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10.24.16

Updates Regarding EPO and BoAC: Unrest and Injustice Carry on

Posted in Europe, Patents at 5:00 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

Hanging in the balance of Battistelli’s gross injustice

Hanging mugs

Summary: Some of the latest information which is publicly and privately available to us, in particular regarding the case of a suspended judge which represents unprecedented erosion of the appeal boards’ independence (and hence lack of justice in the Organisation)

THE EPO is in a very sad state. The culprits — those who have ruined it — still keep their jobs and even have their contracts extended/renewed. Insiders can now get the Administrative Council’s minutes from June. They came out several days ago. What took so long? Are those minutes so secretive and is the EPO afraid that outsiders will exploit them? We are going to publish these quite soon. June’s meeting was all about BoAC, whereas back in March Battistelli came under fire (or the pretense of it). Things don’t appear to have moved onwards; the latest (October) meeting gave room for hope, but December is unlikely to bring the well-overdue sacking of Battistelli. The crowdfunding of a Battistelli departure (or firing) party just continues and the money piles up. Fireworks?

“One day we hope to release more material from the March and June meetings of the Administrative Council.”For those who forgot, the June meeting was all about BoAC, brushing aside the social issues as if they didn’t matter, after the March meeting promised they would be dealt with urgently and even sort of set an ultimatum for Battistelli — one which he obviously ignored.

A person who has seen the Administrative Council’s minutes from June told us that “[i]t makes an interesting comparison with how the meeting was perceived at the time. Turns out that the BoA reform only just got through. Some great quotes from Battistelli as well about SUEPO.”

One day we hope to release more material from the March and June meetings of the Administrative Council. We already have such material, but we never got around to publishing it due to lack of time (no urgency at the time).

We have meanwhile noticed an additional comment with some links in it, relating to claims that the EPO lied about what had happened in the midst of the above meeting. The comment in IP Watch says:

The entire text of the AC’s March resolution can be found at http://www.hipo.gov.hu/en/news/sztnh-hirek/hirek-esemenyek/147th-meeting-of-the-administrative-council-of-the-european-patent

The background of the issue is explained here: http://kluwerpatentblog.com/2016/03/18/supervisory-board-european-patent-office-votes-for-reforms-increasing-the-pressure-on-president-benoit-battistelli/

Looking over at IP Kat for updates (the site itself is self-censoring, but comments continue to come out), we have:

Why is this post still in the top 5? What happened afterwards? Is the guy dismissed or not?

There is no coverage anymore. The people from IP Kat seem to not care about the EPO scandals, especially after the EPO banned the site for a day. They are self-censoring, specifically regarding EPO scandals (they still mention the EPO, but only in a positive context and UPC promotion). Not by accident, certainly!

Here is one response to the above:

No. Battistelli is still there.
The AC didn’t take any disciplinary action against him.
Casado and Topic were also renewed.

Another person wrote:

Not dismissed. Under the new regulations adopted in June, he remains suspended. Without any running procedure.
In a clear violation of judiciary independence….

So, it looks like he’ll remain suspended until his end of term, and with current management no chance of reappointment.
This is a hidden disciplinary measure…
If new allegations pop up, these are likely to be the result of the previous investigation, which under national procedures would not be permitted to be used during a different procedure…

“Is there something rotten in the state of Denmark,” another comment added, linking to “Danish Press Coverage of the EPO by Berlingske” (Techrights).

A few more (newer) comments say:

Quite frankly, this is unacceptable. The EPO’s whole purpose is to uphold the law (on patents). How can they be trusted to do that properly when they do not even follow their own internal rules and procedures, let alone common principles on the rule of law (or human rights)?

The EPO (and the AC) would do well to remember the importance of ensuring that not only is justice done but that it is seen to be done. The damage to the EPO’s reputation (and to that of all professionals working in the patent sphere) could be immense if this is not handled properly. Indeed, that ship may well have already sailed.

Quite frankly, this is unacceptable. The EPO’s whole purpose [etc. etc.]

[Yawn] …

Trop c’est trop. Battistelli doit partir (Philip Cordery, 11.10.2016)

[double Yawn] …

“Enlarged Board publishes decision: EPO President violated judicial independence”

[more Yawns] …

Et sinon, ces croquettes, ca vient?

A bit of sarcasm:

The EPO’s whole purpose is to uphold the law (on patents).

Sorry, that was yesterday, before the “much needed” reforms to “modernize” the European Patent Office.

Now the whole purpose seems to be lining the pockets of the Representatives of the AC so that they can fake [mild] outrage at what is going on – or no outrage at all at the President violating judicial independence.

The ship sailed a long time ago…..3 years ago

And the silence here is not just embarrassing its highly suspicious

The above comment says that “Casado and Topic were also renewed” — a subject we’ll explore again later this week. These renewals were publicly mentioned in the EPO’s latest update regarding the meeting of the Administrative Council of the European Patent Organisation. The overview was published online several days later (the following week in fact) and it says:

The Administrative Council of the European Patent Organisation held its 149th meeting in Munich on 12 and 13 October 2016 under the chairmanship of Jesper Kongstad, Director General of the Danish Patent and Trademark Office.

After the Chairman’s report on the most recent meetings of the Board of the Administrative Council, the Council noted the activities report given by the President of the European Patent Office, Benoît Battistelli (to be published shortly on this website). The Council was pleased with the excellent results achieved by the Office in terms of efficiency and productivity but again stressed the need to be conscious of any possible impact on quality. The Council urged staff and management to use the momentum of the Social Conference, held just ahead of the Council meeting, in order to further the social dialogue and work together to find solutions.

The Council then proceeded with a series of appointments and reappointments of members of the Enlarged Board of Appeal and a Chairman and of legally and technically qualified members of the Board of Appeals.

Later, under the heading Legal and International Affairs, the Council heard a status report on the Unitary patent and related developments, given by the Slovak delegation, representing the country holding the EU presidency for the second half of 2016.

The Council made the following appointments to the Boards of Appeal Committee each for a three-year term, starting on 13 October 2016

a) from among the delegations:

Mr Roland Grossenbacher(CH) and his alternate Mr Derk-Jan De Groot (NL),

Ms Patricia García-Escudero (ES) and her alternate Mr Jorma Hanski (FI),

Ms Bucura Ionescu (RO) and her alternate Ms Catherine Margellou (GR)

b) from among former or serving judges:

Mr Klaus Bacher (DE), Mr Justice Birss (GB) and Mr Are Stenvik (NO). Alternate members in this category would be appointed at the next Council meeting. The Council noted that the Board of Appeals Committee and the President would make a joint proposal for appointment of the President of the Boards of Appeal in time for the next Council meeting.

By way of further appointments to the Council’s own bodies, in each case for a three-year term, starting on 15 December 2016, the Council:

-elected Mr Josef Kratochvíl (CZ) deputy chairman of the Council,

re-elected Mr Lex Kaufhold (LU) deputy chairman of the Budget and Finance Committee; and

-elected Mr Vojko Toman (SI) member of the Board of the Administrative Council.

It also elected Ms Delfina Autiero (IT) member representing the Administrative Council within the Supervisory Board of the Reserve Funds for Pensions and Social Security (RFPSS) with effect from 12 October 2016.

On a proposal from the President, the Council decided to extend until 31 December 2018 the appointments of Mr Alberto Casado (ES) and Mr ZeljkoTopic (HR), Vice-Presidents in charge of Directorate-General 2 and 4 respectively.

Finally, the Council noted, as a first step in a longer process, comprehensive social and financial studies and had an exchange of views on reviewing the disciplinary procedures framework.

The above is a somewhat ‘sanitised’ version of what was posted internally (and we leaked earlier this month).

Regarding that last line, stay tuned as later this week we have much to reveal about Željko Topić. It’s not a done deal; Battistelli was rumoured to be behind this renewal. █

10.23.16

EPO and the “Iberian Connection”: Patricia García-Escudero Márquez – Battistelli’s Pet Chinchilla on the Boards of Appeal Committee?

Posted in Europe, Patents at 7:32 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

Next installment (second of the bunch) among three

EPO scandal in Spain

Summary: Why the Boards of Appeal Committee has begun showing prominent signs that it is anything but independent and capable of standing up to Battistelli (or his circle at the Office, which includes the “Iberian Connection”)

THE closer we look at the EPO, the more we uncover political scandals. The two (EPO and EU/national politics) are inherently inseparable because politicians and bureaucrats are joining the EPO (key positions in particular). There’s plenty of politics at play and in fact, more so than ever before, some supporters and critics of the EPO do so for political reasons (gains or losses). We have been told so for a while, with examples from Belgium, France, etc. Battistelli himself, for example, is a politician who has not left his political life behind.

Editorial Notes

Today we shall look a little deeper into Iberian/Spanish politics. In part one and its addendum we wrote about one of the EPO’s Vice-Presidents — the only one who comes from Spain. In the teaser of this part we shared 13 photos which relate to today’s coverage but are not essential enough for in-line inclusion.

“García-Escudero is the current Director General of the Spanish Patent and Trademark Office (OEPM) and head of the Spanish delegation to the EPO’s Administrative Council.”Without further ado, here’s the next part, the one about the “Iberian connection” and the connections to Pío García-Escudero Márquez, Count of Badarán. It makes it easier to digest when separated into parts as readers tend to have limited attention spans. Some more information/photos will follow by separate post/article (addendum) as they are less crucial and more peripheral to the substance of this article. The final article, probably to be ready later this week, will be an update about the “Balkan Express” which is still chugging along despite expectations that it was about to be derailed.

García-Escudero Márquez

A previous posting referred to Patricia García-Escudero Márquez and her recent appointment to the new supervisory body of the EPO Boards of Appeal which is known as the Boards of Appeal Committee (or “BOAC”) in EPO jargon. García-Escudero is the current Director General of the Spanish Patent and Trademark Office (OEPM) and head of the Spanish delegation to the EPO’s Administrative Council.

“Following her most recent appointment to the new supervisory body of the EPO Boards of Appeal questions are already being asked inside the EPO about whether or not her close links to the Vice-President Casado and Battistelli’s “UIMP club” (whose members include Casado and Campinos) might be an indication that she is destined to be Battistelli’s pet chinchilla on the BOAC.”Her appointment as Director General of the OEPM was shrouded in controversy and rumours of procedural irregularities.

Following her most recent appointment to the new supervisory body of the EPO Boards of Appeal questions are already being asked inside the EPO about whether or not her close links to the Vice-President Casado and Battistelli’s “UIMP club” (whose members include Casado and Campinos) might be an indication that she is destined to be Battistelli’s pet chinchilla on the BOAC.

The connection between EPO Vice-President Casado and the Spanish Administrative Council delegate García-Escudero bears an uncanny resemblance to the link between EPO Vice-President Željko Topić and the Croatian Administrative Council delegate Ljiljana Kuterovac which we will examine in more detail in a separate article.

In both cases a former head of an Administrative Council delegation got appointed to a position as EPO Vice-President and the successor as head of delegation was his former subordinate and deputy. This creates the suspicion that these EPO Vice-Presidents might now be in a position to exert an inappropriate level of influence on individual members of their oversight body in view of the previous professional relationship. Some people see this as a potential conflict of interest situation which doesn’t seem to have attracted much attention so far but it might be worth looking into it. EPO insiders reckon that it could give a clue as to how Battistelli has been able to influence at least some of the Council delegations by “parachuting” Council delegates into key positions as EPO Vice-Presidents.

Iberian Connection

“Battistelli’s close connections to the French party “Les Républicains” (formerly the UIMP) and the as yet unsubstantiated rumours which have been floating around for some time about EPO monies being diverted to finance Sarkozy’s election campaign.”With the help of his “Iberian connection” via the “UIMP club” it is seems likely that Battistelli can rely on the support of the Spanish and Portuguese delegations and perhaps also Monaco which seems to be on his side most of the time. According to EPO insiders, the “Balkan connection” via Željko Topić and the Croatian delegation is relied on for drumming up support amongst the south-eastern European delegations from the territory of the former Yugoslavia and its neighbouring states.

But the reason for concern here is not just the risk of undue influence being exerted over some Council delegations by EPO Vice-Presidents.

The “Iberian connection” is sometimes spoken about inside the EPO in the context of the allegations about Battistelli’s close connections to the French party “Les Républicains” (formerly the UIMP) and the as yet unsubstantiated rumours which have been floating around for some time about EPO monies being diverted to finance Sarkozy’s election campaign. This is because Vice-President Casado is reputed to be politically close to the Spanish conservative party Partido Popular although it is currently not known if he is actually a party member. The Administrative Council delegate García-Escudero, who is a former subordinate and close professional associate of Casado and a member of the “UIMP club”, is known to have a close family connection to the upper echelons of the party.

“The Partido Popular is the Spanish equivalent of the French “Les Républicains” and it has been implicated in a number of recent scandals in Spain which have centred around allegations of wide-scale bribery and corruption and the use of secret “slush funds”.”To be more precise, Patricia García-Escudero Márquez is the sister of Pío García-Escudero Márquez, Count of Badarán, a scion of the Spanish aristocracy and a leading figure in the Partido Popular who has been the Chairman of the Spanish Senate since 2011. Details can be found in the English or Spanish Wikipedia pages.

Spanish-French Connections

The Partido Popular is the Spanish equivalent of the French “Les Républicains” and it has been implicated in a number of recent scandals in Spain which have centred around allegations of wide-scale bribery and corruption and the use of secret “slush funds”. These revelations have caused some EPO insiders to speculate that EPO cash surpluses might be under risk of diversion not only to “deserving causes” in France but also in other parts of Europe including the Iberian peninsula and perhaps even the Balkans. It is easy to discount such speculation as the paranoid ramblings of the “tinfoil hat brigade” but the lack of any effective independent oversight at the EPO raises the awkward question as to who — if anybody — would be in a position to uncover such irregularities if they were in fact to take place.

Spanish Corruption

For the moment there is no answer to this question but the recent political scandals surrounding the Partido Popular in Spain suggest that Battistelli’s “Iberian connection” deserves to be kept under careful observation.

“The name of Pío García-Escudero Márquez who is a leading figure in the Partido Popular and the Chairman of the Spanish Senate since 2011 has cropped up at various times in connection with the investigations into some of these affairs, in particular the Bárcenas affair where he admitted to receiving one of the payments detailed in the secret accounting records known as the “Bárcenas Papers”.”The political landscape of Spain was shaken in recent years by a series of corruption scandals beginning with the Bárcenas affair which broke in January 2013 when the Spanish daily El Mundo revealed that the former treasurer of the Partido Popular Luis Bárcenas had, up until 2009, used a slush fund to pay out monthly amounts, ranging from €5,000 to €15,000, to leading members of the party. Soon afterwards the Spanish daily El País published what became known as the “Bárcenas’ Papers”, facsimile excerpts from handwritten ledgers in Bárcenas’ hand. Among the recipients were the party leader and Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy and Secretary General María Dolores de Cospedal.

At around the same time a corruption scandal involving the Duke of Palma resulted in his spouse Cristina de Borbón, the sister of King Felipe VI, being charged for tax fraud and money laundering. These corruption allegations severely eroded the Spanish Royal Family’s popularity within Spain; according to an opinion poll by the CIS, between 1995 and 2013 the Spanish monarchy’s approval rating dropped sharply amongst Spaniards.

As a result of these scandals Spain’s position in the annual global corruption ranking published by Transparency International, the Corruption Perception Index (CPI), plummeted sharply in 2013.

The emergence in 2014 of further episodes of corruption that had taken place over the course of the past years and decades was compared to the Italian Tangentopoli episode in the 1990s leading to the episode being dubbed by some media as ‘the Spanish Tangentopoli’ or ‘Black October’.

“Although some of his political associates have not been so fortunate, it seems that Mr. García-Escudero has so far emerged with only a few minor scratches from the various political scandals which have seriously tarnished the public image of the Partido Popular.”In October 2014, the judge Pablo Ruz charged a former Partido Popular Secretary General and Minister, Ángel Acebes, with a possible misappropriation of public funds as a result of the Barcenas affair. A few days later, an inquiry led by Ruz unveiled that the Partido Popular could have spent as much as €1.7 million of undeclared money on works of its national headquarters in Madrid between 2006 and 2008. On 27 October, a large anti-corruption operation, Operation Punica, resulted in 51 people arrested because of their involvement in a major scandal of public work contract kickbacks, amounting at least €250 million. Among those arrested were notable municipal and regional figures, many from the Partido Popular, as well as a large number of politicians, councilors, officials and businessmen in Madrid, Murcia, Castile and León and Valencia.

Sources:

By 2016 Spain had dropped even further in the Transparency International CPI and is currently ranked 36th out of 168 countries.

Ana García-Escudero

The name of Pío García-Escudero Márquez who is a leading figure in the Partido Popular and the Chairman of the Spanish Senate since 2011 has cropped up at various times in connection with the investigations into some of these affairs, in particular the Bárcenas affair where he admitted to receiving one of the payments detailed in the secret accounting records known as the “Bárcenas Papers”. He said the figure matched a loan of €24,000 Euros which he was given to repair bomb damage to his home after a terrorist attack in 2001 and which he later repaid. However, in 2013 during court proceedings he admitted to the judge that he had not declared the loan to the tax authorities and claimed that this was because he did not know he that he was required to declare it. Details can be found here.

“Considered in the light of the more recent Bárcenas affair and the related cases of “the Spanish Tangentopoli” this was a comparatively minor affair which involved the alleged waste of public funds as a result of the payment of €218,000 in software licensing fees in connection with the official website of the Spanish Senate.”Although some of his political associates have not been so fortunate, it seems that Mr. García-Escudero has so far emerged with only a few minor scratches from the various political scandals which have seriously tarnished the public image of the Partido Popular. He is still very much active in Spanish politics and is frequently seen in the company of the party leader and acting Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy. He also appears to enjoy the favour of the Royal Family and regularly appears in photo-ops with King Felipe and his consort Queen Letizia (see our teaser for this article).

