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Links 18/6/2015: Red Hat Results Imminent, Tor Browser 4.5.2



GNOME bluefish

Contents





GNU/Linux



  • Small is beautiful – free software column
    Free software, like the web, is promoted by corporations when it is useful to their profit margins. Many disparate organisations collaborate and contribute to GNU/Linux and other free and open source software projects, because they are beneficial to their bottom lines and seldom for altruistic reasons. Contributing to GNU/Linux reduces development costs and encourages open standards. open standards are useful because they reduce barriers to entry for technologies that were ‘not invented here’.


  • Server



    • Mi Amiga: One Michigan School District's Three-Decades-Old Hero Computer That Still Manages HVAC Today
      As I'm sure I've mentioned in the past, I've worked most of my professional life in the tech industry, specifically working for a managed services consultant in Chicago. One of the things we do is advise our clients on hardware rotations. Client machines, like desktops and laptops for instance, are typically recommended on a four to five year rotation. Because, let's face it, a five year old computer is either functionally worthless or is probably hanging onto a single strand of twisted copper before crapping out entirely, amirite?


    • 1980s computer controls GRPS heat and AC
      A 30-year-old computer that has run day and night for decades is what controls the heat and air conditioning at 19 Grand Rapids Public Schools.


    • 5 steps to becoming a quality Docker contributor
      But getting started on a new codebase can be daunting. Docker has many, many lines of code. Fixing even the smallest issue can require reading through a lot of that code and understanding how the pieces all fit together.


    • LUCI4HPC
      The software described in this article is designed for a Beowulf-style cluster. Such a cluster commonly consists of consumer-grade machines and allows for parallel high-performance computing. The system is managed by a head node and accessed via a login node. The actual work is performed by multiple compute nodes. The individual nodes are connected through an internal network. The head and login node need an additional external network connection, while the compute nodes often use an additional high-throughput, low-latency connection between them, such as InfiniBand.


    • Linbit Launches New Synchronous Server Storage Software
      DRBD9 provides enterprise Linux users with synchronous server storage replication including support for native remote direct memory access, or RDMA, and OpenStack integration.


    • Linode introduces KVM to help it move away from Xen
      The upgrade to KVM is very easy to carry out, on a Xen Linode’s dashboard, there is a link on the right sidebar titled ‘Upgrade to KVM’. Once you do the upgrade you should then be switched over to KVM. If you want to set your account to default to KVM for new Linodes just go to your Account Settings and set the ‘Hypervisor Preference’ to KVM, any new Linodes you create will be KVM. On a 1GB instance, one user reported the downtime to be between 8-9 minutes while he switched to KVM.




  • Kernel Space



    • The Creator of Linux on the Future Without Him
      The conversation, combined with Linus Torvalds’s aggression behind the wheel, makes this sunny afternoon drive suddenly feel all too serious. Torvalds—the grand ruler of all geeks—does not drive like a geek. He plasters his foot to the pedal of a yellow Mercedes convertible with its “DAD OF 3” license plate as we rip around a corner on a Portland, Ore., freeway. My body smears across the passenger door. “There is no concrete plan of action if I die,” Torvalds yells to me over the wind and the traffic. “But that would have been a bigger deal 10 or 15 years ago. People would have panicked. Now I think they’d work everything out in a couple of months.”


    • Linus Torvalds: Linux Kernel Would Be OK in a Couple of Months If I Die
    • Linux Kernel 3.12.44 LTS Brings Many Updated Drivers, EXT4 and x86 Improvements
      On June 16, Jiri Slaby informed us about the immediate availability for download of the forty-fourth maintenance release of the Linux 3.12 kernel, a long-term supported (LTS) branch.
    • The Linux Foundation opens scholarship program -- will you apply?
      Are you happy with your life? Maybe you are stuck in a dead-end job. Maybe you are unemployed and living on your mom's couch. Hell, maybe you just need to enhance your skills for your current job. You know you need to make a change, but you keep putting it off. What is a smart path to take?

      Linux. Yes, careers involved in Linux are in high demand. Getting certified in some way is not only personally rewarding, but also improves your employment potential by bolstering your resume. If you do not have money for such a thing, I have good news -- you could get a scholarship from The Linux Foundation. In other words, you can get a free education and certification. Will you improve your life by applying?
    • Learn KVM and Linux App Development with Linux Foundation Instructor Mike Day
      Linux Foundation instructor Mike Day is an expert in Linux hypervisors and led IBM's work on the Xen and KVM hypervisors as a Distinguished Engineer. But he came upon his calling almost by accident, having been “thrown into the project with colleagues who had worked on hypervisors for more than a decade,” he said.

