10.18.14
Links 18/10/2014: Debian Plans for Init Systems, Tails 1.2
Contents
GNU/Linux
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Desktop
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TIL Ubuntu Sees iPhones, iPads as USB Mass Storage Devices, Windows & Mac OS Don’t
Apple products are known to behave very unfriendly when they are simply connected to a PC or Mac OS X and they usually require iTunes or some surrogate to transfer files. Fortunately, on Ubuntu things are a little bit different and they are mounted as drives.
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Server
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Docker 1.3 Improves Container Security
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HP’s Helion Continuity Services adds Linux cluster support and more
The service now supports Linux physical clusters, including Red Hat Enterprise Linux and Oracle Real Application Clusters (RAC), as well as storage area network (SAN)-based data stores
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Kernel Space
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libguestfs 1.28 released
The new stable version of libguestfs — a C library and tools for accessing and modifying virtual machine disk images — has been released.
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Beware of trolls – do not feed
A particularly annoying troll has been on his hate crusade against systemd for months now.
[...]
Please, do not feed this troll.
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Torvalds CONFESSES: ‘I’m pretty good at alienating devs’
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Linux Kernel 3.17.1 Is Out and Is the Most Advanced Release Available
Greg Kroah-Hartman has announced that the latest version of the Linux kernel, 3.17.1, is now out and available for download. It’s now the most advanced stable branch available and it will remain so for at least a couple more months.
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Graphics Stack
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OpenGL Preview Benchmarks For NVIDIA’s GeForce GTX 970
For those anxious to see how well the GeForce GTX 970, NVIDIA’s new high-end, Maxwell-based graphics card will perform under Linux, here’s some preview benchmarks.
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Clover Native Object Code Lands In Mesa
AMD’s patches to add support to compiling to native object code for the “Clover” OpenCL state tracker in Mesa’s Gallium3D and for the Radeon Gallium3D driver to take advantage of this functionality, has landed.
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Direct3D 9 Support Might Land Within Mainline Mesa 3D Drivers
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Benchmarks
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Linux Testing Of The NVIDIA GeForce GTX 970
After last month’s review of the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980 on Linux, many Phoronix readers expressed interest in seeing tests of the GeForce GTX 970, another powerful Maxwell graphics card but costs much less than the GTX 980. I now have my hands on an EVGA GeForce GTX 970 and am working on Linux performance benchmarks for this graphics card.
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Applications
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Calibre eBook Editor and Viewer Brings Support for New Kobo Devices
Calibre, a powerful and complex eBook viewer, editor, and converter, has been updated again by its developer and a number of new features have been added to the application.
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20 Open Source Alternatives To Video And Audio Apps
Here is a list of 20 such tools which make it easy to create, listen to and view digital audio and video content.
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Feed Readers for Linux
The RSSNow widget for KDE Plasma provides a simple, list-like feeds from sources which you can drag and drop. It comes with configuration options to change the news update interval and animations.
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Top 4 Linux network managers
Part of your command line toolset, ifconfig can be used from your CLI or terminal emulator and is the bedrock of network management – many other network managing tools roll this up as part of the package, while some people prefer to use it direct. Check the docs for instructions on the options available.
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Open Source Replacements for Audio/Video Apps
Consuming and creating multimedia content continues to be very popular with PC and mobile device users. In fact, 78.4 percent of U.S. Internet users watch online videos. According to recording industry trade group IFPI, 39 percent of all music revenues now come from digital sales, and in some countries, digital sales account for the majority of artists’ income.
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adom: Adding another dimension
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clines: Connect … five?
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banihstypos: Not a typo
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angband: Polishing the classic format
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Proprietary
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Google Earth on Linux
Google Earth for Linux appears to be largely abandoned by Google, unfortunately.
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Instructionals/Technical
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Send video to Chromecast or Roku with Firefox for Android
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Finding Orphaned Packages Using Deborphan And Rpmorphan
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How to secure your ISPConfig 3 server against the poodle SSL attack
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Using Foreman, an Opensource Frontend for Puppet
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How To Install VeraCrypt 1.0e On The Most Popular Linux Systems
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How To Install PhotoQt 1.1.0.1 On Ubuntu 14.10, Ubuntu 14.04, Fedora 20, Fedora 19 And Derivative Systems
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How To Install Plex Media Server 0.9.11 On Ubuntu 14.10, Ubuntu 14.04, Fedora 21, Fedora 20, CentOS 7, CentOS 6 And Derivatives
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How To Install Enlightenment 0.19.1 On Ubuntu 14.10, Ubuntu 14.04 And Derivatives
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Notes about Dell XPS 13 developer edition and Kubuntu
Got new tool, Dell XPS 13 developer edition, running Ubuntu 12.04. Here’s some experiences using it and also a note for future self what needed to be done to make everything work.
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Games
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DeadCore, A Fast-paced Mix Of Platforming & FPS Out For Linux Today
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DEADCORE AVAILABLE NOW ON PC, MAC AND LINUX
The independent studio 5 Bits Games and the leading video game publisher and developer BANDAI NAMCO Games Europe S.A.S. today announced the launch of DeadCore, available now for download on PC, Mac and Linux. Watch out the latest trailer of the game and make your way up to the top in the DeadCore universe!
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First-person platformer Deadcore is a sci-fi speedrun
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FlightGear 3.2 Ships with 5 New Aircraft, Countless New Features [Ubuntu Installation]
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Free FlightGear Simulator for Linux Just Got an Update
FlightGear is an open source flight simulator that is developed by a large community of volunteers from around the world that works on all the major platforms, Linux, Windows, and Mac OS X.
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SpringRTS Open Source RTS Engine New Release, Featuring SDL2
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Retro-Style Point-And-Click Adventure ‘Bik – A Space Adventure’ Released On Steam
Bik was originally made available through Humble Widget in July and after having been greenlit just two months later, it got its official Steam release earlier this week. With an entertaining sci-fi story and multiple playable characters I can see why this one quickly became so popular.
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Desktop Environments/WMs
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K Desktop Environment/KDE SC/Qt
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Plasma 5 Weekly ISO Revisited
I am proud to announce that Plasma 5 weekly ISOs have returned today.
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WHAT IS KTRACKS?
We are currently missing a Linux / KDE application to deal with this data, that at the same time helps users to keep control over their personal data. To give the child a name, let’s call it KTracks.
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KDE Plasma 5.1.0 Has Been Released!
KDE has officially released Plasma 5.1.0 featuring a wide variety of improvements, greater stability, better performance and new and improved features. According to the official announcement over 180 bugs are resolved since 5.0 in the shell alone leading to stability and performance improvements.
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One thing that would make KDE better
I went to Akademy with two notebooks and a plan. They should both be filled by KDE contributors with writing and sketching about one thing they think would make KDE better.
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Support Kate and KDE by Donating Money
Since some weeks, the Kate homepage features a way to support Kate and KDE by donating money to the KDE e.V., see this screenshot:
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KDE Gardening Team: K3b
As mentioned on other KDE Gardening Team bugs we are focusing on getting K3b 2.0.3 release out.
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Facebook library in KF5: coming soon!
Today I started porting KDE’s own fully asynchronous library which talks to Facebook – LibKFbAPI – to Qt5 and Frameworks 5, which should bring back the Facebook Akonadi resource for Akonadi-Qt5 and make it available for Plasma 5, including Facebook Contacts, Facebook Events, Facebook Posts and Facebook Notifications (displayed as regular desktop notifications).
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GNOME Desktop/GTK
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GNOME 3.14.1 Has Been Released. How To Install GNOME 3.14.1 On Ubuntu 14.10
Among others, GNOME Shell’s pulse animation now works properly, some user interface enhancements have been implemented, a bunch of known-issues have been removed and the following applications: at-spi2-atk, Baobab, Empathy, Eye of GNOME, Epiphany, Evince, evolution-data-server, GNOME Display Manager, GNOME Desktop, GNOME Contacts, GNOME Shell, GNOME Control Center, GTK+, Mutter, Tracker, Vala, Yelp, Bijiben, Evolution, GNOME Boxes, GNOME Clocks, Mahjongg, GNOME Music, GNOME Software, GNOME Weather, GNOME Sudoku, Iagno, Polary, Rygel and Vinagre.
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Distributions
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Reviews
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An Everyday Linux User Review Of 4MLinux
4MLinux is one of the more unique Linux distributions available. The developers have obviously tried to get in as much as possible without taking up too much memory and disk space.
The 4 Ms stand for Maintenance, MiniServer, Multimedia and Mystery.
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Red Hat Family
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Should Red Hat be worried about Oracle? Here is an analyst’s take
Red Hat Inc.’s (NYSE: RHT) revenue growth continues to outpace its server shipments to customers.
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Fedora
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KDE Frameworks 5.3 and KDE Plasma 5.1 for Fedora are ready!