The name of a further member of the García-Escudero family has cropped up in relation to another scandal which dates back to 2012. Considered in the light of the more recent Bárcenas affair and the related cases of “the Spanish Tangentopoli” this was a comparatively minor affair which involved the alleged waste of public funds as a result of the payment of €218,000 in software licensing fees in connection with the official website of the Spanish Senate. It turned out that the beneficiary of the Senate’s largess was the software company Oracle and that the paperwork for the deal was signed off by Jose Angel Alonso Lopez, director of Information Technology and Communications of the Senate and former president of Oracle Users Circle of Spain.

“The only reason for mentioning these matters is to create public awareness of the political context in which certain members of Battistelli’s inner circle operate and to encourage observers of the EPO to keep a vigilant and watchful eye on the “Iberian connection”.”Although the Spanish media reported critically on this affair at the time, it failed to mention one small but potentially interesting detail which was subsequently spotted by an observant reader of a Spanish political discussion forum, namely that one of the principal sales consultants at Oracle’s Madrid office at the time was a person by the name of Ana García-Escudero who coincidentally happens to be another sister of the Senate Chairman. The details can be found here.

It is important to emphasise that none of the above is intended to indicate that the Spanish delegate to the Administrative Council and recent BOAC appointee, Patricia García-Escudero Márquez, has been in any way involved in any of the aforementioned political scandals or that any allegation of corruption has been brought against her in Spain or elsewhere in this regard.

The only reason for mentioning these matters is to create public awareness of the political context in which certain members of Battistelli’s inner circle operate and to encourage observers of the EPO to keep a vigilant and watchful eye on the “Iberian connection”. █

Links 23/10/2016: Alcatel’s New Android Smartphones, Another Honorary Doctorate for Stallman

Posted in News Roundup at 11:12 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

GNOME bluefish

Contents

GNU/Linux

Free Software/Open Source

  • The basics of open source quality assurance

    Open source depends on a sustainable community to develop code rapidly, debug code effectively, and build out new features. Because community involvement is voluntary, people’s skills, levels of involvement, and time commitments can vary. Given the variable nature of these factors, along with the fact that open source often relies on a philosophy of “release early, release often,” quality assurance can be become challenging.

  • An Open Source, Self-Hosted Heroku

    Running our own Heroku… It shouldn’t be that hard, right?

    We have a small set of servers we use to run our internal applications. Nothing too complex, just monitoring, our ELK stack, Jenkins, and a few internal services.

    Given our rather modest requirements it may seem obvious that our first attempt at deployment automation, Chef, was a bit overkill for our needs. Not only that, we also wanted our engineers to be able to easily deploy applications to our servers without having to set up a Chef recipe — like the role Heroku plays in many of our client projects. We could have decided to run our internal applications on Heroku as well, but their pricing model wasn’t compatible with our relatively small-scale requirements.

  • The role of Free Software in a world that doesn’t care

    The Free Software movement is about personal and social liberties. Giving the owner and user of a computer control over it. But most people don’t see the problem with a small number of multinational mega-corporations having control over everyone’s computers. They think: “Apple and Microsoft know what they’re doing, and they do a good job, so why would I need Free Software?”

    Accepting that most people reject the Free Software message, what can the Free Software movement contribute to the world?

  • 5 Best Open Source Mobile Test Automation Tools

    There is a wide range of devices and platforms one needs to account for when developing a mobile app. An automation app for Mobile Testing can save development and testing time. Here are 5 top open source automated mobile testing frameworks to use, including the likes of Appium, Robotium, and Selendroid.

  • Could open-source coding ‘save the world’?

    Open Source Day is one of the most popular events at the Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing. This year, a day-long open-source hackathon was devoted to participants developing open-source projects for humanitarian causes.

    Neetu Jain, product manager at SoftLayer, an IBM Company, and Daniela Dorneanu, solution developer and product trainer at Appway, joined Rebecca Knight (@knightrm), co-host of theCUBE, from the SiliconANGLE Media team, during the Grace Hopper event to discuss the mission of Open Source Day and the goal of the hackathon for humanity.

  • Yahoo open sources NSFW neural network porn detector

    Embattled former darling of the search wars Yahoo has open sourced its neural network porn detector software.

    The firm has explained that it is in fact tremendously difficult to automatically identifying that an image is not suitable/safe for work (NSFW).

  • Events

    • An introduction to color spaces

      The Kernel Recipes conference is, unsurprisingly, focused on kernel-related topics, but one of the potentially most useful talks given there was only marginally about the kernel. Applications that deal with the acquisition or display of video data must be aware of color spaces, but few developers really understand what color spaces are or how they work. Media subsystem maintainer Hans Verkuil sought to improve this situation with an overview of the color-space abstraction.

    • A tale of two conferences

      The “small” criterion can be a bit of a problem since it, naturally, limits the number of people who can participate in this kind of event. The Linux Plumbers Conference (now just a few weeks away) is always trying to find the right balance between size and quality of the event, and there, too, tickets tend to sell out quickly. The nice thing about an event like Kernel Recipes, though, is that it ought to be reproducible in other parts of the world. We have a ready supply of good speakers and interesting things to talk about in our community, and it doesn’t take that many speakers to make an event like this work.

      In the end, it was a privilege to be able to attend both events. Your editor’s only regret was being unable to stay in Berlin for the Embedded Linux Conference Europe the following week. Conferences are an opportunity to get a sense for what is happening in our community and to renew one’s enthusiasm and energy; both LinuxCon and Kernel Recipes succeeded on all of those fronts. A diverse community needs a diverse range of events; happily, that is just what was in store in Europe during these weeks.

    • All Things Open Next Week – MCing, Talks, and More

      I was really impressed with All Things Open last year and have subsequently become friends with the principle organizer, Todd Lewis. I loved how the team put together a show with the right balance of community and corporation, great content, exhibition and more.

  • Web Browsers

  • Oracle/Java/LibreOffice

    • Seafile and Collabora make LibreOffice Online available for Seafile Pro

      Collabora Productivity, the driving force behind putting LibreOffice in the Cloud, and Seafile, a leading open source file sharing vendor, announce the availability of Collabora Online in the newly released Seafile pro edition 6.0.

    • Office Binary Document RC4 CryptoAPI Encryption

      In LibreOffice we’ve long supported Microsoft Office’s “Office Binary Document RC4 Encryption” for decrypting xls, doc and ppt. But somewhere along the line the Microsoft Office encryption scheme was replaced by a new one, “Office Binary Document RC4 CryptoAPI Encryption”, which we didn’t support. This is what the error dialog of…

  • CMS

    • Open Source CMS Pros and Cons – a Developer’s Perspective

      The phrase “Open Source CMS” lingers in the minds and hearts of many developers. CMSes are today’s talk of the Internet, and you won’t miss the discussion in local schools and private offices either. I don’t remember for how long I have used Open Source Content Management Systems (CMS) to manage local and international websites. However, I have implemented CMS-based solutions long enough, and I can tell you from experience these tools did become the big digital craze for many professional reasons.

  • Pseudo-Open Source (Openwashing)

  • BSD

  • FSF/FSFE/GNU/SFLC

  • Openness/Sharing/Collaboration

  • Programming/Development

    • Eclipse Foundation Collaboration Yields Open Source Technology for Computational Science

      The gap between the computational science and open source software communities just got smaller – thanks to a collaboration among national laboratories, universities and industry.

    • PyCon India 2016

      “This is awesome!”, this was my first reaction when I boarded my first flight to Delhi. I was having trouble in finding a proper accommodation Kushal, Sayan and Chandan helped me a lot in that part, I finally got honour of bunking with Sayan , Subho and Rtnpro which I will never forget. So, I landed and directly went to JNU convention center. I met the whole Red Hat intern gang . It was fun to meet them all. I had proposed Pagure for Dev Sprint and I pulled in Vivek to do the same.

      The dev sprint started and there was no sign of Vivek or Saptak, Saptak is FOSSASIA contributor and Vivek contributes to Pagure with me. Finally it was my turn to talk about Pagure on stage , it was beautiful the experience and the energy. We got a lot of young and new contributors and we tried to guide them and make them send at least one PR. One of them was lucky enough to actually make a PR and it got readily merged.

    • Hack This: An Overdue Python Primer

      In writing the most recent Hack This (“Scrape the Web with Beautiful Soup”) I again found myself trapped between the competing causes of blog-brevity and making sure everything is totally clear for non-programmers. It’s a tough spot! Recapping every little Python (the default language of Hack This) concept is tiring for everyone, but what’s the point in the first place if no one can follow what’s going on?

      This post is then intended then as a sort of in-between edition of Hack This, covering a handful of Python features that are going to recur in pretty much every programming tutorial that we do under the Hack This name. A nice thing about Python is that it makes many things much clearer than is possible in almost any other language.

    • Why I won’t be attending Systems We Love

      Here’s one way to put it: to me, Bryan Cantrill is the opposite of another person I admire in operating systems (whom I will leave unnamed). This person makes me feel excited and welcome and safe to talk about and explore operating systems. I’ve never seen them shame or insult or put down anyone. They enthusiastically and openly talk about learning new systems concepts, even when other people think they should already know them. By doing this, they show others that it’s safe to admit that they don’t know something, which is the first step to learning new things. They are helping create the kind of culture I want in systems programming – the kind of culture promoted by Papers We Love, which Bryan cites as the inspiration for Systems We Love.

      By contrast, when I’m talking to Bryan I feel afraid, cautious, and fearful. Over the years I worked with Bryan, I watched him shame and insult hundreds of people, in public and in private, over email and in person, in papers and talks. Bryan is no Linus Torvalds – Bryan’s insults are usually subtle, insinuating, and beautifully phrased, whereas Linus’ insults tend towards the crude and direct. Even as you are blushing in shame from what Bryan just said about you, you are also admiring his vocabulary, cadence, and command of classical allusion. When I talked to Bryan about any topic, I felt like I was engaging in combat with a much stronger foe who only wanted to win, not help me learn. I always had the nagging fear that I probably wouldn’t even know how cleverly he had insulted me until hours later. I’m sure other people had more positive experiences with Bryan, but my experience matches that of many others. In summary, Bryan is supporting the status quo of the existing culture of systems programming, which is a culture of combat, humiliation, and domination.

      [...]

      He gaily recounts the time he gave a highly critical keynote speech at USENIX, bashfully links to a video praising him at a Papers We Love event, elegantly puts down most of the existing operating systems research community, and does it all while using the words “ancillary,” “verve,” and “quadrennial.” Once you know the underlying structure – a layer cake of vituperation and braggadocio, frosted with eloquence – you can see the same pattern in most of his writing and talks.

Leftovers

  • Hardware

    • Macs are 3 times cheaper to own than Windows PCs, says IBM’s IT guy

      Fletcher Previn could be one of the funniest IBM vice presidents the company employs.

      Before achieving what he jokes as his “true life-long ambition of middle management at IBM” he worked as an intern on the “Late Show with David Letterman” and did a stint for Conan O’Brian, too, he told attendees at the Jamf tech conference.

    • You guys, I got my Ono-Sendai working again!

      I’ve had this terminal sitting under my desk gathering dust for… close to two decades, I think. This is an Ann Arbor Ambassador 60, manufactured in 1982 or 1983. It is a terminal. You probably think that word means “a GUI window that runs a command line shell in it”. You think this thing must be a computer because it looks like what computers used to look like. But it is not a computer, it is a peripheral. This object consists of a keyboard, a serial port, and a CRT screen, and that’s about it. A screen, I must emphasize, that is capable of displaying only text, and that text can be in any two colors you like, as long as those colors are green and black.

      Look at the sustain on that phosphor. Just look at it! The video is a little long, but it’s moody.

      You plug the serial port on the back into the serial port of your mainframe, or into a modem, and boom, Thus We Go Forth Into Cyberspace.

  • Health/Nutrition

    • Your groceries may be cheaper, but farmers and supermarkets feel the pain

      If you’re just a little irked that gasoline prices have edged up recently, maybe this will cheer you up: Groceries are a bargain.

      Average supermarket prices fell 2.2% in September from a year ago, the most since late 2009, and they’ve been down on an annual basis for 10 straight months, the longest such streak since 1959-60, Labor Department figures this week showed.

      But while that breakfast of eggs, toast and bacon may not be putting as big of a dent in your wallet, falling prices at the checkout are spreading hardship across the nation’s farm belt and hammering the earnings of grocery chains.

    • ‘If I could afford to leave, I would.’ In Flint, a water crisis with no end in sight.

      Even now, the people of Flint, Mich., cannot trust what flows from their taps.

      More than one year after government officials finally acknowledged that an entire city’s water system was contaminated by lead, many residents still rely on bottled water for drinking, cooking and bathing.

      Parents still worry about their kids. Promised aid has yet to arrive. In ways large and small, the crisis continues to shape daily life.

    • EPA Bows to Industry in Delay of Glyphosate Cancer Review

      However, the EPA Scientific Advisory Panel (SAP) meetings were “postponed,” just four days before they were suppose to meet, after intense lobbying by the agrichemical industry, including Monsanto. The industry first fought to keep the meetings from being held at all, and argued that if they were held, several leading international experts should be excluded from participating, including “any person who has publicly expressed an opinion regarding the carcinogenicity of glyphosate.”

      As the meetings drew near, CropLife America, which represents the interests of Monsanto and other agribusinesses, specifically took issue with at least two scientists chosen for the panel, alleging the experts might be unfavorably biased against industry interests. On Oct. 12, the group sent a letter to the EPA calling for Dr. Kenneth Portier of the American Cancer Society to be more deeply scrutinized for any “pre-formed conclusions” about glyphosate. More notably, CropLife called for leading epidemiologist Dr. Peter Infante to be completely disqualified from panel participation.

      “EPA should replace Dr. Infante with an epidemiologist without such patent bias,” CropLife told the EPA. The chemical industry group said Infante was unlikely to give industry-sponsored research studies the credibility the industry believes they deserve. CropLife said Infante has testified in the past for plaintiffs in chemical exposure cases against Monsanto.

    • ‘Drug Dependence Hasn’t Been Stopped by 45 Years of the War on Drugs’

      Janine Jackson: “Police Arrest More People for Marijuana Use than for All Violent Crimes Combined” is the headline in the Washington Post. In the New York Times, it’s “Marijuana Arrests Outnumber Those for Violent Crimes, Study Finds.”

  • Security

    • Friday’s security updates
    • World’s first hack-proof Wi-Fi router with open source firmware is here

      Turris Omnia WiFi Router, the world’s first hack-proof router with open source firmware launched yesterday at the CES Unveiled Show in Prague, Czech Republic.

    • Open-source hack-proof router aims to close cyber security gap

      Routers are the gateway of every home internet network. Yet, while many computers run antivirus software, little has been done thus far to protect routers against cyber threats. A new device, described as the world’s first hack-proof router, was launched on Thursday at the CES Unveiled Show in Prague.

      The main strength of the Turris Omnia router, a spin-out of a cyber security research project by Czech Republic’s domain administrator NIC.cz, is the fact that it automatically updates and patches vulnerabilities as they become known.

    • Adding a phone number to your Google account can make it LESS secure.

      Recently, account takeovers, email hacking, and targeted phishing attacks have been all over the news. Hacks of various politicians, allegedly carried out by Russian hackers, have yielded troves of data. Despite the supposed involvement of state-sponsored agents, some hacks were not reliant on complex zero-day attacks, but involved social engineering unsuspecting victims. These kinds of attacks are increasingly likely to be used against regular people. This recently happened to a friend of mine:

      Two weeks ago, an ex-colleague (actually, my officemate at Google way back in 2002) — let’s call him Bob — had his Google account compromised while on vacation in Hawaii. With his primary email account compromised, the attacker could have:

    • “Dirty COW”, the most dangerous Linux Bug for the last 9 years

      Red Hat, the leading open source software developer firm, has revealed that Linux Kernel has been infected with a serious bug for the past 9 years. The bug has been dubbed as Dirty Cow. It is deemed dangerous because through this bug, an attacker can get write access to read-only memory.

    • Serious Dirty COW bug leaves millions of Linux users vulnerable to attack
    • Cyber attack: hackers ‘weaponised’ everyday devices with malware to mount assault

      The huge attack on global internet access, which blocked some of the world’s most popular websites, is believed to have been unleashed by hackers using common devices like webcams and digital recorders.

      Among the sites targeted on Friday were Twitter, Paypal and Spotify. All were customers of Dyn, an infrastructure company in New Hampshire in the US that acts as a switchboard for internet traffic.

      Outages were intermittent and varied by geography, but reportedly began in the eastern US before spreading to other parts of the country and Europe.

      Users complained they could not reach dozens of internet destinations, including Mashable, CNN, the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, Yelp and some businesses hosted by Amazon.

    • Homeland Security Is ‘Investigating All Potential Causes’ of Internet Disruptions

      Cyber attacks targeting a little known internet infrastructure company, Dyn, disrupted access to dozens of websites on Friday, preventing some users from accessing PayPal, Twitter and Spotify.

      It was not immediately clear who was responsible for the outages that began in the Eastern United States, and then spread to other parts of the country and Western Europe.

      The outages were intermittent, making it difficult to identify all the victims. But technology news site Gizmodo named some five dozen sites that were affected by the attack. They included CNN, HBO Now, Mashable, the New York Times, People.com, the Wall Street Journal and Yelp.

    • Blame the Internet of Things for Destroying the Internet Today

      A massive botnet of hacked Internet of Things devices has been implicated in the cyberattack that caused a significant internet outage on Friday.

      The botnet, which is powered by the malware known as Mirai, is in part responsible for the attack that intermittently knocked some popular websites offline, according to Level 3 Communications, one of the world’s largest internet backbone providers, and security firm Flashpoint.

      “We are seeing attacks coming from a number of different locations. We’re seeing attacks coming from an Internet of Things botnet that we identified called Mirai, also involved in this attack,” Dale Drew, chief security officer at Level 3 Communications, said on a livestream on Friday afternoon.

    • How to Understand Today’s Internet Outage in 4 Words

      A massive DDoS attack against a major DNS service likely using a botnet of IoT devices resulted in Internet issues across the eastern United States Friday, making it hard for many users to access their favorite sites.

