Bonum Certa Men Certa

Links 31/1/2011: A Look at Mandriva 2010.2, Sabayon Linux 5.5 is Out



GNOME bluefish

Contents





GNU/Linux



  • The hidden places where Linux dominates
    While the fight for desktop dominance is still raging somewhere in the distance, Linux has quietly succeeded in the places no one thinks to look.

    It's being used in mobile phones, set-top boxes, media streamers and routers. It's being used to fuel the London Stock Exchange and to provide in-flight entertainment for thousands of travellers.


  • Desktop



    • When Is It Time To Switch Operating Systems?
      Is Linux really harder? Well, for a Windows user trying to switch a friend or relative…my goodness, yes. If I blasted back to early 2003 and tried to switch people over to Linux with the understanding I had back then, it would have been a mess. But like being the “support guy” for any family or group of friends, it can work and most DEFINITELY has its place. The key is to be the support guy who knows how to use it in the first place. You know, much like Windows or OS X.




  • Server

    • Microsoft Asks Intel to Make 16-Core Atom Chip
      ARM is reported to be developing chip design for switches and servers. Microsoft recently stated that it is porting Windows to Arm processors to be used in mobile devices but servers are different because it is expected to run various existing software. Arm on the other hand reiterated that most servers need only to run a few software such as Linux, Apache, MySQL database, and PHP.




  • Audiocasts/Shows

    • Linux Outlaws 188 - Minix Lint
      This week on Linux Outlaws: Eric Schmidt replaced as Google CEO, OSI and FSF join forces to protect software freedom, Florian Mueller spreads anti-Android FUD, a review of Linux Mint 10 Debian Edition and much more…




  • Ballnux





  • Kernel Space



  • Applications



  • Desktop Environments

    • Version 1.0 Of Enlightenment Foundation Libraries
      If you missed it this Friday night, version 1.0 of the core Enlightenment Foundation Libraries (EFL) have been released.

      [...]

      After Enlightenment E16 1.0 was released in 2009, other milestones since then have been an E17 snapshot, Samsung sponsoring Enlightenment's development, and Enlightenment is now even running on refrigerators.


    • K Desktop Environment/KDE SC)

      • It's like someone rewrote Plasma from scratch
        Ever since I switched to KDE4 I kept having the weirdest issues with Plasma. The problems ranged from small design glitches to freakishly strange behavior which rendered Plasma unusable every now and then. Today I've solved (almost) all of those issues, which, as it turned out, could all be fixed within a minute. But let's not jump to the cause & workaround just yet.

        [...]

        Finally: I can't tell you how great and polished KDE 4.6 suddenly feels. It's been a while I've been that proud of it. And all because of two extra digits in a little text config file.


      • How To Install Oxygen-Transparent Style In Ubuntu [KDE]
        KDE 4.6 was supposed to ship with a transparent Oxygen style but in the end it didn't make it "due to serious issues (notably with embedded widgets, such as videos) which cannot be fixed at the style level". But that doesn't mean you can't install Oxygen-Transparent. Read on!




    • Xfce

      • XFCE 4.8 Ubuntu 10.04 And 10.10 PPAs
        XFCE 4.8 was released about two weeks ago, bringing GVFS support for Thunar (so it can now browse remote shares using FTP, Windows Shares, WebDav and SSH), XFCE panel improvements and more.






  • Distributions

    • Maverick boots in 8 seconds on SSD!
      There you go. Enjoy the under-10-second boot! As promised, it finally arrived. But then, it's almost impossible to pinpoint what makes one laptop boot faster and another slower. You have ancient laptops that boot as quickly as brand new high-end notebooks. It's a tricky combination of hardware and software, almost a magic, if you will.

      Still, eight seconds - or rather, almost nine seconds, is an extremely reasonable number, more so when you compare to other operating systems. I did test with Fedora, openSUSE and several more distros, none gave boot times as good as Ubuntu. Furthermore, taking Windows as the main antagonist in this race, Maverick wins hands down. There's the humble and unexpected battery life bonus, too.

      I hope you liked this article. If you got any crazy ideas about other benchmarks, feel free to send me your ideas and your hardware. I'll be more than glad to abuse them.


    • Linux Vendors Putting Up an App Store
      Linux is joining the app store bandwagon. Major Linux distributions announced that they will team up to make an app store for Linux users. With a Linux app store in place, users will have a place to look for apps no matter what distribution they use.

      An Application Store will bring more users to the Linux platform. Third party developers will also be lured to the platform. The normal users can find and install applications that will be added to the current package management.


    • New Releases



    • PCLinuxOS/Mageia/Mandrake/Mandriva Family

      • Mandriva 2010.2 makes Linux easy
        Mandriva Linux's latest release is testament to the work done by developers to make it one of the easiest to use Linux releases ever.

        Despite ongoing financial woes, Mandriva Linux developers have delivered the latest version of this popular desktop Linux operating system. Mandriva Linux 2010.2 is the latest in a long line of Mandriva releases from the company that used to be known as Mandrake Linux, and it every bit as user-friendly as promised.




    • Red Hat Family



    • Debian Family

      • Torrents
        No fear, “torrent site:debian.org” finds 4700 hits. Perhaps the censorship is more targeted or being phased in.


      • Canonical/Ubuntu

        • [Full Circle] issue 45
          * Command and Conquer. * How-To : Program in Python – Part 19, Virtualization : Debian Xen Part 2 and Installing Ubuntu with m23. * Linux Lab – Creating a Multiboot USB stick. * Review – KDE 4.5. * Top 5 – Music Annotation Apps. plus: Ubuntu Women, Ubuntu Games, My Opinion, My Story, and much much more!


        • Flavours and Variants

          • Bodhi Linux Release Candidate
            Today the Bodhi team and I are happy to announce our release candidate (0.1.5) is now available to the general public. This disc includes a number of package updates, most notably Firefox beta 10 and EFL 1.0 stable release. For a full change log see here.










  • Devices/Embedded



    • Phones



    • Tablets

      • Google Android Honeycomb ported to the NOOKcolor: Doesn’t really work yet
        The good news is that the first version of Google Android 3.0 Honeycomb has been ported to an existing Android tablet. Xda-developers forum member deeper-blue combined data from the preview SDK Google released this week with a kernel for the NOOKcolor eBook reader to get the software up and running on the tablet.

