Bonum Certa Men Certa

Links 21/4/2014: New Games for GNU/Linux, Some NatSec Politics



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Contents





GNU/Linux



  • HP Chromebook 14 Review – New Chromebook adds style and size
    The HP Chromebook 14 has been my companion for the last few weeks and has surprised me in its functionality and ease of use. At the beginning of the week, I went to Walmart and picked this Chromebook up, having made my decision to purchase it a couple of days before. I expected it to be tablet like and slow, yet it has surprised me in its power. There are limitations to Chrome OS, the operating system that runs on all Chromebooks. However, I have learned to accept them and hope that over the next year or two my Chromebook will be as capable as my Windows PC.


  • What Would You Do to Improve Linux?
    I’ve spent a good share of my time asking myself what would have to change in order to make Linux on the desktop a viable choice for the mainstream user. I became curious enough to ask you a question: if you could wave your magic wand and change only one thing about Linux or even the Linuxsphere in general, what would it be? Let’s take a look at what some of you had to say.


  • Will Korea survive end of Windows XP?
    He advised that the government should shift to open source operating systems like Linux to achieve security at little additional cost. “The cost to update Linux is small, and problems can be solved even in old versions as it is open source.”

    He pointed out that many devices, including smartphones and smart TVs, now use the Android operating system, which is another sign that it is time to change. “The dominance of Windows is over. Shifting to open source is the new trend.”

    The government is also aware of the problem caused by the heavy dependence on MS. Ha at the MOSPA said there has been much discussion about open source operating systems, “but right now, we have to deal with what’s on our plate. Upgrading is the best solution for now.”

    He said the overdependence on MS is not limited to Korea and some countries have shifted to Linux. “We too are continuing efforts, but there is much to consider. As most government programs are based on Windows, we have to make sure all programs run smoothly on Linux.”


  • How to upgrade from Windows XP to Ubuntu
    If you can’t free up more than 10GB, consider wiping your Windows installation to give Ubuntu space. This is easy to do during the installation process, but if you plan to take this route, back up your files to an external disk first – and be very careful not to miss any.


  • 5 key insights on the transition from Windows to Linux
    Use Linux all the time. Although there was common ground in the networking and development world, there was almost none in the system administration arena. The only way to remedy that was by using Linux all the time. This was daunting. Just trying to find my way around the Linux file system was hair-pulling frustration, yet work needed to get done. I experimented with different forms of coexistence: Linux virtual machines hosted on Windows; Windows virtual machines hosted on Linux; the Windows Ubuntu Installer (WUBI), formating old workstations. They all have their advantages and disadvantages, but in the end I decided the best setup was to format a workstation as a Linux workstation with a full GUI desktop, and to format a remote server as a typical Linux server. I found keeping a Windows workstation too tempting; it was too easy to fall back into old habits. With this setup it was possible to power up a Windows VM when necessary, but the inconvenience of working on an underpowered VM encouraged me to stick with Linux, regardless of frustrations. The setup gives you the full Linux experience: learning how to connect printers and handle things like email on the workstation side, while also administering a server via secure shell (SSH). Then it was a matter of figuring out how to get productive, especially at the command line.



  • Does OpenSSL need a Linus Torvalds?
    There's no doubt Chromebooks have become very popular, look no further than Amazon's list of the bestselling laptops and you'll find a lot of Chromebooks hitting the top of the sales charts. There's clearly a big market for Chromebooks out there, and it seems to be expanding rapidly.



  • Server



    • Microservers and the hurry up and wait conundrum


    • IBM Enhances I/O On Power7 And Power7+ Machines
      The Power8 system announcements might be right around the corner, but IBM has not forgotten about customers using its current machines based on Power7 and Power7+ processors. As part of the trickle of announcements on April 15 that saw Technology Refresh 8 for IBM i 7.1 roll out, Big Blue made some enhancements to the enterprise-class machines and put out a bunch of Ethernet and storage controller adapters.


    • Java On IBM i 7.1 Brings JVM Migrations
      Making an inference that IBM dropped SPEC benchmarks on IBM i in favor of benchmarks on Linux is a signal that more Java/WebSphere customers would go that direction draws a debate from Grozinski.






  • Kernel Space



    • Benchmarks



      • Oracle Linux 6.5 vs. Oracle Linux 7.0 Beta Benchmarks
        In the days ahead we will have benchmarks of Ubuntu 12.04 LTS against Oracle Linux 6.5 and 7.0 Beta 1 along with CentOS 6.5 and the RHEL 7 release candidate among other enterprise-oriented Linux distributions. For this article to end out the weekend are just some benchmarks of Oracle Linux 6.5 vs. 7.0 Beta 1 when tested from the same hardware -- an Intel Core i7 3960X Ivy Bridge Extreme Edition system with a total of 12 logical CPU threads.