      Phew. That’s a lot of acronyms.

    • IoT Can Never Be Fixed

      This title is a bit click baity, but it’s true, not for the reason you think. Keep reading to see why.

      If you’ve ever been involved in keeping a software product updated, I mean from the development side of things, you know it’s not a simple task. It’s nearly impossible really. The biggest problem is that even after you’ve tested it to death and gone out of your way to ensure the update is as small as possible, things break. Something always breaks.

      If you’re using a typical computer, when something breaks, you sit down in front of it, type away on the keyboard, and you fix the problem. More often than not you just roll back the update and things go back to the way they used to be.

    • Hacked Cameras, DVRs Powered Today’s Massive Internet Outage

      A massive and sustained Internet attack that has caused outages and network congestion today for a large number of Web sites was launched with the help of hacked “Internet of Things” (IoT) devices, such as CCTV video cameras and digital video recorders, new data suggests.

      Earlier today cyber criminals began training their attack cannons on Dyn, an Internet infrastructure company that provides critical technology services to some of the Internet’s top destinations. The attack began creating problems for Internet users reaching an array of sites, including Twitter, Amazon, Tumblr, Reddit, Spotify and Netflix.

    • How an army of vulnerable gadgets took down the web today

      At some point this morning, one of the US’s critical internet infrastructure players was hit with a staggering distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack that has taken out huge swaths of the web. Sites like Twitter, Netflix, Spotify, Reddit, and many others — all clients of a domain registration service provider called Dyn — have suffered crippling interruptions and, in some cases, blanket outages.

      Details are now emerging about the nature of the attack. It appears the cause is what’s known as a Mirai-based IoT botnet, according to security journalist Brian Krebs, who cited cyber-threat intelligence firm Flashpoint. Dyn’s chief strategy officer Kyle Owen, who spoke with reporters this afternoon, later confirmed Flashpoint’s claim, revealing that traffic to its servers was clogged with malicious requests from tens of millions of IP addresses in what the company is calling a “very sophisticated and complex attack.”

    • Fixing the IoT isn’t going to be easy

      A large part of the internet became inaccessible today after a botnet made up of IP cameras and digital video recorders was used to DoS a major DNS provider. This highlighted a bunch of things including how maybe having all your DNS handled by a single provider is not the best of plans, but in the long run there’s no real amount of diversification that can fix this – malicious actors have control of a sufficiently large number of hosts that they could easily take out multiple providers simultaneously.

      To fix this properly we need to get rid of the compromised systems. The question is how. Many of these devices are sold by resellers who have no resources to handle any kind of recall. The manufacturer may not have any kind of legal presence in many of the countries where their products are sold. There’s no way anybody can compel a recall, and even if they could it probably wouldn’t help. If I’ve paid a contractor to install a security camera in my office, and if I get a notification that my camera is being used to take down Twitter, what do I do? Pay someone to come and take the camera down again, wait for a fixed one and pay to get that put up? That’s probably not going to happen. As long as the device carries on working, many users are going to ignore any voluntary request.

    • Indiscreet Logs: Persistent Diffie-Hellman Backdoors in TLS

      Software implementations of discrete logarithm based cryptosystems over finite fields typically make the assumption that any domain parameters they are presented with are trustworthy, i.e., the parameters implement cyclic groups where the discrete logarithm problem is assumed to be hard. An informal and widespread justification for this seemingly exists that says validating parameters at run time is too computationally expensive relative to the perceived risk of a server sabotaging the privacy of its own connection. In this paper we explore this trust assumption and examine situations where it may not always be justified.

      We conducted an investigation of discrete logarithm domain parameters in use across the Internet and discovered evidence of a multitude of potentially backdoored moduli of unknown order in TLS and STARTTLS spanning numerous countries, organizations, and protocols. Although our disclosures resulted in a number of organizations taking down suspicious parameters, we argue the potential for TLS backdoors is systematic and will persist until either until better parameter hygiene is taken up by the community, or finite field based cryptography is eliminated altogether.

    • Rigging the Election [Ed: too much Microsoft [1, 2]]

      When Dorothy discovers fraud in the land of Oz, she is told by the Wizard, “Don’t look behind the curtain.” But she does. In America, we demand truth and accountability in so many aspects of our daily lives, and yet somehow there’s little public outcry for transparency within voting, the sacred cornerstone of our democracy. For the most part, we sleep soundly under the blanket of assurances from government officials. FBI Director James Comey even attempted a spin of irony recently, noting that our “clunky” voting process actually makes wholesale rigging more difficult. However, Comey misses the bigger picture.

      [...]

      Hardly anyone uses the same computer from 12 years ago, yet large sections of the country currently vote on aging electronic systems which utilize proprietary software that cannot be publicly examined. Unverifiable technology remains deployed in 29 states – including Pennsylvania, Ohio, Florida – and other key battleground states, which may determine our next president. Races in these areas are not evidence based, and consequently, we cannot be certain ballots reflect voter intent. Bereft of such knowledge, how can we put faith in the legitimacy of our government?

    • How to Hack a Presidential Election
    • ‘Nice Internet You’ve Got There… You Wouldn’t Want Something To Happen To It…’

      Last month, we wrote about Bruce Schneier’s warning that certain unknown parties were carefully testing ways to take down the internet. They were doing carefully configured DDoS attacks, testing core internet infrastructure, focusing on key DNS servers. And, of course, we’ve also been talking about the rise of truly massive DDoS attacks, thanks to poorly secured Internet of Things (IoT) devices, and ancient, unpatched bugs.

    • Update Ubuntu 16.04 LTS Linux Kernel Without Rebooting With The Canonical Livepatch Service
    • Livepatch – Apply Critical Security Patches to Ubuntu Linux Kernel Without Rebooting
    • GitLab reinstates list of servers that have malware

      Willem de Groot published a list of web stores that contain malware. He first hosted this list on GitHub but it was deleted. Then he hosted it on GitLab where it was also deleted. The reason we gave him for the deletion was “GitLab views the exposure of the vulnerable systems as egregious and will not abide it.”. Willem wrote about his experience in a blog post.

    • Dirty COW — Critical Linux Kernel Flaw Being Exploited in the Wild
    • CVE-2016-5195 Found in Every Linux Version (for the Last 9 Years)
    • Explaining Dirty COW local root exploit – CVE-2016-5195
    • CVE Request: OpenSSH: Memory exhaustion issue found in OpenSSH
    • OpenSSL after Heartbleed

      Rich Salz and Tim Hudson started off their LinuxCon Europe 2016 talk by stating that April 3, 2014 shall forever be known as the “re-key the Internet date.” That, of course, was the day that the Heartbleed vulnerability in the OpenSSL library was disclosed. A lot has happened with OpenSSL since that day, to the point that, Salz said, this should be the last talk he gives that ever mentions that particular vulnerability. In the last two years, the project has recovered from Heartbleed and is now more vital than ever before.

  • Defence/Aggression

    • Philippines not really severing ties with US, Duterte says

      Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte has clarified his comments that seemed to call for a split from the United States, saying he was advocating a “separation of foreign policy” rather than “a severance of ties.”
      Addressing a press conference in Davao City after his return from a state visit to China, Duterte said:

      “It is not severance of ties. You say severance of ties, you cut the diplomatic relations. I cannot do that.
      “Why? It is in the best interest of my country that we maintain that relationship. Why? Because there are many Filipinos in the United States. Well, Americans of Filipino ancestry.
      “Why? Because the people of my country [are] not ready to accept. I said separation — what I was really saying was separation of a foreign policy.”

    • Jilted Muslim man killed a Dalit Hindu girl by acid attack in Nadia, West Bengal.

      It’s a tragic death of 17 year old Hindu schoolgirl, Mou Rajak on Tuesday in NRS Hospital in Kolkata after her eight day’s long struggle for life since she was admitted here for a critical care being a victim of acid attack. Her lungs were almost damaged as the acid thrown by a Muslim man Imran entered into lung through trachea.

    • Asia Bibi appeal adjourned — her death row ordeal drags on

      Release International urges Pakistan to take a stand against intimidation and release Asia Bibi, following the Supreme Court appeal setback. Release calls for courage to confront intolerance and repeal the blasphemy law. Pakistan’s Supreme Court has adjourned Asia Bibi’s appeal against her death sentence, following the decision of a leading judge to withdraw from the trial.

      Justice Muhammad Iqbal Hameed Ur Rehman stepped back from the case on the grounds that he had been a judge in the case of the Punjab governor Salmaan Taseer who was murdered for taking a stand against the blasphemy laws.

      “It seems strange to pull out on the day of the appeal,” says Paul Robinson, Chief Executive of Release International. “Surely any potential conflict would have been known in advance? What is clear is that it will take immense courage to withstand intimidation and release Asia Bibi — a fact underlined by the presence of so many riot police at the court.”

    • French police chief orders investigation after officers hold Paris protest

      The head of France’s national police force on Tuesday ordered an internal investigation after hundreds of police officers held an unauthorized protest in central Paris overnight.

      Angry police officers marched on the iconic Champs Elysées boulevard in the French capital after dark on Monday, complaining that they are understaffed and ill-equipped.

      The rebel police officers, who held the demonstration without permission or backing of their labour unions, accused Prime Minister Manuel Valls and Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve of grandstanding while failing to provide the resources they need to do their jobs.

    • Investigators find no evidence Muslim child was attacked on school bus

      The Wake County school system and the Cary Police Department say they haven’t found evidence that a 7-year-old Muslim student was assaulted by classmates on a school bus last week.

      Zeeshan-ul-hassan Usmani says his son Abdul Aziz was bullied and beaten by classmates at Weatherstone Elementary School in Cary while riding home on the bus last Friday because the first-grade student is Muslim.

      Usmani’s Facebook post, with the words “Welcome to the United States of America of Donald Trump” and a picture of Abdul Aziz’s left arm in a sling, has sparked worldwide social media and news media attention about Islamophobia.

      School and law enforcement officials say they’ve taken the allegations seriously and don’t tolerate bullying. But they say their investigations don’t confirm an assault even occurred.

    • Revealed: The UK is training Saudi pilots amid accusations of war crimes in Yemen

      The Saudi Air Force is being trained by the British Government amid accusations that it is carrying out atrocities in neighbouring Yemen, it has emerged.

      The Liberal Democrats – who uncovered the instruction being given, in both Saudi Arabia and the UK itself – described the revelation as “shameful”.

      Tom Brake, the party’s foreign affairs spokesman, called on the Ministry of Defence (MoD) to end the training immediately and for much stricter controls on arms exports to the oil-rich kingdom.

    • Thousands of California soldiers forced to repay enlistment bonuses a decade after going to war

      Short of troops to fight in Iraq and Afghanistan a decade ago, the California National Guard enticed thousands of soldiers with bonuses of $15,000 or more to reenlist and go to war.

      Now the Pentagon is demanding the money back.

      Nearly 10,000 soldiers, many of whom served multiple combat tours, have been ordered to repay large enlistment bonuses — and slapped with interest charges, wage garnishments and tax liens if they refuse — after audits revealed widespread overpayments by the California Guard at the height of the wars last decade.

      Investigations have determined that lack of oversight allowed for widespread fraud and mismanagement by California Guard officials under pressure to meet enlistment targets.

    • Hillary Clinton’s Strategic Ambition In A Nutshell. “Regime Change” in Russia… Putin is an Obstacle

      It has become crystal clear.

      For the record, here it is.

      She has big ambitions, which she does not spell out for fear of frightening part of the electorate, but which are perfectly understood by her closest aides and biggest donors.

      She wants to achieve regime change in Russia.

      She enjoys the support of most of the State Department and much of the Pentagon, and Congress is ready to go.

      The method: a repeat of the 1979 Brezinski ploy, which consisted of luring Moscow into Afghanistan, in order to get the Russians bogged down in their “Vietnam”. As the Russians are a much more peace-loving people, largely because of what they suffered in two World Wars, the Russian involvement in Afghanistan was very unpopular and can be seen as a cause of the collapse of the Soviet Union.

      This led to the temporary reign of the drunken Boris Yeltsin who – as recounted in Strobe Talbott’s memoirs – was putty in the hands of Bill Clinton. Hillary would like to renew that sort of relationship. Putin is an obstacle.

    • Hillary’s War Crime

      Muammar Gaddafi was the most progressive political leader in the world. Gaddafi used Libya’s oil wealth for the benefit of the Libyan people. He lived in a tent, a nice tent, but not in a palace, and he did not have collections of European exotic cars or any of the other paraphernalia associated with the ruling families in Saudi Arabia and the oil emirates that are Washington’s Middle Eastern allies.

      In Libya, education, medical treatment, and electricity were free. Gasoline was practically free, selling for 14 US cents per litre. Women who gave birth were supported with cash grants and couples received cash grants upon marriage. Libya’s state bank provided loans without interest and provided free startup capital to farmers.

      [...]

      Washington organized mercenaries, termed them “rebels” as in Syria, and sicced them on Libya. When it became clear that Gaddafi’s forces would prevail, Washington tricked naive and gullible Russian and Chinese governments and secured a UN no-fly zone over Libya to be enforced by NATO. The express purpose of the no-fly zone was to prevent Gaddafi from attacking civilian targets, which he was not doing. The real reason was to prevent a sovereign state from using its own air space so that the Libyan Air Force could not support the troops on the ground. Once the gullible Russians and Chinese failed to veto the Security Council’s action, the US and NATO themselves violated the resolution by using Western air power to attack Gaddafi’s forces, thus throwing the conflict to the CIA-organized mercenaries. Gaddafi was captured and brutally murdered. Ever since, Libya, formerly a prosperous and successful society, has been in chaos, which is where the Obama regime wanted it.

  • Transparency/Investigative Reporting

    • WikiLeaks urges supporters to ‘stop taking down the US internet’

      The site WikiLeaks asked its “supporters” on Friday to stop taking down the internet in the U.S. following a massive distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack that disrupted a number of major sites.

      “Mr. Assange is still alive and WikiLeaks is still publishing,” the site tweeted. “We ask supporters to stop taking down the US internet. You proved your point.”

    • Why Did WikiLeaks Tweet a Picture of Gavin MacFadyen?

      MacFadyen has a long history as a journalist who’s friendly to WikiLeaks. He was the director of the Centre for Investigative Journalism in London, an adviser to The Whistler, and focused much of his work on discussing and protecting whistleblowing activities. He even created the Julian Assange Defence Committee to raise funds to help pay for Assange’s legal expenses.

      WikiLeaks had been releasing a series of emails from Hillary Clinton’s campaign manager, John Podesta. Just this past week, Julian Assange’s Internet connection was cut, leading to speculation as to whether Assange is even still at the embassy. These rumors and conspiracy theories, combined with other rumors about WikiLeaks’ Twitter account itself, led to a lot of questioning about why WikiLeaks tweeted MacFadyen’s photo without an explanation.

    • George W. Bush’s White House ‘lost’ 22 million emails

      For 18 months, Republican strategists, political pundits, reporters and Americans who follow them have been pursuing Hillary Clinton’s personal email habits, and no evidence of a crime has been found. But now they at least have the skills and interest to focus on a much larger and deeper email conspiracy, one involving war, lies, a private server run by the Republican Party and contempt of Congress citations—all of it still unsolved and unpunished.

    • FOI Coalition assesses state of FOI in the first 100 days of Duterte administration

      Prof. Solomon Lumba of the UP College of Law, who is working with the Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism in conducting research on FOI, reported a brief analysis on the issue of exceptions. According to Atty. Lumba, one way to simplify the plethora of exceptions included in the initial exception inventories from the Department of Justice and the Office of the Solicitor General is to group them into conceptual categories, as was done in jurisdictions such as the US and Australia.

      Lastly, Atty. Eirene Jhone E. Aguila, co-convenor of R2KRN, delivered the Coalition’s Statement on the state of FOI in President Duterte’s first 100 days in office. The Coalition acknowledges the issuance of EO No. 2 as significant step towards guaranteeing the people’s right to know, but stresses the huge amount of work left to be done, particularly: completing the People’s FOI Manuals and implementing details of EO No. 2 for each agency, clarifying the issue of exceptions, and passing a long sought-for Freedom of Information law by the Congress.

  • Environment/Energy/Wildlife/Nature

    • Remember When We Thought Climate Change Would Matter This Election?

      This was supposed to be the election where climate change really mattered. Only, anyone watching the presidential debates wouldn’t have a clue that 1) 2016 has been history’s hottest year on record, and 2) our future leaders give any sort of crap about it.

      Climate change was mostly ignored during the last three debates, mentioned only in passing, and never discussed directly or at length. In fact, I’m fairly sure that Americans know more about Donald Trump’s sexual proclivities than his environmental policies (hint, hint: he doesn’t have any).

      But should we really feign surprise? Surely even the most hopeful of us didn’t expect global warming to compete with jobs, the border, or national security on the campaign trail. After all, this has been an election based on political identity, and when Americans can’t even agree on whether climate change is real, what’s incentivizing our candidates to fight for it?

      Just one question, posed during a town-hall by Ken Bone, a coal industry worker, shed any sort of light on the climate agendas of our two vastly different candidates. (And even then, Bone was criticized for not asking anything of real substance, as if energy policy, which lies at the heart of our climate change catastrophe, matters less than whether a candidate is a fan or not of science.)

    • 6 Sinking Cities to Visit Before It’s Too Late

      With the growing threats due to climate change – rising sea levels, devastating storms and tidal flooding – it’s no mystery why some of the world’s most iconic cities and natural wonders are at risk. And while there’s no clear-cut answer on the rate at which many cherished places the world over will be underwater, with the impending long-term effects of climate change – including the melting polar ice cap – we have a very narrow window before there will be dramatic repercussions, says Costas Christ, Chairman of the National Geographic World Legacy Awards and sustainable travel expert. “We have a window of 10 or 20 years at most before we set in motion the temperatures that we can’t turn back,” he says.

