11.03.15

Vista 10 and Other Spyware Not a Choice But Imperative for People Who Stay With Windows

Posted in Microsoft, Vista 10, Windows at 7:31 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

“There won’t be anything we won’t say to people to try and convince them that our way is the way to go.” –Bill Gates

Summary: Microsoft is pushing hard against choice and pressuring OEMs to stop providing people with anything other than the world’s worst spyware, namely Vista 10, which people increasingly reject and actively try to dodge

SPEAKING with sources inside Microsoft, I recently found out that Windows will only get worse in terms of spying, not better. This may not be so surprising, but having it confirmed by people who work on the software sure helps as it reminds people to get out of Windows. The sooner, the better.

Microsoft is now announcing the end of OEM sales of Vista 7 because the only remaining choice for Windows prisoners will be spyware called Vista 10, no matter whether they can accept the EULA or not. As The Register put it today, “Microsoft’s herding users towards Windows 10, and is unafraid to crack the whip along the way.”

“Two days ago I found out that someone senior at Microsoft had contacted my employer and tried to get me fired, or something along those lines.”As we wrote earlier today, Microsoft will also force (or aggressively push) existing users of Vista 7 to ‘upgrade’. Coming from an evil company like Microsoft, nobody should be surprised. As one person put it in Soylent News (where we’ve just reached the front page), “everything we know about Windows 10 suggests they’re as evil as ever” (if not worse).

Two days ago I found out that someone senior at Microsoft had contacted my employer and tried to get me fired, or something along those lines.

Microsoft is a very evil company. Avoid it not just because of the spying, the proprietary code with back doors, the high price and so on. As Netscape’s Chairman once put it, “Microsoft is, I think, fundamentally an evil company.” █

More European Politicians Take on the EPO for Ignoring the Rule of Law

Posted in Europe, Patents at 7:05 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

Marc TarabellaSummary: The wrath of European politicians remains a problem for Benoît Battistelli and his team (Team Battistelli), which has thus far used a political fluke to claim immunity from the law and even snub court rulings

OVER A HUNDRED European politicians have already complained about the EPO’s scandals, but little has actually happened politically. Not much has been practically changed. Law enforcement cannot do much because the EPO — as odd as it may seem — enjoys immunity. The EPO’s management therefore ignores the law and ignores court orders. It’s like the Mafia.

“Marc Tarabella,” wrote SUEPO earlier today, “a Belgian member of the European Parliament has posed questions to the European Commission” and a translation into English [PDF] was provided as follows. Quoting Tarabella (shown above):

Parliamentary questions

29 June 2015

Question for written answer
to the Commission
Rule 130
Marc Tarabella (S&D)

E-010497-15

Subject: Serious problems of governance in the European Patent Office (EPO)

Attempts have been made recently to alert public opinion to the particularly harmful social climate that has prevailed for several months in the EPO (expulsion of trade unions, harassment, multiple suicides, invasion of privacy, etc.). The situation has become very worrying for the 7 000 people employed by the EPO, who are facing extreme pressure from management, which is imposing intolerable productivity targets on employees without even offering them the minimum guarantees provided for under national labour laws.

The Hague Court of Appeal, in a decision dated 17 February 2015, ruled that trade union rights had been seriously breached and urged the EPO to amend its internal rules. However, EPO President Benoît Battistelli rejected this ruling under the pretext that it would violate the EPO’s immunity.

The EPO therefore seems to be unacceptably abusing its status as an international organisation in order not to provide the basic guarantees of European democracy.

1. What is the relationship between the Commission and the EPO?

2. Knowing that the Commission sets great store by respect for fundamental rights in Europe, where does it stand in general terms on these issues?

Original language of question: FR

Last updated: 1 October 2015

Legal notice

Another (much more recent) question was also translated into several languages [PDF]. The English translation, much like the above, shows that the main concern is the EPO ignoring the rule of law:

Motion by Gesthuizen/Kerstens concerning adherence by the European Patent Organisation to international legislation – Adoption of the budgetary statements of the Ministry of Economic Affairs (XIII) and the Animal Health Fund (F) for 2016 – Main content

Lower House of the States General

Session year 2015-2016

34 300 Adoption of the budgetary statements of the Ministry of Economic Affairs
XIII (XIII) and the Animal Health Fund (F) for 2016

MOTION BY MEMBERS GESTHUIZEN AND KERSTENS

Proposed 15 October 2015

The House,
having heard the deliberations,
is of the opinion that the conduct of directors of international organisations which has no relationship to their international representation but which does result in a breach of national rules, should not be covered by diplomatic immunity;

finds that in April 2014 the government presented a Plan of Approach with measures No. for taking more severe action against persons with diplomatic immunity who have 22 breached the law of the Netherlands,

finds that those measures only address traffic fines and criminal offences and do not address breaches of employee rights as established at the European Patent Organisation by the Court;

requests the government, within the limits of the treaties, to do all that is possible to
force the European Patent Organisation to adhere to international legislation,

and proceeds to the order of the day.

Gesthuizen

Kerstens

Parliamentary paper-34300-XIII-22 ISSN 0921 –
Lower House, session year 2015-2016,

7371 The Hague 2015
34 300 XIII, no. 22

Recall the political interventions back in July and back in March or thereabouts (after Battistelli had arrogantly waived the law). The pressure on the EPO’s management is increasing; severe action is just a matter of time because these scandals simply cannot be swept under a rug.

Incidentally, watch how ‘transparency’ works at the EPO. Earlier today David Brophy wrote that “the issue of poisonous priorities (and poisonous divisionals) is the subject of a referral to the European Patent Office (EPO) Enlarged Board of Appeal which is pending under reference G 1/15. [...] According to an announcement appearing yesterday on the EPO website, but carrying a date of October 2 (is this an error, the IPKat wonders, given that the date is exactly one month prior to the website publication date?), the President has decided to stay all proceedings before examination or opposition divisions where the outcome depends entirely on the answers that the Enlarged Board may give in G 1/15.”

Revisit what we wrote earlier today about the relentless attacks on the Enlarged Board of Appeal. Outside scrutiny cannot be tolerated, as if the EPO is a country of its own, governed (without elections) by a few managers with big egos. Their reaction to anyone who dares to question their conduct is similar to that of the Saudi government. EPO managers derive their confidence from the silly immunity, whereas the Saudi regime derives it from the oil it sits on top of.