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How To Install KDE Plasma 5.1 On Fedora 21 And Fedora 20
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KDE Plasma 5.1 & KF5.3 For Fedora
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Fedora conference coming next week for Latin America
The organizing team of Managua FUDCon 2014, led by the event organizer Neville Cross, is pleased to announce that the Fedora Users and Developers Conference Latin America (FUDCon LATAM) will start on Thursday, October 23,
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This week in rawhide, the October 17th edition
I mentioned last week that the rawhide kernels had moved on to 3.18 git snapshots and that I wasn’t seeing any problems. Well, I did run into some after that. suspend is completely broken. It’s unclear yet if it’s kernel or systemd or both to blame. I’m going to try and debug it some this weekend and get a bug report filed. Not a big deal, but kind of anoying if you want to suspend and resume.
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Debian Family
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Re-Proposal – preserve freedom of choice of init systems
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Debian Is Back To Discussing Init Systems, Freedom of Choice
The init system discussion is back on in the Debian camp… A vote will be taking place in two weeks to look at preserving the “freedom of choice of init systems.”
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Tails 1.2
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Derivatives
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Canonical/Ubuntu
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Unity Celebrated Its 4th Birthday At The Beginning Of This Week
For those users who are new to Ubuntu, Canonical has replaced GNOME with Unity starting with Ubuntu 11.04 Natty Narwhal. But the first Unity based Ubuntu system was Ubuntu 10.10 Netbook Remix, a special flavor for netbooks.
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Ubuntu 15.10 Might Be The First Unity 8 Based Ubuntu Desktop System
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Canonical’s Trojita-Based Email Client Will Be Named Dekko
Previously, Canonical has announced that they will be creating an email client for both the desktop and mobile version of Ubuntu (Ubuntu Touch), based on the lightweight Trojita client.
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Ubuntu 14.10 Mate RC Has Been Recently Released
MATE is an open-source, lightweight, desktop environment started by the Arch Linux team and used a lot on Linux Mint systems, providing an experience similar to GNOME 2. This project created as an alternative for GNOME 3, which was not very appreciated by a lot of users.
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Devices/Embedded
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CherryPy – A Minimalist Python Web Framework
CherryPy is an open source, fast, and stable python web framework that allows the developers to build the web applications. The developers can build the web applications as the way they would build the other object-oriented python programs. Many developers still haven’t heard this simple, yet powerful framework, because it is not a complete stack with built-in support for a multi-tier architecture. The developers of CherryPy call it as pythonic framework, because it closely follows the conventions of Python.
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HOPE: The Ease Of Python With The Speed Of C++
HOPE is the latest Python compiler out there focused to deliver great speed. The HOPE JIT compiler is said to combine the ease of Python with the speed of C++.
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Phones
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Tizen
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Tizen IVI SDK – 3.0 Alpha 4 is Available to Download
The Tizen In-Vehicle Infotainment Software Developers Kit (IVI SDK) is a now available for you to download and runs on Windows*, Ubuntu*, and Mac OS X*. It includes Emulator (based on QEMU), Web Simulator, IDE, documents and samples, and supports a real IVI device as a target.
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Online UK retailer Handtec gives Tizen Gear S Pre-Order availability, £335.99 SM-R750
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locks, a modular Tizen based Smartwatch
We had a slight surprise when we saw Tizen being used to run a portable personal cloud pocket webserver, and now we have Tizen running (hopefully) under the hood of another Smartwatch, but this time it’s not Samsung. The concept of this Smartwatch is different, “modularly” different. Just like the Modular Smartphone that projects like Project Ara are working on, the idea is that you might not need a new device every year, if only you could upgrade your camera, or processor, or upgrade your RAM. Well that is the idea that is now being applied to wearables. Blocks which you snap together to create a personal, unique smartwatch. Blocks.
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Android
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Android L 5.0 Lollipop Update by Google: All You Need to Know
Google first caught the attention of many die-hard Android fans at their summer developers’ conference by announcing their newest operating system, Android L 5.0. They certainly kept everything regarding the software well hidden, dropping a few hints here and there that it was coming, but were fairly silent for the most part.
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Edward Snowden suggests you use Silent Circle
The NSA leaker, speaking by live video feed to the New Yorker, rattled off a short list of more secure alternatives to standard-issue iPhone texting. His suggestions: RedPhone (or any other service from security researcher Moxie MarlinSpike and Open WhisperSystems) and Silent Circle, which offers voice, text and data encryption as well as its own privacy-centric handset, the Blackphone.
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Android 5.0 L Developer Preview and Android 5.0 SDK for Google Nexus 5 and 7 Now Live for Download
Google has released the official Android 5.0 SDK and the Android 5.0 Developer Preview final build. Check them if you’re a developer and you wish to start working on optimizing your applications for the full Android 5.0 Lollipop release that should take place early November.
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Google offers sweet new SDK to let Android devs join ‘Lollipop’ guild
Android 5.0 “Lollipop” won’t ship to the public for a couple more weeks, but Google has tossed developers a bone by releasing the final SDK and system images for select Nexus devices ahead of launch.
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See infrared in Android with the Seek Thermal Camera
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Should Google give up control of Android in watches, TVs, and cars?
One of the biggest problems with Android has been fragmentation. It has caused many headaches for developers who need to support different device configurations, and for users who may get updates late or never at all. And some have blamed this on Google not retaining more control over Android after its initial launch. Google has taken a different approach with watches, TVs and cars by keeping a tight grip on Android. But re/code reports that that might not last forever.
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Free Software/Open Source
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Why The Internet of Things Has To Be Open Sourced
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Why The Future Of Digital Security Is Open
The topic of digital security often brings to mind the image of bleak and dark future, where computers, mobile devices and other systems are riddled with malware and cyber criminals lurk, ready to steal our data and crash our systems. We have good reason to be nervous. We’ve seen plenty of cyber-security breaches in the past few years, like credit card thefts at Target and password issues at sites like LinkedIn.
Digital security is a major concern. Few other issues affect everyone, from individuals to companies to entire nations. So what is the future of digital security?
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Open-Source Tool Identifies Weak Bitcoin Wallet Signatures
Insecure transactions can leak private keys, increasing the risk that a users’ bitcoin could be stolen, and Valsorda’s Blockchainr tool is designed to weed them out.
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XNG: GIFs, but better, and also magical
It might seem like the GIF format is the best we’ll ever see in terms of simple animations. It’s a quite interesting format, but it doesn’t come without its downsides: quite old LZW-based compression, a limited color palette, and no support for using old image data in new locations.
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GNOME Developer Comes Up With New Animated Image Format
Jasper St. Pierre who we’re usually talking about on Phoronix due to his GNOME contributions related to Wayland support, shared today he’s come up with a new animated image format to compete with GIF.
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NGINX Turns 10, Usage Up 400% In The Last 4 Years
The open source NGINX web server (and load balancer, HTTP cache and reverse proxy server) is turning 10 this month and its commercial counterpart, NGINX Plus is celebrating its first birthday at the same time. To mark this moment, the company provided me with its latest user stats and I also had a chance to get a few comments from Gus Robertson, the company’s CEO.
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Web Browsers
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Tor Browser gets updated to version 4.0
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Chrome
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Computing from a browser’s point of view
ChromeOS is starting to grow on me. Though it does not have the makings of a traditional desktop system, it is quite amusing to use. I have read and heard lot of news surrounding google’s browser OS system, though never used it. To my surprise, I spotted the system being used at a near-by town library.
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Mozilla
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Firefox Hello Does Account-Free Video Chat
At launch, the only constraint is that both parties need to be using the Firefox browser, but given that WebRTC technology is built into Chrome and Internet Explorer (not to mention being mobile-friendly), there’s potential for expansion down the line.
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Mozilla launches an online magazine called Open Standard
As publishing becomes something that virtually anyone can do, more and more brands are becoming media entities, from Coca-Cola with its magazine-style homepage to the growing Red Bull media empire. The latest example of this phenomenon at work comes from a somewhat different kind of brand, however: Mozilla — the non-profit foundation behind the open-source Firefox web browser — just launched an online magazine called Open Standard.
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The Humble Mozilla Bundle
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SaaS/Big Data
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OpenStack Juno Release Brings Big Data to the Cloud
A new version of open-source cloud Relevant Products/Services computing platform OpenStack became available on Friday. The latest version, Juno, features over 3,000 bug fixes, with upgrades to the way it handles big data Relevant Products/Services applications and network Relevant Products/Services function virtualization Relevant Products/Services (NFV).
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OpenStack Juno Release Adds Data Processing, Storage, NFV Features
The latest and greatest version of OpenStack, the open source cloud-computing operating system, is out. Called Juno, the new release brings more stability and enterprise-readiness than ever, according to its developers.
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MapR Promises Integration of Apache Spark, Drill Big Data Tools
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12 things I hate about Hadoop
Hadoop is a wonderful creation, but it’s evolving quickly and it can exhibit flaws. Here are my dozen downers
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Cloudera Improves Hadoop Big Data Features and Security
New version of Cloudera Enterprise debuts, along with a new partnership with Linux vendor Red Hat.