  • Applications



    • Games



      • Gearbox looking at viability of a Linux version of Borderlands
        The original Borderlands was released way back in 2009. The game was initially released on the PC, Mac and the consoles. It immediately caught on and got itself a huge fan following. Following up the success, Gearbox went on and published a sequel to the game, Borderlands 2, in 2012, which like its predecessor also was praised by the gaming community. In fact, the Borderlands games became so famous that due to fan demands, Gearbox even made a Vita version for Borderlands 2, bringing the addictive and fun coop game to the portable console for the very first time. Now the founder and CEO of Gearbox Software tweeted that they are looking for the viability of a Linux version of Borderlands.


      • Octodad – Dadliest Catch comes to PS4 on April 22nd in US and on 23rd in UK
        Octodad: Dadliest Catch game initially launched to PC, Linux and Mac platforms on January 30, 2014. It was supposed to launched for Sony’s PS4 gaming console in March, but the developer Young Horses announced in February that the game launch has been postponed to April 1st week. Although the April 23 is not in 1st week of the month, finally the game sees a launch date.


      • Play Mass Effect 3's ultimate space battle with this Homeworld 2 mod


      • Political-based strategy game ReignMaker now available for PC via Steam
        ReignMaker, a game built around political strategy and match-3 tower defense combat from indie developer Frogdice, is now available via Steam for Linux, Mac and Windows PC.



      • Watch Dogs heading to Linux?
        A recent post in the Linux gaming section of Reddit seems to have uncovered a hint towards a possible Linux release of the highly anticipated game from Ubisoft: Watch Dogs. According to the post on the Reddit boards, the SteamDB entry for the game shows a value assigned to Linux Icon which might point to a possible Linux version in the future.

        The full post reads, “Flicking through SteamDB, under additional information you can find the Watch_Dog app sub includes a Linux client icon section including archived icon added 13 days ago. Couldn’t open the zip but changing extension to jpg reveals a single tiny icon so far, similar to those found along with other sizes in other Linux games.”


      • Nuclear Dawn Linux support moving out of beta
        In other words, the game was basically abandoning its Linux release. Before this fatal new InterWave Studios, the original developers from whom GameConnect took over, had announced a beta of the Linux version of the game. But thanks to perhaps all-of-a-sudden interest by big shot gaming companies and publishers in Linux, GameConnect has just made a public announcement on their Facebook page that a Linux version of the game is finally out of the beta and ready for public deployment.



      • 'Outcast Reboot HD' Crowd Funding Campaign Needs Help - New Screens
        Once the original $600,000 goal has been reached, additional finding will unlock Mac/Linux edition ($750k), DirectX 11 enhancements ($950k), Oculus Rift support ($1M), next-gen consoles ($1.35M), and last but not least an entire new world (1.7M).



      • Hover: Revolt of Gamers Kickstarter Launched – Jet Set Radio Meets Mirror’s Edge
        Hover: Revolt of Gamers is planned for the Xbox One/PS4/Wii U and PC/Mac/Linux. It’s also adapted to Oculus Rift so get those barf bags ready. Hit up the Kickstarter page to pledge your support.


      • Hover: Revolt Of Gamers Is Whizzing Through Its Kickstarter


      • Worms dev invites you to think inside the box with Schrodinger's Cat
        Yes, Schrodinger's Cat is a platformer in which players explore the subatomic level of existence and use quantum physics to solve puzzles. And who said quantum science wasn't fun? Schrodinger's Cat is slated to release in Q3 of this year for PC, Mac and Linux via Steam.


      • Wasteland 2: Early Access now available for Linux


      • Awesome 40 Minute Star Citizen Arena Commander Reveal (video)
        Star Citizen will feature Oculus Rift support and is an upcoming space trading and combat simulator video game for PC, OS X and GNU/Linux.



      • Can you survive the harsh and unforgiving environment of a prison?


      • Wasteland 2 adds Linux support in major Early Access update
        In addition to Linux support, Wasteland 2 added another major area to its map, a new vendor screen, and about 400 other changes, all of which may be seen in these patch notes. Wasteland 2 added Mac OS support in late February







  • Desktop Environments/WMs



    • i3 – Tiling Window Manager
      i3 is a tiling window manager, completely written from scratch. The target platforms are GNU/Linux and BSD operating systems, our code is Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) under the BSD license. i3 is primarily targeted at advanced users and developers.




  • Distributions



  • Devices/Embedded



    • Embedded tech and use of Linux at the 2014 GPU Technology Conference
      The first keynote took place on the second day, and was delivered by Jen-Hsun Huang, NVIDIA CEO. His talk featured announcements of new architectures such as Pascal that will power the next generation of GPGPU products from the company, to the Jetson TK1 which is billed as the world's first embedded supercomputer. While Pascal will be used in the next generation of supercomputers and workstations, Jetson is targeted at the embedded market and both make extensive use of Linux. The keynote featured an Audi self-driven car appearing on stage powered by a Jetson-based architecture, and it ended in the announcement that all attendees would receive an Android powered NVIDIA shield.