European politicians need to work together to put an end to the lawlessness of the EPO. No organisation should be exempted from laws, human rights guidelines and so on. █

“The government is not trying to destroy Microsoft, it’s simply seeking to compel Microsoft to obey the law. It’s quite revealing that Mr. Gates equates the two.”

–Government official

Links 3/11/2015: Tails 1.7, Fedora 23

Posted in News Roundup at 6:04 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

GNOME bluefish

Contents

GNU/Linux

Free Software/Open Source

Leftovers

  • The 2016 U.S. Presidential Race: A Cheat Sheet

    The Harvard Law professor and internet pioneer launched his campaign just after Labor Day, and from the start, it was clear that to call his bid quixotic was to sell Cervantes’ protagonist short. Lessig said he was running to win the Democratic nomination, but of course it was clear that his candidacy was more of a classic protest run. Having focused strongly on campaign-finance reform in recent years—including in a string of Atlantic articles—he made passing the Citizens Equality Act of 2017, which would enact universal voting registration, campaign-finance limits, and anti-gerrymandering provisions, the single issue of his candidacy.

  • Democrats Screw Over Larry Lessig To Keep Him Out Of The Debates; Forces Lessig To Drop His Campaign

    Ever since Larry Lessig announced his campaign for the Presidency a few months ago, we noted that it wasn’t just a long shot, but seemed more like a gimmick to get the (very real) issue of political corruption into the debates. I like Larry quite a bit and support many of his efforts, but this one did seem kind of crazy. I’m glad that he’s willing to take on crazy ideas to see if they’ll work, because that’s how real change eventually comes about, but the whole thing did seem a bit quixotic. That said, the last thing I expected was that the Democratic Party would be so scared of him as to flat out lie and change the rules to keep his ideas from reaching the public. Yet, that’s what it did, and because of that, Lessig has dropped his campaign for the Presidency.

  • Our Campaign Finance Frankenstein

    How the Supreme Court built a monster out of America’s campaign finance law.

  • Farewell to BorisWatch

    At the time social media offered a way for new political voices to be heard, and BorisWatch was one of those new voices: informed, focused, critical, often witty, and always happy to engage.

  • Science

    • Who is George Boole and why is he important? Today’s Google Doodle explained

      George Boole was a British mathematician whose work on logic laid many of the foundations for the digital revolution. The Lincolnshire-born academic is widely heralded as one of the most influential mathematicians of the 19th century, devising a system of logic that aimed to condense complex thoughts into simple equations. His development of ‘Boolean logic’ paved the way for the computer age.

  • Security

    • The Rise of Political Doxing

      Last week, CIA director John O. Brennan became the latest victim of what’s become a popular way to embarrass and harass people on the Internet. A hacker allegedly broke into his AOL account and published e-mails and documents found inside, many of them personal and sensitive.

      It’s called doxing­ — sometimes doxxing­ — from the word “documents.” It emerged in the 1990s as a hacker revenge tactic, and has since been as a tool to harass and intimidate people on the Internet. Someone would threaten a woman with physical harm, or try to incite others to harm her, and publish her personal information as a way of saying “I know a lot about you­ — like where you live and work.” Victims of doxing talk about the fear that this tactic instills. It’s very effective, by which I mean that it’s horrible.

    • TalkTalk hack: Third suspect bailed as extent of the hack is outlined

      A THIRD SUSPECT in the TalkTalk hack has been released on police bail, as the telco provides more information about the scale of the attack, claiming that it was smaller than first thought.

      A 27-year-old man was arrested and released in Staffordshire under the Computer Misuse Act, as officers from several forces continue to close the net on the cyber criminals responsible.

    • Online Vigilantes: Hacking Sony for a Cause?

      And yeah, Heartbleed and Shellshock turned out to be much less of a threat than the tech world predicted. However, in various forums and other places where tech folks choose to hang out, Windows folks had a field day with all variants of “told-ya-so.” I pictured server admins running in circles with their hands flailing in the air, shouting that Armageddon was indeed here.

      [...]

      Fortunately, that rootkit was discovered fairly soon by Mark Russinovich, co-founder of Winternals. After the disclosure, Microsoft didn’t waste any time moving toward the acquisition of Russinovich’s company, although for complete disclosure, Russinovich had been offered a job by Microsoft years before. It is suggested in some circles that Microsoft purchased the company so quickly in order to quell the entire Microsoft/Sony duplicity rumors, as some believe that Microsoft would have to know about the rootkit, given how deeply it burrowed into Redmond’s proprietary code.

  • Defence/Police/Secrecy/Aggression

    • “Terming these as ‘isolated incidents’ will only embolden the terrorists”

      One after another, our citizens are being killed, but we are yet to see a proactive approach from the government. Maybe they don’t realise that the blogger killings are damaging the country’s stability. What the government must understand is that by killing the bloggers and publishers, the extremists are actually killing freedom of speech and freedom of expression. The question is: why is the government unable to look at this in a broader perspective? They should be looking at it in a much more strategic way.

      Terming these as“isolated incidents” is one way of depoliticising them. Such statements will only embolden the terrorists to carry out more attacks. This government was involved in the Liberation War, so they must know how guerrilla tactics work. Terrorist attacks are always isolated incidents. The main point is whether or not the government is willing to take anti-terrorist strategies.

    • Bangladesh: Please Stop It

      The horrific cycle of killing of secular bloggers in Bangladesh, which has already claimed at least four lives this year, and the fresh murder of publisher Faisal Arefin Dipon, in Dhaka, the Bangladeshi capital, on October 31, is deeply disconcerting. The Ansar al-Islam, an Islamic extremist group, which identifies as the local affiliate of al-Qaeda, has claimed responsibility for the attack.

    • 2 Men Who Published Writings Critical of Extremism Are Stabbed in Bangladesh

      Two businessmen who had published the works of Avijit Roy, a Bangladeshi-American known for his critical writings on religious extremism, were stabbed on Saturday by groups of men in the Bangladeshi capital, Dhaka, the police said. The attack came eight months after Mr. Roy was himself stabbed to death with machetes.

      One of the publishers, Faisal Arefin Dipan, died of his wounds immediately, the police said. The other, Ahmed Rahim Tutul, was in critical condition late Saturday.

