”

• Hillary Clinton and Personal Honesty

  When FBI Director James Comey publicly revealed his recommendation to the Department of Justice last week that former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton not be prosecuted for espionage, he unleashed a firestorm of criticism from those who believe that Clinton was judged by different standards from those used to judge others when deciding whether to bring a case to a grand jury.

• Is What’s Good For Facebook Not So Good For Democracy?

  Why the social-media honeymoon may be over for some activists.

• As Cases Multiply, Officials Scramble to Stop Abuse of Nursing Home Residents on Social Media

  Iowa health officials recently discovered it wasn’t against state law for a nursing home worker to share a photo on Snapchat of a resident covered in feces. They are trying to change that.

• North Carolina Bans Public Access to Police Dash Cameras

  What good are police body cameras, or police car dash cams, if the footage they record is off limits to the public? That question might best be posed to North Carolina Governor Pat McCrory, who yesterday signed into law a bill making that footage inaccessible to the general public, including everyday citizens who were recorded in the footage and might need it to prove police misbehavior. Despite widespread outcry, including protests and submission of a petition signed by more than 3,000 people, House Bill 972 received little opposition in the Senate, where it passed by a vote of 48 to 2 before the governor gave final approval.

• Two Years After Eric Garner’s Death, Ramsey Orta, Who Filmed Police, Is Only One Heading to Jail

  Two years ago this week, Eric Garner died in Staten Island after officers wrestled him to the ground, pinned him down and applied a fatal chokehold. The man who filmed the police killing of Eric Garner, Ramsey Orta, is now heading to jail for four years on unrelated charges—making him the only person at the scene of Garner’s killing who will serve jail time. Last week Orta took a plea deal on weapons and drug charges. He says he has been repeatedly arrested and harassed by cops since he filmed the fatal police chokehold nearly two years ago. We speak to Eric Garner’s daughter, Erica Garner, and Matt Taibbi, award-winning journalist with Rolling Stone magazine. He’s working on a book on Eric Garner’s case.

• CIA Director Says Next President Could Order Agency to Torture And It Might Comply

  CIA Director John Brennan said Wednesday that the next president could remove the restrictions President Obama has put on the use of drones overseas – and that CIA might comply with an order to commit torture.

  In April, Brennan told NBC News that the CIA would refuse an order to resume its torture program. But on Wednesday, speaking at a Brookings Institute event, he said he was just speaking on his own behalf.

  “If a president were to order, order the agency to carry out waterboarding or something else, it’ll be up to the director of CIA and others within CIA to decide whether or not that, that direction and order is something that they can carry out in good conscience,” he said.

  He added that he was personally opposed: “As long as I’m director of CIA, irrespective of what the president says, I’m not going to be the director of CIA who gives that order. They’ll have to find another director.”

  Brennan did not acknowledge that Congress last year turned Obama’s anti-torture executive order into law, explicitly banning waterboarding and other forms of torture — and restricting the CIA in particular to interrogation methods listed in the Army Field Manual.

• The battle of the veil

  Last month, pictures of a young girl wearing a headscarf made with a newspaper pattern spread through the Iranian social media. The girl is in fact the niece of Iran’s jailed Green Movement leader, Mir Hussein Moussavi, but that was not the reason why the picture went viral. The newspaper pattern on the scarf was the front page of the newspaper that printed the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini’s pledge in 1978 as its main headline: “Regarding the wearing of the veil, there will be no compulsion”.

• Wisconsin Court: Warning Labels Are Needed for Scores Rating Defendants’ Risk of Future Crime

  The court’s ruling cited a recent ProPublica investigation into COMPAS, the popular software tool used to score defendants in Wisconsin and in other jurisdictions across country. Our analysis found that the software is frequently wrong, and that it is biased against black defendants who did not commit future crimes – falsely labeling them as future criminals at twice the rate as white defendants. (The software is owned by a for-profit company, Northpointe, which disputes our findings.)

• Empathy Alone Won’t Stop Police Killings

  Of course empathy is important and we should encourage it. But the president falls short; empathy alone will never end the regular and widespread killing of black people in disproportionate numbers. It’s a racist system, not a few individual racist police that devalues black lives and leaves us dead so easily.

• How This Became the Era of the Gunman

  The war abroad and the war at home are both fueled by a fear of encroaching chaos — and it’s hard to miss the racist subtext.

• Man Who Doxxed Dozens Of People, Engaged In Nineteen ‘Swattings’, Nets Only One Year In Prison

  The treatment of all things “cyber” by the government is incredibly inconsistent. Give someone a password so they can deface a website for 40 minutes and it’s two years in jail. Doxx, SWAT, and cyberstalk multiple people and the best the court can do is two years minus time served. The end result is one year in prison for Mir Islam, who doxxed multiple celebrities and politicians, as well as called in fake threats that resulted in the swatting of at least nineteen people, including security researcher Brian Krebs, who uncovered Islam’s doxxing tactics.

Internet Policy/Net Neutrality

• Comcast Expands Usage Caps, Still Pretending This Is A Necessary Trial Where Consumer Opinion Matters

  As we’ve noted for some time, Comcast continues to expand the company’s usage cap “trial” into more and more markets. As a clever, lumbering monopoly, Comcast executives believe if they move slowly enough — consumers won’t realize they’re the frog in the boiling pot metaphor. But as we’ve noted time and time again, Comcast usage caps are utterly indefensible price hikes on uncompetitive markets, with the potential for anti-competitive abuse (since Comcast’s exempting its own services from the cap).

  This is all dressed up as a “trial” where consumer feedback matters to prop up the flimsy narrative that Comcast is just conducting “creative price experimentation.”

  Last week, Comcast quietly notified customers that the company’s caps are expanding once again, this time into Chicago and other parts of Illinois, as well as portions of Indiana and Michigan. Comcast recently raised its cap from 300 GB to one terabyte in response to signals from the FCC that the agency might finally wake up to the problems usage caps create. And while that’s certainly an improvement, it doesn’t change the fact that usage caps on fixed-line networks are little more than an assault on captive, uncompetitive markets.

DRM

• A Call to the Security Community: The W3C’s DRM Extension Must Be Investigated

  The World Wide Web Consortium has published a “Candidate Recommendation” for Encrypted Media Extensions, a pathway to DRM for streaming video.

  A large community of security researchers and public interest groups have been alarmed by the security implications of baking DRM into the HTML5 standard. That’s because DRM — unlike all the other technology that the W3C has ever standardized — enjoys unique legal protection under a tangle of international laws, like the US Digital Millennium Copyright Act, Canada’s Bill C-11, and EU laws that implement Article 6 of the EUCD.

  Under these laws, companies can threaten legal action against researchers who circumvent DRM, even if they does so for lawful purposes, like disclosing security vulnerabilities. Last summer, a who’s-who America’s most esteemed security researchers filed comments with the US Copyright Office warning the agency that they routinely discovered vulnerabilities in systems from medical implants to voting machines to cars, but were advised not to disclose those discoveries because of the risk of legal reprisals under Section 1201 of the DMCA.

  Browsers are among the most common technologies in the world, with literally billions of daily users. Any impediment to reporting vulnerabilities in these technologies has grave implications. Worse: HTML5 is designed to provide the kind of rich interaction that we see in apps, in order to challenge apps’ dominance as control systems for networked devices. That means browsers are now intended to serve as front-ends for pacemakers and cars and home security systems. Now more than ever, we can’t afford any structural impediments to identification and disclosure of browser defects.

  There is a way to reconcile the demands of browser vendors and movie studios with the security of the web: last year, we proposed an extension to the existing W3C policy on patents, which says that members are forbidden from enforcing their patent rights to shut down implementations of W3C standards. Under our proposal, this policy would also apply to legal threats under laws like the DMCA. Members would agree upon a mutually acceptable, binding covenant that forbade them from using the DMCA and its global analogs to attack security researchers who revealed defects in browsers and new entrants into the browser market.

Intellectual Monopolies

• Sales Activity: MedCo, Helsinn, and the AIA

  In The Medicines Co. v. Hospira an en banc Federal Circuit confirmed the validity of MedCo’s Angiomax product-by-process patent claims over an on-sale challenge. More than one-year before filing the patent application, MedCo had hired a third-party supplier to provide three batches of the drug using an embodiment of the claimed processes. The question was whether this ‘supply contract’ constituted a commercial offer for sale sufficient to trigger the on-sale bar of Section 102(b) (pre-AIA). In the appeal, the Federal Circuit held that the supply contract was “for performing services” rather than a triggering sale. “[A] contract manufacturer’s sale to the inventor of manufacturing services where neither the title to the embodiments nor the right to market the same passes to the supplier does not constitute an invalidating sale.”

• Octane: Malpractice Claims by Clients Forced to Pay the Other Side’s Fees?

  The first is that, for the first time, there is a “gap” (if you will) between zealous advocacy under Rule 11 (and other similar statutes) and the fee shifting statute. So, as a lawyer, I may be ethically required to do something that could result in my client paying the other side’s fees.

• Copyrights

  • YouTube to the music industry: here’s the money

    YouTube and the music industry are frenemies of the first order, a mutually dependent couple that can’t stop bickering in public. The major record labels are currently renegotiating their contracts with the world’s largest online video platform, and so the war of words has been heating up of late. Today, Google added a fresh data point to the back and forth, announcing in a new report on piracy that its Content ID system has paid out $2 billion to copyright holders, double what it announced back in 2014.

    Content ID is actually at the heart of the music industry’s current beef with YouTube. The system asks copyright holders to upload a file, say a music video, and then tries to automatically detect any copies of that work which are uploaded by other users. The copyright owner can ask the system to automatically report, block, or monetize videos when it detects a copy, and YouTube has argued that the music labels almost always choose the last of those options.

  • Enoch Pratt leader Carla Hayden confirmed for Library of Congress

    The longtime leader of Baltimore’s public library system was confirmed by the Senate on Wednesday to head the Library of Congress despite concerns from some conservative lawmakers about her past position on a law intended to limit children’s access to pornography at schools and libraries.

    Carla D. Hayden, the CEO of the Enoch Pratt Free Library since 1993, will become the first woman and the first African-American to oversee the nation’s largest library. Hayden was nominated by President Barack Obama in February and was confirmed by the Senate on a 74-18 vote.

  • Good News: Carla Hayden Easily Approved As The New Librarian Of Congress

    Here’s some good news. After decades of ridiculously bad management, it appears that the Library of Congress has a real leader. Dr. Carla Hayden has been approved by the Senate as our new Librarian of Congress by a wide margin, 74 to 18. And that’s despite a last minute push by the ridiculous Heritage Foundation to argue that the Librarian of Congress should not be a librarian (and one with tremendous administrative experience). Heritage Foundation’s alerts can often sway Republican Senators, so the fact that only 18 still voted against her is quite something. Hayden was also able to get past ridiculous claims that she was pro-obscenity or pro-piracy based on people who just didn’t like the idea of an actually qualified person in the position.

    She’s an exceptionally qualified librarian with administrative and leadership experience. And while I’m sure I won’t agree with everything she does, it seems like a massive improvement on the previous librarian, James Billington, who famously resisted any kind of modernization efforts, and who the Government Accountability Office had to call out multiple times for his leadership failings. Billington was so bad that when he resigned, the Washington Post was able to get people to go on the record celebrating.

  • BitTorrent Launches Live Streaming BitTorrent News Channel

    The company behind the world famous file-sharing client BitTorrent is all set for the birth of their news network titled as BitTorrent News. Streamed on BitTorrent Live, the network will commence its operations at the Republican Party Convention in Cleveland, Ohio, on July 18.

• Distributions
• Devices/Embedded

Desktop

• Best Linux distros for small businesses

  GNU Linux started as one man’s personal project – it’s now one of the most popular operating system bases in the world. But unlike macOS and Windows, there’s not just one Linux OS. There are hundreds of individual platforms assembled from components and built upon the Linux kernel. Different distributions (distros) can vary wildly from one another.

  So what’s the best choice for your small business? We’ve approached this selection with a few criteria in mind. Stability is first and foremost, because if you’re putting a distro to work, uptime is critical, and solid support provision comes a close second.

  We’ve also considered practical capabilities, which is why you’ll find a couple of non-desktop distributions on our list: Linux is perhaps better suited to managing your behind-the-scenes hardware than it is being put in front of users who may be unfamiliar with Gnome or KDE.

• PC Shipments Rose in the U.S. During Q2

  Chromebooks performed strongly in the education market, noted IDC research director Linn Huang.

Kernel Space

• Linux Foundation Certified System Administrator: Elyasin Shaladi

  I have used Linux since I was in school and learned about open source. Linux became better, more stable, and more used over time. I became interested in using Linux and learning it in order to be competitive. I made use of open source software quite often in the past and thus became a fan of open source.

• Linus Torvalds Is Again Mad Over “Sh!t Code”, Calls Some Linux Devs “Brain-damaged”

  Linux Torvalds is again mad over some developers due to their “disturbing” coding style. He has bashed the networking developers by pointing out their “brain-damaged” commenting syntax and listed out the styles that a Linux kernel developer should use.

• Graphics Stack

  • Intel’s Mesa On-Disk Shader Cache Maturing, Radeon Devs Not Yet Convinced

  • Developers Are Still Working On OpenGL 4.x For Intel Haswell / Ivy Bridge

  • Two Weeks Until Likely Updates To OpenGL, Vulkan

    There is less than two weeks to go until SIGGRAPH 2016 kicks off in Anaheim, California.

    The Khronos Group is today promoting their firmed up schedule for SIGGRAPH 2016. This consortium behind OpenGL, OpenCL, Vulkan, and other industry standard APIs traditionally releases updates to OpenGL at this annual event.

    Khronos hasn’t yet officially confirmed they will be pushing out a new OpenGL revision, but it’s quite likely we will see OpenGL 4.6 unless it ends up being called OpenGL 2016, OpenGL 5.0, or something else… It will also be interesting to see if they end up releasing a major update to Vulkan or plan on continuing their (weekly) 1.0.x point releases for a while longer.

Applications

• Dump Scratch — Use Blockly or Snap! instead

  The people who make Scratch have migrated it to Flash. This is the most bonkers, hare-brained, backward idea they could have had. Migrating to a proprietary, platform-dependent, insecure, soon-to-be-extinct framework dooms Scratch to oblivion. Not to worry: we know of several excellent alternatives.

  If you’re even only vaguely interested in software for education, you’re sure to have come across Scratch. It’s the colourful programming language that allows kids to to assemble programs using lego-like blocks.

• Proprietary

  • Flash Isn’t Dead Yet

    Sure, it may give us the creeps while annoying us to no end. Hell, it may even be a danger to those around it….but it also gives us access to cool stuff. Anyone claiming Flash is no longer needed is not taking media consumption into account.

  • Microsoft Is Actually Releasing A New Version Of Skype For Linux! [Ed: Microsoft is ‘spamming’ linux news after it had withdrawn Linux support (from the original company) and brought it back. Remember why Skype is malware that should not be installed on any device after the Microsoft takeover.]

  • Microsoft releases new Skype app for Linux

  • Skype (finally!) rolls out update for Linux users in the form of a WebRTC version [Ed: Microsoft are terrible liars. WebRTC is not a GNU/Linux thing, Skype is proprietary (unlike counterparts), not a "Linux" thing.]

  • Microsoft Launches Brand New Skype For Linux Alpha

  • Skype announces Linux client alpha, more features coming to Chrome and Chromebook

  • Microsoft launches Skype for Linux Alpha

  • Microsoft updates Skype for Linux, brings Skype calling to Chromebooks

  • Microsoft is Bringing Skype to Linux, Chromebook and Chrome Web Browser

  • Microsoft’s Bringing A New Skype Client To Linux Users

  • Microsoft Launches New Skype Alpha for Linux

  • Microsoft launches all-new Skype app for Linux desktops

  • Microsoft responds to ‘neglected’ Linux users with new Skype client

  • Skype returns to Linux!

  • Congrats, Linux users – you’re finally officially alpha males… on Skype

  • New Skype clients for Linux and Chrome released after years of Microsoft neglect

  • New Skype for Linux client released, built on Web technology

  • Skype finally arrives on Linux… again

  • Updated Skype for Linux Client Released by Microsoft for Alpha Testing

  • Microsoft launches alpha of new Skype app for Linux

  • Skype announces new WebRTC alpha version for Linux, Chromebook users can now make voice calls too

  • Linux users can now make Skype calls from the web in Chrome

  • Skype Finally Recognizes the Linux Market

  • Skype for Linux Alpha and calling on Chrome & Chromebooks

  • Skype Announce Brand New Linux Client, Now In Alpha

  • Skype Releases Brand New Linux Client Making Use Of WebRTC

  • Google’s Lead Kubernetes Engineer Joins Microsoft

• Instructionals/Technical

  • LFCE Prep Course: OSI Network Model (Part 2)

  • How to Create a full-featured Web-Office for your team with ONLYOFFICE

  • How to Install WordPress with HHVM and Nginx on OpenSUSE Leap 42.1

  • How to Setup RackTables, a Datacenter and Server Room Asset Management for Linux

  • 10 Easy Examples of GNU sed Command Lines

  • ​How to run the native Ubuntu desktop on Windows 10

  • Free Paths to Open Cloud Frontiers

  • How to enable WebDAV on your Ubuntu server

  • Parsing an RSS News Feed with a Bash Script

• Games

  • 10 Amazing Terminal Based Games for Linux Enthusiasts

    When you are a Linux power user, it is always mandatory to master using the command-line, since using commands to control the system offers a system user more power and control over the Linux system.

  • Quadrilateral Cowboy, a cyberpunk heist adventure is coming to Linux in September

    Quadrilateral Cowboy, a cyberpunk heist adventure from Blendo Games is seeing a delayed Linux release, but not too long to wait.

  • Exit Fate, a 50-hour 2D RPG now on Linux

    Exit Fate, the massive 2D RPG has been released for Linux as a fan-made version. In case you are not familiar with Exit Fate, it is an RPG considered among the best by its fans. Explore an entire new world with characters that are grown-up and mature unlike most other RPGs.

  • Want to go hunting vampires? Slayer Shock will scratch that itch for you

  • Action adventure Buck is back on Kickstarter with Linux demo, plus crowdfunding round-up

    Buck is a 2D action adventure set in a post-apocalyptic word, inhabited by anthropomorphic dogs. It features fast-paced action platforming with a loot system, but also low-key elements like player driven dialogue and weapon customization between missions.

  • Shen’s Last Gift DLC for XCOM 2 released for Linux

    After some delay, the latest DLC and patch for XCOM 2 is now out for Linux. Shen’s Last Gift adds mech units to the mix, to better fight the insidious alien threat.

  • Worms W.M.D should now be a day-1 Linux & SteamOS release

    Good news, after chatting with Team17, it seems Worms W.M.D will now be a day-1 Linux release which is fantastic.

  • In Case of Emergency, Release Raptor delayed again and again, now coming July 21st

  • New version of the itch store app is out, better Arch Linux compatibility and other fixes

    Oh my word I do love itch.io and their store app. It’s open source (MIT license), it’s beautiful and it actually works really well now.

  • Crush Your Enemies, a delightful fast paced real time strategy game now on Linux [Ed: Mono inside]

    Crush Your Enemies is one you could easily dismiss with the graphical style, but I assure you it’s quite fun.

Desktop Environments/WMs

• K Desktop Environment/KDE SC/Qt

  • #28: GSoC with KDE Now – 6

  • Windows version of LabPlot is comming (soon)

  • Gsoc 2016 Neverland #6

• GNOME Desktop/GTK

  • Pre-test “setup” and wrap-up interview

    As I am preparing for the final usability test, I put together a pre-test script and a wrap-up interview that will help me provide some necessary details to each participant, and also get their feedback. In my pre-test script I will talk about usability testing and GNOME, and afterwards I will be doing the short post-test interview on the overall experience of the testing process, and using GNOME.

Distributions

• New Releases

  • Untangle Announces NG Firewall Version 12.1

    Untangle® Inc., a security software and appliance company, announced the release of version 12.1 of its award-winning NG Firewall software. Untangle NG Firewall version 12.1 brings new features and functionality to the popular and powerful small business firewall platform.

    NG Firewall delivers a comprehensive solution for small-to-medium businesses, schools, governmental organizations and nonprofits that require enterprise-grade perimeter security with the flexibility of a convergent Unified Threat Management (UTM) device. Untangle’s industry-leading approach to network traffic visibility and policy management gives its customers deep insight into what’s happening on their network via its database-driven reporting engine and 360° dashboard.

    “Version 12.1 is the next step in the evolution of the Untangle NG Firewall user interface,” said Dirk Morris, founder and chief product officer at Untangle. “Building on the base provided by the last two major releases, version 12.1 provides a fully responsive mobile management console as well as faster performing, more flexible reporting and dashboard widget capabilities.”

• Red Hat Family

  • NethServer 7 Beta 1 Released with Beautiful New Theme, Exciting Features

    Today, July 13, 2016, Softpedia was informed by NethServer’s Alessio Fattorini about the immediate availability for download of first Beta release towards the NethServer 7 Linux operating system.