      [...]

      It is clear that OpenGL is alive and well, with many exciting developments in this area. Interestingly, many of these are being fuelled by growing interest from the gaming industry as they port to new Linux-based platforms such as SteamOS. Live demos were given on the Jetson in the future of OpenGL session, and the Approaching Zero Driver Overhead talk from the preceding Game Developers Conference was referenced quite heavily. Several enhancements to the binary driver were mentioned in reference to better supporting scene graphs and real-time ray-tracing using nVidia's Optix platform was showcased and ultimately featured in one of the awards for the work on the HIV capsid as a showcase of what GPU technology can do to help drive forward progress in scientific research.



    • Zicom introduces first-of-its-kind Hybrid Mini DVR
      Besides supporting standard algorithms for video and audio encoding and decoding, a Linux operating system is embedded.


    • Intel Fanless Bay Trail NUC Mini PC Unveiled


    • PCI Express launches TBS 2910 Matrix ARM mini PC
      The Matrix is a single board minicomputer based on ARM with a wide range of interface connections, equipped with a powerful i.MX6 Freescale processor, it can run Android, Linux and XBMC operating systems, a switch between different operating systems can be done within just a few minutes!


    • TQ InCover One is an 8.3 inch, full HD Bay Trail tablet for professionals
      It’s called the InCover One and the tablet features a full HD display, support for Windows, Android, or Linux, a waterproof and dustproof case, and a removable battery, among other features.



    • Phones







Free Software/Open Source



  • HTML5 components released as open source
    Telerik has released a free package that includes all the features in the commercial Kendo UI Mobile package



  • Events



  • Oracle/Java/LibreOffice



  • Public Services/Government



    • SUPPORTING GOVERNMENT DIGITAL INITIATIVES WITH OPEN SOURCE
      According to Victor Lam, Deputy Government CIO of Hong Kong, open source provides government agencies with the capability to be more agile and innovative while effectively optimising the way taxpayers’ dollars are spent.

      “The Hong Kong Government has been leveraging open source for over a decade. In fact, we have more than 2000 Linux servers supporting various applications like the e-Government Infrastructure Service, eHRMS system, Government Notification application and www.gov.hk.”

      “We recognise the fact that it is the kind of technology we need to be ahead of the curve and keep up with the rapid advancement of technology. In this regard, the government is working with various industry stakeholders to promote the development of open source in Hong Kong through our Digital 21 Strategy.”




  • Openness/Sharing



    • Open Hardware



      • Man Compares His $42k Prosthetic Hand to a $50 3D Printed Cyborg Beast
        Today 3DUniverse did a story about a man named Jose Delgado Jr. Jose was born without a left hand, and in his 53 years on this planet has had first hand experience with the various prosthetic devices available to him. For over a year Jose had been using a $42,000 myoelectric prosthetic device, which took signals from the muscle fibers in his forearm, translated those signal, and then used them to mechanically move the fingers of the prosthetic, which looks pretty close to an actual hand. Luckily his insurance covered the cost of the device, unlike many individual’s who are less fortunate.


      • The world's first open source laptop laptop crosses halfway mark in crowdfunding.
        Designed by the guys who worked on security of the Xbox and developing the Linux kernel, we know we are in good hands with this project. Many of the products are manufactured at AQS, a company that has been a part of Silicon Valley for over 20 years and has developed projects for the United States Department of Defense.The limited edition heirloom version of the laptop is designed at Kurt Mottweiler's studio in Portland, Oregon.



      • Micro 3D Printer Costs 4 Times Less Than Its Competitor
        The cube-shaped device is 7.3-inch wide and weighs roughly 2.2 lbs. Micro works with Windows, Mac and Linux, has a USB-compatible connection and works with a number of different materials, including ABS, PLA and Nylon.









Leftovers



  • Chagos Islands dispute: court to rule on UK sovereignty claim
    Britain's sovereignty over the Chagos Islands and America's lease for the Diego Garcia military base could be thrown into doubt by an international court hearing due to open in Istanbul on Tuesday.



  • Colour-tinted photographs of North America – in pictures
    This collection of photochroms and Phostint postcards from the private collection of Marc Walter was produced – as colour tints of black and white photographs – by the Detroit Photographic Company between 1888 and 1924. It shows North America's vast and varied landscape in all its splendour, as well as its people


  • Security



    • Oracle updates users on Heartbleed progress
      The Heartbleed fallout continues, but enterprise customers can draw some comfort from the fact that the companies that keep them in software are clearly as concerned as they are. For example, Oracle Corp. has announced mostly good, some bad and a bit of ugly news when it comes to security holes in its products.


