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Links - New and Old Censorship, Anti-trust, Privacy Violations and Pollution.

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  • Anti-Trust

    • Pay TV piracy hits News
      The actions are documented in an archive of 14,400 emails held by former Metropolitan Police commander Ray Adams who was European chief for Operational Security between 1996 and 2002. The Financial Review is publishing thousands of the emails on its website at URL afr.com.

      The emails show that Murdoch used "piracy" as a competitive weapon, helping people to break the digital handcuffs of rival's pay TV boxes. The loss of face and revenue helped Murdoch to consolidate his media empire.



    • Microsoft all but buys Netscape with AOL patent acqusition

      This Microsoft friendly news source uses gloats over this superposed "end of the browser wars" and uses the term "intellectual property" while glorifying and validating software patents.



  • Censorship

    • The reason I'm helping Chris Hedges' lawsuit against the NDAA
      the Homeland Battlefield Bill has already a chilling effect upon my ability to investigate and document matters of national controversy that would ordinarily be subject to my professional inquiry. It has therefore prevented my readers from receiving the full spectrum of truthful reporting which, in a functioning democracy, they have a right to expect.


    • Iraq’s internet on the brink
      A year since the Arab Spring, the internet in the region is facing significant threats from governments trying to gain more control over it.


    • Media companies & ISPs outline plan to stop piracy

      Not so voluntary censorship is set to roll out on people in the US. Appealing accusations of sharing will cost people $35.



    • World Without Web
      ... we underestimate the alarming degree of contingency lurking behind ‘inevitable’ developments. ... The divergence point for this history is in 1983-1984, when the leadership of DARPA lied through its teeth to Congress about who was being allowed access to the Internet. ... what if DARPA had been caught in that lie, funding for its network research scaled back, and a serious effort made to kick randoms off the early net?


    • CISPA – The Sneaky Son Of SOPA

      A good collection of links about a nasty law against sharing.





  • Civil Rights



  • Privacy



  • Education Watch



  • DRM

    • How Adobe DRM Requires People to Pirate Library Books
      Open standards make sense. What makes no sense is that large companies in the field still do not understand this. ... It turns out that a majority of the 6,495 titles available at my local library were accessible only through a locked .acsm file format. ...you can think of a .acsm file as being very much like a .torrent file. If you use Windows or Mac, you can (theoretically) download and install Adobe Digital Editions (ADE). This software reads the .acsm file and then it will download the actual .epub book, complete with DRM. ... there is no legal way to access the content without breaking the law if you are using free (libre) software.

      Tell your local librarian to never use a system like this!





  • Intellectual Monopolies

    • Another Patent Attack on Google with More Wild $$ Predictions ~pj
      Nokia and Microsoft. Partners at law, so to speak. Is this another Microsoft/Nokia outsourced production? Remember when Barnes & Noble told us that it views Microsoft and Nokia's patent campaign as an antitrust violation, a deliberate campaign to destroy Android and maintain Microsoft's monopoly on the desktop and extend it to smartphones, with Nokia piggybacking with its patents for weapons and MOSAID being brought in to do some of the dirty work? So when you read the scare headlines, remember this: Google is awesome at patent litigation. It tends to prevail. I told you that when Oracle first sued Google


    • Oracle’s Position is Worse Than I Thought


    • USPTO Issues Interim Mayo Guidance ~pj
      "...the claimed product or process amounts to significantly more than a law of nature, a natural phenomenon, or an abstract idea with conventional steps specified at a high level of generality appended thereto." Why *wouldn't* that apply to software?


    • Mayo Decision Impacts Myriad Genetics - Judgment Vacated, Remanded ~pj
      Things are looking up in PatentLand


    • Prometheus bound: An important precedent for the next software patent case
      Plainly, this was not a dispute about software patents, but the Court’s unanimous opinion will guide it and lower courts as they analyze future software patent cases.


    • Copyrights

      • Judge rules file sharing is not a "conspiracy"
        The litigators are trying to get around the fact that judges aren't happy with allowing mass lawsuits, so what they are doing is taking one internet user to court but using that lawsuit as a pretext to subpoena other defendants who had participated in the same BitTorrent swarm. ... James Holderman of the Northern District of Illinois raised his eyebrow in disgust at this trick, saying that it was trying to get around the "stiffening judicial headwind."


      • 5000+ Artists Line Up For a Pirate Bay Promotion
        “We’re one of the worlds top 60 sites in the Internet. This brings us a responsibility to use the site to do something good. When I think about it, it’s insane that all the other top 100 sites only blast ads and self-centered stuff on their front pages. We do this for fun and for the love of culture, so we’re everything the major labels are not.”


      • 3 Major Publishers Sue Open-Education Textbook Start-Up

        See also this excllent summary

        To gain access to the digital alternatives, students select the traditional books assigned in their classes, and Boundless pulls content from an array of open-education sources to knit together a text that the company claims is as good as the designated book. The company calls this mapping of printed book to open material “alignment”—a tactic the complaint said creates a finished product that violates the publishers’ copyrights.


