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11.19.12

Holding Back Standards Adoption in Europe

Posted in Europe, Microsoft, Open XML, OpenDocument, OpenOffice at 7:49 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

Langham street, London

Summary: Without speaking to FOSS experts the bureaucrats in Europe consider giving up on ODF and FOSS

EARLIER THIS year we wrote about how OOXML was interfering with FOSS adoption in the German public sector. IDG has
this report which echoes a few others but places little or no emphasis on OOXML. It says:

Several open source groups such as the Free Software Foundation Europe, the Document Foundation and the Open Source Business Alliance protested the plans in an open letter to the council on Friday, saying the council compared apples with oranges.

“Numerous statements concerning LibreOffice and Apache OpenOffice are incorrect or outdated,” they said in the letter, adding that the support of LibreOffice and OpenOffice is at a professional level these days. “The assessment of the evaluation that compatibility to Microsoft Office cannot be reached in the next few years, is also wrong,” they said.

According to the organizations, no open source experts were consulted in the process. Therefore they hoped the council would still consider a migration to a current version of LibreOffice or OpenOffice.

The council plans to vote on the draft bill next Tuesday.

That is just a few days from now. The cost of lock-in is very high and many managers fail to take this into account. There are 450 comments in Slashdot. The problems in Freiburg are somewhat representative of the excuses made in other places. Microsoft had hired some people whose task is to attack LibreOffice/OpenOffice.org adoption (also see [1, 2, 3]), nut almost nobody in the corporate press reported on that. █

Links 19/11/2012: Precise Puppy 5.4.1, Ubuntu/Canonical Loses Compiz Developer

Posted in News Roundup at 7:15 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

GNOME bluefish

Contents

GNU/Linux

Free Software/Open Source

  • Study on free, open source software in governance

    In a statement issued here Monday, ICFOSS said the study would bring out the extent to which free and open source software is used in government projects, and assess the economics of its use.

  • Business

    • Why businesses are adopting the open source community approach

      A few months ago, I joined Red Hat as a marketing apprentice (intern) in Paris, France—where I am also continuing my studies at France Business School—and it became clear to me that my vision of what open source is and what it means to be part of the community has changed. This evolution has significantly altered the way I am participating in projects and communiticating with peers.

  • BSD

    • What’s Exciting About FreeBSD 9.1: Intel KMS

      While FreeBSD 9.1 is running behind schedule, one of the exciting additions to this forthcoming BSD operating system is finally debuting Intel kernel mode-setting on FreeBSD support.

      The most exciting feature in this release is undoubtedly the availability of Kernel Modesetting and new drivers for intel chipsets. The drivers are not perfectly up-to-date (xf86-video-intel is at 2.17 and mesa is at 7.11) but it is a significant improvement over what was previously available (2.7 and 7.6, respectively).

    • FreeBSD project servers hacked

      The FreeBSD project has announced that an intrusion was detected on two of the machines within its project cluster on November 11.

  • Licensing

    • Relicensing VLC to the LGPL the hard way

      VideoLAN president Jean-Baptiste Kempf has completed relicensing most of the popular open source VLC media player from GPLv2 to LGPL. In a blog post, Kempf explains the reasoning for the relicensing: the project is trying to attract more developers, especially for app store versions of the application. VLC was removed from the iOS App Store back in January 2011 because it was licensed under the GPL. By the end of the year, the developers had already relicensed libVLC, the core library of the media player.

  • Openness/Sharing

    • Should Hostess open source their recipes?

      In other words, should they release their recipes under a license like Creative Commons or the GPL that would allow people to use, modify, and enhance the recipes?

    • Ray Kurzweil on the future of work: Lifelong learning and an open source economy

      Singularity University, on the grounds of the NASA Research Center at Moffett Field in Silicon Valley, abounds in optimism, and, as Singularity’s vice president of innovation and research, I have understandably caught the bug. I have written about why I believe this will be the most innovative decade in human history, how we are headed for an era of abundant and affordable health care, and how robotics, artificial intelligence and 3D printing will lead to an era of local manufacturing in which the creative class flourishes.

      But deep down I also worry about the dark side of advancing technology; specifically, how we could create doomsday viruses, be in ethical gray zones, and impact employment with new technologies. So my exchanges with Singularity University founders Ray Kurzweil and Peter Diamandis often turn into lengthy debates. While we agree on the positives, we never quite reach an agreement on the risks and downsides. I usually run out of arguments, and their optimism always wins me over — until it wears off.

    • Open Hardware

      • Chumby inventor, Huang. to keynote at LCA

        The inventor of the Chumby, Dr Andrew “bunnie” Huang, has been named as the first of four keynote speakers at the Australian national Linux conference next year.

Leftovers

  • If I Were Your Lawyer I’d Tell You Not to Brag About Your Crimes on the Air

    The Denver Post reports that a woman who faked mental illness to get out of jury duty, and then bragged about it on a talk-radio show, has pleaded guilty to perjury and “attempting to influence a public servant.” The “public servant” in question was the judge who had presided over jury selection, and who excused the woman after she claimed to be suffering from post-traumatic stress. But this potential juror went the extra mile: she “sold her act” by dressing crazy, with “heavy makeup smeared on her face while her hair hung askew in curlers, with shoes and reindeer socks mismatched.” She also spoke “disjointedly.”

  • Americans Voting Smarter About Crime, Justice At Polls

    A headline from the Denver Post this week read: “Colorado Drug Force Disbanding.” Another from the Seattle Times announced, “220 Marijuana Cases Dismissed In King, Pierce Counties.”

    Just 15 or 20 years ago, headlines like these were unimaginable. But marijuana legalization didn’t just win in Washington and Coloardo, it won big.

    In Colorado, it outpolled President Barack Obama. In Washington, Obama beat pot by less than half a percentage point. Medical marijuana also won in Massachusetts, and nearly won in Arkansas. (Legalization of pot lost in Oregon, but drug law reformers contend that was due to a poorly written ballot initiative that would basically have made the state a vendor.)