      Happily, the outlook isn’t all bleak. Our travel choices and actions make a difference, Christ says. “What can we do as travelers? We can choose those companies that are practicing and embracing sustainability,” he explains. By rewarding companies that are substituting plastics, generating less waste, offsetting their carbon footprint, using renewable energy and supporting national parks and fragile ecosystems, among other sustainable practices, we can advance conservation efforts, travel responsibly and have a positive long-term impact. With that in mind, here are six cities starting to submerge, and expert-endorsed tips for limiting your carbon footprint and aiding conservation efforts on your next trip.

  • Finance

    • Shop steward: Yle lay-offs “just the start”

      The Finnish Broadcasting Company (Yle) announced on Thursday that it plans to cut more than a third of current staff in its production unit. That will free up resources to spend more on outside acquisitions, which is a key goal of a parliamentary report published earlier this year. Employee representatives say that these lay-offs are only the beginning of an extended period of change for the company.

    • Ceta talks: EU hopes to unblock Canada trade deal

      The European Parliament president says he is optimistic that a free-trade deal between the EU and Canada can be signed soon despite last-minute obstacles.

      Objections by a Belgian region, which opposes the deal, “are for us Europeans to solve”, Martin Schulz said.

      He was speaking after meetings in Brussels with Canadian Trade Minister Chrystia Freeland and the head of Belgium’s Wallonia region.

      Ms Freeland said: “It’s time for Europe to finish doing its job.”

      After seven years of negotiations on the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (Ceta), talks broke down on Friday.

    • Left Alliance pushes to criminalize underpayment of wages

      The Left Alliance political party has proposed that employers found guilty of paying a wage below the lowest acceptable level agreed upon in Finland’s collective wage agreements should be subject to criminal charges.

    • Ari Berman on Rigging Elections, Dean Baker on the Debt Bogeyman

      Also on the show: Explosive entitlement spending! Runaway national debt! These are familiar bogeymen for elite media, but how much there is there? Dean Baker will join us to unpack the oft-heard media phrase “debt and entitlements,” and explain what it really means to call for cutting them. He’s co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research and writes the blog Beat the Press.

    • CETA: A way out of European self-dwarfism

      Anti-CETA campaigns and mass protests have put the EU-Canada deal under constant pressure. Daniel Caspary MEP asks: What are we going to do if the European Union buries its common trade policy?

      Daniel Caspary is a German MEP and is the EPP group’s coordinator on the Committee on International Trade (INTA) in the European Parliament and Parliamentary Secretary (Chief-Whip) of the German CDU/CSU Delegation.

  • AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics

    • WikiLeaks: Clinton-Kaine Even Lied About Timing of Veep Pick

      A conversation between Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta and political consultant Erick Mullen leaked by WikiLeaks suggests that Tim Kaine — and Hillary Clinton — lied to the American people about the Virginia senator’s selection as Clinton’s running mate.

      In the email, Mullen complains to Podesta that attorney Bob Glennon “won’t stop assuring Sens Brown and Heitkamp (at dinner now) that HRC has personally told Tim Kaine he’s the veep.” The email was sent on July 15, 2015 — over one full year before the campaign’s official announcement.

      Clinton announced Kaine’s selection on July 22, 2016. The Clinton campaign behaved as if it were still sifting through possible VP picks until practically that very day. “Just got off the phone with Hillary. I’m honored to be her running mate. Can’t wait to hit the trail tomorrow in Miami!” Kaine tweeted.

    • No comment: Clinton has ‘nothing to say’ about Wikileaks email revealing $12M quid-pro-quo with Morocco’s king that an aide said was a ‘mess’ of her own making

      A stone-faced Hillary Clinton refused to comment tonight on an email a top aide sent calling a Clinton Foundation quid pro qou a ‘mess’ of the former secretary of state’s own making.

      ‘I have nothing to say about Wikileaks, other than I think we should all be concerned about what the Russians are trying to do to our election and using Wikileaks very blatantly to try to influence the outcome of the election,’ Clinton said.

      The Democratic nominee was responding to a question posed by DailyMail.com during a question and answer session with reporters riding on her campaign plane.

    • Megyn Kelly hits Donna Brazile on feeding Clinton debate question

      Interim Democratic National Committee chair Donna Brazile accused Megyn Kelly of “persecution” Wednesday evening when the Fox News anchor asked Brazile about an email, published by WikiLeaks, that indicated Brazile provided Hillary Clinton’s campaign with a question in advance of a CNN town hall.

      “As a Christian woman, I understand persecution, but I will not sit here and be persecuted because your information is totally false,” Brazile said during an interview conducted shortly after the third presidential debate.

      “Since I play straight up and I’ll play straight up with you, I did not receive any questions from CNN,” she said. “First of all, what information are you providing to me that will allow me to see what you’re talking about?”

      Kelly cited an email made public by WikiLeaks last week that indicated Brazile had informed high-level Clinton campaign aides that she sometimes received “questions in advance” before relaying a question about the death penalty that closely matched a question later asked during the CNN town hall. Roland Martin, a TV One host who partnered with CNN for the event, sent CNN a question containing the same language the day after Brazile sent it to the Clinton campaign.

    • Blanket Corporate Media Corruption

      It is disconcerting to be praised by a website whose next article warns of a “plague of sodomites”. Sometimes truth-telling is a difficult act because truth is a simple matter of fact; who might seek to exploit that truth is a different question. I almost certainly have little in common with the anti-gay people who chose to commend me.

      It is however incumbent on those who know truth to reveal it to the best of their ability, particularly if it contradicts an untruth being put about widely. The lie that WikiLeaks is acting as an agent of the Russian state is one that needs to be countered. Wikileaks is much more important than a mere state propaganda organisation, and needs to be protected.

      Political lying is a sad fact of modern life, but some lies are more dangerous than others. Hillary Clinton’s lies that the Podesta and Democratic National Congress email leaks are hacks by the Russian state, should be countered because they are untrue, and because their intention is to distract attention from her own corrupt abuse of power and money. But even more so because they recklessly feed in to a Russophobia which is starting to exceed Cold War levels in terms of open public abuse.

      Clinton has made no secret of her view that Obama has not been forceful enough in his dealings in Syria, and within her immediate circle she has frequently referred to the Cuban missile crisis as the precedent for how she believes Russia must be faced down. It is her intention to restore US international prestige by such a confrontation with Putin in Syria early in her Presidency, and perhaps more to the point to restore the prestige of the office of POTUS and thus enhance her chances of getting her way with a probable Republican controlled senate and congress.

      [...]

      It is worth noting that Hillary’s claim that 17 US Intelligence Agencies agree that Russia was the source of the leaks is plainly untrue. All they have said is that the leaks “are consistent with the methods and motivations of Russian-directed attacks.” Under extreme White House pressure to state that the Russians did it, that extremely weak statement was the only thing that the US Intelligence chiefs could cobble together. It is very plainly an admission there is no evidence that Russia did it, but the appalling corporate media have reported it as though it “proves” Hillary’s accusation of Russia is true.

      Bill Binney is like myself a former recipient of the Sam Adams Award – the World’s foremost whistleblowing award. Bill was the senior NSA Director who actually oversaw the design of their current mass surveillance software, and Bill has been telling anybody who will listen exactly what I have been telling – that this material was not hacked from Russia. Bill believes – and nobody has better contacts or understanding of capability than Bill – that the material was leaked from within the US intelligence services.

    • Media’s Debate Agenda: Push Russia, ISIS, Taxes; Downplay Climate, Poverty, Campaign Finance

      Russia, ISIS and taxes overwhelmed all other topics during the four presidential and vice-presidential debates, totaling 429 mentions from both candidates and questioners.

      Russia (and Putin) alone came up in the four debates 178 times, more than national debt/entitlements, Social Security, the Supreme Court, race/racism, education, abortion, drugs, poverty, LGBTQ people, climate change, campaign finance/Citizens United and the environment combined, with the latter topics totaling 164 mentions.

      Clinton’s emails were mentioned less than half as often as Trump’s tax returns (30 vs. 80 mentions), but still more than topics such as Social Security, the Supreme Court and education.

      Domestic issues that were mentioned somewhat frequently were immigration, police brutality/race, and Obamacare. Immigration is obviously a hot button issue given Trump’s calls to forcefully cleanse 11 million largely Latino immigrants from the United States.

    • Most Americans want Hillary indicted for email scandal – poll

      Over half of American voters surveyed in a recent poll disagree with the FBI’s decision not to prosecute Hillary Clinton over her emails scandal.

      A survey of 1,000 likely voters was conducted on October 18 and 19 by the polling company Rasmussen Reports. Voters were asked whether they agreed with the FBI’s decision not to file criminal charges against Hillary Clinton, despite acknowledging that she had been reckless and potentially exposed classified information to hostile countries. The results were released on Friday.

    • Rigged Elections Are An American Tradition

      It is an obvious fact that the oligarchic One Percent have anointed Hillary, despite her myriad problems to be President of the US. There are reports that her staff are already moving into their White House offices. This much confidence before the vote does suggest that the skids have been greased.

      The current cause celebre against Trump is his conditional statement that he might not accept the election results if they appear to have been rigged. The presstitutes immediately jumped on him for “discrediting American democracy” and for “breaking American tradition of accepting the people’s will.”

      What nonsense! Stolen elections are the American tradition. Elections are stolen at every level—state, local, and federal. Chicago Mayor Richard J. Daley’s theft of the Chicago and, thereby, Illinois vote for John F. Kennedy is legendary. The Republican US Supreme Court’s theft of the 2000 presidential election from Al Gore by preventing the Florida vote recount is another legendary example. The discrepancies between exit polls and the vote count of the secretly programmed electronic voting machines that have no paper trails are also legendary.

      So what’s the big deal about Trump’s suspicion of election rigging?

    • October 2016: The Month Political Journalism Died

      On Wednesday evening during the final presidential debate of the campaign, Hell did not freeze over. Moderator Chris Wallace of Fox News, where climate denial plays nothing but home games, passed on the final opportunity to ask Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton about climate change.

      This presidential campaign has been a catastrophe for American democracy and for American political journalism.

      Amid the relentlessly tawdry campaign news, most Americans haven’t even noticed the absence of virtually any high-level campaign discussion of environmental issues, let alone what many have called the biggest challenge of the 21st century.

      For now.

      But I invite you to think ahead to that “oh crap” moment that awaits us all, five, ten or 25 years from now, when America looks back to reckon with our self-imposed climate silence in the debates.

      Journalism—and the memes of our day—have failed us.

      I don’t mean to condemn all journalists, or even all political journalists. This campaign has seen Pulitzer-worthy investigative work, notably by old-media giants like the New York Times and Washington Post, on both major party candidates and their respective problems with veracity and transparency. But the horse-race coverage, driven by Twitter, bluster and clickbait, has predictably left important issues in the lurch.

    • Get Ready to Ignore Donald Trump Starting on November 9, or He’ll Never Go Away

      Donald Trump’s true gift is his uncanny ability to capture the attention of the news media.

      His declaration during Wednesday night’s third and final presidential debate that he may not accept defeat in three weeks captured global headlines, once again making him the lead story in the world, even as his chances of winning are essentially vanishing.

      But this is nothing new. There are countless other examples of successful attention-getting in Trump’s past, including his crusade against the Central Park Five in 2005, and the six weeks in 2011 where he monopolized TV news with his quest to find Barack Obama’s birth certificate.

      In fact, one way to look at Trump’s run for the presidency is as an attention-getting, brand-building exercise from start to finish. And in that context, this latest twist makes even more sense: It turns his otherwise sputtering campaign into a sort of dystopian season of “The Apprentice” where viewers watch for the cliffhanger: Will Trump bow out gracefully, or will he rally his supporters to declare his loss the result of a grand conspiracy?

      Not coincidentally, a half hour before the start of Wednesday’s debate, his campaign launched #TrumpTV, a livestream on his Facebook featuring Trump surrogates — leading to speculation that this served as a sort of a beta test for a rumored Trump-helmed television network. With that network, Trump could seek to monetize a panicked support base.

      On November 9, when Trump likely loses the presidential election in a big way, the news media will face a moment of truth: Will they continue to obsessively cover him and his post-election antics? Or will they ignore him?

      They should ignore him.

  • Censorship/Free Speech

  • Privacy/Surveillance

    • NLG and ACLU Submit FOIA and Open Records Requests to Investigate Unconstitutional Surveillance of Water Protectors at Standing Rock

      Today, the National Lawyers Guild (NLG), in conjunction with the ACLU of North Dakota, sent Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) and North Dakota Open Records Act requests to multiple state and federal agencies in response to the surveillance and arrests of the Native-led Water Protectors attempting to stop construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL). In an affront to First Amendment rights, Water Protectors and allies have been continuously surveilled by low-flying planes, helicopters, and drones, and have had local cell phone communications jammed and possibly recorded. Dozens of local and out-of-state law enforcement have been called in, maintaining a heavily militarized presence at the site in an effort to intimidate activists and chill dissent.

    • How Could NSA Contractor Harold Martin Have Been Taking Home Classified Info For 20 Years Without NSA Noticing?

      A few weeks back, we wrote about the arrest of Harold Martin, an NSA contractor working at Booz Allen, for apparently taking “highly classified information” from the NSA and storing it electronically and physically in his home. There were a lot of questions about whether or not Martin was connected to the Shadow Brokers release of NSA hacking tools, though as more info comes out, it sounds like perhaps Martin was just found because of an investigation into Shadow Brokers, but not because he was connected to them. Soon after the arrest was made public (after being kept sealed for a little over a month), reports came out suggesting that Martin was basically a digital hoarder, but not a leaker (or a whistleblower).

    • Geofeedia, In Damage Control Mode, Issues Bogus DMCA Over Brochure Posted By Reporter

      And it’s time for yet another story of copyright being used for out and out censorship. Remember Geofeedia? That’s the creepy company that was selling its services to law enforcement agencies and school districts promising to spy on social media feeds to let law enforcement/schools know when people are planning bad stuff. After a big ACLU investigative report, basically all the major social media companies cut ties with Geofeedia, claiming that it was violating their terms of service. I’d imagine that the various law enforcement agencies and school districts who paid tens of thousands of dollars for this data may be asking for their money back.

      So what does Geofeedia do? Well, for starters, it abuses the DMCA to try to take down information. The Daily Dot’s Dell Cameron had actually written about how the Denver police spent $30k on Geofeedia back in September, a few weeks before the ACLU report dropped (nice scoop and great timing). Cameron then followed up with a detailed story following the ACLU report as well, noting that there were still plenty of other Geofeedia competitors on the market. At the end of that post, Cameron included a brochure that Geofeedia had apparently sent to a police department last year. But you can’t see it now, because (yup) Geofeedia issued a DMCA takedown to Scribd, the company that was hosting it.

    • Victory for the Exegetes Amateurs! French Surveillance Censured by Constitutional Council

      The French Constitutional Council has censored this morning the article of the 2015 French Surveillance Law on radio wave surveillance. Following a Priority Preliminary ruling on the issue of constitutionality (QPC) tabled by the Exegetes Amateurs (FDN Federation, FDN and La Quadrature du Net and the Igwan.net NGO), this is a clear victory for advocates of privacy against disproportionate surveillance promoted by Manuel Valls’ government. La Quadrature du Net is glad with this decision which effects are to be applied immediately (although regretting the extended time given to the legislator to conform to this decision in the long term) and calls on all citizens concerned with civil rights to support the tireless judicial and technical work accomplished with our friends of FDN and the FDN Federation.

    • Google’s Allo Sends The Wrong Message About Encryption

      When Google announced its new Allo messaging app, we were initially pleased to see the company responding to long-standing consumer demand for user-friendly, secure messaging. Unfortunately, it now seems that Google’s response may cause more harm than good. While Allo does expose more users to end-to-end encrypted messaging, this potential benefit is outweighed by the cost of Allo’s mixed signals about what secure messaging is and how it works. This has significance for secure messaging app developers and users beyond Google or Allo: if we want to protect all users, we must make encryption our automatic, straightforward, easy-to-use status quo.

      The new messaging app from Google offers two modes: a default mode, and an end-to-end encrypted “incognito” mode. The default mode features two new enhancements: Google Assistant, an AI virtual assistant that responds to queries and searches (like “What restaurants are nearby?”), and Smart Reply, which analyzes how a user texts and generates likely responses to the messages they receive. The machine learning that drives these features resides on Google’s servers and needs access to chat content to “learn” over time and personalize services. So, while this less secure mode is encrypted in transit, it is not encrypted end-to-end, giving Google access to the content of messages as they pass unencrypted through Google servers.

      Allo’s separate “incognito” mode provides end-to-end encryption, using a darker background to distinguish it from the default mode. Messages sent in this mode are not readable on Google’s servers, and can be set to auto-delete from your phone after a certain period of time. The Assistant and Smart Reply features, which depend on Google having access to message content, don’t work in “incognito” mode.

    • Half of All American Adults Have Pictures in Police Facial Recognition Systems

      If you’re already worried about the growth of the surveillance state, a new study may give you pause. Researchers from Georgetown Law’s Center on Privacy and Technology have found that half of Americans have photos in facial recognition networks used by law enforcement around the country—and many are likely unaware of it. The resulting report notes that the study is “the most comprehensive survey to date of law enforcement face recognition and the risks that it poses to privacy, civil liberties, and civil rights.”

      Study authors Alvaro Bedoya, Jonathan Frankle and Clare Garvie queried more than 100 police departments across the nation over the course of a year to come to their conclusions. They found that more than 117 million adults—overwhelmingly law-abiding citizens of these United States—have pictures in these systems. Amassing such a large number of photos of American adults is a result of interagency collaboration. In addition to mugshot photos taken following arrests, “26 states (and potentially as many as 30) allow law enforcement to run or request searches against their databases of driver’s license and ID photos.” They also write that big-city police departments—Chicago, Dallas and Los Angeles among them—are looking into real-time recognition on live street surveillance cameras, which allow “police [to] continuously scan the faces of pedestrians walking by a street surveillance camera.”

    • Using search warrants to get into fingerprint-locked phones

      A peculiar legal workaround might give federal authorities the right to access an individual’s phone data.