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Databases
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Vitesse: Using LLVM To Speed Up Databases
A new start-up is attempting to speed up PostgreSQL database performance by leveraging the LLVM compiler infrastructure.
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CMS
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Drupal releases patch for severe SQL injection flaw
Drupal has released a patch for a highly critical flaw in its content management system, which could allow rogue code to run.
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FSF/FSFE/GNU/SFLC
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Public Services/Government
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Quebec is ripe for open-source software
Open-source software, once the domain of reclusive programmers with long beards and conspiracy theories, is going mainstream.
Popularized by trendy Silicon Valley startups and evangelized by companies that offer maintenance and support, software once seen as buggy and risky is gaining respect in the private and public sector.
Even the Quebec government, long derided for its refusal to consider open-source solutions, is showing more interest, and companies are lining up to provide.
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Quebec is ripe for open source
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Openness/Sharing
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Top 5 articles of the week: We berry much love the Raspberry Pi B+
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Rogue Element Embraces an Open Source Philosophy
Rogue Element has become one of the first digital cinematography companies in the UK to adopt an Open Source policy for its rental division by providing Open Source Digital Camera Solutions.
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Innovation Works Better, Faster With Openness, Not Lock-In
Dave Winer has a short, but important post discussing how a new round of entrepreneurs (and VCs) are too focused on locking in users, rather than making use of open standards.
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Young technologists love lock-in?
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Open Access/Content
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What Are You Doing For Open Access Week?
This Monday, October 20 marks the first day of Open Access Week, an international event that celebrates the wide-ranging benefits of enabling open access to information and research–as well as the dangerous costs of keeping knowledge locked behind publisher paywalls. This year’s theme is Generation Open.
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Programming
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Qt 5.4 Now In Beta With Web, Bluetooth LE, Graphics Improvements
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New Github DMCA Policy Gives Alleged Infringers a Second Chance
Github says it has made significant changes to the way it handles DMCA takedown notices. In an effort to boost transparency, the collaborative code repository says that whenever possible alleged infringers will get a chance to put things right before their content is taken down.
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Leftovers
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Students might face felony charges for sexting
It could be a few weeks before more than 30 Rochester Community Schools students learn whether they’ll face felony charges for sending and sharing inappropriate pictures of themselves or other minors.
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Health/Nutrition
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India: Farmers In Confrontation With ”Coca Cola” Over Water
Dispute over water in India between farmers and “Coca Cola” is still ongoing. Farmers accuse the company of endangering their lives.
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Security
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New Strain of Mac OS X Malware Found
…contains a Trojan, a keylogger and a backdoor..
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Friday’s security updates
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Defence/Police/Secrecy/Aggression
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Bombing of Kurds Shows Everything That’s Wrong with U.S. Foreign Policy
The militant Kurdish independence group, known formally as the Kurdistan Workers Party, suffered strikes from Turkish fighter jets against its positions in southeastern Turkey — even as PKK-linked forces battle Islamic State militants in and around the Syrian town of Kobani.
Turkey, whose conflict with the PKK stretches back three decades, was reportedly retaliating after shells struck a Turkish military base. Deadly riots have also broken out recently in Kurdish areas of Turkey, fueled by perceptions that the Turkish government has been colluding to undermine Kurdish factions fighting in Syria.
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Turkey agrees to give US southern Incirlik air base
According to US NSA Susan Rice, Turkey granted US forces access the Incirlik air base in country’ south.
US forces will use the base for air strikes against ISIS which has sized up in large part of Iraq and Syria.
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Cheney: Next attack on US will be ‘something far more deadlier’ than 9/11
Former Vice President Dick Cheney warned that the next terrorist attack on the US will be far worse than 9/11 during a nearly two-hour interview. He also took pride in the use of waterboarding and in giving the National Security Agency free reign.
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Beheadings and the barbarism of war – Kua Kia Soong
The beheadings committed by the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (Isis) must be condemned by all peace-loving people, especially when their victims are journalists and aid workers doing the noble and important work of reporting the facts of war and providing humanitarian assistance to those displaced and injured.
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Andrew Niccols’ Good Kill & Mike Binder’s Black Or White Find Homes
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‘Good Kill’ Starring Ethan Hawke Acquired by IFC Films
Ethan Hawke stars as a conflicted drone pilot in director Andrew Niccol’s ‘Good Kill’, which co-stars January Jones and Zoe Kravitz.
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Only 4% of drone victims in Pakistan named as al Qaeda members
As the number of US drone strikes in Pakistan hits 400, research by the Bureau of Investigative Journalism finds that fewer than 4% of the people killed have been identified by available records as named members of al Qaeda. This calls in to question US Secretary of State John Kerry’s claim last year that only “confirmed terrorist targets at the highest level” were fired at.
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We Still Have Little Idea Who We’ve Been Killing with Drones in Pakistan
The London-based Bureau of Investigative Journalism has been working to identify those who have been killed in Pakistan by American drone strikes and any groups with whom they were affiliated. The latest news from their project, titled “Naming the Dead,” is that only four percent of the 2,379 people killed in 400 drone strikes in the country since 2004 can be identified as al Qaeda. That’s just 84 people. Another 295 were identified as other “militants,”
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Drone strikes in Pakistan: laser or blunderbuss?
Attacks by US drones have often been presented as forensic, yet only one in 25 victims in Pakistan were identifiably associated with al-Qaeda.
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Yemeni Man Sues German Gov’t Over US Drone Strikes
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Yemeni man sues Germany over US drone attack that killed his relatives
A Yemeni man is suing the German government after two of his relatives were killed by a US drone strike in 2012. He says Germany is liable as they allowed Washington to use the Ramstein airbase, believed to be the nerve center of the operation.
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Drone Strikes in Afghanistan Are Killing Civilians: They Must Not Remain Secret
Yet in its work on Pakistan, the Bureau has shown on countless occasions that drones are not as surgical as claimed.
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Targets in Pakistan: Only 12% of drone victims identified as militants, says report
Research undertaken by the Bureau of Investigative Journalism reveals that only 12% of drone victims in Pakistan have been identified as militants.
Research undertaken by the Bureau of Investigative Journalism reveals that only 12% of drone victims in Pakistan have been identified as militants.
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Only 12% of People Killed in US Drone Strikes in Pakistan Identified as Militants, Says Report
In a report, released by the organisation on Thursday, researchers also found that fewer than 4% of those killed have been identified as members of al Qaeda.
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Less Than 4% of US Drones Victims in Pakistan Affiliated With Al-Qaeda: Study
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Only 4% Of U.S. Drone Strike Victims In Pakistan Were Al-Quaeda Terrorists
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Only 4 Percent Of Drone Victims In Pakistan Identified As Al Qaeda Members
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Al-Qaida Militants Make Up Just 4% of US Drone Victims in Pakistan
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Drones Quilts Tell Stories of Civilian Victims
Did you ever see the AIDS Quilt Display? I did, and its moving commemorations of those whose lives had been cut short by this terrible disease reached my heart. Seeing it helped me think about each loss of life and what we needed to do as a country to end these deaths.
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We condemn US-sponsered drone strikes: Sharif
Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif on Friday said that the government has no double standards in condemning the drone strikes by the US. “The government has always taken a forthright and genuine stance in condemning the drone attacks. We condemn these acts from the core of our heart,” the Associated Press of Pakistan (APP) quoted Sharif as saying.
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A Caliph in a Wilderness of Mirrors
Anybody who believes the US Central Command’s spin that House of Saud and United Arab Emirates fighter jets conduct “bombing raids” on the outskirts of Kobani gets a one-way ticket to Oz. Imagine these clowns being able to deploy precision-guided bombs or trained laser spotters. To start with, the Pentagon has zero local intel – as in zero operatives able to paint lasers on targets. Thus the “coalition” can barely hit the odd tank (out of 25 around Kobani) or Humvee out of 2,000 crammed in a valley for almost two weeks now.
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Secret MI5 files on BBC staff ‘were shredded when Cold War ended’
A secret BBC unit that vetted journalists for ties to communists ceased operating and shredded all its files in the early 1990s, according to a former employee of the division.
The official broke his silence to defend the clandestine programme, which scrutinised thousands of BBC employees and potential employees in co-operation with MI5.
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Minneapolis protest tells Clinton, Franken, Dayton “No more U.S. wars!”
Women Against Military Madness (WAMM) gathered a crowd on Oct. 10 to protest a speech by former President Bill Clinton and his support for U.S. wars and military attacks in the Middle East. Protesters chanted, “No justice, no peace, U.S. out of the Middle East!”
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MHA to present Italian marines case before NSA Ajit Doval
New Delhi: The Home Ministry will make a presentation before National Security Advisor (NSA) Ajit Doval on the status of the case related to the killing of Kerala fishermen by two Italian marines after Rome’s plea for ‘quick positive outcome’ on the long pending issue.
