GNU News (December-January)
- Dr. Roy Schestowitz
- 2014-01-21 10:28:00 UTC
- Modified: 2014-01-21 10:28:00 UTC
Summary: GNU, FSF, and Free software news from the past month or so
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Richard Stallman today met Mr Rahul Gandhi, Vice President of the Indian National Congress and shared his views on digital surveillance system, unique identification project, free software in education and governance in a meeting that went on for one hour. Mr Joseph Mathew, Secretary of SPACE also participated in the meeting. Mr Gandhi showed keen interest in Stallman's views on various issues relating to information technology.
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To commemorate the occasion of GNU completing 30 years and SPACE 10 years, the free software community in Thiruvananthapuram is also organising an exhibition on free software and free knowledge on Education Freedom Day, which falls on January 18 at the Museum. The exhibition will focus on free software and free hardware for education and privacy protection. Various free software projects like Fedora, WoMoz, and HackerSpace will be part of the exhibition.
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GnuCash is more than a simple checkbook register, although it can be used for that purpose. Its real power is in the features supporting small business use and managing multiple accounts. Its basic features are intuitive, but if you don't have a bookkeeping background, be prepared to spend some time with the user guide in order to fully appreciate its advanced capabilities.
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But the researchers, including Adi Shamir, a co-inventor of the widely-used RSA encryption algorithm, have shown how within one hour it was possible to extract a 4096-bit RSA private key used to decrypt email from a laptop running the OpenPGP-based mail encryption tool, GNU Privacy Guard.
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After earlier this month delivering LLVM Clang 3.3/3.4 benchmarks for the new compiler infrastructure out of Apple, today are results that directly compare the new LLVM Clang 3.4 performance against the stable GCC 4.8.2 compiler and GCC 4.9.0 development compiler under various C/C++ benchmarks.
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An Intel engineer has published a patch-set providing a new GCC compiler architecture target for Intel's upcoming Broadwell CPUs.
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Novena Project aims to create an entirely open source laptop, from the iron down to the bits, and a prototype already exists
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The Free Software Foundation (FSF) today awarded Respects Your Freedom (RYF) certification to Gluglug X60 laptops. The RYF certification mark means that the product meets the FSF's standards in regard to users' freedom, control over the product, and privacy. This is the first laptop to receive RYF certification from the FSF.
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FOSS is the last place to suspect “back doors” or traps.
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Computer scientists have devised an attack that reliably extracts secret cryptographic keys by capturing the high-pitched sounds coming from a computer while it displays an encrypted message.
The technique, outlined in a research paper published Wednesday, has already been shown to successfully recover a 4096-bit RSA key used to decrypt e-mails by GNU Privacy Guard, a popular open source implementation of the OpenPGP standard. Publication of the new attack was coordinated with the release of a GnuPG update rated as "important" that contains countermeasures for preventing the attack. But the scientists warned that a variety of other applications are also susceptible to the same acoustic cryptanalysis attack. In many cases, the sound leaking the keys can be captured by a standard smartphone positioned close to a targeted computer as it decrypts an e-mail known to the attackers.
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The Free Software Foundation today has come out for "the first time we've ever been able to encourage people to buy and use a laptop as-is." The Free Software Foundation now backs one laptop model as respecting the customer's freedoms, but are the hardware specs any good?
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GNU Binutils was updated this morning and some of the major changes for these binary tools updates include supporting several new processors.
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To read more about all of these and see the honorable mentions not listed here, make sure to head back to the full hive five feature.
Recent Techrights' Posts
- BILD is Apparently Covering Up Cocaine Use at Europe's Second-Largest Institution, the European Patent Office, as It's Based on Germany
- Journalist contact details
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- Flagging or Labelling LLM Slop Meaningfully to Discourage the Practice
- We're still refining the annotation for better contrast
- LLM Slop is an Addiction One Can Quit
- Sites that crossed over to "the dark side" (slop) can still return, and even fully regain the trust lost by betraying people with 'botspew'.
- Techrights Site Search Pushed to 'Stable'
- we've just added it to the navigation menu and footer
- Situation Publishing's DevClass (Sister Site of The Register MS, Run by MS Tim) Has Been Abandoned, Microsoft's MS Tim Now Interjects Anti-Linux Directly Into The Register MS
- Not only does this sell Microsoft; it's also googlebombing - as before - the real "maui" (or "MauiKit" in Linux).
