Editors • About the Site • Comes vs. Microsoft • Using This Web Site • Site Archives • Credibility Index • OOXML • OpenDocument • Patents • Novell • News Digest • Site News • RSS

01.01.16

Meeting the EPO’s PR Team and Learning Its Dirty Tricks

Posted in Europe, Marketing, Patents at 12:46 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

Summary: How the controversial European Patent Office (EPO) is working behind the scenes in order to police its portrayal and also shape news about the EPO

ONE aspect of the EPO which we never explored in depth is the so-called ‘communications’ department (a more recent euphemism for propaganda). Don’t forget the circumstances under which Vincent Bénard left (there were other such stories — some even more shocking — at that time).

Based on our reliable sources, who had experience with the EPO’s media- or trend-setting team, the PR team of the Office has the “sweet talkers”. These are the people who will pretend to be your friends or “buddies”, as journalists who were subjected to similar treatment from Microsoft PR agencies called it. This is what some of these people are professionally trained to do. Moreover, we managed to learn that they also have the people who are actually pressuring (even over the phone) not to publish certain things. Well, pressuring publications is not PR, it’s almost a form of bullying. We learned that editors and publishers are given marching orders for writers (commissioning work). If there was a propaganda minister at Munich, who would it be?

“Moreover, we managed to learn that they also have the people who are actually pressuring (even over the phone) not to publish certain things.”We learned that the EPO’s PR team has, at times, attempted to change existing (to be published) stories by asking publishers to make them balanced rather than “biased”, meaning not favourable to the EPO’s image. Rainer (“Press spokesperson” is his job title) is allegedly doing a lot of the communications, sometimes Jeremy also (watch how he and IAM ‘magazine’ worked hand in glove, so to speak). We can’t help but wonder what made the BBC spike a negative story about the EPO. Jana Mittermaier is not directly involved all that much, at least not with media organisations. She had studied in the UK, where Jeremy also came from.

Remember that the EPO is an international body, not a European body, so wasting money on improving its image isn’t even designed/intended to serve European interests. The “E” in EPO is very misleading. Recall the greenwashing PR campaign (expensive EPO-commissioned ‘study’), coinciding with climate talks in Paris. This one example and other patterns of PR as of late serve to show just how desperate the EPO is for positive messages (it’s willing to pay to ‘manufacture’ these).

“The EPO is quite a greased-up propaganda machine.”One other thing we learned is that — much as we predicted all along — it is now confirmed that the EPO’s PR team sends (in mass or bulk) press releases to a lot of sites, attempting to seed their so-called ‘story’ du jour (sometimes commissioned ‘study’). This method is rather effective at getting one's message out there if one is not shy to stoop down to this level. A lot of PR people lost this sense of shame as do this habitually (“everyone’s doing it!”), sending lots of junk even to complete strangers whom they never ever spoke to.

Perhaps the most shocking thing that we learned is that the editors in some publications put pressure on their writers to write articles or something similar (more like “announcements”) based on press releases sent by the EPO. This is based on what we learned privately. It’s not just hearsay.

The EPO is quite a greased-up propaganda machine. Techrights is up against something that calls itself “patent office” but has a massive PR operation (and fancy events for so-called ‘inventors’ of the year); it’s something which calls itself “European” but is run by and for globalists. A lot of the PR too (operating at a budget of nearly $100,000 per month!) has been outsourced to the United States. █

European Patent Office (EPO) Starts New Year With Hogwash

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

Lipstick on a warthog

Warthog

Summary: Only hours after the new year kicks in the EPO kick-starts what seems like a new PR (or ‘damage control’) strategy which gives the illusion of patent neutrality

ALMOST nobody writes anything on the morning of January 1st, let alone goes to work. But the EPO, desperate for a fresh start, now responds to the scandal involving prioritisation of large companies (see context) by announcing change of policy when nobody is even supposed to be at the Office. Not even journalists are around. What seems like ‘damage control’ was even restoring activity or bringing back to life the Twitter account of the EPO (for the first time in a long while). It’s not a scheduled (automated) publication. Someone appears to be working just on that.

It’s not hard to see who the EPO really works for. Just watch all the lobbying for the UPC, which is constructed to benefit patent lawyers and their super-rich clients (usually not even European). Here we see a very large firm as such, having just posted or merely reposted in another lawyers’ publication its tips for getting past the ‘pesky’ examiners/judges (those who can reject patent applications).

“It’s not hard to see who the EPO really works for. Just watch all the lobbying for the UPC, which is constructed to benefit patent lawyers and their super-rich clients (usually not even European).”“2015 was a busy year for the EPO Boards of Appeal,” say the patent lawyers, “with many decisions across various technical areas delivered. These included four G decisions from the Enlarged Board. Here we have provided a non-exhaustive overview of many of the decisions, including G decisions and T decisions with a distribution code of C (to board chairmen) or higher (to board member or even published in the Official Journal).”

The EFF, in the mean time, posts a review about patent trolls in 2015 (increasingly an issue in Europe as of last year, only to get worse with UPC).

EPO, we've got you watched this year. █

Links 1/1/2016: WebGL2 in Firefox Nightly, Gentoo on PS4

Posted in News Roundup at 7:10 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

GNOME bluefish

Contents

GNU/Linux

Free Software/Open Source

  • MuseScore 2.0.2 Brings A Bunch Of New Features

    As you may know, MuseScore is an open-source music composition and notation software, allowing the users tp create, edit and print music in an WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) environment.

  • How software developers helped end the Ebola epidemic in Sierra Leone

    A team of open source software developers solved the problem that most urgently needed solving: distributing wages to healthcare workers

  • 2015 at a glance: Open Source Yearbook

    For our first Open Source Yearbook, we reached out to dozens of open source organizations and community members and asked them to contribute articles that help provide a feel for 2015. What were a few of the LibreOffice extensions that stood out in 2015? Which Drupal modules were notable? Which books would publishers highlight if they could only pick a handful from the past year? What did open source wearables and 3D printing look like in 2015? And how in the world could we pick one best couple for our yearbook without offending all the other fabulous open source couples in the world? The 2015 Open Source Yearbook answers all these questions, and many more.

  • Open source means choice

    In the late 90s I was ensconced in the Microsoft ecosystem. With the introduction of Windows, personal computer users were being pushed away from the command line. But I stubbornly kept an MS-DOS terminal close by. For reasons now lost to the receding tide of memory, one day I found myself installing Cygwin, a suite of commonly used software and command-line tools that ran within a terminal or X-Window. My introduction to a unix-like environment impressed me. The day I typed “startx” and my screen exploded with tiny x’s sealed the deal. At that time (around 1998), anyone familiar with unix had become aware of the upstart unix-like operating system, Linux, developed around Linus Torvalds’ college software project. When Red Hat Linux 5.2 became available I rushed to my local computer store, intrigued by the new operating system that cost half the price of Windows.

  • Events

    • Closing the Book on Linux and FOSS for 2015

      Sarah Sharp Joins SCALE Keynote Roster: While the SCALE Team is still busy with preparations for SCALE 14X, the first-of-the-year FOSS event worldwide in Pasadena in three weeks, one specific development is that Sarah Sharp joins the list of keynoters. Sharp will speak on “Improving Diversity with Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs” on Sunday morning, Feb. 24. She joins Cory Doctorow, who is the Friday keynoter at SCALE 14X, with the Saturday keynote yet to be determined. Watch this space.

  • Web Browsers

    • Mozilla

      • WebGL2 enabled in Firefox Nightly
      • Firefox Turns On Its WebGL 2 Support

        For users of Firefox Nightly builds, WebGL 2 support is now enabled.

        Jeff Muizelaar mentioned that WebGL 2 is now enabled within Firefox nightly builds. The WebGL 2 implementation isn’t yet fully complete, but is at least to a point that it’s working well enough for most modern content written against the provisional specification. Jeff mentioned it in this blog post.

  • Education

  • Pseudo-/Semi-Open Source (Openwashing)

  • BSD

    • BSD: A Brief Look Back at 2015

      This is the time of year when we look back and go, “Wow. How did this all ever happen?” Or something to that effect. And after about a month of PC-BSD daily use, the verdict so far (subject to appeal) is overwhelmingly positive with a couple of bumps (e.g., someday I will turn off tap-to-click on my touchpad).

      Of course when I look back on the year, I can only look back as far as the time I have been using BSD. It wouldn’t be fair to go all the way back — one time back in the aughts, by some miracle, I got NetBSD to run on a PowerBook G3 until I updated the system and then poof — so this retrospective goes as far back as the month I’ve been using PC-BSD.

  • FSF/FSFE/GNU/SFLC

    • November/December 2015 – Gent and Mexico

      RMS gave his speech “Copyright vs Community” at the Quetelet auditorium, Sint Pietersplein, in Gent, Belgium, on November 17th, to a diverse student audience.

    • Happy GNU Year! Last chance to give in 2015

      Thanks to the free software community’s giving, we have already raised more than $250,000 toward our goal of $450,000 by January 31st, 2016. As we look to the new year, we at the Free Software Foundation are feeling optimistic about our plans for 2016.d

  • Openness/Sharing

    • Glass Half – Brilliant and Hilarious short from the Blender Institute.

      Directed by Beorn Leonard and produced by Ton Roosendaal, Blender’s original founder and chairman of the Blender Foundation, the film is reminiscent in tone of Pixar’s shorts, with the key difference that all assets, including tutorials for some of the techniques used in the film, are free and can be downloaded from Blender’s Cloud storage service.

    • France’s first Digital Law co-created with citizens

      The French draft law Loi Numérique will be presented to the French Parliament on 19 January, after being co-created with citizens through an online public consultation. This is the first law in France resulting from a co-design process.

    • Open Data

      • Northern Ireland launches its open data portal

        Northern Ireland has officially launched its open data portal, OpenDataNI, the goal of which is to provide a global platform where public services and all governmental agencies can publish data.

        This CKan-based portal is now accessible through NIDirect, the official governmental portal for Northern Ireland citizens, which states that it provides ‘a single point of access to public sector information and services’.

    • Open Hardware

  • Programming

Leftovers

  • Cloudy With a Chance of Lock-In

    Software as a service to many people is the way to convert what used to be licensed software into a repeat revenue stream and in principle there is nothing wrong with that if done properly (Adobe almost gets it right). But if the internet connection is down and your software no longer works, if the data you painstakingly built up over years goes missing because a service dies or because your account gets terminated for no apparent reason and without any recourse you might come to the same conclusion that I came to: if it requires an online service and is not actually an online product I can do just fine without it.

  • Hysteria on social media as BBC websites go offline

    The BBC experienced a major technical issue on Thursday morning, with all of its websites and several of its digital services offline.

    “We’re aware of a technical issue affecting the BBC website and are working to fix this now. We’ll update you as soon as we can,” the BBC press office said on Twitter.

    The internet did not cope well with this news.

  • A knighthood for Lynton Crosby: government under fire for political honours

    The government has been accused of turning the honours system into an “old boy’s club” after Lynton Crosby, the political strategist who ran the Conservatives’ 2015 election campaign, was awarded a knighthood.

  • Creationism Evangelist: God Put Contradictions in the Bible to ‘Weed Out’ the Atheists

    Young Earth creationism evangelist Kent Hovind asserted this week that God had purposefully put contradictions in the Bible to “weed out” non-believers.

  • Science

    • Heartfelt rationality

      The various branches of the alternative industry make a lot of claims, and a lot of money off these claims. We looked into homeopathy, healing, detox, acupuncture and strange panacea machines supposedly utilizing bio-resonance or quantum mechanics. (Astrologists, psychics and mediums got a showing too, but let’s leave them alone to lick their wounds for now.)

  • Health/Nutrition

    • Dad Arrested, His 2-yo Daughter Taken, for Successfully Treating Her Cancer with Cannabis Oil

      As cannabis is taken more seriously as a medicine and a treatment, more people are taking a chance and using it as a treatment for terminal illnesses. This treatment has had overwhelmingly positive results for countless people who had no other hope of recovery. Every day more stories and scientific studies are appearing from all over the world where people of all ages, even young children, are cured of life-threatening illnesses with cannabis oil.

    • Australia’s big win in Philip Morris plain packaging arbitration

      Plain packaging has been a hot topic on the Kat this year, most recently with Guest Kat Niko’s post on the topic here. But if you thought that would be the last on the matter in 2015, think again. From the AmeriKat’s colleague, Jin Ooi (Allen & Overy), comes news of the latest development concerning Australia’s tobacco plain packaging legislation. The latest news saw a “win” for the Australian government against Philip Morris Asia Limited (“PM Asia”) in which the arbitral tribunal seated in Singapore issued a unanimous decision that it has no jurisdiction to hear Philip Morris’ claim.

  • Security

    • Don’t believe the hype: That GRUB backspace bug wasn’t a big deal

      You can hack any Linux system just by pressing the backspace key 28 times! That’s what some sites would have you believe after an unfortunate GRUB bug was recently made public. But this won’t actually allow you to easily own any Linux system.

    • Researcher criticises ‘weak’ crypto in Internet of Things alarm system

      Security shortcomings in an internet-connected burglar alarm system from UK firm Texecom leave it open to hack attacks, an engineer turned security researcher warns.

      Luca Lo Castro said he had come across shortcomings in the encryption of communication after buying Texecom’s Premier Elite Control Panel and ComIP module and assembling it.

      To be able to remote control the alarm system remotely, you open a firewall port in the router and do a port forwarding to the internet. But this allows the mobile app to directly connect to the ComIP module over an unencrypted connection, Lo Castro discovered.

      Using WireShark, he said he had discovered that data traffic between the mobile app and the control panel is done in clear text or encoded to BASE64. That means potentially confidential information like the alarm control panel (UDL) password, device name and location are exposed, as a blog post by Lo Castro explains.

    • New Year’s Eve security updates
    • The current state of boot security

      I gave a presentation at 32C3 this week. One of the things I said was “If any of you are doing seriously confidential work on Apple laptops, stop. For the love of god, please stop.” I didn’t really have time to go into the details of that at the time, but right now I’m sitting on a plane with a ridiculous sinus headache and the pseudoephedrine hasn’t kicked in yet so here we go.

  • Defence/Police/Secrecy/Aggression

    • Sorry Bro, Maybe Next Week: Keep Calm and Troll ISIS

      Reminding us the Revolution may well be tweeted if not televised, ISIS again used its much-vaunted social media savvy this weekend to broadcast the first new online rallying cry since May. In the 24-minute address delivered through ISIS-aligned media accounts, leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi told his audience, “Be confident that God will grant victory to those who worship him, and hear the good news that our state is doing well. We urgently call upon every Muslim to join the fight, especially those in the land of the two shrines (Saudi Arabia).” The message was re-tweeted in English by Iyad El-Baghdadi, a prominent human rights activist and ISIS foe initially confused by many online with al-Baghdadi himself. Soon after posting the ISIS message, he started getting mock replies from folks who preferred to join a growing, deft flurry of online anti-ISIS activity aimed at proving that “making fun of the enemy is the best way of defeating them.”

    • Erdogan’s Family Caught in New Scandal

      The clan relations principle has been a prime factor in business affairs for centuries in numerous Islamic and Middle Eastern countries. Unfortunately, in recent months we’ve often witnessed evidence that in Turkey the family of Tayyip Erdogan has been transformed in some sort of carnivorous octopus that has not simply entangled the Turkish economy and politics, but has also extended its tentacles far beyond the state.

      It is hardly necessary to remind anyone of all the scandals in which the members of this family have been engaged. Here are just some examples of its connections with the Islamic State (ISIL) and other terrorist groups:

      Erdogan’s daughter – Sümeyye Erdogan – has been running a covert military hospital, which is treating Islamic State militants.