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MHA to Present Italian Marines Case Before NSA
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US Government Sanitizes Vietnam War History
For many years after the Vietnam War, we enjoyed the “Vietnam syndrome,” in which US presidents hesitated to launch substantial military attacks on other countries. They feared intense opposition akin to the powerful movement that helped bring an end to the war in Vietnam. But in 1991, at the end of the Gulf War, George H.W. Bush declared, “By God, we’ve kicked the Vietnam syndrome once and for all!”
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Transparency Reporting
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Former House oversight staffer hopes to see more “above top secret” releases
Dianne Roarke has suffered more than a decade of government harassment because she decided to go through channels as a whistleblower when she saw the NSA surveillance take a questionable turn before September 11, 2001. The reports from her and a handful of former NSA employees triggered an investigation that was 90% redacted when it was released in 2005, and in 2007 her house was raided by the FBI. She relates her experience in a presentation from June, 4, 2014 captured on video.
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Leaked TPP Draft Reveals Tough Anti-Piracy Measures
Today Wikileaks released a new draft of the secretive Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) agreement. The intellectual property chapter covers a wide range of issues, from increased ISP liability, through extended copyright terms to criminalizing non-commercial piracy.
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Finance
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President Obama’s Credit Card Declined In New York Restaurant
President Barack Obama’s credit card has been declined while he was dinning at a New York restaurant last month following a United Nations General Assembly meeting.
The president said on Friday that he like all other Americans had faced the unflattering experience of having his credit card rejected.
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What Markets Will
Now, that was a long time ago, and, in the areas I write about, invocations of God’s presumed will are rare. You do, however, see a lot of policy crusades, and these are often justified with implicit cries of “Mercatus vult!” — the market wills it. But do those invoking the will of the market really know what markets want? Again, apparently not.
And the financial turmoil of the past few days has widened the gap between what we’re told must be done to appease the market and what markets actually seem to be asking for.
To get more specific: We have been told repeatedly that governments must cease and desist from their efforts to mitigate economic pain, lest their excessive compassion be punished by the financial gods, but the markets themselves have never seemed to agree that these human sacrifices are actually necessary. Investors were supposed to be terrified by budget deficits, fearing that we were about to turn into Greece — Greece I tell you — but year after year, interest rates stayed low. The Fed’s efforts to boost the economy were supposed to backfire as markets reacted to the prospect of runaway inflation, but market measures of expected inflation similarly stayed low.
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Why Are These Hedge Fund Kingpins Dumping Millions Into the Midterms?
As Democrats and Republicans battle for control of the Senate, hedge funds are dumping millions of dollars into congressional campaigns. Most of these companies are lining up behind one party or the other. But the second-biggest spender, Long Island-based Renaissance Technologies, is playing both sides of the aisle. As of early September, the firm’s CEO, Robert Mercer, had given $3.1 million to Republican candidates and super-PACs. Its founder and chairman, James Simons—a brilliant former National Security Agency code breaker—had donated $3.2 million to their Democratic counterparts.
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Is the NSA Grabbing All Americans’ Phone Call Content?
The NSA and the National Director of Intelligence have consistently denied that they listen to the content of Americans’ telephone calls, but the history of intelligence agency claims about the scope of its spying on Americans is one of lies and more lies. So the question must be asked: Are they lying again with respect to recording the content of Americans’ phone calls?
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PR/AstroTurf/Lobbying
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Democrats Bottom Out
If any of the mainstream media are to be believed, you would think that the future of the country, the very foundation of our Republic and what’s left of its democracy hung by a thread on the results of the upcoming 2014 Congressional election, especially Republican control of the Senate.
And yet, as the issueless campaigns of meaningless gestures drone on, voter turnout is anticipated to be more a measure of voter antipathy rather than an endorsement of the Electeds posture of We-Own-the World.
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Deadline another GOP voter suppression tactic
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Google Now Giving More Political Contributions Than Goldman Sachs
So much for Don’t Be Evil. Google has now overtaken Goldman Sachs in campaign contributions this year. Google’s PAC, NetPAC, has given $1.43 million to candidates this year compared to Goldman Sachs’ $1.4 million. While the difference may be small, the symbolism could not clearer – Silicon Valley has become a major force in legally bribing US politicians.
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And by ‘Traditional Voters,’ the New York Times Means White People
It’s still 2014, but the New York Times is already running 2016 campaign coverage. This new article (10/15/14) is about is something pretty fundamental: How white voters feel about a black president.
Under the headline “In South, Clinton Tries to Pull Democrats Back Into the Fold,” reporter Amy Chozick chronicles Hillary Clinton’s campaigning for a Senate candidate in Kentucky, a state she won during the 2008 Democratic presidential primary. The Times notes that Clinton won thanks to “a huge advantage among white working-class voters.” And that’s the point of the piece: how someone like Clinton would be more appealing to white voters than Obama.
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Government expected to increase data protection budget
Debate over data protection rights has intensified in Europe, and particularly Germany, since the revelation of the NSA spying scandal and the recent “right to be forgotten” case, in which the European Court of Justice ruled that Google should amend searches based on a person’s name in certain cases.
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Censorship
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Censorship Alert: the Alternative Media Getting Harassed by the NSA
Google’s Safe Browsing List that blocks websites and flags them as containing malware is increasingly used as mechanism for the censoring of independent media and the falsification of history. It is an alarming development that, left unchallenged, puts the survival of any independent newspaper, blog, TV or radio station at risk.. Over the past months the list has apparently been used to target websites critical of U.S.’ involvement in the wars in the Middle East, U.S.’ involvement in Ukraine and independent media who are publishing material that is critical of Zionism.
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Bloggers Behind Bars: Ethiopia’s Zone9ers and Threats to Online Speech Across the Globe
Such edginess was too much for their government to take. Six of the Zone9 bloggers were arrested this past April. Three months later, they were formally charged with terrorism and “related activities.” Endalk, pursuing a graduate degree in Portland, Oregon when the arrests took place, is now their informal spokesperson, blogging and tweeting the latest developments. The group’s alleged crimes include attending trainings by international technical experts on how to use software tools to shield themselves from electronic surveillance. They are also accused of clandestinely organizing themselves into a blogger collective—a bizarre accusation given that Zone9 is a public website.
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Farewell to Free Speech.
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Privacy
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Are Covert Ops Compatible With Democracy?
It’s part of the public record that the NSA has engaged in an industry-wide campaign to weaken cryptographic protocols and insert back doors into hi-tech products sold by U.S. companies. We also know that NSA officials have privately congratulated each other in successfully undermining privacy and security across the Internet. Hence it’s only logical to assume that the NSA’s numerous subversion programs extend into foreign “commercial entities”. Thanks to documents recently disclosed by the Intercept we have unambiguous confirmation.
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TPP Leak Confirms Measures To Criminalize Corporate Whistleblowing
The chilling effect that this would have on investigative reporting is evident. It would also represent yet another powerful reason not to become a corporate whistleblower.
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‘Shadow Factory’ author talks ‘ultra-secret’ NSA
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EU-Funded Study: Electronic Mass Surveillance Fails – Drastically
Electronic mass surveillance – including the mass trawling of both metadata and content by the US National Security Agency – fails drastically in striking the correct balance between security and privacy that American officials and other proponents of surveillance insist they are maintaining.
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Glenn Greenwald can’t get anyone to take this challenge
The most common defense for the massive expansion of government surveillance programs since 2001 is that they only negatively affect people who have something to hide. In a recent TED Talk, Glenn Greenwald, the journalist who first published documents leaked by Edward Snowden, made the case that the government’s invasions of privacy have a much broader effect than catching and curtailing terrorist or criminal activity.
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UCF speaker: Students susceptible to NSA surveillance
Extra chairs were hauled into the Cape Florida Ballroom C Wednesday night, as a crowd of about 130 students filed inside. The relatively small, third-floor room in the Student Union was packed with attendees sitting knee-to-knee in tight rows of chairs, or standing against the back wall. Some were there for extra credit. Others came exclusively to see First Amendment attorney, Larry Walters, discuss NSA surveillance — an issue that he believes uniquely affects college students.
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Cops and spies should blame THEMSELVES for smartphone crypto ‘problem’ – Hyppönen
“Governments annoyed by companies taking a stand on security should remember they caused this themselves by hacking companies from their own countries,” Mikko Hyppönen, chief research officer at F-Secure, told El Reg.
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Chatting with the Artist Who Turned Edward Snowden into a Mobile Sculpture
On Friday, October 10, Edward Snowden appeared in New York’s Union Square, though few recognized him at first. You couldn’t blame passersby for missing him—the nine-and-a-half-foot-tall, 200-pound sculpture of the world’s most famous whistle-blower didn’t have any distinguising marks; he was just a giant white man made of concrete hanging out in the park. In a moment too serendipitous to make up, the first person to clearly recognize the model of the controversial NSA document leaker was none other than Glenn Greenwald, who happened to be eating breakfast nearby.
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Did You See New York’s Short-Lived Edward Snowden Statue?
No, the computer wiz and whistle blower who released National Security Agency secrets hasn’t returned to the US, but a 10-foot-tall statue of fugitive Edward Snowden was on display in Union Square as part of “FREE,” the 10th annual Art in Odd Places (AiOP) public art festival, which overran New York’s 14th Street this weekend.