      Investigators in Lancaster, Calif., were granted a search warrant last May with a scope that allowed them to force anyone inside the premises at the time of search to open up their phones via fingerprint recognition, Forbes reported Sunday.

      The government argued that this did not violate the citizens’ Fifth Amendment protection against self incrimination because no actual passcode was handed over to authorities. Forbes was able to confirm with the residents of the building that the warrant was served, but the residents did not give any more details about whether their phones were successfully accessed by the investigators.

      “I was frankly a bit shocked,” said Andrew Crocker, a staff attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), when he learned about the scope of search warrant. “As far as I know, this warrant application was unprecedented.”

    • Virtual lineup: Your face is already on file

      If local police showed up at your door requesting fingerprints and DNA samples, would you passively and unquestioningly comply? Or would you ask what crime you’re suspected of committing and demand probable cause for making the request or proof of a search warrant?

      The fact is, there’s a 50 percent chance your photo is already part of a biometric database. And law enforcement agencies across the country are using facial recognition software to regularly search this “virtual lineup” with little to no regulation or limits, according to an eye-opening 150-page report, “The Perpetual Line-Up: Unregulated Police Face Recognition in America,” published this week by the Georgetown Center on Privacy & Technology.

    • Supreme Court rules that IP address allocation is personal data, but to what use?

      The European Supreme Court rules that the subscriber identity behind an IP address is personal data, making such data protected by privacy laws. However, the court rules in a very narrow context of a web site operator, and says that the protection of personal data takes second place to a so-called “legitimate objective”. This may be an important verdict for future case law, but right now, it looks rather narrow.

      The European Court of Justice, the highest court in the EU, has ruled that the information about who was allocated a certain IP address at a certain time is personal data. This is a very important key word in European legislation, which means the data’s availability and use is protected by a mountain and a half of regulations and laws.

      The case was brought to the European Court of Justice by Patrick Breyer, a Pirate Party MP in the German State Parliament of Schleswig-Holstein, who is also a lawyer. Mr. Breyer was suing the Federal Government of Germany to prevent them from storing and recording his every visit to federal authorities’ websites.

    • Google is now tracking your private, personally identifiable information from all sources possible (ie; Gmail, Chrome, DoubleClick) by default

      Since this summer, new users are now being tracked to Google’s fullest potential unless they opt-out. Google has bought many tech companies over the last few decades. One such purpose, in 2007, of DoubleClick, prompted many concerns. Google, which had the promising slogan “Do no evil,” back then, promised that they would not combine Google’s already monolithic stack of user internet browsing history data with new acquisitions such as DoubleClick. DoubleClick is an extensive ad network that is used on half of the Internet’s top 1 million most popular sites. Now, Now that DoubleClick’s data is available to Google, Google can easily build a complete profile of you, the customer. This profile could include name, search history, and keywords used in email, all of which will expressly be used to target you for advertising or handed over to the government at the drop of a rubber stamp.

    • Google Has Quietly Dropped Ban on Personally Identifiable Web Tracking

      After we published this story, Google reached out to say that it doesn’t currently use Gmail keywords to target web ads. We’ve updated the story to reflect that.

      When Google bought the advertising network DoubleClick in 2007, Google founder Sergey Brin said that privacy would be the company’s “number one priority when we contemplate new kinds of advertising products.”

      And, for nearly a decade, Google did in fact keep DoubleClick’s massive database of web-browsing records separate by default from the names and other personally identifiable information Google has collected from Gmail and its other login accounts.

      But this summer, Google quietly erased that last privacy line in the sand – literally crossing out the lines in its privacy policy that promised to keep the two pots of data separate by default. In its place, Google substituted new language that says browsing habits “may be” combined with what the company learns from the use Gmail and other tools.

    • Argentine Soccer Club Wanted to Implant Microchips in Fans, Until They Revolted

      How do you solve a problem like blood-thirsty football hooligans? According to one Buenos Aires-based football club, just stick microchips in spectators’ arms and scan the bad apples away.

      Back in April, first division club CA Tigre proposed surgically implanting microchips—or “passion tickets,” as they called them—into fans’ bodies to expedite their access to the stadium and curb violence during games. The initiative was rejected after a brief trial period, CA Tigre informed Motherboard, and though the club wouldn’t say why, we expect public outrage had something to do with it.

      “Passion ticket allows fans to enter the stadium without anything else, just their passion for their team, and allows the club to maintain a trustworthy level of control over fans,” CA Tigre tweeted at the time to explain the initiative.

    • Internet Privacy: “You’re Only Anonymous On The Internet Because Nobody’s Tried Very Hard To Figure Out Who You Are”

  • Civil Rights/Policing

    • Imprisoned Saudi blogger faces more lashes: supporters

      Imprisoned Saudi blogger Raif Badawi, whose public flogging in the kingdom last year generated a global outcry, now risks a new round of lashes, a co-founder of a Canadian foundation advocating his release said on Tuesday.

      Evelyne Abitbol, who founded the Raif Badawi Foundation with Badawi’s wife, said a “reliable source” in Saudi Arabia claims he faces a new flogging after being sentenced to 10 years imprisonment and 1,000 lashes in 2014 for breaking the kingdom’s technology laws and insulting Islam.

      Saudi embassy officials in Ottawa and Saudi government officials in Riyadh were not immediately available for comment.

    • Raif Badawi: Atheist Saudi blogger faces further round of lashes, supporters say

      Saudi blogger Raif Badawi is facing a new round of lashes, according to his supporters.

      A Canadian foundation campaigning for his release said a “reliable source” in Saudi Arabia told them he faces a renewed threat of flogging.

      The 32-year-old was handed 1,000 lashes and a ten-year jail term in 2014 for insulting Islam online.

    • ‘He didn’t know the boy didn’t want to be raped’ court throws out migrant child sex charge

      When the youngster went to the showers, Amir A. allegedly followed him, pushed him into a toilet cubicle, and violently sexually assaulted him.

      Following the attack, the accused rapist returned to the pool and was practising on the diving board when police arrived, after the 10-year-old raised the alarm with the lifeguard.

      The child suffered severe anal injuries which had to be treated at a local children’s hospital, and is still plagued by serious post-traumatic stress disorder.

      In a police interview, Amir A. confessed to the crime; telling officers the incident had been “a sexual emergency”, as his wife had remained in Iraq and he “had not had sex in four months”.

    • Intelligence and Security Committee of Parliament

      I have just finished giving evidence to the Intelligence and Security Committee of Parliament on torture and extraordinary rendition. I am dashing off now and will give a fuller account later of what I said only. But I will just say that I was very happily surprised by how genuine the committee were, by the acuity of their questioning and by what was revealed of the general trend of their thinking. I perceived no hostility at all. I rather hope, and believe I have grounds to hope, that their eventual report will contain more of both truth and wisdom than is generally expected.

    • Homeland Security Must Stop Using Private Prisons for Immigration Detention. Here’s How to Do It.

      ACLU policy paper explains why detaining fewer immigrants must be part of the plan to stop using private prisons.

      This August, the Justice Department made history when it announced that the Bureau of Prisons would curtail — and eventually end — its use of private prisons. As the Justice Department noted, this change was made possible by criminal justice reforms that reduced its prison population. Now the ACLU is releasing a policy paper that calls on the Department of Homeland Security to follow suit by reducing its detention population and then ending its own use of private prisons.

      The paper, “Shutting Down the Profiteers: Why and How the Department of Homeland Security Should Stop Using Private Prisons,” provides a concrete plan for how ICE can and should phase out its reliance on private prisons. The number of immigrants in detention has skyrocketed in the past two decades, and without these unnecessary detentions, there would be no need for private prison beds. The paper describes the human toll of over-detention and privatization and lays out ICE’s dangerously close relationship with the private prison industry.

    • Police Want to 3D Print a Dead Man’s Fingers to Unlock His Phone

      I’ll unpack the Constitutional issues in a bit, but first, the technology. Michigan State University professor who holds six U.S. patents for fingerprint recognition technology was asked by police to help catch a murderer. The cops scans of the victim’s fingerprints and thought that unlocking his phone might provide clues as to who killed him.

    • Police arrest more people for marijuana use than for all violent crimes — combined

      On any given day in the United States, at least 137,000 people sit behind bars on simple drug-possession charges, according to a report released Wednesday by the American Civil Liberties Union and Human Rights Watch.

      Nearly two-thirds of them are in local jails. The report says that most of these jailed inmates have not been convicted of any crime: They’re sitting in a cell, awaiting a day in court, an appearance that may be months or even years off, because they can’t afford to post bail.

      “It’s been 45 years since the war on drugs was declared, and it hasn’t been a success,” lead author Tess Borden of Human Rights Watch said in an interview. “Rates of drug use are not down. Drug dependency has not stopped. Every 25 seconds, we’re arresting someone for drug use.”

  • Intellectual Monopolies

    • Harris Faulkner Suit Against Hasbro Over A Toy Hamster Ends In Settlement, Hasbro To Discontinue The Toy

      While we cover a lot of silly intellectual property disputes here, none has the potential to upend our society into a circus of hilarious litigious stupidity as much as publicity rights do. This barely-arrived form of intellectual property has been the star of all kinds of legal insanity, with one needing only to note its use by such upstanding denizens of our reality as Lindsay Lohan and the brother of Pablo Escobar. But I have to admit I had reserved a special place in my humor-heart for Harris Faulkner, the Fox News anchor that sued toy-maker Hasbro for making a a hamster figurine that shared her name. Because the sharing of a name isn’t sufficient to arise to a publicity rights violation, the IRL-non-hamster-Faulkner had to claim that the ficticious-hamster-Faulkner also borrowed from her physical likeness, an argument which her legal team actually made. As a reminder, here are images of both.

    • Trademarks

      • No One Owns Invisible Disabilities

        The purpose of registered trademarks is to protect people. When you buy a bottle of Club-Mate, the trademark affords you some certainty that what you’re buying is the product you already know and love and not that of a sneaky impostor. But when the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) issues overly broad or generic trademarks, those trademarks do just the opposite: they can expose us to the risk of legal bullying. One recent round of bullying over a trademark on “invisible disabilities” has shown how a bad trademark can even be used to threaten people’s right to assemble and express themselves online.

        It started in late 2015 when a group called Invisible Disability Project (IDP) applied for a trademark on its name. A lawyer representing the Invisible Disabilities Association (IDA) sent IDP a letter threatening to sue it over the use of the term “invisible disability.” (IDA had received a trademark on the term in 2013). In July 2016, IDA used Facebook’s trademark report form to have IDP’s Facebook page—the main place where IDP’s members and supporters congregate—taken down. IDA even registered the domain names invisibledisabilityproject.com and .net and directed visitors to those sites to its own website.

    • Copyrights

      • Anti-Piracy Outfits Agree to Strengthen International Cooperation

        Government officials and representatives from anti-piracy outfits from the United States, Europe and Russia met up in Brussels this week. The roundtable, “Combating Internet Piracy: International Practice”, focused on the need for international cooperation and the strengthening of copyright legislation.

        With the Internet and therefore online piracy having developed into a truly global phenomenon, anti-piracy groups everywhere are expanding their reach.

        What was once a semi-isolated affair has become a multi-agency, cross-continent operation, with governments and rights holders alike striving to share information and pool resources.

      • The Bernie Sanders of Iceland is a Pirate, a poet and possibly the country’s next leader

        Birgitta Jónsdóttir is a poet, a Web developer and a former WikiLeaks activist. She’s also founder and leader of Iceland’s Pirate Party, which has been at or near the top of polls ahead of national elections Oct. 29.

        Washington Post London Bureau Chief Griff Witte sat down with Jónsdóttir for an interview at her office in Reykjavik on Oct. 19. The following are excerpts from their conversation.

      • Cisco Develops System To Automatically Cut-Off Pirate Video Streams

        Cisco says it has developed a system to disable live pirate streams . The network equipment company says its Streaming Piracy Prevention platform utilizes third-party forensic watermarking to shut down pirate streams in real-time, without any need to send takedown notices to hosts or receive cooperation from third parties.

      • Team Prenda Loses Big Again: Told To Pay Over $650k For Bogus Defamation Lawsuit

        Welp, it looks like another bad day for Team Prenda. The law firm that went around uploading its own porn films and then shaking down people on the internet has had a bad few years in terms of courts blasting them for abusing the court system and ordering them to pay up for all sorts of awful things. Every few weeks it seems like we read about another loss for John Steele and Paul Hansmeier (the third “partner” in this mess, Paul Duffy, passed away). The latest is not only a pretty big hit, it’s also a complete “own goal” by Team Prenda. This one wasn’t in one of their crappy shakedown lawsuits where a defendant hit back. No, this was in the case where Prenda tried to sue all of its critics for defamation in both Illinois and Florida. The Florida case, filed by John Steele, was quickly dismissed once Steele realized it broke all kinds of rules. But the Illinois cases moved forward. There was some bouncing around between state and federal court, before the case was dismissed and some sanctions were added.

      • Prenda lawyers’ careers are up in smoke, but sanctions keep coming

        After a few years suing Internet users over piracy claims, the lawyers behind the Prenda law copyright-trolling operation had made millions. But beginning in 2013, they were hit with repeated sanctions from federal judges. Now, their careers are in shambles—Paul Hansmeier had his law license suspended, John Steele is facing a bar complaint, and both may be facing an FBI investigation. (A third lawyer who was involved, Paul Duffy, passed away last year.)

        Even as their scheme collapses, they continue to be hit with sanctions. This week, Hansmeier and Steele got hit with a big one. US District Judge John Darrah oversaw litigation related to one of Prenda’s most audacious moves—their defamation lawsuit against their critics. They sued Steele’s former housekeeper, Alan Cooper, and his lawyer, Paul Godfread, for accusing Steele of identity theft. For good measure, they also sued anonymous blog commenters who called Prenda attorneys “brain-dead” and “assclowns.”

Open Letter Exposing the Farce Which Was Battistelli’s ‘Social Conference’ Coinciding With Further (New) Attacks on EPO Staff Representatives

Posted in Deception, Europe, Patents at 12:33 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

Reaffirming his position that he is in a war against truth itself

Battistelli liar
Source (original): Rospatent

Summary: A detailed letter reveals legitimate concerns expressed by staff representatives at the EPO ahead of the so-called Social Conference, in which we have highlighted severe factual flaws

WE PREVIOUSLY mentioned that SUEPO had sent a letter to Battistelli last month, with a copy sent to the Delegations of the Administrative Council. It was about their exclusion from the propaganda/lobbying event known as “Social Conference” (first of its kind, made up by Team Battistelli to cover their collective behinds).

Another letter, an open letter in fact, was sent to Mr Battistelli. “SUEPO officials from Berlin and Munich write to the President,” a source quoted for us, “indicating that in the current circumstances they will not attend the “Social Conference”.”

Here are the contents of this open letter (which is apparently not open to the wider public, probably due to fear of retribution):

INTERNATIONALE GEWERKSCHAFT IM EUROPÄISCHEN PATENTAMT
STAFF UNION OF THE EUROPEAN PATENT OFFICE
UNION SYNDICALE DE L’OFFICE EUROPEEN DES BREVETS

Zentralbüro
Central Bureau
Bureau central

28 September2016
su16117cl – 0.3.1/0.2.1

OPEN LETTER to the President of the European Patent Office, Mr Battistelli

Subject: “Social Conference” 11 October 2016

Dear Mr Battistelli,

we have learned that a “social conference” will take place on 11 October in Munich with the alleged goal of improving the social dialog in the EPO.

Meanwhile we take note that after 6 disciplinary measures have been hanged on EPO Staff Representatives, comprising two dismissals and four demotions, over the past 2 years, further three colleagues are being targeted, according to the minutes of the last B28 session1

As elected union officials of SUEPO, the union representing roughly half of the Staff in the EPO, we share the concerns and questions raised by the Local Staff Committee in The Hague (see Annex 1) regarding the so-called “Social Conference”. We take note that at this date these questions remain unanswered.

In light of the above, and in combination with the fact that the systematic persecution of Staff Representatives continues unabated, the undersigned consider that none of the conditions are met for such a conference to bear fruits. Further the undersigned consider that their participation will be misused as a “fig leaf” to cover the toxic nature of the present “social dialog” and management policies.

In solidarity with our colleagues of the Local SUEPO Branch in The Hague (see Annex 2), and Chairmen of SUEPO Central (su16116cl, see Annex 3), the undersigned will not attend the Social Conference.

Sincerely,
The elected SUEPO Officials:
Thomas Franchitti
Mathieu Guillaume
Florent Béraud

Cc: B28 Members, PD 4.3

____
1 : “The Board noted information provided by the President about 3 current investigations/disciplinary proceedings involving SUEPO members in The Hague Staff Representatives“

SOCIAL CONFERENCE 2016

Dear Colleagues:

The Office has announced on intranet that the so-called “Social Conference” will take place on 11 October 2016. Concomitantly, an update has been published in the latest Gazette (page 11).

From these announcements we learn:

1. The Conference will be led by consultants

2. The stakeholders are: representatives from the Office’s management and staff, as well as members of the Staff Committees and recognized trade union, and delegates of the Administrative Council.

3. The Conference will include presentations about the Social Study (PwC), the OHSRA (WellKom et al) and the Financial Report (Deloitte).

4. Some 8-12 workshops will follow to “identify key elements of each study and the next steps for a sustainable EPO”.

5. Topics of discussion explicitly mentioned are:

-Social dialogue;
-Financial sustainability and social package;
-Well-being at the workplace;
-Change management and readiness to change.

In the Gazette, the President referred to a number of topics on the “social agenda” but it remains unclear whether these topics will be subject of discussion. For instance:

- The Technologia study is not mentioned as being part of the agenda.
- The President is silent about Council resolution CA/26/16, and about the fate of a number of staff representatives and union officials subjected to investigations/disciplinary proceedings.

Putting the cart before the horse?

The Social Conference ought to be the starting point for restoring social peace, justice and respect for fundamental rights and values.