    • Syria Rebel Leader’s Assassination a Major Blow to US Agenda

      News of the death of prominent anti-Assad commander (or ‘terrorist,’ ‘rebel,’ ‘opposition commander,’ etc.) Zahran Alloush has the potential to radically alter the nature of the war in Syria.

    • Prior to San Bernardino Attack, Many Were Trained to Spot Terrorists; None Did

      These behavioral indicators have become central to the U.S. counterterrorism prevention strategy, yet critics say they don’t work. “Quite simply, they rely on generalized correlations found in selectively chosen terrorists without using control groups to see how often the correlated behaviors identified occur in the non-terrorist population,” Michael German, a former FBI agent who is currently a fellow at the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University School of Law, told The Intercept.

      The trainings are based on flawed theories that just don’t stand up to empirical scrutiny, according to German. “The FBI, [National Counter-Terrorism Center], and [Department of Homeland Security] promote these theories despite the fact they have been refuted in numerous academic studies over the past 20 years,” he said.

    • Fire engulfs Dubai hotel ahead of New Year celebrations

      A huge fire has engulfed a 63-storey hotel in central Dubai ahead of a New Year’s Eve firework display.

      Despite the blaze at the Address hotel, the display at the nearby Burj Khalifa, the tallest building in the world, started as planned at midnight.

    • New Year’s Eve Pyrotechnics Go On Despite Raging Hotel Fire in Dubai

      A massive fire was blazing at a 63-story hotel in downtown Dubai on Thursday night, near where tens of thousands of people had gathered for the world’s largest New Year’s Eve fireworks display.

      According to the Associated Press, “It was not immediately clear what caused the fire, which ran up at least 20 stories of the building, which would likely have been packed with people because of its clear view of the 828-meter (905-yard) tall Burj Khalifa.”

    • Iraq’s ‘Liberated’ Ramadi: 80% Destroyed, 30% Still ISIS-Held

      The vital capital of Iraq’s Anbar Province, once a city of half a million people, Ramadi has in the past seven months fell to ISIS, was surrounded and bombarded, and now (mostly) recovered by Iraq. As Iraqi officials tout their victory, however, it seems what they really won is a big repair bill.

    • Over 51,000 Killed in Iraq during 2015

      Antiwar.com has found that at least 51,738 people were killed across Iraq during 2015, while at least 19,651 were wounded. The number of fatalities reported was slightly higher than in 2014, but the number of wounded was substantially lower. These figures should be taken as very rough estimates and probably low estimates at that.

  • Transparency Reporting

  • Environment/Energy/Wildlife

    • Ten Weather Extremes That Defined Hottest Year Ever Recorded

      From droughts to floods to mega-storms, extreme weather over the past 365 days raises disturbing questions about future of climate chaos

    • Erin Brockovich: California Methane Gas Leak Is Worst U.S. Environmental Disaster Since BP Oil Spill

      Runaway natural gas leak above Los Angeles has emitted more than 150 million pounds of methane since late October.

    • Sick of El Niño? You Ain’t Seen Nothing Yet, Warns NASA

      The El Niño currently wreaking havoc around the world is forecast to only worsen in 2016 — and NASA experts fear it could get as bad as the most destructive El Niño ever.

      A new satellite image of the weather system “bears a striking resemblance to one from December 1997″ — the worst El Niño on record — which was blamed for extreme weather, including record rainfall in California and Peru, heat waves across Australia, and fires in Indonesia. The severe conditions resulted in an estimated 23,000 deaths in 1997 and 1998.

    • BP partially evacuates North Sea Valhall oil field

      BP is partially evacuating an oilfield in the North Sea because a barge has broken loose and is drifting out of control in rough weather.

      BP says it employs 235 people in the Valhall oilfield but it cannot confirm the number of people who were being evacuated Thursday.

    • One dead and two injured after huge wave hits North Sea oil platform

      One worker has died and two others have been injured after huge waves hit a North sea platform. Statoil today confirmed the news after initially reporting three workers had been injured.

    • North Sea workers airlifted as barge drifts near Valhall field

      The barge was 110m in length and 30m wide and there were fears that it could ram one of the rigs.

    • BP Evacuates Employees From Oilfield in North Sea as Barge Detaches

      Oil and gas giant British Petroleum (BP) is partially evacuating its Valhall oilfield in the North Sea as one of its barges is drifting in the sea uncontrolled, local media reported Thursday.

    • Forests of southwest US face mass die-off by 2100

      California’s drought has already imperilled many of its trees, and within 80 years climate change could destroy the evergreen forests of the entire US southwest.

    • Freak storm pushes North Pole 50 degrees above normal to melting point

      This story has been updated to include buoy measurements that confirm the North Pole temperature climbed above 32 degrees on Wednesday.

    • The 5 Worst Fracking Moments of 2015

      Once again, in 2015 the oil and gas industry showed us the ludicrous lengths they will go to in order to frack more communities. In the process, they created ample fodder for Comedy Central, and the likes of John Oliver, John Stewart, Trevor Noah and Larry Wilmore. Here are a few of the worst head-shaking stunts that made the news in 2015:

    • El Niño and war drive aid agencies to the brink

      Governments must act immediately to end conflicts and counter the impact of climate disruption so as to avoid a humanitarian catastrophe affecting millions.

    • The Paris Climate Agreement: Hope or Hype?

      Perhaps the most realistic assessment was posted by Guardian columnist George Monbiot on the day of the final deal. “By comparison to what it could have been, it’s a miracle,” he wrote. “By comparison to what it should have been, it’s a disaster.” It is clear that those who are praising the agreement and those who emphasize its shortcomings live in almost entirely different worlds.

      [...]

      Still, the means for limiting average warming to 1.5 or 2 degrees are largely aspirational, and this is reflected in the agreement’s language throughout. Words like “clarity,” “transparency,” “integrity,” “consistency,” and “ambition” appear throughout the text, but there’s very little to assure that these aspirations can be realized. UN staff are to create all manner of global forums, working groups and expert panels to move the discussions forward but, as was clear prior to Paris, the main focus is to instill a kind of moral obligation to drive diplomats and their governments to take further steps. Article 15 of the agreement proposes a “mechanism to facilitate implementation and promote compliance,” but this takes the form of an internationally representative “expert-based” committee that is to be “transparent, non-adversarial and non-punitive.” This compliance “mechanism” is described in three short sentences in the main Agreement and another couple of paragraphs in the Adoption document; as predicted, there’s nothing to legally pressure intransigent countries or corporations to do much of anything.

    • 5 New Year’s Resolutions For Reporting On Climate Change

      Whether they were covering extreme weather events or presidential campaign events, media outlets often came up short in their reporting on climate change this year. But 2016 will be a fresh opportunity for improved climate coverage. With that in mind, here are five resolutions for reporters looking to provide better coverage of climate change in the new year.

  • Finance

  • PR/AstroTurf/Lobbying

    • Donald Trump Thanks Conspiracy Site For ‘Amazing Honor’ Of Being Its Man Of The Year

      WorldNetDaily’s founder and editor Joseph Farah is one of the nation’s leading purveyors of “birther” conspiracy theories — the repeatedly debunked notion that President Barack Obama was born in Kenya — publishing more than 600 posts on the topic. Even after Obama released his long-form birth certificate indicating his birth in Hawaii, Farah claimed that this proved nothing. Trump has frequently repeated these claims and Politico reported in 2011 that Farah frequently advised the billionaire investor and former reality show host.

    • Putin’s Magnificent Messaging Machine

      This is the new reality that I helped research while working with Columbia Journalism School’s “ RT Watch” project. For the better part of 2015, the project compiled RT’s output, attempting to examine how, or whether, RT deserves its reputation as a bulwark for Kremlin-friendly programming. Alongside a group of other Columbia graduate students, we watched, read, and consumed RT for hours a day, months on end. We piled our findings—the deceits, the distractions, the direction RT takes—over at the RT Watch blog, along with assorted social media accounts. As one observer said, we watched RT so you didn’t have to. After subsuming ourselves in the entire RT gestalt, I’d like to share some of the things I found.

  • Censorship

    • No, ISIS Isn’t Worth Sacrificing the First Amendment Over

      But America’s principles should be why we hold the nation to such a high standard, not give it a pass for good intentions and high-minded ideals. We say we’re for free speech, so we should mean it. Unfortunately, as we bomb and invade, so we sometimes violate free speech. For most of our history, we’ve managed to at least be better than the rest of the world when it comes to allowing free expression.

    • Twitter tightens rules on trolling and terror talk

      TWITTER IS CLOSING OFF 2015 with updated guidance on what it will and will not stand for on its microchatting pages.

      The Twitter rules have been updated and blogged about. The message is that change is necessary if the firm is to manage free speech and keep people happy.

      “We believe that protection from abuse and harassment is a vital part of empowering people to freely express themselves on Twitter,” said Megan Cristina, who is dubbed a Twitter director for Trust + Safety.

    • Twitter clarifies rules on banned content, abusive behavior

      Twitter Inc has clarified its definition of abusive behavior that will prompt it to delete accounts, banning “hateful conduct” that promotes violence against specific groups.

    • Google Asked to Remove 558 Million “Pirate” Links in 2015

      Copyright holders asked Google to remove more than 560,000,000 allegedly infringing links from its search engine in 2015. The staggering number is an increase of 60% compared to the year before. According to Google the continued surge is a testament that the DMCA takedown process is working, but some copyright holders disagree.

    • Ursula Gauthier: foreign media must fight China censorship, says expelled journalist

      French magazine journalist – ousted by Beijing after writing about repression of the Uighur minority – says reporters must find a way around barriers

    • Expelled French journalist ‘surreal’ ahead of China departure

      A French reporter forced to leave China by authorities after she criticised government policy in violence-wracked, mainly Muslim Xinjiang, said she had been left with a feeling of “surreality” Thursday ahead of her departure.

    • Expelled French journalist prepares to leave China

      A French reporter forced to leave China after she was accused of supporting terrorism for criticising government policy in violence-wracked, mainly Muslim Xinjiang, was preparing to leave on Thursday.

    • French journalist expelled from China for ‘supporting terrorism’ prepares to leave

      A French reporter forced to leave China after she was accused of supporting terrorism for criticising government policy in violence-wracked Xinjiang was preparing to leave on Thursday.

      Ursula Gauthier wrote an article in the magazine L’Obs questioning official comparisons between global terrorism and the unrest in Xinjiang.

    • China passes controversial counter-terrorism law

      China’s parliament passed a controversial new anti-terrorism law on Sunday that requires technology firms to hand over sensitive information such as encryption keys to the government and allows the military to venture overseas on counter-terror operations.

      Chinese officials say their country faces a growing threat from militants and separatists, especially in its unruly Western region of Xinjiang, where hundreds have died in violence in the past few years.

  • Privacy

    • BREAKING: The United States Spies on Israel

      So that’s that. The NSA spied on Netanyahu. That’s a nothingburger. Of course they spied on Netanyahu. And the NSA says that they properly minimized the congressional end of any conversations between Netanyahu and a member of Congress. Since conservatives insist that we should take their word for this in general, why shouldn’t we take their word for it now? Wake me up if it turns out there’s anything more to this story.

    • EXCLUSIVE: Rubio Defends NSA Spying on Netanyahu In Private, Condemns It In Public

      Republican presidential candidate Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) privately defended the National Security Agency’s (NSA) spying on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, even as he publicly condemned the practice.

    • Ben Carson: NSA Spying on Israel ‘Is Truly Disgraceful’
    • Lawrence Lessig: Technology Will Create New Models for Privacy Regulation

      The latest chapter of Lawrence Lessig’s career ended in November, when the Harvard Law School professor concluded his bid for the Democratic Party’s presidential nomination. That effort centered on his campaign to reform Congressional politics. Prior to that, Prof. Lessig’s scholarship, teaching and activism focused on technology policy and the Internet. He has argued for greater sharing of creative content, the easing of restrictions in areas such as copyright, and the concept of Net Neutrality. Prof. Lessig, who founded the Center for Internet and Society at Stanford Law School, is the author of numerous books on technology, including “Code: and Other Laws of Cyberspace,” and “The Future of Ideas: the Fate of the Commons in a Connected World.”

    • Tor project opens up bug bounty program

      DARK WEB GATEKEEPER AND PRIVACY ENABLER the Tor Project is taking a leaf out of the rest of the industry and is offering security researchers prizes for bringing its weaknesses to its attention.

      All eyes are on Tor already. The privacy-aware browser is already a hot topic at the National Security Agency (NSA), and has a price on its head in Russia. With such attention, it makes sense that the outfit behind it would seek to get ahead of the game.

    • How 2016’s war on encryption will change your way of life

      But encryption is now in the spotlight. Should the maths that underpins it be banned in the name of foiling terrorist plans, or should we accept that there is some information our governments will never know?

    • Dems brush off latest spying report

      Top Democrats in Congress are brushing off a report that U.S. intelligence intercepted communications between Israeli government officials and lawmakers on Capitol Hill.

      Rep. Eliot Engel (N.Y.), the ranking Democrat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said it is no secret that the U.S. and Israel spy on each other, even though they are allies.

      “I’m not surprised,” he told The Hill. “I kind of think the report is much to do about nothing.”

      Engel, a staunch supporter of Israel, said he met twice behind closed doors with Israeli Ambassador Ron Dermer during the heated debate over the nuclear agreement with Iran. He said Dermer presented the Israeli government’s case against the deal.

    • U.S. House panel seeks information on NSA spying report

      A U.S. House of Representatives committee asked the National Security Agency on Wednesday for information about a media report that the agency, while spying on Israeli officials, also intercepted communications between the Israelis and members of Congress.

      In a letter to NSA Director Michael Rogers, House Oversight Committee Chairman Jason Chaffetz and subcommittee Chairman Ron DeSantis said the story in Tuesday’s Wall Street Journal raised “questions concerning the processes NSA employees follow in determining whether intercepted communications involved Members of Congress.”

    • Rubio Outraged by Spying on Israel’s Government, OK with Mass Surveillance of Americans

      This news sparked a denunciation by Florida Senator and Republican presidential candidate Marco Rubio. “Obviously people read this report, they have a right to be concerned this morning about it,” said Rubio on Fox News Wednesday morning. “They have a right to be concerned about the fact that while some leaders around the world are no longer being targeted, one of our strongest allies in the Middle East – Israel – is. I actually think it might be worse than what some people might think, but this is an issue that we’ll keep a close eye on, and the role that I have in the intelligence committee.”

    • Encryption in the Balance: 2015 in Review

      If you’ve spent any time reading about encryption this year, you know we’re in the midst of a “debate.” You may have also noted that it’s a strange debate, one that largely replays the same arguments made nearly 20 years ago, when the government abandoned its attempts to mandate weakened encryption and backdoors. Now some parts of the government have been trying to revisit that decision in the name of achieving “balance” between user security and public safety. The FBI, for example, acknowledges that widespread adoption of encryption has benefits for users, but it also claims its investigations of terrorists, criminals, and other wrongdoers will “go dark” unless it has a legal authority and the technical capability to read encrypted data. But because the principles of what makes encryption secure haven’t changed, the only “balance” that can satisfy the government’s goals is no balance at all—it would require dramatically rolling back the spread of strong encryption.

    • Americans Evaluate the Balance between Security and Civil Liberties

      In the latest Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll, 54 percent of Americans say it can be necessary for the government to sacrifice freedoms to fight terrorism; 45 percent disagree. About half of Americans think it is acceptable to allow warrantless government analysis of internet activities and communications—even of American citizens—in order to keep an eye out for suspicious activity. About 3 in 10 are against this type of government investigation.

    • NSA Critics Gleefully Accuse Surveillance Hawks of Hypocrisy

      Privacy advocates are accusing politicians generally deferential to the government’s mass surveillance programs of hypocrisy after leading hawks expressed concern about the possible collection of their own communications.