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Latest New York Tourism Attraction: The Edward Snowden Statue revealed on Union Square
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This Edward Snowden Statue Just Popped Up in NYC
NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden has appeared in 9-foot, gypsum cement form in NYC’s Union Square Park, Business Insider reports. The creation is that of Univ. of Delaware grad student Jim Dessicino, who believes Snowden deserves something more permanent than fleeting media attention.
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Why U.S. cloud companies and the economy are under threat
In the wake of the National Security Agency (NSA) leaks, Neelie Kroes, Vice President of the European Commission said, “If European cloud customers cannot trust the U.S. government, then maybe they won’t trust U.S. cloud providers either. If I am right, there are multibillion-euro consequences for American companies.” Unfortunately, she is right – and American companies are now enduring the backlash in the form of “data localization.” In fact, Senate Finance Committee Chairman Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) met last week with Silicon Valley tech companies to discuss the problem.
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Sen. Wyden: NSA Tech Spying Hurts Economy
Google Chairman Eric Schmidt and other Silicon Valley executives say controversial government spying programs are undercutting the Internet economy and want Congress to step up stalled reform.
“We’re going to end up breaking the Internet,” warned Google Inc.’s Schmidt during a public forum Wednesday convened by U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., who has been an outspoken critic of electronic data-gathering by the National Security Agency. Schmidt and executives from Facebook Inc, Microsoft Corp. and other firms say revelations of extensive NSA surveillance are prompting governments in Europe and elsewhere to consider laws requiring that their citizens’ online data be stored within their national borders.
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Debate: Does Mass Phone Data Collection Violate The 4th Amendment?
The Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution guarantees that “the right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated.”
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U.S. wants to revive terror scare in order to keep up the terror war industry – FBI whistleblower
President Obama admits the rise of Islamic State was never properly addressed by the U.S. intelligence. Vice-President of the States puts all the blame on America’s allies, saying it were they who funded jihadists. Terrorists threaten direct attacks on American soil. Is the U.S. ready to respond with more than just airstrikes? Was it really unaware of the growing threat? And were that the allies that gave a helping hand to the radicalism in Iraq and Syria? To find answers to these questions, we speak to FBI whistleblower; Sibel Edmonds is on Sophie&Co today.
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THE FBI DIRECTOR’S EVIDENCE AGAINST ENCRYPTION IS PATHETIC
FBI Director James Comey gave a speech Thursday about how cell-phone encryption could lead law enforcement to a “very dark place” where it “misses out” on crucial evidence to nail criminals. To make his case, he cited four real-life examples — examples that would be laughable if they weren’t so tragic.
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Citizenfour – film review
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New documentary is witness to Snowden NSA leak
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Snowden filmmaker ‘profoundly let down’ by Congress
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The Laura Poitras film on Snowden shows that only government transparency will stop leaks
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Snowden’s Closest Confidant Reveals What It Was Like Spilling the NSA’s Secrets
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Edward Snowden documentary premieres across the UK
Laura Poitras’ documentary about rogue NSA sysadmin Edward Snowden and the leaks detailing the agency’s surveillance will premier in the UK this Friday as part of the London Film Festival.
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Poitras, who earned Snowden’s trust, reaches biggest audience with ‘Citizenfour’
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Filmmaker who directed new film about Edward Snowden avoids UK because she fears arrest under Official Secrets Act
The maker of Edward Snowden documentary CITIZENFOUR refused to travel to the film’s UK premiere last night because she fears arrest under the Official Secrets Act.
Laura Poitras said she had been advised by lawyers to avoid travelling to Britain because her work with the fugitive former contractor with the National Security Agency.
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Watching Edward Snowden
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Edward Snowden documentary to premiere at Brixton Ritzy
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Senior NSA official moonlighting for private cybersecurity firm
The former director of the National Security Agency has enlisted the US surveillance giant’s current chief technology officer for his lucrative cybersecurity business venture, an unusual arrangement undercutting Keith Alexander’s assurances he will not profit from his connections to the secretive, technologically sophisticated agency.
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Exclusive: A Second Business At Home Of NSA Official
Powerful National Security Agency official registered “electronics” business at her home before her husband set up intelligence business there, BuzzFeed News finds. Her company owns a plane and a condo.
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ISIS Warns ‘Brothers’ against Using ‘Unsafe’ WhatsApp fearing NSA, GCHQ Snoop
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Facebook’s new Safety Check lets you tell friends you’re safe when disaster strikes
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Nico Sell: take control of your digital soul, escape the internet
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Edward Snowden on home: ‘I don’t miss that question’
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Six browser plug-ins that protect your privacy
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Typewriters coming back, next will be pen and paper
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Top NSA Official Has a Lucrative Side-Business
A new report suggests that a high-ranking NSA official may have a profitable side-gig in the “electronics” business.
Last month a Buzzfeed’s Aram Roston published a story documenting potential self-dealing by the head NSA’s Signals Intelligence Directorate, Teresa O’Shea. O’Shea happens to be married to the Vice President of DRS Signal Solutions – a company which circumstantial evidence suggests was the beneficiary of significant contracting work from the agency.
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Top NSA official under ethics cloud for work with former boss
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Former NSA director had thousands personally invested in obscure tech firms
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Former NSA Director Keith Alexander Invested Heavily In Tech Firms, Agency Denies Conflict Of Interest
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Official’s job at cybersecurity firm vexes NSA
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NSA Is Reviewing An ‘Unusual’ Deal Between The Chief Technical Officer And The Former Chief
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NSA reviewing deal between official, ex-spy agency head
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NSA reviewing official’s part-time private work
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Edward Snowden: It was worth it
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The Virtual Interview: Edward Snowden
On Saturday, October 11th, Edward Snowden, the N.S.A. whistle-blower, spoke via live video with the New Yorker staff writer Jane Mayer.
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Citizenfour: Documenting Snowden’s NSA leaks
With an uncommon view of history in action, a new documentary captures Edward Snowden’s leak of NSA documents as it unfolded in a Hong Kong hotel room.
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‘Trust has gone from cloud providers,’ argues security expert following Snapchat, iCloud and Dropbox breaches
Recent data breaches and image leaks – including the iCloud celebrity naked photo hacks, stolen Snapchat images and the Dropbox hacks – have further undermined trust in cloud storage providers that were already reeling from government snooping revelations.
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Reasons to doubt Key’s spy overhaul
Western intelligence agencies fear the Islamic State (Isis) is recruiting foreign jihadis, training them to return and attack their home countries. Western passports that grant easier access to terror targets – especially in the United States – are prized. As well as this, al Qaeda in Iraq and Islamic State have adapted from previous counter-terrorism operations and are proving much harder to monitor. Five Eyes spy agencies want greater powers and UK and Australian governments recently blew the dog whistle on this transnational threat and signed off a raft of new laws. No evidence is publicly available to show New Zealand is facing an increased risk. In February, Key said only a handful of passports have been cancelled since a law change in 2005. New Zealand doesn’t declare its threat risk, and Key talks about national security issues only when it suits a political end, so on this impending Islamist onslaught we have only his word.
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NZ embassies used by spies: docs
New documents from intelligence whistlelower Edward Snowden suggest the Government Communications Security Bureau (GCSB) is using New Zealand embassies to snoop on foreign powers.
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NZ Embassies used for spying – Snowden documents
Fresh US security information released by whistle-blower Edward Snowden appears to suggest the GCSB is using New Zealand embassies overseas to conduct covert intelligence gathering.
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NZ embassies involved in covert intelligence work for US – reports
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NZ faces claims of spying on friends
New documents released by NSA whistle-blower Edward Snowden suggest New Zealand’s embassies have been involved in spying on friendly nations on behalf of the United States, just as this country is seeking all the support it can get to win a seat on the United Nations Security Council.
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Bundestag’s NSA Committee of Inquiry Threatened with Criminal Charges (Die Zeit, Germany)
The Federal Chancellery has threatened Bundestag members serving on the NSA Committee of Inquiry with criminal charges, should additional information from confidential documents provided the committee be leaked to the outside. In a letter seen by Die Zeit, committee chairman Patrick Sensburg (CDU) was asked to ensure the confidentiality of documents that the committee has been provided in the course of its work.
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BND Data Protection Officer Tells How Work with NSA Trumps German Law (Die Zeit, Germany)
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German lawmakers probing NSA battle their government’s secrecy rules
Officials have refused to hand over dozens of German intelligence documents detailing the extent to which the country’s spy agencies cooperated with their U.S. counterparts.
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How Federal Agents Illegally Force Twitter, Google, and Banks to Turn Over Private Customer Data Without a Proper Warrant
Private companies are fighting the federal government in court over the Patriot Act’s “National Security Letters,” which violate the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution.
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Silicon Valley fights to lift ‘gag orders’
The FBI has used a tool called national security letters for decades, but the agency came to rely on them more after the implementation of the Patriot Act. In fiscal year 2012 alone, the bureau issued 21,000 of the letters, according to President Obama’s intelligence review group.