      “It was a real challenge for me but not too long after that I became viewed as an expert on the subject,” said Day, who now teaches KVM and Linux developer courses for Linux Foundation Training.
    • diff -u: What's New in Kernel Development
      When you run a program as setuid, it runs with all the permissions of that user. And if the program spawns new processes, they inherit the same permissions. Not so with filesystem capabilities. When you run a program with a set of capabilities, the processes it spawns do not have those capabilities by default; they must be given explicitly.


    • Linux Foundation Beefs Up Scholarship Program
      The Linux Foundation Training Scholarship Program provides funds to applicants who otherwise would not have the ability to attend Linux Foundation training courses. It attempts to help developers, IT professionals, and promising students to build Linux careers and contribute to shaping the future of the operating system and the enterprise.
    • Linux Foundation Calls for Submissions for Expanded 2015 Linux Training Scholarship Program
    • 2015 Linux Training Scholarship Program is now Accepting Applications
    • Who's Afraid of Systemd?
      Last year, the free software community was full of debates about systemd, the system manager that replaces init, the process that boots a Linux system. Now that systemd is uneventfully running the latest releases of major distributions like Debian, Fedora, and Ubuntu, you might imagine that opposition to it is melting away -- but you'd be wrong.

      Instead, casual references on social media show that the rumors are as common as ever. And while you don't hear much recently about Devuan, the anti-systemd fork of Debian, it is still trudging towards a release while making the same arguments as ever.

      The situation is not unique. Some free software circles have always seemed to require an enemy. For instance, in the first decade of the millennium, it was Mono, an adaptation for Linux of Microsoft's .Net. Hundreds of thousands of words were written denouncing Mono, yet today it attracts no attention, although it is still available in repositories.

      Perhaps, too, free software users are becoming conservative as they age, as indicated by the user revolts against GNOME and KDE. Yet no precedent comes close to the viciousness of attacks on systemd, or had so little foundation, either.
    • Understanding Systemd


    • What will be the future of Linux without Linus?
      Linus: I’ve never been much of a visionary — instead of looking at huge plans for the future, I tend to have a rather short time frame of ‘issues in the next few months’. I’m a big believer in that the ‘details’ matter, and if you take care of the details, the big issues will end up sorting themselves out on their own.
    • [Reposted] The creator of Linux OS is calm about the future


    • If I get hit by a bus, Linux will go on just fine says Linus Torvalds
      Just a few days after asking the Linux community to let him take a break, Linus Torvalds has said the project he kicked off 1991 can now get along without him.

      He was, characteristically, blunt in his recent interview with Bloomberg, saying Linux would survive his death.


    • Another angle... Linux: a future without Torvalds [reposted in Ireland]


    • Will Linux survive the death of Linus Torvalds?


    • Linus Torvalds Says Linux Can Move On Without Him


    • Linux Top 3: Linux 4.1 delayed 1 Week, Kaos and Clonezilla Update
      Linux 4.1 is going to take a little longer than some of its predecessors, with Linus Torvalds release a rare eighth release candidate on June 14.


    • Graphics Stack





  • Applications



  • Desktop Environments/WMs



    • Cinnamon 2.6 – a Linux desktop for Windows XP refugees
      Cinnamon is best known as one of the two default desktops for Linux Mint, which is fast approaching its next major update. Mint 17.2 will include the brand new Cinnamon 2.6, just released, when delivered later this year.


    • GNOME Desktop/GTK



      • GNOME's Music Is Getting Some Major New Features
        There is more to GNOME than just the desktop environment. GNOME is a stack of apps, and many of those applications are constantly improved and worked on. Allan Day, one of GNOME's designers and developers, detailed some of the changes that are being made to the Music app.


      • Examining the design patterns
        I wanted to share a brief update on the Outreachy project that Gina and I are working on, where Gina is preparing for a usability test in GNOME.

        So far, we've been in an "information gathering" mode, where she has been learning about some of the basics of usability testing. In our next step, Gina will now start doing an analysis in preparation for a usability test.