      Collection on members of Congress, revealed this week by The Wall Street Journal, was performed by the National Security Agency with a wink-and-nod from the White House, which was intent on countering Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s bid to derail the Iran nuclear deal.

    • The Dark Web — interview on TRT World
    • Victories in California and Virginia Alongside a Setback in Florida: 2015 in Review

      Congress took action in 2015 to address privacy and transparency, but state legislatures emerged as the nation’s leaders for policy innovation. From Virginia to California, states adopted new policies to reclaim digital privacy, advance government transparency, and protect free expression. These new laws both protect residents of these states, and also provide models for other jurisdictions to emulate.

    • Chaffetz, Stewart want answers about NSA spying on Congress, world leaders
    • Republicans fast to object to NSA spying when it involves Israel

      A recent report has revealed that the National Security Agency intercepted communications involving Israeli officials and members of Congress. Republicans are now requesting that the NSA provide them with the details.

    • Congress to Investigate Report That US Spied on Lawmakers

      The House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence has opened an investigation into U.S. surveillance practices following a report in the Wall Street Journal earlier this week that the National Security Agency (NSA), an intelligence agency in the executive branch, may have intentionally swept up communications between U.S. lawmakers and Israeli officials.

    • U.S. Rep. Peter King calls for NSA to brief Congress

      U.S. Rep. Peter King said reports that the National Security Agency dropped in on private conversations of congressmen while spying on Israel raise questions about whether the lawmakers were the real target — and the legality of the whole operation.

    • NSA spying on US and Israeli politicians stirs Congress from Christmas slumbers

      After two years of doing little about the mass surveillance revealed by Edward Snowden, the US Congress has sprung into action in less than two days – with investigations into the NSA spying on some the legislature’s members.

    • U.S. lawmakers communiques snared in NSA surveillance of Netanyahu

  • Civil Rights

    • 2015: The Year in Gun Politics

      The politics of guns in 2015 was largely shaped by a series of newsmaking horrible multiple-casualty murders in public places. Each one inspired Democratic Party politicians, including President Obama and frontrunning 2016 presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, to call for a similar set of what they now call “common sense gun safety” laws (“gun control” has lost its luster since Al Gore’s 2000 presidential loss).

    • New Study Confirms Insidious GOP Racism in 2008 Presidential Race

      A new study clears up any lingering doubt that the Republican Party engaged in the tactic of dogwhistle politics in the 2008 presidential race between Barack Obama and John McCain. The study, which was published online this month in Public Opinion Quarterly, shows that the McCain campaign’s negative ads about Obama overwhelmingly featured him with a darker skin tone in a subtle attempt to appeal to voters’ racial prejudices.

    • Powerful New York Daily News Cover Actually Understates The Case Against Bill Cosby

      But the cover actually understates the weight of the evidence against Cosby. It’s not just the detailed allegations of more than 50 women that implicates Cosby. He is also implicated by his own description of his conduct.

      Kevin Steele, the Pennsylvania prosecutor who charged Cosby today, relied on Cosby’s own statements to support a charge of Aggravated Indecent Assault. The criminal complain filed by Steele revealed that Cosby told police investigators that he gave Amanda Comstand “one whole pill and one half pill” of “over-the-counter Benadryl” even though he knew the pills would “make him go to sleep right away.” He then acknowledged having sexual contact with her when he knew she would not be fully conscious.

    • This Was the Year Tech Became the Bad Guy

      In the first season of Veep, the brilliant political comedy from HBO, Vice President Selina Meyer (Julia Louis-Dreyfus) gets, um, wind that in the coming year, a hurricane will share her name. “Shit!” she says. “What if it hits and we get headlines saying, ‘Selina causing large-scale devastation?’” Needless to say, her staff eventually gets the name of the storm changed.

      It’s hilarious, and it’s consistent with the show’s portrayal of much of Washington as an endless cycle of image control and crisis management. How much should we trust it?

    • South Korea’s Betrayal of the “Comfort Women”

      On December 28th, 2015, the foreign ministers of Japan and Korea, suddenly and hastily announced a “resolution” to the “comfort women” issue, women trafficked and exploited as sexual slaves by the Japanese Army during WWII. This involved an apology by the Japanese prime minister, and the creation of fund for reparations.

      “The issue of ‘comfort women’ was a matter which, with the involvement of the military authorities of the day, severely injured the honor and dignity of many women,” said the Japanese Foreign Minister. 1 billion yen ($8.3M) was also promised to the fund to assist the 46 surviving comfort women.

    • Give a Drunk (or Anyone) a Free Ride Home on New Year’s Eve, Accept a Tip, Face $500 Fine

      It’s always amusing, if only bitterly, when government shows its true colors of obdurate opposition to human safety and happiness in the name of its bogus authority.

    • A History Defined by the Trade in Human Beings

      The history of the US is soaked in blood.

      [...]

      As Ned and Constance Sublette make clear in their comprehensive and exhaustive history, The American Slave Coast, that profit was not only determined by the labor of the enslaved but also in the slaves’ bodies themselves, including the potential production of more slaves. The authors call this latter status the “capitalized womb.” In a manner similar to the projection of an animal’s potential reproduction capabilities through several generations, the potential offspring of enslaved girls and women was considered when they were sold and when their owners applied for credit. As an example, supposedly when one kills a hen with their vehicle in some countries, the driver of the vehicle pays the farmer who owned the hen for the hen, but also for all the chickens the hen might have produced and another generation that those chickens would have produced. There is a certain formula used by the legal system in these situations to determine the sum total owed by the offending driver. Slaveowners and traders also agreed upon such a formula in the antebellum United States.

    • Corbyn’s Enemies Within: Working Class Heroes or Right Wing Populists?

      Although extreme, Danczuk, unfortunately, is far from anomalous within the Labour Party at present, both in parliament and in local councils. Following the expulsion of socialists in the 1980s and 1990s and, later, the creation of Tony Blair’s nefarious “New Labour”, the Parliamentary Labour Party (PLP) has been dominated by neoliberal apologists and class collaborationists. What differentiates Danczuk from this clique, however, is his constant and calculated appeals to a speciously defined working class culture in order to justify his divisive views.

    • A Most Unhappy New Year at Guantanamo

      Reuters reporters Charles Levinson and David Rohde (the former New York Times reporter who was held captive by the Taliban in Afghanistan for seven months, until he escaped) cite Ba Odah’s case in their latest article, writing, “Pentagon officials have been throwing up bureaucratic obstacles to thwart the president’s plan to close Guantanamo.”

    • Horrifying Video Shows Cops Sic K-9 on Infant Daughter of a Man they Mistook for a Suspect

      Before Arenas-Alvarez could communicate to the officers that his infant daughter was in the car, the “two minutes” had passed and Sgt. Mitchell arrived with his Belgian Malinois. Almost as soon as he exited the vehicle, Mithcell released the K-9 into the SUV of an entirely innocent man and his daughter.
      Photo Credit: c/o The Free Thought Project

      Henderson, NV — On January 30, 2015, a health food store in Henderson called the police after a disgruntled customer, attempting to return some protein powder, allegedly threatened to rob them. The store described the suspect to police as a black male wearing a black and tan t-shirt who left in an SUV.
      Shop ▾

      As police responded to the call, they quickly stopped the first person they saw, who happened to be Arturo Arenas-Alvarez. Arenas-Alvarez had just pulled up in the shopping center to do some shopping when police drew their weapons and demanded he put his hands in the air and step toward them.

      Arenas-Alvarez did not appear to understand why multiple armed men were pointing their guns at him, so one officer asked him in Spanish to approach the vehicle.

      Before Arenas-Alvarez makes it all the way to the vehicle, officers realized they had the wrong guy.

      [...]

      Below is the horrifying video of the incident which illustrates the sheer violent and unaccountable nature of police in the US.

    • 2015: The Year in Fear

      Criminals, terrorists, and madmen with guns—how fears of violence reshaped American politics

    • The GOP Has Become the Party From George Orwell’s Nightmares

      When an entire field of candidates tend to thrive on bullshit (especially the current front-runners), it is not at all surprising that they have certain reliable terms that vilify critics of their bullshit and shut down debate. The truth is, Republicans have long utilized a manipulative phraseology, full of euphemisms and doublespeak, used either to shut down criticism and debate, as shown above, or to acerbate the listener’s emotional state — think “baby parts” and “death panels” — or provide a positive light on something that is generally frowned upon. (Ergo: Tax-avoiding billionaires become “job-creators.”) The GOP has become truly masterful at distorting political discussion through language, and at each Republican debate, just about every candidate showcases this manipulation. In George Orwell’s classic essay on this subject, “Politics and the English Language,” he seems to describe modern Republicans to a tee, repeating the same tired, yet convenient phrases (the phrases have changed, of course).

    • Texas Legislator Claimed Rape Doesn’t Exist In Marriage

      Texas State Rep. Jonathan Stickland (R) apologized Wednesday after the Texas Observer published a 2008 quote from an online post in which the lawmaker joked that nothing a husband does to his wife could possibly be rape.

      The rape “joke,” accompanied by a yellow smiley emoticon giving a thumbs-up sign, was : “Rape is non existent in marriage, take what you want my friend!”

      Stickland told the publication that he ““severely regrets” the comments now. “I do not feel that way today. I can only repent and ask for forgiveness from the people it offended and hurt. Rape is serious and should never be joked about the way that I did regardless of my age,” he explained. Stickland’s official biography indicates that he is now 32 years old.

    • Citizenship-stripping on the Rise Worldwide

      The debate may prove to be academic—a new opinion poll shows 86 percent of French people saying oui to the idea. If approved, the amendment might still be challenged at the European Court of Human Rights, but don’t hold your breath: Citizenship-stripping in the name of fighting terrorism is on the rise worldwide, including in Europe.

    • What About the Police Crime Rate?

      The failure to indict a police officer for yet another killing of a young, Black person – this time a child, 12-year-old Tamir Rice – should outrage us and cause us to look more deeply at the structures that make both Rice’s shooting and the non-indictment mutually reinforcing acts. Similarly, the #BlackLivesMatter movement and the brilliant organizing within it compels us to look at the relationship between crime and policing in a new way: it forces our society to confront how it allows the police to get away with committing crimes against Black and brown communities.

      When it comes to policing, civil and human rights lawyers are myth busters. We work with organizers, activists and journalists, to bust storied myths, passed down through generations, that attempt to normalize unaccountable police power and the abuses that inevitably flow from it. We also bust the myths about Black and brown criminality that many people believe are true, but simply aren’t.

    • Law, Order, and Social Suicide

      Want a ringside seat for the war on crime? Go to killedbypolice.net. A few hours ago (as I write this), the site had listed 1,191 police killings in the U.S. this year. I just looked again.

      The total is up one.

    • The most important movies of 2015 were not in any theater

      Every December, I make a list of what I think are the best movies released that year. It has never seemed so beside the point as it does this time, looking back at 12 months in which the moving images that actually mattered — the ones that needed to change the national conversation and maybe even started to — weren’t on multiplex screens or dialed up through our cable guide but came crashing through our browsers, our cellphones, and on the nightly news.

      To me, the most important movie of 2015 was the police car dash-cam video of the July arrest of Sandra Bland, a 28-year-old African-American woman, in Prairie View, Texas. Not just the three minutes or so of the altercation with a white police officer that resulted in Bland’s being taken to the local jail, where she allegedly hung herself three days later, but the entire 52-minute expanse of the tape, for reasons I’ll discuss in a moment.

    • Christmas with Assange

      Confined in Ecuador’s embassy in London, Assange shows a patent physical and psychological deterioration. But with his intellectual voracity and capacity of attention intact, he seeks international and Argentinean support.

    • Jeb Bush Says No Need For Federal Investigation In Tamir Rice Case

      Former Florida governor and current Republican presidential candidate Jeb Bush told reporters that a grand jury’s decision not to indict police officers in the shooting of 12-year old Tamir Rice shows that “the process worked.”

      “If there is a grand jury that looks at all the facts and doesn’t indict maybe there’s reasons for that,” Bush said Wednesday night in Lexington, South Carolina. “I don’t believe that every grand jury is racist.”

    • Los Angeles Saw a Huge Crime Increase in 2015. Or Did It?

      It’s also sort of stunning that apparently violent crime was basically flat in the second half of the year. That means violent crime was up about 40 percent from January-June, and then dropped to 0 percent in July-December. This is…a little hard to believe. And no, the deployment of 200 more Metro cops can’t even remotely account for that.

      Anyway, I’ll be curious to see what happens next year. Maybe this whole thing is just an artifact of better crime statistics. Hard to say. In any case, the mayor says LA is safer than at any time since the 1950s. I’m not sure how he figures that, but apparently that means there’s nothing to worry about. Go about your business, citizens.

    • Christian Religious Liberty Is More Popular Than Religious Liberty For Everyone Else

      Most Americans believe Muslims deserve religious freedom, according to a poll by the Associated Press and the NORC Center for Public Affairs Research. 61 percent said religious liberty was important for people of Muslim faith, though the number is dwarfed by the 82 percent who believe Christians’ religious liberty is important.

      The figure wasn’t drastically different along political lines either, as 60 percent of Republicans and 67 percent of Democrats supported religious protections for Muslims. Those numbers for Christians were 88 and 83 percent, respectively.

      “These numbers seem to be part of a growing climate of anti-Muslim sentiment in the United States,” Madihha Ahussain, an attorney for Muslim Advocates, a California-based civil rights group, told AP. “This climate of hatred has contributed to dozens of incidents of anti-Muslim violence in recent weeks.”

    • Neighbors and Family Recount Chilling Details in Chicago Police Shooting

      Eyewitness accounts from neighbors appear to confirm a Chicago police officer began shooting into the home of Quintonio Legrier and Bettie Jones from several feet away while standing on the sidewalk. That contradicts the police department’s early account, which suggests one of the officers opened fire in the entryway after Legrier confronted him.

      Legrier, a 19-year-old engineering student, and Jones, a 55-year-old mother of five and workers’ rights activist, were shot on Saturday when officers responded to a domestic disturbance call at their home around 4:30 a.m. Jones opened the door when police responded to a call from Legrier’s father.

    • Male Legislator Mocks His Colleague’s Nipples In Push To Ban Public Exposure

      Members of New Hampshire’s Republican-controlled state legislature are pushing for a bill that would make it illegal for a woman to show her nipples in public. And while the bill contains an exemption for breast-feeding, that didn’t stop representatives from sharing their opinions on the matter of public breast-feeding on social media Tuesday night.

    • Florida 911 Dispatcher Accidentally Shoots and Kills Daughter

      The Orlando Sentinel reports Sherry Campbell, who works as a 911 dispatcher, told investigators she was awakened by what she thought was a stranger breaking into her home. That noise was actually the sound of her daughter, Ashley Doby, moving about the house. Campbell fired a single shot that fatally struck Doby in the chest.

    • Obama Reportedly Will Move To Expand Gun Background Checks By Executive Order

      In 2015, 457 people died from 353 mass shootings (as of December 17). After Congress blocked legislative efforts, the president will now take executive action to attempt to keep guns out of the hands of violent criminals.

    • Police Union Boss on Tamir Rice: ‘Act Like a Thug and You’ll Be Treated Like One’

      His comment calls to mind those made by current and former heads of the Cleveland union, which represents the officers responsible for Rice’s death. Former boss Jeffrey Follmer previously said on MSNBC that Rice was an imminent lethal threat who might have survived had he listened to police commands—even though the 12-year-old boy was given less than one second to react to purely hypothetical orders before he was fired upon. Current boss Steve Loomis had even worse things to say: he called Rice “menacing.”

    • People Are Fed Up: Protests of 2015

      This year saw a flood of passionate, creative, often furious protests, with many in this country focused on racist police and economic inequality. Revisit some of those most powerfully suggesting that, with concerted collective action, change is possible. Take heart. And a peaceful new year.