        The bad news is that the port is mostly a proof of concept at this point. There’s no hardware acceleration yet, and while deeper-blue did manage to get touch input to start working, he says the tablet is very slow while running Android 3.0. Hardware graphics acceleration might improve things, and he hopes to work on that this weekend.








Free Software/Open Source



  • Why I’m not an open source person any more
    I still use open source software extensively (I’m writing this in WordPress, using Mozilla on Gnome on Ubuntu), but then, so does everyone, whether they know it or not. Sometime around the early 2000s, Linux and other open source software stopped being a fringe, weirdo thing and started just being a sensible choice for most Internet projects. And since almost everything’s on the Internet these days, well, open source is just something that is.


  • Events



  • Web Browsers



  • Oracle

    • New Class Suit Hits LexisNexis for Unfair Fees
      Days from announcing a commitment from Ubuntu, The Document Foundations debuts its first full, stable (and free) release of the next generation of OpenOffice - LibreOffice 3.3. Steven J. Vaughan has details on the new release and following is a gallery of some of the most important new features.


    • Jenkins!
      So what does this mean now? Well, it means Jenkins lives. We've registered jenkins-ci.org, though it's empty at the moment. In the coming days, we will be renaming the existing Google Groups to jenkins-*@googlegroups.com, renaming the Twitter account from @hudsonci to @jenkinsci, and renaming our organization at Github from hudson to jenkinsci. I wanted to make sure everyone had notice ahead of time that this was happening, so that no one gets surprised by changes to their incoming mail, etc. As said before, the initial, interim governance board will consist of me, Kohsuke and, if he and Oracle are willing, Winston. If Winston is unwilling or unable to continue in that role with Jenkins, we will select a replacement interim member. The interim board will work on the details of a more permanent governance process going forward. Discussions on the infrastructure changes (including things like the Maven groupId/artifactIds, etc) will be in public, on these lists. We're working to get the JIRA and wiki contents migrated over to the Jenkins site, and hope to work with Oracle to get that done in the next couple days.




  • BSD



  • Openness/Sharing

    • As Egypt Erupts, Al Jazeera Offers Its News for Free to Other Networks
      Qatar-based cable news network Al Jazeera is not available on United States cable systems — except in local markets in Vermont, Ohio and Washington, D.C.

      But that hasn’t stopped the major American news outlets from relying on the international news network for critical reportage on the growing unrest in Egypt.


    • [Old] How to Train Death Squads and Quash Revolutions from San Salvador to Iraq
      Wikileaks has released a sensitive 219 page US military counterinsurgency manual. The manual, Foreign Internal Defense Tactics Techniques and Procedures for Special Forces (1994, 2004), may be critically described as "what we learned about running death squads and propping up corrupt government in Latin America and how to apply it to other places". Its contents are both history defining for Latin America and, given the continued role of US Special Forces in the suppression of insurgencies, including in Iraq and Afghanistan, history making.


    • Open Data

      • Open Public Data: Then What? - Part 1
        The following guest post is by Daniel Kaplan, Director of Fing (the Next-Generation Internet Foundation, France). Today he explores three possible futures for Open Public Data, and on Monday he will suggest ways to ensure that we are moving in the best direction.

        We tend to assume that the opening up of public data will only produce positive outcomes for individuals, for society and the economy. But the opposite may be true. We should start thinking further ahead on the possible consequences of releasing public data, and how we can make sure they are mostly positive.




    • Open Access/Content

      • All Icelandic literature to go online?
        Þorsteinn Hallgrímsson, formerly of the National Library of Iceland had a big idea: digitize all Icelandic literature all the way to the current day and make it available to everyone interested in reading it. The Internet Archive was eager to be a part of this bold vision.






  • Programming

    • Ruby Dropped in Netbeans 7
      Ruby/RoR in NetBeans made headlines three years ago, but after Sun was acquired by Oracle there where fears that support for dynamic languages would suffer, as this IDE would be downsized. This has become a reality, since as of version 7, NetBeans will no longer support Ruby.


    • Which Programming Language Should I Learn Next?
      What Makes a Language Usable or Worth Learning?

      This is a common question I see people discuss: most often I’ve seen it in “Common Lisp vs. Scheme” discussions common in Lisp forums. The question there seems directed at why Common Lisp has been so much more popular than Scheme. That’s a dubious premise, seeing that many people learn Scheme in college CS classes, at least that’s my impression (as I said, I’ve never taken such a class). The real premise of the question is “Why does Common Lisp have so many libraries, whereas Scheme makes you recreate format?” Paul Graham’s creation of Arc was driven by this contention: people say “If you want to actually get work done, use Common Lisp,” but Scheme is so cool, right? I have come to a different question which is “How does this language fit into my workflow?” This was also a critical part of choosing a Scheme implementation. There are tons of them, but they are all designed for slightly different purposes, or they are someone’s proof-of-concept compiler. Guile is a great example of the reasons I would put time into learning to use a particular language.






Leftovers



  • New Class Suit Hits LexisNexis for Unfair Fees
    LexisNexis has been charging litigants "unconscionable" rates to file online documents in some Texas state courts, creating a poll tax-like situation that creates an unconstitutional barrier to open courts, a class action claims in Bexar County Court. The company, and its Netherlands-based parent, Reed Elsevier, faces similar lawsuits in Georgia and Texas federal court.


  • A Simple African Wishlist to Larry Page of Google
    My personal life has been enriched enormously by the massive array of splendid products that you give out for free- of course in the hope of making some ad money. Since you now are at the helm of affairs, I'd like to put to you this simple wish-list of mine with regards to my continent Africa.


  • Senator Jim Alesi's broken leg lawsuit
    An area lawmaker is suing a Perinton couple who are also his constituents.

    Senator Jim Alesi is also suing the builder of the couple's home. The lawsuit claims he was injured when he decided to look inside their house which was under construction at the time.


  • Nanny State: More Politicians Against Pedestrians Listening To Headphones Or Texting


  • Voting reform bill: peers threaten 'mass revolt' over guillotine attempt
    She said that any attempt to introduce a guillotine – which David Cameron has threatened to do early this week following agonisingly slow progress on the parliamentary voting system and constituencies bill – would provoke uproar and would almost certainly be defeated.


  • HP’s New Plan: No More Worthless Hype
    Broken promises are part of technology’s natural cycle, but Leo Apotheker, HP’s new boss, says that’s not going to happen anymore at his company.