  • Environment/Energy/Wildlife

    • South-East Asia is choking on Indonesia’s forest fires

      THE annual haze that blankets swathes of South-East Asia usually begins to recede in October. This year however the smoggy conditions—caused by fires set to clear farmland in rural Indonesia—only got worse. On October 26th Joko Widodo, Indonesia’s president, cut short a state visit to America to handle the crisis, which has become one of the worst in memory. With the onset of this year’s rainy season delayed by the “El Niño” weather cycle, it could be a month or more before all flames are doused.

    • NPR Executive Editor: “NPR Should Have Reported On” What Exxon Knew About Climate Change

      NPR executive editor Edith Chapin and ombudsman Elizabeth Jensen agree it is “unfortunate” that NPR has thus far failed to cover groundbreaking reports documenting that ExxonMobil funded efforts to sow doubt about climate science for decades after confirming that burning fossil fuels causes climate change.

    • 10 Of The Worst Moments From Morning Joe’s Fawning Koch Brothers Interview

      Morning Joe’s interview “exclusive, first-ever joint interview” with industrialists Charles and David Koch was full of softball questions and worshipful praise. They also gave the Koch brothers a pass for claiming they oversee one of “the safest and environmentally protective” companies. The fawning interview follows months of pro-Koch coverage by the MSNBC hosts.

  • Finance

    • People in Sweden are hiding cash in their microwaves because of a fascinating — and terrifying — economic experiment

      Sweden is shaping up to be the first country to plunge its citizens into a fascinating — and terrifying — economic experiment: negative interest rates in a cashless society.

      The Swedish central bank held its benchmark interest rate at -0.35% today, the level it has been at since July.

      Although retail banks have yet to pass on that negative to rate to Swedish consumers, the longer it’s held there the more financial pressure there is for banks to pass the costs onto their customers. That’s a problem because Sweden is the closest country on the planet to becoming an all-electronic cashless society.

  • Privacy

    • So Google Records All The Microphone Audio All The Time, After All?

      It seems Google does record audio from microphones all the time, despite attempts to play down the situation. The “hotword” searching – when you initiate a search by saying “Ok Google” – has been criticized before, when it was downloaded to open-source browsers running Chromium. However, major privacy concerns remain as Google doesn’t start recording when you say “Ok Google”; it was recording before you said the hotword.

    • Letter from Facebook’s Alex Schultz

      We require people to use the name on Facebook that their friends and family know them by, and we’ll continue to do so.

    • UK government (apparently) backs down on Snooper’s Charter: Gracious or mendacious?

      Proposals in the UK’s imminent Snooper’s Charter, which would allow police and security forces access to everyone’s Web browsing history, have been dropped, according to The Guardian. In a statement, “senior sources” in the UK government apparently said that “rather than increasing intrusive surveillance, the [Investigatory Powers] bill would bar police and security services from accessing people’s browsing histories,” and that “any access to internet connection records will be strictly limited and targeted.” The Guardian also claims that other controversial options for the Investigatory Powers Bill, due to be published on Wednesday, have been shelved.

      These include the suggestion that companies would be restricted or perhaps banned from using encryption, and the requirement that UK telecoms would have to capture and store Internet traffic originating from US companies in order to allow UK intelligence agencies to access them even if the companies refused to hand over the data.

      However, as many experts have pointed out, neither idea was feasible: online business would become impossible without encryption, and end-to-end encryption means that storing traffic from US-based companies would be largely useless anyway.

      These facts raise the possibility that the UK government’s latest “climbdown” is actually nothing of the sort; rather, it would appear that the UK government has been feeding journalists exaggerated stories of what might be the Snooper’s Charter, so that it could then appear to back down graciously in the face of the inevitable outrage those ideas generated.

    • Internet firms to be banned from offering unbreakable encryption under new laws

      Companies such as Apple, Google and others will no longer be able to offer encryption so advanced that even they cannot decipher it when asked to under the Investigatory Powers Bill

    • Collect it all

      The bulk collection of communications data without targeted suspicion is mass surveillance. The bulk collection of global communications data should end. Surveillance should be targeted, necessary and proportionate.

    • EU Parliament Clears a Path to Give Snowden Asylum

  • Civil Rights

    • A Billionaire Sued Us. We Won. But We Still Have Big Legal Bills to Pay.

      It was a huge victory. We were up against a powerful billionaire and we won. But it came at a great cost: at least $2.5 million for us and our insurer, and $650,000 in out-of-pocket expenses for Mother Jones, to be precise. Everyone’s been asking whether we can recoup our attorney’s fees from VanderSloot, but unfortunately the answer is no.

      The win means a lot to me, personally, too. As someone who writes about rich and powerful people, it’s good to know that the First Amendment is alive and well. And it makes me beyond proud to write for Mother Jones: Not too many other shops would have had the guts to fight back, but we knew you’d expect us to, and that you’d have our back if we took a stand.

    • Qwasie Reid: US paramedic suspended without pay for helping child who was choking

      A US paramedic has reportedly been suspended without pay for making an “unauthorised” stop to try to save the life of a choking little girl.

      Qwasie Reid, an EMT (Emergency Medical Technician) in New York City, was transporting a nursing home patient to a doctor’s appointment in an ambulance last week when he was flagged down by a “frantic man” near a Brooklyn school who said a student was choking.

    • The Judicial System May Be Bad, But The Privatized Judicial System Of Arbitration Is Worse

      Back in 2011, we wrote about a troubling ruling in the Supreme Court in AT&T Mobility v. Concepcion, the case which basically said that it’s perfectly fine for businesses to put in place “binding arbitration” clauses, that take away people’s rights to take a company to court over some sort of wrongdoing. As I noted at the time, ever since taking a series of classes on arbitration in college, I’ve been fascinated with the process, which sounds like a good idea. But it’s yet another case where theory and reality don’t necessarily match up.

    • Black Lives Matter? Not in an NYT Graphic

      Quick–who’s missing from this New York Times chart (11/2/15)?

      The point of the chart, based on one in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, is that US non-Hispanic whites aged 45-54 have a rising mortality rate, unlike the similarly aged groups included for comparison purposes: Hispanics in the US, and people in France, Germany, Britain, Canada, Australia and Sweden.

