05.18.17

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Links 18/5/2017: Catching Up With the Past Three Days

Posted in News Roundup at 5:00 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

GNOME bluefish

Contents

GNU/Linux

  • Desktop

    • 5 Tips To Master Linux

      ​So here we are fans of Linux! But are we up to the bar? To get our hands a little dirty and maybe do what a surgeon do Tongue Well if that disgust you then I didn’t mean cutting up your favorite distro and operating on it. I meant a minor thing like stitches and tending to some easy commands.

    • The Alpha Litebook

      elementary OS Despite desktop Linux becoming more popular over the years and the GNU/Linux family of operating systems gaining more mainstream support from software and hardware creators, there still are not a lot of big name hardware companies selling Linux computers. Even those which do, such as Dell, tend to tuck their Linux options into a back corner, shinning the spotlight on their computers that ship with Windows pre-installed.

      This has left the Linux hardware market relatively open for smaller players. Many smaller shops have appeared over the years, specializing in selling computers with Linux pre-installed. One of the most recent arrivals in the Linux market is the Alpha Litebook. The Litebook, which was launched in early 2017, is a $249-$269 USD notebook computer which ships with elementary OS. elementary is based on Ubuntu and the distribution uses the Pantheon desktop environment by default.

      Happy with the price-to-specifications ratio featured by the Litebook and curious to see how the device would perform, I ordered one of the laptops at the start of March. This review of the Alpha Litebook will consist of four sections: acquiring the Litebook and dealing with Alpha’s customer support; the hardware of the Litebook; my thoughts on elementary OS as a default distribution; and the process of installing another Linux distribution on the Litebook.

  • Kernel Space

    • A pile of stable kernel updates
    • Linus Torvalds stops personally signing Linux rc tarballs

      Linus Torvalds might just be a big softie after all. The Linux Lord, infamous for his occasional foul-mouthed criticism of those who don’t meet his standards, has just popped out release candidate one for Linux 4.12 a day early so he could give his undivided attention to Mother’s Day.

      “So I’m doing this one day early, because I don’t like last-minute pull requests during the merge window anyway, and tomorrow is mother’s day, so I may end up being roped into various happenings,” Torvalds wrote on the Linux Kernel Mailing List on Saturday. Torvalds’ release announcements are usually made on Sundays.

    • Linux Kernels 4.10.16, 4.9.28 LTS and 4.4.68 LTS Are Out Now with Many Changes

      Immediately after announcing earlier today the availability of the first point release of the Linux 4.11 kernel series, Greg Kroah-Hartman is informing the community about the launch of new maintenance updates to the Linux 4.10, 4.9 and 4.4 kernels.

    • Linus Torvalds Kicks Off Development of Linux 4.12 with First Release Candidate

      Linus Torvalds kicked off the development of the Linux 4.12 kernel series by announcing the availability of the first Release Candidate (RC) a day early than expected due to the Mother’s Day celebration and last-minute pull requests.

      According to Linus Torvalds, Linux kernel 4.12 RC1 is a pretty large patch that contains numerous additions, including support for AMD’s next-generation Radeon RX Vega GPUs, along with a new driver for Intel Atom IPUs (Image Processing Units).

    • Graphics Stack

      • Dying Light & Dead Island Definitive Edition might soon work on Mesa

        There’s some activity on the Mesa-dev mailing list with patches that will enable both Dying Light & Dead Island Definitive Edition (and it seems Dead Island Riptide Definite Edition too) to work on Mesa.

      • Mesa 17.0.6 released with AMD Polaris 12 support in the ‘radv’ Vulkan driver

        Mesa 17.0.6 is the latest bug-fix release for the 17.0 series, but it also comes with AMD Polaris 12 support for the ‘radv’ Vulkan driver that has been back-ported.

      • Mesa 17.0.6 Released with AMD Polaris 12 GPU Support for Radeon Vulkan Driver

        As expected, the sixth point release to the Mesa 17.0 stable graphics stack was officially unveiled by Andres Gomez, and will soon be available from the software repositories of your favorite GNU/Linux distribution.

        Containing a total of 55 changes, which include both new functionality and fixes for recently discovered bugs, we can say that Mesa 17.0.6 is a hefty maintenance update that all users of the Mesa 17.0 3D Graphics Library series should install, that, of course, if they didn’t already upgrade to the newer Mesa 17.1 stable branch.