    From now on, HP will only announce tech products that are a few weeks away from shipping, Apotheker said in an interview with the BBC. “”HP will stop making announcements for stuff it doesn’t have,” he said. “… That’s a simple management decision, I don’t need to re-engineer the tanker to do that.”


  • How fast are the Amish growing?
    Some Amish may average from 5-6, while others register birth rates as high as 9 children per family (such as the Swiss Amish churches of Adams County, Indiana). Typically the average number of children is cited as 6 or 7 per family. Compared to a non-Amish average of slightly more than 2, the Amish family size is indeed quite large.


  • Model predicts 'religiosity gene' will dominate society
    In the past 20 years, the Amish population in the US has doubled, increasing from 123,000 in 1991 to 249,000 in 2010. The huge growth stems almost entirely from the religious culture’s high fertility rate, which is about 6 children per woman, on average. At this rate, the Amish population will reach 7 million by 2100 and 44 million by 2150. On the other hand, the growth may not continue if future generations of Amish choose to defect from the religion and if secular influences reduce the birth rate. In a new study, Robert Rowthorn, emeritus professor of economics at Cambridge University, has looked at the broader picture underlying this particular example: how will the high fertility rates of religious people throughout the world affect the future of human genetic evolution, and therefore the biological makeup of society?


  • Shakespeare’s Globe takes issue with the Queen over Bible reading royalties
    Thirteen years after the Queen fulfilled the dream of the late film director Sam Wanamaker and officially opened his reconstructed Shakespeare’s Globe, she has become inadvertently involved in an unseemly squabble over money with its managers.


  • All of Pearl River Delta to be amalgamated into a 42-million-person megacity
    The Chinese government has announced plans to amalgamate the nine major cities in the Pearl River Delta (home to a manufacturing-driven economic boom) into a single city with a population of 42 million people (more than Argentina, the world's 32nd largest country), occupying an area twice the size of Wales.


  • Science

    • Does Google do "research"?
      I've been asked a lot by folks recently about whether the work I'm doing now at Google is "research" and whether one can really have a "research career" at Google. This has also led to a lot of interesting discussions about what the role of research is in an industrial setting.


    • Science Students Stand Tall at State of the Union
      President Obama made his commitment to science and technology very clear in the first minutes of his presidency, when he promised in his Inaugural Address that his Administration would “restore science to its rightful place.”

      Tonight that rightful place will be the First Lady’s Box in the U.S. Capitol, where four remarkable science students from across the country will join Michelle Obama and other guests during the President’s State of the Union Address.


    • FBI serves 40 search warrants in Anonymous crackdown


    • 'Radical Redesign' Urged for Future Computers
      A study suggests the emergence of multicore processors will support an overhaul of computing architecture and much faster operations.




  • Security



    • Accused Scareware Operators Settle with FTC for $8.2 Million


    • Sourceforge Attack: Full Report
      The general course of the attack was pretty standard. There was a root privilege escalation on one of our platforms which permitted exposure of credentials that were then used to access machines with externally-facing SSH. Our network partitioning prevented escalation to other zones of our network.

      This is the point where we found the attack, locked down servers, and began work on analysis and response.




  • Politics/Defence/Police/Aggression

    • News finds way around Egyptian blockage
      While the popular satellite channel Al Jazeera has been broadcasting live footage of mass protests in Egypt, a nearly countrywide clampdown on the internet means there have been little information from people on the ground via blogs and Twitter.

      Despite this, and a mobile service shutdown, Egyptians have been finding ways around the internet blockage, using old-fashioned landlines, faxes and even ham radio. Telecomix News Agency said in a post on Twitter on Friday that it has been providing dial-up modem service and that activists are receiving Morse code messages over ham radio out of Egypt.


    • Is Qaddafi Next?
      And with Libya's immediate neighbors convulsed by public protests over the brutality and kleptocracy of their ruling familes, a newly leaked cable from the U.S. Embassy in Libya suggests that strongman Muammar Qaddafi has created a decadent, money-hungry family dynasty that could find itself the target of the next Arab revolution in the streets.


    • Undercover police officer warns against giving Met control of spy unit


      The first undercover police officer to infiltrate the environmental movement has warned against allowing the Metropolitan police to take over the unit responsible for monitoring "domestic extremists".

      Peter Black, who was undercover for four years, said it would be a "terrific mistake" if Scotland Yard were given control of the secretive unit, which has been running spies in protest groups.


    • Côte d’Ivoire: Violence Campaign by Security Forces, Militias
      Security forces under the control of Laurent Gbagbo and militias that support him have, since late November 2010, committed extrajudicial killings, forced disappearances, torture, and rape, Human Rights Watch said today.


    • Tunisian foreign minister Kamel Morjane resigns
      Tunisia's foreign minister, Kamel Morjane, has announced his resignation, state media reported, as authorities sought to appease protesters who want to oust other peers of the deposed former president Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali.


    • Iraq war inquiry: Top admiral told 'regime change not the goal' by Blair


      Britain's most senior military officer at the time of the invasion of Iraq told the Chilcot inquiry he repeatedly asked Tony Blair for an assurance that the war would be lawful and was emphatically assured the aim was never "regime change".

      In striking contrast to previous evidence about the former prime minister's war aims, Admiral Lord Boyce said : "Our policy absolutely and specifically was not regime change".


    • Kagame's authoritarian turn risks Rwanda's future


      When President Paul Kagame of Rwanda won re-election in August, he could look back with pride on his accomplishments. Rwanda has emerged from the devastation of genocide and become more secure and prosperous than anyone had a right to expect. The central task of his second seven-year term, which by law must be his last, is to add broader democracy to this security and prosperity.


    • British terror suspects banned from returning to UK


      Eight people suspected of terrorist links have been banned from returning to Britain under deprivation of citizenship orders, described bya lawyer for some of them as "far more draconian" than control orders.

      A freedom of information request by the Guardian revealed that, since 2007, eight people have been issued with these orders and had their passports cancelled while out of the UK, the same number as currently are subject to control orders. Often they were visiting family members abroad in school holidays when the notices were served, followed within a day or two by a signed order and an exclusion order preventing them from returning to the UK.


    • Airport officials declare tiny toy gun a safety threat


    • Airport security officials brand three inch toy gun "firearm"


    • Police officer guilty of assault
      An Edmonton police officer was found guilty Friday of assaulting a man he had taken into custody.