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Documents Suggest a Close Working Relationship Between NSA, US Companies
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Just How Closely Do the NSA and U.S. Companies Work Together?
A draft document indicates that the NSA targets U.S. manufacturers of commercial equipment used for communications. The document obliquely refers to covert operations by NSA agents aimed at what is termed “specific commercial entities.” Those companies are identified in the document only by the letters: A, B, and C.
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Snowden: NSA carrying out ‘human intel’ ops in China
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NSA Has Had Agents on the Ground In China, Germany and South Korea, According to Newly Released Snowden Docs
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NCA: Police need to be more transparent about surveillance to quell PRISM concerns
Police must win public support during the debate for data privacy if they hope to protect the UK digital economy, according to National Crime Agency Cyber Crime Unit director Jamie Saunders.
Saunders argued during a debate at the Innotech Summit that law enforcement must be more transparent about surveillance to quell concerns about data privacy following the PRISM revelations.
“The government is committed to a review of the [surveillance] powers that exist. This is a difficult conversation, there are so many difficult balances to be struck,” he said.
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Spy agencies require more stringent UK oversight – former Home Sec
Britain’s former home secretary David Blunkett has called for more stringent oversight of UK spy agencies. He says claims to secrecy as a prerequisite for national security are undermining public confidence in UK intelligence services.
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Snowden Attacks “Anything Goes” Privacy Intrusions Of British Spy Agencies
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Snowden Says U.K. Mass Surveillance even worse than U.S.
Today, Snowden was present in a video call for Observer of Ideas in front of an audience in London. This is the first time Snowden has talked about the U.K. surveillance in depth, claiming mass surveillance is more of an issue in the U.K. than it is in the U.S.
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‘GCHQ prostituting itself to the NSA over the last few years’
The absence of up-to-date UK laws and regulations led to a situation which saw GCHQ put the needs of the NSA and American interests ahead of protecting British national security which is their job, former MI5 agent Annie Machon told RT.
The British GCHQ intelligence agency turned out to be a bigger player in the snooping game than the US’s NSA. According to recent revelations from Edward Snowden, the UK surveillance program “has no limits” and actively uses illegally collected information. The biggest problem is that UK laws and regulations are not as strict as US ones, which makes GCHQ even less accountable for its illegal activities.
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Edward Snowden: state surveillance in Britain has no limits
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Theresa May defends culture of secrecy over mass snooping
Home secretary tells intelligence and security committee harvesting communications data is not invasion of privacy
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Access contributes to independent review of UK surveillance abuses
In July, the UK Parliament took the unexpected step of ordering an open review of its surveillance legislation. The move stands in contrast to the government’s steady drumbeat toward more digital spying.
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Government data requests: what data powers does the British government have?
Recently, big tech companies have started to reveal government requests for user information. Last month, Yahoo announced that over the last six years the multinational internet company and the US government had become embroiled in a secret legal battle over customer data, with the latter threatening to fine Yahoo $250,000 a day (around £155,000, AU$285,000) if it refused to surrender that data. Traditionally, legal battles that occur at the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance court are kept confidential.
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iPhone 6 shunned by fanbois in Apple’s GREAT FAIL of CHINA
The belated Chinese launch of the iPhone 6 appears to have been a total flop after just 100 people queued outside a flagship store to buy the new mobe.
In most parts of the world, the launch of a new Apple iPhone causes a level of fanboi hysteria that is more like a One Direction concert than a consumer technology launch.
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Remember how the Whisper app was completely anonymous? Apparently not so much…
Following all of the NSA revelations, mass surveillance has increased the general level of paranoia to be found online -although it could be argued that not all surveillance is bad. With everyone on such high alert it’s little wonder that an app that described itself as “an anonymous social network that allows people to express themselves” should be so popular. Whisper encourages users to embrace the supposed anonymity it offers and reveal secrets they would not otherwise feel comfortable sharing.
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Whisper app denies secretly tracking users’ locations
Whisper is one of many privacy-focused apps (like Secret) that became popular following revelations by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden about the mass surveillance programmes organised by the US and other governments.
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Edward Snowden, Days Ago: ‘Get Rid Of Dropbox’
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Snowden advises people to stay away from Facebook, Google, Dropbox
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Snowden calls on web users to drop Dropbox and face off with Facebook
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Drop Dropbox? Concern after alleged 7-million account hack
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Dropbox denials as NSFW content touted
An anonymous “guest” claimed to have stolen 7 million individual credentials from Dropbox, and posted hundreds of them in a series of several “teaser” posts at the website Pastebin.
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What about a Nobel Peace Prize for Edward Snowden
At the risk of his personal freedom and, some would say, his life, Snowden exposed his government’s paradigm reversal, which took place far from the public’s eye.
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Mass Surveillance Destroys Freedom
It’s longstanding. It’s institutionalized. It’s lawless. It has nothing to do with domestic or foreign threats. Or anything related to national security.
America’s only enemies are ones it invents. It spies globally. It watches everyone. It monitors allies. It’s for control. It’s for economic advantage. It’s to be one up on foreign competitors. It’s for information used advantageously in trade, political, and military relations.
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Southern Poverty Law Center entering fray over Huntsville school district’s social media monitoring
The Southern Poverty Law Center has publicly reached out to any Huntsville students who have suffered consequences at school due to posts on their social media accounts.
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Simple steps to protect journalists and sources from eavesdroppers
Journalists are among those most likely to face technical attempts at attack and interception. Reporting is based on discussions with sources who may want to remain out of the limelight, and news sites attract extensive readership, making them a desirable target for potential attackers. But there are simple steps to protect against the most common form of eavesdropping, and journalists should be aware of the types of technical adversaries they may face.
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Interview with Edward Snowden’s lawyer, Ben Wizner (video)
Mass surveillance by groups such as the NSA and GCHQ is making us less secure and is contributing to vulnerabilities such as zero day flaws across the internet, Edward Snowden’s attorney Ben Wizner said today.
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Snowden’s lawyer: governments and tech firms can keep each other in check
Edward Snowden’s lawyer, Ben Wizner, director of the American Civil Liberties Union’s speech, privacy and technology project, was in town this week.
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Mass surveillance killing Internet privacy, UN report says
UN counter-terrorism envoy Ben Emmerson says widespread use of mass electronic surveillance by intelligence agencies signals the death knell of privacy on the Internet.
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UN Says Mass Surveillance Violates Human Rights
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NSA’s mass Internet surveillance ‘impinges on the very essence’ of the right to privacy: UN report
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U.N. Report Says NSA’s Mass Digital Surveillance ‘Violates Core Privacy Rights’
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Kickstarter pulls Anonabox, a Tor-enabled router that raised over $585,000
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Kickstarter Project Suspended After Raising Almost $600K, What Was It?
The Anonabox Tor router was a marvel of internet technology, guaranteed to maintain privacy for users who don’t want government agencies snooping in on their activity. In a world where the NSA knows your every move just because you “googled” the wrong combination of phrases and raised some concerns, it seemed like a dream come true.
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Facebook, Google and Other Sites Should Be Avoided Says Edward Snowden
Ex-National Security Agency (NSA) contractor Edward Snowden says that in order to protect privacy, users should avoid the use of sites such as Facebook, Google and Dropbox. Although it appears to be generational, Facebook has become an indelible part of many users’ lives, but Snowden cautions that there is a great deal of danger in the use of these sites.
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Snowden’s Advice: Drop Facebook, Google, and Dropbox For Better Privacy
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Edward Snowden Offers Online Privacy Tips: Drop Dropbox, Facebook And Google
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Snowden: Facebook, Google ‘Dangerous,’ ‘Get Rid’ of Dropbox
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Snowden says that you should avoid Dropbox, Facebook, and Google
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Edward Snowden Tells You to “Avoid Facebook, Google and Dropbox” If You Value Your Privacy
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NSA Leaker Edward Snowden Shares Privacy Tips And Warns About File Sharing Programs In New Interview
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Dropbox Hack: Millions of Online Details Ransomed While File-Sharing Service Denies Security Breach
File-sharing service Dropbox has denied that its servers were compromised in a security breach that saw hundreds of alleged account details posted online – but millions of accounts could still be at risk.
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Snowden to speak at Liberty Festival
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Snowden to Deliver Speech at Brussels Liberty Festival: Reports
US National Security Agency (NSA) whistleblower Edward Snowden will make a video address to Brussels Liberty Festival participants on October 23, De Standaard newspaper reported Wednesday.
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Russian party invites Snowden to host intelligence TV show
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Where in the world is Edward Snowden?
Snowden is shown living a happy and fulfilling life. He welcomes the debates sparked by his actions in leaking the documents. He currently has a 3-year permit to stay in the country and travel abroad. Snowden faces criminal charges in the United States and the public is split on their opinions of him. He has received recognition and awards for his actions, with many proclaiming him a hero, though his future is uncertain. For now, he remains in Moscow with his girlfriend. Citizenfour is directed by Lauren Poitras and will hit theatres on October 24.