- Many IBM Workers to Become Unemployed a Few Weeks - Maybe Just Days - Before Christmas
- as one last humiliating exercise IBM pimps/trots them out in social control media, telling "happy" stories
- Slopwatch: LinuxSecurity, WebProNews, and Linux Journal (Slopfarms)
- More fake articles about "Linux"
- Links 15/11/2025: Openwashing of Kubernetes and Austerity Planned for Canada
- Links for the day
- Links 15/11/2025: "Small Web, Big Voice" and China Cracking Down on Slop
- Links for the day
- Links 15/11/2025: Science, Conflicts, and International Politics
- Links for the day
- Annus Horribilis at the European Patent Office (EPO)
- The article explains how the EPO "Cocainegate" scandal is turning 2025 into an Annus Horribilis for Campinos
- Links 15/11/2025: Latest in "Component Abuse Challenge" and Qt Keeps Promoting LLM Slop
- Links for the day
- Gemini Links 15/11/2025: Egoism, Misunderstood Universe, DeX, and "Why desktop Linux is growing"
- Links for the day
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- IRC Proceedings: Friday, November 14, 2025
- IRC logs for Friday, November 14, 2025
- Richard Stallman Talk Tomorrow in Ethereum Cypherpunk Congress 2
- It's not clear if a livestream of some kind will exist
- Many "Last Days" at IBM on Allegedly the "Last Day" for IBM to RA People This Quarter
- "Last day" is "social media code" for "got laid off", more so at IBM because they compel people to act like it's a happy departure with gratitude, photos and so on
- Slopwatch: Almost a Majority of Google News is Now Slopfarms (Fake Sites, Fake Articles)
- Google News is noise
- Gemini Links 14/11/2025: Boredom, "Twenty Percent Cooler", and Moving From Windows to Artix
- Links for the day
- Links 14/11/2025: YouTube's Trap for Publishers, Lack of Accountability a Growing Legal Matter/Concern
- Links for the day
- Many Times in the Past We Said That Microsoft Lunduke Was Becoming a Spokesperson/Voice for - and Occasionally Weaponising - 4Chan. He's Proving Us Right This Week.
- Stay away
- The Register MS is Profiting From Pyramid Schemes Run by Americans
- We cannot help but feel disgusted by what this publisher became
- IBM: Hiring, Then Disposing of, Unpaid or Low-Paid European Staff to Spread or Play Up Buzzwords and Hype
- Like Google With "Summer of Code", this seems like a low-cost marketing stunt more than anything substantial
- Casual Reminder That We Also Publish GNU/Linux Stories and News Coverage in Tux Machines
- Without trust in our robustness (including fearlessness, not just success in protecting stories and sources) we'd not have come this far, nor would I devote my life to it
- The Europe Conversation: The EPO Has Cocaine at the High-Level Management and Isn't Denying It
- Now we plan to ensure the matter is properly documented in European press
- Links 14/11/2025: Goddard Space Center Abused by the White House, Jeffrey Epstein Scandal Expands (Cheetos Need Distraction)
- Links for the day
- Corporate Media Helps IBM Relay Vapourware (Misinformation/Fake News)
- They compensate with words for a lack of compelling products
- Hacking on Recipes
- Maybe, in due course perhaps, we can also release some of our own cooking recipes or "forks"
- Web Searches Far Too Polluted, Gamed by LLM Slop and "Plagiarised Information Synthesis Systems" (PISS)
- old articles are already getting difficult to find in mainstream search engines, even if they are still online
- Privacy-respecting Metasearch Engine SearX/SearXNG Still Jailed by Microsoft
- The official site and code still sadly controlled by Microsoft
- "AI" is a Lie. It Always Was. What They Call "AI" Is Not.
- This MSM does no favours to the economy
- Our First Week of Our Twentieth Year
- My wife and I have had a very productive week here and in Tux Machines
- Links 14/11/2025: Sleep Research, France to Suspend Pension 'Reform' Law, and Linux Foundation's Latest Openwashing
- Links for the day
- Gemini Links 14/11/2025: KDE vs XFCE and Leaving the Web
- Links for the day
- Google Admits It Lost Control of Slop (While Google Itself is Selling Slop, Currently Under the Name "Gemini" Instead of "Bard")
- Slop is nothing to be celebrated
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- IRC Proceedings: Thursday, November 13, 2025
- IRC logs for Thursday, November 13, 2025
- Mozilla Handed Over Control Over Firefox to Microsoft, Now Firefox is Preloaded With Microsoft Spyware and It's Proprietary
- Who would still want to download Firefox?