      Const. Haoyin Zheng was found guilty of assault in relation to the arrrest of two suspects in a west Edmonton alley on Dec. 15, 2008.

      Zheng faced three charges but was found not guilty of assault with a weapon and a second assault charge.


    • G20 accused decries detention conditions
      Joe “Grim” Thomson has spent about eight years in jail. His rap sheet has 31 convictions, from theft to assault to break and enter. He was “jumped in” to a Toronto gang at the age of 10.

      He's been on the inside of the Don Jail and Metro West and experienced a prison riot at maximum-security Millhaven. But none of those compare to the makeshift G20 detention centre that housed more than 1,000 people arrested during the summit weekend.


    • Egyptian army storms museum to protect from looters
      The Egyptian army has secured a famed antiquities museum from looters after dozens tried to steal priceless artifacts.


    • Mubarak’s planning exile to Tel Aviv
      According to sources in the Egyptian Embassy in Tel Aviv, Israel is making preparations to welcome Hosni Mubarak into exile after Saudi Arabia rejected overtures.


    • Juju's message to Mubarak


    • Stand with the People of Egypt
      Something incredible is happening in Egypt. Protests are spreading across the country, threatening a 30-year dictatorship.


    • Regime Change In Egypt And Undercover Police Actions
      We may have seen it in Canada, where the trashing of a police cruiser may have been a setup. The cruiser was supposedly stripped of it’s valuable computer, and abandoned, and the protestors who trashed it were wearing the same combat boots that uniformed police were wearing.


    • Pres. Mubarak’s Steals 40 Billion
      Jan. 28, 2011 President Mubarak’s Steals 40 Billion. President Mubarak’s stash is worth 40 billion dollars as his personal worth or what he stole from the Egyptian people has risen to epic proportions.

      Mubarak’s name can be added to the names of wealthy dictators throughout the world that most likely received the aide from the United States in their attempt to affect influence in foreign country politics.


    • It’s Not Twitter or Facebook, It’s the Power of the Network
      Just as it was during the recent uprisings in Tunisia, the role of social media in the recent upheaval in Egypt has been the subject of much debate since the unrest began on Thursday. Daily Show host Jon Stewart on Friday poked fun at the idea that Twitter might have played a key part in the demonstrations, and there are many observers who share his skepticism. The real trigger for the uprisings, they argue, is simply the frustration of the oppressed Egyptian people — which is undoubtedly true. But it also seems clear that social media has played a key role in getting the word out, and in helping organizers plan their protests. In the end, it’s not about Twitter or Facebook: it’s about the power of real-time networked communication.


    • Women of Egypt
      I found this collection of pictures of women in Egypt protesting against the regime on Facebook collected by Leil-Zahra Mortada.


    • Could Egypt Happen Here? Obama's Internet "Kill Switch"
      First it was Facebook. Then it was Twitter. Now, in the face of massive protests in the streets of Cairo and throughout the country, Egypt has pulled the plug on the entire Internet for its citizens. As this chart from Arbor networks shows, Internet traffic mounted steadily in Egypt steadily over several days, then suddenly and precipitously dropped to nil at 5:20 PM EST yesterday.


    • Why US Foreign Policy Is Flummoxed by Egypt’s Uprising
      As the United States struggles to respond to rapidly changing conditions in Egypt, it is informative to look at the arc of US foreign policy over the past half century or so. Foggy Bottom is stuck in a fog precisely because the approach to foreign policy has not evolved sufficiently since the demise of the Cold War. US foreign policy today is just as dependent on supporting individual despotic leaders today as it was in the 1950′s and 1960′s.


    • An Open Letter to President Barack Obama
      As political scientists, historians, and researchers in related fields who have studied the Middle East and U.S. foreign policy, we the undersigned believe you have a chance to move beyond rhetoric to support the democratic movement sweeping over Egypt. As citizens, we expect our president to uphold those values.

      For thirty years, our government has spent billions of dollars to help build and sustain the system the Egyptian people are now trying to dismantle. Tens if not hundreds of thousands of demonstrators in Egypt and around the world have spoken. We believe their message is bold and clear: Mubarak should resign from office and allow Egyptians to establish a new government free of his and his family’s influence. It is also clear to us that if you seek, as you said Friday “political, social, and economic reforms that meet the aspirations of the Egyptian people,” your administration should publicly acknowledge those reforms will not be advanced by Mubarak or any of his adjutants.


    • RCMP Chief Supt. Alphonse McNeil
      The concept of awarding any officer an award, for any involvement in the G8/G20 fiasco is beyond the pale.




  • Cablegate

    • The WikiLeaks News & Views Blog -- Special Weekend Edition!
      1:30 Just got email from Chris McGreal, Guardian correspondent in Washington, D.C., responding to my item earlier today about Bradley Manning as (possible) British citizen. Here, with his permission, from the email: "I think you are almost certainly right about him being a British citizen at birth through his mother who still lives in Wales. It maybe that he even obtained a British passport because, as the Daily Mail reports today, he went to Tasker Milward secondary school in Haverfordwest for a number of years before returning to his father. Which means he either entered the UK with a British passport or would have had to have obtained some kind of visa in his US passport that recognised his right to be in the UK through citizenship. Either way, there must have been some form of official British recognition of his UK citizenship for him to have gone to school in Wales." If he is a citizen, British authorities would normally take an interest in the case, visit him in prison, etc.


    • U.S., British Govts Keep Pressure on WikiLeaks
      U.S. and British government officials have begun a global crackdown against pro-WikiLeaks "hacktivists" who briefly shut down Mastercard, Visa, Paypal and Amazon.com December 9. The loose group of hacktivists began a global cyber-attack called "Operation Payback" against the companies that earlier had caved-in to what was likely a U.S. federal government pressure campaign and similar electronic attack against the WikiLeaks website earlier in the year.

      Five British citizens were arrested on January 27 in the anti-WikiLeaks government probe, and the U.S. government issued 40 search warrants the same day in a related move. The British arrests all involved young men aged 15 to 26. ABC News reported that many of the U.S. searches were "conducted in the San Francisco Bay area and the Boston area as part of an ongoing investigation that involved 26 FBI field offices executing search warrants."