  • Applications

  • Desktop Environments/WMs

    • K Desktop Environment/KDE SC/Qt

      • Linux Kernel 4.11 Coming Soon to openSUSE Tumbleweed, Users Get KDE Plasma 5.9.5

        Dominique Leuenberger reports this weekend on the latest updates that landed in the software repositories of the openSUSE Tumbleweed operating system, which were brought by a total of six snapshots released in the last two weeks.

        These new Tumbleweed snapshots contained a lot of the latest GNU/Linux technologies and software updates, including the KDE Plasma 5.9.5 and GNOME 3.24.1 desktop environment, KDE Applications 17.04.0 software suite, KDE Frameworks 5.33.0 collection of add-ons for Qt 5, and GRUB 2.02 bootloader.

      • KDE Frameworks 5.34.0 Released for KDE Plasma 5 Desktop Users with 83 Changes
      • It’s Now Possible to Access Your Google Drive Account on KDE Plasma 5 Desktops

        KDE developer Elvis Angelaccio is happy to report on the general availability of a new package that makes it possible for fans of the KDE Plasma 5 desktop environment to access their Google Drive accounts without any weird tricks.

      • Introduction for GSoC 2017 with Krita

        I’m here again and I will talk about my accepted GSoC proposal, but how every history, I have to start from the start, so sit down, drink a coffee or a hot chocolate(I like) and have fun.

        I’m from Brazil, to be more specific from Salvador, Bahia. I’m an undergraduate student in Analysis and System Development. I’m not like so many other people that code since their 9 years old or something like that. I just wrote my first line of code with 20 years old and now I have 23, but like my mother says, “It’s never late to do something, no matter what” (Yeah, my mother is amazing. By the way, Happy Mother’s Day).

        In first years in the college, I had the opportunity to work in a software house, that works with proprietary software. I didn’t like that experience for so many reasons, but I was holding myself for money (I’m poor). Someday a teacher from my college invite to a course about Qt and C++ and told to us that we can choose what we want to do and presented KDE and Open Source. I quit my job and started to go to the college in my free time. In this time I studied python and read some books about that and I loved it.

      • Plasma 5.10 Beta, Slicker Desktop

        Monday, 15 May 2017. Today KDE has made a testing release of our desktop Plasma 5.10 with new features across the suite to give users an experience which lives up to our tagline: simple by default, powerful when needed.

  • Distributions

    • Reviews

      • NixOS 17.03 “Gorilla”

        NixOS is a viable daily distro for average users who are willing to put a small amount of work into it. Since it is a little strange, knowledge about NixOS may not translate well to other distros. NixOS is very lightweight and usable. I think that it is probably a very good distro for a more advanced user. Like I said, I was able to do everything I wanted on NixOS (except get my NVIDIA drivers working, but I think that’s my fault). The Nix package manager is also available for most other distros, so if you want to use the Nix package manager and all the Nix glory associated with it (like isolation of packages) you can. I probably won’t keep NixOS on my machine, but I think I will start using the Nix package manager on whatever distro I settle on for this week.

    • New Releases

      • New Neptune Linux Plasma 5 ISO Snapshot Lands with KDE Applications 17.04, More

        Neptune Linux developer Leszek Lesner proudly announced this weekend the availability of a new ISO snapshot for the Neptune Plasma 5 edition of the Debian-based GNU/Linux distribution.

        The new Neptune Plasma 5 ISO is shipping with the latest KDE Applications 17.04 software suite, which includes numerous improvements and new features for the Dolphin file manager, Kdenlive video editor, Kate text editor, Ark archive manager, Konsole terminal emulator, Okular PDF viewer, and Gwenview image viewer.

    • Red Hat Family

      • Finance

      • Fedora

        • What I discovered in Tirana, Albania

          The past few months have brought many changes for me. I traveled throughout Europe to experience some of the open source conferences and communities across the continent. Along the way, I met incredible people with powerful stories about their own communities. However, there is one community that I knew about before I came to Europe. The Open Labs Hackerspace in Tirana, Albania is a special community that I was fortunate enough to discover and meet. Together, they have helped set in motion the open source way in their own city.

          [...]

          I am privileged and honored to be an official member of this community. However, I am mostly an observer in my role. The passion and interest are at the heart of the hackerspace. The members from Tirana have invested so much of themselves into this community, its mission, and its values. From reading, visiting, and talking with the people involved with Open Labs, you see many of their hearts dedicated to what they’re doing. And when you see someone else who invests their heart into something, it’s challenging to not lend some of your own too.