  • Finance

    • Active Tech Stock News: Red Hat, Inc. (RHT), Microchip Technology Inc. (MCHP)

    • Analysts Tips to Monitor: Twitter, Inc. (NYSE:TWTR) , Red Hat, Inc. (NYSE:RHT)

    • Short Term Rating on Red Hat (RHT)

• Debian Family

  • Derivatives

    • Canonical/Ubuntu

      • Meizu PRO 5 Ubuntu Edition Review

        Despite Nokia ex-CEO Stephen Elop’s boasts, the smartphone market has indeed become a two-horse race between Android and iOS. Of course, just because those two have pretty much cornered the mobile market doesn’t mean there is no room for others, especially those that aren’t aiming for world domination. At leat not yet. We’re talking here about more unconventional, more “experimental” platforms like, say, Ubuntu Touch. Although already in the commercial market for more than a year, Ubuntu Touch’s smartphone promise reaches its full potential in the more muscled Meizu PRO 5 Ubuntu Edition. But does this so far most powerful Ubuntu smartphone live up to the expectations it has set up for itself? It’s time to buckle your seat belts and join us for another ride into the somewhat alien world of Ubuntu on Mobile.

      • 5 Open Source Tools in Ubuntu Linux that Make Life Easier

        Ubuntu Linux isn’t perfect (no operating system is), but it does make my workflow easier and more efficient on a daily basis. In fact, it makes things so easy that I sometimes take it for granted.

        So, in order to remind myself how Ubuntu simplifies my life, here’s a breakdown of five open source tools or features that are easily available in Ubuntu (OK, most of them would work in any other Linux distribution, too) and save me lots of time and frustration.

      • Canonical Releases Snapcraft 2.12.1 Snap Creator Tool for Ubuntu 16.04 LTS

        Today, July 13, Canonical’s Sergio Schvezov announced the availability of the first point release of the Snapcraft 2.12 Snappy creator tool for the Ubuntu Linux operating system.

        Snapcraft 2.12.1 has landed in the Ubuntu 16.04 LTS (Xenial Xerus) software repositories, bringing multiple improvements and fixes, among which we can mention a new store endpoint that tracks the status of pushed Snaps and offering feedback directly on the command-line in case a manual action is needed or everything is good.

      • A Video Of X11 Apps Running On Mir With Ubuntu 16.10 Using Libertine

        Libertine is the new Ubuntu/Canonical project for running X11 Debian packages on the next-gen Ubuntu desktop powered by Mir and Unity 8. There’s now a video of showing off their new tech for running X11 apps under Unity 8.

Devices/Embedded

• Inside the PocketCHIP, a $49 Portable Linux Computer

  Since the launch of the Raspberry Pi in 2012, the hobbyist community centered on low-cost, open-source, ARM-based computers has exploded dramatically. Every year, these small, hackable devices get cheaper and more powerful. In 2015, Oakland-based Next Thing Co. upped the ante by successfully Kickstarting a $9 computer it called “CHIP” to the tune of $2 million in funding. As part of its pitch, Next Thing Co. also showcased the PocketCHIP, a handheld version of the CHIP with a built-in keyboard and touchscreen display.

  The PocketCHIP includes a 1GHz ARM CPU (with a Mali 400 GPU), 4GB of flash storage, 512MB of RAM, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, a 4.3-inch touchscreen display, a primitive keyboard, and a five-hour LiPo battery. With this device now shipping to Kickstarter backers, I thought it would be helpful to take a closer look at the gadget on my trusty workbench, and document my findings in this slideshow.

• 64-bit Banana Pi runs Linux on Allwinner A64, has WiFi, BT, GbE

  Sinovoip revealed an open “Banana Pi BPI-M64” SBC based on a quad-core, Cortex-A53 Allwinner A64 SoC, with 2GB RAM, up to 64GB eMMC, plus WiFi, BT, and GbE.

  SinoVoip, one of the two competing companies that emerged along with LeMaker (Banana Pro) from the original Banana Pi open source project, has unveiled its first 64-bit hacker SBC, featuring an Allwinner A64 SoC. The A64, which has four 1.2GHz Cortex-A53 cores and a dual-core Mali 400 MP2 GPU, is found on Pine64’s $15-and-up Pine A64, which last month came in 7th in our reader survey of 81 open-spec hacker boards last.

• Another Small Linux Computer With Pi In Its Name

  Since the introduction of the Raspberry Pi, the embedded Linux scene has been rocked by well supported hardware that is produced in quantity, a company that won’t go out of business in six months, and a huge user base. Yes, there are a few small problems with the Raspberry Pi and its foundation – some stuff is still closed source, the Foundation itself plays things close to their chests, and there are some weird binary blobs somebody will eventually reverse engineer. Viewed against the competition, though, nothing else compares.

• Phones

  • Android

    • Android Nougat could be ready for release next month

      Google has been pretty vague about when exactly we’ll get Android Nougat, saying just “late summer”, but with us being in mid-summer now that suggests it could be with us in a couple of months, or maybe even less.

    • Android Distribution July 2016 Update Reveal Marshmallow Is Steadily Growing

    • Google’s July 2016 Android distribution stats show biggest-ever jump for Android Marshmallow

    • Android 7.0 Nougat Firmware Update ‘Coming Soon’ To HTC Nexus 9: Rogers

    • OK, Google: 160 valuable voice commands for Android

    • 3 hidden Android customization settings you need to try

    • These awesome wooden Android figures will be available later this year

    • ZTE Axon 7 affordable Android smartphone now available for pre-order in the USA

      There is a semi-disturbing trend happening in the Android market nowadays — very affordable smartphones. Before you call me nuts, it’s true there is nothing inherently wrong with a consumer saving money, but a race to the bottom can hurt the platform overall. No-name manufacturers are leveraging decent specs and selling phones at insanely low prices, making profits tough for the big-name players. If Android becomes unprofitable, why will anyone bother?

AT&T to release SDN platform into open source

AT&T Releasing Its Network Playbook into Open Source

AT&T open sources ECOMP to Linux Foundation, hopes to make it industry’s standard for SDN

AT&T Commits Releasing Its Network Playbook Into Open Source

UNH-IOL Tackles SDN Interoperability with New Consortium

From DevOps to BizDevOps: It’s All About the People

DevOps: Chef offers enterprise-wide analytics with Automate tool

Already know a vendor of software automation tools, Chef software has launched a new tool that combines Chef’s existing software into one, single-interface product.

Aimed at software development teams the app combines Chef Delivery and Chef Compliance into one tool. According to the company the aim is to speed up the software delivery process.

Chef Automate includes a new Visibility feature that offers analytics of all the resources managed by Chef through a single interface, the company says, and should help organisations, “safely deploy infrastructure and applications at high velocity and scale”.

A survey for developers about application configuration

Markus Raab, the author of Elektra project, has created a survey to get FLOSS developer’s point of view on the configuration of application.

Reduce the cost of virtualization with open source Proxmox

Thanks to its open source availability and full-featured graphical interface, Proxmox makes for an excellent alternative to more expensive virtualization platforms.

Know a rising open source star? Nominate her for a WISE Award

Christine Flounders, Regional Manager for Engineering at Bloomberg L.P. London tells us about an amazing open (source) opportunity for women – the WISE International Open Source Award.

The Merits of the Open Source Philosophy

Tonight, I sent my fourteen year old daughter a sample from the book “Libertarianism For Beginners.” If she likes it, I’ll gladly buy the full book for her to add to her library. The purchasing process was reasonably painless as there was a clean interface guiding me from product discovery all the way through delivery. As an added bonus, the underlying architecture for the whole thing was Linux. This is what you might call Software As a Service or SAAS. In fact, most of the SAAS systems we rely upon for our most common daily activities utilize the most popular kernel ever created and deployed in the history of computing – Linux.

So what does the book have to do with SAAS? There’s a reason I shared a book about Libertarian philosophy with Eliza and it wasn’t just because it’s a book with pictures. It’s because she recently stumbled onto watching the Atlas Shrugged movies and was intrigued by the clear way the characters present their thoughts. She could understand how individualism benefits society and how forced charity can lead to destruction. It’s not a philosophy that everyone reading this agrees to, nor should they, but it’s neat to see a young lady become infatuated with ideas instead of boys, fashion, or makeup.

Web Browsers

• Mozilla

  • Fedora 25 Planning For Proper Rust Support

    There are some new feature proposals to talk about for Fedora 25, which will be officially released around November.

    The latest self-contained change that is proposed for Fedora 25 is Rust compiler support. In particular, the hope is to package up the LLVM-based Rust compiler and its Cargo build system and offer them via the main Fedora repository. The current plan is for packaging Rust 1.10 and Cargo 0.11.

  • Mozilla Will Begin “Rusting” Of Its Firefox Browser On August 2

    Mozilla is all set to launch multi-processing functionality in the new update. The new version–Firefox 48–is scheduled for a release on August 2. Firefox 48 will have some of its components coded in Rust, a programming language developed by Mozilla.

  • Mozilla begins process of letting Firefox rust

    Mozilla has announced it has taken a small step towards replacing much of Firefox’s C++ code with its safer alternative language, Rust.

    When Firefox 48 ships on August 2, it will contain a Rust-built mp4 track metadata parser that will be available on Windows and 32-bit Linux desktops for the first time. Users of Mac OS X and 64-bit Linux have had the new parser available since Firefox 45.

SaaS/Back End

• Mirantis Embracing Kubernetes and Containers for OpenStack Cloud

  The world of containers and OpenStack clouds are increasingly coming together, as organizations of all sizes look to become more agile. While the idea of running containers inside of OpenStack is one option, a powerful idea that is now taking shape is to run OpenStack itself as a set of containers, which is then managed by the Kubernetes container orchestration system.

  Among the vendors that are working on enabling OpenStack to run as a set of containers is Miranits, which is currently developing a new version of its Fuel platform to make use of Kubernetes. To date, Fuel has heavily relied on Puppet configuration management technology to help enable many functions. Moving forward, Puppet will still be a part of future Fuel releases, though not quite in the same depth as before.

Pseudo-Open Source (Openwashing)

• Better networking with open-source EtherCAT [Ed: openwashing as it has nothing to do with OSS]

  Semiconductor manufacturers and their suppliers – both process tool vendors and providers of sub-fab systems – are looking to an open-source industrial networking methodology, EtherCAT, developed by Beckhoff Automation (Verl, Germany; m.beckhoff.com) to address the increasingly stringent control requirements of emerging high-precision processes.

  During SEMICON West, early adopters are promoting EtherCAT as a next-generation real-time Ethernet control solution, with a variety of attributes: it is fast (good for controlling ever-more precise process recipes), open source, and extendable to many more nodes than existing networking protocols. Those attributes make EtherCAT attractive to tool makers such as Applied Materials, Lam Research, and Tokyo Electron Ltd., as well as sub-systems suppliers such as Edwards (Crawley, England).

Public Services/Government

• EU-FOSSA needs your help – A free software community call to action

  The EU-FOSSA project’s mission is to “offer a systematic approach for the EU institutions to ensure that widely used critical software can be trusted”. The project was triggered by recent software security vulnerabilities, especially the Heartbleed issue. An inspired initiative by EU parlamentarians Max Andersson and Julia Reda, the pilot project “Governance and quality of software code – Auditing of free and open source software” became FOSSA. Run under the auspices of DIGIT, the project promised “improved integrity and security of key open source software”. I had been interviewed as a stakeholder by the project during work package 0 (“project charter, stakeholder interviews and business case”), and later worked with the FSFE group that provided input and comments to the project to EC-DIGIT. While I believe that the parliamentary project champions and the people involved in the project at EC-DIGIT are doing great work, I am worried that the deliverables of the project are beginning to fall short of expectations. I also think the free software community needs to get more involved. Here is why.

Openness/Sharing/Collaboration

• Open Data

  • A Data Model to Support the Publishing of Legislation as Linked Open Data

    Citizens, professionals in the legal domain, businesses as well as civil servants need to know what legislation is in force. Legislation is often amended, repealed and codified, making it difficult to have a clear view of what text is in force at any specific point in time. In this context, the Hellenic Ministry of Interior and Administrative Reconstruction and the Italian Anti-corruption Agency contacted the ISA Programme of the European Commission to develop a pilot that has the two fold objective of making legislation available in both human and machine readable format and visualising the evolution of legislation over time, to enable user friendly consultation.

  • Big Data At Ancestry.com: Why Data Stewardship And Open Source Matter So Much

    With more and more businesses becoming aware of the value locked inside the data they collect, many are becoming aware of a pressing problem.

• Open Hardware/Modding

  • SiFive Launches Freedom FOSS SoC Platforms

  • Startup Releases Open Source System-on-Chip

Health/Nutrition

• Why I Chose Sterilization at 31

  There are several reasons why I’m getting sterilized. The first one is: I don’t ever want to be pregnant again. The only time I have been pregnant was horrible: all-day nausea, unable to eat anything but crackers and ginger ale, basically stuck in bed for two weeks before my abortion. I was unable to work or to do much more than watch TV and sleep all day.

• Farmers Rebel After Organic ‘Elites’ Throw Support Behind Sham Label Law

  The Stabenow-Roberts GMO labeling bill, which the House of Representatives is expected to vote on this week, has deepened a rift within the organic industry as farmers and other dedicated opponents of genetically modified (GM or GMO) agriculture are breaking ties with those who support the legislation (pdf), which is backed by both Monsanto and the powerful Grocery Manufacturers Association (GMA).

  The farmer-controlled Organic Seed Growers and Trade Association (OSGATA) announced Wednesday that it has withdrawn its membership from the influential Organic Trade Association (OTA).

  The decision was made by a unanimous vote by the group’s Board of Directors and was prompted by what OSGATA describes as “duplicity towards organic farmers and consumers” when OTA signed off on the bill, despite the fact that it “would immediately preempt existing strong state GMO labeling laws that are widely supported by the Organic community and ninety percent of consumers.”

Security

• Security updates for Wednesday

• Download This Security Fix Now — All Versions Of Windows Operating System Hackable

  As a part of its monthly update cycle, Microsoft has released security patches for all versions of Windows operating system. This update addresses a critical flaw that lets an attacker launch man-in-the-middle attacks on workstations. This security vulnerability arises as the print spooler service allows a user to install untrusted drivers with elevated privileges.

• The Truth About Penetration Testing Vs. Vulnerability Assessments

  Vulnerability assessments are often confused with penetration tests. In fact, the two terms are often used interchangeably, but they are worlds apart. To strengthen an organization’s cyber risk posture, it is essential to not only test for vulnerabilities, but also assess whether vulnerabilities are actually exploitable and what risks they represent. To increase an organization’s resilience against cyber-attacks, it is essential to understand the inter-relationships between vulnerability assessment, penetration test, and a cyber risk analysis.

Defence/Aggression

• Why America needs a truth commission

  In the United States, gun deaths over the last three decades far exceed those reported in truth commissions and civil wars around the world in the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s.

• Between a Rock and a Hard (South China) Place

  What transpired in The Hague certainly won’t solve the riddle, asargued here. Beijing had already made it very clear, even before the ruling, it would fiercely reject all findings.

• Is Kerry Right? Are Freemen of Syria and Army of Islam Radical Terrorists?

  In his opinion piece, Rogin characterizes what Kerry said as a gaffe that yielded to the Russian position that all rebels against the al-Assad regime in Syria are terrorists. Rogin also defended Ahrar al-Sham (Freemen of Syria) as not an al-Qaeda affiliate or in the line of command of al-Qaeda, though he admitted that it is Salafi and wants a radical Muslim dictatorship.

  I’m not sure why the State Department officials who anonymously blasted Kerry think that Freemen of Syria are good guys just because they aren’t al-Qaeda.

  And the fact is that they are in fact in a formal political and military coalition with al-Qaeda. I.e. they are playing Mulla Omar and the Taliban to al-Qaeda’s Ayman al-Zawahiri (the 9/11 mastermind to whom the Syrian Nusra Front reports).

• China may dispute South China Sea verdict, but it’s a huge setback

• China told: World is watching you

• Beijing warns against ‘cradle of war’ in South China Sea

  China warned rivals Wednesday against turning the South China Sea into a “cradle of war” and threatened an air defence zone there, after its claims to the strategically vital waters were declared invalid.

  The surprisingly strong and sweeping ruling by a UN-backed tribunal in The Hague provided powerful diplomatic ammunition to the Philippines, which filed the challenge, and other claimants in their decades-long disputes with China over the resource-rich waters.

  China reacted furiously to Tuesday’s decision, insisting it had historical rights over the sea while launching a volley of thinly veiled warnings at the United States and other critical nations.

• Taiwan sends warship to South China Sea after ruling

  A Taiwanese warship set sail for the South China Sea on Wednesday “to defend Taiwan’s maritime territory”, a day after an international tribunal ruled China has no historic rights in the waterway and undermined Taipei’s claims to islands there.

• South China Sea ruling won’t stop plundering of ecosystem, experts say

  An international tribunal’s ruling that China has caused severe harm to coral reefs and endangered species in the South China Sea will not stop further damage to an already plundered ecosystem, scientists and academics said.

  The Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague ruled on Tuesday that China did not have historic rights to the South China Sea and that it had breached Philippine sovereignty by endangering its ships and fishing and oil projects in the energy-rich waters.

• Beijing accuses UN judges of taking bribes from the Philippines after they ruled against national claim to the South China Sea

• Chinese Official On Tribunal Ruling: ‘It’s Nothing But A Scrap Of Paper’

  After an international tribunal invalidated Beijing’s claims to the South China Sea, Chinese authorities have declared in no uncertain terms that they will be ignoring the ruling.

• China Slams the South China Sea Decision as a ‘Political Farce’

  Beijing has made it clear that it has no intention of heeding an international tribunal decision that rejects China’s claims to the contested South China Sea

• Clinton vetting ex-NATO military chief Stavridis for vice-president – report

  The Clinton camp is reportedly vetting retired four-star Admiral James Stavridis as a potential vice presidential running mate. The former NATO brass served as the DoD’s top adviser during the Iraq War and has speculated on nuclear war with Russia.

  Retired Admiral James G. Stavridis, who is now dean of the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University, is being considered as a possible running mate by Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, a source familiar with the matter told the New York Times on Tuesday.

  The source said Clinton would probably have “someone with military experience” on her vice-presidential shortlist, and Admiral Stavridis would “fit the description.”

Transparency/Investigative Reporting

• Hillary Clinton, Her Email and a Body Blow to the Freedom of Information Act

  Federal Bureau of Investigation director James Comey announced that his agency is recommending no charges against Hillary Clinton for her use of an unclassified personal email server while secretary of state. Comey offered that “no reasonable prosecutor” would bring a case against Clinton.

  The implications of these statements, and what happened before and after the announcement, represent what most likely represent the virtual end of the 2016 election cycle. Come November votes will be counted but the single, major, unresolved issue standing in the shadows behind Clinton is now resolved in her favor.

Environment/Energy/Wildlife/Nature

• This Is Why You Could Lose Your Life Protecting Honduras’ Environment

  On Thursday, news broke first in Honduras and then in the international press: Urquía’s family had found the activist leader dead in a municipal landfill. It was a gruesome sight. Urquía, a sympathizer of the Civic Council of Popular and Indigenous Organizations of Honduras (COPINH), and a vocal opponent of hydroelectric development in the La Paz region, was dumped on top of trash bags. According to authorities, her head showed signs of massive trauma done with a blunt object. Police said they suspected it all stemmed from a bike robbery, though COPINH quickly attributed the killing to her activism.

• A massive heat wave is poised to envelop the U.S. from coast to coast next week

  Following on the heels of the hottest June in the history of the lower 48 states, an extended, intense and widespread heat wave is likely to develop next week.

  The heat wave will start in the Plains states and parts of the intermountain West, eventually spreading to the West Coast, South and Midwest by Thursday, July 21. The heat wave is also likely to seep northward into southern Alberta and Ontario.

  Cities like Dallas, Denver, Oklahoma City, Kansas City, Chicago, Minneapolis, Fargo and eventually New York City and Washington, D.C. may experience sizzling heat and stifling humidity by the end of the week.

• Why These Parents and Grandparents are ‘Fasting for the Future’

  Upwards of 30 parents and grandparents are fasting outside Washington Gov. Jay Inslee’s office this week, calling for a stronger and more ambitious Clean Air Rule ahead of a Thursday evening hearing on the issue.

  A group of 19 people began the fast at 8 am Tuesday morning; they were joined by 15 additional supporters on Wednesday.

  “It is no wonder we are here,” said great-grandparent Judy Bea-Wilson, who joined the action on Wednesday. “There is nothing stronger than a parent’s love for their child and, right now, with this weak draft rule, both our Governor and the Dept. of Ecology are failing our children in an unforgivable manner.”

  The hearing on Thursday concerns the state’s draft Clean Air Rule, which aims to cut carbon emissions from 70 of Washington’s biggest polluters by 1.7 percent a year. Completion and adoption of the rule was court-ordered, thanks to a group of intrepid young people who fought in court for their rights to clean air and a stable climate.

  But environmentalists say the proposal is just business as usual.

Finance

• Abe seeks TPP approval in autumn

  Japan’s Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has suggested that he will seek approval of the Trans-Pacific Partnership free trade deal at an extra session of the Diet this year.

  Abe was speaking to business leaders including Sadayuki Sakakibara, the chair of Japan’s largest business federation, Keidanren.