    • Bangladesh 'death squad' trained by UK police resumes extrajudicial killing
      David Cameron set to raise issue with visiting Bangladesh PM Sheikh Hasina after UK connection revealed by WikiLeaks


    • Bill Keller and Wikileaks
      Bill Keller, the New York Times' executive editor, published an enormous article on the 26th of January about the New York Times' dealings with Wikileaks. The article develops further the running story of Wikileaks' relationship with its media partners, the subject of a Vanity Fair piece earlier in the month.

      Much has been made of the negative light in which Julian Assange appears in the article. Wired's Kim Zetter published a digest piece, in which the more absurd claims of the piece are given particular attention but little critical treatment. The more colourful parts of the article were, predictably, grist to the celebrity gossip mill.


    • Join a New Video Project in Defense of WikiLeaks
      The following is a brief description of this project with instructions on how to participate and submit your video clips. Julian Assange’s extradition hearing date is set to occur on either Feb 7th or 8th, 2011. Our goal is to release this video is the day of his hearing. With your help it will be a very powerful message that will be heard by many people around the world. Due to our very tight deadline we ask that you submit video clips back to us by February 1st.


    • Viewing cable 07CAIRO1417, PRESIDENTIAL SUCCESSION IN EGYPT
      ۦ1. (C) SUMMARY AND INTRODUCTION: PRESIDENTIAL SUCCESSION IS THE ELEPHANT IN THE ROOM OF EGYPTIAN POLITICS. DESPITE INCESSANT WHISPERED DISCUSSIONS, NO ONE IN EGYPT HAS ANY CERTAINTY ABOUT WHO WILL SUCCEED MUBARAK, OR HOW THE SUCCESSION WILL HAPPEN. MUBARAK HIMSELF SEEMS TO BE TRUSTING TO GOD AND THE INERTIA OF THE MILITARY AND CIVILIAN SECURITY SERVICES TO ENSURE AN ORDERLY TRANSITION. IN THE CURRENT POLITICAL FRAMEWORK, THE MOST LIKELY CONTENDERS ARE PRESIDENTIAL SON GAMAL MUBARAK (WHOSE PROFILE IS EVER-INCREASING AT THE RULING NATIONAL DEMOCRATIC PARTY), EGIS CHIEF OMAR SOLIMAN, DARK HORSE ARAB LEAGUE SECRETARY GENERAL AMRE MOUSSA, OR AN AS-YET UNKNOWN MILITARY OFFICER. WHOEVER ENDS UP AS EGYPT'S NEXT PRESIDENT LIKELY WILL BE POLITICALLY WEAKER THAN MUBARAK. ONCE MUBARAK'S SUCCESSOR HAS ASSUMED THE POST, HIS FIRST PRIORITY WILL BE TO BUILD POPULAR SUPPORT. WE THUS EXPECT THAT THE NEW PRESIDENT WILL LIKELY ADOPT AN ANTI-AMERICAN TONE IN HIS INITIAL PUBLIC RHETORIC, IN AN EFFORT TO PROVE HIS NATIONALIST BONA FIDES TO THE EGYPTIAN STREET, AND MAY POSSIBLY EXTEND AN OLIVE BRANCH TO THE MUSLIM BROTHERHOOD, AS DID PREVIOUS EGYPTIAN PRESIDENTS AT THE BEGINNING OF THEIR TERMS.


    • Julian Assange: 'How do you attack an organisation? You attack its leadership'
      Julian Assange awakes to talk, from the nap he has stolen in an armchair at the Norfolk country house where he is staying. He has been up all night disseminating, on his WikiLeaks site, US State Department cables and documents relevant to the momentous events unfolding in Egypt, and they make remarkable reading.


    • The Age of Wikileaks


    • Updates as they trickle in
      11:45 - The Daily Express (UK tabloid) has reported that the military are protecting the Valley of the Kings but that there has been no move by the UK government to evacuate Luxor.

      CNN has reported on two tours and their experiences in Cairo. One tour, which started in Cairo, arrived safely in Luxor where they saw tanks but apparently no signs of trouble. They were transferred to their cruise ship which has sailed south, but the atmoshpere on board is described as "somber".

      Reuters has suggested that the protests may have only a short term impact on tourism in Egypt, but I guess that that will depend on the political outcome of the protests.


    • How we know Bradley Manning is a UK citizen – FOR SURE
      This is an important blog post. Please distribute it widely.

      My legal information is sourced from the UK Border Agency, specifically their caseworking instructions for all issues arising under The British Nationality Act of 1981. This piece of legislation has formed the basis of British nationality law since coming into force on 1 January 1983 and the caseworking instructions derived from it are the guidelines Border Agency employees refer to on a day-to-day basis when deciding who is entitled to British citizenship. This is an absolutely authoritative source.

      Bradley Manning is a UK citizen by virtue of his mother’s nationality. He holds both US and UK citizenship.

      Bradley Manning was born in the United States on 17 December 1987, the son of Brian and Susan Manning. As the son of an American father, born on US soil, Bradley Manning has held US citizenship since birth.




  • Environment/Energy/Wildlife

    • Climate change: Barack Obama less interested than Bush, analysis reveals


      Barack Obama has paid less attention to climate change in his State of the Union addresses than any other president in the past 20 years, an analysis by a British researcher has found.



    • Greenland ice sheet is safer than scientists previously thought
      The threat of the Greenland ice sheet slipping ever faster into the sea because of warmer summers has been ruled out by a scientific study.


    • If water vapour is the key greenhouse gas, why are man-made emissions important?


      It's true that water vapour is the biggest overall contributor to the greenhouse effect and that humans are not responsible for directly emitting this gas in quantities sufficient to change its concentration in the atmosphere. However, the scientific evidence suggests that the warming caused by man-made emissions of CO2 and other greenhouse gases is increasing the amount of water vapour in the air by boosting the rate of evaporation.


    • The cultural life of whales
      Whales are not only the largest animals that have ever lived – they are also among the most intelligent, and yet we still know very little about them. New research, however, suggests that sperm whales at least use sophisticated communication techniques to develop distinct and separate cultures. Here to discuss the latest in cetacean research to mark next month's Peninsula Arts Whale Festival, are Philip Hoare, a self-confessed "whalehead" and author of Leviathan or, The Whale, winner of the 2009 BBC Samuel Johnson Prize, and Dr Hal Whitehead from Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia, a world expert on sperm whales.


