GNU News (December-January)
- Dr. Roy Schestowitz
- 2014-01-21 10:28:00 UTC
- Modified: 2014-01-21 10:28:00 UTC
Summary: GNU, FSF, and Free software news from the past month or so
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Richard Stallman today met Mr Rahul Gandhi, Vice President of the Indian National Congress and shared his views on digital surveillance system, unique identification project, free software in education and governance in a meeting that went on for one hour. Mr Joseph Mathew, Secretary of SPACE also participated in the meeting. Mr Gandhi showed keen interest in Stallman's views on various issues relating to information technology.
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To commemorate the occasion of GNU completing 30 years and SPACE 10 years, the free software community in Thiruvananthapuram is also organising an exhibition on free software and free knowledge on Education Freedom Day, which falls on January 18 at the Museum. The exhibition will focus on free software and free hardware for education and privacy protection. Various free software projects like Fedora, WoMoz, and HackerSpace will be part of the exhibition.
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GnuCash is more than a simple checkbook register, although it can be used for that purpose. Its real power is in the features supporting small business use and managing multiple accounts. Its basic features are intuitive, but if you don't have a bookkeeping background, be prepared to spend some time with the user guide in order to fully appreciate its advanced capabilities.
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But the researchers, including Adi Shamir, a co-inventor of the widely-used RSA encryption algorithm, have shown how within one hour it was possible to extract a 4096-bit RSA private key used to decrypt email from a laptop running the OpenPGP-based mail encryption tool, GNU Privacy Guard.
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After earlier this month delivering LLVM Clang 3.3/3.4 benchmarks for the new compiler infrastructure out of Apple, today are results that directly compare the new LLVM Clang 3.4 performance against the stable GCC 4.8.2 compiler and GCC 4.9.0 development compiler under various C/C++ benchmarks.
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An Intel engineer has published a patch-set providing a new GCC compiler architecture target for Intel's upcoming Broadwell CPUs.
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Novena Project aims to create an entirely open source laptop, from the iron down to the bits, and a prototype already exists
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The Free Software Foundation (FSF) today awarded Respects Your Freedom (RYF) certification to Gluglug X60 laptops. The RYF certification mark means that the product meets the FSF's standards in regard to users' freedom, control over the product, and privacy. This is the first laptop to receive RYF certification from the FSF.
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FOSS is the last place to suspect “back doors” or traps.
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Computer scientists have devised an attack that reliably extracts secret cryptographic keys by capturing the high-pitched sounds coming from a computer while it displays an encrypted message.
The technique, outlined in a research paper published Wednesday, has already been shown to successfully recover a 4096-bit RSA key used to decrypt e-mails by GNU Privacy Guard, a popular open source implementation of the OpenPGP standard. Publication of the new attack was coordinated with the release of a GnuPG update rated as "important" that contains countermeasures for preventing the attack. But the scientists warned that a variety of other applications are also susceptible to the same acoustic cryptanalysis attack. In many cases, the sound leaking the keys can be captured by a standard smartphone positioned close to a targeted computer as it decrypts an e-mail known to the attackers.
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The Free Software Foundation today has come out for "the first time we've ever been able to encourage people to buy and use a laptop as-is." The Free Software Foundation now backs one laptop model as respecting the customer's freedoms, but are the hardware specs any good?
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GNU Binutils was updated this morning and some of the major changes for these binary tools updates include supporting several new processors.
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To read more about all of these and see the honorable mentions not listed here, make sure to head back to the full hive five feature.
Recent Techrights' Posts
- Last Week's Public Talk by Richard Stallman Well Attended and Covered in Technical News Sites
- and we're looking at about 60,000 Microsoft layoffs in 3 years
- What Happened to the Open Source Initiative (OSI) Elections: Missed Deadline
- they helped expose a number of other scandals
- Red Hat's Owner is Called "America's Worst Tech Company" (IBM) and Microsoft's Liabilities Grow
- Microsoft has about a quarter of a trillion (yes, trillion with a "T") in liabilities
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- 2025 Will be a Big Year For GNU/Linux on Desktops/Laptops
- with an economy like this, people who don't live in rich countries won't turn to Apple
- Signs of Trouble: Microsoft Job Openings for Jobs That Do Not Exist!