    • Cops Not Punished After Beating Innocent Child So Bad with Flashlight He’s Permanently Disabled

      Grand Rapids, MI — Suffering permanent physical and mental damage after a Michigan police officer savagely beat his head bloody with a flashlight, an unarmed teen recently filed a federal lawsuit against the cops for violating his Fourth Amendment rights. Although the teen was cleared of the charges against him, none of the officers involved in the beating received any disciplinary action.

    • Reasons to Celebrate: Key Progressive Gains in 2015

      Among the progressive issues that won on local ballots this fall, November 4th, voters approved every initiative to raise the minimum wage in the five states where they appeared.

      The year also saw decisions to have phased-in minimum wage hikes in Los Angeles, Seattle, Oakland, and San Francisco.

      And the Huffington Post points to a recent analysis showing that workers in 14 states will see the minimum wage go up.

      Contributor Erik Sherman wrote previously at Forbes: “With 28 states now supporting minimum wages higher than the federal level, pressure on Congress will increase, while states with lower figures could find themselves economically uncompetitive for workers and, therefore, businesses.”

    • 5 Cities Where Police Reform Efforts Will Play Out in 2016

      In the summer of 2014, a series of incidents of police brutality brought the issue of excessive force into the mainstream national debate. Since then, progress on the reform front has been slow, but still moving. Police shootings in 2015, from that of Walter Scott in South Carolina to Jamar Clark in Minneapolis, have received more attention, from the media, the public, and authorities, than similar cases in previous years. That’s led to a tripling in prosecutions of police officers on murder and manslaughter charges in 2015—there were a total of 18 cops charged this year. This year also saw the White House launch a panel on police reform, which called for more guidelines, training, and spending, but offered little in the way of introspection on how our culture of more laws contributes to endemic police violence.

    • 2015: The Year in Gun Politics

  • Internet/Net Neutrality

    • #SaveTheInternet – did you e-mail TRAI yet?

      So, you must’ve heard about Facebook’s plan to “bring the Internet to the poor in India” that they’ve named Internet.org/Free Basics. If you’ve read the plan in detail, you’ll see that it isn’t really bringing the Internet to anyone for free. Well, technically it is, but let’s look at the complete picture before we begin celebrating, shall we?

      Fact: “Free basics” is not providing free access to the whole of the Internet.

    • Your New Years Resolution: Tell The EU Not To Undermine The Foundations Of The Internet

      For a few weeks now, we’ve been telling you about a worrisome EU consultation on regulating the internet. That consultation was supposed to end today — but it’s been extended a week. As we noted recently, the survey technology built by the EU Commission had a major bug in it, meaning that many people had their submissions rejected. Based on this, we requested that they extend the survey. We got back two separate responses, the first telling us that they were very sorry, but it would be “impossible” to extend the survey. The second response was that they had agreed to extend the survey one week… but only for people who had run into problems. Given the two conflicting responses, I asked for more information on this (including how they would keep it open only for those people). I also asked if they were planning to announce this anywhere. I was told that it would likely be impossible to make an announcement, and I never heard anything else, as I believe many left for the holidays.

  • Intellectual Monopolies

    • Patent amendments not allowed during court proceedngs, rules Malaysia’s highest court

      It is so easy to get wrapped up in one’s own orbit. What impacts you right here and right now, be it your local weather, your commuter train delays or the decision of your local patents judge, is often as far as your daily horizon ventures. However, it is becoming increasingly important that IP practitioners look further afield as to what is happening in IP law and practice in other jurisdictions. Much like a lion, the IPKat prides itself in bringing news of important decisions from other jurisdictions.

    • The Return of the Patent Troll: 2015 in Review

      The lack of action in Congress was 2015’s biggest disappointment. House and Senate committees both managed to pass reasonable bills aimed at reducing litigation abuse by patent trolls. Meanwhile, opponents of reform tried to muddy the waters by introducing a terrible bill that would make it even harder to challenge bad patents at the Patent Office. In the end, legislative reform efforts stalled over the summer and Congress did nothing. Lawmakers might return to the issue before the next election. With trolls running rampant, we need legislative reform now more than ever.

      While we did not see blockbuster Supreme Court patent decisions like last year, there was some progress in the courts. Most importantly, the lower courts have applied the 2014 ruling in Alice v. CLS Bank (which held that abstract ideas do not become patentable simply because they are implemented on generic computers) to invalidate a significant number of abstract software patents. The outlier, of course, is the Eastern District of Texas which is granting motions based on Alice at much lower rates than other courts. This has created an even greater incentive for trolls to flock to that district.

    • Price Controls Will Slow Drug Innovation

      Last session, legislators introduced AB 463, which would have required drug companies to detail the profits and expenses on the development of all treatments that cost more than $10,000. It failed, but it was part of this same anti-gouging approach epitomized in the drug-price ballot initiative.

    • Wikipedia, Again

      I loved the idea of Wikipedia in the early years. I used to read encyclopaediae, the dead-tree-kind, as a boy. My father bought them from door-to-door salesmen. I kept them with me for years. With the Internet and search engines the dead-tree-kinds are pretty well obsolete. When Wikipedia came along, I made a local copy for use in the North. The Internet connection could drop and we were still on the air thanks to a LAMP stack. Kids loved it. I worked at it. It took weeks of sifting through articles and hundreds of thousands of images to remove age-inappropriate content. I did that.

12.31.15

Software Patents Used by Patent Trolls in the United States Are Squashed in Courts

Posted in America, Courtroom, Europe, Patents at 12:10 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

State of litigation

Summary: New evidence, based on two stories where large victims of patent trolls fought back (rather than cough out settlement money), show that software patents increasingly get tossed out by judges, even in trolls-friendly courts

WHEN a software patent that’s owned by a troll (the classic scenario) is reported on by the corporate media it’s rather easy to spot based on “LLC” in the title, or sometimes just the word “Texas”. The targets of litigation by these trolls needn’t be just US companies, especially if (or when) the UPC becomes a reality.

A German company (maybe the most famous German company, Mercedes-Benz) has become a victim of some US patent troll called “Vehicle Intelligence”. There is nothing about it in Wikipedia and their (his?) Web site is just a handful of pages with all the hallmarks of a patent troll, where “products” are just “licensing” (i.e. patent tax). Reading this article about the troll, we find that “the inventor, Kevin Roe, is also the patent attorney” (again, classic troll). To quote the opening paragraph from Patently-O: “Vehicle Intelligence and Safety LLC is the owner of United States Patent Number 7,394,392 vehicle safety improvements. In particular, the patent claims systems and methods for testing vehicle operators and then taking control of the vehicle if the operator is deemed impaired. Senior Judge Hart of the Northern District of Illinois ruled on the pleadings (12(c)) that the asserted claims were invalid as being drawn to patent-ineligible subject matter under Section 101 of the Patent Act. On appeal, the Federal Circuit here affirms – holding that “the disputed claims cover only abstract ideas coupled with routine data-gathering steps and conventional computer activity.” An early potential strike against the patent that the inventor, Kevin Roe, is also the patent attorney who prosecuted the case and the litigator who filed the appellate briefs.”

“Are we seeing software patents on the retreat in the home of software patents? And if so, why on Earth is the EPO‘s management ushering in more of them?”Got that? “Section 101 of the Patent Act.” This is a relief as it contributes to the belief or the correct perception that software patents are on the run in the Unites States.

There is another bit of good news, akin to the above. Remember that Patent TrollTracker had worked for Cisco before he got himself and/or his employer sued by a troll for defamation or whatever? Well, Cisco, based on this new report, has just beaten a patent troll that had struck in Texas, which attracted a lot of attention this month [1, 2, 3, 4], 5]. “In 2013,” wrote the trolls expert, “a two-judge majority on the panel found that Cisco should have been allowed to tell the jury they had a “good faith belief” that the patent was invalid. The jury instructions were thus improper, and the appeals judges kicked the case back down to the trial court in the Eastern District of Texas.”

Well, the $64,000,000 verdict has just been overturned.

Are we seeing software patents on the retreat in the home of software patents? And if so, why on Earth is the EPO‘s management ushering in more of them? Beggars belief! █

Microsoft’s Latest Patent Aggression Comes Under Fire From the EFF, Former GNU/Linux Company the Patent’s Target

Posted in Corel, Courtroom, EFF, GNU/Linux, Microsoft, Novell, Patents at 11:29 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

The ‘new’ Microsoft…

Satya Ballmer
Satya Ballmer: different face, same strategy/policy

Summary: Microsoft continues its vicious patent war on anything resembling competition (however small), even the competition against which Microsoft previously committed competition abuses/crimes (subject of court cases) in order to attain total monopoly

MICROSOFT, which is connected to many patent trolls (including Intellectual Ventures, the world’s biggest), is still busy suing companies. Microsoft has a long history of patent aggression, including patent litigation against Linux (not just threats thereof). As longtime readers of this site may know, this and only this was the raison d’être of this Web site.

“…since winning a case for infringement of design patents can lead to a damage analysis based on “lost profits,” which can theoretically lead to a patent owner getting all of a defendant’s profits.”
      –Joe MullinAs we noted the other day, referring to the original from the EFF, Microsoft is now attacking a company that once dominated word processing. Microsoft allegedly engaged in competition crimes against this company, leading to decades of expensive litigation. This company also pioneered some important GNU/Linux efforts until Microsoft shut these down with a mysterious deal (which we wrote about on several occasions around 2007). Well, Microsoft is now trying to drive this company into bankruptcy, using patents.

What’s the name of this company? Corel. We have a whole category about Corel (with 51 articles, as well as leaked court documents). History is important here and it’s imperative that people properly study Corel to truly grasp how severe this situation really is.

Microsoft is now attacking Corel with what the EFF calls “Stupid Patent of the Month”. As noted by one good journalist (Joe Mullin), “it’s serious ammo, since winning a case for infringement of design patents can lead to a damage analysis based on “lost profits,” which can theoretically lead to a patent owner getting all of a defendant’s profits.”

“Remember the company called Novell? Yes, that company that pretty much vanished half a decade ago and whose patent/special deal with Microsoft (SUSE) will expire tomorrow (there are no signs of renewal or continuation).”In other words, expect layoffs, liquidation, bankruptcy, etc. Legal fees aren’t low, either. Remember the company called Novell? Yes, that company that pretty much vanished half a decade ago and whose patent/special deal with Microsoft (SUSE) will expire tomorrow (there are no signs of renewal or continuation). Other than the name being similar, Novell and Corel have a lot in common because both competed against Microsoft until signing some infamous deals with Microsoft, leading to their demise, as well as the demise of their ongoing court cases against Microsoft (for competition abuses/crimes). When Novell imploded Microsoft grabbed its patents. Sweet deal for Microsoft. Novell is virtually gone (devoured by another company) and its patents are in CPTN, which is a ‘conglomerate’ pool of Linux and Android foes such as Oracle and Apple.

“Microsoft is now using patents primarily against Android, which the company is at war against (don’t believe the pretenses and the “loves Linux” baloney).”We quite liked how Glyn Moody framed the situation in his article “If Microsoft Wins Its ‘Stupid Patent Of The Month’ Lawsuit, Expect A Plague Of Trolls To Move Into Design Patents”.

As if Microsoft itself is not somewhat of a massive troll itself (we wrote a lot about this before). Just look what the company has been doing with patents this past decade. “The recent Techdirt article about Microsoft’s design patent on a slider,” Moody wrote, “understandably focused on the absurdity of companies being forced to hand over all of the profits that derive from a product if it is found to have infringed on someone else’s design patent even in just a tiny portion of that product. But there’s another angle worth mentioning here that picks up on something Techdirt has written about several times before: the rise and threat of patent thickets. Back in 2012, it was estimated that 250,000 active patents impacted smartphones. That makes it impossible to build devices without licensing large numbers of patents, and even then, it’s likely that claims of infringement will still be brought.”

Microsoft is now using patents primarily against Android, which the company is at war against (don’t believe the pretenses and the "loves Linux" baloney).

“The EPO’s lawyers who currently deal with my case were also recently seen working from the same side as Microsoft on the patent front, based on Reuters.”Here is another new article about Microsoft’s “Stupid Patent of the Month”. “The design patent,” says Softpedia, “numbered D554,140, basically states that Microsoft is the owner of the slider you can see in the photo attached to the article. This is the very same slider that the company uses in its Office productivity suite to allow users to zoom in or out of documents, but it has also been implemented in a wide variety of Microsoft and non-Microsoft products.”

But when patent examiners are pressured to issue patents in bulk and/or do a rushed job (as in the EPO for example, with Microsoft being on the high-priority list), no wonder such nonsense gets granted, leaving European courts to sort out the mess at a huge expense to the defendants. It is worth noting again that only articles of mine which mentioned Microsoft were even the target of threatening legal letters from the EPO’s lawyers, which gives room for speculation. The EPO’s lawyers who currently deal with my case were also recently seen working from the same side as Microsoft on the patent front, based on Reuters. █

EPO Coverage to Increase in 2016, Including UPC Reality Checks

Posted in Europe, Patents at 10:41 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

A system optimised for the world's patents-wielding multinationals and their patent lawyers in Europe

UPC impact

Summary: Statement of our intention to increase focus on the European Patent Office (EPO) and its massive new PR campaign for the Unitary Patent Court (UPC)

More EPO scandals are to come out shortly (we have not run out of material in our stories backlog) and our coverage this coming year will include more about the UPC. Patent lawyers are celebrating the UPComing chaos (we’ve recently learned that many apply for UPC-related positions in the UK, even before there’s any confirmation or approval thereof). Watch UPC boosters and their antagonists in Twitter [1, 2, 3, 4]. Well, one among several of the boosters, Bastian Best, also sneakily promotes software patents in Europe, as he has done for a number of years (he’s a patent lawyer). Bastian Best now explains to fellow patent lawyers how to bypass the rules and trick examiners into granting patents on software.

In any case, this post isn’t an explanatory article about the UPC, just a preview of things to some. Always remember who the UPC is for. The stakeholders are similar to those involved in pushing hard for the TPP. The UPC is essentially a Trojan horse ‘gift’ for Europe. █

12.30.15

Links 30/12/2015: Death of Murdock, Microsoft Blocks Linux Game Port

Posted in News Roundup at 11:18 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

GNOME bluefish

Contents

GNU/Linux

  • Op-Ed: Microsoft makes it more difficult to run Linux

    There are numerous computer operating systems (OS) other than the various versions of Windows and this includes well over 100 distributions of Linux-based systems.

  • Desktop

    • 5 ways Ubuntu Linux is better than Microsoft Windows 10

      Windows 10 is a pretty good desktop operating system. Unfortunately, that OS is very far from perfect. The most glaring issue, of course, is the confusing privacy settings. Plus, let us not forget the arguably shady tactics Microsoft is employing to get users to upgrade to the operating system. While Windows 10 is more focused than its predecessor, there is still a lack of consistency, such as having a Settings Menu and separate Control Panel menu.

      Meanwhile, in the land of Linux, Ubuntu hit 15.10; an evolutionary upgrade, which is a joy to use. While not perfect, the totally free Unity desktop-based Ubuntu gives Windows 10 a run for its money. Does this mean I think Linux will soon rule the desktop? Absolutely not. Windows will still be dominant in number of installs for the foreseeable future. With that said, more does not always mean better. Here are 5 ways Ubuntu bests Windows 10.

    • Major Linux Desktop Problems In 2016

      A widely-cited blog post about the major Linux desktop problems has been updated for 2016.

      Over on the LinuxFonts.Narod.ru is the “major problems of the Linux desktop” and it’s been updated with all of the latest issues, etc, for 2016. The article was updated yesterday by Artem Tashkinov.