  Japan and 11 other countries signed the TPP last year but none has completed domestic procedures needed for the deal to take effect.

  Abe suggested that Japan take the initiative to raise momentum for implementing the TPP soon so that it will produce results as early as possible.

• TPP Opponents Take Aim at Pelosi: Let’s Build a Firewall of Resistance

  Social change network CREDO Action has amplified its call to stop the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), calling for “an onslaught of grassroots opposition” coupled with a “firewall” of Democratic resistance in the House of Representatives to prevent the trade deal from being rammed through Congress.

  In a video released Wednesday, CREDO combines footage of presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), and Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) speaking out against the TPP, and urges viewers to sign a petition that calls on House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi to help stop a “lame-duck” vote on the TPP.

  The footage of Clinton is from her joint rally with Sanders on Tuesday, when she got his endorsement.

  She says in the video: “And we’re going to say no to attacks on working families and no to bad trade deals and unfair trade practices, including the Trans-Pacific Partnership.”

  The footage of Reid shows the senator saying the TPP “puts us at a disadvantage. So the answer is not only no, but hell no,” while Warren—already featured in a separate anti-TPP video released last week by CREDO—says the deal “would tilt the playing field even more in favor of multinational corporations and against working families.”

• Free Trade and a Textile Fire Tragedy

  So-called “free trade” in textiles has led retailers to seek out the cheapest labor and to neglect safety measures, factors in a devastating Bangladesh fire in 2013 that killed more than 1,000 workers, recalls Dennis J Bernstein.

• Denmark Seeks EU Fix To ‘Div-Arb’ Deals

  A Danish politician is asking the European Commission to examine stock loan deals that drain the country and many of its neighbors of tens of millions of dollars in forgone tax revenues.

  The request, made by Jeppe Kofod, a Danish member of the European Parliament, could open a new front in lawmakers’ efforts to stamp out the deals, which help large shareholders avoid paying their share of taxes on dividends paid out by corporations in Denmark and elsewhere.

AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics

• When our watchdog becomes a bloodthirsty attackdog, be wary

  Jeremy Corbyn has been variously described in the British press as unelectable, comic and highly dangerous. How should a healthy democracy respond to politicians pursuing a different kind of democracy?

• Bernie Sanders Abandons the Revolution

  Bernie Sanders’s endorsement of Hillary Clinton has hugely disappointed millions of his supporters. Many of those inspired by his call for a political revolution had held out hope, even until now, that he would refuse to endorse Wall Street’s favored candidate.

  But those hopes have come crashing down.

  Not only did Sanders endorse his neoliberal opponent, he has begun to campaign for her, even before the Democratic National Convention, where he had previously committed to continue the fight. Appearing at her rally in New Hampshire, he signaled his intention to further accompany her on the campaign trail.

  [...]

  Instead, Bernie’s endorsement will be used in an attempt to prop up that same rotten establishment, including the corporate-owned leadership of the Democratic Party which has fought against him at every step, and which just booed him in the last week. Further, if Jill Stein were not running, or received little support, polls already show that the two right-wing candidates, Libertarian Gary Johnson, and Republican Donald Trump, would be the beneficiaries of the anti-establishment vote – helping to grow the base for right-wing populism.

  Sanders endorsement of Clinton is a fundamental failure of leadership. Sanders has the trust of millions of the most dedicated, committed workers and young people. They are looking to him. He has a responsibility to lead them in the way forward, not into a political dead end.

  While my organization, Socialist Alternative, and I actively supported Sanders’s campaign by launching Movement4Bernie, we always openly disagreed with his decision to run in the Democratic Party primary. But we also said that this mistake could be corrected as experience clarified the deeply hostile character of the Democratic Party to progressive politics. We urged Bernie if he was defeated within the (un)Democratic primary, as we expected, to continue running as an independent or Green, and launched a petition that has been signed now by nearly 125,000 people.

• The UK’s New Prime Minister Is Walking Onto The Glass Cliff

  On Wednesday, Theresa May will become the next prime minister of the UK, taking over after former Prime Minister David Cameron resigned in the wake of his country’s vote to exit the European Union. She will be the country’s second female prime minister in all of its history.

  That this historic turn of events comes at a time of high political turmoil, however, is likely no coincidence.

  The UK’s vote to leave the European Union — which has come to be known as its “Brexit” — immediately roiled financial markets and has continued to leave a big imprint on the British economy. Businesses are saying that the decision to leave the union is making them tighten their purse strings and consider cutting jobs. Credit Suisse is already predicting that the country will fall into a recession next year thanks to the economic impact of the exit.

• Farewell, David Cameron, It’s Theresa May’s Turn to Mess Things Up Now

  Britain bid farewell to David Cameron on Wednesday as the reign of Prime Minister Theresa May began.

  Over the six years he was installed at 10 Downing Street, Cameron—who resigned in the wake of the Brexit referendum—drew criticism over his support for austerity policies, disregard for the environment, callous approach toward refugees, and hawkishness on the bombing of Syria.

• Amazing Brexit: Identity and Class Politics

  Metaphorically speaking, in the genetically racist United States, “race” operates a strange alchemy on portions of the liberaliat and the compatible left. When it comes to bombing people in the darker corners of the earth, they are silent or compliant; when, however, it comes to sporting the anti-racist colors in a comfortably conformist context, they sing like parrots. This is liberal imperialism. None other than the by now politically compromised George Orwell confessed the hypocrisy behind the imperialist liberal mindset. In his psychologically penetrating essay, “Shooting an Elephant” (1936), using himself as a representative of the liberal anti-imperialist class, he concedes that theoretically he was all for the “natives” freeing themselves from the yoke of British imperialism. At the same time, he admits that nothing would have given him a greater pleasure than “to stick a bayonet in a [troublesome] Buddhist priest’s guts.” These conflicted feelings, he wrote, were the by-product of imperialism.

• Bernie Sanders Endorses Hillary Clinton, Candidate of Wall Street and Corporate Power

  Bernie Sanders threw in the towel today in his epic campaign to win the Democratic Party’s nomination for president, standing on a stage in Portsmouth, New Hampshire beside the woman he had spent the whole primary season denouncing as a tool of the corporate elite and especially of the Wall Street banking cabal, and saying he endorsed her as the party’s candidate for president of the United States.

  The event marked the sad, if widely predicted, end to what for a brief time had electrified millions of young and working class voters: a major party candidate for president openly calling himself a socialist, proudly harking back to his days as a radical civil rights activist instead of trying to hide his past and his arrest record, and unabashedly condemning the greed, corruption and lust for power of the nation’s ruling elite.

  I confess to having been inspired by Sanders’ quixotic campaign myself, and while I’m disappointed that he has ended it in such a dismal and humiliating manner, I’m not sorry he ran. Thanks to Bernie Sanders, the word “socialism” is no longer a pejorative in American politics. It is a political philosophy to which millions of young people are now drawn. That is something that can and will be built upon. For at least two generations it was not possible to call one’s self a socialist and be taken seriously in the United States of Capitalism. Of course, Sanders didn’t achieve this breakthrough by himself. His campaign built directly upon the struggles of the Occupy Movement, which in 2011 gave us “We are the 99%!” and made it clear that it is the 1% of the nation’s wealthiest people who basically own and run the country.

• 6 Ways The RNC Platform Is Already Shaping Up To Be Crazy

  The Republican National Committee is meeting this week to finalize the document that will lay out the party’s vision for the future — which, if the first day is any indication, includes a lot of “traditional” families, conversation therapy, and Bible study.

• Et Tu, Bernie?

  What an embarrassment for Bernie Sanders and those, myself included, who thought he would not descend so cravenly into the swamp of political sellout.

  It is one thing to hold one’s nose and vote for Hillary Clinton as the lesser evil. It is quite another to suddenly absolve the Clintons and other top Democrats who have, as Sanders repeatedly pointed out during his campaign, contributed so much to the national crisis.

• Theresa May Is Britain’s New Prime Minister After David Cameron’s Resignation

  Theresa May took office as Britain’s prime minister on Wednesday afternoon, after her predecessor, David Cameron, tendered his resignation to Queen Elizabeth II.

  At Buckingham Palace, the queen asked Ms. May, who had been home secretary, to form a government. Ms. May, 59, is the queen’s 13th prime minister; the first was Winston Churchill.

  Ms. May arrived at the palace moments after Mr. Cameron left. In his final remarks as Britain’s leader, Mr. Camerons spoke briefly outside 10 Downing Street in London, joined by his wife, Samantha, and their three children.

  “It has been the greatest honor of my life to serve our country as prime minister over these last six years, and to serve as the leader of my party for almost 11 years,” Mr. Cameron said. “My only wish is continued success for this great country that I love so very much.”

• ‘We will build a better Britain not just for the privileged few’: Prime Minister Theresa May issues statement of intent

• The Sanders Endorsement and the Political Revolution

  But the sentiment is real. The Sanders insurgency was fueled by a revolt against the big-money politics that Clinton personifies. Clinton delivered one of her most populist speeches in response to the Sanders endorsement, but doubts about her commitments are widespread, even among those intending to vote for her.

• Impeachment Effort May Fail in Brazilian Senate

  Some press reports on the crisis in Brazil seem to imply that the removal of President Dilma Rousseff, re-elected in 2014 for a four-year term, is a done deal. Of course the interim government is acting as though they are the product of some huge electoral victory, even though the elected president is merely suspended pending her upcoming impeachment trial in the Senate. Beginning with a cabinet of all rich, white males, in a country where more than half identify as Afro-Brazilian or mixed race descent, they have tried to create the impression that they are the new government that will rule at least until there are new presidential elections in 2018. But the chances that they will be gone before September are increasing every day.

• Billionaires in Brazil: Understanding How Extreme Wealth and Political Power Overlap Everywhere

  Alex Cuadros spent years covering the billionaire class of Latin America for Bloomberg. A Portuguese-speaking American journalist who spent years based in Brazil, he has now written a highly entertaining and deeply insightful book about the particularly powerful, flamboyant, assertive, and often-crazed class of Brazilian billionaires. Entitled Brazillionaires: Wealth, Power, Decadence, and Hope in an American Country, his new book was released yesterday.

• An Interview With Michael T. Flynn, the Ex-Pentagon Spy Who Supports Donald Trump

  Flynn is now taking his message to the biggest stage possible: the 2016 presidential election. Last week, the New York Post reported that Flynn, a registered Democrat, was being considered as a running mate for Donald Trump on the Republican ticket. In the days since, Flynn has been making the media rounds praising the GOP frontrunner.

  [...]

  For Flynn, the decision to step into public life preceded the rise of Trump and boiled down to two core issues: perceived lies peddled by the Obama administration and his self-imposed duty to confront them. “I watched our own government lie to us about a number of things,” Flynn told The Intercept.

Censorship/Free Speech

• Trump Filed Secret $10 Million Lawsuit Against Former Campaign Aide

  Trump’s current legal battle with Nunberg, over an embarrassing article that barely held a day of the media’s attention, reveals the extent of the vindictiveness of Trump’s campaign and highlights just how careful his former staffers have to be when discussing their former boss.

• Minneapolis PD Issues Questionable DMCA Notice To Bury Its Controversial Recruitment Video

  The only way to make “bad optics” surrounding a questionable recruiting video vanish is to make the bad video vanish first, right? That’s obviously what the Minneapolis Police Department believes. It has nuked its controversial recruiting video from DMCA orbit, netting citizen journalist Wedge Live a copyright strike for preserving something the MPD would rather just went away.

  Twitter user Tony Webster pointed out the end result of the MPD’s efforts, which removed the video formerly located here (Update: as this story started to get press attention, it appears that the Minneapolis PD has rescinded its takedown).

• Bonnici toasts final nail in censorship’s coffin as sign of ‘freer, more open society’

  Justice and culture minister Owen Bonnici hailed the passing into law of a bill that removes censorship and decriminalises the vilification of religion, as a law that would permit a more open and stronger society.

  Bonnici’s press conference at the House of Representatives was attended by members of the National Book Council, the St James Centre for Creativity as well as various artists, musicians and performing arts producers.

• Anti-censorship bill a reflection of today’s society – Owen Bonnici

  A Bill approved by Parliament yesterday evening, which does decriminalises the vilification of religion, has been done to “protect those who are most vulnerable but at the same time..opens doors to freedom of artistic expression,” Justice Minister Owen Bonnici

• Justice minister says new anti-censorship law better addresses society’s needs

  The anti-censorship bill approved by Parliament yesterday does away with “old-fashioned laws”, replacing them with ones that are better address society’s needs, Culture Minister Owen Bonello said this morning.

  Addressing a press conference in Parliament, the minister said that while laws on hate speech had been amended, offering victims of such crimes better protection, vilification of religion has been decriminalised.

• Xi Jinping Beetle Creeps Out China’s Censors

• Quit bugging me: China censors beetle named after President Xi

• Beetle named Xi is a pest, say China censors

• Crushed underfoot: beetle named after China’s President Xi Jinping is a pest, state censors say

• Minitrue: Delete News on “Daddy Xi” Beetle

• Found: A Beetle Whose Name Is Banned From Chinese Media

• China censors story of beetle named after President Xi

• China unhappy about beetle named after Xi Jinping

• Beetle named after Chinese President Xi Jinping considered a pest by censors

• Xi bugged by the dung beetle that took his name

• China orders to remove all references of beetle named after Xi Jinping from Internet

• China bans beetle named after President Xi

• Scientist names bug after Xi Jinping, censors squash all reports online

• Beijing censors beetle named after Xi Jinping

• Beijing bans mention of new insect named after Chinese President Xi Jinping

• Why you should not name a bug after Xi Jinping

• A new species of beetle named after President Xi is blacklisted on Chinese social media

• Minitrue: Delete News on “Daddy Xi” Beetle

• After South China Sea Ruling, China Censors Online Calls for War

• China Responds to South China Sea Ruling with Censorship, Propaganda

Privacy/Surveillance

• Privacy Critics Raise Alarm over Pokémon GO’s Collect-It-All Power

  Sen. Al Franken questioning “extent to which Niantic may be unnecessarily collecting, using, and sharing a wide range of users’ personal information”

• FBI Created Child Porno Website Playpen, Defends Its “Good” Malware In Court

  In order to catch child pornography watchers, FBI created a website Playpen and hosted it on the dark web. Later in the case, the judges ruled out evidence due to lack of a proper warrant. FBI has filed a petition that the malware created by them shouldn’t be considered as malicious.

• Watch out, Theresa May! Max Schrems is coming for your planned spy law

  Max Schrems, the man who brought down Safe Harbour, has told Ars that although he sees huge problems with Privacy Shield, he probably won’t be the one to challenge it. Instead he’s looking towards the UK, following its vote to leave the European Union.

  “Basically it would be a very similar case to the Safe Harbour one and the thrill isn’t there any more,” he joked. “But I really hope someone else will challenge it,” he added. That similarity is at the core of most of the criticism of Privacy Shield.

  Safe Harbour—the deal struck between the EU and the US to facilitate the transfer of European personal data to the US—was necessary because the US otherwise doesn’t meet EU adequacy requirements for data protection. However, following Edward Snowden’s disclosures of National Security Agency spying, Austrian law student Schrems launched a case against Facebook for not sufficiently protecting his data. Last year his case ended up in the European Court of Justice (ECJ), which ruled that the Safe Harbour framework invalid.

Civil Rights/Policing

• FBI Greenlights Crackdown on Black Lives Matter Protesters

  The FBI is using the actions of a lone gunman as a pretext to attack the Black Lives Matter movement.

• Police Officers Working WNBA Game Walk Out After Players Wear ‘Black Lives Matter’ T-Shirts

  On Saturday night, four off-duty Minneapolis police officers walked off their jobs working security at a WNBA Lynx game when the players wore T-shirts with the phrase “Black Lives Matter” and held a press conference focusing on healing the divide between law enforcement and the black community.

• Just One Year Ago, Robot That Killed Suspected Dallas Shooter Was Used to Deliver Pizza

  After using a robot to kill armed suspect Micah Johnson early Friday morning, the Dallas police were hesitant to release the robot’s make and model, and justifiably so. Johnson is the first civilian to be killed by a U.S. police robot, which raises some ethical questions.

• Charge Abu Zubaydah With a Crime or Free Him

  “High-value detainee” Zayn al-Abidin Muhammed Husayn—better known as Abu Zubaydah—described to his attorney in a 2009 statement, only recently released to the public, details of the torture he underwent at the hands of the CIA at a secret site overseas.

• Gestapo America

  FBI Director James Comey got Hillary off the hook but wants to put you on it. He is pushing hard for warrantless access to all of your Internet activity.

  Comey, who would have fit in perfectly with Hitler’s Gestapo, tells Congress that the United States is not safe unless the FBI knows when every American goes online, to whom they are sending emails and from whom they are receiving emails, and knows every website visited by every American.

• Baton Rouge: “Put Those Damn Weapons Down!”

  “Put those damn weapons down. I’m not going to tell you again, goddamn it. Get those goddamn weapons down.” That was the first command of one of Louisiana’s most revered figures, General Russell Honore, when he arrived in New Orleans in 2005 to direct the military recovery after Hurricane Katrina. The General’s directions have not been followed in Baton Rouge.

  Since the police killing of Alton Sterling, thousands of people in Baton Rouge have been non-violently protesting day and night all over the city. There has been no arson in Baton Rouge, no looting, no burning cars, no windows broken, and no people beaten. Police report that a rock or other material was thrown at them but there is no video of such action nor have there been any arrests for such actions.

• UN Human Rights Expert to Visit Baton Rouge, Ferguson, and Convention Host Cities

  With the nation in angst about impending protests at the conventions and deadly police shootings, he’ll have his hands full.

  In the first visit of its kind, the United Nations special rapporteur on the rights to freedom of peaceful assembly and of association began a 16-day trip across the U.S. to monitor the status and protection of assembly and association rights in our country. With much of the nation in angst about impending protests at political conventions and deadly police shootings, the special rapporteur will undoubtedly have his hands full.

  Maina Kiai, a Kenyan lawyer and renowned international human rights expert, was appointed as the U.N.’s special rapporteur in 2011 following strong advocacy by the United States to create the mandate. His mission to the United States will culminate in a report that will be presented to the U.N. Human Rights Council next year and will address gaps in First Amendment protections between U.S. law and policy and international standards.

  The report will be an important test of the United States’ reputation and self-perception as a human rights champion. Ever since protests erupted in Ferguson, Missouri, the U.S. has been under international scrutiny because of its failure to hold police accountable for the killing of unarmed Black men and the use of excessive police force against protesters. Kiai’s visit comes at a time when local police departments across the country are gearing up for further confrontation with protesters, especially after five Dallas police officers were killed during a nonviolent protest against the fatal police shooting of Alton Sterling and Philando Castile.

• Baton Rouge, Falcon Heights, Dallas

  A thick strand in the history of U.S. policing is rooted back in the slave patrols of the 19th century. Patty rollers were authorized to stop, question, search, harass and summarily punish any Black person they encountered. The five- and six-pointed badges many of them wore to symbolize their authority were predecessors to those of today’s sheriffs and patrolmen. They regularly entered the plantation living quarters of enslaved people, leaving terror and grief in their wake. Together with the hunters of runaways, these patrols had a crystal clear mandate: to constrain the enslaved population to its role as the embodiment and producer of massive wealth for whites and to forestall the possibility that labor subordinated to the lash might rebel at the cost of white lives.

• Still Second-Class Citizens

  An infamous Supreme Court ruling once denied African Americans any and all rights as human beings. Has anything changed?

• A Wake-Up Call for White Progressives

  The night after Alton Sterling was killed by police, I got home from work late. When our three children were asleep, my wife and I finally had a moment together.

  The first thing she said, as if she had been sitting on it all day, was: “I feel like we need to get a Black Lives Matter sign for our yard. I know it would be unusual in our neighborhood.”

  We live in Chevy Chase, D.C., in one of the wealthiest Zip codes in the city. There are about 30 houses on my block, and only one African-American family that I know of. But it didn’t surprise me that my wife wanted a public display of solidarity. In 1990, when she was 16, her classmate Phillip Pannell was shot in the back and killed while fleeing police at the elementary school they had attended in Teaneck, New Jersey. It molded her thinking on race and justice.

• Assassination by Robot: Denying Due Process in Dallas

  Due process is an integral part of our legal system, and protects US citizens from over-zealous authorities. For that reason, it is especially important to apply due process protections to suspects when it is most difficult to do so.

  Unfortunately, that’s not what happened in Dallas this morning. The Dallas police department violated Micah Johnson’s right to due process under the law in the wake of his rampage through the city.

  Johnson’s attack on downtown Dallas claimed the lives of five police officers and wounded seven more people, including two civilians participating in a protest march for a recent spate of murders perpetrated by the police.

  Police negotiated with Johnson, an Army veteran, for hours as he holed up in a Dallas parking garage. Eventually they sent in a robot armed with a bomb to kill him.

  The Dallas Police Department’s decision to send in an armed robot is understandable from a certain point of view. Johnson said he wanted to kill as many officers as possible. This was unmistakably a life-threatening situation.