      The most obvious omission is African-Americans, who make up about 12 percent of the US population. They are left out of the chart not because they don’t support the point—they, too, have a falling death rate in the 45-54 demographic, unlike US whites—but presumably because they would require a larger graph, since the black mortality rate is still well above whites in this age group: 582 vs. 415 per 100,000.

    • How the F.B.I. Can Detain, Render and Threaten Without Risk

      AT exactly 5 p.m. on March 13, 2007, just as I was preparing to leave my cubicle in Washington for the day, I got a phone call from the journalist Jonathan Landay of McClatchy Newspapers. To this day, I remember his exact words.

      “One of your congressman’s constituents is being held in an Ethiopian intelligence service prison, and I think your former employer is neck-deep in this.”

      The congressman was Rush Holt, then a Democratic representative from New Jersey, for whom I worked for 10 years starting in 2004. The constituent was Amir Mohamed Meshal of Tinton Falls, N.J., who alleges that he was illegally taken to Ethiopia, where he was threatened with torture by American officials. My “former employer” was the Central Intelligence Agency, but it soon became apparent that the agency “neck-deep in this” was the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

  • Internet/Net Neutrality

    • Facebook’s Free Basics isn’t good for India and Zuckerberg still doesn’t understand why

      Facebook has been trying to get India to fall in love with its Free Basics service for several months since it launched in February. CEO Mark Zuckerberg even visited the capital of New Delhi last week and attempted to address concerns about it during a Townhall Q&A session.

      But he still doesn’t get why Indians are opposed to the social network’s zero-rating service.

      More than 330,000 people signed a petition to oppose zero-rating and uphold net neutrality principles in the country and numerous Web and media companies dropped off Facebook’s offering in support of the initiative.

      Zuckerberg still thinks that Free Basics will serve India well, and believes that campaigns against it don’t factor in the benefits it brings to those who are still offline.

    • Is Pentagon deciding the Norwegian negotiating position on Internet governance?

      In Norway, all government offices are required by law to keep a list of every document or letter arriving and leaving their offices. Internal notes should also be documented. The document list (called a mail journal – “postjournal” in Norwegian) is public information and thanks to the Norwegian Freedom of Information Act (Offentleglova) the mail journal is available for everyone. Most offices even publish the mail journal on their web pages, as PDFs or tables in web pages. The state-level offices even have a shared web based search service (called Offentlig Elektronisk Postjournal – OEP) to make it possible to search the entries in the list. Not all journal entries show up on OEP, and the search service is hard to use, but OEP does make it easier to find at least some interesting journal entries .

  • Intellectual Monopolies

    • WTO Decision on Least Developed Country (LDC) Drug Patent Waiver

      The World Trade Organization is poised to announce this Friday its approval of a limited 17-year extension of a 2001 waiver of obligations in the TRIPS Agreement, set to expire at the end of this year, the terms of which exempt Least Developed Countries (LDCs) from requirements to grant patents or related intellectual property rights on pharmaceutical products.

      The decision to grant the 17-year waiver represents a compromise between the United States, which had asked for a ten-year waiver, and Least Developed Countries, which wanted an indefinite extension of the waiver that would have lasted for as long as a country remained least developed per UN classification. An indefinite waiver would have been a clear victory for LDCs, as it would have recognized their needs above the United States’ continuing promotion of more restrictive intellectual property rules.

    • Copyrights

      • The Latest Twist in the Megaupload Case Hinges on a German Translation

        Lawyers for Megaupload founder Kim Dotcom accused the United States of misrepresenting evidence and of trying to “contort the law” in a bid to persecute their client.

        This is do-or-die time for Dotcom and three other former Megaupload execs at the now defunct Megaupload. On Monday, their attorneys began arguments at an extradition hearing in Auckland on why the New Zealand government should not hand them over to the United States on criminal copyright violations.

        The US Department of Justice claimed in a 2012 indictment that Megaupload’s leadership generated $175 million by helping users pirate movies, and wants them brought to the US to stand trial.

        The hearing began with at least one serious allegation made by Dotcom’s lawyer, Ron Mansfield. The way Mansfield tells it, either DOJ attorneys speak very poor German or they intentionally misrepresented the meaning of Dotcom’s internal communications to blacken his image before the public and the court.

        Throughout the six-week hearing, New Zealand prosecutors, arguing on behalf of the United States, have told presiding Judge Nevin Dawson that Dotcom referred to himself and several other former Megaupload managers as “evil.”

      • Kim Dotcom Finally Launches Extradition Defense

        After proceedings began in September, Kim Dotcom began his extradition hearing defense in New Zealand today. His legal team argued that U.S. prosecutors cherry-picked evidence, intentionally mis-translated discussions to make the entrepreneur look bad, and created criminal liability for service providers where none exists.

      • RIAA Wants $17 Million Damages From ‘New’ Grooveshark

        The RIAA is asking a New York federal court to issue a default judgment against the ‘reincarnation’ of the defunct Grooveshark music service. The record labels are demanding more than $13 million in piracy damages plus another $4 million for willful counterfeiting.

      • US gov’t grants limited right to revive games behind “abandoned” servers [Updated]

        After nearly a year of debate and deliberation, the Library of Congress (LoC) has granted gamers and preservationists a limited legal method to restore access to games that are rendered unplayable thanks to defunct, abandoned authentication servers.

        In new guidelines published today, the Librarian of Congress said that gamers deserve the right to continued access to “local play” on games that they paid for, even if the centralized authentication servers required for that play have been taken down. So if Blizzard, for instance, decides to take down the authentication servers required to verify a new copy of StarCraft II online, players will now be legally allowed to craft a workaround that allows the game to work on their PCs.

EFF Asks CAFC to Tackle the Trolls’ Docket, the Eastern District of Texas

Posted in America, Patents at 2:29 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

Summary: The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) asks the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) to do something about the capital of patent trolls, which have become symptomatic of the problems with the US patent system

THE USPTO has become notorious for many reasons, one of which is its role in producing a plethora of patent trolls, equipped with software patents. Texas too has become notorious for many reasons (education quality, police brutality, gun crime etc.) but one that is relevant to us pertains to patent trolls as well. The Eastern District of Texas is unique in this regard because it’s now known as the capital of patent trolls and very little apart from that. There is already an international reputation for this.