      • Plans for GNOME’s apps
        I’ve been a bit quiet about GNOME’s applications of late. This isn’t because nothing has been happening, though – quite the opposite. We’ve been steadily working away behind the scenes, and our application designs have evolved considerably.






  • Distributions



    • Reviews



      • Further Adventures in Calculate Linux
        I've been experimenting in Calculate Linux lately because it offered a modern KDE without systemd or selinux installed by default, and perhaps a bit because of my nostalgia for Gentoo. Things got off to a rocky start, but after ironing out most of wrinkles and I'm finding myself right at home. I think you could too.




    • New Releases



    • Gentoo Family



      • Why I use Gentoo Linux (and if you develop software you should too)
        I first discovered Gentoo Linux when I left Oracle/Sun in 2010, gave up my Mac and decided to experiment with creating a mac-like desktop experience on Linux. The initial reason was the optimizations you can do to squeeze every bit of performance out of your hardware (I'd bought a cheap Lenovo laptop).




    • Ballnux/SUSE



      • OpenSUSE Tumbleweed Switching Over To GCC 5.1.1
        The current stable version of GCC 5, GCC 5.1.1, has been added to openSUSE Factory and in turn will see all packages rebuilt against this new compiler and this will become the default compiler in the openSUSE Tumbleweed snashot due out later in the week.


      • Default compiler for Tumbleweed updating to GCC 5
        The newest GNU Compiler Collection was checked in today to openSUSE Factory, which is the rolling development code base for Tumbleweed, as the default compiler, so all packages will be rebuilt against GCC 5 and the next Tumbleweed snapshot will include GCC 5.1.1


      • openSUSE Tumbleweed Linux Switches to GCC 5 as Default Compiler
        On June 16, the openSUSE Project, through Douglas DeMaio, had the great pleasure of announcing that the Tumbleweed version of the openSUSE Linux operating system has moved to the 5.x branch of GCC (GNU Compiler Collection).




    • Red Hat Family



      • Minio Lands $3.3M Seed Round To Build Out Open Source Storage Project
        When venture capitalists open their wallets and hand out $3.3 million for a seed round, you have to figure the new company has some industry veterans with startup experience, and such is the case with Minio, an open source cloud storage product being built by veterans from Gluster.

        Gluster was purchased by Red Hat in 2011 for $136 million.


      • Ravello Empowers Open Source Community With Free Smart Labs on AWS and Google for Red Hat Certified Engineers
      • Rackspace's Carl Thompson Named 2015 Red Hat Certified Professional of the Year
      • Red Hat (RHT) to Release Quarterly Earnings on Thursday


      • Rite Aid, Red Hat, Smith & Wesson earnings in focus
      • Red Hat Earnings Expected to Rise
        Optimism surrounds Red Hat, as it gets ready to report its first quarter results on Thursday, June 18, 2015. Analysts are expecting the company to book a profit of 27 cents a share, up from 24 cents a year ago.


      • Is Red Hat's (RHT) Q1 Earnings Likely to Surprise Estimates?
        Red Hat reported strong results in the last quarter with both earnings and revenues surpassing the respective Zacks Consensus Estimate.


      • Fedora



        • antiX, Debian, Fedora, and More
          The Fedora Wiki got a new entry last month that makes one wonder if Fedora really wants users at all. If folks complain it's because they didn't read the information provided or don't understand what they're reading. Users are too dumb or lazy to file bugs reports and would rather complain than test "every possible feature and/or configuration switch." Hardly anyone bothers to read the source code or its license and, if they do, they'd rather complain than write the code to fix whatever their complaint is themselves. If they do write the fix and it's not committed, then they'll complain rather than learn from it. Folks are going to complain, so just ignore it.


        • Fedora 22 review - Fiascoed
          And so, without any application testing, any customization, desktop effects, resource usage testing, and some other bits and pieces, we must bring the Fedora Twenty-Two KDE review to a halt. Because the distro is dead, and it can't cope with some simple updates and installs. Really a shame. It reminds me that Fedora is a testbed. But it used to be quite stable recently, and now, we're back in 2010.

          I really am disappointed. I wish I had some better news for you, but this release simply doesn't cut it. It's riddled with bugs, even when it works, and then it stops working. Slow, laggy, average hardware compatibility including Nvidia problems, a less than ideal presentation layer, all in all, a rushed edition with no soul or passion. You can't fake those. Grade we must, and so Fedora 22 gets a very feeble 2/10. See you around.