  • Defence/Police/Aggression

  • Cablegate

  • Environment/Energy/Wildlife

    • How Germany Is Getting to 100 Percent Renewable Energy

      There is no debate on climate change in Germany. The temperature for the past 10 months has been three degrees above average and we’re again on course for the warmest year on record. There’s no dispute among Germans as to whether this change is man-made, or that we contribute to it and need to stop accelerating the process.

  • Finance

    • Goldman Sachs and Litton Loan Servicing: A Very Uncomfortable Divorce

      rior to the 2008 when Wall Street was laying on big bets on the housing market, mortgage servicing was the equivalent of blackjack; the odds for a player who knew the rules were very good and having a company that collected monthly mortgage payments from homeowners provided a reliable revenue stream. Even better were the companies that operated in the sub-prime space — “default servicers” — because if you couldn’t shake the shekels out of the homeowners pocket, you could always seize the property in foreclosure and make back your nut and then some. In the colorful vernacular of the industry these mortgage loans are referred to as “S&D” (scratch and dent).

    • US Government Campaign Against Whistleblowers and Electronic Robin Hoods
    • Italian Catholic Church to pay property tax from next year
    • Freedom From Religion Foundation sues IRS for not enforcing electioneering restrictions on churches

      On the heels of a presidential election in which hundreds of preachers publicly promised to flout Internal Revenue Service rules by endorsing candidates from the pulpit, the Madison-based Freedom From Religion Foundation filed suit against the IRS for failing to enforce electioneering restrictions against churches and religious organizations.

      Filed in U.S. District Court for the Western District of Wisconsin, the lawsuit charges that Douglas Shulman, the commissioner of the Internal Revenue Service, “has violated, continues to violate and will continue to violate in the future, the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States by failing to enforce the electioneering restrictions of 501(c)(3) of the Tax Code against churches and religious organizations.”

    • Sanders: Going Over ‘Fiscal Cliff’ Better than Bad Tax Deal

      Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., said Monday that if the lame-duck Congress can’t agree on a tax deal by the end of the year, briefly going over the “fiscal cliff” is preferable to accepting a bad deal.

  • Censorship

    • Julian Assange labels Obama ‘a wolf in sheep’s clothing’

      WIKILEAKS founder Julian Assange has described re-elected President Barack Obama as a “wolf in sheep’s clothing” and says he expects the US government to keep attacking the anti-secrecy website.

    • Lurk no more

      ON NOVEMBER 11th Russian internet-users began to notice that Lurkmore, a sometimes funny, often vulgar website with a cult following, was no longer accessible. Lurkmore (pictured) is a user-generated encyclopedia, a Russian-language wiki Wikipedia focusing on obscure internet jokes and memes, or what its co-founder, Dmitry Homak, calls “the kind of stuff said by the characters on SouthPark”. Although no one had officially told Mr Homak anything, it soon became clear that the site had fallen into the Russian government’s “Single Register” of web content to be banned under a law passed by the Duma in June.

  • Privacy

    • The Hackers of Damascus

      It didn’t matter. His computer had already told all. “They knew everything about me,” he says. “The people I talked to, the plans, the dates, the stories of other people, every movement, every word I said through Skype. They even knew the password of my Skype account.” At one point during the interrogation, Karim was presented with a stack of more than 1,000 pages of printouts, data from his Skype chats and files his torturers had downloaded remotely using a malicious computer program to penetrate his hard drive. “My computer was arrested before me,” he says.

  • Civil Rights

    • Vendetta masks declared illegal in UAE
    • Court Orders Password Turnover and In Camera Review of Social Media Accounts – EEOC v. Original Honeybaked Ham Co.

      The court says that the fact this type of information “exists in cyberspace . . . is a logistical and, perhaps, financial problem, but not a circumstance that removes the information from accessibility by a party opponent in litigation.” Based on the evidence cited by the employer, the court says it’s satisfied that there’s no fishing expedition. Accordingly, it orders “each class member’s social media content . . . produced.” The court proposes to use a special master, and orders the parties to collaborate and work out the specific instructions to the special master. The special master will produce information which the court will then review for relevance, and then allow the EEOC (or plaintiffs) to designate privileged material. The remaining items will be turned over to the employer.

    • International Organization Finds U.S. Violating the Rights of Protestors

      The right to peacefully assemble, enshrined both in the U.S. Constitution and international human rights law, is an intrinsic element of the democratic fabric of the United States. Yet according to a report released Friday by the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), an international organization of which the U.S. is a member, America is failing to uphold this fundamental right. The report is the first comprehensive OSCE report on violation of the right to freedom of peaceful assembly that covers the U.S.

  • Copyrights

    • But Does It Copy Macrovision, I Mean, Run Linux?

      Two decades ago, old VCRs were in disproportionately high demand. Newer ones were unable to copy movies as they were distorted by a special signal. Hollywood is fighting for this war on equipment owners to carry over to general-purpose computers. Will they succeed?

11.18.12

Links 18/11/2012: Linux 3.7 RC6, FreeBSD.org Intrusion

Posted in News Roundup at 12:28 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

GNOME bluefish

Contents

GNU/Linux

Free Software/Open Source

  • LongTail Video Launches New Version Of Its Open Source Video Player, With Support For Apple HLS

  • Events

  • BSD

    • FreeBSD.org intrusion announced November 17th 2012

      On Sunday 11th of November, an intrusion was detected on two machines within the FreeBSD.org cluster. The affected machines were taken offline for analysis. Additionally, a large portion of the remaining infrastructure machines were also taken offline as a precaution.

    • DragonFlyBSD 3.2.1 vs. Ubuntu Linux Performance

      At the beginning of this month there was the release of DragonFlyBSD 3.2.1 that claimed a battle for speed against Linux with major improvements for the multi-threaded application performance against Linux. PostgreSQL was the only benchmark cited by the DragonFly camp with the new performance results, so a couple Phoronix tests were carried out.

      Being interested in seeing what changes DragonFlyBSD 3.2.1 has for performance against the earlier DragonFlyBSD 3.0 release and Linux distributions, I ran a couple quick and informal benchmarks. For the available hardware, an Intel Core i7 3960X Extreme Edition CPU was used, which has six physical cores plus Hyper Threading. Intel HT plus the individual cores can be easily toggled from the BIOS of the motherboard.