    • Eugene Kaspersky: Smart TVs could be cyber criminals' next target
      “But more and more engineers are developing software for Android. All the systems are vulnerable and I am afraid it is very possible to see the scenario of bad guys developing malware for iOS. Technically, it is possible to infect millions of devices. Internet-enabled TV sets use both Android and Linux.”





  • Defence/Police/Secrecy/Aggression



    • It’s back: The Cold War
      Such a policy is what the anti-Communists of the last Cold War, the ones who were initially willing to launch nuclear war, not with the confidence, but rather with the mere hope that some would survive, had to settle for.


    • China: “Violent Government Thugs” Beaten To Death By Angry Crowds After They Killed A Man Documenting Their Brutality


    • How Obama lost friends and influence in the Brics
      The president’s real pivot is not to Asia but to America, inspired by domestic sentiment


    • Important Revelations In New Leaks of CIA Torture Report


    • DoD Directive Used Duplicity to Hide Current Use of SERE Torture Techniques in Interrogations
      Recent revelations about the content of a still secret Senate report on the CIA’s rendition, detention and interrogation program, which allowed for use of torture, highlight the use of techniques used by a little-known military department.

      These techniques from the military’s Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape program (SERE) had been lifted from a mock-torture prison camp exercise used to inoculate U.S. prisoners against the effects of torture. Two military psychologists hired as contractors for the CIA allegedly helped form the CIA’s controversial “enhanced interrogation” program.


    • Americans Don’t Want Drones At Home – Here’s Why
      Regardless of Americans’ fears, the use of drones is coming to a sky near them. In 2012, Congress passed a bill authorizing unmanned spy planes in the U.S. skies. President Obama signed it into law soon after.



    • US Drones Kill Three Al-Qaeda Suspects in Yemen
      The assassinations came as a result of a two-day air campaign, which killed 40 suspected Al-Qaeda militants.


    • Innocents abroad
      “An Ambassador”, says the old joke, “is an honest man sent abroad to lie for his country”. The only US Ambassador I’ve met was a Californian automobile salesman. (Well, he owned a whole string of dealerships, and I guessed owed his position not to mastery of statecraft but to the size of his campaign contributions.) It was during the Iraq war and he gave a public lecture which never once mentioned the war. And then I forgot all about him, until I came on this piece in Politico by James Bruno arguing that one reason the Kremlin is running rings round the US in Europe is the relative incompetence of American ambassadors compared to their Russian counterparts.



    • Too Big to Jail?
      ...most obvious of national security state crimes seem to fall into a "too big to fail”-like category.


    • At Least 46 Killed in Two Days of US Drone Strikes in Yemen
      Most 'Suspects' But Some Confirmed Civilian Deaths


    • US elbows deep in world terrorism


    • Civilians caught up in US drone strike against al-Qaeda


    • Pro-Kremlin politician aims shocking rant at pregnant reporter
      A pregnant journalist is recovering in hospital today after a pro-Kremlin political leader in Russia told two male aides to "violently rape" her at a press conference.



    • ‘Other’ protest deserved our notice
      The CIA is supposed to collect intelligence, they said, not operate its own war.


    • Unpunished: The CIA’s Felony War Crimes
      The United States Senate’s decision to let the public see a summary of its report on the Central Intelligence Agency’s (CIA) torture program following the September 11 attacks hides the fact Congress and the White House are happy to let people guilty of ordering and committing war crimes walk free. That is the stark truth ignored in all the mass media coverage of the Senate Intelligence Committee’s 11-3 vote to declassify 500 pages of the 6,300 pages of its shocking torture report.



    • Kwame Nkrumah—The CIA Connection
      CIA has played a pivotal role in this history of subverting political systems...


    • Ukraine stupidity in action
      Governments that are "routinely" visited by the head of the CIA are usually puppet governments.


    • Humbug and provocation
      At least Brennan didn’t hand out hamburgers to members of the Ukraine parliament, but you have to wonder what he and his countless CIA minions dished out otherwise. We all know what the CIA’s solutions are to most problem with people who don’t follow US demands: bribery, character assassination or – much more conveniently – quiet ‘termination with extreme prejudice’ as they used to call it.


    • World Wars and Cold War
      Within the ambit of Cold War the two super powers used propaganda, espionage, politico-economic pressure and nuclear arms race as tools to increase power and influence. CIA and KGB competed with each other to subvert the loyalties of leadership of developing countries and bringing them into respective camps. Truman doctrine in 1947 followed by Marshall Plan was aimed at containment of communism. Apart from making strenuous efforts to bring in line as many States in Latin America, CIA backed by NATO also fished in troubled waters of Eastern Europe and exploited their relatively poorer socio-economic conditions as compared to prosperous Western Europe.
    • Trying Not to Give Peace a Chance
      The unnecessary and regrettable conflict between the U.S. and Russia over Ukraine brings to mind sad remembrances of important junctures at which I watched – as a citizen and a CIA analyst – chances for genuine peace with Russia frittered away.