• On The Passing of David Margolis, the DOJ Institution

  Sally Yates is spot on when she says Margolis’ “dedication to our [DOJ] mission knew no bounds”. That is not necessarily in a good way though, and Margolis was far from the the “personification of all that is good about the Department of Justice”. Mr. Margolis may have been such internally at the Department, but it is far less than clear he is really all that to the public and citizenry the Department is designed to serve. Indeed there is a pretty long record Mr. Margolis consistently not only frustrated accountability for DOJ malfeasance, but was the hand which guided and ingrained the craven protection of any and all DOJ attorneys for accountability, no matter how deeply they defiled the arc of justice.

• Leaked Data Reveals How the U.S. Trains Vast Numbers of Foreign Soldiers and Police With Little Oversight

  At 9:30 a.m. on a gray winter Monday, the State Department officials began certifying the names at a rate of one every two minutes and 23 seconds.

  In rapid succession, they confirmed that 204 police officers, soldiers, sailors, and airmen from 11 countries had committed no gross human rights violations and cleared them to attend one of more than 50 training efforts sponsored by the U.S. government. The programs were taking place at a wide variety of locations, from Italy, Albania, and Jordan to the states of Louisiana and Minnesota.

  Thirty-two Egyptians were approved for instruction in, among other things, Apache helicopter gunship maintenance and flight simulators for the Sikorsky UH-60 Black Hawk. Azerbaijanis were cleared for a U.S. Army course on identifying bio-warfare agents in Maryland and underwater demolition training with Navy SEALs in San Diego. Thirty-three Iraqis were certified to attend a State Department training session for bodyguards, held in Jordan. Bosnians were bound for Macedonia to prepare for deployment to Afghanistan. Ukrainian police were selected for peacekeeping training in Italy. Romanians would study naval operations in Rhode Island and counterterrorism in Skopje.

  This was only the beginning of one day’s work of vetting security personnel for U.S. training. A joint investigation by The Intercept and 100Reporters reveals the chaotic and largely unknown details of a vast constellation of global training exercises, operations, facilities, and schools — a shadowy network of U.S. programs that every year provides instruction and assistance to approximately 200,000 foreign soldiers, police, and other personnel. The investigation exposes the geographic and political contours of a U.S. training system that has, until now, largely defied thorough description.

Internet Policy/Net Neutrality

• Verizon Tries To ‘Debunk’ News Reports Pointing Out Its New Wireless Plans Stink

  Last week, we noted how Verizon had unveiled some new wireless data plans intended to be a competitive response to T-Mobile. In very Verizon-esque fashion, the new plans involved first and foremost raising already-industry high data prices another 17%, then scolding media outlets that called it a rate hike. The new plans also involved taking a number of ideas T-Mobile and other carriers had implemented years ago, then somehow making them worse.

  For example, Verizon belatedly introduced a “Carryover” rollover data option. Under most implementations of this idea (as with T-Mobile), you’re allowed to take any unused data at the end of the month and store it in the bank for future use. But under Verizon’s implementation, this data only lasts one month — and you have to burn through your existing allotment of data before it can even be used. This is Verizon’s attempt to give the illusion of offering an innovative and competing service, but saddling it with caveats to make it incredibly less useful.

Intellectual Monopolies

• France Might Allow NGOs To Sell Public Domain Seeds To Non-Commercial Buyers. Might?

  When Techdirt has written about seeds in the past, it tended to be in the context of patents, and how Big Agribusiness is trying to use multiple layers of intellectual monopolies to prevent patented seeds from entering the public domain. By contrast, seeds that are already in the public domain — that is, owned by no one and thus everyone — ought to be unproblematic.

• Opposition To Kenyan “Anti-Innovation” ICT Bill Grows

  A bill introduced in Kenya’s parliament intended to streamline, govern and regulate the country’s information and communications technology (ICT) sector has been met with opposition from different quarters over fears that it could put ICT technicians out of practice and stifle the country’s innovation capacity if passed into law.

• New Book On Price-Reducing Strategies For Essential Medicines Under IPRs

  A new book and website released today examine the impact of intellectual property rights on access to new essential medicines and call for measures used to reduce prices of patented HIV medicines to be applied in the case of essential medicines.

• Gilead’s Use Of Patents For $10B Tax Dodge Could Ignite Move For Policy Change

  Gilead is the US company whose use of patents to charge $1000 per pill for a hepatitis C medicine in the United States helped make high drug prices a developed country household issue and fodder for elected officials seeking change. Now the company has come under further fire after being found to have moved some US$10 billion overseas to avoid US taxes – even after having received US taxpayer support for its activities – which it orchestrated by moving its patent rights overseas. A new report detailing the company’s tax dodge includes a proposal for a way to clamp down on this type of patent activity.

  [...]

  The company appears to have begun the process by shifting its economic rights to the US patent for Sovaldi over to Ireland in 2013. This “most likely” created a patent licensing arrangement allowing it to report lower US profits and therefore pay much less in taxes, Americans for Tax Fairness said.

  “Gilead claimed that despite booking two-thirds of its revenues here and charging higher drug prices than anywhere else in the world, it made only about one-third of its profits in the United States,” says the report.

  “How could that be possible? The most likely explanation is transfer pricing,” it said. “This accounting trick involves sending valuable assets—such as the license to use prescription drug patents—to a company’s offshore subsidiaries. Those subsidiaries can then impose large licensing fees on the U.S. parent company for the right to sell the patented medications in America. The fee costs reduce the reported U.S. profits and resulting taxes, while the fee income goes offshore where it is taxed lightly or not at all.”

  “In early 2013, Gilead’s chief financial officer announced on a conference call with stock analysts that the formula for Sovaldi had been “domiciled” in Ireland, a well-known tax haven, which she said would allow the company’s tax rate to “decline over time.”

  “This meant that Gilead had transferred the economic rights to its Sovaldi patent to an Irish subsidiary and created a patent licensing arrangement that would enable it to report lower U.S. profits and, therefore, pay much less in federal taxes,” it continued.

  “Of course, the drug was actually developed in the United States with all the attendant, taxpayer-funded benefits: supported with federal research money, studied and approved by the Food and Drug Administration, and granted an American patent, which receives the full protection of the U.S. legal system.”

• Copyrights

  • Google Issues Its Latest ‘Stop Blaming Us For Piracy’ Report

    Google is big and successful. Some legacy entertainment companies have been struggling. For whatever reason, many of those companies have decided that Google’s success must be the reason for their downfall, and they’ve been blaming Google ever since. It’s pervasive and it’s deeply ingrained. A few years ago, I ended up at a dinner with a recording industry exec (and RIAA board member) who was so absolutely positive that Google was deliberately trying to destroy his business that it was reaching delusional levels. Of course, these legacy players have been banging on this drum for so long that they’ve convinced some others that it must be true, including some content creators and politicians. They all believe that the correlation of Google’s success and their own struggles must be about Google, and not their own failures to innovate. And their number one argument seems to be (ridiculously) that Google “profits” from piracy and therefore Google encourages piracy.

    As this drumbeat has gotten louder and louder, Google has felt the need to respond. The company has, for many years, actually done plenty to try to stop piracy, rather than encourage it, and it’s reached the point where Google is (stupidly, in my opinion, though perhaps politically necessary) actively appeasing the legacy industries, sometimes actively making its own search product worse. And, of course, as you would expect, these efforts are never enough for those industries. So now Google has taken to putting out a semi-regular report on how it fights piracy.

  • American Medical Association Claims False Copyright Over President Obama’s Journal Article

    Whatever you might think of the President’s health care policy, you should absolutely appreciate the willingness to publish data and details like this — and to make it freely available online. But there’s something that’s still problematic here. And it has a lot more to do with the American Medical Association than the President. And it’s that — in typically idiotic closed access medical journal fashion — JAMA is claiming the copyright on the article. There’s a copyright permissions link in the righthand column, and if you click on it, you get taken to a page on Copyright.com, a site run by the Copyright Clearance Center, claiming that the copyright for this document is held by the American Medical Association…

  • Misuse of CC-licensed photo leads to apologies, recovery of legal costs

    A CC-licensed photo that was incorrectly used in an Italian festival’s promotional materials has led to a public apology by the organisers for not respecting the terms of the licence, and the reimbursement of legal costs incurred.

    The picture in question was taken by Niccolò Caranti, who is a professional photographer and an active member of the Wikipedia community—nearly 900 of his images are available on Wikimedia Commons. The photo was used by the Festival delle Resistenze 2016, held in Trentino-Alto Adige, in northern Italy.

• Distributions
• Devices/Embedded

Server

• CoreOS Linux 1068.6.0 Brings Linux Kernel 4.6.3, Docker 1.10.3, and systemd 229

  On July 12, 2016, the CoreOS development team has released a major update of the CoreOS Linux kernel-based operating system designed with massive server deployments in mind.

• AT&T Releases Virtualization Playbook Into Open Source

  AT&T today committed to releasing into open source the software platform that powers our software-defined network (SDN). Making our current Enhanced Control, Orchestration, Management and Policy (ECOMP) platform available in open source will enable global service providers and cloud developers to meet non-stop network demands as data-hungry technologies like autonomous cars, augmented and virtual reality, 4K video and the Internet of Things (IoT) take off.

• The Long March to SDN Transformation

• 10 Myths About NFV (Mostly) Dispelled

  The transition toward network functions virtualization (NFV) is in progress and, as with any technology transition, companies are proceeding with caution. The trick is figuring out which anticipated hazards are real, if any of those have already been cleared, and making sure you don’t get frozen by hazards you anticipated but which failed to materialize.

• What is DevOps? Mark Imbriaco Explains

  Mark Imbriaco has spent the past 20 years working at some of the most interesting and innovative companies in the industry, including 37Signals, GitHub, and DigitalOcean before moving on to become Co-Founder and CEO at Operable. You can also find him talking about various DevOps topics at conferences and elsewhere online.

• #HugOps in Practice: Empathy Skills for DevOps

  We think we’re doing the whole DevOps thing right — new hires can deploy on day one, Travis CI is humming along, and we own the code we ship. But then something breaks, something doesn’t go according to plan, tempers flare up, and all that warm, fuzzy collaboration seems to evaporate. What’s going on? What happened to #HugOps?

• NGINX Is the Most Popular Docker Container App [VIDEO]

  There are a lot of different applications that are available on the Docker Hub repository for containerized applications, but none is more popular than the open-source Nginx web server.

  In a video interview interview, Gus Robertson, CEO of NGINX discusses his firm’s Docker popularity and why OpenStack isn’t all that far behind.

  “Typically Nginx and containers go together very closely,” Robertson said.

Kernel Space

• Linux Kernel 4.6.4 Now Unofficially Available for Slackware 14.2 and Derivatives

  GNU/Linux developer Arne Exton informs us today, July 12, 2016, about the general availability of the recently released Linux 4.6.4 kernel for Slackware 14.2 and many of its derivatives.

• Take Me to LinuxCon: Winners Announced

  With LinuxCon North America approaching quickly (August 22!), The Linux Foundation is in preparation and invitation mode. This year, the organization is especially keen on opening up the event and its benefits to diverse communities. One such effort recently took place on Twitter.

• Linux Kernel 4.6.4 and 4.4.15 released

  After the announcement of last Release Candidate(RC) for Linux kernel 4.7 i.e. Linux Kernel 4.7 rc7,here is two new announcements for updates in previous stable kernels.Linux kerenl series 4.6 and 4.4 got new updates with some improvements and fixes.Linux kernel series 4.6 is the latest stable version so most of distros are running over it, On the other hand Linux series 4.4 is a Longterm version so it is still being used worldwide.
  The kernels 4.6.4 and 4.4.15 are the new updated kernels of their respective kernel series.The announcement included suggestion for all users to have an upgradation to the latest kernels for improved performance.

• Raspberry Pi VC4 DRM Changes For Linux 4.8

• Automotive Grade Linux Releases Unified Code Base 2.0

  Automotive Grade Linux (AGL), a collaborative open source project developing a Linux-based, open platform for the connected car, today announced the release of AGL Unified Code Base (UCB) 2.0. Built from the ground up through a joint effort by automakers and suppliers, the AGL UCB is an In-Vehicle-Infotainment (IVI) platform that can serve as the de facto standard for the industry.

• Pimp your ride with new Linux for cars and an rPi under the hood

  The Automotive Grade Linux (AGL) project is about to unleash the second version of its unified code base – snappily called UCB 2.0 – with expanded hardware support.

  For the participating car-makers and hardware vendors it’s a big deal.

  Features landing in the latest distribution include support for a rear seat display with video playback, letting a rear-seat passenger control video from their touch screen; audio routing supporting both GENIVI (“IVI” stands for in-vehicle infotainment) and Samsung’s Tizen. There’s also a new build environment and a new test infrastructure.

• Benchmarks

  • More NVIDIA CUDA Benchmarks With Blender Cycles Engine

    For those interested in Blender Cycles performance on NVIDIA hardware with CUDA, these latest benchmarks have GeForce GTX 900/700/600 series data points. The GTX 1000 Pascal numbers were left out of this later testing since as yesterday’s numbers show Blender or somewhere in the software stack are some performance issues… See yesterday’s articles for that data.

Applications

• Changelog for VirtualBox 5.1

• VirtualBox 5.1 Officially Released

  Oracle announced the release this afternoon of VM VirtualBox 5.1.

• VirtualBox 5.1 Increases Linux Integration, Improves Multimedia Support

  Today, July 12, 2016, Oracle has had the great pleasure of announcing the final release of the VirtualBox 5.1 open-source and cross-platform virtualization software for all supported platforms.

  VirtualBox 5.1 is a massive release that improves numerous parts of the software, promising to be a worthy update over any previous release. It is the best and most advanced release so far, increasing the Linux integration, enhancing the multimedia support, and adding support for new technologies.

  “To enable organizations and developers to more easily and flexibly create and deploy on premises and cloud applications, we are pleased to announce the general availability of Oracle VM VirtualBox 5.1, the latest release of the world’s most popular free and open source, cross-platform virtualization software,” said Oracle.

• GUI comes in For Proxies

  My last post was an overview of how this project is designed to offer proxy features through NetworkManager. NM is the server part (which configures PacRunner) and PacRunner is there inside to act as an engine for doing all stuff (Interpreting, downloading PAC File etc) Applications can call FindProxyForURL() DBus method on PacRunner DBus interface org.pacrunner.Client .

• Pulp 2.9.0 Generally Available

• 22 open source tools for creatives

  Whether it’s visuals, audio, writing, or design, there’s an open source tool out there to help get the job done.

  “It’s absolutely possible to go from concept to finished, polished products, using free and open source software,” said Jason.

• Instructionals/Technical

  • Pacman command to manage packages on Arch Linux Based Systems

  • Cisco WLC SNMP password reset

  • Seventh week: create a new architecture and send a lot of information

  • Get presence from buddy’s

  • Week 3 and Week 4

  • week 5 and week 6

  • Some Rework on Tracker and Popovers

  • Private Repo on Pagure

  • Docker on Bluemix with automated full-stack deploys and delivery pipelines

  • How to install ONLYOFFICE 8.9.0 with Docker on Ubuntu

  • XWiki Installation in Linux

  • Install Nextcloud on Ubuntu 16.04

• Games

  • Stellaris looks like it’s getting the first post-release DLC with the Plantoids Species Pack

  • Colony building sim Maia updated, colonists can now get sick and need treatment

  • Heavy Gear Assault now on Linux, some thoughts after testing it

    Heavy Gear Assault is the Early Access mech combat game built with Unreal Engine 4 and it’s now available on Linux. The developers graciously sent over a key, so I had a chance to have a bit of a play with it.

  • 7 open source games for students

    This roundup of games showcase different technologies and offer a variety of programming experiences for students to try out. The source code is available from the project sites, except as noted.

  • ‘Quadrilateral Cowboy’ Release Date Joins July Lineup; Mac, Linux Support Coming In September

    Three years after the last Quadrilateral Cowboy trailer was published, Blendo Games has finally given curious onlookers a timeline for the Steam debut of its upcoming hacking/heist/puzzle game.

  • SC Controller, the open source driver and GUI for the Steam Controller is making lovely progress

    SC Controller is really coming along nicely. Since I mentioned it on GOL it has been through a few new releases.

  • Worms W.M.D will see a slight delay with the Linux version

  • SuperTuxKart 0.9.2 Released

    Linux gamers all over the world will be happy to hear that a new version of SuperTuxKart is available. This should strike a nostalgic chord to people who have used desktop Linux to play games during the past ten years.

Desktop Environments/WMs

• K Desktop Environment/KDE SC/Qt

  • KDE Plasma 5.7.1 Improves Microphone Volume Actions, Adds Plasma Workspace Fixes

    Today, July 12, 2016, the KDE project has announced the general availability of the first point release for the KDE Plasma 5.7 desktop environment, bringing multiple fixes and improvements.

    The KDE Plasma 5.7 release is the most advanced version of the acclaimed desktop environment used by many GNU/Linux operating systems by default for their users, but this doesn’t mean that it’s perfect, and bug reports are submitted every single day.

  • KDE Applications 16.04.3 Is the Last in the Series, Out Now for KDE Plasma 5.7.1

    After announcing the availability of the first maintenance update for the KDE Plasma 5.7 desktop environment, KDE also released today the third and last point release for the KDE Applications 16.04 software suite.

    KDE Applications 16.04.3 is here to fix twenty more bugs reported by users since last month’s KDE Applications 16.04.2 point release, bringing improvements to various KDE applications that are usually shipped by default with any new installation of the KDE Plasma 5 desktop environment.

• GNOME Desktop/GTK

  • Planning an exciting summer

    The project I’m going to be working on is Gnome-Boxes, an application that allows the user to access remote or virtual systems. I’m also lucky to have Zeeshan Ali assigned as my mentor because he doesn’t settle for little. Cheers to that!

  • Week Header

    Today, I would like to introduce to you all, the all new week-header

    The week-header is the first half of the week-view which deals with events last greater than or equal to 24h. Basically, events that last for a whole day or multiple days.

  • GSoC progress part #2

  • GNOME Foundation AGM 2016

Distributions

• 4 Linux Distros That Are Completely Open Source

  Linux is the OS of choice for freedom loving software hippies, but there’s a dirty little secret buried within the kernel: not everything you see is open source!

  The Linux kernel contains binary blobs, proprietary code that makes certain hardware run. Many laptops have Wi-Fi or graphics cards that don’t run without the manufacturer-supplied firmware.

• New Releases

  • IPFire 2.19 Update 103 Adds Web Proxy Improvements, Latest Tor for Anonymity

    The IPFire 2.19 Core Update 103 Linux kernel-based firewall distribution has been released today, July 12, bringing web proxy improvements and the latest security patches and bug fixes.

  • Budgie Desktop 10.2.6 and Linux Kernel 4.6.4 Land in the SparkyLinux Repos

    We had the pleasure of reporting the other day about the availability of the Linux 4.6.4 kernel for all GNU/Linux operating systems, and the Budgie 10.2.6 desktop environment for Solus, Fedora 22/23, and openSUSE Leap/Tumbleweed distros.

• OpenSUSE/SUSE

  • Tackling spam comments on SUSE Gallery

• Slackware Family

  • Slackware notes

    This is mostly a followup to my earlier post on testing Slackware 14.2. Since then, I have spent a little time using the installed slackware. So here are some of my notes.

• Red Hat Family

  • Open Source Ansible Community Will Converge at AnsibleFest in San Francisco on July 28

    The popular open source automation platform Ansible will be the focus of AnsibleFest in San Francisco on Thursday, July 28, 2016. The event offers a day-long conference bringing together hundreds of Ansible users, developers and industry partners to share best-practices, case studies and Ansible news.

    AnsibleFest is for anyone who is wants to learn more or share information about Ansible which offers is an IT automation engine that automates cloud provisioning, configuration management, application deployment, intra-service orchestration, and many other IT needs.

  • Red Hat Summit 2016 includes RHEV rebranding and container updates

    At Red Hat Summit 2016, company employees discussed the rebranding of RHEV to RHV, along with its updates, and OpenShift, a container provisioning platform.

  • A Phoronix Alumnus Is Trying To Land His Dream Job At Red Hat

  • Finance

    • Geode Capital Management LLC Has $109,614,000 Stake in Red Hat Inc. (RHT)

    • Insiders Selling, Short Interest Growing Red Hat, Inc. Common Stock (NYSE:RHT)

    • Red Hat Inc (NYSE:RHT)’s Stock Insider Sale – Michael Cunningham Sells 10,000 Shares

    • Michael Cunningham Sells 10,000 Shares of Red Hat Inc. (RHT) Stock

    • Geode Capital Management LLC Has $109,614,000 Stake in Red Hat Inc. (RHT)

  • Fedora

    • Fedora 24 Release Party: SFVLUG Event Report

      On July 2nd, 2016, the San Fernando Valley Linux User Group (SFVLUG) in Lake Balboa, California, celebrated the release of Fedora 24 at their regular meeting. Fedora Ambassador Perry Rivera (FAS: lajuggler) helped coordinate these efforts at their regular meetup at Denny’s. To help celebrate the launch of Fedora 24, Perry brought some install media and a Fedora cake. The release party helped introduce Fedora 24 to a new group of users by providing them with the software and help to get Fedora 24 for themselves. This report details the release party events with SFVLUG and the impact from the event.

• Debian Family

  • Debian: Reproducible builds, Outreachy, and I

    As some of you are aware, my world has had some significant changes since I began my Outreachy adventure.