    • Debian Family

      • New Debian Developers and Maintainers (March and April 2017)

        The following contributors got their Debian Developer accounts in the last two months:

        Guilhem Moulin (guilhem)
        Lisa Baron (jeffity)
        Punit Agrawal (punit)

        The following contributors were added as Debian Maintainers in the last two months:

        Sebastien Jodogne
        Félix Lechner
        Uli Scholler
        Aurélien Couderc
        Ondřej Kobližek
        Patricio Paez

        Congratulations!

      • Derivatives

  • Devices/Embedded

    • Building Linux-powered devices, part 1: Making my Linux-only world a reality – Network World

      Sometimes, if you want something badly enough, you need to get off your lazy tuchus and make it happen yourself.

      For years now, I’ve been hoping and pining (and often complaining and whining) about how much I want Linux-powered… everything. Not Android. Not ChromeOS. Real Linux. The kind of Linux you have full control over—the sort you’d install on your desktop PC.

    • Artila Launches the Linux-Ready IoT Gateway Matrix-710 for M2M Applications

      Artila Electronics, which specializes in the development and manufacture of Linux-ready ARM embedded industrial computers, launches the highly integrated compact Box Computer , Matrix-710, based on ARM Cortex-A5, especially for industrial control, automation gateway, mobile gateway, smart energy application. Matrix-710 adapts the innovated technology of ARM processor coupled with the open Linux operating system, which provides the backbone for innovative smart IoT solutions. To achieve the need for M2M application, it equips the WiFi, cellular modems which allow Internet connectivity and GPS for location information transition, considering the practical needs, Matrix-710 also offers a miniPCIe slot for users to deploy these modules easily.

    • Phones

Free Software/Open Source

  • Elastic twangs in snappy machine learning

    Elastic is of course the company behind the open source Elasticsearch and the Elastic Stack products.

    Into the Elastic 5.4 release then… (as a result of the recent acquisition of data anomaly detection business Prelert) Elastic’s machine learning features will work on any time series data set to automatically apply machine brain intelligence.

  • Open Source On IBM i: Let It Grow

    The evaluation of open source software is nowhere near conclusive when it comes to enterprise grade application development. Decisions remain in the exploratory phases. Roadmaps are incomplete. Most are without clear routes to a destination. Some are without destinations. However, it would be wrong to assume roads are not being built.

    There is no way that the future of application development – on IBM i or anywhere else – can handle everything that is coming down the pike without open source. That’s not a mandate to jump on a band wagon. It’s an awareness wake-up call. The IBM i community should not be napping.

  • Open Source an ‘Overrated Necessity,’ Says PCCW [Ed: No, insisting you don't need Free software is like insisting you can put back doors in software, like Microsoft, and be OK]

    If open source has swiftly become the latest religious practise in the telecom industry, it is still attracting its share of skeptics and unbelievers.

    Some were on display at this week’s annual TM Forum Live conference in Nice, where Shahar Steiff, an assistant vice president at Hong Kong’s PCCW, described open source as an “overrated necessity” in front of conference attendees.

  • Events

    • LFNW 2017!

      LinuxFest NorthWest was a fantastic time for me, our Ubuntu booth had Valorie (Kubuntu), Simon (Kubuntu/Lubuntu) and over at the Jupiter Broadcasting we had the awesome Martin Wimpress (Ubuntu Mate). One top question was “what about that Unity news” which we gave a clear answer about Unity development ending and the move to GNOME. Since we were also burning DVD’s and dding usb drives we would recommend that users try out GNOME Shell if GNOME was there preferred Desktop.

    • Bringing together the best minds in open source geospatial technology

      FOSS4G Boston 2017 is shaping up to be a very diverse conference. We have a diverse set of keynote speakers including Holly St. Clair, Chief Digital Officer of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, Richard Stallman of the Free Software Foundation, and other open source and geospatial leaders. There are also a variety of workshops and presentations this year. Topics will include R, 3D, analytics, artificial intelligence, routing, big data, drones, GeoNode, GeoServer, image processing, QGIS, PostGIS, projections, and much more! To see the full lineup, visit the full list of accepted presentations and workshops.