According to this recent article, the EFF asks for a shutdown of this trolls’ docket because almost nothing but patent trolls comes from/to there anyway. To quote one of the earliest articles on this subject:

The Electronic Frontier Foundation and Public Knowledge have asked a federal appeals court to make big changes to the rules governing venue in patent cases. The two public interest groups are seeking to file an amicus brief (PDF) which attacks the Eastern District of Texas as being one of the “most notorious situations of forum shopping in recent history.”

The opportunity came up in a case where an Indiana company called TC Heartland was sued by Kraft Foods for infringing three Kraft patents on “liquid water enhancers.” Kraft sued TC Heartland in Delaware; TC Heartland asked the judge for a transfer to Indiana, but was shot down.

TC Heartland has appealed the venue decision to the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, which handles all patent appeals. It’s asking the court to overturn entirely a 1990 case that has made it easy for patent holders to sue in just about any district they choose.

The US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit is itself part of the problem. Asking it to remark on or reform the Eastern District of Texas is perhaps wishful thinking.

Mike from TechDirt remarked as follows: “It’s been nearly ten years since we first wrote about the East Texas district court, based in Marshall, Texas, (and Tyler, Texas) and the fact that patent trolls have been flooding that court with cases. The trolls claimed they liked East Texas because the judges worked quickly and because they “understood” patent issues. The reality, of course, is that East Texas became notorious for a few judges who were insanely pro-patent troll, and ran their cases in a manner that helped out trolls immensely. It’s become a cottage industry, leading to some weird situations, such as the time that Tivo (involved in a patent lawsuit at the time) literally bought a bull right in Marshall, Texas. Perhaps no company has “invested” more in winning over folks in Marshall than Samsung, which not only sponsored the local ice rink, but also gives scholarships to high schoolers there, donates to local schools and takes kids on semiconductor factory tours — all out of the kindness of its corporate heart, no doubt.”

Whether the EFF succeeds here or not, it sure helps raise awareness of a problem that cannot and will not be ignored. Here in Europe, where the EPO already perturbs patent laws, patent trolls gradually nest and even attack. █

The Benoît Battistelli Way or the Highway: EPO Enlarged Board of Appeal is Being Discredited, SUEPO Web Site is Down Again

Posted in Europe, Patents at 2:09 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

SUEPO site down

Summary: How the EBoA (Enlarged Board of Appeal) comes under attack from the EPO’s management, which does not tolerate challenge, as does the Web site of the staff union, which has been a target of censorship by EPO and is now down again (not for the first time in recent weeks)

ONE of the many themes in the EPO crisis has been an unrelenting assault on the boards of appeal, including the enlarged one, EBoA. We have covered many articles to that effect and shared some information exclusively. We also wrote about DDOS attacks on SUEPO's Web site (source unknown, but the likely suspect is known) and confirmed censorship by EPO of E-mails from SUEPO and some links posted in SUEPO's Web site (apparently takedown demands using threats). The assault on opposing opinions, not just on dissent (or even something which remotely resembles rebellion), is a terrible, unprecedented pattern that arguably goes further than Stasi-like surveillance on staff (a war on the minds, inducing self-censorship). Nothing is out of the question these days when it comes to preventing negative publicity. Today’s higher management at the EPO, collectively, has the moral level of Stalin’s regime. At this current pace of escalation, we’re not too far from mercenaries and snipers. The EPO’s management is already liaising with military-connected people and guarding Battistelli like he is some kind of a colonel visiting the Middle East. A bunch of people whispering within the European organisation (talking truth to each other) is treated like an act of treason or even a declaration of war by Battistelli et al. No wonder staff complaints are soaring.

“Nothing is out of the question these days when it comes to preventing negative publicity.”“JUVE reports on the results of the user survey concerning the planned reform of the Boards of Appeals,” SUEPO wrote, but its Web site is down at the moment (it has had various different problems over the past month). SUEPO quotes from the article as follows: “45 patent attorneys took part in the survey, 13 in-house attorneys, and 22 international associations and user organizations, among them BusinessEurope, EPI or Union-IP. They were keen on the idea of greater independence for the Boards of Appeal, but criticised the planned regulations for the appointment and reappointment of the Board members included in the reform proposal [...] In the evaluation of the user survey, the EPO speaks only of divided opinions on the issue ofvlocation. The members of the Boards of Appeal, by contrast, have always regarded the proposals for a change of venue as being a kind of punishment for their uncomfortable stance in the discussion.”

It is actually an article from two weeks ago and there is this [PDF] English translation of it, which we are only able to retrieve from Google Cache at the moment (because SUEPO’s site is down again).

EPO: Users criticise Reform of Boards of Appeal

The people who use the European Patent Office (EPO) are keen on the idea of the independence of the Boards of Appeal being strengthened, but details of the planned reform are coming in for criticism, according to the results of a user survey published last week. The Boards of Appeal are the Office’s own court of instance, and plans are to reform it. Reform proposals by EPO President Benoît Battistelli are also coming under scrutiny.

45 patent attorneys took part in the survey, 13 in-house attorneys, and 22 international associations and user organizations, among them BusinessEurope, Epi or Union-IP. They were keen on the idea of greater independence for the Boards of Appeal, but criticised the planned regulations for the appointment and reappointment of the Board members included in the reform proposal. Specifically what criticism had been expressed was left unanswered by the EPO in its published evaluation, but it is fairly certain that those asked took particular exception to the planned involvement of the President. As well as this, participants also raised the issue that a higher proportion of members being recruited from outside, in comparison with former EPO examiners and jurists, could change the perception of the independence of the Boards of Appeal.

The planned new arrangement of a Board of Appeal Committee was welcomed by users. They pointed out, however, that this should not be allowed to undermine the independence of the Boards, while at the same time they pressed for participation in this committee.

The users also criticised the fact that the measures for strengthening independence are to be tempered by methods for increasing efficiency in one common package of reforms. From the user survey of the current patent system, the EPO drew the conclusion in particular that the “precise implementation” of the general guidelines described in the proposal for the reform of the Boards of Appeal is going to be the decisive factor.

The EPO is not revealing what conclusions it has drawn from the criticism, but in principle it is assumed that the results will be integrated into the planned reform.