We wonder whether it is wise to start discussing and comparing details like social packages and change management at this juncture. Are we not putting the cart before the horse? Should we not first discuss and agree on the principles that should pull the cart?

In our opinion, a useful starting point would be to agree that the fundamental rights and the values deriving therefrom govern our dealing with each other and discuss how to make all of our laws and practices subject to them. The second step would be to design and agree on an effective mechanism to enforce compliance with the said rights and values. Once that is in place, all details should fall into place without too much effort, and with little discord.

Prerequisites:

Having said this, if the Office and the Administrative Council are serious in wanting to involve staff (and to be seen/perceived by staff as doing so), and in wanting to identify key elements to move forward, then the Social Conference must:

- be well prepared,
- be endowed with sufficient resources and safeguards
- address the essential topics and
- have a clear follow up.

a) Preparation

The outcome of all three studies, including the essential raw data, conclusions and recommendations by the consultants should be ready by now. All stakeholders should have time to study them and collect feedback, such that the participants in the conference can represent their respective groups and not merely express their personal opinions.

- When are staff representatives and staff going to receive the studies?
- Is the Technologia study going to form part of the studies to be discussed and evaluated? If not, why?

For an efficient and productive process, it would be helpful if the stakeholders (the Administrative Council, Management, the Staff Representation and the Unions) submitted in writing, as far as possible, their comments and proposals on the various topics. However we have not seen or heard any such call from the organiser of the event (the President). Obviously it will be impossible to collect feedback on the spot.

- Is Management willing to take up such an initiative and to create a respective intranet platform as it did on other occasions?

- What measures has Management foreseen to enable the remaining staff representatives to collect feedback from staff? Is it going to give more time resources in the weeks before the event? Is it going to allow

general assemblies? If not, how are staff representatives supposed to collect feedback?

- The status of some stakeholders invited (“representatives from the Office’s management and staff”, the “recognized union”) is unclear given the vocabulary used in the intranet announcement and the Gazette interview.

- What is the difference in role during the conference between “representatives from staff” and “staff representatives”?

- Are the President and the AC aware that such expressions undermine the statutory role of staff representation?

- Are they aware that such phrasing raises concerns that the conference will be abused for bypassing the statutory consultation requirements and bodies, especially since the President in the Gazette sees this Conference as a “tool” to restore social peace?

b) Resources & Safeguards

- Clearly, ONE DAY is insufficient for a proper, meaningful conference, unless stakeholders have had the opportunity to get thoroughly acquainted with the outcome of the studies. There will obviously be no time for a proper dialogue, especially in view of the extensive topics on the agenda.

From what we know so far it appears that about half a day will be spent on the presentation of the studies. Management and its Representatives will have had all time necessary to study them, whereas staff participating will have to digest the material via oral information in a few hours.

- Is this a good starting point to convince all parties involved that a proper dialogue is feasible?

- A number of workshops will be held wherein staff representatives will be expected to participate. The number of workshop is such that the remaining staff representatives will inevitably be isolated from each other, having to improvise on new information. They could be systematically outnumbered or ignored, making them virtually irrelevant in the discussions.

- How does the Office intend to conduct the workshops so that they prove to be a solid forum to identify the key issues identified by all stakeholders?

- As for the safeguards, it is clear that all stakeholders should feel free and safe to discuss. An essential first step would be, in our opinion, to fulfil the mandate given by the Council resolution CA/26/16.

How is the President going to implement resolution CA/26/16? When?

c) Essential topics

- It is unclear what topics will actually be treated. We note that the President, in his Gazette interview, refers several times to a Social Agenda and mentions its various points. However only very few of the burning issues are mentioned in said interview.

-Who has chosen the topics to be treated in the workshops?
-Will the topics of discussion consist exclusively of points chosen by the President?
-Will other stakeholders – the AC, the consultants, staff representation – be asked to give their input, and/or be allowed to put other topics on the agenda? If so, when?

- The latest developments on the juridical front (the decision of the EBoA on the suspended DG3 judge; recent ATILO cases; Dutch Court of Appeal decision) indicate that a number of Office decisions and practices cast doubt on the Office’s ability to comply with a number of generally accepted principles of due process. Also internally, serious concerns have been voiced about the adequacy and lawfulness of the investigation unit’s operation, the disciplinary procedures, and of our conflict resolution system.

- Will these be among the main issues to be discussed?

One of the main grievances of staff is that the AC has chosen a rather passive stance for a very long time; that it hasn’t made any visible effort to listen to staff’s version of the story, that it hasn’t given staff the same attention it has given to the President and that it hasn’t exercised its supervising role as it should have given the seriousness of the conflict. In particular, although the AC regularly holds meetings with the President, it has never given the same chances to staff to bring forward their cases.

-Does the AC consider setting up a forum for this purpose?
-If not, through what statutory mechanisms can it guarantee to receive complete and adequate feedback from staff?
-Which social partner does the AC recognise as official?

d) Follow up

Given the many open wounds it appears impossible to process all burning issues.

-Are there any next steps that will treat the individual / specific topics in depth and substance? Or is the current event supposed to be the one and only medicine for all ailments?
-What is the realistic expectation of the practical outcome of the Conference?

Our preliminary conclusions:

We are of the opinion that the current crisis will only come to a good end if enough time and true volition are invested without delay to listen to each other’s grievances and to reconcile different views. We urge the Administrative Council to guarantee a proper conference and the President to act accordingly.

It would be most unfortunate if the event proved to be nothing more than yet another self-serving PR event to sweep the problems under the carpet.

Given the current policy in respect of the Staff Representation, it is very difficult to be optimistic in this respect. Nevertheless, we, the few remaining members of LSCTH, are willing to put our energy and creativity in sorting things out and honouring our mandate. However, we are not prepared to play the role of the President’s fig leaf.

Therefore, we invite the President and the Administrative to answer our questions without delay, and take all measures necessary to have staff meaningfully involved, and to ensure that the conference can be held in a constructive atmosphere.

We want to make it clear that we are not going to contribute to

-futile PR exercises,
-bypassing the consultative procedures foreseen in the Codex,
-justifying the current tendency to disregard the prerogatives and functions of the staff representation,
-whitewashing arbitrariness.

Sincerely,
Your Local Staff Committee The Hague

INTERNATIONALE GEWERKSCHAFT IM EUROPÄISCHEN PATENTAMT
STAFF UNION OF THE EUROPEAN PATENT OFFICE
UNION SYNDICALE DE L’OFFICE EUROPEEN DES BREVETS

Ortssektion Den Haag
Local section The Hague
Section locale La Haye

20 September 2016
su16030hl

“Social Conference” of 11 October 2016

Dear Mr Battistelli,

We have learned about the Social Conference scheduled for 11 October.

SUEPO, who represents about half of the EPO workforce, has not been invited. Over the past two and half years you have consistently threatened and/or heavily sanctioned the majority of the elected officials of a Union you called in public a “mafia like organisation“. In the circumstances, we will obviously not attend voluntarily. (If you want to oblige any of us to attend as “members of Staff Committees”, we would only participate under duress).

We truly regret seeing that, rather than fostering social dialogue by respecting the terms of the March resolution of the Administrative Council (CA/26/16), you have chosen to continue persecuting SUEPO and its elected officials, most recently in The Hague.

We also regret that you do not seem to take seriously the requirements of a bona-fide social conference. If its aim is to launch a program to restore social peace, it is inconsistent for you to refuse to discuss the results of the Technologia survey, or to consider our counterproposal for a framework agreement between the EPO and SUEPO.

Sincerely,
Alain Rosé
Jesús Areso
Philippe Couckuyt
François Brévier

cc: B28 members

INTERNATIONALE GEWERKSCHAFT IM EUROPÄISCHEN PATENTAMT
STAFF UNION OF THE EUROPEAN PATENT OFFICE
UNION SYNDICALE DE L’OFFICE EUROPEEN DES BREVETS

Zentralbüro
Central Bureau
Bureau central

27 September 2016
su16116cl – 4.6

“Social Conference” of 11 October 2016

Dear Mr Battistelli,

We refer to the letter addressed to you on 20.09.2016 from SUEPO The Hague on the subject of the Social Conference, which remains unanswered.

SUEPO, who represents about half of the EPO workforce, has not been invited. Over the past two and half years you have consistently threatened and/or heavily sanctioned the majority of the elected officials of a Union you called in public a “mafia like organisation“. In the circumstances, we will obviously not attend voluntarily. (If you want to oblige any of us to attend as “members of Staff Committees”, we would only participate under duress)

We truly regret seeing that, rather than fostering social dialogue by respecting the terms of the March resolution of the Administrative Council (CA/26/16), you have chosen to continue persecuting SUEPO and its elected officials, most recently in The Hague, cf. minutes of the Board 28 meeting of 8 September.

We also regret that you do not seem to take seriously the requirements of a bona-fide social conference. If its aim is to launch a program to restore social peace, it is inconsistent for you to refuse to discuss the results of the Technologia survey, or to consider our counterproposal for a framework agreement between the EPO and SUEPO.

Yours sincerely,
Joachim Michels
Chair SUEPO Central
Elizabeth Hardon
Vice-Chair SUEPO Central
Chair SUEPO Munich Alain Rosé
Vice-Chair SUEPO Central
Chair SUEPO The Hague
Wolfgang Manntz
Vice-Chair SUEPO Central
Chair SUEPO Berlin David Dickinson
Vice-Chair SUEPO Central
Chair SUEPO Vienna

cc: Delegations of the Administrative Council

This whole PR exercise from Battistelli seems to have only exacerbated things and made the EPO associated with propaganda mills. If Battistelli thought he could simply buy an alternate reality and fool the well-educated examiners, than he thinks too much like a politician addressing (and lying to) “the masses”. █

10.22.16

Translation of Latest Rant From French MP Philip Cordery About Benoît Battistelli’s Abuses at the EPO

Posted in Europe, Patents at 11:36 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

The likes of Laurent Prunier may still have someone to turn to

Philip Cordery

Summary: Philip Cordery crosses horns with Benoît Battistelli, who has become a source of embarrassment for France with his autocratic tendencies and misguided policies that rapidly ruin the European Patent Office (EPO)

AS we noted here last week and the week before that, a French politician had intervened and supported EPO protesters. He is not Pierre-Yves Le Borgn’, the politician who represents or is responsible for French staff working abroad (usually in Europe/EU, not overseas) but another one, whom we also wrote about in the past [1, 2]. He wrote about the subject earlier this month.

Earlier today on we asked if someone can translate from French (to English) for Techrights to publish. Petra Kramer is a Dutch speaker who understands EPO terminology, so she provided the following imperfect translation:

On October 13, I was backed some 600 employees of the European Patent Office (EPO) marching peacefully through the streets of The Hague to express dissatisfaction with the authoritarian and arbitrary management of the organization.

Unhealthy production pressure, drastic limitation of the right to strike, varied threats of sanctions, Trade union representatives of staff laid off. This is the daily life in this international organization that has been abusively hiding for 3 years behind the functional immunity to violate with impunity basic and fundamental principles of labor law.

The EPO, like many other international organizations, enjoys immunity from jurisdiction and execution that no law or decision can be imposed, in order to guard against any national interference, this part the performance of his duties (i.e. Batistelli’s mission to impose patent maximalism and increasing of production thereby lowering patent quality, PK) . Immunity as the main official, the French President Benoît Battistelli brandished as a defense. However, as I have said and repeated many times: “Immunity should not mean impunity.”

I prefer to speak of the EPO which is at the heart of this mission, that is to say, a great organization of which all employees are devoted to the service of industry and innovation in Europe for almost 40 years, including the seriousness of their work is a measure of competence in the highly demanding business of intellectual property rights. Unfortunately, the social pressure coupled with the brutal imposition of ever higher productivity of recent years finally rub off on the quality of the work, the risk ultimately seriously affects the trust of users.

In this poisonous atmosphere and anxiety, I went several times to The Hague to support staff there. I stood face to face with many staff members who informed me all about what happens behind the beautiful facade of this organization. I interacted tirelessly for 3 years with the French authorities to alert them of the industrial, social, and moral implications.

The latest developments are both disturbing and unacceptable. In January, three staff representatives were dismissed or degraded in Munich. Today is the turn of those from The Hague to be under threat. It may be a coincidence. This hunt on representatives of all members of staff of the majority union is unworthy of an organization in a democratic country.

The governance [or mismanagement, PK] of the management team is not only a pain for staff and limiting the effectiveness of the EPO, it has also has become long overdue to intervene for the image of France in Europe and the world. Enough is enough. Battistelli has to go.

NB. I was forced to blur the photo to protect employees who have had the courage to come to the event.

This is similar to what he also posted in Facebook (and we quoted here before). Kramer asked how to reform the Office [1, 2], but this is a question best addressed at actual EPO staff, not clueless management that forms Battistelli’s circle. My personal view is that i) patent scope must be tightened, ii) appeal boards strengthened/broadened (to help with (i)), iii) the Administrative Council needs to be flushed (particularly at the top) to ensure it’s not in the pocket of the Office, iv) the whole of Team Battistelli needs to be dismissed and v) the Office should seek to recruit lost staff and attract new talent while making their unions stronger and recognising that the Office should be staff-driven, not Battistelli-driven. All of these changes would bring the EPO closer in line with the law, with the EPC, and with human dignity. █

Battistelli-Commissioned PwC ‘Study’: Leaked Document Shows PwC’s Dishonesty and Misrepresentation of EPO Staff

Posted in Deception, Europe, Patents at 10:47 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

A leaked document about PwC

Summary: An in-depth analysis (but not comprehensive, just preliminary) of the so-called ‘study’ from PwC, which basically did what it was paid for (pay to say)

THE OTHER day we published some raw material from PwC. Soon afterwards, in part 2 of this little 'series', we presented a comparison that had been leaked to us. Well, an insider has also just leaked to us a much more comprehensive document (from which the latter material had been snapped), pertaining to those so-called 'studies' which are accessible only internally. With literally thousands of disgruntled employees it’s no wonder almost everything ends up being sent to us.

We have uploaded the leaked document [PDF] and wish to highlight some bits from it: “Obviously, the EPO management’s usual “market-driven” mantra has been taken on board by PwC without any form of critical analysis. In doing so, PwC has simply missed the elephant in the room which is the original mission of the EPO as defined in the preamble of the EPC: the EPO is a public service entity put in place to protect inventions and serve innovation in the interest of the public at large. The real aim of a public service is not to “win”, or to “compete”, or to “grow” or to “propel business forward”.” [page 1]

“At the start, the study is presented as being based on an objective survey, solid fact-finding and the application of genuine, independent analysis. Further reading begins to cast serious doubts about these three assertions.” [page 2]

Second, the study is remarkable for what it conceals: it is incomprehensible how a consultant can produce a 300-page analysis of the EPO social situation without once mentioning the main union SUEPO who represent more than 50% of its staff. [page 2]

“Last, most of the key starting-points of the study, such as the information produced by the administration 8 , present policy mantra and top management philosophy, are simply taken for granted i without question.” [page 2]

As a conclusion, criticising the “us and them” mentality in the Office comes in handy when identifying the culprits in the Office. By coincidence, PwC shares the approach used by top management over the last years over and over again to always never blame themselves but instead point fingers at others. [page 4]

Fact is that, leaving the PwC comments and recommendations aside, the objective parts of the social study correlates well with the outcome of the Technologia survey in 2016; it confirms the clear worsening of the situation, in particular in terms of Staff dissatisfaction (see Annex). It is in line with the opinion expressed on numerous occasions by Staff and their Representatives and complements the ample media coverage on the present situation. It is all the more remarkable then that at no stage the reforms themselves come under scrutiny. [page 5]

We may have a lot more to say about PwC’s so-called ‘study’. EPO staff is rightly angry about blatant propaganda being cast as “study”. Propaganda mills or liars for hire have no room in an inherently scientific institution such as the EPO. █

Links 22/10/2016: Deus Ex for GNU/Linux, Global DDoS (DNS)

Posted in News Roundup at 11:24 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

GNOME bluefish

Contents

GNU/Linux

  • Server

    • Puppet Rolls Out New Docker Image Builds

      Folks who are focused on container technology and virtual machines as they are implemented today might want to give a hat tip to some of the early technologies and platforms that arrived in the same arena. Among those, Puppet, which was built on the legacy of the venerable Cfengine system, was an early platform that helped automate lots of virtual machine implementations. We covered it in depth all the way back in 2008.

      Earlier this year, Puppet Labs rebranded as simply Puppet, and also named its first president and COO, Sanjay Mirchandani, who came to the company from VMware, where he was a senior vice-president. Now, at PuppetConf, the company has announced the availability of Puppet Docker Image Build, which “automates the container build process to help organizations as they define, build and deploy containers into production environments.” This new set of capabilities adds to existing Puppet functionality for installing and managing container infrastructure, including Docker, Kubernetes and Mesos, among others.

  • Kernel Space

    • Intel Has Been Working On MIPI SoundWire Support For Linux

      An Intel developer has published testing patches for providing a SoundWire bus driver within the Linux kernel, which implements the MIPI SoundWire 1.1 specification.

      For those unfamiliar with SoundWire as was I when coming across these patches, “The SoundWire protocol is a robust, scalable, low complexity, low power, low latency, two-pin (clock and data) multi-drop bus that allows for the transfer of multiple audio streams and embedded control/commands. SoundWire provides synchronization capabilities and supports both PCM and PDM, multichannel data, isochronous and asynchronous modes. SoundWire does borrow a number of concepts from existing interfaces such as HDAudio, AC97, SLIMbus, which already provide control/audio on the same wires, or legacy interfaces such as I2C/I2S, TDM, PDM.”

    • Linux Perf Gets New “C2C” Tool For False Sharing Detection

      The perf code for Linux 4.10 is set to receive a new “c2c” tool.

      The C2C tool within the perf subsystem is aimed to track down cacheline contention and has already been used by developers in tracking down false sharing of large applications, readers/writes to cachelines, and related information to assist NUMA shared-memory applications.