  • Derivatives

    • Canonical/Ubuntu

      • 5 Best GNOME Shell Extensions for Ubuntu

        These are the best GNOME Shell extensions available to install on Ubuntu — according to you!

        Over the past fortnight we asked you to nominate your top extensions for the GNOME desktop. And you did just that. Having now sifted through the hundreds of entries, we’re ready to reveal your favourite GNOME Shell extensions.

      • Snapd 2.0.10 Improves Usability of Media Player Snaps

        Snappy developers have today announced a shiny-new version of Snapd, which they say should be working its way out to Ubuntu 16.04 LTS from today.

        Snapd 2.0.10 is the latest update to the system service that ‘enables developers and users to interact with snaps.’ New versions of Snapd are scheduled to be released weekly.

        Among other changes, Snap apps can now interface with MPRIS, access built-in webcams, and fetch files from gvfs shares in a user’s home folder.

      • Oil and water: Here’s Ubuntu Linux’s Unity desktop running natively on Windows 10

        When Microsoft introduced the Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL) the common refrain was that you could use it to run Linux’s beloved Bash tool but full Linux desktops were out.

        Turns out that wasn’t exactly true.

        It didn’t take long for people to note you could run an X server for windowed Linux applications. From there, it was only a short hop to running the Linux desktop on Windows without using a virtual machine.

      • Flavours and Variants

        • Linux Mint 18 Cinnamon: pity, pity, pity

          I could say that Linux Mint 18 Cinnamon is a nice and easy distribution everyone can use… I could, if there was not the issue with multimedia codecs. That spoon of tar spoiled the whole barrel of honey. The error with the installation of multimedia codecs well may be a result of my running Linux Mint 18 Cinnamon in Live mode. But that error was not there before, in previous Live versions of Linux Mint, mainly because all necessary codecs were already pre-installed. The Linux Mint team introduced the error by changing the way codecs are distributed.

        • Bodhi Linux 4.0 to Be Based on Ubuntu 16.04.1 LTS, Enlightenment’s EFL 1.18

          Jeff Hoogland, developer and creator of the Ubuntu-based Bodhi GNU/Linux operating system, informs the community about a few important facts related to the upcoming Bodhi 4.0.0 release.

        • Mint a Pity, 4 Pure OS Distros, 32-bit Alternatives

          Mint 18 is batting about .500 with the latest reviewer not exactly pleased. makeuseof.com posted of four distributions that are completely Open Source and Matt Hartley compiled a list of 32-bit Ubuntu alternatives. Neil Rickert posted some more notes on Slackware 14.2 and I’ll add my own as well.

        • Is Linux Mint 18 the best desktop operating system?

Devices/Embedded

• Fun with the camera (on N900)

  Charging (etc) on N900 is still funny. If you poweroff while charging, it will keep charging. That’s probably a Linux bug. Charge counter (battery percent) are “kept” even if you replace the battery. Ouch. (So you replace empty battery with full one and still get empty reading. I guess normal people don’t have 3 batteries for their phones?) That may be a hardware bug.

• Rugged remote I/O module runs FreeRTOS on Cortex-M4

  Artila’s “RIO-2015PG” remote I/O module runs FreeRTOS on an Atmel SAM4E16E Cortex M4 MCU, and offers isolated RS485 and analog and digital I/O.

  Artila Electronics, which is known here primarily for its Linux-ready ARM9 Matrix control computers, has turned to a Cortex-M4 microcontroller platform running the open source FreeRTOS for its new RIO-2015PG remote I/O module. The programmable module, which follows an earlier FreeRTOS-based RIO-2010PG module with an NXP LPC1768 Cortex-M3 MCU, targets lightweight device networking and remote monitoring.

• Phones

  • Tizen

    • Report – Top 30 Tizen Apps First Half of 2016

      It been almost 2 weeks now since H2 2016 commenced and now we have a report of the top 30 apps from the Tizen store that have had the lion’s share of download on the platform in H1, 2016. Its no surprise that some of the popular cross platform have taken their place in this list of Tizen apps as well. The list curated here is based on the downloads coming from Samsung Z1 and Z3 smartphone users.

  • Android

    • Android 7.0 Nougat update “coming soon” to HTC Nexus 9, according to Rogers

    • Google given six-week extension in EU Android antitrust case

    • Google granted more time to answer Android antitrust charges in EU [Ed: Microsoft says it “loves Linux”, but it started this case against Android]

    • Superbook wants to give your Android phone laptop superpowers, for $99

      Turning your smartphone into a laptop isn’t a new concept. Motorola’s Atrix Lapdock or the Asus PadFone all attempted to show that a smartphone can provide all the computing power you may need. In theory, it’s a brilliant idea, but for one reason or another, it was never a commercial success.

      Now, the team behind Andromium OS, an Android-for-desktop project, might just buck this trend with the Superbook.

    • Android distribution numbers for July show steady Marshmallow climb

    • Android platform distribution numbers updated for July with the biggest gains yet for Marshmallow

    • Developer preview 2 of Android Wear 2.0 is out now! Here’s what’s new

    • Hangouts for Android v11 finally adds video messaging [Update: And removes merged conversations]

    • Google Hangouts on Android can now record and send video

    • The better way to track packages with Android

    • NVIDIA SHIELD Tablet meets Android 6.0 Professional Audio requirements following Software Upgrade 4.2

    • Android Auto comes to Japan today

    • Here’s the perfect launcher for your oversized Android phone

    • Android 7.0 Nougat update reportedly “coming soon” to the Nexus 9 (and likely other Nexus devices)

    • Can an encrypted chip make the Gionee M6 the most secure Android phone ever?

      Gionee, a Chinese phone manufacturer, claims that its new smartphone uses an encrypted chip and could be the ‘safest smartphone ever.’

    • Why being open source is not killing Android

      As a fellow journalist I admire Kingsley-Hughes’s writing. This blog in particular seems to have been written to provoke reaction from the open source community. As someone who has been covering Linux and open source for more than a decade now, I felt compelled to address some of the points raised in that blog.

      The bottom line is that open source is actually better suited at handling fragmentation than any proprietary technology in the world. Before you think about making Android closed source, just have a look at the mess that Windows and Internet Explorer fragmentation is.

      Circling back to the point that open source is killing Android, the fact is: nothing is killing Android. On the contrary, Android is thriving and continues to eat iOS and Windows market share.

      If any fellow open source users are reading this story, please weigh in with your opinion in the comment section below.

    • New renders reveal the possible look of Google’s own Android Wear watches

      The evidence is growing that Google is building its own pair of watches to set the bar high for the next version of Android Wear.

      Android Police created its own set of renderings, defining them as, “recreations of primary source material for the sake of anonymity of our source.” So while they’re not actual images of the watches, they’re a reproduction that is supposed to look as close to the actual things as possible.

    • Google and Samsung Close the Apple Gap

    • iOS 10 vs Android Nougat: Who wins the next-gen OS battle?

    • How to Change Your Android Encryption Password Without Changing Your Lock Screen Password

    • Why Google Has Extra Time to Defend Against Android Antitrust Charges [Ed: case initiated by Microsoft and its proxies]

    • Intel Corporation Reportedly Cutting Back Investment in Android

    • Android Distribution Updated for July 2016 – Marshmallow Keeps on Climbing

    • Marshmallow is now on 13.3% of active Android devices

Comparing the DevOps and Open Source Movements

DevOps has emerged as one of the next big things in the channel. But in many ways, the DevOps story is a replay of the history of open source software over the past several years. Here’s what the DevOps and open source movements have in common.

The term DevOps refers to new methods of developing, delivering and deploying software. It prioritizes modularity, collaboration and continuity across all parts of the development process.

OnlyOffice: A FOSS Office Suite for the Cloud

OnlyOffice is a web-based open source productivity suite for document collaboration, sharing, and management, project management, client relations management, and email, events, and tasks.

Why open source is a draw for job candidates

The tech surge that revived the ailing HealthCare.gov website serves as a tool for recruiting top IT professionals from outside — and within — the government.

Joseph Castle, director of the General Services Administration’s Digital Service, said he looks for talent in the public and private sectors.

“It can be a struggle to get people to come to GSA,” he said during a July 12 panel discussion on Open Source Market Disruption hosted by FCW sister publication Washington Technology. “My ace in my pocket is to tie myself to the U.S. D

SPI 2015 Annual Report

Software in the Public Interest has announced its 2015 Annual Report (PDF), covering the 2015 calendar year.

How ‘The Things Network’ Built IoT Data Network in Amsterdam

Web Browsers

• Mozilla

  • Shipping Rust in Firefox

    It’s hard to believe it’s been almost seven years since Mozilla Research first began sponsoring the development of Rust, at the time little more than an ambitious research experiment with a small but devoted community. Remarkably, despite a long history of inventions and discoveries, Rust’s key principles have remained constant. The Rust core team’s original vision—a safe alternative to C++ to make systems programmers more productive, mission-critical software less prone to memory exploits, and parallel algorithms more tractable—has been central to Mozilla’s interest in backing the Rust project and, ultimately, using Rust in production.

  • Firefox 48 Will Take The First Rust Code Into Production

    Mozilla will be taking their first Rust programming language code into production with Firefox 48.

    Beyond the Servo/Browser.html tech preview that’s now shipping nightly, another goal of Mozilla developers for 2016 has been to ship at least one Servo/Rust component within the Gecko engine / Firefox. With Firefox 48, they are stepping along on that crusade with shipping their first Rust production code.

SaaS/Back End

• Thinking about Big Data — Part Three (the final and somewhat scary part)

  There is an irony here that when we tend to believe the wrong Big Data it usually concerns money or some other manifestation of power, but we have an equal tendency to not believe the right Big Data when it involves politics or religion. So Big Scientific Data often struggles to gain acceptance against unbelievers — those who deny climate change, for example, or endorse the teaching of creationism.

• Mirantis OpenStack 9.0 Targets the Private Cloud

  Mirantis, one of the leaders in the OpenStack arena, is out with Mirantis OpenStack 9.0, which is targeted to make launching and running private clouds much easier. Based on the Mitaka Openstack release, version 9.0 of Mirantis’ platform includes many features aimed to simplify lifecycle management of OpenStack.

  Here is what’s found under the hood.

  “The improvements in Mirantis OpenStack 9.0 are based on real-world production deployments of Mirantis OpenStack, including our collaborations with AT&T and Volkswagen,” said Boris Renski, co-founder and CMO of Mirantis. “The improvements we made — largely in the area of post-deployment operations — integrate Mirantis’ services expertise into the software so that we can deliver better business outcomes. Mirantis OpenStack 9.0 will be a valuable asset to Mirantis as we help customers build and operate private clouds.”

Databases

• Why Open Source Graph Databases Are Catching on

  All of the major social networks use open source graph databases. Twitter created the open source FlockDB for managing wide but shallow network graphs. Google’s Cayley was inspired by the graph database behind Freebase and its Knowledge Graph, the knowledge base behind its search engine. Facebook uses Apache Giraph, which was built for high scalability.

Oracle/Java/LibreOffice

• Libocon 2016: travel info

  LibreOffice Conference 2016 is less than two months away and people are starting to look for information how to get to and around Brno. We’ve prepared a page with extensive information how to get to Brno.

Chef

• Chef broadens its offering to cover all IT automation needs

• Chef Automate: Firm’s DevOps odds ‘n’ sods crammed into one parcel

• Chef debuts Automate, its first commercial, enterprise-level automation package

• Chef Integrates Multiple Open Source IT Automation Projects

• Chef Unveils New Flagship Product Chef Automate

• Chef Unifies DevOps Automation

• Chef Launches Certification and Training Program Amid Increasing Demand for DevOps Skills

• Chef automation branches out with new Automate product

FSF/FSFE/GNU/SFLC

• GIMP 2.10 Development Continues, GIMP 2.9.4 Lands New Features After 8 Months

  A few hours ago, the GIMP development team released a new development version towards GIMP 2.10, the next major update of the popular free and open-source image manipulation software coming later in the year.

• GIMP 2.9.4 Is Their First Development Release Of 2016 With Many Improvements

  GIMP 2.9.4 was tagged this afternoon as the newest development version of this popular open-source image manipulation program.

  GIMP 2.9.4 succeeds the GIMP 2.9.2 release from last November. The GIMP 2.9.4 release features significant work on color management of images and related to that various color profile additions, improved file magic matching, various core improvements, GUI enhancements, new themes, various tooling improvements, updated screenshot handling for Wayland/X.Org, various plug-in additions, and much more.

• Lonely Cactus: Pip-Boy like terminal application in Guile, part 4: the terminal

  As a side note, Guile has had a complete set of bindings to the multimedia enving GStreamer, which I wanted to use, but, it appears to be in need of some maintenance. I did look at it so see if I could patch it up, but, the binding is related to the Glib binding, and I didn’t want to take the time to understand all that right now. Pulseaudio is much lower level, but, also much simpler. I had code lying around from some old game engine attempt.

Openness/Sharing/Collaboration

• Open Access/Content

  • Wellcome Trust to Launch Open-Access Platform

    The London-based Wellcome Trust last week (July 6) announced that it will launch a free, open-access publishing platform for work that the organization supports.

    “This really is a potential game changer for a major funder to be taking control of the research output,” Paul Ginsparg, the founder of the preprint server arXiv, told Science.

    In contrast to traditional subscription-based outlets, the publishing platform will be freely accessible. Authors will also be able to submit work often considered less palatable to established publishers: negative results.

    Wellcome Open Research will begin posting as soon as this fall, according to the Wellcome Trust. The initiative aims to expedite the publication process, which can take months or even years. With the new platform, scientists will instead be able to share their results immediately.

    F1000 Research will run the Wellcome Trust venture, which will include transparent peer review. If an article passes, it will be indexed in major bibliographic outlets and deposited in PubMed Central and Europe PMC, according to a statement.

• Open Hardware/Modding

  • Furenexo’s SoundSense is a simple, open-source gadget that helps deaf people stay aware of their surroundings

    People with deafness have plenty of ways to navigate everyday situations as if they had no disability at all, but there are still situations that present dangers unique to them — not being able to hear a smoke alarm or gunshot, for instance. SoundSense is a small wearable device that listens for noises that might require immediate attention and alerts the user when it detects one.

  • Startup aims to transform the lives of the disabled with assistive, open-source tech

    A small Brooklyn-based team is looking to solve the real-world challenges for those with disabilities. Furenexo today debuted a wearable device, and it is encouraging developers to get involved and help create affordable solutions.

  • Evive All-In-One Open Source Embedded Toolkit And Development Hardware (video)

    Makers, developers and hobbyists that could benefit from an all-in-one open source embedded toolkit and development system, maybe worth giving the new Evive embedded toolkit further investigation.

    The Evive open source development system has been specifically designed to make creating and debugging projects even easier and provides a one-stop solution for all your electronic and Arduino needs.

Programming/Development

• Vala? Is it tasty?

8 ways to get your swag on

Recently, a client of mine asked me if I had any experience in how to optimize how they send swag out to people. The scenario was a common one: the company made T-shirts, stickers, mugs, and other merchandise that they wanted to ship to deserving community members, but actually getting it there was turning out to be a massive pain in the rear-end.

Ad blocking: yes, its war now

idnes.cz: they put moving advertisment on that their web, making browsers unusable — they eat 100% CPU and pages lag when scrolling. They put video ads inside text that appear when you scroll. They have video ads including audio… (Advertisment for olympic games is particulary nasty, Core Duo, it also raises power consumption by like 30W). Then they are surpised of adblock and complain with popup when they detect one. I guess I am either looking for better news source, or for the next step in adblock war…

Health/Nutrition

• New EEOC Rules Allow Employers to Pay for Employees’ Health Information

  The Affordable Care Act (ACA) provisions for employee wellness programs give employers the power to reward or penalize their employees based on whether they complete health screenings and participate in fitness programs. While wellness programs are often welcomed, they put most employees in a bind: give your employer access to extensive, private health data, or give up potentially thousands of dollars a year.

  Sadly, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission’s (EEOC) new regulations, which go into effect in January 2017, rubber stamp the ACA’s wellness programs with insufficient privacy safeguards. Because of these misguided regulations, employers can still ask for private health information if it is part of a loosely defined wellness program with large incentives for employees.

Security

• New Report Shows Healthy Growth in Open Source Usage, but Security is Not Locked Down

• Tuesday’s security advisories

• Security staff should talk to end users more

  IT security departments need to improve their relationships with their users by going out and talking to them, Red Hat’s security strategist Josh Pressers has advised.

  Pressers warned that in order to stop the spread of ‘shadow IT’ within the enterprise, security professionals need to make a bigger effort to understand staff in other departments, warning that “we don’t listen very well”.

  Shadow IT has become an increasing problem for corporate IT managers, as employees use non-approved tools and technologies at work, rather than the systems provided by the in-house team.

• Every version of Windows hit by “critical” security flaw [Ed: Microsoft Zack (Zack Whittaker, formerly Microsoft UK) on the latest back/bug door in Windows]

  Microsoft has patched a security vulnerability found in every supported version of Windows, which if exploited could allow an attacker to take over a system.

  The software giant said in a bulletin posted Tuesday as part of its monthly release of security fixes that the the “critical” flaw could let an attacker remotely install malware, which can be used to modify or delete data, or create new accounts with full user rights.

  The “critical”-rated flaw affects Windows Vista and later — including Windows Server 2008 and later.

  Those who are logged in as an administrator, such as some home accounts and server users, are at the greatest risk.

• Dependency CI reviews potential vulnerabilities for open-source projects

  Dependency CI can test a project after every commit for deprecated, unavailable, unmaintained and unlicensed dependencies. In the future, it will be able to test for insecure, bus factored, conflicting and outdated dependencies.

  Dependency CI currently supports dependency checks from 21 package managers. Some examples include Julia, Maven, NPM, NuGet, PyPI and RubyGems. It’s free for open-source projects, and there is a 14-day free trial for checking private GitHub repositories.

• Posing as ransomware, Windows malware just deletes victim’s files

  There has been a lot of ingenuity poured into creating crypto-ransomware, the money-making malware that has become the scourge of hospitals, businesses, and home users over the past year. But none of that ingenuity applies to Ranscam, a new ransom malware reported by Cisco’s Talos Security Intelligence and Research Group.

  Ranscam is a purely amateur attempt to cash in on the cryptoransomware trend that demands payment for “encrypted” files that were actually just plain deleted by a batch command. “Once it executes, it, it pops up a ransom message looking like any other ransomware,” Earl Carter, security research engineer at Cisco Talos, told Ars. “But then what happens is it forces a reboot, and it just deletes all the files. It doesn’t try to encrypt anything—it just deletes them all.”

  Talos discovered the file on the systems of a small number of customers. In every case, the malware presented exactly the same message, including the same Bitcoin wallet address. The victim is instructed:

  “You must pay 0.2 Bitcoins to unlock your computer. Your files have been moved to a hidden partition and crypted. Essential programs in your computer have been locked and your computer will not function properly. Once your Bitcoin payment is received your computer and files will be returned to normal instantly.”

• Webpages, Word files, print servers menacing Windows PCs, and disk encryption bypasses – yup, it’s Patch Tuesday

  Microsoft will fix critical holes in Internet Explorer, Edge, Office and Windows with this month’s Patch Tuesday security bundle. Meanwhile, Adobe has patched dozens of exploitable vulnerabilities in its Flash player.

  Redmond’s July release includes 11 sets of patches, six rated as “critical” and five classified as “important.” The highlights are: a BitLocker device encryption bypass, evil print servers executing code on vulnerable machines, booby-trapped webpages and Office files injecting malware into PCs, and the usual clutch of privilege elevation flaws.

Defence/Aggression

• French trawler accidentally catches Portuguese submarine

  A French trawler has caught a rather big fish – a Portuguese submarine taking part in a training mission off the British coast, maritime authorities reported.

  This may sound like a silly idea for revenge following France’s loss to Portugal in the Euro finals, but the Portuguese submarine Tridente really did get stuck in the nets of the French trawler Daytona on Tuesday, Portugal’s Armed Forces General Staff said.

  The incident occurred in the British waters, about 55 kilometers (34 miles) southeast of Lizard Point, southwestern England.

• We Are The Empire

  Perhaps you’ve heard the expression: “We have met the enemy and he is us.” Cartoonist Walt Kelly’s famed possum, Pogo, first uttered that cry. In light of alien disaster movies like the recent sequel Independence Day: Resurgence and America’s disastrous wars of the twenty-first century, I’d like to suggest a slight change in that classic phrase: we have met the alien and he is us.

  Allow me to explain. I grew up reading and watching science fiction with a fascination that bordered on passion. In my youth, I also felt great admiration for the high-tech, futuristic nature of the U.S. military. When it came time for college, I majored in mechanical engineering and joined the U.S. Air Force. On graduating, I would immediately be assigned to one of the more high-tech, sci-fi-like (not to say apocalyptic) military settings possible: Air Force Space Command’s Cheyenne Mountain.

  For those of you who don’t remember the looming, end-of-everything atmosphere of the Cold War era, Cheyenne Mountain was a nuclear missile command center tunneled out of solid granite inside an actual mountain in Colorado. In those days, I saw myself as one of the good guys, protecting America from “alien” invasions and the potential nuclear obliteration of the country at the hands of godless communists from the Soviet Union. The year was 1985 and back then my idea of an “alien” invasion movie was Red Dawn, a film in which the Soviets and their Cuban allies invade the U.S., only to be turned back by a group of wolverine-like all-American teen rebels. (Think: the Vietcong, American-style, since the Vietnam War was then just a decade past.)