        • A Quick Look At Fedora 22 “XFCE” | What’s New


        • Fedora 22 - workstation - Gnome - Do not disturb
          Fedora 22 comes with the newest version of Gnome - 3.16. You've probably heard about this already. The new version brought quite a few shiny changes, a major one of which was a brand new notification area. You don't have a notification bar at the bottom any more, your notifications now come up at the top with the calendar. It's really neat! More information can be found in the release notes here.


        • Testing rawhide apps using xdg-app
          An important aspect of xdg-app is application sandboxing, which will require application changes to use sandbox-specific APIs. However, xdg-app is also a good way to deploy and run non-sandboxed (or partially sandboxed) regular applications.


        • Contribute to pkgdb2
          Pkgdb2 is the application managing in Fedora, who is allowed to access which git repo containing the files necessary to build the packages present in the distribution.


        • IRC on Hubs
          Still, since the idea for hubs is also to help new contributors get integrated more smoothly into the Fedora community, an effective way to message people did seem like it would be valuable. Since the team/project hubs will have the ability to include an embedded IRC channel, using IRC to send private messages seemed logical. But Fedora Hubs is not an IRC client – it will use IRC to send private messages between users and to enable the channel discussions, but every channel must be directly associated with a hub and the messaging interface will only support messages between Hubs users, not to anyone external. This is an active design choice that Mo and I made, based on the concept of keeping the hub as the central organizing principle of this app in order to help fend off scope creep.






    • Debian Family



      • Chrome, Debian Linux, and the secret binary blob download riddle
        "Anyway, I haven't said that banning such software from Debian would be the only solution... but at least these incidents come far too frequent recently, so apparently something needs to be done at Debian level to pro-actively prevent future cases/compromises like this."


      • Derivatives



        • SteamOS Finally Gets Update with the Liberation Font
          Valve's SteamOS has been updated once more and the developers have upgraded many of the default packages. More importantly, they have also added a new font called Liberation, which was requested by the community.


        • Canonical/Ubuntu









  • Devices/Embedded



    • Portable wireless speakers run Linux on a Raspberry Pi
      Axiom’s portable wireless 150W speakers stream music from the web, mobile devices, or USB, and include a WiFi access point and a 9- or 18-hour battery pack.

      Speaker and home theater manufacturer Axiom has found Kickstarter success with its AxiomAir wireless speaker system, which has surpassed its $75,000 goal to reach $121,000, with 25 days to go before the July 12 deadline. Two dozen $475 packages were still available at publication time. Other packages go for $497, said to be more than $300 under the retail price, or $950 for a two-pack, among other discounted combo packs.


    • PowerPC based IoT gateway COM ships with Linux BSP
      The rugged Arcturus “uCP1020″ COM for IoT/M2M gateways runs Linux on Freescale’s QorIQ P1020, with up to up to 64GB eMMC, three GbE ports, and a baseboard.


    • Official Raspberry Pi Case starts at $8.59
      The Raspberry Pi Foundation launched the first official case for the Raspberry Pi, which exposes all ports and features a clip-on lid for adding HATs.

      A variety of third-party enclosures for the Raspberry Pi have become available over the years, but the vendors no doubt realized the Raspberry Pi Foundation would eventually build one of their own. The time has come, with the unveiling of the “Official Raspberry Pi Case.”


    • Linux-based Sierra Wireless IoT module has 3G or 4G radios
      Sierra Wireless unveiled a Cortex-A5 based “AirPrime WP” IoT module with 3G or 4G radios, plus a modularly expandable, open-source “mangOH” carrier board.

      We’ve seen plenty of low-power, Linux-ready Internet of Things computer-on-modules, mostly based on Qualcomm’s MIPS-based Atheros SoCs. The Linux-based AirPrime WP modules from Sierra Wireless instead tackle IoT and industrial M2M with integrated cellular radios. A 3G HSPA+/EDGE/GPRS/GSM version called WP75xx is due in the fourth quarter while a WP8548 version that adds 4G LTE is due in Q1 2016.


    • Finally, an official Raspberry Pi case has been released!
      Rejoice Pi fans! The team behind Raspberry Pi have announced an official case for the Pi 2 Model B and the Pi Model B+. The case was announced today on their blog and is available from all the main Pi retailers for a cheap €£6 (which works out to about $9).