    • OpenTracing: Turning the Lights On for Microservices

      Those building microservices at scale understand the role and importance of distributed tracing: after all, it’s the most direct way to understand how and why complex systems misbehave. When we deployed Dapper at Google in 2005, it was like someone finally turned the lights on: everything from ordinary programming errors to broken caches to bad network hardware to unknown dependencies came into plain view.

    • Linux Foundation Spurs JavaScript Development

    • Graphics Stack

      • Radeon vs. Nouveau Open-Source Drivers On Mesa Git + Linux 4.9

        For your viewing pleasure this Friday are some open-source AMD vs. NVIDIA numbers when using the latest open-source code on each side. Linux 4.9-rc1 was used while Ubuntu 16.10 paired with the Padoka PPA led to Mesa Git as of earlier this week plus LLVM 4.0 SVN. As covered recently, there are no Nouveau driver changes for Linux 4.9 while we had hoped the boost patches would land. Thus the re-clocking is still quite poor for this open-source NVIDIA driver stack. For the Nouveau tests I manually re-clocked each graphics card to the highest performance state (0f) after first re-clocking the cards to the 0a performance state for helping some of the GPUs that otherwise fail with memory re-clocking at 0f, as Nouveau developers have expressed this is the preferred approach for testing.

      • NVIDIA 375.10 Linux Driver Released, Supports GTX 1050 Series
      • Nvidia 375.10 Beta Linux Graphics Driver Released with GeForce GTX 1050 Support

        On October 20, 2016, Nvidia published a new Beta graphics driver for the Linux platform, adding support for some new GPUs the company launched recently, as well as various improvements and bug fixes.

        The Nvidia 375.10 Beta is now available for early adopters, but we don’t recommend installing it just yet if you’re looking for a stable and reliable gaming experience, adding support for Nvidia’s recently announced Nvidia GeForce GTX 1050 and GeForce GTX 1050 Ti graphics cards, as well as Nvidia Quadro P6000 and Nvidia Quadro P5000 GPUs.

        Another interesting change implemented in the new Beta video driver, which should hit the stable channels next month, is the addition of two new X11 configuration options, namely ForceCompositionPipeline and ForceFullCompositionPipeline, overriding the MetaMode tokens with the same names.

  • Applications

  • Desktop Environments/WMs

    • K Desktop Environment/KDE SC/Qt

  • Distributions

    • New Releases

      • Open-Source Budgie Desktop Sees New Release

        The pet parakeet of the Linux world, Budgie has a new release available for download. in this post we lookout what’s new and tell you how you can get it.

      • Solus Linux Making Performance Gains With Its BLAS Configuration

        -
        Those making use of the promising Solus Linux distribution will soon find their BLAS-based workloads are faster.

        Solus developer Peter O’Connor tweeted this week that he’s found some issues with the BLAS linking on the distribution and he’s made fixes for Solus. He also mentioned that he uncovered these BLAS issues by using our Phoronix Test Suite benchmarking software.

      • SalentOS “Luppìu” 1.0 released!

        With great pleasure the team announces the release of SalentOS “Luppìu” 1.0.

      • Slackel “Live kde” 4.14.21

        This release is available in both 32-bit and 64-bit architectures, while the 64-bit iso supports booting on UEFI systems.
        The 64-bit iso images support booting on UEFI systems.
        The 32-bit iso images support both i686 PAE SMP and i486, non-PAE capable systems.
        Iso images are isohybrid.

    • OpenSUSE/SUSE

      • openSUSE Tumbleweed – Review of the Week 2016/42

        This was week 42 – The openSUSE LEAP week of the Year. It can’t be a co-incidence that the Release Candidate 1 was announced in Week 42, on the 2nd day (42.2 – European counting, we start our week on Monday, not on Sunday).

        But also in Tumbleweed things are not standing still: of course many of the things are well in line with what Leap received (like for example Plasma updates), but Tumbleweed rolls at a different pace ahead of the game.

    • Red Hat Family

    • Debian Family

      • Derivatives

        • Canonical/Ubuntu

          • Flavours and Variants

            • Ubuntu MATE, Not Just a Whim

              I’ve stated for years how much I dislike Ubuntu’s Unity interface. Yes, it’s become more polished through the years, but it’s just not an interface that thinks the same way I do. That’s likely because I’m old and inflexible, but nevertheless, I’ve done everything I could to avoid using Unity, which usually means switching to Xubuntu. I actually really like Xubuntu, and the Xfce interface is close enough to the GNOME 2 look, that I hardly miss the way my laptop used to look before Unity.

              I wasn’t alone in my disdain for Ubuntu’s flagship desktop manager switch, and many folks either switched to Xubuntu or moved to another Debian/Ubuntu-based distro like Linux Mint. The MATE desktop started as a hack, in fact, because GNOME 3 and Unity were such drastic changes. I never really got into MATE, however, because I thought it was going to be nothing more than a hack and eventually would be unusable due to old GNOME 2 libraries phasing out and so forth.

  • Devices/Embedded

    • Renesas spins 3rd Gen automotive starter kits, adds new M3 SoC

      Renesas has launched two Linux-ready R-Car starter kits optimized for AGL and GENIVI: an R-Car H3 based “Premier” and a “Pro” with a lower-end M3 SoC.

      Later this month, Renesas will begin selling two third-generation starter kits for its 64-bit ARM-based R-Car automotive SoCs. The kits are designed for ADAS, infotainment, reconfigurable digital clusters, and integrated digital cockpits.

      The two kits are optimized for open source Linux standards like Automotive Grade Linux (AGL) and GENIVI, but they also support QNX. Earlier R-Car automotive starter kits include last year’s R-Car H2 ADAS Starter Kit, based on its earlier H2 automotive SoC.

    • Yocto driven camera design taps octa-core Snapdragon

      Qualcomm and Thundercomm unveiled a Linux-supported, 4K camera reference design with an octa-core Snapdragon 625 and video analytics software.

      Qualcomm and hardware partner Thundercomm Technology announced an IP Connected Camera reference design called the Snapdragon 625 IP Camera built around its 14nm-fabricated, octa-core Cortex-A53 Snapdragon 625 system-on-chip. This is Qualcomm’s first Connected Camera design to support Linux instead of Android.

Free Software/Open Source

  • The Open Source Way

    “Open source”, in the world of IT, is program code that is meant for collaboration and open contribution. Intended to be modified and shared, because by design and spirit, it is meant for the public at large.

    It’s been said that “”open source” intimates a broader set of values—what we call “the open source way.” Open source projects, products, or initiatives embrace and celebrate principles of open exchange, collaborative participation, rapid prototyping, transparency, meritocracy, and community-oriented development.” So it is a natural conclusion that in this age of open and transparent government, that the government IT manager or technician would be one of the first to want to embrace this new role of collaborative team member within a larger community.

  • Another rift in the open source BPM market: @FlowableBPM forks from @Alfresco Activiti

    In early 2013, Camunda – at the time, a value-added Activiti consulting partner as well as a significant contributor to the open source project – created a fork from Activiti to form what is now the Camunda open source BPM platform as well as their commercial version based on the open source core.

  • Pydio, an Open Source File Sharing and Sync Solution, Out in New Version

    If you’ve followed us here at OStatic, you’ve probably seen our coverage of open source file sharing, cloud and synchronization tools. For example, we’ve covered ownCloud and Nextcloud extensively.

    Not so many people know about Pydio, though, which is out in a new version Pydio7. It’s an open source file sharing & sync solution that now has a host of new features and performance upgrades. It’s worth downloading and trying.

    Through a new partnership with Collabora Productivity (the LibreOffice Cloud provider), Pydio7 now combines file sharing, document editing and online collaboration. Users can now not only access documents online, but also co-author new content and work collaboratively.

  • Web Browsers

  • SaaS/Back End

    • Open-Source Innovations Driving Demand for Hadoop

      AtScale, provider of BI (Business Intelligence) on Hadoop, has released its study titled “The Business Intelligence Benchmark for SQL-on-Hadoop engines,” which is a performance test of BI workloads on Hadoop. The report also studies the strengths and weaknesses of Hive, Presto, Impala and Spark SQL, which are the most popular analytical engines for Hadoop.

  • Pseudo-Open Source (Openwashing)

  • BSD

    • Lumina Desktop 1.1 Released

      The BSD-focused, Qt-powered Lumina Desktop Environment is out with its version 1.1 update.

      The developers behind the Lumina Desktop Environment consider it a “significant update” with both new and reworked utilities, infrastructure improvements, and other enhancements.

      Lumina 1.1 adds a pure Qt5 calculator, text editor improvements, the file manager has been completely overhauled, system application list management is much improved, and there is a range of other improvements.

  • Public Services/Government

    • EU-Fossa project submits results of code audits

      The European Commission’s ‘EU Free and Open Source Software Auditing’ project (EU-Fossa) has sent its code review results to the developers of Apache HTTP server target and KeePass. The audit results are not yet made public, however, no critical vulnerabilities were found.

  • Openness/Sharing/Collaboration

    • Open Hardware/Modding

      • New SafariSeat wheelchairs made from bicycle parts help East Africans roam rough terrain
      • SafariSeat, an Open Source Wheelchair for Rural Offroading

        If you’re disabled in a poorly developed part of the world, even a great modern wheelchair may be next to useless. What’s needed is a more off-road design that’s made to be easy to manufacture and repair than something built for a city with sidewalks.

        SafariSeat is a newly designed open-source wheelchair that hopes to make a big impact for disabled people the world over. It uses push bars for power and has large front wheels and small rear ones to easily roll over large objects.

        In a novel move, the designers included a moving seat that shifts bit every time you push the bars to help prevent pressure sores on the butt.

      • Five 3D printing projects for Halloween

        With Halloween fast approaching I figured it was time to add some 3D printed decorations to the office. Below are some of my pictures for fun Halloween-themed prints. I tried to pick some models that demonstrate varied printing techniques.

Leftovers

  • Health/Nutrition

  • Security

    • OOPS! Sometimes Even Linus Gets It Wrong!
    • Free tool protects PCs from master boot record attacks [Ed: UEFI has repeatedly been found to be both a detriment to security and enabler of Microsoft lock-in]

      Cisco’s Talos team has developed an open-source tool that can protect the master boot record of Windows computers from modification by ransomware and other malicious attacks.

      The tool, called MBRFilter, functions as a signed system driver and puts the disk’s sector 0 into a read-only state. It is available for both 32-bit and 64-bit Windows versions and its source code has been published on GitHub.

      The master boot record (MBR) consists of executable code that’s stored in the first sector (sector 0) of a hard disk drive and launches the operating system’s boot loader. The MBR also contains information about the disk’s partitions and their file systems.

      Since the MBR code is executed before the OS itself, it can be abused by malware programs to increase their persistence and gain a head start before antivirus programs. Malware programs that infect the MBR to hide from antivirus programs have historically been known as bootkits — boot-level rootkits.

      Microsoft attempted to solve the bootkit problem by implementing cryptographic verification of the bootloader in Windows 8 and later. This feature is known as Secure Boot and is based on the Unified Extensible Firmware Interface (UEFI) — the modern BIOS.

    • DDOS Attack On Internet Infrastructure

      I hope somebody’s paying attention. There’s been another big DDOS attack, this time against the infrastructure of the Internet. It began at 7:10 a.m. EDT today against Dyn, a major DNS host, and was brought under control at 9:36 a.m. According to Gizmodo, which was the first to report the story, at least 40 sites were made unreachable to users on the US East Coast. Many of the sites affected are among the most trafficed on the web, and included CNN, Twitter, PayPal, Pinterest and Reddit to name a few. The developer community was also touched, as GitHub was also made unreachable.

      This event comes on the heels of a record breaking 620 Gbps DDOS attack about a month ago that brought down security expert Brian Krebs’ website, KrebsonSecurity. In that attack, Krebs determined the attack had been launched by botnets that primarily utilized compromised IoT devices, and was seen by some as ushering in a new era of Internet security woes.

    • This Is Why Half the Internet Shut Down Today [Update: It’s Getting Worse]

      Twitter, Spotify and Reddit, and a huge swath of other websites were down or screwed up this morning. This was happening as hackers unleashed a large distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack on the servers of Dyn, a major DNS host. It’s probably safe to assume that the two situations are related.

    • Major DNS provider Dyn hit with DDoS attack

      Attacks against DNS provider Dyn continued into Friday afternoon. Shortly before noon, the company said it began “monitoring and mitigating a DDoS attack” against its Dyn Managed DNS infrastructure. The attack may also have impacted Managed DNS advanced service “with possible delays in monitoring.”

    • What We Know About Friday’s Massive East Coast Internet Outage

      Friday morning is prime time for some casual news reading, tweeting, and general Internet browsing, but you may have had some trouble accessing your usual sites and services this morning and throughout the day, from Spotify and Reddit to the New York Times and even good ol’ WIRED.com. For that, you can thank a distributed denial of service attack (DDoS) that took down a big chunk of the Internet for most of the Eastern seaboard.

      This morning’s attack started around 7 am ET and was aimed at Dyn, an Internet infrastructure company headquartered in New Hampshire. That first bout was resolved after about two hours; a second attack began just before noon. Dyn reported a third wave of attacks a little after 4 pm ET. In all cases, traffic to Dyn’s Internet directory servers throughout the US—primarily on the East Coast but later on the opposite end of the country as well—was stopped by a flood of malicious requests from tens of millions of IP addresses disrupting the system. Late in the day, Dyn described the events as a “very sophisticated and complex attack.” Still ongoing, the situation is a definite reminder of the fragility of the web, and the power of the forces that aim to disrupt it.

    • Either IoT will be secure or the internet will be crippled forever

      First things first a disclaimer. I neither like nor trust the National Security Agency (NSA). I believe them to be mainly engaged in economic spying for the corporate American empire. Glenn Greenwald has clearly proven that in his book No Place to Hide. At the NSA, profit and power come first and I have no fucking clue as to how high they prioritize national security. Having said that, the NSA should hack the Internet of (insecure) Things (IoT) to death. I know Homeland Security and the FBI are investigating where the DDoS of doomsday proportions is coming from and the commentariat is already screaming RUSSIA! But it is really no secret what is enabling this clusterfuck. It’s the Mirai botnet. If you buy a “smart camera” from the Chinese company Hangzhou XiongMai Technologies and do not change the default password, it will be part of a botnet five minutes after you connect it to the internet. We were promised a future where we would have flying cars but we’re living in a future where camera’s, light-bulbs, doorbells and fridges can get you in serious trouble because your home appliances are breaking the law.

    • IoT at the Network Edge

      Fog computing, also known as fog networking, is a decentralized computing infrastructure. Computing resources and application services are distributed in logical, efficient places at any points along the connection from the data source (endpoint) to the cloud. The concept is to process data locally and then use the network for communicating with other resources for further processing and analysis. Data could be sent to a data center or a cloud service. A worthwhile reference published by Cisco is the white paper, “Fog Computing and the Internet of Things: Extend the Cloud to Where the Things Are.”

    • Canonical now offers live kernel patching for Ubuntu 16.04 LTS users

      Canonical has announced its ‘Livepatch Service’ which any user can enable on their current installations to eliminate the need for rebooting their machine after installing an update for the Linux kernel. With the release of Linux 4.0, users have been able to update their kernel packages without rebooting, however, Ubuntu will be the first distribution to offer this feature for free.

    • ​The Dirty Cow Linux bug: A silly name for a serious problem

      Dirty Cow is a silly name, but it’s a serious Linux kernel problem. According to the Red Hat bug report, “a race condition was found in the way the Linux kernel’s memory subsystem handled the copy-on-write (COW) breakage of private read-only memory mappings. An unprivileged local user could use this flaw to gain write access to otherwise read-only memory mappings and thus increase their privileges on the system.”

    • Ancient Privilege Escalation Bug Haunts Linux
    • October 21, 2016 Is Dirty COW a serious concern for Linux?
    • There is a Dirty Cow in Linux
    • Red Hat Discovers Dirty COW Archaic Linux Kernel Flaw Exploited In The Wild
    • Linux kernel bug being exploited in the wild
    • Update Linux now: Critical privilege escalation security flaw gives hackers full root access
    • Linux kernel bug: DirtyCOW “easyroot” hole and what you need to know
    • ‘Most serious’ Linux privilege-escalation bug ever discovered
    • New ‘Dirty Cow’ vulnerability threatens Linux systems
    • Serious Dirty Cow Linux Vulnerability Under Attack
    • Easy-to-exploit rooting flaw puts Linux PCs at risk
    • Linux just patched a vulnerability it’s had for 9 years
    • Dirty COW Linux vulnerability has existed for nine years
    • ‘Dirty Cow’ Linux Vulnerability Found
    • ‘Dirty Cow’ Linux Vulnerability Found After Nine Years
    • FakeFile Trojan Opens Backdoors on Linux Computers, Except openSUSE

      Malware authors are taking aim at Linux computers, more precisely desktops and not servers, with a new trojan named FakeFile, currently distributed in live attacks.

      Russian antivirus vendor Dr.Web discovered this new trojan in October. The company’s malware analysts say the trojan is spread in the form of an archived PDF, Microsoft Office, or OpenOffice file.

  • Defence/Aggression

    • [Older] US Air Force Carries Out Mock Nuclear Bomb Tests in Nevada Desert

      Two surveillance flight tests using mock B61-7 and B61-11 nuclear bombs were successfully carried out in the Nevada desert several weeks ago, according to a release last week.

      The mock bombs did not carry any nuclear devices but instead recorded information on how the bombs performed during the test runs. The tests were jointly conducted at Tonopah Test Range by the U.S. Air Force’s Global Strike Command and the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA).

      Two B-2A Spirit stealth bombers dropped the mock bombs to “allow scientists and engineers from national laboratories to assess their performance” and they “contain no nuclear materials and are not capable of nuclear yield,” the NNSA said in a news release on Oct. 6.