    • LaKademy 2017

      I’ve aways been an introspective person and when I was approved to Analysis and Systems Development Course, I thought that I don’t would need to talk with people anymore (while working at least) and I was happy with this xD. Things were going well, until the day that I met the open source concepts and KDE, through my professor, Sandro Andrade (yes, it’s your fault :p). It was love at first sight, I liked the idea to share knowledge and help another people or I was just thinking that I could work with my shorts, I hate pants. I will never know the truth xD.

  • CMS

  • BSD

  • Licensing/Legal

Leftovers

  • IT {sic} pros are becoming desensitised to security alerts and it’s all our fault

    Code42 reckons that 58 per cent of decision makers "have become desensitised to potential cyber security threats due to over-exaggeration and exposure by the media." Furthermore, three-quarters of the ingrates said that they have heard more about cyber threats in the last 18 months than they have ever heard in their lives before.

  • Microsoft to pledge $5 mn to U.N. Human Rights Office

    [...] could prod other big private-sector donors to follow suit.

  • Microsoft commits $5 million to ‘landmark’ United Nations technology partnership

  • Science

    • Thieves in online games can be caught by watching how they play

      Thieves then tend to siphon off virtual items to a network of other accounts they control, often also stolen. The items are in effect shared out between an in-game criminal gang of characters, which usually makes them hard to trace.

    • New American study confirms: Physically separated bike lanes are crucial for safety

      A new study by John Pucher and Ralph Bueler (PDF here) confirms what every cyclist already knows: physically separated bike lanes are by far the best way to reduce injuries and deaths. The two researchers had already shown that more bike lanes mean more cyclists and that bikes keep you skinny, but now demonstrate that cycle tracks keep you alive.

  • Health/Nutrition

  • Security

    • Ransomware Attack Has Spread To Police Department, Institutions: Maharashtra Police

      Globally active ransomware virus has partially affected the computer systems in some institutions in Maharashtra, including that of its police department, a police official said here.

      The exact data about the systems hit by the ransomware, however, will be known once the offices open today, the official said.

      A cyber ransomware is a type of malicious software that blocks access to a computer system until a sum of money is paid through the online medium. As per reports, the ransomware has hit as many as 200,000 victims in over 150 countries.

    • Open Source Security Podcast: Episode 47 – WannaCry: Everything is basically broken
    • People are trolling GCHQ after they boasted about keeping Britain safe

      While the effects were felt all over the world in almost 100 countries, the NHS was the most terrifyingly significant target for us in Britain – literally, the lifeline of the UK.

    • Out-of-Control CIA Continues to be Exposed in WikiLeaks’ Vault 7

      After installing a small file, the operators would then be able to instruct the computer to kill any use of a web browser on a set schedule. For instance, the software could be instructed to shut down Firefox every 25-35 seconds. Similarly, the example included a measure to “lock up” PowerPoint files 10 minutes after they were loaded. It would also allow operators to create a delay when PowerPoint files were attempting to load.

      While the examples they used are simple and relatively harmless, the software could perform virtually any assigned task. Because the data is encrypted with a key stored outside of the machine, the code would be extremely difficult to detect and/or decipher.

      After installing the software, the documentation instructs users to “kick back” and “Relax – After Midnight will take care of the rest.”

      The second piece of software detailed is similar to “AfterMidnight” and is called “Assassin.” That piece of software is a relatively simple way of collecting data remotely and then delivering results to a listening post on a schedule.

      Through screenshots in the documents, it can be seen that the author is named “Justin,” is working from a Dell computer, and desktop shortcuts to an encrypted chat program called ‘Pidgin,’ as well as a folder entitled “drone.”

    • Global ‘Wana’ Ransomware Outbreak Earned Perpetrators $26,000 So Far

      However, I find it depressing to think of the massive financial damage likely wrought by this ransom campaign in exchange for such a comparatively small reward. It’s particularly galling because this attack potentially endangered the lives of many.

    • Ransomware: Microsoft can no longer claim to be ‘proactive’

      Microsoft’s reaction to the Windows ransomware crisis that occurred on Friday and Saturday has shown one thing: no longer can the company continue to use the business buzzword “proactive” when it talks about itself. It was caught unawares and left looking very old and tired in the way it responded to the situation.

    • Cyber attack: Hackers {sic} in China try to seize control of WannaCry ransomware’s ‘kill switch’

      “What you can follow is the money,” Mr Raiu said. “You can follow the Bitcoins [although] following the Bitcoins is kind of an art in itself.”