• Putin’s “Threats” to the Baltics: a Myth to Promote NATO Unity

  Why Latvia? Shirreff is not alone in trying to depict Latvia and the other Baltic states (Estonia and Lithuania) as immanently threatened by Russia. The stoking of Baltic fears of such are a principle justification for NATO expansion.

• 8,124 Murders by Firearm in US vs. 29 (144 equiv.) in UK

  The United States continues to be peculiar in handing out powerful magazine-fed firearms to almost anyone who wants one and not requiring background checks on private purchases even if these are made at gun shows. 80% of civilian-owned firearms world-wide are in the US, and only Yemen vaguely competes with us for rates of firearm ownership; Yemen is a violent mess with Shiite insurgencies, al-Qaeda taking over cities from time to time, tribal feuding, southern separatism and US drone strikes. And even it has fewer guns per person than the USA.

  It has gotten to the point where the increasing epidemic of mass shootings now threatens law enforcement, with the deaths of 5 policemen in Dallas at the hands of an unhinged Black ultra-nationalist.

• Is Religion Really Driving Middle East Violence?

  What Pew is actually saying is that in the Middle East and North Africa, people are four times as likely to act out their ethnic violence by attacking religious symbols as in the rest of the world. It isn’t saying they are four times as likely to be religious fanatics.

• China Rejects Hague’s South China Sea Ruling as “US-Led Conspiracy”

  An international tribunal at the Hague overwhelmingly rejected China’s claims to the South China Sea on Tuesday, in a move that observers say is likely to stoke tensions between the Asian powerhouse and its primary rival, the United States.

• US Senator: “We Have Never Done Anything More Loathsome or Despicable Than What We’re Doing in Syria.”

  Senator Richard Black and Janice Kortkamp discuss the shameful situation in Syria, where the US government is actively arming and funding Al Nusra (Al Qaeda) and “conduits” (“moderates”), blending them together, and then using this model to exterminate the Syrian population.

  It should be noted that the mass media machine is seemingly losing its effect, as more and more prominent and senior figures (e.g Robert Fisk) are calling a spade a spade, or a “moderate” a terrorist. It just goes to show that you can fool some of the people all of the time, all of the people some of the time, but never all of the people all of the time.

• Syria’s Assad Blasts Western-Supported Terrorism, Russia Steps Up Strategic Bombing

  In March, Obama’s naked aggression on Syria entered its sixth year. Endless conflict rages because he wants war, not peace. Claims otherwise are head-fake deception.

  US plans call for forcibly ousting Assad, destroying Syria’s sovereignty, partitioning the country for easier control, looting its resources, exploiting its people and creating dystopian chaos and human misery.

  Assad defends his country and people heroically, his leadership and mission entirely opposite of how he’s portrayed in the West, by Israel and other regional rogue states.

  Conflict can only end when terrorism is defeated, he said. It continues because these groups have foreign backers. Otherwise they wouldn’t exist.

  All armed elements waging war on Syria and its people are terrorists, he stressed. America is infamous for creating geopolitical problems it doesn’t solve.

  Endless violence, chaos and disaster stalk every country where it shows up. None enjoy peace, stability and tranquility. Slow-motion genocide affects millions of Syrians, US imperialism killing a nation.

• Iraq War, an Unaccountable Crime

  Last week’s Chilcot report on Britain’s role in the 2003 invasion of Iraq was as polite and guarded as a proper English tea party. No direct accusations, no talk of war crimes by then Prime Minister Tony Blair or his guiding light, President George W. Bush. But still pretty damning.

  Such government reports and commissions, as was wittily noted in the delightful program “Yes, Prime Minister,” are designed to obscure rather than reveal the truth and bury awkward facts in mountains of paper. And beneath mountains of lies.

• California Grounds Two Bad Drone Bills

  EFF strongly believes that police should obtain a warrant anytime they want to use a drone (with narrow emergency exceptions), but A.B. 1820 would only have required a warrant when police wanted to use a drone to surveil private property.

• ‘You Cannot Use Military Force to Wipe Out Terrorism’ – CounterSpin interview with Phyllis Bennis on ISIS attacks

  Early in the morning of Sunday, July 3, a truck bomb exploded in a shopping district in Baghdad. Many of the more than 200 people killed were children shopping for new clothes for Eid Al-Fitr. The group ISIS claimed responsibility.

  That was two days after militants claiming fealty to ISIS killed 22 people in Dhaka, Bangladesh, after an 11-hour siege on a cafe. It was five days after at least 42 people were killed in Istanbul’s Ataturk Airport. And it was the day before three separate bomb attacks across Saudi Arabia, including one in the holy city of Medina near a site sacred to Muslims, the mosque where the prophet Mohammed is believed to be buried.

  That Americans will have heard more about some of those attacks than others is meaningful, not just because it’s always disheartening and distorting to see some victims presented as more human than others. It’s especially frustrating when the evident aims of an organization include sowing enmity, division and resentment.

  But the US response to ISIS fails on levels even more fundamental than a resistance to acknowledging that Muslims are its primary victims. It has to do with what is meant by “fighting” ISIS or “fighting” terrorism to begin with.

• Key Area of Dispute on Drone Numbers: Number of Strikes

  As Micah Zenko pointed out, there is a very big discrepancy between the numbers of total strikes counted by NGOs and the government. Effectively, the Administration doesn’t count 18% of the known air strikes as their own (based off the NGO average).

  It’s easy to see where a disagreement about individual casualties, and of what type, would come from, but not of airstrikes themselves. Unless airstrikes generally assumed to be US airstrikes are being counted as someone else’s.

• Accused American ISIS Plotter Was “Set Up,” Family Says

  A criminal complaint unsealed last week and widely publicized revealed that Jalloh had been speaking for months with a government informant, who recorded conversations in which Jalloh seemed to support acts of violence. The informant solicited Jalloh’s help in procuring money and weapons that he said would be used in support of ISIS. At one point, Jalloh was provided with a mobile messaging application to help him send $500 to an undercover FBI agent posing as an ISIS member abroad.

  After Jalloh attempted to purchase a rifle at a local gun store, he was placed under arrest.

• Behind the Dhaka attack: radical secularisation and Islamist terror in Bangladesh

  The gruesome Dhaka cafe attack earlier this month has been viewed mostly through the lens of ISIS’s perceived increasing footprint in Bangladesh. But this ignores the sliding political legitimacy of a government – Sheikh Hasina’s supposedly secular Awami League – that has assumed the task of stemming terrorism in a country split along religious and secular lines since its very birth in 1971. If you want to understand the Dhaka massacre, you need to trace the ambiguous and contested domain of political legitimacy and religion in Bangladesh, which is largely responsible for the extremist violence the country is witnessing now.

• Last Year Was ‘Mr. Robot,’ This Year It’s ‘Shooter’: USA Postpones Episode In Wake Of A Shooting

  A new series on USA, Shooter, will premiere a week later than planned. The sniper drama stars Ryan Phillippe as a military veteran attempting to clear his name after being accused of a crime he didn’t commit; it is based on the 2007 film of the same name, which starred Mark Wahlberg. And it reportedly begins, as one might expect a show called Shooter to do, with the sounds of gunfire. Scenes of real incidents of gun violence flash across the screen as the gunshots sound.

  Shooter was slated to premiere on July 19, but USA pulled it, citing sensitivity to the attack at a protest in Dallas at which five police officers were killed. The shooting, which shattered a previously peaceful protest, was an act of senseless violence at a rally against acts of senseless violence that had devastated the country just days before. USA released a statement on Monday explaining the scheduling change: “In light of recent tragic events and out of respect for the victims, their families and our viewers, we have decided to postpone the premiere date for the upcoming USA Network series Shooter to July 26.”

• China denied: What Tuesday’s ruling means for Beijing’s maritime ambitions

  An international court in The Hague has dealt a major blow to China’s claim of sovereignty over most of the South China Sea, ruling on Tuesday that Beijing had “no historical rights” over the resource-rich and hotly disputed waters.

  The decision sparked fears of escalated military tensions in East Asia, as Beijing signalled it would ignore the ruling and China’s Defense Ministry declared that “Chinese armed forces will firmly safeguard national sovereignty” regardless of the verdict. The official Xinhua news wire quoted President Xi Jinping saying “China will not accept any proposition or action based on the decision.”

• The Antiwar Tradition in American Letters

  President Obama, for his part, has overseen regular bombings throughout the Middle East, including in Pakistan, Yemen, Iraq, and Somalia; ordered US military intervention in Libya; increased US troop levels in Afghanistan and escalated US military operations there; and urged Americans to support US military involvement in Syria. These positions are ironic in light of his warning, in his piece in this collection, against traveling “blindly” down “that hellish path” to war.

• The OAS Needs New Leadership

  Luis Almagro, the current Secretary General of the Organization of American States (OAS) has abused his position and authority more flagrantly and outrageously than any predecessor in recent years. In his lack of judgment and disregard for political and diplomatic norms he resembles Donald Trump. And like Trump, he is increasingly seen as an embarrassment within the organization for which he is the standard bearer.

  The OAS has been manipulated by Washington many times over the years in the service of regime change.

Environment/Energy/Wildlife/Nature

• France aims to set carbon price of at least €50 by 2030

  France has confirmed it will introduce a floor price for carbon emissions from coal power stations, which will increase from around €20 in 2020 to €50 in 2030. EurActiv’s partner Journal de l’Environnement reports.

• China’s eco-civilization plan calls for 23% forest cover by 2020

  Besides the United States, China has done more than any other country to contribute to climate change. But while China’s greenhouse gas emissions are rapidly warming the planet, the Asian nation is quickly shifting its focus to climate change mitigation to ensure a sustainable biosphere for future generations. According to a new United Nations report, China plans to build an “ecological civilization” that could be a model for the rest of the world. The project includes an initiative to cover nearly one quarter of the country with forests by 2020.

• The Republican Party’s Platform Says Coal Is ‘Clean’ Energy

  For the Republican Party, internet porn is a “public health crisis.” Coal, however, is perfectly “clean.”

  That’s at least according to the party’s official draft platform, which is being crafted ahead of the Republican National Convention in Cleveland, Ohio. On Monday, the GOP’s platform committee unanimously voted to declare coal “an abundant, clean, affordable, reliable domestic energy resource.”

  Environmentalists reacted swiftly to the decision, essentially calling Republicans delusional.

• The EIA needs to play its part for the climate

  The Energy Information Administration’s (EIA) Annual Energy Conference begins today. It’s a two-day Washington energy wonk binge that is dominated by fossil fuel industry heavyweights and technocrats.

  While a few of the conference sessions will deal with climate change and renewable energy, there remains a clear bias towards discussions of a continued status quo of fossil fuel energy dominance. Further, no renewable energy industry representatives will keynote at the conference, while two oil industry executives will address the plenary alongside government representatives. Given the imperative presented by the climate crisis to move away from fossil fuels and the rapid surge underway in renewable energy, this omission is a striking one.

• In the Aftermath of the Murder of Berta Cáceres: Squashing Indigenous Resistance and Discrediting International Observers in Honduras

  Cáceres saw the conflict over the Agua Zarca and other such projects in the context of the support shown by then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton for the 2009 coup against the government of Manual Zelaya. The coup is widely blamed for ushering in the current era of rampant resource extraction, violence, and repression in Honduras. In Hard Choices, Clinton writes that she advocated swift recognition of the coup and the post-coup government as an exercise in “clear-eyed pragmatism,” even as most of the hemisphere’s governments withheld recognition and demanded the restoration of the elected Zelaya government.

• Historic Petition Demands Obama ‘Turn Off the Carbon Pollution Spigot’

  Hundreds of groups filed what they called a “historic” petition to President Barack Obama on Tuesday, urging the administration to end all fossil fuel leases on federal lands.

  More than 250 climate, community, and tribal organizations filed the legal petition to remind Obama of the commitments the U.S. made by signing the landmark Paris agreement calling on nations worldwide to keep global warming below 1.5°C.

  “If there’s any chance of preventing the worst impacts of climate change, we must keep coal, oil and gas in the ground,” said May Boeve, executive director of 350.org, which signed the petition. “But we can’t do that if the Obama administration continues to sell that ground to the highest bidding fossil fuel companies. Now President Obama has a choice to make: expand oil and gas drilling indefinitely, or join us in doing what’s best for communities and the climate.”

• If Elected, Trump Would be Only Global Leader to Let World Burn

  If Donald Trump were elected president, he would be the only world leader who does not believe in climate change—or even in calling for action on global warming.

  That’s what the Sierra Club found in a comprehensive analysis of verifiable quotes, statements, and actions from global heads of state, released Tuesday, which also warns that the presumptive Republican nominee’s steadfast denial of climate science could threaten relationships between the U.S. and its allies.

• Climate change killed Europeans in 2003 heat

  British researchers say climate change was responsible for the deaths of more than 60 people in London in 2003, and over 500 in Paris. In a rare instance of direct attribution of human mortality to warming temperatures, they say that year’s European heatwave raised the risk of heat-related death by 20% in London, and in Paris by 70%.

  Using both climate and mortality data, they estimate that 315 deaths in Greater London and 735 in central Paris can be strongly linked to the 2003 heatwave, which broke records across Europe, with about 64 (± 3) deaths attributable to climate change from human causes in London and 506 (± 51) in Paris.

  They say their study is the first to link an estimate of human activity to an estimate of mortality for the 2003 heat wave – and in fact for any heat wave. With potentially lethal heatwaves predicted to become likelier across more of the globe unless greenhouse emissions are soon cut drastically, the research is likely to be relevant far beyond western Europe.

• On the Precipice: Standing Rock Sioux Tribe Lead Fight for Energy Independence

  According to a new study by NASA, rising temperatures and melting ice sheets are responsible for a redistribution of the Earth’s weight, causing a shift in the way the planet wobbles on its axis.

  Warming ocean temperatures, now considered unstoppable, are responsible for unpredictable severe weather patterns, heat waves, drought, floods and reduced food supplies.

Finance

• CEOs At Corporate Powerhouses Got Paid 276 Times The Typical American Worker’s Salary Last Year

  Policymakers have plenty of levers they can pull to combat these macro trends. It will likely take some mix of carrots — tax incentives for companies that commit to profit-sharing with workers and other structures that combat short-termism, for example — and sticks like higher income tax rates and bespoke tariffs on inherently abusive Wall Street schemes.

• Corporate CEO Pay Was 276 Times the Average Worker’s Income Last Year

  CEO pay is up 46.5 percent since a relative low point in 2009, following the 2008 market crash. “Amid a healthy recovery on Wall Street following the Great Recession, CEOs have enjoyed outsized income gains even relative to other very-high-wage earners,” EPI observes.

• Factbox: Theresa May’s plans for a Brexit ministry and who might lead it

  Theresa May, who will take over as Britain’s prime minister on Wednesday, has said she plans to set up a new government department to lead the process of withdrawing the country from the European Union.

  Here is what she has said about the department, some information on likely candidates to run it and frontrunners to take over from George Osborne as finance minister.

• Denmark Is Big Victim Of Wall Street Tax Avoidance Deals

  Goldman Sachs, Citigroup, Merrill Lynch and other international banks have profited for years by arranging short-term loans of stock in Danish companies, a maneuver that has helped shareholders but deprived Denmark of substantial tax revenues.

  With the banks’ help, stock owners avoid paying Danish authorities the dividend taxes they would otherwise owe on their holdings of companies like Maersk, Novo Nordisk, Danske Bank, Tryg and Carlsberg, among others.

  They do so by lending the shares to banks that temporarily transfer them to other investors with low or no tax obligations around the time when the dividend is paid. The terms are hedged and arranged months in advance. After dividend time, the borrowed shares are returned, and the tax savings are shared among the investors and banks that arranged the trades.

• In Bill, Lawmakers Propose New Limits for Seizing Workers’ Pay Over Old Debts

  For the first time in nearly 50 years, a new federal bill seeks to lower how much lenders and collectors can seize from debtors through the courts, revisiting caps set in 1968 by the landmark Consumer Credit Protection Act.

  The Wage and Garnishment Equity (WAGE) Act of 2016, sponsored by Rep. Elijah Cummings, D-Md., and Sen. Jeff Merkley, D-Ore., would substantially reform protections for debtors by exempting many lower-income workers from garnishment and reducing what collectors can take from the paychecks and bank accounts of others.

  As ProPublica has reported in a series of articles over the past three years, consumer debts such as medical or credit card bills result in millions of garnishments every year. But the scale of the seizures and their consequences for the poor have largely been ignored by lawmakers, in part because no one tracks how often they happen.

• No country for young men?

  Conversations with people on the street in Wales help clarify why Britain voted for Brexit. Why weren’t MEPs having those conversations all spring?

• Eric Holder’s Longtime Excuse for Not Prosecuting Banks Just Crashed and Burned

  Eric Holder has long insisted that he tried really hard when he was attorney general to make criminal cases against big banks in the wake of the 2007 financial crisis. His excuse, which he made again just last month, was that Justice Department prosecutors didn’t have enough evidence to bring charges.

  Many critics have long suspected that was bullshit, and that Holder, for a combination of political, self-serving, and craven reasons, held his department back.

  A new, thoroughly-documented report from the House Financial Services Committee supports that theory. It recounts how career prosecutors in 2012 wanted to criminally charge the global bank HSBC for facilitating money laundering for Mexican drug lords and terrorist groups. But Holder said no.

  When asked on June 8 why his Justice Department did not equally apply the criminal laws to financial institutions in the wake of the 2008 economic crisis, Holder told the platform drafting panel of the Democratic National Committee that it was laboring under a “misperception.”

  He told the panel: “The question you need to ask yourself is, if we could have made those cases, do you think we would not have? Do you think that these very aggressive U.S. attorneys I was proud to serve with would have not brought these cases if they had the ability?”

  The report — the result of a three-year investigation — shows that aggressive attorneys did want to prosecute HSBC, but Holder overruled them.

• GOP Uses Debt They Created As An Excuse For Program Cuts

  Republicans are already ringing the alarm about a supposed debt crisis even though the country’s financials are stable.

• Greater Manchester ‘to lose out on’ £320m over Brexit

  Greater Manchester is set to miss out on £320m after the UK voted to leave the European Union (EU), a report leaked to the BBC has warned.

  The report by Manchester City Council’s chief executive said EU funding up to 2020 “would no longer be forthcoming”.

  Sir Howard Bernstein’s briefing note was sent to council leaders on 30 June, a week after the Brexit vote.

• NYT Lets $27 Million Man Brag About What He’s Doing for Income Inequality

  How nice of the Times to give one of our corporate overlords a chance to let us know he’s doing the right thing!

  Chase is the largest bank in the United States, and in 2015 it made $23.9 billion in after-tax income. You may have gotten the (intended) impression from Dimon’s op-ed that Chase has 18,000 employees; in fact, it has 241,000. That means for each one of its employees, the company is making $99,000 in profit. By comparison, the prospect of a $1.85-an-hour raise for 7 percent of them over three years is rather small potatoes.

  Dimon himself made $27 million in compensation in 2015. Right now, the lowest-paid full-time Chase employee makes 0.08 percent as much as the CEO; for those who get the pay raise, after it goes through, it’ll be 0.09 percent—assuming that Dimon doesn’t get a pay raise of his own in the next three years. So not much of a blow against income inequality—a problem that is in large part driven by the financial industry’s soaring profits.

• Nearly Two-Thirds of Americans Can’t Pass a Basic Test of Financial Literacy

  Apparently the message of the financial crisis didn’t get across

  Quick: If you take out a $1000 loan that has a 20% rate, how much will you owe a year in interest?

  Answer: $200. But if you got that wrong, you’re not alone. Nearly two thirds of Americans can’t calculate interest payments correctly, according to a new study. About a third said they didn’t even know how.

  One of the silver linings of the financial crisis was that it was supposed to have taught many Americans a lesson, albeit painful, about the dangers of debt, and financial issues in general. Apparently, the message, though, didn’t get across.

  All told, a new study, which was released today, estimated that nearly two-thirds of Americans couldn’t pass a basic financial literacy test, meaning they got fewer than four answers correct on a five-question quiz. Worse, the percentage of those who can pass the test has fallen consistently since the financial crisis to 37% last year, from 42% in 2009.

AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics

• ratfucked

  The 2008 election was a big turning point. Obama won big, and “down-ballot” Democrats won big with him. The Republicans lost, and the Republican Party was lost. What to do? Devise a plan and take back control. Redraw the maps to maintain control. In short, ratfuck the Democrats. We’re only few pages into the introduction when the author contradicts his own subtitle. This wasn’t a secret plan. “It’s legal, it’s breathtaking, and much of it happened in plain sight.”

  “The simple truth is this: America is the only major democracy in the world that allows politicians to pick their own voters.”

• Japan’s Election Results Usher in War . . . and a Glimmer of Hope?