    • Raspberry Pi Open Source Wireless Speakers Hit Kickstarter (video)
      Axiom Audio has this week unveiled a new range of wireless speakers they have added to their existing range that are powered by the awesome Raspberry Pi mini PC.


    • Phones







Free Software/Open Source



Leftovers



  • Stockmann to sell Academic Bookstore
    Stockmann announced on Thursday a plan to sell off its Academic Bookstores to Swedish media conglomerate Bonnier Books. In accordance with the newly inked letter of intent to sell, the bookstore will continue to operate in connection with the department store chain after the acquisition.


  • UK Anti-Doping agency to issue statement over Mo Farah
    UK Anti-Doping are to issue a statement on Thursday, which will respond to newspaper claims that Mo Farah missed two drugs tests leading up to the London Olympic Games in 2012.

    A report in the Daily Mail says the double Olympic champion missed one test in 2010 and another after joining forces with coach Alberto Salazar the following year.

    Salazar, who manages the Nike Project in Oregon, is currently under suspicion after a TV documentary made allegations against the 56-year-old with regards to doping abuse.


  • Science



    • The 100-year-old scientist who pushed the FDA to ban artificial trans fat
      No one was more pleased by the Food and Drug Administration's decision Tuesday to eliminate artificial trans fats from the U.S. food supply than Fred Kummerow, a 100-year-old University of Illinois professor who has warned about the dangers of the artery-clogging substance for nearly six decades.

      "Science won out," Kummerow, who sued the FDA in 2013 for not acting sooner, said in an interview from his home in Illinois. "It's very important that we don't have this in our diet."




  • Health/Nutrition



  • Security



    • US Navy Soliciting Zero Days
      The National Security Agency may find and purchase zero days, but that doesn’t mean it’s sharing its hoard with other government agencies such as the U.S. Navy, which apparently is in the market for some unpatched, undisclosed vulnerabilities of its own.

      A request for proposal posted last Wednesday—which has since been taken down—to FedBizOpps.gov was a solicitation by the Naval Supply Systems Command seeking a CMMI-3 (Capability Maturity Model Integration) contractor capable of producing operational exploits that integrate with commonly used exploitation frameworks, the RFP said.


    • Tuesday's security advisories


    • Security advisories for Wednesday


    • Your data is at risk if you are running iOS or Mac OS X
      Six university researchers from Indiana University have revealed that Apple’s password manager, Keychain, is susceptible to hackers. If exploited, the flaw would give a hacker access to the users passwords. The really worrying thing here is that Apple has known about the issue for months and still hasn’t managed to issue a fix.




  • Transparency Reporting



  • Environment/Energy/Wildlife



    • Superabundant bird decline mirrors Passenger Pigeon
      One of Eurasia’s most abundant bird species has declined by 90% and retracted its range by 5000 km since 1980 a new study shows.

      Yellow-breasted Bunting Emberiza aureola was once distributed over vast areas of Europe and Asia, its range stretching from Finland to Japan. New research published in the journal Conservation Biology suggest that unsustainable rates of hunting, principally in China, have contributed to not only a catastrophic loss of numbers but also in the areas in which it can now be found.






  • Finance



    • Jeb Bush: Next President Should Privatize Social Security
      Jeb Bush thinks the next president will need to privatize Social Security, he said at a town hall meeting in New Hampshire on Tuesday -- acknowledging that his brother attempted to do so and failed. It’s a position sure to be attacked by both Republicans and Democrats.


    • RBS payment failure could last days
      About 600,000 payments that failed to enter the accounts of RBS customers overnight may not be completed until the end of the week, the bank has said.

      Payments of wages, tax credits and disability living allowance were among those that failed to be credited to accounts.

      RBS initially said some payments were "missing", but it had now identified and fixed the underlying problem.

      Delayed payments would be processed "no later than Saturday", it said.


    • Why Obama’s Trade Deal May Come Back From the Dead | Interview with Richard Wolff
      Tyrel Ventura and Tabetha Wallace from Watching the Hawks interview Professor Richard Wolff about the House vote to reject the Trans Pacific Partnership and where this massive trade deal will go from here.




  • PR/AstroTurf/Lobbying



    • The Truth Avoided by Mainstream Media Liars
      So here is a challenge to the Sunday Times, BBC and rest of the mainstream media.


    • Typography Is Why Jeb’s Logo Is Worse Than a Piece of Crap
      Jeb! is fine, as far as logos go. It’s uninspired, sure, but it gets the job done. But as a piece of typography, it’s crap.