    • Hackers obtained access to FreeBSD servers

      The team behind the FreeBSD operating system reported that an intrusion into two of its servers was detected on 11 November. The security team says that the two affected servers were taken offline immediately and that investigations show that the first unauthorised access probably took place on 19 September. Apparently, the intruders didn’t exploit any security holes in FreeBSD; instead, they stole the SSH key of a developer with regular access privileges.

  • Project Releases

  • Programming

    • Clang Can Analyze Code Comments, Generate Docs

      Aside from why LLVM/Clang was ported to one of the fastest super computer’s in the world and using Clang to implement Microsoft’s C++ AMP, another interesting session at this month’s LLVM Developers’ Conference in San Jose was about using Clang to analyze code comments.

      By having Clang parse documentation comments, Clang could be enhanced to do additional semantic checking, ensure the code comments remain relevant to the actual code, and code completion APIs could take advantage of the documentation within the code. Ultimately, a Doxygen-like tool could be created based upon Clang for generating proper documentation out of the code itself and the associated comments. Further out, automatic comment re-factoring could be done to update names referenced within the inline code comments so that the resulting documentation is always up-to-date.

    • Pairing A C Compiler With QEMU’s Code Generator

      Earlier this week when writing about the state of the Tiny C Compiler, I learned more about QCC. QCC is a new initiative to pair a forked version of the Tiny C Compiler (TCC) with QEMU’s code generator.

      The QCC compiler is being worked on by Rob Landley, a developer with much compiler development experience that previously worked on early 64-bit TCC support. The QEMU CPU emulator has a code generator named TCG, which is short for Tiny Code Generator. The TCG generator translates code fragments from any target code supported by QEMU into a code representation that can be then executed on the host.

Leftovers

  • following in ethically-challenged footsteps of Scalia and Thomas

    Oops: They’re doing it again: Another Supreme Court Justice flouts ethical standards

  • Science

    • Why Cell Phones Went Dead After Hurricane Sandy

      After Hurricane Sandy, survivors needed, in addition to safety and power, the ability to communicate. Yet in parts of New York City, mobile communications services were knocked out for days.

      The problem? The companies that provide them had successfully resisted Federal Communications Commission calls to make emergency preparations, leaving New Yorkers to rely on the carriers’ voluntary efforts.

  • Security

    • What do we do about untrustworthy Certificate Authorities?

      OpenSSL maintainer and Google cryptographer Ben Laurie and I collaborated on an article for Nature magazine on technical systems for finding untrustworthy Certificate Authorities. We focused on Certificate Transparency, the solution that will shortly be integrated into Chrome, and also discuss Sovereign Keys, a related proposal from the Electronic Frontier Foundation. Both make clever use of cryptographic hashes, arranged in Merkle trees, to produce “untrusted, provable logs.”

    • Anonymous attacks over 650 Israeli sites, wipes databases, leaks email addresses and passwords (updated)

      When the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) this week began taking military action in the Gaza strip against Hamas (as the IDF announced on Twitter), Anonymous declared its own war as part of #OpIsrael. Among the casualties are thousands of email addresses and passwords, hundreds of Israeli Web sites, government-owned as well as privately owned pages, as well as databases belonging to Bank Jerusalem and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

  • Defence/Police/Aggression

  • Cablegate

  • Environment/Energy/Wildlife

    • True Amount of BP Settlement Will Depend on Hidden Tax Giveaways

      Today, BP agreed to a $4.5 billion settlement to resolve felony and misdemeanor charges related to the Gulf oil spill, but taxpayers may end up indirectly covering up to 35 percent of that amount if the company is allowed to take the settlement as a tax write-off.

      “The judge shouldn’t approve this settlement if BP could pass off much of this settlement cost onto taxpayers,” said Phineas Baxandall, the Senior Tax and Budget Policy Analyst at the U.S. Public Interest Research Group (U.S. PIRG). “Especially in the context of pressing budget shortfalls, every dollar BP writes off means an additional dollar Americans will pay in the form of higher taxes, budget cuts, or more national debt.”

    • Fukushima fish ‘may be inedible for a decade’

      Fish from the waters around the Fukushima nuclear plant in Japan could be too radioactive to eat for a decade to come, as samples show that radioactivity levels remain elevated and show little sign of coming down, a marine scientist has warned.

    • How BP’s historic Deepwater Horizon fine will be paid by the US military

      An explosion Friday on a rig in the Gulf owned by Houston-based Black Elk Energy has reportedly injured several workers, with four missing, two possibly killed. This latest incident – just a day after the US department of justice’s historic settlement with BP over the Deepwater Horizon disaster – highlights the risks of offshore oil-drilling, and the need for tougher regulations on one of America’s most hazardous industries.

  • Finance

    • Economists: US Wages Stagnant for Over a Decade

      As wages remain stagnant since 2002, the past ten years have been effectively been a “lost decade for workers,” says writer Kevin G. Hall.

    • Slovenia Should Sell Assets to Lure Investors, Goldman Says

      Slovenia, the first post-communist nation to introduce the euro in 2007, is struggling to avoid the need for a bailout from international lenders as political gridlock grips the nation of 2 million people. The government of Prime Minister Janez Jansa is pushing ahead with an overhaul of the economy with some measures threatened by a possible referendum.

      Labor unions and opposition leaders have filed a motion for a people’s vote on government plans to recapitalize state-owned lenders like Nova Ljubljanska Banka d.d. and the creation of a wealth fund.

    • Occupy hatches plot to destroy payday loan industry

      In today’s ever-perplexing world of personal finance, there’s no question consumers could benefit from a little clarity.

      Just don’t expect to find any in the pages of Occupy Wall Street’s new manifesto on consumer debt.