  The recently passed “Security Law” that designates information that might undermine government and corporate efforts to sidestep the law and the constitution as “state secrets”, has mobilized a robust youth movement to counter this encroaching fascism. It’s hard to say if these mostly middle-class university student who formed SEALDS (Students Emergency Action for Liberal Democracy) will maintain their activist impulses in the wake of Emperor Abe’s most recent mandate-affirming coronation. It will take a fearless and sustained effort to endure the raised to ’11’ volume blasting from the right wing unarmored tank brigade, particularly now as it has gained steam from yesterday’s electorally foregone conclusion.

• Is the Real Scandal the Clinton Foundation?

  Well, lo and behold, the military-industrial complex is one of the big contributors the Clinton Foundation, as is Saudi Arabia, and many of the parties who are directly affected by her decisions. Now, my guess is what she didn’t want people to find out, whether on Freedom of Information Act or others, are the lobbying she’s doing for her own foundation, which in a way means her wealth, her husband’s wealth, Bill Clinton’s wealth, and the power that both of them have by getting a quarter billion dollars of grants into the foundation during her secretary of state.

• The Icelandic Pirate Party and the Search for a New Democracy

  Inside a modernist warehouse alongside the ocean in Reykjavík, Iceland’s capital city, four men sit around a table discussing the country’s drug policies. A skull-and-crossbones flag adorns the wall and a cheap blow-up sword hangs over one door frame. Though they aren’t wearing eyepatches or hunting for treasure, these Icelanders call themselves Pirates, and they are drafting policy for a new, insurgent political party, the Pirate Party.

  Started as a Swedish movement in 2006, the Pirate Party advocated for copyright reform and freedom of access to information. It championed whistleblowers and defended WikiLeaks. After expanding its platform to include civil liberties and direct democracy, the party grew: it now boasts chapters in approximately 60 countries.

• How the Media Overthrew Party Politics

  Media and politics historically have operated in a kind of uneasy alliance in which the media push and the political system responds. As Harvard historian Jill Lepore wrote in a recent New Yorker essay, almost every innovation or mutation in the media — from the highly partisan press of the nation’s early days to the yellow press of the 1890s to radio and television and now social media — has contributed to new party processes and even realignments.

• Special interests look to influence political conventions — discreetly

  Protestors will shout. Delegates may revolt. Factions will haggle over rules and platform proposals.

  But come later this month, no amount of friction will stop corporations, unions and special interests from spending tens of millions of dollars to bankroll nonstop partying at the Democratic and Republican national conventions. Thank federal campaign finance rules that allow unlimited contributions to support them.

• One “Dinner with Donald” contest leads to another — and one for Hillary, too

  One PAC offering a dinner with Donald Trump has risen from the dirty dishes of another — and spawned a Hillary Clinton copycat in its wake.

  American Horizons has spent the past month advertising a contest for two individuals to win a dinner with Trump, including a flight and hotel stay. But while the organization, which is a hybrid of a conventional PAC and a super PAC, wasn’t established until mid-June, the contest has roots going back to November. It was originally the brainchild of a separate group, Recover America, that was publicly called out by the Trump campaign for promoting the prize without the knowledge or consent of the candidate. The group’s website, DinnerWithTrump.org, soon went dark as Recover America’s treasurer, Michael Williams, dealt with the fallout.

• Dem Platform Includes Plank to Close Notorious School of the Americas

  Although the Democratic Party’s latest draft platform has received a mixed reception from progressives, human rights advocates on Tuesday called attention to one long-awaited demand that made it into the manifesto: Closing the controversial military training facility known as the School of the Americas.

  The measure, introduced by committee member Marcos Rubenstein—who was elected by Bernie Sanders delegates—calls for the closure of the school, now known as the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation (SOA/WHINSEC) to support the progressive belief that “democracies and civilian governments in the Western Hemisphere…should never be involved in the political process.”

  The SOA/WHINSEC plank was accepted by both Sanders’ and Hillary Clinton’s campaigns in the first time that such a measure has been included in the Democratic party platform.

  SOA Watch, a grassroots group that has organized around the closure of SOA/WHINSEC since 1990, noted Tuesday that “[w]hile the platform is nonbinding, grassroots activists, who have been concerned about the hawkish stands of presumptive Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton towards Latin America, will push the Obama administration and the Clinton campaign to adhere to the platform’s call.”

  The group’s national organizer Hendrik Voss said, “In order to create real change, we can’t rely on politicians to make it happen for us. We have to organize to build broad-based grassroots power, and hold those who are making decisions that affect our lives accountable.”

  SOA/WHINSEC has become a notorious symbol of U.S.-backed human rights abuses in Latin America. The taxpayer-funded school—which many opponents have nicknamed “School of the Assassins”—educated several dictators from the region, as well as their military officials, and included torture, extortion, and execution in its curriculum.

  The new platform measure is particularly important as questions continue to rise over Clinton’s role in the U.S.-led coup in Honduras in 2009, which led to increased militarization and human rights abuses, the group said.

• Jeremy Corbyn wins NEC vote over right to stand again for Labour leadership

  Jeremy Corbyn has narrowly survived a row over Labour Party rules that could have seen him ousted from the leadership without party members getting another chance to vote over his future.

  The ruling makes it highly likely that Mr Corbyn will win the leadership contest triggered by Angela Eagle’s announcement that she is standing against him.

  Mr Corbyn’s backers had feared that the executive would force him to find 50 Labour MPs or MEPs – a fifth of the parliamentary party – prepared to sign his nomination papers before his name could go on to the ballot paper. The leader’s support among fellow MPs has hit such a low point that it is unlikely that he would be able to find that many supporters in the Commons.

  But after a six hour meeting, the executive accepted Mr Corbyn’s claim that he had an automatic right to stand again.

• Victorious Corbyn Survives Another Day as Labour Says He Will Appear on Ballot

  In what was described as “a victory for common sense and democracy,” the UK Labour party has said Jeremy Corbyn’s name must appear on the ballot in the upcoming leadership contest.

  Corbyn, who was the target of what some were calling a post-Brexit coup, said he was “delighted” at the decision by Labour’s National Executive Committee (NEC). Shadow chancellor John McDonnell, a key ally of Corbyn, said on Twitter: “Jeremy on the ballot. Democracy prevails. We will use leadership election to sign up even more members and prepare ground for general election.”

• The GOP Platform Draft: The Stuff Nightmares are Made Of

  Draft platform includes language that disavows the rights of women, same-sex couples, trans people, Palestinians, immigrants, and more.

• Truthdig Sits Down With the Green Party’s Jill Stein (Video)

  The Green Party’s presumptive presidential nominee, Dr. Jill Stein, met with Truthdig staff on Tuesday for a live discussion, broadcast on Facebook, about the 2016 election and American politics.

  Watch the entire discussion below, although the first video is cut off early because of Facebook’s time limit. The second segment, while much shorter, is a sign-off from Stein and the Truthdig staff.

• Jill Stein: ‘Bernie hearts are breaking’

  Likely Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein lamented Bernie Sanders’ endorsement of Hillary Clinton Tuesday, tweeting, “many Bernie hearts are breaking right now.”

  “It sounds like the only good thing Bernie can say about Hillary is that she’s not Donald,” Stein tweeted, one of more than a dozen tweets she sent while Sanders and Clinton hosted a joint rally in New Hampshire where he officially endorsed the presumptive nominee. “That’s what most of her supporters like about her.”

• Brilliant Bernie Burns It Down

  Bernie Endorses Hillary.

  How disgusting is that?

  Not surprising. Predictable in fact. But disgusting nonetheless.

  Not proud to admit that, over the past couple of months, I have preyed on naive liberal friends who actually believed that Bernie was going to act independently, take it to the convention, wreak havoc on the corrupt Democratic Party.

• Iron Ladies: The False Choices of Theresa May and Andrea Leadsom

  During the contest between Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders for the nomination for Democratic candidate, MSCNBC journalist Irin Carmon wrote, “The conventional wisdom in 2008 was that Clinton ceded the history-making argument to Obama and should have made more of her gender.” The Clinton campaign more than compensated for this in 2015, almost going so far as to suggest that Democrat voters should make their decision solely on the basis of gender. When asked how she would be different from President Obama, Clinton replied: “Well, I think that’s pretty obvious. Being the first woman president would be quite a change from the presidents we’ve had, including President Obama.”

  During the Labour leadership election last year, Yvette Cooper’s campaign borrowed heavily borrowed from Clinton’s playbook. Nominating Cooper was presented not just as a progressive choice, but one so radical that it outdid Jeremy Corbyn’s three-decade opposition to mainstream politics. Cooper said: “”What is more radical? A Labour party after a century of championing equality and diversity which turns the clock back to be led again by a leader and deputy leader, both white men. Or to smash our own glass ceiling to get Labour’s first elected woman leader and woman prime minister too. Who’s the real radical? Jeremy or me?” (The answer is Jeremy.)

• Revolution Undermined: On Bernie Sanders’s Endorsement of Hillary Clinton

  I join millions of Americans who see Hillary Clinton’s campaign as the opposite of what they and Bernie Sanders have fought for. Despite her penchant for flip flopping rhetoric, Hillary Clinton has spent decades consistently serving the causes of Wall Street, war and the Walmart economy.

  The policies she fought for – along with her husband and political partner, Bill Clinton – have been foundations of the economic disaster most Americans are still struggling with: the abuses of deregulated Wall Street, rigged corporate trade agreements, racist mass incarceration, and the destruction of the social safety net for poor women and children. The consistent efforts of the Democratic Party to minimize, sideline, and sabotage the Sanders campaign are a wake up call that we can’t have a revolutionary campaign inside a counter-revolutionary party.

  Sadly, Sanders is one of a long line of true reformers that have been undermined by the Democratic Party. The eventual suppression of the Sanders campaign was virtually guaranteed from the beginning with super-delegates and super Tuesdays, that were created after George McGovern’s nomination to prevent grassroots campaigns from winning the nomination again.

  Sanders, a life-long independent who has advocated for building an independent democratic socialist party similar to Canada’s New Democratic Party, has said that his decision to run as a Democrat was based on pragmatism, but there is nothing pragmatic about supporting a party that for decades has consistently sold out the progressive majority to the billionaire class. This false pragmatism is not the path to revolutionary change but rather an incrementalism that keeps us trapped, voting for lesser evil again and again.

• Long Time Progressive Stephen Lendman Blows The Whistle On Bernie Sanders Who Is Part Of Hillary’s Cover

  Fact: Hillary is a Wall Street/war-profiteer’s tool – exclusively supporting monied interests, popular ones be damned.

  Sanders: “(W)e produced, by far, the most progressive platform in the history of the Democratic (sic) party.”

  Fact: What rubbish! Democrat New Deal, Fair Deal, Great Society programs are disappearing, targeted for elimination.

  Fact: The Democrat party platform is hugely regressive, not progressive – dirty business as usual pretending otherwise.

  Nothing in it about opposing corporate coup d’etat trade deals. Nothing meaningful about reigning in Wall Street or war-profiteering.

  Nothing about ending endless wars of aggression. Nothing about rescinding police state repression, holding killer cops accountable – putting people above privilege and profits.

  Not a dime’s worth of difference separates Democrats from Republicans on issues mattering most.

  Endorsing Clinton shows where Sanders really stands – contemptuous of world peace, rule of law principles and democratic values – equity and justice mere meaningless words.

• Clinton-Led Democrats Are Now “To the Right of George W. Bush” on Palestinian Rights

  There are countless ways to see that the rhetorical monuments of magnanimity, humanitarianism and equality which Democratic Party leaders and their loyal followers love to erect in honor of themselves are nothing more than manipulative, self-glorifying dreck. But few pathologies illustrate that deceit more potently than their utter indifference, and now – in the Hillary Clinton era – outright contempt for the plight of Palestinians and their steadfast subservience to right-wing Israeli nationalism. As Demos’ Sean McElwee put it: “The Democratic platform is now officially to the right of George W. Bush on Palestine.”

  Hillary Clinton herself has covertly run one of the most anti-Palestinian, pro-Israeli-aggression presidential campaigns in modern history – from either party. That’s not surprising given her general militarism and the dominance of American-Israeli billionaire Haim “I’m a one-issue guy, and my issue is Israel” Saban in funding her campaign and the Democratic Party generally. Surprising or not, though, the Clinton-led Democratic Party’s hostility toward the most basic precepts of equality and dignity for Palestinians, and their willingness – their eagerness – to support and cheer for the most extremist Israeli acts of oppression, racism and decades-long occupation, is nothing short of despicable.

• Did Rupert Murdoch Choose Britain’s New Prime Minister?

  In the interview, Leadsom, who had frequently used the phrase “as a mum” in speeches calling for Britain to leave the EU, was asked how that was relevant to her politics. She responded: “I don’t really know Theresa very well but I am sure she will be really, really sad she doesn’t have children, so I don’t want this to be ‘Andrea has children, Theresa hasn’t,’ do you know wht I mean, because I think that would be really horrible, but genuinely I feel that being a mum means you have a very real stake in the future of our country, a tangible stake.”

  “She possibly has nieces, nephews, lots of people,” Leadsom continued, “but I have children who are going to have children who will directly be a part of what happens next.”

  Over the weekend, the candidate tried and failed quite spectacularly to spin her way out of the ensuing mess by claiming that she had been misquoted.

• Snooper for PM

  Despite the zombie IP Bill (Snooper’s Charter) being knocked back to the depths from whence it came repeatedly, Teresa May’s dark magic managed to revive the bill time and time again. Sadly the lack of opposition from Labour helped facilitate this bill and now it’s creator is set to be our next Prime Minister.

  Her coronation to PM is a sad day for privacy advocates. While our ISPs will be keeping hordes of data on us, Teresa May will get to decide as she leads the country into paranoia and a lack of privacy what to use that data for.

• Clinton Says She Was ‘Unaware’ She Was Sending Classified Material on Email Server

  Now that the FBI has declined prosecution stating Clinton had no “intent” to send and receive all sorts of classified data, marked and unmarked, Hillary has adopted a brand new excuse: why, golly gosh, she just didn’t know it was classified! She is also throwing some of her staff under the bus for good measure.

  On Friday, Clinton said she did not realize she was transmitting highly classified government secrets through her private email server while U.S. secretary of state.

  Instead, Clinton shifted the blame onto her former colleagues at the State Department, saying in television interviews she followed their lead on whether or not information was classified. “They, I believe, did not believe they were sending any material that was classified, they were pursuing their responsibilities,” she said in an interview with MSNBC.

  She did not address the findings by the Federal Bureau of Investigation that she herself sent information on topics classified at the highest levels of classification.

• GOP’s Last Line of Anti-Trump Defense

  Donald Trump shook up Republican politics with his populist challenge to the party’s economic and foreign policy orthodoxies, but the GOP establishment has one last chance to stop his nomination, reports ex-CIA analyst Peter W. Dickson.

Censorship/Free Speech

• Kashmir boiling: Netizens demand freedom from Facebook censorship

  As fresh reports suggest that the death toll in Kashmir has risen to 33, Prime Minister Narendra Modi who has just chaired a high-level meet on the issue has finally broken his silence on the issue and has appealed for peace to return to the valley.

  “Prime Minister has appealed to the people of Jammu and Kashmir to maintain calm and peace so that normalcy returns and no innocent lives are disturbed,” Jitendra Singh, Minister of State in Prime Minister’s Office was quoted telling Business Standard after the meeting.

• A fine line: Social media, ‘hate speech,’ and censorship

  “The problem when you get government involved [is that] almost universally, free speech and freedom loses,” Gainor adds.

  The Hamas page has been taken down, but even today there are scores of others – using the same name – which have risen it its place.

• Facebook Sued Again For ‘Material Support’ Of Terrorism, Because Hamas Uses Facebook

  This is becoming quite the stupid trend: people who are true victims of terrorist attacks suing internet platforms because terror-associated groups are using those platforms generally. It began back in January, when a woman sued Twitter after her husband was apparently killed in an ISIS attack. The lawsuit made no connection between the use of Twitter and the attack. It’s just “husband died in ISIS attack” and “ISIS people use Twitter.” The judge in that case is not at all impressed and it seems likely to dismiss the case shortly. In the meantime, another similar case was filed against Twitter, Facebook and Google.

  And now… we’ve got a third such case filed against Facebook and asking for a billion dollars. A billion dollars. The lawsuit was filed by the families of some people who were killed in a Hamas attack. And the entire complaint is basically “Hamas killed these guys, Hamas uses Facebook, give us a billion dollars.” It goes through a variety of stories, each involving Hamas or Hamas-affiliated attacks, without any actual connection to Facebook, other than “and they also used Facebook to celebrate.”

• ‘Tyranny’ of Brown University’s censorship culture is featured in new documentary

  Brown University is plagued by administrators who shelter students from controversial ideas and faculty who are too cowed to publicly defend free speech – a microcosm of higher education in the 21st century, according to a new documentary by a Brown graduate.

• ANC slams culture of censorship at the SABC

  The ANC backed the party’s communications sub-committee head, Jackson Mthembu, who has criticised the broadcaster for changing its editorial policy and stifling media freedom. This after controversial COO Hlaudi Motsoeneng imposed a ban on the airing of violent public protest footage. Motsoeneng’s decision has been roundly opposed, even by some SABC journalists.

• SABC Censorship: ANC firmly against any form of censorship at the SABC

• South Africa: Ruling Bids to Overturn ‘Outrageous Censorship’ At Public Broadcaster

  South Africa’s Independent Communications Authority has recommended on 11 July that the country’s public broadcaster ditch a controversial editorial policy which banned journalists from covering violent protests.

  The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) welcomed the ruling and called on the South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) to reinstate suspended journalists and lift the threat of disciplinary action against those who were alleged to be in breach of the policy, which the IFJ believes amounts to «outrageous censorship » .

• ‘SABC needs to listen to public’s views on censorship policy’

  African National Congress (ANC) Secretary General Gwede Mantashe says if the South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) wants to be a better public broadcaster, it needs to listen to the views of the public.

  The Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (Icasa) yesterday recommended the broadcaster reverse its ban on footage which shows state property being destroyed, but Chief Operations Officer Hlaudi Motsoeneng says no one will tell the SABC what to do.

• EU Trade Commissioner Criticises Online Censorship in China

  The EU’s Trade Commissioner, Cecilia Malmström, raised concerns with Chinese tech policies during this week’s EU-China Summit in Beijing. Malmström warned that China’s “limits to online freedom … get[] in the way of today’s most dramatic innovations.”

  “The power of the Internet is that it connects people in a single global network. Barriers to that, whether by banning certain platforms or by requiring storage of content locally, impede China’s economic progress as much as freedom of expression. And it limits your access to other views and opinions, to the exchange of experiences with other people,” Malmström said. The EU’s top trade official finally called China’s laws on national security, non-governmental organisations and cybersecurity “steps backward.”

• Guinea: Increasing censorship and pressure on leading musicians

  The 2010 election of longtime opponent Alpha Kondé as president of Guinea brought with it hope that music and other forms of artistic expression would enjoy relatively untrammelled freedom. Such optimism rode on the wave of a burgeoning hip hop scene, an established roster of international stars, a post-independence policy of preserving traditional music and a vocal press acting as watchdogs. Disappointingly, this has not come to be: a spiralling-down of the economy and the growing authoritarianism of the Kondé regime has translated itself into increasing censorship and pressure on the country’s leading musicians. Freemuse reporter Daniel Brown visited the capital Conakry to gauge the current musical climate.

• USOC Demands That Company Take Down Twitter Posts Of Olympic Athlete It Sponsors

  All I have to do is say that this is a story that involves the Olympics and you probably already know exactly what kind of story this is going to be. That’s because we here at Techdirt have posts going back years that detail how the IOC and the USOC go about bullying, threatening, berating and downright pestering anyone it can over even the slightest of intellectual property concerns. The fact that these international games come around every two years now, instead of four, only means this bullying occurs now in near perpetuity instead of at a pace of a half-a-decade staccato.

  So, with the Rio Olympics right around the zika-infested, super-bacteria-in-the-water corner, it’s time to start relaying the most predictable news possible: the USOC are still bullying people over laughably slight trademark concerns. Though I will credit the USOC this much: they’re finding new and inventive ways to come off as petty and money-grubbing as possible. The link above details the USOC’s demands that Oiselle, an athletic apparel company that sponsors Olympic athlete Kate Grace, take down the following Instagram posts.

• Silence in the media brings more destruction to Turkey

  The Kurds are now asking world media to inform ‘Superman’ of yet another attack on their homeland in Turkey.

• China Decrees That All News On Websites Must Funnel Through Government Approval

  Fake news and hoax news stories are annoying, to be sure. I’ve been fooled a few times by hoax stories, as I imagine most other folks who do what we do have been. And, while the strategies taken by folks like Facebook haven’t resulted in ending the scourge of fake news, I can understand the intent. There are probably better strategies out there, though they are harder to achieve. Strategies like educating the public on how to verify internet stories they see. Or instilling in people a healthy amount of skepticism starting at a young age so that they don’t fall victim to every hoax out there. Or just sending around Snopes.com to all of our family members and demanding that they run any outrage through that filter first before bringing it to the dinner table.

Privacy/Surveillance

• TOS agreements require giving up first born—and users gladly consent

  A recent study concludes what everybody already knows: nobody reads the lengthy terms of service and privacy policies that bombard Internet users every day. Nobody understands them. They’re too long, and they often don’t make sense.