    • British attack on Edward Snowden foiled by real journalists
      I woke up on Sunday and checked the news as I usually do. “British spies ‘moved after Snowden files read'” exclaimed the BBC, probably hoping to whip up anti-Russian/Chinese sentiment, immediately I rolled my eyes, surely revealing mass spying to the billions being spied upon is more important than a few spies having to be moved.

      After reading the headline, I was left puzzling, I was sure that Snowden handed everything he had over to journalists. A day later my understanding of the issue had been confirmed, Glenn Greenwald said that Snowden doesn’t have access to the documents anymore and hasn’t been able access them since they were handed over in 2013.




  • Censorship



    • European Court strikes serious blow to free speech online
      The Estonian courts had found that Delfi AS, the news portal, should have prevented clearly unlawful comments from being published in the portal’s comments section, even though Delfi had taken down the offensive comments as soon as it had been notified about them. When Delfi lodged a complaint with the European Court, the Court concluded unanimously that the domestic courts’ findings were a justified and proportionate restriction on Delfi’s right to freedom of expression.


    • Shock European court decision: Websites are liable for users’ comments
      In a surprise decision, the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) in Strasbourg has ruled that the Estonian news site Delfi may be held responsible for anonymous and allegedly defamatory comments from its readers. As the digital rights organisation Access notes, this goes against the European Union’s e-commerce directive, which "guarantees liability protection for intermediaries that implement notice-and-takedown mechanisms on third-party comments." As such, Peter Micek, Senior Policy Counsel at Access, says the ECHR judgment has "dramatically shifted the internet away from the free expression and privacy protections that created the internet as we know it."


    • UAE man faces $68,000 fine for swearing on WhatsApp
      Swearing at someone via WhatsApp in the UAE could land you with a $68,000 (€£45,000) fine, under a new law.

      Those living in the country could also face jail, and foreigners deportation.

      The new law was brought to light when the UAE's supreme court ordered the retrial of a man fined $800 for the offence, arguing the fine was too lenient.




  • Privacy



    • Belgian privacy watchdog sues Facebook ahead of summit
      Privacy will be on the docket at a Belgian court on Thursday -- and Facebook will be the defendant.

      The Belgian Privacy Commission has sued Facebook and will take the world's largest social network to court on Thursday for allegedly violating privacy laws both in Belgium and in the European Union. Speaking to Belgian news outlet DeMorgen, the country's chairman of the Privacy Commission William Debeuckelaere said that Facebook's behavior "cannot be tolerated." He added that he hopes the court will force Facebook to change its privacy practices.


    • Adjusting to a World Where No Data Is Secure
      Imagine a piece of information that would be useful to store digitally if it could be kept secure, but that would do more harm than good if it ever fell into the wrong hands. With Friday’s news that “hackers have breached a database containing a wealth of sensitive information from federal employees’ security background checks,” just that sort of fraught information has arguably been exposed to hackers.


    • UK Police Carry Out Facial Scans Of 100,000 People Attending Music Festival
      The ostensible reason for this massive surveillance is to catch people who steal mobile phones, but that really doesn't stand up to scrutiny. The database that the 100,000 faces were matched against was "custody images from across Europe", but it seems improbable that criminals would travel all the way across Europe to this particular music festival in the hope that they might be able to relieve a few spaced-out musicgoers of their phones. Nor was general criminal behavior an issue: apparently, last year there were just 91 arrests with 120,000 people attending. It's more likely that the facial scans were born of a desire to see if the hardware and software were capable of capturing such large numbers and comparing them with the pan-European database.

      [...]

      It's easy to see this kind of technology being rolled out ever-more widely. First at other music festivals -- purely for safety reasons, you understand -- and then, once people have started to get used to that, elsewhere too. Eventually, of course, it will become routine to scan everyone, everywhere, all the time, offering a perfect analog complement to the non-stop, pervasive surveillance that we now know takes place in the digital world.


    • Strong Encryption and Anonymity Are The Guardians Of Free Expression
      EFF has signed on to a joint civil society statement welcoming the groundbreaking report supporting encryption and anonymity by the UN Special Rapporteur on the Promotion and Protection of the Right to Freedom of Opinion and Expression, David Kaye. The Special Rapporteur will present the report on June 17th at the 29th regular session of the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva.