  • Censorship

    • Yelp Takes Down Review That Sparked Legal Threat

      Yesterday we had the story of how an 18-month-old Yelp review for Casey Movers in Massachusetts spurred the company to send a legal threat to the author, Kristen Buckley, leading her husband, Phil Buckley to do some research and uncover questionable “positive” reviews of the company, and to call the company out for its legal threat. That story has been getting a lot of attention from a variety of sources, and some have noticed that the original review is gone. Yes, gone. If you go there, you can now see Kristen’s followup comment about the legal threat, and Casey Movers’ response to the original review — but not the original review itself.

    • Christian wins case against employers over gay marriage comments

      A Christian who was demoted for posting his opposition to gay marriage on Facebook has won a legal case against his employer.

      Adrian Smith lost his managerial position, had his salary cut by 40%, and was given a final written warning by Trafford Housing Trust (THT) after posting in February last year that gay weddings in churches were “an equality too far”.

    • Victory: government backs down from “default” filtering?

      According to reports this Saturday in the Daily Mail and Telegraph, David Cameron will be asking ISPs to ask customers if they have children, and if so, help them install filtering technology.

      While the Daily Mail cite this as a “victory” for their campaign to switch porn off in every household, and allow people to “opt in to porn”, in fact it would be a humiliating climb down.

    • Restrictions to Internet free speech: Assange and Manning

      The US quite regularly rebukes Russia for putting a leash on the freedom of speech. This May, the US State Department focused on the Russian media in its annual human rights report.

    • What you can and can’t say on social networking sites

      The situation raises an interesting debate about the right to free speech and protecting people from unjustified attacks.

  • Privacy

    • UK government threatens firms over hidden customer data

      The UK government has repeated its threat to legislate if businesses do not voluntarily release data gathered on customers who ask to see it.

    • German police stop man with mobile office in car

      Forget texting while driving. German police say they nabbed a driver who had wired his Ford station wagon with an entire mobile office.

      Saarland state police said Friday the 35-year-old man was pulled over for doing 130 kph (80 mph) in a 100 kph zone while passing a truck Monday.

  • Civil Rights

    • Taliban Oops Reveals Mailing List IDs

      Somewhere out there, Mullah Omar must be shaking his head.

      In a Dilbert-esque faux pax, a Taliban spokesperson sent out a routine email last week with one notable difference.He publicly CC’d the names of everyone on his mailing list.

      The names were disclosed in an email by Qari Yousuf Ahmedi, an official Taliban spokesperson, on Saturday. The email was a press release he received from the account of Zabihullah Mujahid, another Taliban spokesperson. Ahmedi then forwarded Mujahid’s email to the full Taliban mailing list, but rather than using the BCC function, or blind carbon copy which keeps email addresses private, Ahmedi made the addresses public.

    • Leaders should be sacked for incompetence, not cheating

      US generals Petraeus and Allen had to bow to what feels close to mob rule. Is this how we do accountability now?

    • Why smart people do dumb things online

      Petraeus is smart: He graduated in the top 5% of his class at West Point and went on to earn a Ph.D.

      Petraeus has self-control: His self-discipline was “legendary,” according to Time Magazine.

      And Petraeus knows what he’s doing: During his time as a four-star general and as director of the CIA, he acquired an intimate knowledge of how easily email can be hacked.

      And that’s why it’s so incredible that even Petraeus did the dumbest thing imaginable when it came to his email: He trusted it with his secrets.

      Allegedly.

    • Trying to Keep Your E-Mails Secret When the C.I.A. Chief Couldn’t

      In the past, a spymaster might have placed a flower pot with a red flag on his balcony or drawn a mark on page 20 of his mistress’s newspaper. Instead, Mr. Petraeus used Gmail. And he got caught.

      Granted, most people don’t have the Federal Bureau of Investigation sifting through their personal e-mails, but privacy experts say people grossly underestimate how transparent their digital communications have become.

      [...]

      Google reported that United States law enforcement agencies requested data for 16,281 accounts from January to June of this year, and it complied in 90 percent of cases.

    • Website Calls Out Authors of Racist Anti-Obama Posts
    • In UK, Twitter, Facebook rants land some in jail

      One teenager made offensive comments about a murdered child on Twitter. Another young man wrote on Facebook that British soldiers should “go to hell.” A third posted a picture of a burning paper poppy, symbol of remembrance of war dead.

  • Internet/Net Neutrality

    • Ofcom: mobile blocking Skype but we don’t care

      ISPreview UK: “Ofcom used this report to keep a close eye (sic) on the issue of Net Neutrality and Traffic Management, although they found that “there are currently no substantive concerns in relation to the traffic management practices used by fixed ISPs“. The regulator noted some “concern” with how some mobile operators block Skype (VoIP) but not enough to take any action against.” The traffic management section starts on p49 and includes this choice example of how ISPs are largely ignoring Ofcom’s evidence-gathering:

    • Russia demands broad UN role in Net governance, leak reveals

      Leaked document from upcoming treaty negotiations reveals Russia wants transfer of authority over Net to national governments. The U.N.’s increasingly shrill denials are ringing ever more hollow.

  • Intellectual Monopolies

    • DuPont-Dow Corn Defeated by Armyworms in Florida: Study

      Fall armyworms in southern Florida survived a pesticide engineered into corn by Dow Chemical Co. (DOW) and DuPont Co., the second insect to show signs of resistance to genetically modified crops in the U.S., according to a study.
      Fall armyworms ate the leaves of corn engineered to produce an insecticidal protein and lived, according to 2012 field trial data presented Nov. 13 at a conference in Knoxville, Tennessee. The protein is marketed by Dow and DuPont as Herculex.

    • MEPs demand better evaluation of GMOs

      The study by the biologist Gilles-Eric Seralini (University of Caen), conducted over two years on rats fed diets containing genetically modified maize (NK603 variety), with and without the Roundup herbicide, as well as with Roundup alone, the results of which were published on September 19 in the journal Food and Chemical Toxicology, has reignited the debate about the possible risks associated with the use of Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs) and the reliability of the 90-day toxicology studies previously used to justify their approval.