Decades of conflict

The debate about more independence for the Boards of Appeal has been rumbling on for decades. This has involved above all representatives of the Boards of Appeal themselves, but patent attorneys and commercial concerns have also been demanding a clearer division between Office management and the EPO court. The conflict was escalated in December 2014, when Battistelli barred a member of the Boards from entering the building. The issues surrounding the judge have still not been settled, but in the wake of the incident the debate about the lack of independence has gained considerable momentum. In March Battistelli put forward his own proposals for reform, which provide for the creation of the Board of Appeal Committee as an independent supervisory body for the Boards but which is still subject to the influence of the Office management.

Battistelli’s plan provided for the implementation of the reform by the end of the year. The original timetable was blown off course in the summer, however, in the course of the user survey. Whether the Management Committee of the Office or its sub-committees will still be concerning themselves with the reform at the meetings still scheduled for this year is not yet known.

Vienna as possible location

In the debate, a spatial separation between the management and the patent departments on the one hand and the court branch of the organization on the other has come to play an important part. As well as a solution in Munich, Berlin had long been seen as an option. The German capital appears not to have a role to play in the considerations any longer, however. It has become known from sources close to the EPO that the management are also considering moving the Boards of Appeal to Vienna, where the Office maintains a small outpost. The EPO has not confirmed this.

In the evaluation of the user survey, the EPO speaks only of divided opinions on the issue of location. The members of the Boards of Appeal, by contrast, have always regarded the proposals for a change of venue as being a kind of punishment for their uncomfortable stance in the discussion. If the court were to move, they would have to shift the entire focus of their lives. By contrast with Berlin, EPO members who refused to go to Vienna would run the risk of dismissal under the statutes of the Office.

Critics have according accused Office Boss Battistelli of plotting this manoeuvre in order to replace the present team of judges and further eroding the capacities of the Boards of Appeal, inasmuch as he is not allowing vacant positions to be filled. In formal terms, the Administrative Council is responsible for appointing judges to free positions, but the President has a right of proposal. According to JUVE information, at present the chair positions of three technical Boards of Appeal and 20 further positions are vacant. In response to an enquiry by JUVE, the EPO was unwilling to indicate how many positions are still unoccupied, but referred to proposals by the President for reappointments in June. He is said to have made these, although the technical appeals being received are said to be declining.

A reduction in the number of judges, or an extensive change in the judge personnel, would nevertheless incur negative consequences for the quality of the jurisprudence and legal process, or so some experts fear. This has come at an extremely awkward moment. According to Battistelli’s plans, the structure reform of the Boards of Appeal should go into effect as from next year. A move to Vienna would take place at the earliest in the course of the coming year. In January 2017, in parallel with this, the Unitary Patent and the new European patent court (Unified Patent Court, UPC) are scheduled to start. This means that the two most important European patent courts would be going through a phase of massive change of personnel both at the same time. (Christina Geimer, Mathieu Klos)

The article above is interesting because it helps shed light on how big a scandal the treatment of the boards has been in its own right (putting other scandals aside). It is gratifying to see the EPO scandals hitting the German newspapers again. This can help apply further pressure for change of management, or something even more radical (albeit long overdue) than that.

Over the past year we occasionally covered many attacks on the boards and even several attempts to send them to exile, so to speak, thus forcing many of their members (unable to undergo job relocation) to exit and make way to people whom the EPO can choose (or perhaps prevent from entering).

There is a new article in IP Kat about the boards and the efforts to discredit the EBoA in particular. To quote Darren Smyth’s article: “From the reasons for the decision, it is clear that the petitioner had, during the underlying proceedings in T 1938/09, written to the Chairman of the Enlarged Board to ask whether Ulrich Oswald had ever deputised for him in his capacity as Vice President of DG3 of the EPO; if so, it was considered that the reasoning of R19/12 would apply equally to any deputy, so that Ulrich Oswald should be recused in the T 1938/09 appeal case. The Chairman of the Enlarged Board had not provided an answer to that question.

“The Enlarged Board considered that the circumstances justified the withdrawal of the original Chairman, so that it was ordered that the petition for review should proceed with the Enlarged Board in its amended composition with Rainer Moufang as Chairman. The outcome of that review is awaited.”

“In one aspect, this decision is just one procedural step in a much longer dispute. In another aspect, it is a welcome confirmation by the Enlarged Board that the independence of members of the Boards and Enlarged Board of Appeal must be seen to be beyond doubt in any case.”

The more interesting part, however, concerns Wim van der Eijk.

“The petition for review does not appear to be on the public file,” Smyth wrote, “presumably because of its content, and the decision itself is rather brief. However, it appears that the petitioner made an objection of suspicion of partiality against [...] presumably [...] Wim van der Eijk,” whom we mentioned here several weeks ago (MIA) and got “replaced by Rainer Moufang for considering the issue of suspicion of partiality.”

“The mystery behind Wim van der Eijk lingers on and we would appreciate input from anyone who knows what’s really going on.”To better understand the context of all this, consider this a possible attempt to discredit the board (surely projection by the EPO’s management). To quote the introduction to this: “This Kat has just learned of two cases, one not so new and one rather more recent, in each of which the Enlarged Board of Appeal of the European Patent Office (EPO) has been upholding the rights of parties before the EPO (in both instances, patent proprietors). Both cases are “R” decisions under Article 112a EPC 2000, whereby a party can request the Enlarged Board to review a decision of a Board of Appeal for an alleged fundamental procedural violation. Most such cases are hopeless attempts to overturn an unwelcome Board of Appeal decision, and are unsuccessful.”

The mystery behind Wim van der Eijk lingers on and we would appreciate input from anyone who knows what’s really going on. Additionally, it would be useful to know why SUEPO’s Web site has had many technical issues recently (glitches, slowdowns, and downtimes). It was never this bad… █

EPO “Careering Towards the Precipice of Disaster”

Posted in Europe, Patents at 8:27 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

Irish cliffs

Summary: Pressure from external entities, the latest being the International Labour Organization (ILO), is putting the EPO’s management under incredible pressure

THIS afternoon or in the early evening we are going to write a great deal about the EPO crisis (we have been out of Town for a couple of days, hence little coverage). There is a lot more to be said about the EPO, which is rapidly accelerating towards a steep cliff. In the mean time, however, head over to Merpel’s blog as she has just written about ILO (Techrights wrote about this on Friday), to which SUEPO replied by saying it “had previously submitted its views on the situation in the answer to the ILO-questionnaire.”