- Keeping up appearances?
- "Special Place in Hell" for Women Who Help Violent Microsofters From Another Continent Attack Local Women Who Did Nothing Wrong, They Just Got Bullied and Deserve Sympathy or Compensation
- Nothing says "Brat" like men who attack women, right?
- The Numbers Game: 50,000-60,000 Microsoft Workers Laid Off in 2.5 Years? And Debt Still Tripled Under Nadella.
- under Nadella Microsoft's debt trebled
- The Slow Death of Windows Will Mean the Inevitable Demise of Microsoft
- Once people stop using Windows, it'll be hard for Microsoft to sell anything to them
- Gemini Links 13/05/2025: Shopping is an Exasperating Nightmare and Making Phones Minimal
- Links for the day
- 23,000 More Microsoft Layoffs by the End of June If the Estimates Are Correct (In Addition to About 6,000 Layoffs So Far This Year)
- There's no questions about many layoffs happening this month. It got leaked already. The only question is when (and also how many).
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- IRC Proceedings: Monday, May 12, 2025
- IRC logs for Monday, May 12, 2025
- Major Microsoft Layoffs This Week (Discussed Online)
- later we can expect a lot of spin, even misinformation
- Links 12/05/2025: Measles Rising and Taliban Outlaws Chess in Afghanistan
- Links for the day
- Gemini Links 12/05/2025: Advice, Iorist Ethics, and Touchscreens
- Links for the day
- The Finances of GAFAM Aren't as They Seem
- MICROSOFT FINANCIAL PYRAMID revisited
- Links 12/05/2025: US Brain Drain and Reminder That "Microsoft's Lobbying Efforts Eclipsed Enron" (Fraud Coverup)
- Links for the day
- The Enshittification of Royal Mail (Post Office/Postal Services) Continues
- Enshittification is a thing, not only in the digital realm
- If the Gossip is True, Today Microsoft Has "Large M1 Meetings" to Discuss Almost 30,000 More Microsoft Layoffs in 2025
- the claim is that Microsoft is preparing to lay off 10% of its staff
- Microsoft Has a Long and Proven History of Funding Meritless Lawsuits Against Rivals and Critics (It Always Backfires)
- It also looks like the solicitor used by two Microsofters to SLAPP us is being urgently replaced
- Links 12/05/2025: Gardens and Kitchens
- Links for the day
- Links 12/05/2025: Media Being Attacked (New Forms of Attack on the Press), Many Data Breaches
- Links for the day
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- IRC Proceedings: Sunday, May 11, 2025
- IRC logs for Sunday, May 11, 2025
- Links 11/05/2025: Pyotr Wrangel and Kubernetes With FreeBSD
- Links for the day
- What Happened to the Open Source Initiative (OSI) Elections: A Moment of Silence and Revisionism Amid US Government Investigation and Community Uproar
- Not a word this month
- Microsoft Florian Becomes Patent Troll, Arranges to Sue Companies (Extorting Money Out of Them)
- From campaigner against software patents to paid Microsoft shill to "FOSS patents" (actually attacking FOSS) to revisionism as "books" (for Microsoft)... and now this
- How the SLAPPs From Microsoft Staff Are Connected to the Corrupt OSI, Whose Majority of Money Comes From Microsoft for Openwashing, LLM Hype, and Whitewashing GPL Violations During Class Action Trial
- Let's explain how some of these things are connected
- Links 11/05/2025: China's Fentanylware (TikTok) Tells Kids to Vandalise Schools' Chromebooks and Increased Censorship in India
- Links for the day
- You Need Not Be a Big Company to Defeat Microsoft If You Can Successfully Challenge Its Core "Ideas"
- Maybe that's just a sign that the ideas of RMS have become too effective and thus "dangerous"
- Gemini Links 11/05/2025: Yeeting Oligarch Tech, Offline Browsing
- Links for the day
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- IRC Proceedings: Saturday, May 10, 2025
- IRC logs for Saturday, May 10, 2025