    • Copyrights

Apple’s Patent Case Against Samsung (Android) May be Destroyed

Posted in Apple, Patents, Samsung at 9:22 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

Car on fire

Summary: Apple’s settlement can harm the Apple vs Samsung case

The Apple vs HTC case is over with a seemingly peaceful settlement. The speculations that HTC pays Apple seem to be pure fabrication. Tim Worstall, writing at Forbes, says that this might have some serious implications for the Samsung case (with billions of dollars at stake). To quote:

A little piece of legal finagling that could have some very interesting results. Apple has, as we know, settled with HTC over patents. And reached a general patent cross licensing agreement. Yet Apple, in the Samsung cases, seems to be saying that there are certain patents that it would never license. For getting mere money for them would never be enough. It’s on that that the potential Samsung product bans rest. For judges, if money’s a good enough compensation, prefer not to ban products.

Samsung asks the judge to see the settlement’s details:

Apple settled its patent disputes with HTC last Saturday, and lawyers from Samsung were paying attention. Papers filed in federal court Friday show that by Monday afternoon, Samsung was asking to get a look at that license agreement.

It isn’t exactly clear what patents are covered in the agreement, but at least two of the patents Apple was using against HTC were also being used against Samsung. If Apple licensed those patents, that wouldn’t be in accordance with how a key Apple witness described the company’s patent policies. At trial, Apple IP chief Boris Teksler said the company tended to not license its most “unique user patents” at all, especially to competitors, as Reuters noted today.

Here is what Reuters wrote:

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – When Apple Inc and HTC Corp last week ended their worldwide legal battles with a 10-year patent licensing agreement, they declined to answer a critical question: whether all of Apple’s patents were covered by the deal.

The article says that “Apple co-founder Jobs promised to go “thermonuclear” on Android, and that threat has manifested in Apple’s repeated bids for court-imposed bans on the sale of its rivals’ phones.

“Cook, on the other hand, has said he prefers to settle rather than litigate, if the terms are reasonable. But prior to this month, Apple showed little willingness to license its patents to an Android maker.”

Is this the end of it then? The report says that: “Specific terms are unknown, though analysts have speculated that HTC will pay Apple somewhere between $5 and $10 per phone.”

That is pure speculation and most likely just FUD. Let’s hope that Apple is willing to withdraw its legal actions and start competing based on merit, not patents. █

Groklaw Says Apple Cannot Sue Over Android as a Whole, Reuters Disagrees

Posted in Apple, GNU/Linux, Google, Patents at 9:08 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

Thorny Apple

Thorn

Summary: Updates on FRAND fight and other patent fights against Android

A COUPLE of Groklaw reporters attend a Linux/Android trial which has been stacked with lots of Microsoft boosters, including Janet Tu from a Bill Gates-funded newspaper. Some of the latest coverage from Groklaw [1, 2] is unlikely to have the same reach as that of newspapers. As Pamela Jones put it: “Our reporters were in the courtroom again Friday at the Microsoft v. Motorola trial in US District Court in Seattle, trying to figure out what Microsoft should pay Motorola for its FRAND patents. ”

Why was Seattle chosen? It’s a biased court setting. It’s like those Apple cases that take place near Apple’s headquarters, e.g. this case. If the legal system is designed to be objective and to avoid popular bias, then why are trolls allowed to pull defendants to Texas while Apple and Microsoft file for aggressive action in their home turf? This leads to systemic trial misconduct.

Jones continues to cover the Microsoft and Apple cases against Android. It is about FRAND, also known as flat rate patent tax. Here is somewhat of an overview:

We had two reporters in the courtroom today once again at the Microsoft v. Motorola FRAND trial in Seattle. Their coverage is demonstrating, to me anyway, that the last place in the world you can determine a proper royalty for a standard-essential patent is in a courtroom. I don’t know which is worse, whoever came up with this bizarre FRAND legal strategy for Microsoft and Apple or the companies for following it. And I do see the wisdom of the two judges who threw out Apple’s FRAND claims, Judge Richard Posner in Illinois and Judge Barbara Crabb in Wisconsin. Judge Crabb has just filed an order explaining the dismissal, so after I show you our reports from the trial in Seattle, I’ll show it to you as text. Maybe this Seattle judge, Hon. James Robart, should read it, because Microsoft’s claims are very similar to Apple’s.

It is looking like this trial will be still going on next week, probably until Tuesday. So we need someone to step forward and volunteer to cover for us Monday and Tuesday, if possible, as neither of our reporters will be able to attend. One of them took vacation days to cover this week. Please email me if you can go as Groklaw’s eyes and ears. And I know you join me is thanking our volunteers for helping us to know for sure what was really going on in that courtroom this week.

The pro-patents Bloomberg says:

Apple Inc. (AAPL) and Google Inc. (GOOG)’s Motorola Mobility unit are talking about a way to resolve part of their dispute over patents related to critical smartphone technology, according to a court filing.

There are better reports on the subject, but Jones has another update from her site where it is said that Apple cannot extend the scope of litigation as much as it hoped:

Apple Can’t Add Jelly Bean to Apple v. Samsung 2 Trial, only Galaxy Nexus ~pj

The Magistrate Judge in Apple v. Samsung 2, the litigation still in the early pre-trial phase in California District Court, has ruled [PDF] on the parties’ motions to add products to the case.

Samsung’s motion to add iPhone 5 was granted. Apple’s motion [PDF] was partly granted and partly denied. It can add the Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1, the Samsung S III, and the Galaxy Nexus, which runs Android Jelly Bean. Apple cannot add Android Jelly Bean itself. That’s a huge block of what I’d call a sneaky move on Apple’s part, one that did not get past this judge.

Groklaw cites this report which actually seems to contradict the claims above:

A U.S. judge allowed Samsung Electronics Co Ltd to pursue claims the iPhone5 infringes its patents on Thursday, while also allowing Apple Inc to add claims that the Samsung Galaxy Note, Galaxy S III and the Jelly Bean operating system violate its patents.

We wrote about it last week. So who is right? The press or Pamela Jones? This is important because if Apple can sue Android as a whole — irrespective of distributor — there will be serious implications (we will cover those in a separate post). Muktware agrees with what Jones said:

Apple had filed a motion to add more products to its current lawsuits, so did Samsung. Apple wanted to sneak the entire Android 4.1 Jelly Bean in the court case. If the court allowed this addition every single device running Android Jelly Bean, whether or not it was made by Samsung would be affected by the outcome of the case.