“Merpel is saddened by the sight of the European Patent Office, once regarded as a jewel in the crown of European and indeed global intellectual property excellence, careering towards the precipice of disaster, its leadership obstinately failing to heed every warning sign and its Administrative Council apparently incapable of exercising decisive control.”
      –MerpelTo quote Merpel: “The successful functioning of the Administrative Tribunal (AT) of the Geneva-based International Labour Organization (ILO), like many dispute resolution bodies with finite resources, is inversely proportionate to the extent to which it is used. Thus with only a small trickle of cases at any given time, the AT can at least give them its best attentions and, even though the organisation is not known for its speed, it can be expected to deal with them within the lifetime of its complainants. However, when faced with an unprecedented volume of complaints, it can do nothing.”

Here is the key part which is an expression of opinion (EPO does not like opinions or opinionated people): “Merpel is saddened by the sight of the European Patent Office, once regarded as a jewel in the crown of European and indeed global intellectual property excellence, careering towards the precipice of disaster, its leadership obstinately failing to heed every warning sign and its Administrative Council apparently incapable of exercising decisive control. It would be wonderful to say “this cannot last”. The tragedy is that it can.”

We don’t believe this tragedy can last. They are in a vortex of their own making and the longer it spins, the worse it will get. It has already become quite epic because every escalation in ‘damage control’ leads to new crises, such as the EPO surveillancegate and EPO censorshipgate. There is another “gate” in the making right now. █

Vista 10 Looking Worse and Behaving Worse Over Time; People Reject It, So Microsoft Will Force People to Get It

Posted in Microsoft, Vista 10 at 8:06 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

“If you can’t make it good, at least make it look good.”

–Bill Gates, Microsoft

Summary: Microsoft’s latest incarnation of Windows is rejected by a large number of people (growth reportedly stalls), so the company is going to force people to use it regardless of their preferences, and also spy on the users regardless of their preferences

Imposed ‘Upgrades’

VISTA 10 (no typo here) is an aggressive operating system. Its aggression is not an accident. It was designed to impose itself on people and ‘steal’ their data. Vista 10′s force-feeding was not an accident, either. Microsoft lied. Shortly after the company claimed that people having Vista 10 imposed on them was an accident the company admits that it will inevitably happen to everyone, very much by design. There are many articles about it these days [1, 2]. One article’s headline says that “Next year’s Windows 10 auto-upgrade is MSFT’s worst idea since Vista”. To quote: “But deciding to make the upgrade part of the patching cycle is a grave mistake. True, it’s only going to be an optional upgrade at the moment, but by early next year the pressure is going to be raised, and anyone who automatically installs recommended security patches will find themselves with a new operating system waiting to start.

“As of next year, Windows 10 will be so “popular” (“people everywhere love Windows 10″ as a liar might put it) that Microsoft has to impose it on everyone.”“And just about everyone installs recommended updates automatically because Microsoft insists on it.

“This isn’t going to be an issue for companies – IT managers know the score and they will install Windows 10 when they are good and ready (if at all) – and tech-savvy consumers will also be prepared.”

As of next year, Windows 10 will be so “popular” (“people everywhere love Windows 10″ as a liar might put it) that Microsoft has to impose it on everyone. It is reported right now that “Windows 10 growth stalls during October”, so no wonder Microsoft resorts to these unethical, desperate tactics. Can this yield class action lawsuits? Have Microsoft’s lawyers already crafted a EULA Orwellian enough? “Don’t want Windows 10?” asked one headline, “Check your settings! Microsoft to begin automatically upgrading user’s machines” (‘upgrading’ in scare quotes would be more apt, unless the author is wrongly assuming that giving Microsoft so much data is a step up).

Back Doors and Surveillance

“Microsoft Admits Windows 10 Automatic Spying Cannot Be Stopped,” says a new article from Forbes, stating:

Last week changes to the Windows 10 upgrade path mean it is going to become increasingly difficult for any non-techy users to avoid being pushed to Microsoft new operating system. But given Windows 10 is better than Windows 7 and Windows 8, why would that be a problem? Because of policies like this…

Speaking to PC World, Microsoft Corporate Vice President Joe Belfiore explained that Windows 10 is constantly tracking how it operates and how you are using it and sending that information back to Microsoft by default. More importantly he also confirmed that, despite offering some options to turn elements of tracking off, core data collection simply cannot be stopped:

“In the cases where we’ve not provided options, we feel that those things have to do with the health of the system,” he said. “In the case of knowing that our system that we’ve created is crashing, or is having serious performance problems, we view that as so helpful to the ecosystem and so not an issue of personal privacy, that today we collect that data so that we make that experience better for everyone.”

This backs up detailed data that some had chosen to dismiss as conspiracy theories.

Security is getting worse, enabling easier access by the NSA. To quote a new report from The Register: “Two chaps claim to have discovered how to trivially circumvent Microsoft’s Enhanced Mitigation Experience Toolkit (EMET) using Redmond’s own compatibility tools.

“A report [PDF] by the duo at Duo Security describes how the Windows on Windows (WoW64) environment can be abused to bypass builtin security tools.”

Security was never a goal when it comes to Windows. That’s why Microsoft grabbing data and gaining total control of people’s PCs (then silently taking their data) isn’t considered (by Microsoft) to be all that overzealous an approach. Interestingly enough, based on this article, Microsoft wants to start charging more people to merely share their files with the NSA et al via PRISM. “Just over a year,” explained a report, “after it started offering unlimited OneDrive cloud storage for Office 365 subscribers, Microsoft is going back on the deal. Complaining that too many users were taking advantage of the unlimited space to store entire movie collections, hours of recorded video, and entire PC backups, Microsoft has introduced a new limit of 1 TB on OneDrive storage. At the same time, the company has reducing its free OneDrive storage from 15 GB to 5 GB, and removed its 100 GB and 200 GB plans, to be replaced by a new 50 GB plan for $1.99 a month.”

So people are going to pay even more to be spied on (i.e. become the product)? Microsoft sure is desperate for a new cash cow, be it the spies or the people who pay for the privilege to be spied on.