    • Pushing policies that would destroy a livable climate, Chamber of Commerce lectures on “energy reality”
      In actual “energy and economic reality,” the oil and coal industries are killing Americans, weakening our economy, and destabilizing our planet. Pollution from burning coal and oil kills at least 20,000 Americans a year. Oil company profits are soaring — ConocoPhillips up 46 percent to $1.9 billion, Chevron up 72 percent to $5.3 billion — on rising prices that are sucking the lifeblood out of the economic recovery. Even Dr. John Felmy, American Petroleum Institute’s top economist, admits that raising taxes on oil companies could create two million American jobs.






  • Finance

    • Goldman Sachs Contributed Vastly to The Financial Meltdown
      The headline of the excerpt below says it all: Goldman Sachs is very much responsible for the size and length of the financial disaster that came to a head in 2008. The Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission Report is a very large book-length document but one that is not difficult to read. In Chapter 8 entitled "The CDO Machine" a small section is devoted to Goldman Sachs beginning on page 142. It is worth reading but really doesn't tell us any more than what we have already been reading and writing about.


    • Philip Maddocks: Goldman Sachs deal lets wealthiest clients invest in themselves
      The banking giant Goldman Sachs has created a “special purpose vehicle” for its high-net-worth clients that it says would further set them apart from the rest of the world by allowing the elite group an exclusive opportunity to invest in themselves.

      “We just want to do our part for our business’ economy and make sure all of us are living the life we deserve,” said a Goldman Sachs spokesman. “We are capable of doing great things for this company, and if that happens to help out the country, too, then all the better. But we’re not worried about that right now and neither are our clients.”

      In having its most prized customers invest billions in themselves through Goldman, the New York bank has established itself as the leading candidate to win the lucrative and prestigious assignment of its clients’ initial public offering, whenever that offering comes. It also puts Goldman in the position to reap millions of dollars in banking fees.

      Goldman says it has already begun the process of wooing its wealthy clients to invest in themselves, forming an investment vehicle that seeks to raise as much $100 billion through the cabal of the super wealthy.


    • Why corporate tax reform will be hard, in one graph


      Binyamin Appelbaum, as an addendum to this sobering look at the realities of corporate tax reform, points to the work of NYU's Aswath Damodaran, who has compiled a rough estimate of the effective tax rates in various industries. You might already anticipate that the rates vary.


    • Obama's fundraisers are rebuilding bridges to big donors for 2012 campaign
      In an attempt to patch up the relationship between the president and the nation's top donors, Jim Messina, the 2012 reelection campaign manager and former Obama deputy chief of staff, will headline a Democratic Party event next week at the Park Avenue apartment of Jane Hartley and Ralph Schlosstein, the Obama fundraising flagship in New York. The conciliatory mission, along with the selection of Julianna Smoot, the outgoing White House social secretary as Messina's campaign deputy, signals an intention to rebuild the big-donor establishment that President Obama obliterated.


    • Poll: Americans increasingly view global economy as a negative for U.S.
      A growing number of Americans consider the accelerating trend toward globalization a bad thing for the United States. At the same time, a majority now sees being the world's No. 1 economic power as an important national goal.


    • Bill Gross sees dangers in the debt-limit debate
      The world's largest bond investor says the fight over raising the country's borrowing limit threatens to throw the debt market into a tailspin.

      "It's the wrong way to do it," says Bill Gross, manager of the $241 billion Pimco Total Return Fund, the largest mutual fund. "Obviously, I'm all for a move to a balanced budget over time. But this is like imposing the death penalty for shoplifting."


    • Crisis Panel’s Report Parsed Far and Wide
      Behind closed doors, Ben S. Bernanke, the Federal Reserve chairman, called it “the worst financial crisis in global history, including the Great Depression.”


    • At Davos, Geithner notes confidence about economy
      U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said Friday that his country has more confidence now that there is a sustainable expansion - but added that it is not a boom.

      "There's much more confidence now that we've got a sustainable expansion," he said at the World Economic Forum, but added, "It's not a boom."


    • Senator Kent Conrad Advocates Default on the National Debt
      This would have been an appropriate headline for an AP article which included a quote from North Dakota Senator Kent Conrad implying that it would be reasonable to default on the government bonds held by the Social Security trust fund:

      "I've received the lash from those who say, 'Well, you shouldn't have to cut Social Security because there are trillions of dollars of assets.' It is true there are trillions of dollars of assets. It is true that they're backed by the full faith and credit of the United States. It is also true that the only way those bonds get redeemed is out of the current income of the United States."


    • Crisis May Seem Criminal, but Try Making a Case
      The findings of the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission have pretty much wiped away the already dwindling chances that federal prosecutors will try to hold a prominent Wall Street executive criminally responsible for the crisis. Both the majority and dissenting reports describe a wide range of serious problems in the financial system that led to the downfall of firms like Lehman Brothers and the American International Group, setting off a deep recession when the credit markets seized up in 2008.


    • Workers saw 2 percent rise in wages and benefits
      Workers saw their wages and benefits rise slightly faster in 2010 than 2009, but the gain was still the second-lowest increase in nearly three decades.


    • More robust spending helps economy gain steam
      A more active consumer was the main reason the economy grew at an annual rate of 3.2 percent in the final three months of 2010, the Commerce Department said Friday. It was up from 2.6 percent the previous quarter and the best since the start of last year.


    • Citigroup bailout to make US taxpayers $12.3bn profit
      US taxpayers are likely to make a $12.3bn (€£7.75bn) total profit on their bailout of financial group Citigroup, according to government officials.

      The US treasury expects to net $312.2m on Monday when it sells the rest of its stake in Citigroup. The government holds 465.1m warrants in Citi that entitle it to purchase common shares in the banking group.


    • Jealous Davos Mistresses
      The point about Davos is that it makes everyone feel wildly insecure. Billionaires and heads of state alike are all convinced that they have been given the worst hotel rooms, put on the least interesting panels and excluded from the most important events/most interesting private dinners. The genius of World Economic Founder Klaus Schwab is that he has been able to persuade hundreds of accomplished businessmen to pay thousands of dollars to attend an event which is largely based on mass humiliation and paranoia.

      Wives feel sympathetic to their husbands and share their pain. But we have our own problems to cope with. After all, we are the on the bottom rung of the Davos ladder.