  A study out this month made the point all too clear. Most of the 543 university students involved in the analysis didn’t bother to read the terms of service before signing up for a fake social networking site called “NameDrop” that the students believed was real. Those who did glossed over important clauses. The terms of service required them to give up their first born, and if they don’t yet have one, they get until 2050 to do so. The privacy policy said that their data would be given to the NSA and employers. Of the few participants who read those clauses, they signed up for the service anyway.

  “This brings us to the biggest lie on the Internet, which anecdotally, is known as ‘I agree to these terms and conditions,’” the study found.

  The paper is called “The biggest lie on the Internet: Ignoring the privacy polices and terms of service policies of social networking services.” It was written by Jonathan Obar, who teaches communication technology at York University, and Anne Oeldorf-Hirsch, a University of Connecticut communications assistant professor.

• VPN Provider PIA Exits Russia After Server Seizures

  Private Internet Access is informing users that some of its servers in Russia may have been seized by the authorities. The company believes that it may have been targeted due to its strict no-logging policy, something which puts it at odds with Russian data-retention rules.

• Fight for your Right to Privacy

• Judge Upholds UPS Employee/Paid Informant’s Search Of An Intercepted Package

  Maybe this is part of UPS’s large settlement with the DOJ. Maybe this is what FedEx won’t do, which is why the DOJ tried to prosecute it for aiding and abetting illicit drug sales, right up until a federal judge called its prosecution “novel” and ushered it out of the court.

  Whatever the case, there’s at least one “inside man” (in this case a woman) at the UPS. A San Bernardino UPS store owner acted as a “citizen informant” for the county sheriff. In exchange for unspecified “compensation,” the store owner would flag suspicious packages and call in the Sheriff’s Department to come in and have a look/sniff at said shipments.

• Whistle-Blower on NSA Wiretapping Is Set to Keep Law License

  A District of Columbia bar committee has agreed to a deal that would let a former Justice Department lawyer keep his law license even though he said he was one of the sources for a 2005 article in The New York Times…

• Facebook spyware push and unexpected N900 advantages

  Dear Facebook. I’m aware that your Facebook lite is only 1MB. It is also dangerous spyware. You try to push it to me every time I attempt to use m.facebook.com. Would not it be nice if you avoided pushing your spyware to phones that can not handle it?

• US House Squashes Yet Another Attempt to Expand Patriot Act Powers

  A bill critics said would expand Patriot Act surveillance went down in the U.S. House Monday night after failing to garner the necessary two-thirds support of the chamber.

  The “Anti-terrorism Information Sharing is Strength Act,” HR 5606, would have amended the USA Patriot Act to allow financial institutions to share information with law enforcement agencies and one another regarding suspected “activities that may involve terrorist acts, money laundering activities, or a specified unlawful activity.”

  Previously, such sharing was allowed regarding only “terrorist acts or money laundering activities.”

  The final vote on the bill, which was considered under a fast-track process that required it to amass a two-thirds majority for passage, was 229-177.

• Pokemon Go Hysteria Again Highlights How Media Is Happy To Be Gullible And Wrong — If It Means More Ad Eyeballs

  If you spend any time online, you’ve by now noticed that the internet this week belched forth a tidal wave of incessant chatter over Pokemon Go, Nintendo’s new augmented reality game involving scrambling around real-world locations to “catch” collectible, virtual beasts with your phone. The game is by any standard a smashing success, boosting Nintendo’s market cap by an estimated $9 billion in two days with the app rocketing to the top of both major app stores.

• Senators Wyden And Heinrich Speak Out Against Expanding FBI’s Ability To Warrantlessly Spy On Your Communications

  We’ve been writing for a while now how the FBI has been trying to rewrite a key part of the PATRIOT Act to massively expand its ability to use National Security Letters (NSLs) to get email and browser information with no warrant and no oversight. Despite the fact that the FBI was asking for this just days before the Orlando shooting, right after it, a bunch of Senators, led by John McCain, used the opportunity to fast track that legislative change, cynically pointing to the Orlando shooting as a reason why it’s needed (despite it having nothing whatsoever to do with that). That effort failed, but just barely — and it’s expected to be brought up again shortly for another vote.

Civil Rights/Policing

• US Shopping Mall Suspends Robot Cops After Small Child Attacked

  The hi-tech security guards are meant to protect shoppers and deter crime, but the incident has raised questions over their use.

  The Stanford Shopping Center in the U.S. state of California temporarily suspended its fleet of robot cops following an incident where one of the robots reportedly knocked over a small child.

• Philando Castile Should Still Be Alive

  Mr. Phil (as he was known at school) worked at my son’s elementary school in the cafeteria. My son started pre-K this fall at the tender age of four. First thing he did every morning was walk in and get breakfast. He had never eaten in a cafeteria — he didn’t know the routine — and from day one Mr. Phil made him comfortable. I would often walk in with my son and had the pleasure of talking with Mr. Phil many mornings.

  Within a week Mr. Phil knew my son’s name, despite the fact that there are hundreds of kids in the school. He would always make sure he actually took the food he was supposed to take, and he would often let him take an extra item if he was really hungry.

• Baton Rouge, Minneapolis, and Dallas Through A Father’s Eyes

  The horrors we witnessed in Baton Rouge, Minneapolis, and Dallas are rooted in racism that has haunted our families for generations, and is perhaps at its deadliest when embodied in law enforcement and embedded in our communities.

  As I took my oldest son to summer camp on Thursday morning, we rode in uneasy silence, listening to the news of Philando Castile’s death by cop in Falcon Heights, Minn., outside of the Twin Cities. I was emotionally wrung out. The night before I’d begun writing a piece about Alton Sterling’s death at the hands of police in Baton Rouge, La., and planned to finish it in the morning. Before I could begin, my news feed overflowed with reports of Castile’s death.

• Atoning for Washington’s ‘Mass Kidnapping’ in the Indian Ocean

  The U.S. and UK governments forcibly expelled an entire population of islanders to make way for a military base. It’s time to let them come home

• This Mosque Was Supposed To Be A Polling Location In Florida. Then People Complained.

  A county elections supervisor in Florida has removed a mosque from a list of polling locations after receiving a flood of complaints, frustrating local Muslims who say the move is discriminatory because churches and other houses of worship are still scheduled to host voters on Election Day.

  According to the Orlando Sun-Sentinel, Palm Beach County elections supervisor Susan Bucher initially listed the Islamic Center of Boca Raton as a polling location for upcoming elections. But last week Bucher called Bassem Alhalabi, the president of the mosque, to inform him that she would be directing voters to a nearby public library instead.

• Cop Prop

  White supremacy has always played a part in our heroics, from Last of the Mohicans to Tarzan. But nowhere is it more obvious than in DW Griffith’s 1915 epic, The Birth of A Nation, which was not only the birth of the Hollywood adventure film but also of the superhero. It’s like watching Batman decoded: a rich slave-owner and Confederate officer, dejected by the South’s loss in the Civil War, dons a cape and mask to protect Southern womanhood from the predations of vile African-Americans and white carpetbaggers. Of course nowadays this kind of racism in crime fiction and comics has become passé. It’s only polite to be racist toward Muslims. But sleeping underneath the subtext is a centuries-enduring narrative of white supremacy, patrician self-pity, and vigilante violence. Every citizen is a potential bad guy with a gun who deserves violence as a first response.

• After Dallas Shootings, Police Arrest People for Criticizing Cops on Facebook and Twitter

  Four men in Detroit were arrested over the past week for posts on social media that the police chief called threatening. One tweet that led to an arrest said that Micah Johnson, the man who shot police officers in Dallas last week, was a hero. None of the men have been named, nor have they been charged.

  “I know this is a new issue, but I want these people charged with crimes,” said Detroit Police Chief James Craig. “I’ve directed my officers to prepare warrants for these four individuals, and we’ll see which venue is the best to pursue charges,” he said.

  Five police officers were killed in the Dallas shootings, constituting the highest number of police casualties in an attack since September 11. And as a result, law enforcement officials everywhere are suddenly much more sensitive to threats against their lives.

  But one result has been that several police departments across the country have arrested individuals for posts on social media accounts, often from citizen tips — raising concerns among free speech advocates.

  “Arresting people for speech is something we should be very careful about,” Bruce Schneier, security technologist at the Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University, told The Intercept.

  Last weekend in Connecticut, police arrested Kurt Vanzuuk after a tip for posts on Facebook that identified Johnson as a hero and called for police to be killed. He was charged with inciting injury to persons or property.

• Man who Posted Alton Sterling Shooting Video Arrested 24 Hours Later on Fabricated Charges

  The man who made the video of the Alton Sterling shooting death go viral, one of two brutal videos from two states that sparked a national outrage and led to the shooting deaths of five Dallas police officers during an anti-police brutality protest Thursday – was arrested 24 hours later.

  Chris LeDay believes it was an act of retaliation.

  Considering police handcuffed and leg-shackled him after accusing him of assault and battery – only to jail him overnight for unpaid traffic fines – it certainly appears that way.

  Especially considering his arrest took place 24 hours after he had posted the video on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram where it instantly went viral.

  LeDay, 34, lives in Georgia, but was born and raised in Baton Rouge, Louisiana where the shooting took place early Tuesday morning, so he learned of the video through friends back home but it wasn’t getting much exposure.

  At the time, the story – without the video – was being reported in the local news and was already generating controversy because the store owner was saying the shooting was unjustified and the coroner was saying he was shot several times in the front and back.

  And the cops were saying their body cams had fallen off, so there was no video of the shooting.

• Claudia Rankine: Because White Men Can’t Police Their Imaginations, Black Men Are Dying (Video)

  Because white men can’t police their imaginations, black men are dying.

• In New York Gang Sweeps, Prosecutors Use Conspiracy Laws to Score Easy Convictions

  Ana was half-asleep when she walked into her hallway and encountered dozens of police officers with shields and helmets. “Put your hands up! Do you speak Spanish or English? How many boys are in the back?” she said they shouted at her before handcuffing her, her husband, and one of her sons and walking into her young daughter’s room with their guns drawn. “I thought it was an action movie,” said Ana, who asked me not to use her last name. She struggled to describe the scene in her uncertain English. Her daughter Angie jumped in.

  “She’s just sad because of what happened,” she said, trying to explain her mother’s long silences. “They woke me up. Wake up, put your hands up!” she shouted, imitating the officers who broke into her room. “They thought I was a teenager. I’m eight.”

  Police were looking for Rodrigo, Ana’s 19-year-old son. Angie is the only one in the family who wasn’t handcuffed. “I was a little brave, but a little scared,” she said, describing how the rest of the family was lined up in the hallway.

• From South Africa to Ireland, #BlackLivesMatter Finds Solidarity Worldwide

  As the U.S. reels from multiple shootings that made international headlines last week, the country’s grassroots movement for racial justice and against police brutality has been met with solidarity around the world.

  Denouncing the recent fatal police shootings of Alton Sterling and Philando Castile, people marched and rallied over the weekend and through Tuesday for the Black Lives Matter movement in the UK, Ireland, Germany, the Netherlands, and South Africa.

• Chelsea confirms health status with attorneys

• Chelsea Manning Confirms Suicide Attempt: ‘I Will Get Through This’

• Housing, Race, And Police Stops: The Backstory To Philando Castile’s Killing

  Last week, the internet watched a Facebook live video of Philando Castile’s death after he was shot by police during a routine traffic stop for a broken taillight. His killing took place in Falcon Heights, Minnesota, a St. Paul suburb nestled between the region’s white suburban enclaves and areas where the minority population is quickly rising — a racial and economic border where aggressive police encounters are much more common.

  Castile was pulled over in a place that is rapidly segregating by race, a phenomenon afflicting many American cities but is relatively new to this area.

  “In the Twin Cities, it’s particularly sad, because 20 years ago we were one of the most integrated places in the country,” said Myron Orfield, director of the Institute on Metropolitan Opportunity at the University of Minnesota Law School. “And the last 20 years we’ve segregated really fast.”

• Store Owner Sues Baton Rouge Police For Seizing His CCTV Recording Of Alton Sterling Shooting

  I don’t get to use the phrase “with alacrity” that often, but Baton Rouge store owner Abdullah Muflahi’s filing of a lawsuit against the Baton Rouge police can only be described as that.

  Following the shooting of Alton Sterling by Baton Rouge police officers, Muflahi’s store was raided by law enforcement officers who took the hard drive containing the store’s surveillance camera footage of the altercation. So far, everyone involved has refused to discuss the illegal seizure of Muflahi’s recording equipment, deferring to the FBI and its investigation of the shooting — which would be something if the FBI would answer questions about the seizure and current location of the hard drive.. but it won’t talk about it either.

• ‘On Contact’ With Chris Hedges: Wrongfully Convicted and Living With the Consequences

  In a new episode of “On Contact,” Chris Hedges’ new show on RT, the Truthdig columnist speaks with author Alison Flowers about wrongful convictions and the challenges people face after spending years in prison for crimes they did not commit.

• Reading Martin Luther King’s ‘Letter from a Birmingham Jail’ after the Dallas shooting

  In his famous 1963 Letter from a Birmingham Jail, Martin Luther King Jr. strategically situated himself between a black elite that was losing democratic legitimacy as it increasingly divorced itself from the plight of the black masses, and anarchic forces that were flirting with violence but were able to garner democratic legitimacy out of sheer desperation. King was trying to provide a third option between doing too little and too much. Pragmatically speaking, he was providing the lesser of three evils.

• The Anti-Choice Movement Is Hijacking Black Lives Matter To Push Its Own Agenda

  Around the same time, former GOP presidential candidate Ben Carson said that BLM should say “all black lives matter” in order to include the black lives “eradicated by abortion.” According to reporting by Vox, clinic escorts have reported protesters targeting black women entering the clinic with phrases such as “black lives matter,” and “hands up, don’t abort.”

• Historian: “You Can’t Disconnect History of the 2nd Amendment From the History of White Supremacy”

  President Obama is speaking in Dallas, Texas, today at a memorial service for the five Dallas police officers killed by a sniper Thursday evening. Dallas authorities said Micah Johnson, the sniper, managed to amass a personal arsenal including a semiautomatic SKS rifle, bomb-making materials, bulletproof vests and ammunition. Over the weekend President Obama warned that the easy access to guns nationwide has exacerbated divisions between the police and local communities. We speak to Gerald Horne, an expert on the Second Amendment from the founding of the Ku Klux Klan to the Black Panthers. Horne is a professor of History and African American Studies at the University of Houston.

• Resisting the pro-police backlash after Dallas

  THE POLICE KILLING of two Black men–Alton Sterling in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and Philando Castile in Falcon Heights, a suburb of the Twin Cities in Minnesota–last week horrified people around the world and brought protesters into the streets in large numbers across the country to proclaim that Black Lives Matter.

  Yet just as quickly, in Dallas, a man who shot and killed police officers as BLM supporters were demonstrating–killing five officers and wounding several more before being killed himself by police–provided the means for the media and law enforcement to shift the spotlight away from the epidemic of police violence and blame those who have risen up to protest.

• Professor Poses the One Perfect Question About Race That Stumps Her Audience

  Elliott asks all white people in her audience to stand if they “would be happy to be treated as this society in general treats our black citizens.”

  [...]

  Elliott comments harshly, “You didn’t understand the directions,” and she repeats the question.

  “Nobody is standing here,” Elliott says. “That says very plainly that you know what’s happening? You know you don’t want it for you. I want to know why you’re so willing to accept it or to allow it to happen to others.”

• How Many Times Do Black People Have to Be Killed on Video Before We Reassess What We Are Doing on Race and Policing in America?

  With the killings by police of Alton Sterling in Louisiana and Philando Castile in Minnesota, the question once again arises: How many times do Black people have to be killed on video before we reassess what we are doing on race and policing in America?

  ACLU Deputy Legal Director Jeff Robinson addresses the issue head on and shows a way forward, as he contrasts video of these needless shootings with raw footage from an incident in Camden, New Jersey, involving a man wielding a butcher knife. Unlike similar incidents, the officers calmly de-escalated a truly dangerous situation without resorting to the use of deadly force.

Internet Policy/Net Neutrality

• European Telcos Threaten To Withhold Next Gen Wireless Upgrades If Net Neutrality Rules Passed

  Tell me if you’ve heard this one before: broadband carriers are once again claiming that if regulators pass net neutrality rules, their ability to invest in next-generation networks will be somehow be severely hindered, causing no limit of damage to consumers, puppies, and the time-space continuum. That’s basically the line U.S. broadband providers tried to feed the FCC in the States. But no matter how many industry-tried, cherry picking think tank studies have tried to claim that net neutrality hurts broadband investment, real world data and ongoing deployment show that just isn’t true.

  As we noted last October, Europe passed net neutrality rules that not only don’t really protect net neutrality, but actually give ISPs across the EU’s 28 member countries the green light to violate net neutrality consistently — just as long as ISPs provide a few flimsy, faux-technical justifications. The rules are so filled with loopholes as to be useless, and while they technically took effect on April 30, the European Union’s Body of European Regulators of Electronic Communications (BEREC) has been cooking up new guidelines to help European countries interpret and adopt the new rules.

  With BEREC’s public comment period set to end on July 18, European net neutrality advocates are giving it one last shot to toughen up the shoddy rules. Fearing they might succeed, a coalition of twenty European telcos (and the hardware vendors that feed at their collective trough) have taped together something they’re calling their “5G Manifesto,” (pdf) which trots out some pretty familiar fear mongering for those who’ve remotely followed the last fifteen years of net neutrality debate.

• Major telecoms promise 5G networks if EU cripples net neutrality

  A group of 20 major telcos including Deutsche Telekom, Nokia, Vodafone, and BT promise to launch 5G networks in every country in the European Union by 2020 — so long as governments decide to weaken net neutrality rules. The coalition’s plans are outlined in its “5G Manifesto,” a seven-page document that details how the companies will roll 5G out across the continent over the next few years. However, by warning against regulation that would ensure an open internet and encouraging nations to water rules down, the companies are effectively holding the new technology for ransom.

• Telecoms Promise 5G Networks If EU Cripples Net Neutrality

• Researchers Confirm EFF’s Binge On Findings—And Learn How to Get Binge On to Zero-Rate Everything

  EFF’s headline-making research earlier this year showed that T-Mobile’s Binge On program wasn’t exactly working as advertised. Now, researchers at Northeastern University and the University of Southern California have published a paper confirming EFF’s findings in detail—even revealing a major weakness in the program that would allow T-Mobile customers to trick the system.

  Binge On is one of T-Mobile’s zero-rating programs, in which certain types of data—videos, in this case—don’t count toward customers’ data caps. When launching Binge On late last year, T-Mobile loudly proclaimed that it “optimized” data for mobile devices, which certainly sounds like a good thing. Sadly, EFF’s test showed T-Mobile wasn’t being entirely truthful: the “optimization” was actually just throttling, and T-Mobile was also throttling some video it wasn’t zero-rating—which meant that in some cases customers were getting lower quality video and still having to pay for it. Not so good, after all.

  The researchers at Northeastern and USC confirmed that Binge On works by throttling video data to 1.5Mbps without doing any sort of optimization. But the researchers went even further, showing how Binge On can result in worse-quality video (especially for mobile devices with high-resolution screens), and explaining how it could also result in decreased battery lifetime (due to the longer download times Binge On causes).

  And they didn’t stop there. They actually reverse-engineered the classifier T-Mobile uses to decide whether or not data should be zero-rated. In other words, they figured out exactly what parts of a data stream T-Mobile looks at to decide if a flow of packets should count against a customer’s data cap or not, and which values triggered zero-rating. With that knowledge in hand, they also figured how to subvert the classifier into zero-rating any data—not just video streams.

Intellectual Monopolies

• Focus On Medicines Patents & Prices Alone May Do More Harm Than Good [Ed: This article wrongly assumes that higher drug prices would improve innovation. In reality: government subsidies fund R&D]

  Populism is in vogue these days and critics of pharmaceutical patents are trying to ride the wave, claiming that undermining patents will dramatically decrease prices but not reduce innovation. Both sides of that claim are flawed.

• Copyrights

  • Kim Dotcom to reboot Megaupload half a decade after FBI shut it down

    Kim Dotcom, the flamboyant Web baron, is planning to relaunch his once popular Megaupload file-sharing website in 2017—five years to the day after the US government shut it down amid accusations of piracy.

    In a series of tweets posted over the weekend, Dotcom hinted that the new Megaupload would involve Bitcoin, while he also promised “big announcements” would be coming regarding partners for the site. Previous users of the site will apparently have their accounts reinstated with premium privileges.

  • CopyCamp 2016 Open Call

    This year we aim at building upon this extraordinary background and facilitate a dialogue particularly focused on the Future of Copyright in Europe. We want to gather the widest possible group of people involved in the discussion about the impact of copyright on social life, education, economy and politics who wish to present their opinions to the international audience. As always, we will be pleased to host all interested parties in the neutral and friendly space, and encourage participants to share thoughts and exchange ideas.

  • The Marrakesh Treaty comes into force – what impact will it have?

    The Marrakesh Treaty, which will improve access to published works for the visually impaired, comes into force on September 30. Natalie Rahhal speaks to people who were involved in the copyright treaty’s negotiation to find out what that means in practice and what impact it will have