  • Kernel Space

  • Applications

  • Desktop Environments/WMs

    • The Most Popular GNOME & KDE Happenings Of 2015

      Continuing on with our other year-end looks, here are lists of the most popular GNOME and KDE desktop happenings of the year.

      First up, here’s a look at the ten most popular GNOME stories on Phoronix for 2015. GNOME made much progress this year on Wayland support, app sandboxing, UEFI firmware updating, and other features.

    • GNOME Desktop/GTK

      • Frogr 1.0 released

        I’ve just released frogr 1.0. I can’t believe it took me 6 years to move from the 0.x series to the 1.0 release, but here it is finally. For good or bad.

      • From a lawyer who hates litigation

        Before I started working in free and open source software, before I found out I had a heart condition and became passionate about software freedom, I was a corporate lawyer at a law firm. I worked on various financial transactions. There were ups and downs to this kind of work but throughout I was always extremely vocal about how happy I was that I didn’t do any litigation.

  • Distributions

    Free Software/Open Source

    • Applying open-source tracking technology to hunting research in Brazil

      Mark Abrahams explains his innovative use of an open-source animal monitoring platform

    • 5 Open Source Replacements for Accounting Software

      In recent years, cloud computing has transformed the ways that people purchase software, but it hasn’t necessarily made it more affordable.

      If you’re looking for accounting software – and you’re pinching pennies – you may want to explore one of these open source replacements for expensive accounting software.

      Let the downloading begin!

      As always, if you know of additional open source accounting software that you think should be on our list, feel free to add them in the comments section below.

    • Open-Source / Linux Enthusiasts Have A Lot To Be Thankful For This Year

      There are far too many “open-source wins” to list from 2015, and some of the exciting advancements have already been covered in our other year-end articles. This article are just some of the major items that come to mind. You’re more than welcome to share your own exciting open-source/Linux highlights of the year with us and the community by commenting on this article in our forums.

    • The danger ahead: skyscraper code favelas  in earthquake zones

      Do software application development leaders need a new year’s resolution?

      Do team leaders, software engineering managers and senior architectural planners need a new wake up call?

      [...]

      The story here is that yes, indeed, software is eating the world… but in a proprietary-only technical debt-ridden software world… that software sucks.

    • SaaS/Big Data

      • Google Cloud Platform Offers New Avenues for Leveraging its Power
      • Essential Tools for Development in the Cloud and on the Web

        Web site and application development is becoming in reach for nearly everyone, thanks to easier and better tools. Software as a Service (SaaS) applications are increasingly either employing open source or are built entirely on it. And all of this adds up to an increasing need for web development toolsets focused on the open source community. The good news is that there are many open source tools to help you with your web project, and given the costs of web development environments and the like, they can save you a lot of money. Here are many good examples of tools and tutorials, with a few that we’ve covered before appended at the end, in case you missed them.

    • Oracle/Java/LibreOffice

      • Oracle, The Butt Of Jokes

        They did earn their power by making a powerful database but then abused it by charging far more than cost of production plus reasonable profit. Hence PostgreSQL and MySQL and others are thriving. I made the move to mariadb years ago.

    • Pseudo-/Semi-Open Source (Openwashing)

      • Facebook, LinkedIn Reflect on 2015: The Year in Open Source

        Both Facebook and LinkedIn look back on 2015 as a seminal year for open-source technology at their respective companies.
        With 2015 at its end, Facebook took a look back at its year of using, developing and contributing to open-source software.

        In a blog post, Christine Abernathy, developer advocate for the Facebook open source team, said the open source program at Facebook has grown, not only in terms of new projects, but also in the size and strength of its community. Abernathy credits the growth to contributions from more than 3,400 developers who contributed to the company’s projects – the majority of whom were external.

    • BSD

      • BSD Unix-like OS is Resurrected for Embedded IoT Market

        It took two decades, but BSD — the operating system that dominated the Unix world during the 1980s and 1990s before being supplanted by the open source Linux kernel — is now ready for embedded computing. That’s according to the RetroBSD project, which has announced success running BSD on modern embedded hardware.

    • FSF/FSFE/GNU/SFLC

    • Public Services/Government

      • Open-source advocates see big opportunity for federal software acquisition reform in 2016

        With open-source software, the code would already be in the public domain, and agencies would instead be procuring value-added services to mold those open-source applications to their needs.

        This saves money for agencies because it eliminates the licensing fees that come with traditional software products as well as the nonrecurring engineering costs — the one-off costs to research and develop the software, or “reinvent the wheel” as Gary Shiffman, CEO of Arlington-based Giant Oak Inc., described it to me.

    • Openness/Sharing

      • Glass Half: The latest open movie from the Blender Institute

        At this year’s Blender Conference, the Blender Institute released its latest open movie project, Glass Half. You can watch the full three minutes of this short animation in all its glory right here.

      • Open Hardware

        • Google, HPE, Oracle back RISC-V, an open source ARM alternative

          Tech giants Google, Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE), Lattice, Microsemi and Oracle are among the first 15 members of a new RISC-V trade group. Next week the group is hosting a workshop for the processor core. One of the current tasks of the group is to draft the open source agreement which will form part of its membership. The RISC-V is developed under an open source license and members will be able to verify and use the RISC-V logo.

          [...]

          RISC-V processors can currently be used to run Linux and NetBSD.

    • Standards/Consortia

      • Telecom law ‘overlooked’ in ICT standards policy

        Using telecom law offers fundamental advantages over competition law to remedy monopolised ICT market sectors and in eGovernment initiatives, says Felix Greve, a German lawyer specialised in IT-law. In November, Greve summarised his July 2015 PhD thesis in a webinar organised for the European Commission’s ‘Open Standards for ICT Procurement’ project.

    Leftovers

    • Star Wars and the Death of American Cinema

      ‘Star Wars’ is a simple story, simply told, of good versus evil, light versus darkness, and freedom versus tyranny. In other words it is the story of America’s struggle to preserve democracy and civilization in a world beset by evil and ‘evildoers’.

    • Meet “Sledgehammer Shannon,” the lawyer who is Uber’s worst nightmare

      Four years later, Liss-Riordan is spearheading class-action lawsuits against Uber, Lyft, and nine other apps that provide on-demand services, shaking the pillars of Silicon Valley’s much-hyped sharing economy. In particular, she is challenging how these companies classify their workers. If she can convince judges that these so-called micro-entrepreneurs are in fact employees and not independent contractors, she could do serious damage to a very successful business model—Uber alone was recently valued at $51 billion—which relies on cheap labor and a creative reading of labor laws. She has made some progress in her work for drivers. Just this month, after Uber tried several tactics to shrink the class, she won a key legal victory when a judge in San Francisco found that more than 100,000 drivers can join her class action.

    • I Got Married At the Perfect Age

      Looks more like age 29 in the chart, but I got married at 32, so I’ll take it. Unfortunately, this is for people getting married now. For people who got married back when I got married, the older the better. Today, for some reason, it’s the older the better until age 32, and then the divorce risk curves back up. Why the change? After a bit of statistical argle bargle, Wolfinger admits he can’t really figure it out

    • Dr Joshua Freeman, Dr Hayley Bennet: TPP could trump climate accord

      Trade deal gives polluters power to sue governments who try to implement the Paris agreement

    • Health/Nutrition

      • Anti-vaccine Californians are rich, white, but not necessarily highly educated

        At this point, it’s well documented that affluent, educated white communities are behind the surge in unvaccinated kids—and by extension the increase in vaccine-preventable diseases, including measles and whooping cough (pertussis). But there are few studies that dig into the detailed demographics of those unprotected younglings, leaving health experts at a loss for how to target strategies to combat anti-vaccination myths and fears in the specific groups that need it most.

      • Here’s a Whole Bunch of Interesting Facts and Figures About Births and Babies

        This comes from the CDC’s final report on births for 2014, which is chock full of everything you might want to know about US birth and fertility rates. The increase in triplet births is most likely due to the rising use of fertility therapies, and the drop after 1998 is likely due to improvements in fertility therapies. The reason for the steady increase in twins is less clear, since it seems too large to be accounted for by fertility treatments.

    • Security

    • Defence/Police/Secrecy/Aggression

      • Turkey: A Criminal State, a NATO State

        It is now openly discussed even in mainstream media the fact that Turkey has been intimately involved in fomenting and supporting the war on Syria, with its ultimate goal of the overthrow of the Syrian government and its replacement by a compliant proxy aligned with Turkish President Erdogan and the Muslim Brotherhood. That this is no longer a ‘conspiracy theory’ but a conspiracy fact not only vindicates my analysis over the last four years, but it also brings to the fore the nefarious role of a NATO member in stoking a brutal and bloody war for its own ends.

      • Bad Government Decisions That Seemed Like a Good Idea at the Time

        And bad governmental decisions are not confined to the Middle East. Violating the implicit (and maybe explicit) promise made to Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev to get him to approve the reuniting of Germany as the Cold War ended, George H. W. Bush, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, and Barack Obama have expanding the hostile NATO alliance right to Russia’s borders. Recently Obama took in the small country Montenegro as a deliberate slap in Russia’s face. Yet, expanding the NATO alliance effectively followed the Versailles model after World War I – keeping your defeated adversary outside the community of European nations – which led to the rise of Adolf Hitler and World War II and went counter to the much more effective Congress of Vienna model, which brought post-Napoleonic France back into Europe, thus ensuring a century of relative peace in Europe. Because the United States and NATO walked all over a defeated Russia after the Cold War, they are now faced with a nationalist Russian leader in Vladimir Putin who is destabilizing Ukraine to keep it out of NATO, which George W. Bush promised would become an alliance member. Not taking any responsibility for this unfortunate chain of events, the United States is using Russia’s behavior to put more NATO forces in Eastern and Southern Europe. Where will the escalation cycle end?

      • Authorities are investigating a firebomb attack on a mosque in Tracy, California

        Authorities are investigating a firebomb attack on a mosque in Tracy, California that took place on Sunday as a hate crime.

      • Israel Firsters

        When I first began commenting on articles here at openDemocracy, I was motivated to answer a writer who contended that the State of Israel had intentionally opened the flood gates on one of its dams in order to flood some villages in Gaza.

        The article was simply one of many examples where Palestinian leadership misfeasance brought tribulations to Palestinians that were blamed on the Israelis. I have come to refer to such observers as “Israel Firsters”.

      • The Jewish Equivalent of ISIS

        The Jewish extremists running amok in Israel have far more in common with the Islamic State than they realize. Both groups need to be confronted and destroyed.

      • Iran Hands Over Stockpile of Enriched Uranium to Russia

        A Russian ship left Iran on Monday carrying almost all of Iran’s stockpile of low-enriched uranium, fulfilling a major step in the nuclear deal struck last summer and, for the first time in nearly a decade, apparently leaving Iran with too little fuel to manufacture a nuclear weapon.

      • What Are the Chances for Peace in 2016?

        None of this trillion dollars taken from us is spent to keep us safe, despite what politicians say. In fact, this great rip-off actually makes us less safe and more vulnerable to a terrorist attack thanks to resentment overseas at our interventions and to the blowback it produces.

      • ‘Shadow CIA’ Warns: Daesh Will Opt For Radical Measures to Offset Losses

        Stratfor maintains that despite major anti-Daesh efforts in Iraq and Syria, the group will not be vanquished in 2016.

      • Drones fly over Iraq and Syria without congressional oversight

        With the military, not the CIA, in charge, few know whether casualties include Iraqi and Syrian civilians.

      • With less oversight, activists fear more civilian casualties from drone strikes [Ed: same]
      • How Qatar Is Funding al-Qaeda — and Why That Could Help the US

        Ask Americans to name the terror group they fear most, and they’ll probably says ISIS, even though it was al-Qaeda that killed more than 3,000 people on 9/11/2001. Compared to ISIS, al-Qaeda is seen as the “devil we know,” not the band of barbaric thugs who burn people alive, rape children, and destroy or pilfer historic artifacts for sale on the black market.

        The rivalry between the two terror groups has even prompted the unthinkable—that the U.S. and al-Qaeda would somehow work together to defeat ISIS. Last August General David Petraeus, former CIA director and commander of U.S. forces in Iraq and Afghanistan, urged the Pentagon to consider empowering al-Qaeda’s al-Nusra Front in Syria to fight ISIS. Petraeus, like others, believe Nusra is “moderate” compared with the tactics of the Taliban or ISIS, and could be an asset. But aligning with the lesser of two evils of terrorism is a policy fraught with pitfalls.

      • I revealed the truth about President Erdogan and Syria. For that, he had me jailed

        Early in 2014, a truck understood to belong to the Turkish intelligence service (MIT) was stopped near the Syrian border. The gendarmerie and the intelligence officials in control of the convoy pulled guns on each other. This was the moment the two blocks vying to rule the state came face to face. The truck was searched. Beneath the camouflage composed of medicines boxes, weapons and ammunition were found. The truck was held for a while, but following the intervention of government officials a safe passage into Syria was granted.

        The government immediately discharged the prosecutor and gendarmerie who stopped the convoy and had them arrested. It was declared that the trucks contained humanitarian aid. This incident, which fuelled allegations that President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s government was intervening in the Syrian civil war, was rapidly covered up.

      • 92 Killed in Iraq as PM Comes Under Rocket Fire in Ramadi

        Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi visited a relatively safe zone in the recently recovered city of Ramadi, where he promised to move the fighting against the Islamic State to the northern city of Mosul. However, there are reports that he was evacuated due to rocket fire. Meanwhile, Anbar’s governor, Suhaib al-Rawi, said over a thousand militants were killed during the battle for Ramadi. The true tallies of the fighting may never be publicly known.

      • Economic reform: tackling the root causes of extremism in Tunisia

        As we have seen over recent months, the phenomenon of fighters from different countries joining terrorist groups abroad highlights the need for of a global response to terrorism. Terrorism does not respect geographical borders and cannot be addressed within a single country. Tunisia does not operate within a vacuum, and we cannot counter terrorism, meet the expectations of our youth, and continue our democratic transition without the support of the international community.

      • These Ain’t Masterminds: Would Be Terrorist Crowdsourced Targets On Twitter Using ‘Silent Bomber’ Handle

        I have to say, it can certainly be quite frustrating to watch dispassionately how terrorism is discussed in the United States. After the fervor in the immediate aftermath of 9/11, when terrorism was used either as a reason or excuse to enact all kinds of liberty-diffusing policies and to launch an insane surveillance state that we still haven’t recovered from, I had thought we were quietly entering an era of eye-rolling at the way some in government throw around the word “terrorism.” But, because the home of the brave is so easily whipped into a frenzy of fear, an admittedly horrible terrorist attack half a world away and a shooting spree in California that would have been shrugged off as “Hey, that’s just America” except that the perpetrators had scary sounding last names, has once again meant that our political debates and twenty-four hour news programs are focused on the threat of Islamic extremist terrorism and not all of the other zillions of ways that you might die in the next twenty-four hours.

        What all of this fear-mongering has done, which completely escapes my understanding, is create the impression that our enemy is generally devious and technologically intelligent on Bond-villain-esque levels. This is how you create a climate where a legitimate tool such as encryption is under attack as a threat. That’s what makes it so useful to point out when would-be terrorists prove themselves to be bumbling idiots practically begging to be caught.

      • Bumbling would-be UK bomber asked Twitter followers for target suggestions

        Once again, encryption was not used to cover tracks in any way.

      • The GOP Candidates Know Nothing about Syria

        Like many political animals, I was glued to the latest Republican presidential debate.

        For the most part, there were no surprises: Donald Trump railed against Muslims, Chris Christie lamented that the NSA can’t intercept Americans’ phone calls and emails as easily as it used to, Ben Carson remained confused about foreign policy, and Carly Fiorina yelled loudly that nobody was paying any attention to her.

        That’s great entertainment. But one ongoing theme bothered me – a lot.