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Snowden’s girlfriend lives with him in Moscow, film reveals
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Edward Snowden’s Life in Moscow Isn’t as Bad as You Think
He survives on a diet of ramen and chips. He spends much of his time reading books and learning Russian. When he does leave his room, it’s with an awareness that he might very well be under surveillance.
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Fugitive Snowden reunited with girlfriend in Moscow
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Lindsay Mills, Edward Snowden’s Girlfriend, Has Reunited With Leaker In Russia
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Edward Snowden and girlfriend reunited in Moscow, new documentary shows
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Edward Snowden and Girlfriend Reunited in Moscow, Documentary Reveals
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Date-night for a traitor: NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden enjoys trip to the theatre with pole dancer girlfriend – as lawyer hints the pair may soon marry in Moscow
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Glenn Greenwald on Why You Should Care About Privacy, Even If You Think You Have Nothing to Hide: VIDEO
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Glenn Greenwald on balancing security and liberty
Edward Snowden’s stunning revelations last year about bulk electronic spying on millions of Americans and foreigners by his former employer, the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA), left Greenwald with some powerful perspectives and opinions on state surveillance, privacy and government secrecy. His views extend to the Communications Security Establishment Canada and its ultrasecret work for global surveillance operations run by the NSA and “Five Eyes” western security intelligence alliance.
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Udall ad depicts privacy advocate battling Bush, Obama
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‘Citizenfour’ Charts The Early Days Of Snowden’s NSA Revelations
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Citizenfour review: ‘everybody needs to see it’
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“The truth is coming…it cannot be stopped”
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Privacy in the Internet of Things era: Will the NSA know what’s in your fridge?
Wojtek Borowicz, community evangelist at Estimote, freelance writer and a strong believer in the Internet of Things.
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Laura Poitras On Her Snowden Film: ‘I Was Very Aware That Someone’s Life Was On The Line’
Journalist Glenn Greenwald’s name is indelibly associated with the explosive National Security Agency disclosures that began last year. But filmmaker Laura Poitras is the one who engineered them. After Greenwald brushed off Edward Snowden’s initial attempt to contact him over encrypted email in December 2012, the NSA contractor turned to Poitras. She pushed the daring trip with Greenwald to Hong Kong to meet the source.
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A Portrait of the Whistleblower as a Young Man
Laura Poitras’s new documentary captures the moment when Edward Snowden told the world that the NSA was watching.
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Snowden Film Tests Hollywood Obama Backers
Early in Laura Poitras’s documentary “Citizenfour,” Edward J. Snowden, who exposed vast electronic surveillance by the United States government, tells what pushed him to go public.
“As I saw the promise of the Obama administration betrayed, and walked away from,” says Mr. Snowden, referring to drone strikes and invasive monitoring by the National Security Agency, “it really hardened me to action.”
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Citizenfour review – gripping Snowden documentary offers portrait of power, paranoia and one remarkable man
This documentary is about that very remarkable man, the former NSA intelligence analyst and whistleblower Edward Snowden, shown here speaking out personally for the first time about all the staggering things governments are doing to our privacy.
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Laura Poitras talks Citizenfour
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Citizenfour: Poitras’ doco is about NSA and GCHQ – NOT Snowden
There is no subtlety in the political stance of Laura Poitras, which makes Citizenfour a completely one-sided documentary. Yet oddly enough, this bias doesn’t detract from the power of the film that covers a week in a Hong Kong hotel bedroom, during which Edward Snowden reveals himself and the extent of the NSA’s cyber-surveillance to Poitras, Glenn Greenwald and fellow Guardian journalist Ewen MacAskill.
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Edward Snowden documentary premieres across the UK
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Your Driving History is Public, Unless You Want a Copy
From the moment they were reported, the Edward Snowden leaks captured the public’s attention and raised the specter of mass surveillance. That surveillance is not just being carried about by large clandestine intelligence organizations like the National Security Agency (NSA), either. Following the lead of their federal counterparts, local police departments are now getting in on the action.
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D.C. Circuit Readies For NSA Case
When the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit convenes Nov. 4 to hear a challenge to government surveillance, lawyers will make their case to one judge — Senior Judge David Sentelle — who has grappled in recent years with the intersection of individual privacy rights and technology.
The D.C. Circuit last week identified the three judges — Sentelle, Stephen Williams and Janice Rogers Brown — who will decide whether the National Security Agency’s bulk collection of phone records violates the Fourth Amendment.
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Oral arguments set for NSA case
Oral arguments before the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals are scheduled for Dec. 8 in a North Idaho nurse’s legal challenge to the federal government’s bulk collection of Americans’ phone records.
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Leahy again pushes for Senate vote on bill to end NSA’s dragnet collection Of Americans’ E-Communications
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Snowden: Supreme Court will strike down NSA programs
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Edward Snowden: Supreme Court Will Strike Down NSA Spying Programs
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Edward Snowden: Supreme Court Will Strike Down NSA Spying Programs
Fugitive leaker Edward Snowden said Saturday he believes the Supreme Court will review the legality of the U.S. government’s mass surveillance programs and ultimately find them unconstitutional.
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Supreme Court declines to rule on DOJ phone records memo
The US Supreme Court [official website] on Tuesday let stand an appeals court ruling that said the US Department of Justice (DOJ) could refuse to release a 2010 memo regarding phone record collection under an exception to the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) [FOIA portal]. The court will not hear an appeal from civil liberties group Electronic Frontier Foundation [advocacy website], which wants to make public an internal DOJ memo allowing the FBI to informally obtain phone records. The appeal argued that the public has a right to know how the DOJ’s Office of Legal Counsel authorized the FBI to access phone records from telephone companies for investigations on terrorism. The US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit [official website] ruled [JURIST report] the memo is exempt from disclosure as part of the government’s internal deliberations.
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Zwipe! Mastercard Embraces Biometrics With Fingerprint
Those of you wearing tinfoil hats, look away. Mastercard and Zwipe have announced the first contactless payment credit card. How you ask? It comes complete with a fingerprint scanner. So, the next time you’re mugged, the thief is gonna have to take you along for the ride.
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Head to Head: Republicans and Democrats debate privacy rights
Edward Snowden is no traitor. Having the personal fortitude and bravery to blow the lid off of National Security Agency spying overreach should not lead to jail time.
Chelsea Manning is no traitor. Shedding light on illegal government activities and standing up for what you believe in should not end with a 35-year jail sentence.
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Civil Rights
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Speed Read: James Risen Indicts The War On Terror’s Costly Follies
In his new book, ‘Pay Any Price,’ reporter James Risen reports how billions were lost and American rights were infringed when the government went to war on terror.
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‘Pay Any Price’: Shameful Side of the War on Terror
In “Pay Any Price: Greed, Power, and Endless War,” James Risen, a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative reporter for The New York Times, sets out to portray the many seamy sides of the war on terror during the past 13 years.
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The American Government Tried to Kill James Risen’s Last Book
James Risen’s new book on war-on-terror abuses comes out tomorrow, and if you want to find a copy it shouldn’t be hard to obtain. As natural as that seems, it almost wasn’t the case with the Risen’s last book, “State of War,” published in 2006. Not only did U.S. government officials object to the publication of the book on national security grounds, it turns out they pressured Les Moonves, the CEO of CBS, to have it killed.
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New York Times Reporter James Risen Finds ‘Crazy Is The New Normal’ In War On Terror
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The War on Leaks: James Risen on 60 Minutes
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60 Minutes Tells Stories About FBI And NSA But Somehow Fails To Connect The Dots
60 Minutes, which has been harshly criticized for running puff pieces for the NSA and FBI recently, is at it again. Last night, they ran two unrelated yet completely conflicting segments—one focusing on FBI Director Jim Comey, and the other on New York Times reporter James Risen—and the cognitive dissonance displayed in the back-to-back interviews was remarkable.
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James Risen on NSA Whistleblower Edward Snowden: He Sparked a New National Debate on Surveillance
New York Times investigative reporter James Risen faces jail time if he refuses to name a whistleblowing source, but he insists the actual whistleblowers, including Edward Snowden, are “much more courageous that we reporters are.” Risen won a Pulitzer Prize for his reporting about warrantless wiretapping of Americans by the National Security Agency. “We revealed the framework for … how the Bush administration turned the NSA on the American people,” Risen says. He argues Snowden revealed that “under Obama and in the years since we had first written about it, the American people had become much more of an online citizenry … as a result, the NSA had grown dramatically in their ability to watch the online presence of Americans.”
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On Leak Prosecutions, Obama Takes it to 11. (Or Should We Say 526?)
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Ex-NSA head says no need to punish reporter who revealed agency’s secret surveillance
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Former NSA, CIA head says he doesn’t see need to pursue NY Times reporter
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Former NSA Chief Hayden Questions Prosecution of New York Times Reporter
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Obama Administration Has Secured 526 Months Of Prison Time For Whistleblowers
James Risen is a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist. He’s also currently under subpoena, possibly facing jail time, because of his reporting.