    • [Old] The Software Industry IS the Problem

      The question is how to introduce product liability, because just imposing it would instantly shut down any and all software houses with just a hint of a risk management function on their organizational charts.

    • [Old] Why Not Use Port Knocking?

      The robots currently at work knocking around for your guessable password could easily be repurposed to guess your Unicode password currently known as your port knocking sequence, and quite likely have been already.

    • Ransom Attacks Should Make Xi WannaSmile

      The timing couldn’t be better. Just as President Xi Jinping steps on stage to outline his vision for a Chinese century, the world becomes hostage to malicious software.

      This weekend’s ransomware offensive hit hundreds of thousands of computers in at least 150 countries. The financial toll is still being calculated; the psychological toll could be infinite.

      Developed by the security agency of China’s biggest rival and exploiting a ubiquitous product developed by that country’s globally dominant software company, the attacks offer Xi the perfect opportunity to make the case for an alternative to Microsoft Corp. and its Windows operating system. That the techniques used in the attacks were stolen from the National Security Agency also makes this the perfect chance to argue that global technology can’t be trusted in the hands of a single nation.

    • While Microsoft griped about NSA exploit stockpiles, it stockpiled patches: Friday’s WinXP fix was built in February
    • WannaCry attacks are only the beginning, experts warn

      After all, security vendors are still seeing successful exploitation attempts today for MS08-067, the Windows vulnerability that allowed the Conficker computer worm to spread nine years ago.

    • Is Microsoft to blame for the largest ransomware attacks in internet history?
    • Ransomware attack hits 200,000 [Windows] computers across the globe

      Friday’s attack seems to have run its course but it may not take much to develop other strains of the virus {sic} that are not affected by the kill switch. For now, the best you can do is make sure your computers are running the latest software updates – and don’t click on any funny-looking emails.

    • Doxing the hero who stopped WannaCry was irresponsible and dumb

      At the very least, we should respect his privacy. MalwareTech doesn’t give out his name on his Twitter page or blog. There are no headshots. It’s obvious that he just wants to be left alone to get on with what he enjoys – hacking shit, and figuring out how stuff works.

    • Possible Protections To Take Against WannaCry Ransomware Attack
    • Ubuntu Login Screen Security Flaw Could Allow Anyone To Access Your Files [Ed: No, not true. But then again, Fossbytes is better at plagiarism than at grasping what it ‘writes’ about. Expect corporate media, funded by Bill Gates and Microsoft, to run “Linux not secure” stories amid WannaCry fiasco.)
    • NHS mulling Ubuntu switch after Windows XP fail?

      The NHS could be considering switching its software infrastructure from Windows to Ubuntu, after Windows XP vulnerabilities were exploited in the recent cyber attack that crippled the National Health Service. Or is it just an elaborate gag?

      The NHSbuntu platform came to our attention via Dr Dean Jenkins, a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians and editor-at-large of BMJ Case Reports, who writes about it on Differential Diagnosis, his blog.

    • How WannaCrypt attacks

  • Defence/Aggression

  • Transparency/Investigative Reporting

    • Ecuador worried over Assange case progress

      It repeated Ecuador’s request for guarantees of non-extradition to any third country.

    • Ecuador concerned by ‘serious lack of progress’ in Assange case

      The letter by Ecuador’s Foreign Ministry voices concern over a "serious lack of progress" by Swedish prosecutors investigating the sexual misconduct case against Assange, the Australian Associated Press (AAP) reported.

    • Julian Assange: Ecuador ‘concerned’ over lack of progress

      Ecuador has voiced concern over the “serious lack of progress” by the Swedish government in dealing with Wikileaks founder Julian Assange.

      It said there had been a “serious failure” by Sweden’s prosecutor to complete an inquiry into sexual assault allegations dating back to 2010.

      Mr Assange has been confined to the Ecuadorean embassy, where he has asylum, for nearly five years.

      He fears he will be extradited to the US if he leaves the building.

      The Australian national is concerned the US may seek his arrest over Wikileaks’ release of 500,000 secret military files on the Afghanistan and Iraq wars.

    • Ecuador concerned by Sweden’s “lack of progress” in Assange case

      Ecuador has written to the Swedish government complaining of a “serious lack of progress” in the investigation involving a rape allegation against WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange.

