Bonum Certa Men Certa

Techrights and Modularity

The downtime was not scheduled; but it was long needed

Techrights in limited mode



Summary: Why the Web site was down most of yesterday and why we focus only on a particular set of key topics, which we've assessed closely for many years

LAST night we rebooted the site's hypervisor for the first time in over 500 days, i.e. since the site's epoch on this server. Software updates and upgrades were applied and it now run the latest Linux kernel. It's Alpine Linux by the way. We also set up a container for the databases (Techright has three) and distanced it from the main site, which will also be moved to a container some time soon. With automatic/unattended updates we hope to enhance security; performance is already improved as abstraction layers are changed and components separated. Downtime should be reduced. Some time later this month we may also add "https" (TLS) support -- something which was hard to do over the years because the CentOS version we use lacks some key packages, which would be risky to install forcibly.



"It helps to have some redundancy and modularity."The long downtime yesterday was not planned; but since we've long encountered reliability issues -- partly if not mostly due to lack of disk space -- the migration was well overdue. We planned to do it this past Christmas, but instead it got done on Easter (Sunday). We'll do further work later this week, so more maintenance-related downtime will be very likely (we can't tell the exact time). In case the site is down, the latest articles (with up to 3-hour time gaps) can be found here. Better to have a mirror than nothing at all, right? This mirror is under our control (privacy), but it is separated from Techrights. It helps to have some redundancy and modularity.

Interest in our work is growing; over the past month a lot of people have linked to our investigations of Bill Gates (because he's running a PR campaign, piggybacking a pandemic for self-promotional purposes although he's not a doctor, not an expert in that domain and he never even graduated from college). We also received inquiries expressing interest in doing internships with Techrights. The number of people involved with the site continues to grow. Last week the site became unavailable about 10 times, mostly around the middle of the week, due to what seemed like a deliberate sabotage effort or DDOS. We have good defenses in places and intend to improve these later this month with packet-level filtering.

"What's most important is accuracy."Many sites write about the pandemic at the moment; it's estimated that over 90% of news and 'air time' this past month was devoted to COVID; we try not to write too much about it -- not because it's not important but because it's an area already widely-explored. For instance, TechDirt did some good work -- publication on how patents that came from the EPO's favourite fraud were used against COVID tacklers in France. It's like the EPO wants to help COVID spread faster and further. There's also that COVID 'Pledge" (in effect openwashing patents), national exemptions from patents (using emergency provisions) and various other interesting developments that we file under "Monopolies" in our Daily Links. We intend to focus on areas we know best, such as internal affairs of the European Patent Office (EPO) and Software Freedom. We always focus on matters we understand very well as it helps keep our record of accuracy. What's most important is accuracy. We're not COVID experts; we don't rely on cranks with a YouTube channel to explain it to us, either. Heck, we don't trust anything the famous criminal from Microsoft says about it. If he says something that the experts told him, then why don't TV channels invite those experts to be on the air instead? (Clue: those experts don't have the budget to bribe the media, giving it money with strings attached)

As noted hours before the downtime (maybe some readers missed it), in my 'home office' I've settled things. I moved everything to another laptop as my 11-year laptop had died a week beforehand. I probably wrote well over 10,000 posts using that laptop; it wanted to rest in peace and I could no longer salvage it (too many components thoroughly damaged with no pragmatic workaround).