Specifically, he’s being investigated because of an article on a CIA ploy to hinder Iran’s quest for a nuclear bomb that went epically sideways and may have actually helped Iran along. 60 Minutes ran a great story on him this weekend, during which they cited a well-known statistic: the Obama administration has prosecuted more national security “leakers” than all other presidencies combined, eight to three.
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James Risen is not going to let the US fear-mongering machine win in secret
The reporter who exposed the NSA before Snowden will go behind bars to protect his source. But he will not let Obama’s Bushian addiction to power take us back to endless war without a fight
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British Parliament And Palestine: Decent Respect – OpEd
A day before, 363 Jewish Israeli citizens called upon the British Parliament to adopt the resolution, which calls for the British government to recognize the State of Palestine. The signatories included a Nobel Prize laureate, several winners of the highest Israeli civilian award, 2 former cabinet ministers and four former members of the Knesset (including myself), diplomats and a general.
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Stephen Zunes: Congress undermines human rights groups, covers up for war crimes
Israel’s seven weeks of attacks on heavily populated civilian neighborhoods in the besieged Gaza Strip this summer has led to unprecedented concern among Americans who, while still broadly supportive of Israel, found the attacks to be disproportionate and unnecessary. Close to 1,500 Palestinian civilians in Gaza were killed in the Israeli attacks, more of 500 of whom were children, and 18,000 homes were destroyed, leaving 100,000 homeless.
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CAAT begins legal action against BIS over arms sales to Israel
Campaign Against Arms Trade (CAAT) has instructed law firm Leigh Day to pursue an application for judicial review to challenge the Department of Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) decision not to suspend or revoke 12 existing licences for the export of arms/components to Israel.
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No peace in Pakistan for Nobel laureate
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Symbol of hope for the oppressed and downtrodden
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Noble Nobel Peace Prize winners
Many of the people lauding the Nobel Peace Prize laureate for her advocacy of nonviolence and who spoke of her struggle against illiteracy, poverty, and terrorism are the very same who also happily cheered on the the bloody invasion and occupation of Afghanistan. The utter hypocrisy does not strike them.
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The Controversial Nobel Prize For Peace
Just a few days back, David Swanson, a well known American journalist and a human rights activist penned down an article, ‘Again the Peace Prize Not for Peace.’ The topic of this article is awarding of the Nobel Prize for Peace to Malala Yusafzai and Kailash Satyarthi. He says in this article, ‘According to Alfred Nobel’s will the Nobel Peace Prize must go to the person who has done the best work for fraternity between nations, for the abolition or reduction of standing armies and for the holding and promotion of peace congresses. The persons whom the Nobel Prize 2014 has been awarded to have not worked for fraternity between nations or the abolition or reduction of standing armies but for the rights of children’. Next he raises some objections with particular reference to Malala Yusafzai. He says, ‘Malala Yusafzai became a celebrity in Western media because she was a victim of designated enemies of Western empire. Had she been a victim of the governments of Saudi Arabia or Israel or any other kingdom or dictatorship being used by Western governments, we would not have heard so much about her suffering and her noble work. Were she primarily an advocate for the children being traumatized by drone strikes in Yemen or Pakistan, she’d be virtually unknown to U.S. television audiences.’
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Editorial – At 17, Nobel winner Malala Yousafzai a voice for the voiceless
The BBC reported that Malala was in class at a school she attends in Birmingham, England, when the news broke and had to be pulled out of class to be told she had won one of the world’s most prestigious awards.
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New investigation after ’2,000 police officers’ are implicated in corruption
Police corruption is to be investigated by a powerful committee of MPs amid fears of widespread impropriety – as The Independent reveals that thousands of officers are suspected to be crooked.
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EGYPT’S U.S-BACKED MILITARY REGIME IS BRUTALIZING STUDENT PROTESTORS
Just a few short months after John Kerry disingenuously congratulated Egypt’s military junta for “transitioning to democracy”, the young students who helped galvanize the 2011 Egyptian Revolution are back protesting its increasingly draconian rule. Campus protests have broken out in several major cities calling for the release of imprisoned student activists and for the removal of new limits on academic freedom imposed by the regime.
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New Zealand police raided home of reporter working on Snowden documents. Here’s how you can support his defense.
On October 6th, New Zealand police raided the house of one of the country’s best independent investigative journalists, Nicky Hager, seizing many of his family’s belongings and his reporting equipment—all in the search for one of his sources. This is a flagrant violation of basic press freedom rights, and today we are announcing a campaign to assist Hager in raising money for his legal defense. Please go here to donate.
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Moats: Shades Of J. Edgar
I was there when students occupied the student center at my campus, but when my friend and I wondered whether we ought to get ourselves arrested, we looked at each other and said, “Nah.”
There were other things I didn’t see. I didn’t see the secret war that Ronald Reagan, then California governor, was waging in tandem with J. Edgar Hoover against people who held points of view they disapproved of.
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Australia is on the road to a Tea party revolution
It’s the swaggering and unthinking bravado that hits you. Australian prime minister Tony Abbott threatens to “shirtfront” Russian leader Vladimir Putin when he arrives in Australia for the G20. Moscow responds via Pravda by comparing Abbott to Pol Pot and Hitler. Australian senator Jacqui Lambie then praises Putin as a “strong leader” with “great values”.
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Reports expose Australian government’s data retention plans
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Australia’s defence intelligence agency conducted secret programs to help NSA
It is unclear, from documents leaked by Edward Snowden, whether programs to hack computer networks continue at ASD
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American website Intercept reveals secret activities of Australian spy agency
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Snowden: I’d ‘love’ to have a fair trial
Former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden tried to negotiate with government officials about being able to stand trial for alleged crimes, he said in an interview with the New Yorker on Saturday.
“I had told the government again and again in negotiations if they’re prepared to offer an open trial, a fair trial, in the same way that Dan Ellsberg got, and I’m allowed to make my case before a jury, I would love to do so,” he said over a video feed. “But they declined.”
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Edward Snowden Asks U.S. for a Fair Trial
Edward Snowden, the former NSA contractor and infamous leaker of the agency’s massive surveillance program, is again asking the government to allow him to return to the United States and stand trial for his alleged crimes.
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Whistleblower Snowden Says US Authorities Decline Open Trial
US National Security Agency (NSA) whistleblower Edward Snowden said he had not received guarantees of an open trial from the US government.
“I’ve told the government again and again … that if they are prepared to offer an open trial, a fair trial … and I’m allowed to make my case to the jury, I would love to do so. But they declined,” Snowden said during a virtual interview with The New Yorker on Saturday.
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Edward Snowden Saga May Discourage Future Whistle Blowers
By now, most people have heard all about the explosive story that came out last year regarding leaked documents that exposed spying by the National Security Agency (NSA). Edward Snowden was revealed to be the whistle blower that braved the threat of death in order to let the world know about the secret shenanigans that were taking place. The revelations stunned and shocked the global community while a media frenzy ensued soon after. Admittedly, it was a very brave yet very dangerous thing to do. Now, the question must be asked: has the Edward Snowden saga discouraged future whistle blowers who may now be in fear for their lives?
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Gitmo force-feeding manual reveals gruesome practices
Last week the U.S. government submitted to the District Court in Washington, D.C., the most recent standard operating procedures (SOPs) for force-feeding in the Guantánamo Bay detention facility. What remains of the documents, after redactions, is a shameful exercise in doublespeak that attempts to disguise what is really happening in the prison.
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Internet/Net Neutrality
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Revealed: ISPs Already Violating Net Neutrality To Block Encryption And Make Everyone Less Safe Online
The first example you may have actually heard about. It got some attention back in July, when entrepreneur Colin Nederkoorn released a video showing how Verizon was throttling his Netflix connection, which was made obvious when he logged into a VPN and suddenly his Netflix wasn’t stuttering and the throughput was much higher. That video got a lot of attention (over half a million views) and highlighted the nature of the interconnection fight in which Verizon is purposely allowing Netflix streams coming via Level 3 to clog. As most people recognize, in a normal scenario, using a VPN should actually slow down your connection somewhat thanks to the additional encryption. However, the fact that it massively sped up the Netflix connection shows just how much is being throttled when Verizon knows it’s Netflix traffic. Nederkoorn actually was using Golden Frog’s VyprVPN in that video, so it actually makes Golden Frog look good — but the company notes that it really shows one way in which “internet access providers are ‘mismanaging’ their networks to their own users’ detriment.”
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Intellectual Monopolies
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TTIP Update XL
And even if ISDS were taken out of TTIP, it’s important to remember that the threat of corporations suing nations directly, over democratic developments that harm future corporate profits, will not have disappeared. That’s because ISDS is most definitely still in the trade agreement between the EU and Canada, known as CETA. That means that any US company with ‘substantial business activities’ in Canada – that’s all that the text of CETA requires – can sue the EU using the new agreement.
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Copyrights
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Crooner in Rights Spat
Rod Stewart is being sued over the rights to an image of his own head.
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