        It seemed to me that none of the Republicans running for president had even the vaguest understanding of what’s happening in Syria.

        I learned during my nearly 15 years of working on the Middle East at the CIA – and after earning my college degree in Middle Eastern Studies – that nothing in that region is easily accomplished. Almost no issues are black and white. Alliances shift constantly, and sometimes politics makes for strange bedfellows.

        [...]

        And those “moderate” rebels? Maybe a few are freedom-loving secularists. But many more are hardcore Islamists like the al-Qaeda-affiliated Nusra Front. They aren’t any more interested in democracy than Assad or the Islamic State itself.

        There is, however, a solution. And it doesn’t involve killing more people, stumbling into other countries’ civil wars, or “carpet bombing” the Middle East, as Ted Cruz proposed. It’s called diplomacy.

    • Transparency Reporting

      • Spy agencies resist push for expanded scrutiny of top employees

        U.S. intelligence agencies recently fought off a move by Congress to require the CIA and other spy services to disclose more details about high-ranking employees who have been promoted or fired, despite pledges to be more open and accountable.

        The disputed measure was designed to increase scrutiny of cases­ in which senior officers ascend to high-level positions despite problems ranging from abusive treatment of subordinates to involvement in botched operations overseas.

      • US Spy Agencies Crush Congressional Demand for More Employee Scrutiny

        Despite pledges of increased transparency, the US intelligence community successfully fought a Congressional measure that would require agencies to give more details about personnel who have been promoted or fired.

      • TPP’s Forgotten Danger: Stronger Trade Secrets Protection, With Criminal Penalties For Infringement

        Since the release of the TPP text back in November, commentators have naturally tended to concentrate on the bigger, more obvious problems — things like the corporate sovereignty chapter, the extension of Big Pharma’s monopolies to scientific data, and copyright provisions — that Techdirt has been exploring for years. But there’s one area that has received relatively little attention, perhaps because for most people it’s an obscure topic that seems rather unimportant. It concerns the issue of trade secrets, which Techdirt wrote about in the context of TPP in October 2014. There, we concentrated on the risk that it would chill investigative reporting and corporate whistleblowing, but a new column in The Globe and Mail by Dan Breznitz, professor of Innovation Studies at the Munk School of Global Affairs at the University of Toronto, looks at the economic impact of TPP’s trade secrets measures.

      • For their eyes only… Secrecy row as Whitehall refuses to release Cabinet files in full for first time in 50 years

        The Cabinet Office was accused of suppressing ‘politically sensitive information’ last night after it failed to fully release official files for the first time in 50 years.

        It usually releases hundreds of documents about government decision-making through the National Archives, but this year there are just 14.

        Files on subjects ranging from the SAS shootings in Gibraltar to the Lockerbie bombing in 1988 should have been available to the public but are not.

        MPs pointed out last night that two senior ministers connected to the National Archives were government advisers during the period covered by the missing files.

      • Police Union Thinks Cops Should Receive Less Scrutiny Than Retail Workers

        Police unions are working tirelessly towards destroying any remaining shreds of respectability. Presumably, they once served a purpose roughly aligned with the public good. Now, they serve the singular purpose of ensuring our nation’s law enforcement agencies will always be forced to keep the abusive, incompetent officers on their payroll.

    • Environment/Energy/Wildlife

      • Fracked Gas Won’t Achieve Paris Climate Goals, But Empowering Communities Could

        The United States is undergoing a massive energy transition that isn’t receiving enough attention, and it could render the Paris climate agreement meaningless. We’re swapping one climate-damaging fuel, coal, for another that is actually worse: fracked gas.

        It’s a stark contradiction for U.S. climate policy. The Obama administration used its executive power to push the agreement and its aspirational goal of keeping warming to “well below” 2 degrees Celsius. The agreement is a good thing. But for the U.S., a big part of reaching its intended nationally determined contribution (INDC) commitment is implementing the Clean Power Plan, the EPA’s framework for states to reduce their carbon emissions. It’s designed to facilitate a wholesale transition from coal to natural gas, much of which is a product of fracking.

      • ‘Incredible’ Winter Flooding Along Mississippi River Could Be Historic
      • Deadly Missouri Flooding Forces Town Evacuations as Water Continues to Rise

        At least 20 people have been killed by severe flooding in Missouri, where several towns along the Mississippi River have been forced to evacuate due to rising floodwaters that are predicted to break records in the next few days. Such catastrophic, widespread flooding hasn’t been seen in the region in over two decades.

      • Sunderland Fan Zone closed by bad weather
      • The 15 Most Ridiculous Things Conservative Media Said About Climate Change In 2015

        From Pope Francis’ encyclical on climate change, to the establishment of the first-ever federal limits on carbon pollution from power plants, to a landmark international climate agreement, 2015 has been full of major landmarks in national and global efforts to address global warming. Yet you wouldn’t know it if you inhabited the parallel universe of the conservative media, where media figures went to ridiculous and outrageous lengths to dismiss or deny climate science, attack the pope, scientists, and anyone else concerned with climate change, and defend polluting fossil fuel companies. Here are the 15 most ridiculous things conservative media said about climate change in 2015.

      • No Denying It, Climate Change Is Happening Now

        The leaves came off the last trees — a crabapple, a willow and a hardy Norway maple — during the first week of December this year, surely the latest I can remember seeing leaves on trees since we moved to the Philadelphia area 18 years ago. But it’s not just that.

        A rhododendron bush beside the house has huge blooms ready to burst open, the white petal tips pushing out of their scaly looking egg-sized buds. And our garden is still boasting a surprisingly fast-growing crop of chard, sweet kale and perhaps most surprisingly, tall fava bean plants that, while they didn’t produce any beans this year, saute up to make a beautiful doumiao — one of my favorite Chinese vegetable dishes.

      • Waiting to exhale: The politics of fire in Indonesia

        Why are there more land fires in Indonesia before an election? Why are oil palm plantations burned also? Why does everyone involved see the fires differently?

        And what do elephants have to do with any of it?

        The devastating land and forest fires in Indonesia begin long before someone lights a match: They start with a complex entanglement of politics, economics, power and practice.

      • Commentary: Emissions From Indonesia’s Fires Reach New Highs, but Solutions Are Within Reach

        Indonesia’s forest and land fires have reached a new level of global significance. New analysis published this week by Guido van der Werf, lead scientist with the Global Fire Emissions Database, indicates that since September greenhouse gas emissions from the fires exceeded the average daily emissions from all US economic activity. Extrapolating from van der Werf’s estimates, these emissions are likely to add about 3 percent to total global greenhouse gas emissions from human activities for the year. The emissions from fires so far in 2015 are more than three times higher than expected by Indonesia’s national planning agency.

        The fires in Indonesia are set to clear land for agriculture or as a weapon in conflict over land. Many of the fires are burning on carbon-rich peatlands and as a result spew extremely large amounts of toxic smog into the air and climate-altering gas into the atmosphere.

      • Floods, climate, and neglect: a reflection

        We have been lucky with the flooding where we live, at least so far. Kirkburton is in the east Pennines a few miles out of Huddersfield and the village was on the Environment Agency’s “risk of flooding” warning for twenty-four hours on the weekend of 26-27 December. Fortunately, while the rain may have been very heavy it didn’t persist here as long as it did up on the moors, but some of the Calder Valley towns like Hebden Bridge, Mytholmroyd and Sowerby Bridge were hit appallingly badly.

    • Finance

      • Affluenza: An Outrage in All Its Forms

        Ethan was sentenced to mere parole instead of prison. Ethan Couch, whose family is worth a reported $15 million, became the embodiment of our unfair treatment of the rich. He recently re-entered headlines after a jaunt through Mexico in violation of parole left him in federal custody. He may, in the end, face jail time.

        The public outrage at Ethan’s legal treatment has been understandably intense. Why should someone get off easy simply because they’re rich?

        However, much less public outrage has come from another insidious from of affluenza—the legalized tax evasion by the ultra wealthy. According to a blistering new report from The New York Times, “The very richest are able to quietly shape tax policy that will allow them to shield millions, if not billions, of their income.”

      • For the Wealthiest, a Private Tax System That Saves Them Billions

        The hedge fund magnates Daniel S. Loeb, Louis Moore Bacon and Steven A. Cohen have much in common. They have managed billions of dollars in capital, earning vast fortunes. They have invested large sums in art — and millions more in political candidates.

        Moreover, each has exploited an esoteric tax loophole that saved them millions in taxes. The trick? Route the money to Bermuda and back.

      • Apple to pay Italy 318 million euros, sign tax deal – source

        Apple Inc will pay Italy’s tax office 318 million euros ($348 million) to settle a dispute over allegations it failed to pay taxes for six years, a source with direct knowledge of the matter said on Wednesday.

        The maker of iPhones and iPads will also sign an accord next year on how to manage its tax liabilities from 2015 onward, the source said.

      • German Ministry of Finance’s anti-Europe proposal

        Recently, I wrote a blog – Who is responsible for the Eurozone crisis? The simple answer: It is not Germany! – where I contended that Germany was not to blame for the Eurozone crisis. I also wrote that while Germany was not responsible, single-handedly, for the creation of the dysfunctional monetary union, its politicians were surely complicit in making the crisis deeper and longer than it otherwise could have been given the circumstances.

      • Clinton Senior Adviser Authored Paper Arguing for Paid Leave Proposal She Now Opposes

        But for Hillary Clinton, this tiny increase in payroll taxes is not only a reason to delay, but a reason to oppose the legislation altogether – something O’Leary has apparently discarded her own previous advocacy for.But for Hillary Clinton, this tiny increase in payroll taxes is not only a reason to delay, but a reason to oppose the legislation altogether – something O’Leary has apparently discarded her own previous advocacy for.

      • The Sharing Economy
      • A Crisis Worse than ISIS? Bail-Ins Begin

        At the end of November, an Italian pensioner hanged himself after his entire €100,000 savings were confiscated in a bank “rescue” scheme. He left a suicide note blaming the bank, where he had been a customer for 50 years and had invested in bank-issued bonds. But he might better have blamed the EU and the G20’s Financial Stability Board, which have imposed an “Orderly Resolution” regime that keeps insolvent banks afloat by confiscating the savings of investors and depositors. Some 130,000 shareholders and junior bond holders suffered losses in the “rescue.”

      • What Went Right in 2015

        Sure, income inequality has grown—but so what? The rich don’t get richer at the expense of the poor. Poor people’s income grew 48 percent over the past 35 years. Bernie Sanders says that “the middle class is disappearing!” But that’s mainly because many middle-class people moved into the upper class. Middle class incomes grew 40 percent over the past 30 years.

    • PR/AstroTurf/Lobbying

      • 5 of the Worst Examples of Biased and Distorted Media Coverage of Education in 2015

        2015 was an important year in education policy, with the passage of the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), the beginning of the 2016 election campaigns, and local fights for teachers and public schools making national headlines. In an important year for students and teachers across the education spectrum, however, some media outlets used their platforms to push falsehoods. Here are five of the worst media failures on public education this year.

      • George Pataki Leaves Presidential Race

        Earle I. Mack, a prominent real estate developer and Republican donor who was supporting Mr. Pataki, said the former governor had faced a difficult national environment for his “middle of the road” brand of politics. Mr. Mack, who spoke with Mr. Pataki ahead of his announcement, said Republicans faced a dire future if they did not tack toward the center, as Mr. Pataki had urged.

      • Trump Spokeswoman Loves Her Bullet Necklace, but Might Wear a ‘Fetus’ Necklace Next Time
      • The Airwaves May Soon Be Awash With Footage of Donald Trump Mugging in the Debates

        My colleague Russ Choma, who was apparently denied entry to a Donald Trump rally in chilly New Hampshire, nonetheless reports that Trump says he will soon begin spending millions of dollars on television ads in early primary states. Maybe so—or maybe it’s just Trump jabbering again.

      • Does Donald Trump Have Any Friends?

        This is an odd quirk in Trump’s personality. He seems to have an ironclad rule against ever attacking someone first. Even Vladimir Putin. Putin says nice things about Trump, so Trump has to say nice things back. Opposing candidates who don’t attack him are “great guys.” But if you attack first, then he has to fire off a nuclear retaliation. There’s an odd kind of chivalry at work here, and I suppose it also provides people with a motivation to leave him alone.

      • Here Is Every Crazy, Insane, Terrible, Genius, Infuriating Thing Donald Trump Did This Year

        It’s hard to overstate Donald Trump’s impact on the 2016 race for the White House. The business tycoon symbolizes the shift from traditional presidential campaigns to the new uncampaign. Trump has had no need to pander for money, and he has been impervious to criticism—no matter how justified. He seems to only be strengthened by political gaffes that would doom other candidates. This year, he has dominated the news cycle repeatedly and ridden high in the polls. Chronicling all his wacky remarks, blunders, outrageous proposals, and, of course, crazy tweets of this past year would be nearly impossible. But we tried.

      • Donald Trump Is About to Open His War Chest

        But the biggest news of the night came when Trump said he would vastly increase his spending on television commercials. To date, Trump appears to have spent only $217,000 on advertising—compared with $41 million spent by Bush and his allied super-PAC. But Trump told the crowd that’s about to change.

      • EXCLUSIVE: The Story Sheldon Adelson Didn’t Want You To Read

        Two weeks ago, conservative billionaire Sheldon Adelson and his family purchased the Las Vegas Review-Journal, Nevada’s largest paper. On Tuesday, its editor-in-chief of five years, Mike Hengel, resigned.

        If you are a subscriber to the Review-Journal, you would have read a grand total of 79 words on Wednesday about Hengel’s departure. According to the story, which did not have a byline, the decision was “mutual” and “he did not believe he was forced out.”

      • Michael Moore on Why America ‘Needs a Little Time in the Timeout Room,’ and Whether Hillary Will Start a War

        Where do you see signs of hope? Is the Bernie Sanders campaign a sign of hope, even if he doesn’t win?

        Absolutely. A socialist was on the stage for a Democratic debate! There was a poll last month where they asked Democrats how they felt about socialism and capitalism, and 46 percent said they had a positive view of socialism, while 37 percent said they had a positive view of capitalism. Things are changing, and young people are making this change happen. My politics and Bernie’s line up almost exactly the same.

      • Bernie Sanders’ Ambitious Plan to Win the Backing of Donald Trump Supporters

        Democratic presidential hopeful Bernie Sanders said Sunday that he believes he can boost his own standing in the race by swaying supporters of Republican frontrunner Donald Trump to back his campaign.

        Sanders told CBS’s Face the Nation that many of Trump’s supporters have legitimate fears stemming from income inequality that Sanders is best positioned to address.

        “What Trump has done with some success is taken that anger, taken those fears, which are legitimate, and converted them into anger against Mexicans, anger against Muslims,” Sanders said.

      • One person shows up to O’Malley event in Iowa, remains uncommitted

        The uncommitted voter told the candidate that he had the strongest résumé of the three Democrats seeking the nomination, according to Beckman’s report. “I give you a lot of credit for coming out here,” Kenneth told O’Malley. “I’m glad you took the time.”

      • Ukraine’s media: a plea for pluralism

        Under these conditions, so-called ‘explanatory journalism’ has come to play an increasingly important role. This is journalism that tells its audience how a particular incident, phenomenon or statement impacts them personally, and how it relates to their value systems and principles.

        In a pluralistic society, the commitment to a particular belief system is important for building audiences around specific media resources. Conservatives and liberals, supporters of free enterprise and socialists, supporters and opponents of migration, tend to group around the publication which best reflects their personal views.

    • Censorship

      • A deadly landslide exposes the depths of China’s corruption and censorship

        DISASTERS, BOTH natural and man-made, tear a hole in society. When that tear comes in a place such as China, systemic failures often are exposed as well as lives lost and dreams crushed. The landslide that came roaring down on the Chinese city of Shenzhen on Dec. 20 underscores yet again the dangers of unbridled growth, lax safety inspections, corruption, unaccountable government and lack of rule of law.