Recent Techrights' Posts

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So it is probably quite potent
Staying Happy in Times of Crackdowns on Civil Society
Optimism in this sort of "new reality" or "new normal" seems like something for the irrational person
"Nobel" Exploited Posthumously for "AI" Hype, Now They Do the Same With "Quantum"
ere have been many jokes about "Nobel" for peace (often granted to pro-war people) and a fake one for "Economics" (establishment propaganda)
Distinguished Lecture by Richard Stallman This Coming Monday in Rome
After "Free software, Crucial for Freedom in a Digital World"
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Links for the day
Noteworthy Claim That IBM is Firing a Lot of Lawyers This Week (RAs in the Legal Department)
A lot of what they do is patent 'trolling' or lawyering up against their own staff (e.g. HR disputes)
Links 10/10/2025: US Judge Bars Attacks by ICE On Journalists and Protesters; “We Took The Freedom of Speech Away” Says the President
Links for the day
Slopwatch: Serial Sloppers, Google News Gifting Slopfarms, and Fake News/Plagiarism About "Linux"
Google itself is a slop pusher these days
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A lot of Qualcomm's patents are on software. We wrote about this in prior years.
XBox Layoffs Rumours, Downtime, and Criticism From XBox Co-Founder
"everyone is ditching the xbox."
Links 10/10/2025: Honoring The Legacy Of Robert Murray-Smith, Many Articles on the Hey Hi (AI) Bubble
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Gemini Links 09/10/2025: October Gothic and Reading Middle Earth Role Playing; C and Ada
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
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IRC Proceedings: Thursday, October 09, 2025
IRC logs for Thursday, October 09, 2025
Links 09/10/2025: Farewell to Jane Goodall, California Bans Algorithmic Price-Fixing
Links for the day
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Richard Stallman's Talk in Helsinki is Done. Tomorrow Göteborg.
There are scarce details in Finnish about Dr. Stallman's talk
New XBox Leaks Probably Serve to Confirm XBox's Collapse (Many More Layoffs)
It's very much consistent with what many other sites have reported lately
The Slop Song
The train wreck marches on
LLM Slop/Advanced Plagiarism Flooding the Zone With Capital That Does Not Exist
Many publishers out there still participate in this bubble instead of calling it what it is
Links 09/10/2025: Sacked Microsoft Workers Make "Sackbird", IBM Taps CockroachDB for PostgreSQL
Links for the day
"Happy Hacking Day" Richard Stallman Talk This Afternoon (From 14:00 to 16:00) at Haaga-Helia University in Pasila
Richard Stallman in Helsinki, Finland
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, October 08, 2025
IRC logs for Wednesday, October 08, 2025
Links 09/10/2025: Impact of Microsoft Layoffs, More Data Breaches
Links for the day
Gemini Links 09/10/2025: Autumn Blues and C IRC Bot
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Slopwatch Appreciated by Real Authors of GNU/Linux Articles
We do try to keep on top of those things
Upgraded R.R.R.R.R.R. Today
The Web of 2025 is full of garbage, not limited to slopfarms
Freedom From Proprietary Prisons
Forking always an option
IBM's Watson Died in 1956, Now Watson Dies Again
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Slopwatch: LinuxSecurity, UbuntuPIT, and Google News
We've also just noticed more slop from UbuntuPIT
Microsoft Says That Constant Mass Layoffs Are Success, the Media Isn't Buying This Microsoft Narrative Anymore
If people in the media feel an obligation to repeat whatever lies Microsoft tells, what point will there be to the media?
Links 08/10/2025: "Mali Puts Free Speech on Trial" And Apple Enforces Dictatorship
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Links 08/10/2025: Real Innovation and Nina.chat is Dead
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Links 08/10/2025: Y2K38 Bug is a Vulnerability, Chat Control in Europe a Threat
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Microsoft Windows is No Longer an Operating System, It's Surveillance Project
Why is this even legal to preload on PCs outside the US?
How and Why Once-Legitimate Sites Turn Into Slopfarms
Many sites will go offline and many social control networks will shut down once they realise or even openly admit they spend money and time gardening a bunch of bots and slop
UbuntuPIT Became a Slopfarm and Gnoppix Tarnishes Its Own Brand With Slop
It fits all the characteristics of mildly-edited (if at all) slop
Slopwatch: Linux Journal and Other Slopfarms
GAFAM needs to go the way of the dodo
Gemini Links 08/10/2025: "Seek Seek Revolution" and Gradient Backgrounds
Links for the day
Qualcomm Arduino Takes Aim at Raspberry Pi
Qualcomm is a Microsoft partner
Over at Tux Machines...
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IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, October 07, 2025
IRC logs for Tuesday, October 07, 2025
Stagnation of the Economy and What Free Software Can (or Could) Do For It
If your economic model is based on a pyramid of lies, it won't last very long
Social Control Media is Sinking
it would rightly seem like the era of centralised "social" sites (they're not social, they're about controlling the users) is ending, not overnight but gradually