      How vividly I recall John Kennedy’s inaugural address when he bid us to ask not what our country could do for us, but rather what we could do for our country. Then and there I decided to put in the service of our government whatever expertise I could offer from my degrees in Russian. So I ended up in Washington more than a half-century ago.


    • White House Debates ‘Game-Changer’ Weapon For Syria
      White House officials are weighing whether to send surface-to-air missiles to opposition factions at the risk of a possible terrorist "nightmare".


    • Seymour Hersh: Benghazi Attack A Consequence Of Weapons “Rat-Line” To Syria
      A veteran journalist presents a damning timeline of the lead up to the attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi and alarming details of how the U.S. was feeding weapons to Syria.




  • Transparency Reporting

    • TRNN Original Report: Manning Determined to Fight Back After Army Upholds 35- Year Sentence


    • Crackdown on journalists: State security vs human rights
      On this front, Western governments face growing criticism for their leading role in putting national security concerns ahead of civil liberties - a legacy of former US President George W Bush-era "war on terror" policies amplified into the present day. The US and European governments increasingly rely on post-2001 anti-terrorism laws to shield government secrets and constrain journalists from publishing classified information.

      These measures have been hastened in the post-WikiLeaks, post-Edward Snowden era. Although no US journalist has been successfully prosecuted under the country's anti-terrorism laws, US President Barack Obama's administration has aggressively utilised the Espionage Act of 1917 to crackdown on government whistleblowers who leak classified information to journalists - a measure decried by reporters and human rights groups for undercutting basic democratic tenants and the media's watchdog role.


    • Intelligence Directive Bars Unauthorized Contacts with News Media
      The Director of National Intelligence has forbidden most intelligence community employees from discussing “intelligence-related information” with a reporter unless they have specific authorization to do so, according to an Intelligence Community Directive that was issued last month.





  • Environment/Energy/Wildlife





  • Finance



    • The 1% Wants to Ban Sleeping in Cars Because It Hurts Their 'Quality of Life'
      This happened most recently in Palo Alto, in California's Silicon Valley, where new billionaires are seemingly minted every month – and where 92% of homeless people lack shelter of any kind. Dozens of cities have passed similar anti-homeless laws. The largest of them is Los Angeles, the longtime unofficial "homeless capital of America", where lawyers are currently defending a similar vehicle-sleeping law before a skeptical federal appellate court. Laws against sleeping on sidewalks or in cars are called "quality of life" laws. But they certainly don't protect the quality of life of the poor.


    • Extravagant CEO pay doesn't reflect performance – it's all about status
      Even American eyes are starting to pop at the sheer extravagance of executive pay. Last week, the New York Times published its annual league table of chief executive pay at the US's top 100 publicly quoted companies. The average has now climbed to $13.9m (€£8.3m).



    • An Indictment of the Invisible Hand
      Here in a nutshell is what he argues: Current rates of inequality are closer to historical norms than aberrations. Inequality is likely to stay high and perhaps increase. The normal workings of the free market won’t change this. The only way to rectify the imbalance is more aggressive taxes on property and high incomes to reduce inequality.



    • Who made your clothes? It’s time we knew – and cared
      Sometimes events occur so horrific it can make finding a constructive response seem almost impossible and inadequate by comparison. As politicians we recognise in such circumstances our profession most of all can be found wanting. Yet we refuse to give up on the power of collective action to bring forward the possibility of change no matter how difficult the issue - if we are all prepared to play our part in securing it.



    • Michael Lewis: 'Wall Street has gone insane'
      On a sliding scale of difficulty, writing a general-interest book about high-frequency trading is slightly harder than making baseball statistics interesting, but easier than animating the role played by quantitative analysis in the 2007 financial collapse. "Collateralised debt obligations," says Michael Lewis, who has written about all three, "are impossible to describe. There's nothing harder. However, trying to show a reader how a market moves? How stock prices move? You can already see them tuning out."



  • PR/AstroTurf/Lobbying



    • Broadcast media are shirking their duties
      But nothing on that hazardous scale had been published or broadcast lately. The statist reaction of the broadcast media was set last June by the figureheads of the two most powerful television news organizations. Bob Schieffer of CBS called Snowden a “narcissist.” David Gregory of NBC implied that Glenn Greenwald, who wrote about the NSA misconduct while at the Guardian, had “aided and abetted” Snowden and that Greenwald might be prosecuted as a criminal.



    • Dana Milbank on Snowden and the Pulitzer
      Certainly, many of the Snowden-fueled disclosures following the original NSA revelation have been gratuitous and harmful; those, and his sheltering in Russia rather than arguing his case in a U.S. court, raise doubts about his motives. But the original NSA leaks were justified because U.S. intelligence officials had misled the public and members of Congress about the program. There's no value of "oversight" if the overseers are being fed lies.