      • DRM is crushing indie booksellers online


      • MPAA Lines Up With Porn Studio in Steamy Copyright Dispute

        A video site that published movies as urls is surprised that people would download those movies. They also found a judge that agrees enough to shut down a website where users share the urls, sometimes as embedded movies.







  • Recent Techrights' Posts

    Rejecting 'Snoop-Phones' and Turning "Old" Phones (or Tablets) Into Freedom-Respecting Appliances
    Paul Fernhout (pdfernhout.net) wrote back to Akira Urushibatathis this past weekend
    Apple is the Company of Dictators and Worse
    Apple is just another greedy corporation in search of sweatshops and even pedophiles (especially the high-profile ones)
    Counting Unhatched Eggs Is Not Counting Chickens
    Everything here will persist as normal
    The "Infinite Bread"
    The biblical story of Jesus feeding the 5,000 has software parallels
    In Many Cases and in Many Different Ways, Technology Became Less Durable and Less Reliable Over Time
    The "modern" things are more complex. And complexity is a foe or reliability and repair-ability.
    Microsoft's LinkedIn is Losing Money, Traffic, and Hope; Now It Wants to Sell Its Users' Lifeblood (and Data)
    Let this be a reminder of what social control media really is about
    Microsoft Lunduke: Freedom of Speech Means Spreading What I Have to Say and Banning People I Disagree With
    4Chan is one he aims for and he is siccing 4Chan trolls at people he doesn't like
    Richard Stallman Back at the "Rudolf-Diesel" Hörsal "MW 2001" in About 40 Hours
    He spoke there before; there's a very high seating capacity there
     