- Slopwatch: LinuxSecurity, Brian Fagioli, and WebProNews
- becoming a slopfarm is a site's suicide
- "Sponsored Posts" in The Register MS
- That's The Register MS in 2025
- IBM RAs in India (Apparently)
- IBM is a bad place to work
- Another Richard Stallman Talk in Two Days
- His talk will be a remote talk, as he won't be travelling to Argentina
- Links 13/11/2025: "Fight for Control Over In-Car Technology" and "Climate Crisis is a Health Crisis"
- Links for the day
- Gemini Links 13/11/2025: Disbelief in the Moon Landings and Doom That Came to Scrolling
- Links for the day
- A Month After "End of 10" analytics.usa.gov Says More People Use Vista 7 Than Use Vista 11
- Does it get any more pathetic than this?
- Links 13/11/2025: Ghost (E-mails) of Jeffrey Epstein Chases Cheeto, Uproar Over SLAPP Threats Against British Broadcasters
- Links for the day
- IBM Layoffs Seem to Have Reached Europe
- Is it Europe's turn to fall on its sword?
- A Lot of What's Left of the Online "Media" is Paid-for SPAM
- How much of online media can people still trust?
- Synopsys, Which Controls a Microsoft FUD Operation (Black Duck), to Lay Off Hundreds of Workers
- Microsoft had plenty of layoffs this year, well over 30,000 in total, including at least two waves of layoffs last month
- The EPO Has Spent Years Attacking European Media, Led by a Cocaine Addict (the EPO's Spokesperson)
- The EPO silences critics
- Prominent German Media Dares Not Mention Cocaine at the European Patent Office, Germany's "Cash Cow" (Seller of Monopolies for the Whole of Europe)
- It seems like a case of the corrupt hiring the corrupt to bully those who speak about the corruption
- Techrights Protects Against Collective Amnesia (Forgetting History the Rich and Powerful Want Us to Forget or be Misled About)
- Keeping full access to our material with a good search facility is a priority for us
- Mainstream Media Compliments Techrights on Its Work
- Google isn't "the Web" and this site isn't "the Web" either
- Microsoft-Sponsored FSFE is Exploiting the Success of Jean-Baptiste Kempf to Market Itself and Its GAFAM-Funded Messaging (While Pretending to be "FSF" Europe)
- No doubt Jean-Baptiste Kempf accomplished a lot (not limited to VLC) in not so many years
- A Week of Techrights Search
- Tomorrow it'll be one week since we turned 19
- LLMs Will Never Work, You Need to Type What You Know
- Voice recognition is too imprecise to be practical or really save any time if you can type fast
- Your Computers Are Work and Entertainment Tools, Not a Fashion Statement
- If you're into fashion, find another job or keep cruft out of the workplace
- The Federation? Almost 90% of Its Users Have Quit Participating.
- If one counts offline (historic) instances, it's even worse than this
- Under IBM, Red Hat Isn't a Linux Company, It's Sold to Clients as "AI Company"
- IBM is sacrificing Red Hat for Wall Street (share price)
- IBM Will Carry on or Carry Out Mass Layoffs Until Tomorrow, Based on Unverified Claim (Silent Layoffs Under Secrecy Clauses/Deals)
- Red Hat (as a "company" with a Web site) will probably never announce layoffs again
- It Looks Like Microsoft is Really Abandoning XBox (the Brand "XBox" Means Just an Online "Games Store" or Streaming)
- Published last night
- The Register MS Has Just Taken Money to Promote Microsoft Windows Under the Guise of "HEY HI" (AI)
- Just 'consume' the ads disguised as "journalism" at The Register MS
- Apple is Waning, Shows Data (Web Stats)
- Is Apple doing as well as Apple-sponsored (paid to run Apple ads) claims?
- IBM is a Buzzwords Vendor
- Does anyone even pay attention to anything IBM promises these days?
- It's Patently False That Apple Has Avoided Layoffs
- be sceptical of people who say Apple hasn't got layoffs
- IRC.com is Vendor-Locked (Freenode)
- Web client
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, November 12, 2025
- IRC logs for Wednesday, November 12, 2025
- Slopwatch: Spam, Scams, and Plagiarised Information Synthesis Systems (LLMs)
- The way things are going, LinuxSecurity might become entirely inactive
- IBM "Trying to Memory Hole the RA With Positive News."
- it's clear they have no real plan, just vapourware
- Gemini Links 13/11/2025: Pictures From the Aurora and Cryptography of the Internet
- Links for the day