      Fox went on, about the "ultra-narcissistic" Snowden committing "treason" and the Guardian's "incompetence, arrogance, all added to a perverse anti-Western ideology."

      "I am outraged," the Briton said. "I hope you're outraged." "I'm outraged," Thiessen assured him.


    • Who says Fox News isn't dumb?


    • The CIA Through The Looking-Glass
      Covert operations were explicitly authorized by the new law.


    • Russia Deplores Kiev's Little Interest in Disarming Extremists
      The Foreign Ministry of Russia criticized today in a communique the lack of interest from self proclaimed authorities in Kiev in disarming their extremist allies.



    • Obama Should Act Like M.L. King, Not Khrushchev




  • Censorship



    • DANGER OF SELF-CENSORSHIP AFTER CONATEL WARNING TO RADIO STATIONS
      Reporters Without Borders is alarmed by the communiqué that the National Telecommunications Council (CONATEL) issued on 8 April condemning “certain” radio stations that “systematically broadcast false information liable to disturb pubic order, destabilize the Republic’s institutions and attack the integrity of many citizens.”

    • Teachers 'devastated' by online insults


    • April 19-20: Happy Easter! Guardian’s censorship over Ukraine, Big Brother watching and more
      I would like to draw your attention to a recent phenomenon that is now occurring since the start of the crisis in Ukraine to CIF (comment is free) commenters on articles in the Guardian newspaper where the subject of Ukraine is concerned. I have been commenting on articles in the Guardian newspaper for years and never in my life have I seen such a level of censorship being applied to commenters as I am presently seeing. Normally when you comment on an article in the Guardian your comment gets posted and it appears straight away. In the past if a comment is offensive or abusive it can then later be removed by the "moderators" and deleted. This has now all changed. Since the beginning of the crisis in Ukraine and the massive anti Russian propaganda being fed to the people of the UK by the MSM, it has now become extremely difficult for ordinary people to air their views which contradict the establishment views by commenting on CIF in the Guardian. In the last few weeks the newspaper has introduced something called "pre - moderation" which basically means when a commenter posts something on CIF instead of being posted straight away like it used to be someone somewhere decides whether to post it or not and if it is something that particularly contradicts the anti Russian propaganda being spouted then it just doesn't get posted. This is what is now being shown on the Guardian website about this new development : When I post a comment, it says that my comments are being pre-moderated – what does that mean? Does that apply to everyone in the conversation? There is a further exception to the overall reactive-moderation approach adopted by the Guardian website: in isolated situations, a particular user may be identified as a risk, based on a pattern of behaviour (e.g. spam, trolling, repeated/frequent borderline abuse), so a temporary filter can be applied to anything they post, which means that their comments will need to be pre-moderated before appearing on the site.


    • The New York Times wrestles with Israel's gag orders
      Two senior editors at the newspaper say they were unaware of The Times ever agreeing to abide by gag orders in Israel.


    • ErdoÄŸan's policies lead to Turkey's isolation
      In a recent visit to Turkey, US Assistant Secretary of State Douglas Frantz got together with Turkish reporters and nongovernmental organizations. According to reports, Frantz addressed the Turkish government during these talks: “Do not punish those who use Twitter and other social media websites legally. Do not go after those publishing documents. Instead, go after those who leaked them. The Snowden incident can be a guide for Turkey,” referring to how the US handled the famed whistleblower's case. The Washington Post and the Guardian newspapers -- which published a number of documents leaked by Edward Snowden, shaking the whole world with revelations regarding the US's monitoring of phone calls and Internet activities through the National Security Agency (NSA) -- were recently awarded Pulitzer prizes. Prior to Frantz's remarks, Turkey had been subjected to harsh criticism from top Western officials during the government's two-week-long Twitter ban, introduced shortly before the March 30 local elections. At the time, international civil rights organizations expressed their concerns about Turkey's future in terms of democracy and freedom of speech.


    • China steps up purge of online porn amid wider censorship push
      China has shut down more than 100 websites carrying pornography and closed thousands of accounts on social media sites in a renewed effort to clean up the Internet, state media reported.


    • Chinese director takes on Oliver Stone over his criticism of China’s film industry
      A war of words has erupted between a mainland movie director and American filmmaker Oliver Stone over the Oscar winner’s accusation that Chinese directors are failing to confront the damaging legacy of the country’s past.


    • Turkish artists condemn Erdogan re-election
      Artistic community expresses concern at censorship and crackdown on personal freedom



    • Egypt's censorship board head resigns in film spat


    • PM to restructure censorship authority after film crisis
      The Cabinet said Saturday Prime Minister Ibrahim Mehleb decided to form a panel tasked with restructuring the Censorship Authority following a controversy over his earlier decision to ban Lebanese star Haifa Wehbe's latest movie, which was deemed sexually provocative.