For those who wish to see what ridiculous software patents Apple is gaining, watch some news [1, 2] about Apple’s new page turn animation patent and Mike Masnick’s response to it:

While design patents are a slightly different than other patents, it really is patents like this that get the public to respect the patent system less and less.

Apple too gets the public’s respect less and less. The decreasing share speaks for itself.

Both Microsoft and Apple are being eaten away by Linux, little by little; that’s why Microsoft and Apple conspired to harm Android and Linux. Antitrust complaints are needed! █

Vista 8 is Not Selling, But Microsoft’s UEFI Scheme Blocks Linux Installations/Booting

Posted in Microsoft, Vista 8, Windows at 8:45 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

Plan B: block GNU/Linux

Empty shop

Summary: How protectionist plots help impede migrations to GNU and Linux distributions, especially now that Windows is a sordid mess

Since the major news about Sinofsky's departure we have been seeing a lot of bad news, including lawsuits over deceptive marketing:

None of this was enough for one guy, however, as Andrew Sokolowski is now suing Microsoft claiming that Microsoft is misrepresenting the device. While he’s seeking class action status, unlike many class action lawsuits that are all about money, it’s actually nice to see that he’s not seeking any money — just asking Microsoft to stop misrepresenting the product.

According to other news, Vista 8 sales are poor. Microsoft Paul, a booster of the company, says:

Windows 8 Sales Well Below Projections, Plenty of v to Go Around

Sales of Windows 8 PCs are well below Microsoft’s internal projections and have been described inside the company as disappointing. But here’s the catch: The software giant blames the slow start on lackluster PC maker designs and availability, further justifying its new Surface strategy. But Windows 8’s market acceptance can be blamed on many factors.

A PR mouthpiece, whom Microsoft bribes, blames everyone but Microsoft, shifting blame mostly to OEMs. So what do the OEMs say?

HP’s “Todd Bradley says the tablet tends to be slow, is expensive, and is getting more attention than it deserves,” says this report about the flagship product:

Hewlett-Packard isn’t overly impressed with Microsoft’s Surface tablet.

Speaking in an interview published yesterday with IDG Enterprise, HP PC business chief Todd Bradley said that his company could “hardly call Surface competition,” adding that the Microsoft-branded tablet is quite flawed.

“One, very limited distribution,” Bradley said, listing what he feels are the Surface’s greatest flaws. “It tends to be slow and a little kludgey as you use it….It’s expensive. Holistically, the press has made a bigger deal out of Surface than what the world has chosen to believe.”

This is Vista all over again. HP complained about it. Hewlett-Packard’s Chief Executive Mark Hurd said to Ballmer: “Steve, I’m sure you’re aware of this. Our call lines are being overrun.” [by Vista complaints]

Vista still is a mess for those who use it. To quote a new rant:

Installing Vista SP2 is like dousing a burning turd

All that Microsoft can really do now is block Linux, which it managed to do on some hardware. Red Hat should have complained, not played along with UEFI. Look where we are now:

This is, obviously, bizarre. A vendor appears to have actually written additional code to check whether an OS claims to be Windows before it’ll let it boot. Someone then presumably tested booting RHEL on it and discovered that it didn’t work. Rather than take out that check, they then addded another check to let RHEL boot as well. We haven’t yet verified whether this is an absolute string match or whether a prefix of “Red Hat Enterprise Linux” is sufficient, and further examination of the code may reveal further workarounds. For now, if you want to run Fedora[2] on these systems you’re probably best off changing the firmware to perform a legacy boot.

As Michael Larabel explains, Red Hat is doing something selfish like Novell once did, and here is where we end up:

It turns out that for at least one of Lenovo’s computer models, their UEFI implementation is explicitly checking for Windows or Red Hat Enterprise Linux and refusing to boot the UEFI-installed system if neither operating system is reported.

While initially it sounded like yet another SecureBoot issue with Linux, Matthew Garrett investigated and found that the UEFI on the Lenovo ThinkCentre M92p desktop was explicitly checking for the presence of “Windows Boot Manager” and “Red Hat Enterprise Linux” upon installing an UEFI-supported operating system. If the UEFI sees either string within the firmware’s descriptive string, the UEFI won’t let the system load.

Canonical and Red Hat should complain to antitrust authorities. They oughtn’t rely on fair play with UEFI. Vista 8 is failing very badly, but a lot of hardware is being built these days to only run Windows. This is an injustice that must not be tolerated. Microsoft also uses software patents to suppress GNU/Linux adoption. █

Bogus Correlations for Disinformation on Software Patents

Posted in Deception, Patents at 8:28 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

Silicon Valley

Summary: A Silicon Valley patent office and some Silicon Valley-themed propaganda for software patent are explained

AS readers of this site may already know, I am active in the fight against patents on algorithms; Not as a politician or anything legally-oriented but as a software developer who is affected by them. Software developers do not want these patents, but lawyers run the political system. The other day I noticed someone struggling to rebut common propaganda for software patents. To quote the original message:

We’re putting together notes, talking points, and a media package to begin tackling the software patents side of the unitary patent issue here in Estonia.

However we’ve come across a very valid argument, which has left us stumped. Maybe someone can help?

Basically the argument goes along the lines of: “if the US has software patents and software patents are so bloody bad, then how come so many tech startups are founded in the US?” Or alternatively worded as: “Why is Silicon Valley in the US and not in Germany, France, or the UK?”

Any help in tackling this argument would be much appreciated!

Former Google lawyer Michelle K. Lee is to lead a Silicon Valley patent office, according to this new article:

In what could be a big shake-up for America’s much maligned patent system, the United States Patent and Trademark Office has reportedly named lawyer Michelle K. Lee as the first head of its new Silicon Valley patent office.

Kappos, from IBM, is the head of the USPTO. Those companies are not small players. They do not represent the interests of people; they are massive corporations. Here is Masnick poking fun at the USPTO:

USPTO: “If you think our examiners are not competent, please come and offer to train our examiners.”