“Windows 10 Years Ago”

To make matters worse, privacy violations and imposition thereof aside, Google’s head of design says that it’s not “Windows 10″ but “More like Windows 10 years ago”. According to this article, “his criticisms of Windows 10 were not directed at how it looks, but rather how it works.”

To quote: “It’s quite the criticism coming from the father of Google’s Material Design philosophy. Duarte is credited with revamping the look and feel of the company’s Android operating system. Duarte wants users of technology to think of software in physical terms. And no, not the ugly, tacky way skeuomorphism invaded early smartphone design with faux-leather and illusions of depth, but the way software would exist if materialized in the world like paper.”

If the yardstick for comparison here is Vista 8 rather than GNU/Linux distributions, then surely one’s analysis of Vista 10 wrongly assumes that Windows is inevitable and no potent alternative exists. Fedora 23 will come out today; therein lies a real alternative. █

Links 3/11/2015: Linux 4.3, OpenELEC 6.0

Posted in News Roundup at 4:55 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

GNOME bluefish

Contents

GNU/Linux

Free Software/Open Source

Leftovers

  • Varoufakis: Why Corbyn Is Like Thatcher

    Former Greek finance minister Yanis Varoufakis has said new Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn is a “conviction politician” like Margaret Thatcher was.

    He said anti-austerity and anti-war MP Mr Corbyn is someone viewed as extreme but who could shift the political scenery like the former Conservative prime minister.

    Speaking to Sky News, Mr Varoufakis admitted he was “one of those strange left-wingers who missed” the late Tory leader.

  • Security

  • Environment/Energy/Wildlife

    • Climate change could have a significant impact on our economy

      Climate change may have many economic impacts, including loss of crops, changes in water supply, increased incidence of natural disaster, and spikes in health care costs related to infectious diseases and temperature-related illnesses. However, hard evidence about the effects of climate change on economic activity has been inconsistent.

      A new paper published in Nature takes on the ambitious task of connecting micro- and macro-level estimates of climate costs. The study finds that climate change can be expected to reshape the global economy by reducing average global incomes roughly 23 percent by the year 2100. This study is important because it solves a problem that has existed in prior models of climate change effects on economics: discrepancies between macro- and micro-level observations. This study presents the first evidence that economic activity in all regions is coupled in some way to global climate. The study also sets up a new empirical paradigm for modeling economic loss in response to climate change.

    • Down From the Mountain

      Climate change deniers should come to Ghana

    • Ignoring Planetary Reality in the Name of Global Commerce

      Freed from the physical reality that places the United States in the temperate zone of a tilted planet, Schrager is free to reorganize regional schedules in the name of “economic efficiency” without regard to what this would actually do to people’s lives. She wisely declines to describe the results of her scheme, maybe realizing that the idea of putting the West Coast permanently on what is now Central Standard Time would have limited appeal had she spelled out that in mid-December, the Sun would set at 2:43 pm in Los Angeles, 2:27 pm in Portland and 2:18 pm in Seattle.

    • Fred Thompson’s Legacy Includes Giving the Kochs a Free Pass

      Reverse mortgage pitchman and former Senator Fred Thompson (R-TN) passed away on November 1, 2015, at the age of 73, but his legacy of giving the Koch Brothers a pass on one of their first major forays into funneling money into mysterious groups to try to win elections continues unabated.

  • Finance

  • Privacy

    • Internet firms to be banned from offering unbreakable encryption under new laws

      Internet and social media companies will be banned from putting customer communications beyond their own reach under new laws to be unveiled on Wednesday.

      Companies such as Apple, Google and others will no longer be able to offer encryption so advanced that even they cannot decipher it when asked to, the Daily Telegraph can disclose.

      Measures in the Investigatory Powers Bill will place in law a requirement on tech firms and service providers to be able to provide unencrypted communications to the police or spy agencies if requested through a warrant.

    • The new Investigatory Powers Bill and the politics of ‘nodding along’
    • The All Writs Act, Software Licenses, and Why Judges Should Ask More Questions

      Pending before federal magistrate judge James Orenstein is the government’s request for an order obligating Apple, Inc. to unlock an iPhone and thereby assist prosecutors in decrypting data the government has seized and is authorized to search pursuant to a warrant. In an order questioning the government’s purported legal basis for this request, the All Writs Act of 1789 (AWA), Judge Orenstein asked Apple for a brief informing the court whether the request would be technically feasible and/or burdensome. After Apple filed, the court asked it to file a brief discussing whether the government had legal grounds under the AWA to compel Apple’s assistance. Apple filed that brief and the government filed a reply brief last week in the lead-up to a hearing this morning.

    • Section 215 and “Fruitless” (?!?) Constitutional Adjudication

      Hopefully, it won’t take a lot of convincing for folks to understand just how wrong-headed this is. For starters, if the plaintiffs are correct, they are currently being subjected to unconstitutional government surveillance for which they are entitled to a remedy. The fact that this surveillance has a limited shelf-life (and/or that Congress was complicit in it) doesn’t in any way ameliorate the constitutional violation — which is exactly why the Supreme Court has, for generations, recognized an exception to mootness doctrine for constitutional violations that, owing to their short duration, are “capable of repetition, yet evading review.” Indeed, in this very same opinion, the Second Circuit first held that the ACLU’s challenge isn’t moot, only to then invokes mootness-like principles to justify not resolving the constitutional claim. It can’t be both; either the constitutional challenge is moot, or it isn’t.

    • Martin Rowson on Theresa May’s snooper’s charter

  • Intellectual Monopolies

    • NDRC Seeks Comment On Draft Anti-Monopoly Guidelines Against IPR Abuse

      On October 23, the Anti-Monopoly Guidelines Regulating Abuse of Intellectual Property Rights(Draft for Comments) were made available to USITO by the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) for review and comment.

      The five-part draft provides guidance on how to regulate IPR-related monopoly agreements, abuse of market dominant position, monopoly involving standards-essential patents, and concentration of undertakings.

    • Copyrights

      • US judge denies copyright over 3-word phrase ‘Everyday I’m Hustlin’’

        Is there copyright in very short phrases?

        As copyright enthusiasts know, this invariably proves to be one of the thorniest issues to determine when it comes to specific cases. Just a couple of days ago it was reported that Taylor Swift has been sued for copyright infringement over inclusion of ‘haters gone hate’ and ‘playas gone play’ in her song Shake It Off.

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