      • Official in China city hit by deadly landslide kills himself

        A government official in southern China killed himself a week after a landslide from a huge pile of construction waste in his city left scores missing and presumed dead, police said Monday.

      • 2015 was the year ‘censorship’ lost all meaning

        This year, in lieu of the traditional “Best Of” lists, we thought it would be fun to throw our editors into a draft together and have a conversation. This is the year that censorship was either a big deal or lost all meaning. We got an error code for governments blocking web pages, a presidential candidate suggested we “close up” the internet, we spent a lot of time wondering whether college campuses were limiting free speech, and we got into a gigantic debate over whether Reddit’s stricter policies constituted censorship. And of course we heard about whether all the things Gamergate and similar internet bottom-feeders hated last year — Twitter block lists, comment moderation, saying a game was sexist — were still turning the internet into a censorious wasteland. We brought together Adi Robertson and Russell Brandom to discuss whether anyone knows what censorship means now.

      • Fighting abuse to protect freedom of expression

        Today, as part of our continued efforts to combat abuse, we’re updating the Twitter Rules to clarify what we consider to be abusive behaviour and hateful conduct. The updated language emphasizes that Twitter will not tolerate behavior intended to harass, intimidate, or use fear to silence another user’s voice. As always, we embrace and encourage diverse opinions and beliefs –but we will continue to take action on accounts that cross the line into abuse.

      • Filmmaker wins lawsuit against censorship in Chinese court

        Director Fan Popo says he won a lawsuit targeting censorship in China, but the victory is only partial because he must continue his fight to screen a film.

      • Gay filmmaker claims partial victory over China censors

        ‘I also saw online comments saying that they don’t support gay rights but they are happy to see somebody sue SAPPRFT’

      • Gay Filmmaker Fan Popo Declares Legal Victory, but Banned Film Still Can’t Be Viewed

        At issue is Fan’s 2012 documentary titled Mama Rainbow, which follows mothers of gay children throughout China. Fan’s 30-minute-long documentary was previously available on many Chinese video streaming platforms, namely Youku, Tudou, and 56.com, receiving a huge amount of hits, comments, and reviews from people from all walks of life, both positive and negative, until it was removed in late 2014.

      • New media law gives Polish government fuller control

        Poland’s parliament on Wednesday adopted a new media law that gives the conservative government more latitude to control state-run television and radio.

        The law on “national media” is the latest in a series of legislative efforts by the newly elected Law and Justice party (PiS) government to take control of a wide array of state institutions, something that’s creating a growing, but so far ineffective, domestic and international pushback.

      • Latin American Journalism and Advocacy Groups Recognized by Index on Censorship’s Freedom of Expression Awards

        Journalists, media organizations and freedom of expression advocates from El Salvador, Cuba, Argentina, Mexico and Ecuador were included on the long list of candidates for the Index on Censorship’s 2016 Freedom of Expression Awards announced on December 16.

      • Twitter Closes Out 2015 By Tackling Harassment In Its Terms Of Service

    • Privacy

      • War on drugs meets terrorism

        Last month I had the pleasure of attending the biennial Drug Policy Alliance shindig in Washington on behalf of Law Enforcement Against Prohibition (www.leap.cc). We also held our annual LEAP board meeting ahead of the DPA, and it was great to have the chance to catch up again with my fellow directors.

      • Reforms Abound for Cross-Border Data Requests

        Currently, all countries must meet the U.S. legal standard of probable cause before obtaining communications from U.S.-based companies. The proposal seems to lower this standard by mandating requests be “relevant and material” to the crime under investigation. While it’s our understanding that the proposed language is meant to approximate the U.S. probable cause standard without using the words “probable cause,” the elasticity of “relevance” (as seen in U.S. debates over the scope of Section 215) is a red flag.

      • Report: Obama spied on Netanyahu after NSA reforms

        President Barack Obama’s administration continued to spy after Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, even after he announced two years ago he would curtail the National Security Agency’s eavesdropping program on friendly heads of state, The Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday.

      • China expert Adam Segal: U.S. companies should worry about Beijing’s new anti-terrorism law

        American tech companies are worried that China’s new anti-terrorism law will force them to open up their encryption for the country’s notoriously repressive government.

        As the United States debates whether police should have guaranteed access to encrypted products like your iPhone or Android device, Beijing’s new technology policies—part of a broader law that passed on Sunday to combat terrorism in the country—are sure to spark renewed hand-wringing in Silicon Valley over whether and how U.S. firms should even operate in China.

      • EFF Joins ACLU in Amicus Brief Supporting Warrant Requirement for Cell-Site Simulators

        EFF, ACLU, and ACLU of Maryland filed an amicus brief today in the Maryland Court of Special Appeals in the first case in the country (that we know of) where a judge has thrown out evidence obtained as a result of using a cell-site simulator without a warrant.

        In the case, Baltimore Police used a Hailstorm—a cell-site simulator from the same company that makes Stingrays—to locate Kerron Andrews, the defendant. The police not only failed to get a warrant to use the device, they also failed to disclose it to the judge in their application for a pen register order. And it appears they even failed to tell the State’s attorney prosecuting Mr. Andrews’ case.

        Luckily Mr. Andrews’ intrepid defense attorney suspected the police might have used a Stingray and sent a discovery request asking specifically if they had. The prosecution stalled for months on answering that request, but, on the eve of trial, one of the investigators responsible for Baltimore PD’s stingrays finally testified in court not only that he’d used the device to find Mr. Andrews, but that he’d specifically not disclosed it in any report filed about Andrews’ arrest. The judge concluded the police had intentionally withheld information from Mr. Andrews—a clear violation of his constitutional rights.

      • Spying on Congress and Israel: NSA Cheerleaders Discover Value of Privacy Only When Their Own Is Violated

        The Wall Street Journal reported yesterday that the NSA under President Obama targeted Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his top aides for surveillance. In the process, the agency ended up eavesdropping on “the contents of some of their private conversations with U.S. lawmakers and American-Jewish groups” about how to sabotage the Iran Deal. All sorts of people who spent many years cheering for and defending the NSA and its programs of mass surveillance are suddenly indignant now that they know the eavesdropping included them and their American and Israeli friends rather than just ordinary people.

      • One Of Congress’s Biggest Defenders Of NSA Surveillance Suddenly Aghast That NSA May Have Spied On Him

        Remember how Dianne Feinstein — a huge supporter of the intelligence community — absolutely freaked out about surveillance when it happened to her staffers (when the CIA snooped on their network)? It would almost be funny how the defenders of surveillance react when they’re being surveilled… if it weren’t so tragic.

      • House Intelligence chair seeks answers on NSA spying report

        The chairman of the House Intelligence Committee said Wednesday his committee will look into a report the U.S. spied on the Israeli prime minister and in the process swept up communications with Congress.

      • Poisoned apple: the curse of social media in the Gulf

        The increased social media use in the Gulf might signify some progress for its citizens, but the extent to which it empowers them is greatly outweighed by state surveillance through the same vehicle.

      • NSA Never Stopped Intercepting Foreign Leaders’ Communications, Swept Up Congress Members In Its Collection

        Technically, spying on Congress is off-limits. In reality, the NSA can grab anything involving conversations with foreign citizens, provided it feels the content of the communications contains “significant foreign intelligence.” Even so, the NSA is required to inform oversight committees when it has released unminimized, Congress-related communications to the executive branch. In this case, that information was never turned over to the oversight committees, and the executive branch deferred entirely to the NSA’s judgment on the withholding of this information.

      • Paul “appalled” by NSA surveillance, Pataki on campaign exit
      • Rubio: Reports of NSA spying on Congress ‘worse than some people might think’
      • Rand Paul Appalled By NSA’s Possible Data Collection on Congress
      • Rand Paul: ‘Appalled’ By NSA Spying on Members of Congress
      • Rand Paul ‘Appalled’ The NSA Spied On Members Of Congress
      • NSA eavesdropping on Israeli PM Netanyahu is nothing new

        The Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday that President Obama did not include Israeli Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu in his list of world leaders that the US does not spy on, and that he ordered the continued monitoring of the discussions between Netanyahu and his senior aides.

      • US ‘spied on Binyamin Netanyahu during Iran nuclear deal talks’
      • The New WSJ Report on the NSA Has Some WTF For Everyone

        This latest Wall Street Journal bombshell about the National Security Agency’s having spied on the back-channel shenanigans between putative ally Benjamin Netanyahu and the members of Congress regarding the state of the Iran nuclear talks has a little WTF somethin’-somethin’ for everyone. If you happen to be a staunch American Likudnik, you can ask WTF the NSA is doing spying on our plucky ally. If, like me, you don’t trust the NSA’s assurances as far as you can throw the billions of dollars we spend snooping around the world, you can ask WTF the NSA is doing spying on members of Congress. (Answer to outraged conservatives in this camp: exactly what all you people want it to do to Muslims.) If you have made a career out of being a public nut, you can go indiscriminately crazy. And if, like me, you’ve always wondered WTF members of Congress were doing helping a putative ally derail a major foreign-policy initiative of the United States, thanks to the NSA, you’ve now got a pretty good idea.

      • No comment: Sen. Harry Reid declines to blame NSA spying allegations on Koch brothers
      • Is the Freedom Act More Effective Than the Patriot Act?

        As members of the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board (PCLOB), we have witnessed firsthand how oversight, coupled with transparency, can drive efforts to improve flawed surveillance programs.

        Section 215 of the Patriot Act, under which the National Security Agency (NSA) collected and searched the telephone metadata of millions of innocent Americans, serves as a prime example.

      • The Cold War-Era Rules Designed to Protect U.S. Lawmakers’ Communications

        When Americans, including U.S. lawmakers and government officials, were referenced in foreign communications swept up by the NSA, their identities were required to be obscured through a process called “minimization.” The question of how the NSA handles lawmakers was raised in a Wall Street Journal piece about U.S. spying on Israel’s top leadership.

    • Civil Rights

      • What Everyone Should Know About The Police Killing Of Tamir Rice (2002-2014)

        Today, prosecutor Tim McGinty announced that he would not seek criminal charges against the officers involved in the fatal shooting of 12-year-old Tamir Rice, Timothy Loehmann and Frank Garmback. The decision came after a grand jury, which has been hearing evidence for three months, declined to issue an indictment. Rice’s family and others sharply criticized McGinty’s conduct throughout the grand jury process, arguing that he was manipulating the proceedings to the benefit of the officers.

      • Top Wins for Civil Liberties in 2015

        We made great progress on key fronts in 2015. We fought to protect our privacy, demanded justice for torture victims, and stood up against pregnancy discrimination. We also won the right for same-sex couples to legally wed, fought for families seeking asylum—and much more. The strides we’ve made in the past year are all due to your support. Thanks to you, the ACLU’s impact throughout the country—in courts, legislatures, and the media—resonates across issues and generates new momentum for change.

      • The Illusion of Freedom

        The seizure of political and economic power by corporations is unassailable. Who funds and manages our elections? Who writes our legislation and laws? Who determines our defense policies and vast military expenditures? Who is in charge of the Department of the Interior? The Department of Homeland Security? Our intelligence agencies? The Department of Agriculture? The Food and Drug Administration? The Department of Labor? The Federal Reserve? The mass media? Our systems of entertainment? Our prisons and schools? Who determines our trade and environmental policies? Who imposes austerity on the public while enabling the looting of the U.S. Treasury and the tax boycott by Wall Street? Who criminalizes dissent?

      • Argentina lurches rightwards but progressive policy gains will endure

        The ascendency of the pro-business conservative Mauricio Macri to Argentina’s Presidency on 10th December 2015 spells the end of 12 years of centre-Left Peronist governments.

      • The Ku Klux Klan: America’s Long History of Tolerating White Terrorist Organizations

        One centuries’ old example of US government double standards when it comes to terrorism, is the infamous Klu Klux Klan. The Klan has terrorized and killed far more Americans than Islamic terrorists ever have; and despite being America’s oldest terrorist organization, the US government does not officially consider the KKK a terrorist organization, classifying it merely as a “hate group”.

      • Cleveland officer who fatally shot Tamir Rice will not face criminal charges

        Grand jury declines to indict white officer Timothy Loehmann and partner over shooting of 12-year-old, citing lack of evidence of criminal misconduct

      • Cleveland’s Terrible Stain

        Tamir Rice of Cleveland would be alive today had he been a white 12-year-old playing with a toy gun in just about any middle-class neighborhood in the country on the afternoon of Nov. 22, 2014.

        But Tamir, who was shot to death by a white police officer that day, had the misfortune of being black in a poor area of Cleveland, where the police have historically behaved as an occupying force that shoots first and asks questions later. To grow up black and male in such a place is to live a highly circumscribed life, hemmed in by forces that deny your humanity and conspire to kill you.

        Those forces hovered over the proceedings on Monday when a grand jury declined to indict Officer Timothy Loehmann in the killing and Timothy McGinty, the Cuyahoga County prosecutor, explained why he had asked the grand jurors to not bring charges. Mr. McGinty described the events leading up to Tamir’s death as tragic series of errors and “miscommunications” that began when a 911 caller said a male who was “probably a juvenile” was waving a “probably fake” gun at people in a park.

      • Pressure Mounts After Chicago Police Admit To Killing Innocent 55-Year-Old Woman By Accident

        After police officers shot and killed two Chicago residents — one admittedly accidentally — early Saturday morning, their friends and families are asking why officers “shoot first and ask questions later.”

      • CIA Torture Program Originated in MKUltra Department

        As Soft Panorama notes, Seligman’s theory of Learned Helplessness was initially used to design a training program to help captured military personnel resist the effects of torture (3). LH went on to be used in the detention camp at Guantanamo Bay to assist the interrogation of convicts.

        According to an article by Shadow Proof about the CIA’s torture program originating in the same department as MKUltra, Seligman is believed to have met with Mitchell on three occasions, which, as Shadow Proof claims “strongly suggests” that the CIA torture program was initiated by the OTS and constituted “at least in part” of an experimental program (4).

      • The whipping girl: Screaming in agony, a woman collapses as she and a man are caned under Sharia law in Indonesia merely for being ‘seen in close proximity’ to each other without being married
      • Federal Judge Says Cops Can Hold Your Family at Gunpoint if You Drink Tea or Grow Tomatoes–Here’s Why

        A Kansas couple lost their lawsuit after a federal judge essentially ruled that drinking tea and gardening were probable cause for a drug search warrant — but they forced a change in state law that could prevent similar raids.

      • Why Sarah Silverman Is Scary: It’s the Cultural Power of Celebrities That Drives Conservatives Insane

        Conservatives love decrying liberals for “political correctness” and “oversensitivity,” a particularly poignant form of hypocrisy since liberals could never reach the levels of whininess and hyper-sensitivity to perceived insults that the right wing coughs up daily. Doubly so when it comes to anything that a celebrity says.

        Freaking out on celebrities allows conservatives to double down on their sense of victimhood — not only do they get to feign offense, they also get to wallow in how supposedly unfair it is that the giant liberal media conspiracy is oppressing them by allowing celebrities to say progressive things in public.

      • The Unspoken Problem With the Tamir Rice Killing

        This is absolutely right, of course. The war by police on Black Americans is a continuation of the war on former black slaves in the post bellum South, when unfortunate young black men, Billie Holliday’s “Strange Fruit,” were strung up with utter impunity by whites in hoods and sheets. None of us who saw it can ever forget the face of Emmett Till in his coffin.