  • Political PR/Deception



    • Scalia meets with tea party House members
      Justice Antonin Scalia spoke Monday afternoon at a closed-door meeting organized by Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) and the House Tea Party caucus. In 2009, the wife of Justice Clarence Thomas organized a tea-party group called Liberty Central, which urged conservatives to fight for the repeal of "Obamacare."


    • Sarah Palin Calls Obama’s Sputnik Mention A ‘WTF Moment’
      Former Alaska governor Sarah Palin made her first media appearance since discussing the Tucson shooting with Sean Hannity, this time speaking to Greta Van Susteren about her thoughts on this year’s State of the Union address.

      Palin was, of course, disappointed in Barack Obama’s speech, calling his decision to refer to America’s “Sputnik moment” as a “WTF moment.”


    • Why the BBC's old guard called time on the Wibbly Wobbly Web
      So the BBC is slimming down, in response to government pressure. The World Service is to lose five of its foreign-language services, and a quarter of its staff. And BBC Online's budget will be cut by a quarter to €£103m and the unit will lose 360 staff, at the same time as it embarks upon a radical "redesign" of the website and its navigation. Introducing these developments, the corporation's director general explained that the hatchet-work was part of a broader strategy to do "fewer things better". The changes to BBC Online would, he maintained, make the corporation's web services "more focused and more valuable".


    • A lot of Americans can't even find their own country on a map. So I'm not surprised Fox News has no idea about Egypt!


    • Wiping Iraq off the map
      It’s a sobering thought that despite all the turmoil in Yemen there are people who look to it as a haven of safety.

      Almost a quarter of a million Somalis have fled their homes since May 7 to escape fighting in Mogadishu and up to 12,000 of them have gathered in the northern town of Bossasso, hoping to be smuggled into Yemen.

      So far, 30,000 have made the dangerous sea crossing to Yemen but more than 300 have died or gone missing in the process, AP reports via al-Jazeera and the Washington Post.

      "These people are obviously reaching the end of their rope,” UNHCR spokesman Ron Redmond told a news conference. “They see no future in Somalia and many of them are so desperate that they're willing to risk their lives and the lives of their families to escape."

      In Yemen itself, four policemen were killed and one injured – apparently by separatists – at al-Ayn (Abyan province). A local official said 10 gunmen attacked at 2am while four of the police were asleep and the fifth was on guard.


    • The House GOP's Plan to Redefine Rape
      Rape is only really rape if it involves force. So says the new House Republican majority as it now moves to change abortion law.


    • Rupert Murdoch - A Portrait Of Satan
      Rupert Murdoch doesn't like the BBC

      And sometimes the BBC doesn't seem to like Rupert Murdoch either.

      Following the principle that you should know your enemy, the BBC has assiduously recorded the relentless rise of Rupert Murdoch and his assault on the old "decadent" elites of Britain.

      And I thought it would be interesting to put up some of the high points.

      It is also a good way to examine how far his populist rhetoric is genuine, and how far its is a smokescreen to disguise the interests of another elite.

      As a balanced member of the BBC - I leave it to you to decide.

      Murdoch first appears in the BBC archive in a short fragment without commentary shot in 1968. It shows him ambling into the City of London on his way to see Sir Humphrey Mynors who was head of the City Takeover Panel




  • Censorship/Neutrality

    • Regulating Google’s Results? Law Prof Calls ‘Search Neutrality’ Incoherent
      “Neutrality” — if it’s good enough for the core of the internet, isn’t it good enough for the edge? The biggest internet providers say it is, and they would love to have the government slap a few neutrality rules on Google, just to see how the advertising giant likes the taste of the regulatory bridle.

      In 2010, while the FCC was debating net neutrality rules, ISPs like Time Warner Cable settled on a “they’re gatekeepers, too!” strategy.


    • 3 Projects to Create a Government-less Internet
      The OLPC's XO has meshnetworking capabilities. And some gaming systems, such as the Nintendo DS, have mesh networking built in. But we want to look at projects that are specifically aimed at replacing or augmenting the public Internet.


    • The Tweets Must Flow
      Our goal is to instantly connect people everywhere to what is most meaningful to them. For this to happen, freedom of expression is essential. Some Tweets may facilitate positive change in a repressed country, some make us laugh, some make us think, some downright anger a vast majority of users. We don't always agree with the things people choose to tweet, but we keep the information flowing irrespective of any view we may have about the content.

      The open exchange of information can have a positive global impact. This is both a practical and ethical belief. On a practical level, we simply cannot review all one hundred million-plus Tweets created and subsequently delivered every day. From an ethical perspective, almost every country in the world agrees that freedom of expression is a human right. Many countries also agree that freedom of expression carries with it responsibilities and has limits.

      [...]

      Our position on freedom of expression carries with it a mandate to protect our users' right to speak freely and preserve their ability to contest having their private information revealed. While we may need to release information as required by law, we try to notify Twitter users before handing over their information whenever we can so they have a fair chance to fight the request if they so choose.



    • Blocking child porn sites "exacerbates policing problem"
      Handing the responsibility of shutting down child porn sites to web firms and watchdogs removes any incentive for police to investigate the crimes, according to a European digital rights group.

      In a report, The slide from “self-regulation” to corporate censorship, European Digital Rights (EDRI) criticised the trend of passing extra-judicial powers to an ever-widening pool of web monitors, including ISPs, bodies such as the Internet Watch Foundation (IWF) and European watchdogs.


    • OPENMESH Is Seeking Alternatives To Egypt-Style Internet Blackouts
      Galvanized by the unprecedented Internet shutdown in Egypt, angel investor Shervin Pishevar has launched OPENMESH a forum for people who want to discuss ways of preventing governments from blocking communications networks. The site (which is admittedly sparse at the moment) was up within hours of Pishevar tweeting out his ideas, designed and built by followers @Laksman and @garyjaybrooks.


    • No Internet? No Problem! Anonymous Faxes Egypt


    • After Egypt, Will U.S. Get 'Internet Kill Switch'?
      With reports of Egypt's government completing shutting down the Internet in the country, talk about an "Internet kill switch" bill in the U.S. has reemerged. Could it happen here?

      The bill in question is the Protecting Cyberspace as a National Asset Act of 2010, a cyber-security measure introduced in June by Sen. Joseph Lieberman. It was an over-arching cyber-security measure that, among other things, would create an office of cyberspace policy within the White House and a new cyber-security center within the Homeland Security Department.