This is hilarious because they are totally oblivious to the problem.

My reply the query above was as follows: Silicon Valley has flourished despite of — not because of — software patents. People whom you speak of can be shown several venture capitalists who openly complain about software patents. Some even took activist-type action against US patent laws. In fact, software patents are why they won’t invest.

What in my humble opinion motivated growth in Silicon Valley is the influx of bright individuals from all across the world. They didn’t come because of patents but because of the quality of universities and a great deal of VC that shrank in more recent years (another bubble). Another factor that played a role in Silicon Valley’s growth is the vast market which is the US. They just have a broader reach.

Ask yourself how many British and French companies can honestly argue that they struggle in the market because the government does not grant them software patents. As Stallman said, it’s actually an advantage for them (over US counterparts) to not have the burden, distraction, and cost overhead of software patents.

So anyway, the correlation here is not causal as a patents booster would wish to make it. Gun crime in the US, for example, is the not the result of having no national healthcare coverage, although one could try to portray it as such. You’re up against a bunk argument, and it’s trivial to show it.

Thomas Warwaris, another software person from Austria, quoted a famous saying from Bill Gates: “If people had understood how patents would be granted when most of today’s ideas were invented, and had taken out patents, the industry would be at a complete standstill today.… The solution to this is patent exchanges with large companies and patenting as much as we can.” Source: “Challenges and Strategy” (16 May 1991).

“By the way,” he adds, “For arguments with patent bullies, they will very often challenge your competence. Patent offices are a valuable source for good and entertaining arguments to overcome this: Their own patents.

“Getting hands on their Patents, so that they can be full text searched – can require some tricks – but can put you in a huge advantage, because you should find a *lot* of granted Patents, that are ridiculous, in a very entertaining way:

“In Austria they range from “the invention of applying a whinch” (no kidding!) to “relaxation of esoteric energy in house building material” (no kidding either, I’ve seen a patent on sort of a voodoo-machine!). It’s not that they are stupid: It is the system: They have to grant.

“With these patent numbers ready, you can easily thank your patent office for promoting the rediscovery of ancient mechanics and tell them that you have your tarot cards with you, to match their level of science.

“Don’t forget to love patent offices: They are so funny!” █

11.17.12

Links 17/11/2012: EXT4 File System Benchmarks, Linus Torvalds Interview

Posted in News Roundup at 12:28 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

GNOME bluefish

Contents

GNU/Linux

  • Linux in Enterprises, market share and Business which use Linux

    Unquestionably Linux is still struggling to claim a respectable share in desktop market. The trend does not seem to vary drastically in enterprises too. However in contrast to Linux share in desktop operating system, Linux claims a considerably larger market share when it comes to operating system used by enterprises. The post presents some latest stats depicting where does a Linux stand as an operating system for business. The post also details some enterprises that rely on Linux for their everyday computation.

  • Kernel Space

    • EXT4 File-System Tuning Benchmarks

      Following last month’s Btrfs file-system tuning benchmarks, in this article are a similar set of tests when stressing the EXT4 file-system with its various performance-related mount options. Here are a number of EXT4 benchmarks from Ubuntu 12.10 with different mount option configurations.

      Aside from testing the EXT4 file-system at its defaults on the Linux 3.5 kernel with Ubuntu 12.10, the common Linux file-system was tested with nobarrier, data=journal, data=writeback, nodelalloc, and discard. Here’s the documentation on each mount option per the EXT4 documentation:

    • The Not-Ready Btrfs and ExFAT Linux Filesystems

      Two newer filesystems of importance to Linux are exFAT and Btrfs. exFAT is the controversial Microsoft filesystem for Flash memory devices, and Btrfs is for “big data”. Once upon a time there was much sound and fury around these, but lately it’s been quiet, so let’s see what’s been happening.

    • Why Linus Torvalds would rather code than make money

      The Linux kernel is what everything else runs on top of, so it’s the key to everything that a Linux device can do.

      It’s in your Android phone. It’s in the computers that run the servers at Google, Amazon and all the other web services that we take for granted.

      It powers the database that US immigration uses to decide if you are who you say you are, it’s deep under the Alps searching for new particles at CERN, and it’s even on unmanned drones searching for drugs traffickers in the Caribbean.

    • Graphics Stack

  • Applications

  • Desktop Environments

    • The Problem of Menus

      Interfaces for traditional computers and mobile devices have become increasingly inventive in the last few years. So far, however, none have solved a basic design challenge: designing an efficient menu.

      The challenge rarely exists within applications. An application usually has half a dozen or more top level menus, each with less than a dozen items, so a drop-down system is usually good enough.

      But on the desktop environment, the norm has always been to have a single menu that lists all applications, and often shut-down commands, a list of favorites, and a few other items.

      To function well, each variation needs to make items quick to find and to distract minimally from whatever else the user is doing. Unfortunately, while a solution may do one of these things, none of the available alternatives manages to do both at the same time.

    • K Desktop Environment/KDE SC/Qt

      • FOSDEM’13 Excellent Opportunity for KDE

        FOSDEM is one of the largest gatherings of Free Software contributors in the world and happens each February in Brussels (this year on the 2nd & 3rd of February). It’s one of the few community-centered conferences in Europe, and the largest volunteer-run Free Software event in Europe as well. Proposals are now invited for talks on KDE, KDE software and general desktop topics. KDE will be in the Cross Desktop Developer Room (devroom), along with Enlightenment, Gnome, Razor, Unity and XFCE. This is a unique opportunity to share KDE with a wide audience of developers.

    • GNOME Desktop

      • Final GNOME 3.6 update improves stability

        GNOME logo The second update to the 3.6.x series of GNOME has been released by the project’s developers to further improve the stability of the popular open source Linux and Unix desktop environment. As expected at this stage, the maintenance update has only minor changes including bug fixes and module and translation updates.

  • Distributions

    • Buyer’s guide to Linux distros

      Fancy giving Linux a whirl? Here are all the factors that you should look for when choosing from the wide range of available Linux distributions.