      • The Politics of the “Comfort Women” Deal

        The comfort women are in their 90s now but it is not their increasing frailty that led to the “agreement’’ between Seoul and Tokyo. The timing concerned an event held in Beijing on Sept 3. China’s “Victory over Fascism’’ military parade which marked the 70th anniversary of the end of WWII had one telling moment that made strategists in Washington sit up and take notice. The attendance of South Korean President Park Geun-Hye, the only major US ally to turn up, prodded Washington to lean on Japan and Seoul to get an agreement. The pivot, a mild word for what is a major US military redeployment, depends on the pillar of Japan and South Korea cooperating. The plight of the former sex slaves, which Japan euphemistically calls the ianfu, or comfort women, is the main thorn in the side of relations between Seoul and Tokyo.

      • Bill Cosby To Face Criminal Charges For Sexual Assault

        Prosecutors announced Wednesday morning that Bill Cosby will face criminal charges for a sexual assault he allegedly committed in 2004 against a former Temple University employee. He is expected to be arraigned Wednesday afternoon.

      • 2015 in reproductive rights: Arkansas sets off year of abortion restrictions
      • U.S. Passed 47 New Anti-Abortion Laws in 2015

        In 2015, U.S. states introduced upwards of 350 anti-abortion bills and passed 47 of them, according to a report from the Center for Reproductive Rights.* This is down somewhat from 2013, but an increase over the number of measures passed in 2014.

      • Why Black Lives Matter Is the Movement of the Year

        Although more than two years have passed since three black women—Patrisse Cullors, Alicia Garza and Opal Tometi—founded Black Lives Matter (BLM) in the wake of George Zimmerman’s acquittal in the murder of Trayvon Martin, the U.S. justice system’s continued failures clearly illustrate why the movement is still as important and necessary as ever.

        Earlier this month, a Baltimore judge declared a mistrial in the case of William Porter, the first of six officers to be indicted in the death of Freddie Gray.

        Then, just five days later, on Dec. 21, a Texas grand jury decided not to indict anyone in the mysterious police-custody death of Sandra Bland.

      • 2015: The Year Police Killings in America Were Counted

        The Black Lives Matter movement that swept the country in 2015 has—among other accomplishments—forced global media outlets to afford victims of police killings the most basic acknowledgement: a public record of their names and deaths.

        Such a grim tally was maintained this year by both the Guardian and the Washington Post, following the consistent failure of the U.S. government to keep adequate records.

        According to the Guardian, 1,126 people were killed by police so far in 2015, averaging more than three a day, with 27 percent of those slain facing mental health issues.

      • LeBron Shouldn’t Boycott Basketball. But He Should Learn Something About Tamir Rice.

        His comments came after a group of activists online started a #NoJusticeNoLeBron campaign, asking the NBA superstar and Cleveland native to sit out of Cleveland Cavaliers games until the Department of Justice “imprisons the murderers” of Rice.

      • America’s Incarcerated Population, Largest in World, Grew Even More Last Year

        The federal government’s Bureau of Justice Statistics has released new numbers detailing how America’s incarcerated population — already the world’s largest — grew even bigger in 2014.

        The bureau’s researchers report that the number of individuals incarcerated grew by 1,900 people over the course of last year — “reversing a 5-year decline since 2008.”

      • Racial prejudice is driving opposition to paying college athletes. Here’s the evidence.

        With the money made from college sports increasing every year, the way colleges treat their athletes has become controversial.

        That’s because college sports is a tremendously lucrative business for everyone but the athletes. The National College Athletic Association (NCAA) will receive $7.3 billion from ESPN for the right to broadcast the seven games of the College Football Playoffs (CFP) between 2014 and 2026, and $11 billion from CBS and Turner Sports to broadcast “March Madness” over the next 14 years.

      • Chicago’s Solution to Killings by Police? More Tasers! Which Also Result in Death.

        So Chicago’s police are a disaster and has been since forever, honestly. Even before the latest outrages—the brutal police killing of Laquan McDonald (and the city’s attempt to suppress video footage of it) and the accidental killing of a 55-year-old grandmother by police responding to a call over the holidays—the city had been paying out millions of dollars in settlements over claims of misconduct by police.

        Some are calling for Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s resignation. He is declining and has been promising reform. Today we are going to be seeing what his idea of reform looks like.

      • After the French 9/11, Le Patriot Act

        The visible signs of change here at the merciful close of France’s annus horribilis are subtle to the American eye. Travelers arriving by air from other European countries no longer encounter an automatic “hurry along” at the passport booth. More tricolors than usual are draped across apartment buildings. The rifle-gripping soldiers walking slowly through the shopping promenades look decidedly alert and grim.

      • VIDEO: White Police Officer Who Fatally Shot 12-Year-Old Tamir Rice Will Not Face Criminal Charges

        More than a year after the shooting in Cleveland, Cuyahoga County Prosecutor Timothy McGinty declared, “The death of Tamir Rice was an absolute tragedy. It was horrible, unfortunate and regrettable. But it was not, by the law that binds us, a crime.”

      • Virginia Man Shot 23 Times by W.Va. Cops, Family Challenging Judge’s Summary Dismissal of Lawsuit

        In March 2013, Wayne Jones was stopped by a police officer in Martinsburg, West Virginia for walking in the street. He reportedly told the cop he had a knife and then tried to flee. Five police officers caught up with Jones, shooting him at least 22 times after yelling at him to “drop the fucking knife.” That October, a grand jury predictably declined to indict anyone in relation to the shooting.

      • The Paranoid Style of American Policing

        When I was around 10 years old, my father confronted a young man who was said to be “crazy.” The young man was always too quick to want to fight. A foul in a game of 21 was an insult to his honor. A cross word was cause for a duel, and you never knew what that cross word might be. One day, the young man got into it with one of my older brother’s friends. The young man pulled a metal stake out of the ground (there was some work being done nearby) and began swinging it wildly in a threatening manner. My father, my mother, or my older brother—I don’t recall which—told the other boy to go inside of our house. My dad then came outside. I don’t really remember what my father said to the young man. Perhaps he said something like “Go home,” or maybe something like, “Son, it’s over.” I don’t really recall. But what I do recall is that my dad did not shoot and kill the young man.

      • Update: TSA Will Give 120 Days Before “Implementing REAL ID Enforcement at Airports”

        Come January 10, at least nine states and several territories will be in defiance of a decade-old law mandating various security features on the driver’s licenses they issue. That raises the specter of people traveling on domestic flights being turned away from airport gates for having non-compliant IDs.

      • Rahm Emanuel Announcing Plans for ‘Major Overhaul’ of Chicago PD This Afternoon

        Rahm Emanuel’s resignation could be an acknowledgement of the depths of the problem, but on its own it’s not a solution nor even a step toward one. There are blueprints for reform, and they don’t require a blue ribbon panel stocked with politicians and police. This summer activists from Black Lives Matter launched Campaign Zero—a list of reforms to police practices and policies that work toward eliminating excessive police violence and increasing accountability that have been adopted in some jurisdictions and could be adopted in others. And earlier this month, they launched Check the Police, a program to collect and analyze police contracts around the country in an effort to direct attention to how they perpetuate police violence.

      • Penn. Court Says State Can’t Block Folks from Some Jobs Forever Entirely Due to Criminal Record

        A modest but important win for occupational liberty in Pennsylvania. Today its Commonwealth Court judges (that’s a step below the state’s Supreme Court) ruled unanimously that a state law that forbids people with any criminal past from getting jobs in nursing homes and long-term care facilities is unconstitutional.

    • Internet/Net Neutrality

      • Save The Internet (part 3). Tell TRAI that we need net neutrality, once again (Dec 2015)
      • Zuckerberg’s Free Web Woes Extend Beyond India

        Mark Zuckerberg didn’t see this coming.

        When Facebook Inc.’s co-founder proposed bringing free Web services to India, his stated aim was to help connect millions of impoverished people to unlimited opportunity. Instead, critics have accused him of making a poorly disguised land grab in India’s burgeoning Internet sector. The growing backlash could threaten the very premise of Internet.org, his ambitious, two-year-old effort to connect the planet.

        Indian authorities are circumspect because the Facebook initiative provides access to only a limited set of websites — undermining the equal-access precepts of net neutrality. The telecommunications regulator is calling for initial comments by Jan 7, extending the deadline from today, on whether wireless carriers can charge differently for data usage across websites, applications and platforms. Losing this fight could imperil Facebook’s Free Basics, which allows customers to access the social network and select services such as Messenger and Microsoft’s Bing without a data plan.

      • ‘Free Basics’ will take away more than our right to the internet

        As the TRAI decides the fate of Free Basics, Mark Zuckerberg is in India with ₹100 crore, in pocket change, for advertising. Facebook’s Free Basics is a repackaged internet.org, or in other words, a system where Facebook decides what parts of the internet are important to users.

      • Broadband Rates Are Too Damn High

        Low-income communities are being stranded as everyone else catches a ride on the information superhighway.

      • Accused of Gatekeeping India’s Internet, Facebook CEO Lashes Out

        Nikhil Pahwa, an organizer with Save the Internet-India, raised the question earlier this week in the Times of India: “Why has Facebook chosen the current model for Free Basics, which gives users a selection of around a hundred sites (including a personal blog and a real estate company homepage), while rejecting the option of giving the poor free access to the open, plural and diverse web?”

    • DRM

      • If We’re Not Careful, Self-Driving Cars Will Be The Cornerstone Of The DRM’d, Surveillance Dystopias Of Tomorrow

        We’ve talked a lot about the ethical and programming problems currently facing those designing self driving cars. Some are less complicated, such as how to program cars to bend the rules slightly and be more more human like. Others get more complex, including whether or not cars should be programmed to kill the occupant — if it means saving a school bus full of children (aka the trolley problem). And once automated cars are commonplace, can law enforcement have access to the car’s code to automatically pull a driver over? There’s an ocean of questions we’re not really ready to answer.

    • Intellectual Monopolies

      • Pharma Exec for Maker of $150,000 Cancer Drug Tells Investors Its Pricing Is “Very Responsible”

        A top official at pharmaceutical giant Johnson & Johnson dismissed questions on a recent earnings call about the drug price reform debate in Washington, saying that the company is “responsible” in its pricing.

        As part of the question and answer period during the company’s third quarter earnings call in October, one questioner asked Johnson & Johnson Chief Financial Officer Dominic Caruso where he sees the drug pricing reform debate in Washington going and if the company was planning a pledge, similar to one made by many firms in the 1990s, to not raise drug prices beyond the cost of inflation.

        “Despite significant media attention on drug pricing, there really isn’t a consensus on policy solutions that would lower prices without negatively lowering innovation,” he said.

      • Besides Which, Don’t You *Want* The Blades To Wear Out?

        No, I am not calling Gillette a troll, Paul. But they’re acting awfully trollish by going after the competition like this. As if we all can’t see what’s going on here, right?

        C’mon, Gillette. You’re better than that.

      • Qualcomm Signs New Patent Licensing Deals In China

        Qualcomm announced today that it has inked new patent licensing deals in China with smartphone manufacturers Beijing Tianyu Communication Equipment and Haier Group. The San Diego-based chipmaker has made a series of similar agreements over the past two months as it recovers from an antitrust investigation by the Chinese government.

        Since the beginning of November, Qualcomm has also announced deals with QiKu, a joint venture between Qihoo 360 and Coolpad, Xiaomi, Huawei, TCL Communication Technology Holdings, and ZTE.

      • Copyrights

        • China box office to beat out U.S. by 2017

          China’s box office is expected to surpass the U.S. in 2017 to become the largest market in the world, while more Chinese movie enterprises will turn to global investments to learn and practice international industry methods, a report released by H. Brothers Research and the Institute for Cultural Industries at Beijing University on Monday predicted.

        • CBS Sues Over Star Trek Fan Film Because It Sounds Like It’s Going To Be Pretty Good

          When it comes to passionate fan-bases, it’s kind of hard to match Star Trek fans. This is a group of fans that fuel much of the cosplaying and fan-creating that goes on to this day. CBS, owners of the Star Trek copyrights, has had something of a complicated relationship with these fans, flip-flopping between allowing this community to foster a wider appreciation of the franchise while occasionally clamping down on them. In the past, it has seemed clear that CBS’ chief criteria for deciding when to go legal on fan-made works boils down to two factors: is there money involved and just how professional is the fan-creation going to be?

In Memory of Ian Murdock, Our Daily Links to Increase Coverage of Police Brutality

Posted in Debian at 4:44 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

Debian logo

Ian Murdock

Summary: Techrights mourns the loss of Ian Murdock and will devote the coming years to more coverage of abuse by police

NEWS has come out that Ian Murdock is dead. Assuming the most likely explanation for this, abuse by the police had a lot to do with it. Among the latest articles about it we have:

  • Debian Founder in Trouble, Ubuntu’s Wrong Turn

    A big story getting a little attention today was the shocking news of Debian founder Ian Murdock’s desperation at the hands of law enforcement. Much of the story is unknown, but Murdock was on the verge of suicide Monday evening. In other news, Brian Fagioli reported that the System76 Oryx Pro is the gaming machine of your dreams and Matt Hartley thinks he knows where Ubuntu went wrong.

  • In Memoriam: Ian Murdock

    It is with great sadness that we inform you that Ian Murdock passed away on Monday night. This is a tragic loss for his family, for the Docker community, and the broader open source world; we all mourn his passing. To Ian’s children, family and loved ones, we offer our full support and deepest sympathies.

  • Debian founder and Docker employee Ian Murdock has died at 42

    Docker today announced that Ian Murdock, a member of the startup’s technical staff and a former Sun and Salesforce employee known for founding the Debian Linux operating system, has passed away. He was 42.

    A cause of death was not provided in the blog post announcing the news. Docker declined to comment. The San Francisco Police Department did not immediately have information on Murdock’s cause of death.

    Murdock’s Twitter account posted several tweets (PDF) on Monday that suggested he had been involved in an incident involving police, and one tweet said that he would commit suicide that night. Some people speculated that his account had been hacked. It has since been deleted.

  • Ian Murdock has died
  • R.I.P Ian Murdock, Founder of Debian Linux, Dead at 42

    The cause of death is unclear at present, but Murdock tweeted the same day that he would commit suicide that night. His Twitter account had since been deleted.

  • Debian Founder Ian Murdock Passes Away

    On Monday via Twitter he was threatening suicide over alleged police abuse in California. His Twitter account has since been removed. Other information about his suicide or alleged police detention and abuse has yet to be made public.

  • Debian mourns the passing of Ian Murdock

    With a heavy heart Debian mourns the passing of Ian Murdock, stalwart proponent of Free Open Source Software, Father, Son, and the ‘ian’ in Debian.

    Ian started the Debian project in August of 1993, releasing the first versions of Debian later that same year. Debian would go on to become the world’s Universal Operating System, running on everything from embedded devices to the space station.

  • Debian founder Ian Murdock dead: Tributes pour in from colleagues

    Debian GNU/Linux founder Ian Murdock has died.

    Murdock, who lived in San Francisco, founded the open-source distro in 1993, and just recently started working for Docker in the city.

    “It is with great sadness that we inform you that Ian Murdock passed away on Monday night,” Docker CEO Ben Golub blogged a few moments ago on Wednesday.

Murdock did not stay alive “to fight against the police” (see below); but those of us who are alive can do so for him. █

Ian Murdock's Twitter feed

« Previous Page — « Previous entries « Previous Page · Next Page » Next entries » — Next Page »

Further Recent Posts

RSS 64x64RSS Feed: subscribe to the RSS feed for regular updates

Home iconSite Wiki: You can improve this site by helping the extension of the site's content

Home iconSite Home: Background about the site and some key features in the front page

Chat iconIRC Channels: Come and chat with us in real time

New to This Site? Here Are Some Introductory Resources

No

Mono

ODF

Samba logo






We support

End software patents

GPLv3

GNU project

BLAG

EFF bloggers

Comcast is Blocktastic? SavetheInternet.com



Recent Posts