    • Egypt not trending in China
      Beijing blocks searches for "Egypt" from microblogging site following protests there.


    • Recent events in Egypt
      The current state of affairs in Egypt looks quite bleak for people using Vodafone, Orange, TE Data, and other well-known service providers. It is reported that each of those companies was ordered by the Egyptian government to turn down their internet services. The nature of the order and its legality is of course very unclear at this time. What is known is that nearly in perfect unison many Egyptian ISPs turned down their BGP route announcements to countries outside of Egypt and from what we've been able to gather they're also not peering with each other. The cables connecting (FLAG and SEABONE) Egypt to the world are still physically intact.

      The impact of de-peering is significant; even if someone is able to get packets directly to the edge routers of TE Data or another ISP, no response will be forthcoming. Renesys, RIPE, and BGPmon have fantastic technical details for those without access to an active BGP router.


    • Sublime or Shameless: Facebook Censors Nude Paintings
      Maybe Facebook is not the place to display our work as figurative painters. But in this difficult economy, and truly at any time, it's hard to accept a limitation on your potential success based solely on a handful of people who don't understand what you're doing. It's hard not to be angry when someone seems to blindly attack the thing that you hold so close to your heart... labeling it vulgar and obscene, when you see it as a thing of beauty and human dignity. You see it as a gift to them, and they see it as a threat. The issue with Facebook seems to be the same as the issue with the work itself: each of us has different definitions of what it is and what is should be... and for now at least, we'll all have to agree to disagree.




  • Privacy

    • UK ISPs Moot Anonymous Internet Solution to Circumvent New Data and Piracy Laws
      A Swedish ISP that is also responsible for hosting WikiLeaks, Bahnhof, has this week triggered a fresh debate into internet privacy by announcing its intention to avoid the new European Data Retention Directive and stick all of its customers behind an effectively anonymous Virtual Private Network (VPN).

      Most VPN's act as private networks that piggyback the public internet and are traditionally used to help employees stay connected with their work while away from the office. They can also have many other uses, such as allowing virtual Local Area Network (LAN) connections between users.


    • Opera Study: Americans Most Fearful About Online Government Monitoring
      The study finds that more Americans worry about their online privacy being violated (25 percent) than going bankrupt (23 percent) or losing their job (22 percent).




  • Civil Rights

    • TN Fusion Center Calls ACLU Terrorist Group
      A DHS fusion center in Tennessee -- an agency designed to aid cooperation between state, local and federal officials in anti-terrorism investigations -- has put the ACLU of Tennessee on a map of terrorist organizations because it sent a letter to schools warning them about Christmas celebrations and the First Amendment.


    • US lawyers start to mine private Facebook zones
      AN OUTCRY is erupting in the US over how judges are giving lawyers rights to plunder private emails and posts in social notworking websites.


    • EFF: FBI may have committed more than 40K intelligence violations since 9/11
      A new report from the Electronic Frontier Foundation analyzes more than 2,500 pages' worth of FBI documents extracted using Freedom of Information Act litigation and finds disturbing, system-wide violations of civil liberties on a scale that is far beyond anything reported to date...




  • Internet/Net Neutrality

    • Senators bash "telecom oligarchs," propose strict net neutrality bill
      In the month since the FCC adopted its open Internet rules, most of the DC debate over net neutrality has focused on FCC overreach. Verizon sued the agency. MetroPCS sued the agency. Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) introduced a bill to strip the FCC of any authority to regulate Internet access.

      But Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-WA) and Sen. Al Franken (D-MN) have another point of view: the FCC didn't go far enough. The pair yesterday introduced the "Internet Freedom, Broadband Promotion, and Consumer Protection Act of 2011" (PDF) to extend net neutrality to all forms of Internet access (including wireless).


    • The US Commerce Dept position paper for the ICANN Board negotiations
      IGP has obtained a copy of the US Commerce Department's position paper for its February 28 negotiations with the ICANN Board over the new top level domain program. The "USG Submission to the GAC Scorecard" shows that the U.S. Commerce Department's ICANN crew has gone off the rails. It supports direct governmental veto power over domains and demands that ICANN completely rewrite most of the consensus policies developed over 4 years.




  • DRM

    • Sony sends out DMCA Takedown Notices!
      Soon after Sony won in SF with a TRO against Mr. Hotz regarding the 'metldr keys', their MIB Team started the next step and have issued DMCA Takedown Notices to a number of various 'scene' developers that had code either mirrored or stored on their GITHUB's or websites!




  • Intellectual Monopolies



    • Copyrights

      • France court convicts former Vivendi bosses of misleading investors, insider trading
        A Paris criminal court on Friday convicted former Vivendi SA [corporate website] chairman and CEO Jean-Marie Messier of misleading investors during his tenure at the helm of the French entertainment giant. Canadian Edgar Bronfman Jr., former vice-chairman of Vivendi and current Warner Music Group chairman and CEO, was convicted of insider trading and fined five million euros.


      • MPAA, BREIN take down more torrent sites; Internet barely notices
        At least 51 torrent sites have been taken down this month thanks to joint efforts by the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) and its dutch counterpart BREIN—12 in the US and 39 in the Netherlands. The two groups say they were able to work with the sites' hosting providers to take them offline, though the names of the affected sites have not been released.


      • Wyden pledges to delay Internet anti-piracy bill
        "Under current law, Hollywood already has powerful tools to police online infringement, such as the DMCA takedown process, that were the result of years of negotiation and include protections against abuse."



      • Online community is under siege, says Pirate Party UK
        THE ONLINE COMMUNITY believes it us under siege after the arrests of five Anonymous suspects, according to Pirate Party UK leader Loz Kaye.

        While stressing its opposition to illegal activity, Kaye's party says it understands why, in the face of government and corporate attacks against Wikileaks, individuals around the world want to fight back.


      • Mass P2P filesharing lawsuits, chapter and verse
        Once in a very long while something comes along when the overused superlative ‘awesome’ can be applied appropriately. Something that’s truly extraordinary.

        This “may be of interest to your readers, and perhaps might be worthy of a short posting”, says an email from someone who prefers to remain anonymous.


      • ACTA











Clip of the Day



Fedora Site Hacked? Sourceforge Hacked?? Unified Package Installer! KDE 4.6 Released!



[an error occurred while processing this directive]



Credit: TinyOgg

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