      According to the BBC, the letter criticises Sweden’s prosecutor for a “serious failure” to complete an investigation into rape allegations dating back to 2010. Ecuadorian authorities accuse the prosecutor of a “lack of iniative”.

      Julian Assange has been confined at the Ecuadorean embassy in London, where he has asylum, for nearly five years. British police say he will be arrested if he leaves the embassy.

    • Edward Snowden and others urge Trump to drop case against Assange

      Edward Snowden and Noam Chomsky are among those calling on Donald Trump to drop the US government’s investigation into Julian Assange and WikiLeaks.

      The pair – along with more than 100 other activists, journalists and government workers – have signed an open letter to the president that calls prosecuting WikiLeaks “a threat to all free journalism”. The letter asks the Department of Justice to drop plans to charge Assange and other WikiLeaks staff members.

    • Wikileaks Attorneys Blast Citizenfour Maker Poitras

      We are lawyers for WikiLeaks. We are speaking out because we believe that Laura Poitras’s film Risk, released in U.S. theaters on May 5 this year, places our clients in legal jeopardy.

      The film serves to undermine WikiLeaks just as the Trump administration has announced that it intends to prosecute its journalists, editors and associates.

  • Environment/Energy/Wildlife/Nature

  • Finance

    • Cities hurting, not promoting economic growth in Finland [iophk: "duh. distributed populations are more productive for countries"]

      The regions have also witnessed lower-than-average gross domestic product growth in the 2010s, despite continuing to make up 61 per cent of the national output. Uusimaa alone accounts for a third of the national output but has failed to contribute to economic growth in 2010–2015, according to Hetemäki.

  • AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics

    • The Donald Trump Impeachment Clock Is Ticking

      Citizens of the United States cannot address all the threats posed by all the errant leaders of all the countries on a planet that has plenty of problems. But they do have a duty to be on alert to threats posed by elected and appointed officials who fail to recognize their responsibilities, who act irrationally, or who disregard the rule of law.

    • [Older] Online Voting Won’t Save Democracy

      We have already declared out election system to be critical national infrastructure. This is largely symbolic, but it demonstrates a commitment to secure elections and makes funding and other resources available to states. We can do much more. We owe it to democracy to do it.

    • Trump ‘shared classified information with Russia’

      Then there is the question of whether US allies will be more reluctant to share sensitive intelligence information with the US, lest the president put sources at risk.

    • The ‘Chilling Effect’ of Trump’s Loose Talk With Russia

      This loose treatment of highly secretive "code word" intelligence raises broader questions, too, about how the cavalier disclosure of such secrets might impact the international relationships so essential to ensuring national security at home.

  • Censorship/Free Speech

  • Privacy/Surveillance

  • Civil Rights/Policing

    • Privatized for-profit immigrant detention centers are a "living nightmare," investigation shows

      Moreover, to make money to afford extra food or phone calls, many detainees have no option but to work for $1 per day. They are ruthlessly exploited by corporations looking to make a profit.

    • Jeff Sessions Reboots the Drug War

      In a two-page memo to federal prosecutors across the country, Sessions overturned former attorney general Eric H. Holder’s sweeping criminal charging policy that instructed his prosecutors to avoid charging certain defendants with offenses that would trigger long mandatory minimum sentences. In its place, Sessions told his more than 5,000 assistant U.S. attorneys to charge defendants with the most serious crimes, carrying the toughest penalties.

    • Indonesian Islamist leader says ethnic Chinese wealth is next target

      His group organised protests by hundreds of thousands of Muslims in Jakarta late last year over a comment about the Koran made by the capital’s governor, Basuki Tjahaja Purnama, an ethnic-Chinese Christian.

    • Louisiana’s public defender’s office is largely nonexistent so poor people just plead guilty

      If you’re poor and arrested in Louisiana, you will rot in jail for months or even years waiting for a trial which will be indifferently argued by a grossly overworked public defender. As a result, the majority of poor arrestees plead guilty, and 85% of those accused of crimes are poor. Black people in Louisiana are jailed at four times the rate of white people.

  • Internet Policy/Net Neutrality

    • Flooded with thoughtful net neutrality comments, FCC highlights "mean tweets"

      Facing extensive net neutrality support, FCC is ready to gut open Internet rules.