    • Sweden’s unethical – and unlawful ­­– arms deals with ISIS-backing Saudis

      Prime Minister of Sweden Stefan Löfven, and with him the Swedish arms-dealer magnate Jacob Wallenberg, are travelling to Saudi Arabia in official visit. The meetings with the Saudis, as announced by the Swedish Radio, shall aim to “increase the exchange” between the two countries. [1] At the same time, the Chairman of the Defence Committee in the Swedish Parliament, Mr Allan Widman, is now demanding that Sweden should send arms to US-backed Pershmerga, integrating the US & Saudi-led coalition in Iraq. [2]

      The above-mentioned issues are not only connected in its timing, but also produced against the backdrop of the US and Saudi’s instigated Syria war aimed to depose the legitimate government of Assad, and the confrontation pursued by NATO and its political front EU against Russia. Evidence put forward in the US, among other by Senator Richard Black, show that Saudi Arabia has been financing/arming ISIS jihadists. [3] The Senator revealed also that “Saudi Arabia and Turkey formed the Army of Conquer and coordinated ISIS and Al-Qaida”. Further, emails published by WikiLeaks’ Podesta series revealed that Hillary Clinton has been fully aware – already since 2014 – of the fact that both Saudi Arabia and Qatar were financing ISIS.[3] On the other hand, the US government has claimed the responsibility for financing, training and arming so-called “moderate rebels” – the “moderate terrorists” – which together with ISIS maintain a common war against the government of Syria.

    • Philippine President’s Most Searing Insults to World Leaders

      Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte is known for saying things that are quite scandalous and many would consider unsayable. However, his outspoken style and crime-fighting record is making him quite popular with many Filipinos. Here are some of his most outrageous statements.

  • Transparency/Investigative Reporting

    • A Quick Logic Lesson For Confused WikiLeaks Haters

      I know the following might be difficult to grasp for all you amateur internet logicians out there, but give it the ol’ college try anyhow. (I also know there’s a strand of Ironic Twitter commentary which immediately discounts the invocation of “Logic!” as somehow inherently foolhardy, and while I’ve often found such memes funny, logic is an important field of philosophy and everyone should study it. For serious.)

      Tonight, in his infinite wisdom, Sean Hannity tweeted out an approbation of WikiLeaks.

      [...]

      Drawing attention to Hannity’s change of heart on WikiLeaks — he unsurprisingly called Chelsea Manning treasonous back in 2010 when WikiLeaks published the Iraq/Afghanistan logs and the State Department cable trove — is just the heroes’ latest attempt to show that WikiLeaks is now Bad with a capital B, after having previously been Good with a capital G. Let’s work out how their logical theorem progresses.

      Sean Hannity is Bad
      Sean Hannity likes WikiLeaks
      WikiLeaks is therefore bad

      Wow, good stuff here — the type of staggeringly incisive philosophizing that would’ve made W. V. Quine envious. I guess we should briefly “unpack” why this logic is faulty, for the edification of very desperately confused people on the internet.

      Hannity might indeed be bad with a capital B, but his being Bad doesn’t ipso facto make anything he likes Bad. For instance, Hannity may well also like dogs. I’ll be damned if dogs are Bad because Bad Hannity likes them. Please do not sully our canine friends by dint of their association with Hannity.

      Let’s go to another extreme. Genocide is not bad because Hitler did it, genocide is bad because there are all sorts of reasons that can be marshaled to prove its badness: it’s bad to kill people on account of their inborn characteristics, etc. Hitler is also bad, but his being bad is not what inherently makes genocide bad.

    • Just How Wise Is It When Marco Rubio Promises To Swear Off Factual Information From Wikileaks?

      Amidst the reporting and fervor over the email hack of Hillary Clinton’s campaign chairman, John Podesta, there has been something of a recent discussion that has begun over the ethics of circulating what is in that hacked cache. Some within the media itself have worried about about reporting either too much on the hacked emails, or even at all in some cases, with still others going for a more nuanced position of encouraging the reporting of information in the public interest while leaving all the personal stuff in the emails undisclosed to whatever degree is possible.

  • Finance

    • What’s scarier than Donald Trump? Hillary Clinton’s plans to gut Social Security

      As the sun sets on Donald Trump’s presidential ambitions, a likely Hillary Clinton victory means her intent to defund Social Security may come to fruition.

      The Democratic nominee recently came under fire in revealing articles by Naked Capitalism’s Yves Smith and International Business Times’ David Sirota, for her potential plans to introduce mandatory retirement savings accounts set up to enrich Wall Street — rather than expanding Social Security.

    • CETA Talks Break Down: “It is Evident that the EU Is Incapable of Reaching an Agreement”

      International Trade Minister Chrystia Freeland has walked out of talks aimed at addressing Belgian opposition to the Canada-EU Trade Agreement, stating:

      I have personally worked very hard, but it is now evident to me, evident to Canada, that the European Union is incapable of reaching an agreement – even with a country with European values such as Canada, even with a country as nice and as patient as Canada. Canada is disappointed and I personally am disappointed, but I think it’s impossible. We are returning home.

      Leaving aside the odd reference to how nice Canada is, this is remarkable language that lays bare the obvious frustration and disappointment for the government which prioritized the CETA agreement above all others. The prospect of the deal falling apart has been evident for months. I wrote in July that the agreement was in more trouble than the Canadian government would admit, noting that opposition from any national or regional government could kill CETA altogether. Canadian officials downplayed the risk, but it was obvious that CETA faced stiff opposition that would not be easy to overcome.

  • AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics

    • WikiLeaks: Bill Clinton took home ‘expensive gifts’ from foundation donors

      Emails made public Thursday by WikiLeaks suggest Bill Clinton accepted “expensive gifts” from Clinton Global Initiative donors and kept them at his home.
      In a November 2011 email to John Podesta, currently Hillary Clinton’s campaign chairman, complaining of the conflicts of interest that plagued the Clinton Global Initiative, longtime confidante Doug Band mentioned that the former president had several undisclosed conflicts.

      “He is personally paid by 3 cgi sponsors [sic], gets many expensive gifts from them, some that are at home etc,” Band wrote.

      Band had recently left a position at the foundation to co-found a consulting firm called Teneo Strategies. In his email, he lamented that he had been forced to sign a disclosure form as a board member of the Clinton Global Initiative, while Bill Clinton had not.

    • Leaked Email Reveals Sady Doyle, Other Liberal Bloggers Coordinated with Clinton Campaign on Sanders Hits

      As WikiLeaks continues to leak emails from the Clinton campaign, new lights are shed on the tactics that the campaign has employed. In one such email, the Clinton campaign describes a call with several bloggers who discussed attacks that could be made against Clinton’s primary opponent Bernie Sanders related to racial and reproductive rights.

      [...]

      With Clinton’s lead in the polls solid, it’s unclear if these new leaks will do substantial damage, even if they don’t necessarily help her. After all, her opponent is degrading democracy itself by spurning the peaceful transition of presidential power.

    • WikiLeaks emails part curtain on a nearly elected Obama considering White House staff

      The anti-secrecy group WikiLeaks on Thursday released a handful of Barack Obama’s emails from a period immediately before he was elected in 2008, including several that revealed names of people Obama was considering for senior roles and one that reflected care in avoiding a transition conflict with President George W. Bush.

      The emails span a period from Oct. 6, 2008, until Election Day that year, Nov. 4, and several include comments from “Barack,” who used the email address: bobama@ameritech.net.

    • No, Hillary, 17 U.S. Intelligence Agencies Did Not Say Russia Hacked Dem E-mails

      Hillary Clinton in last night’s presidential debate tried to avoid talking about the substance of the damaging WikiLeaks disclosures of DNC and Clinton campaign officials by claiming 17 U.S. intelligence agencies determined that Russia was responsible for this. After Clinton made this claim, she scolded Trump for challenging U.S. intelligence professionals who have taken an oath to help defend this country.

      What Clinton said was false and misleading. First of all, only two intelligence entities – the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (DNI) and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) – have weighed in on this issue, not 17 intelligence agencies. And what they said was ambiguous about Russian involvement.

    • WikiLeaks: Clinton Foundation Paid Women Less Than Men

      The Clinton Foundation in 2011 employed more women than men but paid them less, on average, according to a salary schedule included in an email released Friday by WikiLeaks.

      A foundation employee emailed the payroll schedule to board Chairman Bruce Lindsey and John Podesta, who currently chairs Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign. It included then-Chief Operating Office and Chief of Staff Laura Graham’s salary recommendations for 2012 for rank-and-file employees.

    • Dublin school board member linked to WikiLeaks

      A local school board member, whose father is head of Hillary Clinton’s campaign, has been connected to allegations sprung from WikiLeaks.

      Megan Rouse, a Dublin school board member elected in 2014, was mentioned in the hacked email allegations that her father, John Podesta, at one time had stocks connected to a firm that had ties to Russia. Documents show that Podesta received 75,000 shares of Joule Unlimited Technologies. Podesta is Clinton’s campaign chair.

      The hacked Jan. 3, 2014 document shows that Podesta transferred more than 25,000 of these shares to Leonidio Holdings LLC, which had an address listed as Rouse’s Shannon Court home in Dublin. Rouse operates Megan Rouse Financial Planning from that same address.

    • What The WikiLeaks Emails Reveal About Branding Hillary

      Pundits all across America are poring over the Podesta emails, emails released by WikiLeaks that show the behind-the-scenes dealings of Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign. At the end of the day, those emails might end up containing more tasty risotto recipes than actual scandals.

      But for design lovers, there’s at least one bombshell: If not for a passionate email written by one of Coca-Cola’s chief marketing gurus, renowned design firm Pentagram could have lost Hillary Clinton as a client just two months before her logo debuted to the world.

      Reporting on leaked emails is justifiably contentious, as conversations that participants had every reason to believe were private are given scrutiny they were never meant to have. (Pentagram partner Michael Bierut, who oversaw designing the identity, declined to comment on the record when we reached out to him.) Still, we think this exchange—already, at this point, a matter of public record as part of the greater Podesta email leaks—is worth highlighting. Not just because it’s a rare glimpse behind the design process of a major political campaign, but because some of the arguments could be assigned reading in any branding class.

      The exchange in question involves Wendy Clark, a Coca-Cola marketing veteran who consulted on Hillary’s branding before becoming the North American president and CEO of the ad agency DDB Worldwide, and Joel Benenson, the chief strategist for the Clinton 2016 campaign.

    • Leaked email: Hillary Clinton told “radical environmentalists” to “get a life,” defended fracking and pipelines

      Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton condemned the “radical environmentalists” behind Bernie Sanders’ campaign, indicating they should “get a life,” according to a transcript of her comments at a September 2015 meeting with a construction union.

      Clinton also reaffirmed her support for fracking and pipelines and made it clear that her opposition to the Keystone XL pipeline was a calculated political move.

      The transcript was included in an email to Clinton campaign chair John Podesta released this week in a trove of documents by the whistleblowing journalism organization WikiLeaks.

      “You know from my perspective, this is just one of these issues,” Clinton said of the Keystone XL pipeline at the meeting. “It’s symbolic and it’s not going to go away.”

      “They’re all hanging on to it,” she continued. “So you know Bernie Sanders is getting lots of support from the most radical environmentalists because he’s out there every day bashing the Keystone pipeline.”

    • WikiLeaks Reveals DNC Elevated Trump to Help Clinton

      In June 2015, Donald Trump announced his presidential campaign.

      According to an email from Marissa Astor, Clinton campaign manager Robby Mook’s assistant, to Clinton campaign chair John Podesta, the campaign knew Trump was going to run, and pushed his legitimacy as a candidate. WikiLeaks’ release shows that it was seen as in Clinton’s best interest to run against Trump in the general election. The memo, sent to the Democratic National Committee (DNC) also reveals the DNC and Clinton campaign were strategizing on behalf of their candidate at the very beginning of the primaries. “We think our goals mirror those of the DNC,” stated the memo, attached to the email under the title “muddying the waters.”

      The memo named Trump, Sen. Ted Cruz, and Ben Carson as wanted candidates. “We need to be elevating the Pied Piper candidates so that they are leaders of the pack and tell the press to them seriously,” the memo noted.

  • Censorship/Free Speech

    • Freedom Of Expression Under Attack, Says UN Special Rapporteur

      Governments worldwide are engaging in censorship and punishing those who report or post opinions, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the freedom of opinion and expression, David Kaye, says in a report on the widespread global assault on the freedom of expression to be presented to the UN General Assembly today.

    • Tripura: No magisterial-level interference in media censorship and news dissimination

      According to the video footage, Jhumu Sarkar, Barjala candidate fielded by the ruling party was seen fighting with females in drunken condition. The incident occurred at Lankamura on October 12 centering immersion of Durga idol.

      After that, the TV channel was censored in visuals for few minutes. The by-elections in Barjala seat and Khowai seat would be held on November 19. Results of the elections would be declared on November 22.

    • Blocking of RT Accounts in UK is ‘Censorship and Example of Double Standards’

      RT’s Editor-in-Chief Margarita Simonyan said Monday that the international broadcaster’s accounts had been blocked in the United Kingdom. RT UK said it had been informed by NatWest that its banking arrangements with RT were null and void.

  • Privacy/Surveillance

    • Google’s ad tracking is as creepy as Facebook’s. Here’s how to disable it

      Google has changed the way it tracks users across the internet so that it can now link people’s personally identifiable information from Gmail, YouTube and other accounts with their browsing records across the web. The company had previously pledged to keep these two data sets separate to protect individuals’ privacy.

      As first reported by Propublica, Google quietly updated its privacy settings in June to delete a clause that said “we will not combine DoubleClick cookie information with personally identifiable information unless we have your opt-in consent”.

      DoubleClick is an advertising serving and tracking company that Google bought in 2007. DoubleClick uses web cookies to track browsing behaviour online by their IP address to deliver targeted ads. It can make a good guess about your location and habits, but it doesn’t know your true identity.

  • Civil Rights/Policing

    • S’pore prison to look into alleged abuse of jailed blogger Amos Yee

      Singapore prison authorities said today that investigations are being launched into allegations that jailed teenage blogger Amos Yee has been assaulted by prison inmates.

      Yee began a six-week jail term on Sept 29 after he pleaded guilty to six charges of wounding the religious feelings of Muslims and Christians, through comments made on social media.

      But on Wednesday a Facebook post from the activist group Community Action Network (CAN) said that the group had been informed that Yee had been threatened, slapped and kicked by inmates.

      In a statement to dpa, the Singapore Prisons Service confirmed they were “aware” of the allegations made by Amos Yee, emphasising that the prison is committed to inmate safety and security.

    • Actress Shailene Woodley Reveals She Was Strip-Searched After Her Arrest Protesting Dakota Pipeline

      Actress Shailene Woodley pleaded not guilty on charges related to the resistance to the $3.8 billion Dakota Access pipeline on Wednesday. She was arrested along with 27 others in North Dakota on October 10 during actions to mark Indigenous Peoples’ Day. Woodley was strip-searched and then put in an orange jump suit in the Morton County jail, which appears to be a common practice even for low-level misdemeanor charges. Woodley told Democracy Now!, “Never did it cross my mind that while trying to protect clean water, trying to ensure a future where our children have access to an element essential for human survival, would I be strip-searched. I was just shocked.” Standing Rock Sioux Tribal Chair Dave Archambault II and others have also been strip-searched after being arrested for nonviolent civil disobedience against the pipeline.

    • FBI Director: We Need More Data On Police Shootings So Law Enforcement Can ‘Change The Narrative’

      FBI Director James Comey didn’t dig into his bag of “Ferguson Effect” rhetorical devices during his comments to a law enforcement conference on Sunday, but he came close. Under that theory, the possibility of being held accountable by citizens and their recording devices has apparently been holding officers back from enforcing laws, making arrests, or otherwise earning their paychecks.

      The problem now is a lack of data, Comey claims. Law enforcement has lost control of the narrative, he stated, as if a one-sided portrayal of every police use of excessive/deadly force was somehow beneficial to the nation.

  • Internet Policy/Net Neutrality

    • FTC Warns AT&T Court Victory On Throttling Could Screw Consumers For Decades

      AT&T stopped selling unlimited wireless data plans back in 2011, and instead started pushing more expensive capped and metered plans. Existing unlimited users at the time were “grandfathered,” but AT&T went out of its way to make life as unpleasant as possible for these users, ranging from blocking them from using Facetime unless they subscribed to metered plans, to throttling these “unlimited” users after only consuming a few gigabytes of data. Ultimately AT&T faced a $100 million fine by the FCC (currently being contested by AT&T), and a 2014 lawsuit by the FTC for misleading consumers and dramatically changing the terms of service while users were under contract.

10.21.16

Battistelli-Commissioned PwC ‘Study’: Survey Comparison Shows Serious Deterioration and Efforts by PwC to Disguise the Truth

Posted in Deception, Europe, Patents at 9:57 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC): best propaganda money can buy?

PwC survey

Survey Comparison. Large version.

Summary: The latest output from PwC turns out to be even worse than initially thought, indicating that not only did it find a degradation in the EPO but also attempted to hide/obscure it

THE situation at the EPO is getting out of hand, to the point where Battistelli has made up some new and truly silly “Social Conference” (more waste of money which corrupts truth and journalism) in which to lie and deny the crisis.

In no sane institution where accountability exists would Battistelli have kept his job this long.

“We are hoping that more people will leak to us material that’s related to this.”Looking at a comparison of surveys, it becomes ever more apparent that not only Battistelli lies; the people whom he hired are lying as well.

The picture “Survey Comparison” (it’s really self-explanatory), as shown above, is quite revealing and it relates to the study’s criticism (see “Battistelli-Commissioned PwC 'Study': The Raw Outcome Shows Distortion of the Facts at the EPO's Notorious 'Social Conference'“).

“Survey Comparison” is a comparison of the 2016 results with those of 2011 and it “reveals that the deterioration of the social climate is reflected also by the data collected by PwC, despite their efforts of hiding the truth,” a source told us. We are hoping that more people will leak to us material that’s related to this. We actually got some leaks on the very same day the 'studies' got published internally. We rely on these leaks to tell the truth. Properly scrutinised, these surveys can actually be used against Battistelli, which is perhaps why these never got released to the public (only flawed “conclusions” were advertised and linked to 3 times over the past week in Twitter). █

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