    • Bruce Schneier: Sure, Russia & China Probably Have The Snowden Docs... But Not Because Of Snowden
      Given all the fuss over the ridiculous article this past weekend -- which has since been confirmed as government stenography rather than actual reporting -- security maven Bruce Schneier has written up an article making a key point. It's quite likely that the underlying point in the article -- that Russian and Chinese intelligence agencies have access to the documents that Snowden originally handed over to reporters -- is absolutely true. But, much more importantly, he argues, the reason likely has almost nothing to do with Snowden.
    • China and Russia Almost Definitely Have the Snowden Docs
      Last weekend, the Sunday Times published a front-page story (full text here), citing anonymous British sources claiming that both China and Russia have copies of the Snowden documents. It’s a terrible article, filled with factual inaccuracies and unsubstantiated claims about both Snowden’s actions and the damage caused by his disclosure, and others have thoroughly refuted the story. I want to focus on the actual question: Do countries like China and Russia have copies of the Snowden documents?

      I believe the answer is certainly yes, but that it’s almost certainly not Snowden’s fault.


    • Government faces call to review 'self-destruct' email policy
      The Government is facing calls to review a little-known policy under which Downing Street emails “self-destruct” after three months.

      Any messages which David Cameron’s aides fail to save and store are automatically deleted – a practice that campaigners claim is designed to thwart later freedom of information requests.




  • Civil Rights



  • Internet/Net Neutrality



  • DRM



    • Amazon Bans Kodi/XBMC App Over Piracy Concerns


      Amazon has removed the popular media center Kodi from the app store claiming it facilitates piracy. The software, formerly known as XBMC, doesn't link to or host any infringing content, but third-party add-ons are giving the software a bad reputation.




  • Intellectual Monopolies



    • Trademarks



      • Big changes coming to IKEAHackers
        Some months ago I received a Cease and Desist (C&D) letter from the agent of Inter IKEA Systems B.V., citing that my site IKEAhackers.net has infringed upon its intellectual property rights. In that letter they asked that I agree to voluntarily transfer the domain name IKEAhackers.net to them, failing which they reserve the right to take any legal action it deems necessary against me.




    • Copyrights



      • BMI song lawsuits make rounds in Jersey bars
        That mistake could cost this restaurant to the tune of several thousands of dollars for each of the four songs that Broadcast Music Inc. claims the venue played one Friday night in May 2014.


      • Publisher Strips Hergé's Heirs of Millions of Dollars in Rights to Tintin Drawings
        The heirs of Hergé, the creator of the popular Tintin comics, were dealt a crushing blow in Dutch court this week. In a shocking decision, the court ruled that they do not have the rights to the iconic boy reporter character.

        The ruling hinged on the unexpected production of a long-lost 1942 document in which Hergé, whose real name was Georges Remi, transferred the Tintin rights to his publisher, Casterman.


      • MPAA: Google Assists and Profits from Piracy


        The MPAA is refusing to hand over documentation discussing the legal case it helped Mississippi State Attorney General Jim Hood build against Google. According to the Hollywood group, Google is waging a PR war against Hollywood while facilitating and profiting from piracy.


      • Pirate Bay’s Gottfrid Svartholm Loses Hacking Appeal


        Following the largest case of its type in Denmark, in October 2014 Gottfrid Svartholm was found guilty of hacking IT company CSC. The Pirate Bay founder immediately appealed but after a technically complex hearing a jury at the High Court today unanimously upheld the decision of the lower court.


      • Neil Young, Donald Trump Spar Over 'Rockin' in the Free World' Use
        When Neil Young released his anthemic track "Rockin' in the Free World" off 1989's Freedom, the song quickly became a rallying cry in post-Reagan America for "American values" and the fall of communism. With George H. W. Bush still settling into his presidency, Young criticized the president's ideology, specifically referencing Bush's "thousand points of light" comment and blasting Republicans for what he felt was a disregard toward the lower-class.