    • [Older] 4 Misleading Things ISPs And The FCC Need To Stop Claiming About Net Neutrality

      Net neutrality is a handy name for a pretty simple principle: the idea that the company providing your internet access should deliver you the online content of your choosing, when you choose it, without interfering. And since 2015, it’s been the law of the land. Now we stand to lose it once again — but the arguments that industry and some regulators are making against it are disingenuous at best, and a pack of lies at worst.

    • Big Cable push-polled America on Net Neutrality, still found the majority in favor of it

      As a way of hastening along the neutracidal moment, the Internet & Television Association (AKA National Cable Television Association) conducted a push-poll asking Americans if they wanted Net Neutrality killed right now, or straightaway (more or less).

      But even within the shitty, stilted choices the poll offered, Americans still spoke overwhelmingly in favor of Net Neutrality, leaving Big Cable to desperately spin the outcomes to claim that Americans really wanted to have their internet connections slowed down unless they were accessing their ISPs’ preferred services.

  • DRM

    • Anti-DRM artists march on the World Wide Web Consortium today

      The controversial project to standardize DRM for streaming video on the web started in 2013 and culminated last month with a poll by W3C members whose results are confidential (though the W3C has chosen to publish the outcomes of previous polls and may yet do so for this one).

    • New Netflix DRM Blocks Rooted Phone Owners From Downloading The Netflix App

      As this site has long documented, DRM more often than not provides a false sense of security to those terrified of piracy, yet just as frequently annoys paying customers — ironically driving those customers to the piracy alternatives the DRM was supposed to prevent in the first place.

      The latest example of this phenomenon: with the latest version 5.0 of the Netflix app, Netflix is now leaning entirely on Google’s Widevine digital rights management system. With Netflix recently introducing downloadable shows (assuming the license for that specific program allows it), Netflix’s programming partners likely wanted Netflix to utilize Widevine to ensure that Netflix’s app “only works with devices that are certified by Google and meet all Android requirements.”

    • Netflix Use of Google DRM Means Rooted Android Devices Are Banned

      Netflix customers who previously viewed the service using a ‘rooted’ Android device are no longer able to do so, at least officially. The development has been confirmed by Netflix, who say that the company’s reliance on Google’s Widevine DRM standards means that modified and/or non-certified devices will be excluded from the service.

    • Netflix confirms it is blocking rooted/unlocked devices, app itself is still working (for now)

      However, Netflix has now confirmed to us that blocking modified devices from downloading the app was intentional.

      This is the full statement:

      With our latest 5.0 release, we now fully rely on the Widevine DRM provided by Google; therefore, many devices that are not Google-certified or have been altered will no longer work with our latest app and those users will no longer see the Netflix app in the Play Store.

  • Intellectual Monopolies

    • "MP3 is dead" missed the real, much better story

      MP3 is no less alive now than it was last month or will be next year — the last known MP3 patents have simply expired.

    • Copyrights

      • Law Professor Shows How to Fight Copyright Trolls

        Copyright trolls are known for their dubious tactics, but how should they be fought in court? Motivated by false accusations against alleged BitTorrent pirates. Matthew Sag and Jake Haskell have written an in-depth overview that could help defense lawyers to make their case.

      • Streaming Site Operator Jailed For Three Years After Landmark Trial

        Following a landmark trial, the key player at streaming site Swefilmer has been jailed for an unprecedented three years, longer than any defendant in the earlier Pirate Bay case. An administrator of the site received a relatively lenient sentence of probation and community service.

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    Links for the day

  2. Gemini Links 08/06/2023: Sourcehut, Gemini Identity, and BBS Comments on Cosmos

    Links for the day

  3. IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, June 07, 2023

    IRC logs for Wednesday, June 07, 2023

  4. The Need to Evolve on the Internet

    Tux Machines is one year away from its twentieth birthday and its increased focus on protocols aside from HTTP/S is paying off; Tux Machines also weaned itself off all social control media, including Mastodon and Diaspora (they're not the future, they're the past)

  5. EPO Management is Still Bullying the Staff (While Breaking the Law and Violating the European Patent Convention)

    Overloaded or overworked EPO workers are complaining about further deterioration at the workplace and their representatives say "this management style may well contribute to feelings of disengagement, depression, or even burn-out"

  6. His Majesty’s Revenue and Customs (HMRC) Not Responding After 20 Days (Well-Founded Report of Tax Fraud) and British Police Pretending Not to Exist