    Slopwatch: Google News Promoting Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt (FUD)
    What is the value of Google News if so many results in it are fake 'articles?
    Our Uptime This Year Was Better Than AWS (Also a Lot Cheaper)
    We never used "the cloud"
    Amazon Web Shenanigans
    An ongoing, experimental endeavour
    Death of Elias Diem: FSFE mailing list archives hidden
    Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
    Links 20/10/2025: Louvre Museum Reveals Weakness, About 7 Million Protest US Turning Into Oligarchy/Monarchy
    Links for the day
    They Should Have Listened to Techrights Over a Month Earlier (Xubuntu Site Compromised)
    we reported this issue about 40 days earlier and nobody did anything about it
    Richard Stallman to Give Another Talk Today in Bavaria (Bavarian Academy of Science)
    Tomorrow at 6 PM he speaks in Munich
    Barry Kauler Explains That Puppy Linux and EasyOS Exclude Systemd to Keep Things Simple
    Barry Kauler's Puppy Linux is in the community's hands. He now focuses on EasyOS and more.
    Half a Year After Brian Fagioli Got Kicked Out of BetaNews for Slop He's Still Doing LLM Slop and Slop Images Targeting 'Linux' (Plagiarising Original Works)
    If the Web gets polluted or flooded by slopfarms such as these, and Slashdot then sends traffic so these slopfarms (Slashdot probably doesn't do this intentionally), then real writers with real knowledge of GNU/Linux will lose the spark for publishing
    Over at Tux Machines...
    GNU/Linux news for the past day
    IRC Proceedings: Sunday, October 19, 2025
    IRC logs for Sunday, October 19, 2025
    Campaign of FUD Against Framework Laptops and GNU/Linux (Using Microsoft's Attack on Linux, 'Secure Boot')
    Ritual Defamation Cult has turned its attention over to Framework
    Liberation From 'The Feed'
    They rank things based on the editor's choice/ideology (he or she knows the sponsors, hence the masters)
    Microsoft's Killing of Vista 10 Seems to Have Resulted in More Articles About GNU/Linux (But Also FUD)
    We not only saw a rise in traffic, we also saw a remarkable rise in the number of articles
    Today (a Day Before Richard Stallman Talk at TUM) There's a Patent Propaganda Event at TUM
    Perhaps an opportunity for Dr. Stallman to rebut this "invention to patent" nonsense/fantasy (conflating monopolies with innovation)
    OpenSource or "Open Source" as a Brand is Dying, Let's Get Back to Talking About Software Freedom
    Those of us who actually want to reform the industry and put users in control of their systems/devices will recognise that "Open Source" was selling a lie or got-co-opted by liars
    19 Years in Numbers: Techrights' Anniversary Countdown and Retrospective
    In 2019 we began improving our workflows and, accordingly/predictably, we became a lot more productive
    Slop Turns People Off (LLMs Lack Intelligence, They're Just Plagiarism Powerhouses That Fail to Deliver Any Real, Measurable Value)
    "More" (or "MOAR") isn't always better
    IBM Red Hat Has Re-calibrated or Adjusted to Bubble Economics, False Promises, and Slop/Plagiarism
    This won't end well
    Fake Numbers, Fake Claims, Fake Economy, and Media Grifters That Prop Up Fraud
    Grifters like The Register MS won't be looked upon kindly after the bubble implodes
    For Some, the GNU Web Site is Not Accessible This Week
    They seem to have gone into some kind of lock-down mode
    Symptoms of Upcoming Microsoft Layoffs in XBox
    A crashing franchise
    Psychiatrist confession: Germanwings crash & Debian toxic culture recognized before suicides
    Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
    Gemini Links 19/10/2025: Scentjacking 101, Slop Hype Boosters, and Steam Next Fest
    Links for the day
    Slopwatch: The Serial Slopper, LinuxSecurity, and Google News
    Let's hope slopfarms die as soon as possible
    Links 19/10/2025: Cambodia Scam Centres, Slop Hurting Wikipedia Traffic
    Links for the day
    As Economies Crumble Free as in Beer Will Matter, Not Just Free as in Freedom/Libre (Libertad)
    French regions choosing to embrace Software Freedom
    25 Years Ago, an Explanation of How Reducing Free Software to 'Apps' Would Interfere With Freedom Goals
    there's nothing unreasonable about it
    A List of 63 Known Gemini Clients (Software to Browse Geminispace Content With Gemini Protocol)
    Not counting browser plugins for Web browsers
    Gemini Links 19/10/2025: "Firma Odin Is Transforming" and Bot Attacks While "AFK"
    Links for the day
    US Government: 6.1% of Site Visitors Use GNU/Linux
    GNU/Linux has a considerable share and it is growing
    LLM Slop Could Not Rise to Prominence Without Media Complicity and Artificial Hype
    Inane garbage disguised as "journalism"
    Why the FSF No Longer Recommends Debian, as Explained by Richard Stallman This Month
    some weeks ago
    All the Latest Half Dozen Articles by Mehedi Hasan (UbuntuPIT) Only Admit at the End That He's Using LLM Slop
    Disclosure is OK, but the practice of using slop is not
    The 'Modern' Web of Fake Security and Easy Censorship of Whole Domains
    Each year it gets worse
    Over at Tux Machines...
    GNU/Linux news for the past day
    IRC Proceedings: Saturday, October 18, 2025
    IRC logs for Saturday, October 18, 2025
    The Term "AI" is Not New and What Today's Media Calls "AI" Isn't Even AI
    Only the hype was new... and totally artificial
    Gemini Links 18/10/2025: "Planetary Rings", Steam, and PSU Replacement
    Links for the day
    Defeating LLM Abuse (State-of-the-Art Plagiarism) in the Area of Linux and GNU, Free Software, BSD, Security and So On
    The aim is to get them to stop using LLMs to rip off other people's work
    Links 18/10/2025: Russell Vought in Charge, US Government Leans to Russia Again
    Links for the day
    Credit Where It's Due: LinuxConfig.org Quit Doing LLM Slop, Back to Original and Real Articles
    We waited for a while to say this, now it seems conclusive
    Of Note: UbuntuPIT Aware of Critics of Slop, Adds Disclosure of Use of LLMs
    We appreciate the honesty
    Links 18/10/2025: Madagascar's President Flees and ICE Arrests Protest Comedian Robby Roadsteamer
    Links for the day
    Richard Stallman Near the European Patent Office (EPO) in 3 Days From Now
    It'll be a good opportunity for patent examiners to listen, ask questions, and maybe greet him in person
    From Scholar to Booster of Slop (and Even Slop in His Own Blog)
    We're going to keep an eye on future posts of his
    End of Vista 10 Also Good News for the BSDs
    There are many news sites that recommend trying GNU/Linux this month
    What's Wrong With Liking Parrots or Birds as Pets?
    They'd demonise people for speaking about freedom, no matter what they say or do
    Digital Sanitation Good Practices
    leave behind Microsoftism
    10 Days Ago Richard Stallman Gave a Long Interview in French (linuxfr.org)
    English translation
    Science, Not Fast Food/Junk Food
    The commercial exploitation of users won't stop until users exercise full control over their software or - more broadly - their computing (including data)
    The Free Software Foundation, Which Has Appointed a 43-Year-Old President, is Looking to Add Another Board Member (or Treasurer)
    expect the FSF to add more people
    Richard Stallman Confirms Next Week's Talk at Technical University of Munich, We Urge EPO Staff to Attend
    That's probably late enough for EPO staff to attend after work
    Gemini Links 18/10/2025: Notifications and Geminaut
    Links for the day
    Many Red Hat People Are Leaving, But It'll Be Framed Publicly as Leaving IBM
    Similarly, IBM layoffs (or "RAs" as they're called) include Red Hat layoffs
    Expect More Waves of Microsoft Layoffs This Month (at Least Two Rounds Confirmed Already)
    From what we can gather, assuming the recent rumours about XBox are true, there will be at least 3 waves of Microsoft layoffs this month alone
    Security Issues in Cisco and Jenkins Passed Off as "Linux" Problems
    Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt (FUD) tactics
    Over at Tux Machines...
    GNU/Linux news for the past day
    IRC Proceedings: Friday, October 17, 2025
    IRC logs for Friday, October 17, 2025