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don't forget to 'like'
 
The Catching of Luigi Mangione Shows We Need Not Have More Surveillance (Than We Already Have; It's Excessive Anyway)
instead of saying surveillance is insufficient and thus we need more of it, now they can claim they have enough of it
[Teaser] Fate of Formalities Officers (FOs) at the EPO
Coming soon
Libre Liberia: Windows Down to 8% in Liberia
In Liberia, only about 1 in 12 Web requests seems to originate from Windows
Links 10/12/2024: Health, Politics, Economics, and More
Links for the day
Gemini Links 10/12/2024: LLM Plagiarism and "Flow" Review
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Monday, December 09, 2024
IRC logs for Monday, December 09, 2024
EPO Salaries Reduced: EPO's “Sustainability” Clause "Cuts the Average Overall Adjustment for Staff by –41,8%."
What does this all mean for staff?
Google is Nuking Remaining Invidious Instances Again, Hoping to Force Everyone to Use Proprietary Spyware With DRM
This issue started a few hours ago
Microsoft's Grip on Armenia is Slipping, According to New Data From statCounter
Notice what happened to Windows - an all-time low
[Meme] Sloppy Plagiarism Full of Errors, Lacking Actual Comprehension
LLMs are not "AI"
More LLM Spam/Slop About LLM Spam/Slop
This is what the Web will become unless we expose those who contribute to the problem
Reforming Versus Rebooting Versus Destroying Institutions
At the moment we strive to expose the truth or shine light on pertinent facts
Microsoft's Windows is Pretty Much Dead in Haiti
Android has eaten Microsoft's lunch, Microsoft can't even eat crow
[Teaser] EPO Management Thinks Inflation in Europe is 0.2% Per Annum
Taming inflation by entirely ignoring it is like wrongly assuming that climate change (caused by human activity) can be overcome by not studying the effect of 8+ billion humans on this finite planet
Corporate Media Will Be Discarded and Eventually Die If It Keeps Doing "Bill Gates Sez" (or Similar) Pieces Instead of Journalism
"Superintelligence" does not even mean anything!
This Week We Focus Again on European Patent Office (EPO) Scandals
Nothing can stop us, not even a party or SLAPP
Links 09/12/2024: Health Care Anger and Power Vacuum in Syria
Links for the day
Links 09/12/2024: Burned, Uncertain Future, and Failure
Links for the day
Links 09/12/2024: UnitedHealthcare C.E.O.'s Killer Still Unknown, Syrian Regime Change Completed
Links for the day
Site in Support of Richard Stallman Reminds People of the FSF's and Stallman's Support of Women
new updates
Microsoft: Target the Young (Get 'Em While They're Young)
Then they say Free software advocates are "extremists" and "rude"...
As of December 8th (23 Days Remaining), the FSF (Free Software Foundation, Inc.) Already a Third of the Way Toward Ambitious Funding Goal
FSF's memberships (or donations) drive is going a lot better than we anticipated
Why Mike Magee Created and Was Involved in So Many News Sites About Technology
British legend
In Memory of Mike Magee (1949-2024) and Our Best Wishes to The Register, Which He Founded in the 1990s
Months have passed since Magee died
Tunisia is Android, Windows is Waning There
Windows was measured below 20% in Tunisia
[Meme] Jeff Bezos Working From Home
"B**** please, publish articles in Washington Post about how working from home sucks"
'Remote' (From Home) Tech Workers Are More Productive for a Lot of Reasons
The Bezos-owned media should disclose its conflict of interest here
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Sunday, December 08, 2024
IRC logs for Sunday, December 08, 2024
No Wonder Microsoft's LinkedIn and Github Have So Many Layoffs, Permanent Office Closures
Traffic down, losses, probably never going to profit
Microsoft Ends Support for Vista 10, So Relative Share of Vista 10 Goes Up, Vista 11 is Down
For 2 months in a row already
When Python is Basically Run by a 'Microsoft-Friendly' Mole Who Ousts People That Actually Contributed a Lot to Python for Many Years
Removing some of the best people
Microsoft's Latest 'Novel' Approach, Trying to Prevent People Moving Away From Microsoft and From Windows
ads say a lot about their business strategy
Syria: Microsoft Windows Down to 8% "Market Share" (It Was 99% Just 15 Years Ago)
it was even measured at less than 5% earlier this year
Microsoft-sponsored "The New Stack" Publishing Microsoft Windows Articles in "Linux" Clothing
Just sayin'...
Links 08/12/2024: Boeing Leaks and Bluesky’s Business Model Dilemma
Links for the day
Gemini Links 08/12/2024: UK Winds and Ultraviolet Grasslands (UVG)
Links for the day
Links 08/12/2024: Conflicts, Misinformation, and Gutting of the Media
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Saturday, December 07, 2024
IRC logs for Saturday, December 07, 2024