    • Gosar: Blocking science education standards is censorship
      For those not familiar with budget footnote No. 3, it prohibits the State Board of Education and the Wyoming Department of Education from, "expending any amount appropriated under this section for any review or adoption of the next generation science standards....This footnote is effective immediately."




  • Privacy



  • Civil Rights



    • Toronto Strikers Bump Up Boycott Tactics
      Steelworkers are holding the line against two-tier wages and pensions at a can plant in Toronto—ruining the plans of their employer, can manufacturing giant Crown Holdings. In late March, after seven months on strike, workers voted against going back to work 117 to 1.

      Crown has been trying to impose two-tier across all its union plants, said Stuart Deans of the USW. “It’s gotta stop somewhere,” he said. The Philadelphia-based company operates 149 factories in dozens of countries. About half its workers are unionized.


    • Guantánamo Bay detainees' release upon end of Afghanistan war 'unlikely'
      US officials indicate fate of inmates captured during the country's longest conflict will continue to complicate Obama administration's efforts to close wartime detention complex



    • Tennessee set to criminalise pregnant women who use illegal drugs
      Tennessee is poised to become the first state in the US to criminalise pregnant women for harm caused to their foetuses or newborn babies as a result of addiction to illegal drugs.



    • Pakistan: Draft computer crimes law violates human rights
      As states have been revealed to be snooping on citizens and other governments, and we are confronted by data breaches and security issues like the latest Heartbleed crisis, more people are becoming aware of their internet rights. Voters and civil society around the world are pushing their governments to provide secure and private online spaces for internet users. It is quite refreshing to see Pakistan’s government working for internet laws. However, though some provisions of the proposed Computer Crimes Law (CCL) are copied from other countries’ legislation, several parts of the draft version violate international human rights, including the freedom of expression.



    • Cruelty on Day for the Disabled
      Members of National Solidarity for Ending Discrimination Against the Disabled are sprayed with tear gas by police...




  • Internet/Net Neutrality



  • Intellectual Monopolies



    • Copyrights



      • The Copyright Monopoly’s Fundamental Problem Remains The Same…


        The fundamental problem with the copyright monopoly today is that it can't coexist with private communications as a concept. Our sharing of culture and knowledge happens as part of the private correspondence that leaves our computer, and therefore, the monopoly cannot be enforced as long as private correspondence exists. #karma








Recent Techrights' Posts

BetaNews, Inc. Became a Spam Operation/Web Site, LLM Spew (Slop) for SEO Disguised as "Articles"
Published 5 minutes ago by Brian Fagioli...
WordPress is for the 'Old Web'; the New Web Necessitates Static Pages
There are purely practical reasons to move away from WordPress and the likes of it
Biggest Debt Leap in Years, More Than Half a Trillion Dollars in Just One Month
We remind people (almost every year) that it's also "buynothingday"
Golden Dawn(ald) and What GAFAM Means to Liberal Techies
In one single screenshot
It's Morbid to Talk About Living People as If They're Dead
What happens to LLM slop when Brian Fagioli dies?
Silicon Valley and GAFAM Were Never Liberal
spineless CEOs and founders aren't against Trump
ChromeOS and GNU/Linux Growing in Spain (Almost 10% Now)
Whether this persists next month and next year will certainly matter
 