    The crimes of Sirius ‘Open Source’ have helped unearth a profound problem in the British law enforcement authorities; What good is a monopolistic taxman (called after the British Monarchy even in 2023) that cannot assess its own tax abuses? Or abuses connected to it via a contractor? Meanwhile, as per what I was told, the police is not responding to my MP and that’s ANOTHER scandal (police not only refusing to act against crimes, committed against many people, but moreover not responding to elected politicians)

  7. Links 08/06/2023: Cinnamon 5.8 and Leap 15.5 Release Mature

    Links for the day

  8. Gemini Links 08/06/2023: Emacs and Thoughts on Bubble

    Links for the day

  9. Links 07/06/2023: Reddit Layoffs and OpenGL 3.1 in Asahi Linux

    Links for the day

  10. Gemini Links 07/06/2023: Jukka Charting Geminispace

    Links for the day

  11. IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, June 06, 2023

    IRC logs for Tuesday, June 06, 2023

  12. NOW LIVE: Working for the Public — Universities, Software and Freedom - a Talk by Richard Stallman at Università di Pisa (Italy)

    As noted a few hours ago, Richard Stallman is delivering a talk at Università di Pisa this morning

  13. Richard Stallman's Talk is in Two Hours and There's a BigBlueButton Livestream

    Dr. Stallman is in Italy to give talks at universities this week; he will soon give a live talk, accessible in his site or directly at the source

  14. Links 06/06/2023: Angie 1.2.0, New EasyOS and EndeavourOS Released

    Links for the day

  15. Gemini Links 06/06/2023: OpenKuBSD, GrapheneOS, and More

    Links for the day

  16. Links 06/06/2023: OpenSUSE Plans for Leap

    Links for the day

  17. Gemini Links 06/06/2023: Bubble 4.0, Neutral News, and Older Bits

    Links for the day

  18. IBM's War on Open (Look at the Pattern of Layoffs at Red Hat)

    By abandoning OpenSource.com and OpenOffice.org/LibreOffice IBM sends out a clear signal that it doesn’t understand or simply does not care about the community of Free software users; its siege against the FSF and other institutions never ended and today we look at who’s being laid off or shown the door (the work environment is intentionally being made worse)

  19. Links 06/06/2023: IceWM 3.4.0 and Liveslak 1.7.0

    Links for the day

  20. Gemini Links 06/06/2023: Apple Might Kill VR, Tea Tea Deluxe 1.2.7 and Tea Land

    Links for the day

  21. IRC Proceedings: Monday, June 05, 2023

    IRC logs for Monday, June 05, 2023

  22. Links 05/06/2023: Debian 12 Almost Ready, Hong Kong 'Cannot' Remember Tiananmen Massacre

    Links for the day

  23. Gemini Links 05/06/2023: New Ship in Cosmic Voyage, Stack Overflow Moderator Strike

    Links for the day

  24. IRC Proceedings: Sunday, June 04, 2023

    IRC logs for Sunday, June 04, 2023

  25. Links 04/06/2023: Unifont 15.0.05 and PCLinuxOS Stuff

    Links for the day

  26. Gemini Links 04/06/2023: Wayland and the Old Computer Challenge

    Links for the day

  27. StatCounter: GNU/Linux (Including ChromeOS) Grows to 8% Market Share Worldwide

    This month’s numbers from StatCounter are good for GNU/Linux (including ChromeOS, which technically has both GNU and Linux); the firm assesses logs from 3 million sites and shows Windows down to 66% in desktops/laptops (a decade ago it was above 90%) with modest growth for GNU/Linux, which is at an all-time high, even if one does not count ChromeOS that isn’t freedom- or privacy-respecting

  28. Journalism Cannot and Quite Likely Won't Survive on the World Wide Web

    We’re reaching the point where the overwhelming majority of new pages on the Web (the World Wide Web) are basically junk, sometimes crafted not by humans; how to cope with this rapid deterioration is still an unknown — an enigma that demands hard answers or technical workarounds

  29. Do Not Assume Pensions Are Safe, Especially When Managed by Mr. EPOTIF Benoît Battistelli and António Campinos

    With the "hoax" that is the financial assessment by António Campinos (who is deliriously celebrating the inauguration of illegal and unconstitutional kangaroo courts) we urge EPO workers to check carefully the integrity of their pensions, seeing that pension promises have been broken for years already

  30. Links 04/06/2023: Why Flatpak and Wealth of Devices With GNU/Linux

    Links for the day

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