Links 12/11/2024: A Lot of Censorship and SWNS at 50
Links for the day
Gemini Links 12/11/2024: Invidious Down and YouTube Addiction
Links for the day
Links 12/11/2024: Hey Hi (AI) Failures and COP29 Fakers
Links for the day
Latest Rumours of Red Hat Layoffs
Rumours or gossip is how almost everything starts
Windows Falling to All-Time Lows and Microsoft Has Nothing to Replace It With
It's mostly Android (Linux) replacing Windows
Cybershow Has a New 81-Minute Episode on Digital Sovereignty and International Cyber-Relations
it is a high-quality show
Activism in the Digital Realm Can Never (and Must Never) Rely on GAFAM
This simply means that tech activists must completely abandon any hopes of finding allies in Google or IBM or whatever...
IBM CEO Says Donald Trump as President-Elect is Good for IBM in New Interview With CNBC
most unprincipled CEO ever?
GNU/Linux Up to 6.1% in Finland (Almost 9% If One Counts ChromeOS Too)
Home of Linux (the kernel)
BetaNews Has Become a SPAM/Slop Factory, Brian Fagioli Publishes Fake 'Articles'
everything is now suspect in BetaNews
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Monday, November 11, 2024
IRC logs for Monday, November 11, 2024
Free Software and Love of Nature
It's not a coincidence that many Free software activists are also lovers of nature
Windows and 'The Desktop' Floundering
Microsoft should be extremely worried
WordPress is Bad for the Planet (Even If Many Still Use It)
the costs nobody wishes to talk about
Gemini Links 11/11/2024: Closed Systems and Verify You Are Human To Continue
Links for the day
Running Twitter at a Loss and Then Profiting From Trumpism
How very liberal of Jack Dorsey, the greedy "Liberal" who only prioritised money
Microsoft, Which Benefits From Donald Trump, is Normalising Donald Trump
Some people still wrongly believe that Microsoft is left-leaning
When You Upload Talks of Richard Stallman to Proprietary YouTube
Also: notice they work to abolish the word "whitelisted"
Free Software is Probably a Lot Healthier for You
Does Free software help people live longer and/or live better for longer?
Sweden: ChromeOS + GNU/Linux at 17%, an All-Time High
According to statCounter
Windows Collapsed to Only 12% of the Operating Systems Market in India, Says statCounter
Windows falls to 64% on desktops/laptops in India, dips to 12% overall
Links 11/11/2024: Mastodon Year 2 in Review, Freshworks Laying Off 13% of Staff
Links for the day
[Video] Daniel Pocock Warning About Someone Like Elon Musk Buying and Misusing Twitter Almost 7 Years Ago
Daniel Pocock spoke about Facebook and Twitter while attending the UN Forum on Business and Human Rights in Geneva, Switzerland
[Meme] It Takes Only Words to Destroy Malicious People and Pathological Liars
Trying to silence us is foolish. Boasting about this in public is worse than foolish; it's a legal liability.
Dead Blog ('Hoisted By His Own Petard')
The saying "people who live in glass houses shouldn't throw stones" is also applicable here
Debian Voters Clearly Supportive of Richard Stallman (Founder of GNU/Linux), But Debian Leaders Keep Giving Voting Rights to Microsoft Staff
It can be seen that the pro-Stallman positions are dominant
WordPress is Unfit for Purpose in 2024
The Web itself changed a lot and the majority of Web traffic is pure junk
[Meme] Remember That Microsoft and Trump Already Have a "Targets List"
Microsoft loves Trump bailouts
Service Notice: IRC Downtimes RESOLVED
We believe we've solved this entirely (or hope so), but it may take another week to know for sure
Linux 'Not Inclusive' 6.12 (Trumpism Inside Linux Foundation Affirmed)
They can make a codename for this release: Linux 'Not Inclusive' 6.12
The Open Source Initiative (OSI) is Dead. Cause of Death: Microsoft Bribes.
At the core, Linux Foundation and OSI adopted lies as a business model
Joan Meyer correctly linked Gideon Cody raid on Marion County Record to Kristallnacht
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Trans People Misused to Attack a Project or Developer Who Has Nothing to Do With Them
And why that truly hurts all trans people
Our 18+ Years of Freedom-Fighting
We always fight back
Gemini Links 11/11/2024: Men Losing Grip and "You're Relaxing Wrong"
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Sunday, November 10, 2024
IRC logs for Sunday, November 10, 2024
Nobody Knows What's in Our Fridge! Wow, Spooky!
Freedom means you can also purchase things anonymously
Freedom Must Always Be Fought For (All the Time)
Ridicule of "freedom fighters" in the digital realm is typically orchestrated by dictators or wannabes.
Gemini Links 10/11/2024: Taking Jokes and Writing Dense Assembly
Links for the day
Links 10/11/2024: Meaning of Life and iPhone ‘Inactivity Reboot’
Links for the day
Links 10/11/2024: Microsoft Adds Surveillance to Notepad and Paint, TikTok Shutdown Order
Links for the day
Gemini Links 10/11/2024: Scrawlspace and California
Links for the day
Links 10/11/2024: Politics, Economics, and Ticketmaster Issues
Links for the day
Linux Foundation: We've Shut Down the Mailing Lists and Fired Everyone at Linux.com So We Can Spend Money Buying Puff Pieces and Paying Clickfraud/Spammers
deeply rogue
The 'Other' Bruce... on Openwashing at OSI (and Not Bruce Perens, the OSI's Co-founder)
Openwashing people (connected to Microsoft) already do "open weights"
Gemini Links 10/11/2024: A Writer's Block, VIM Tips and Tricks
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Saturday, November 09, 2024
IRC logs for Saturday, November 09, 2024
[Meme] Linux Foundation Cuts
money is spent by the million on highly dubious things
Politics Becoming Way Too 'Toxic'
'Toxic' political discourse ought to be covered, but reducing the toxicity of coverage itself (e.g. inaccurately covering things to incite "the left" and "the right") is still challenging
"Paperless Office" (Incompatible With the Law) as a Threat to Workers' Health at the EPO, Europe's Second-Largest Institution and Largest Patent Office
"Software Ergonomics need to be brought back to the agenda at a high level!"