    • Which is the best Linux distro?
    • Dream Studio 12.04.1 Screenshots

    • New Releases

    • Gentoo Family

      • Gentoo Developers Unhappy, Fork udev

        The udev code-base has been forked by Gentoo Linux developers after they — and other parties — have been unhappy with the future direction of udev as set by systemd developers.

    • Debian Family

      • Debian review

        With several other distributions effectively based on the Debian system, it’s fair to say that it’s an important distro. In fact, as Linux distributions go, it’s positively stately; a grandaddy among open source upstarts.

        As you might expect from such an elderly, respected relative, it’s awash with hardware support – as well as the common Intel x86 processors, it will work with a number of other architectures, including PowerPC. Plus, there’s a huge 29,000 software packages included on the full DVD-based ISO, a download that runs to 4.4GB. In many respects, Debian’s tagline – “the universal OS” – is well earned.

      • Derivatives

        • Canonical/Ubuntu

          • Ubuntu Builder 2.3.1 Supports elementary OS Luna

            On November 15, Francesco Muriana has the pleasure of announcing the immediate availability for download of the Ubuntu Builder 2.3.1 open source application.

            Ubuntu Builder 2.3.1 is here to fix two annoying bugs in Ubuntu 12.10′s installer form, Ubiquity, that didn’t allow users to customize the slideshow.

          • Crowdsourcing in IT: A New FOSS Trend?

            Shuttleworth also pointed to what he called the “DevOps magic” that can arise when the community comes together. “You can have one group using Chef, and another group using Puppet, and with JuJu, they can easily connect and use each other’s knowledge, leveraging the unique skills that they both bring to table,” he explained. “It’s a complete buffet of all the goodness that open source offers.”

  • Devices/Embedded

Free Software/Open Source

  • 3Scale Launches Open Source API Proxy Providing Enterprises On-premises and in the Cloud API Traffic Management

    3Scale3Scale, a leading Plug and Play SaaS API Management platform and services provider, has just announced the launch of a new Open Source API Proxy that provides Enterprises API traffic management on-premises and in the cloud.

  • i2b2 open source software boosts HIE, biomedical research

    The health informatics software i2b2 — Informatics for Integrating Biology and the Bedside — was started in 2006, and has become something of a building block for several health information networks and research projects in genomics, pharmaceuticals and population health.

    Developed at the Partners HealthCare System as a federally-funded biomedical computing center, the open source software is letting biomedical researchers combine genomic and molecular research with data and observations from electronic health records, and its code set is also being used to link with claims databases and health information exchanges.

  • Sometimes the good guys win

    Leave it to him to prove me wrong, and I can tell you how he’ll respond: He’ll just chalk it up to my being a liberal. Honest. Then we’ll laugh about that — the tree-hugging Californian and the rock-ribbed conservative Texan — and we’ll move on to the next FOSS issue we’ll be addressing together.

    Thanks for getting the better of your disease, Ken. I know I speak for a multitude of folks who would echo that sentiment, and I know an army of folks who are glad you’re on our side in fighting proprietary software.

  • Web Browsers

    • Mozilla

      • Mozilla’s Finances Are Sturdy As it Eyes the Mobile Future

        Mozilla has just released its annual report, with a PDF available at the bottom of this page, and perhaps the most interesting aspect of the report is that Mozilla’s search revenue climbed a very healthy 31 percent for the year. Many people don’t realize that Mozilla gets most of its revenues from Google, as we’ve reported before, but even more may not realize that Mozilla also has deals with Microsoft, Yahoo and other search players. Mozilla’s royalties, mostly from search deals, came to $161.9 million for 2011, up from the previous year’s $123.2 million.

      • With increased revenue, Mozilla sets its sights on mobile

  • SaaS

  • Oracle/Java/LibreOffice

    • How to become a contributor to LibreOffice: a digest with pointers

      Sophie Gautier, one of the founders of the Document Foundation and currently a member of our membership committee has recently published a series of articles on how to become a contributor to the LibreOffice projects. Her blog posts do not cover the development side of the story, but they discuss an often less understood and perhaps less documented aspect of our community and contribution process. As I find myself sending her articles by email several times a week, I thought it would be just easier to list them and link them here for more convenience.

    • Upgrading Away From Office Suites

  • Education

  • Openness/Sharing

    • Could open source software save New York City’s bike share program?

      A bike share program that was supposed to be launched last summer in New York City has come to a halt due to software related issues. I can’t help but think that if the software was open source, these problems would have been easily resolved, elimating worrisome delays.

      This past August, Mayor Bloomburg said “The software doesn’t work,” responding to questions about why the bike-share program is on hold. Now, according to a post in the New York Times, flooding and damage from Hurricane Sandy has caused further setbacks.

    • Google Books team open sources their book scanner

    • Open Data

      • OpenStreetMap launches “Operation Cowboy”

        The OpenStreetMap community has announced that it will host its second global “mapathon” during the weekend of 23–25 November; this time, the event is code-named “Operation Cowboy” and will focus on the US. Concentrating on “armchair mapping”, aerial images will be surveyed at local meetings, as well as from home. Based on these surveys, the project will then complement its map material for the US. The campaign has its own official Twitter account and hash tag: #OPC2012.

    • Open Hardware

  • Programming

    • Development of PHP 5.5 begins

      The release of a first alpha of PHP 5.5 marks the official beginning of the 5.5.0 release cycle for the scripting language’s next major version. PHP 5.5 also marks the end of support for Windows XP and Windows 2003.

    • Why LLVM/Clang Was Ported To A Super Computer

      Most often whenever writing about LLVM and its Clang C/C++ compiler front-end on Phoronix, within the forums is a flurry of comments from those in support of and against this modular compiler infrastructure. Some are against LLVM/Clang simply because its BSD-licensed and sponsored by Apple rather than the GPLv3-licensed GCC backed by the FSF. Others, meanwhile, see LLVM as presenting unique advantages and benefits. What reasons would a leading US national laboratory have for deploying LLVM/Clang to their leading super-computer? Here’s an explanation from them.

Leftovers

  • Security

  • Defence/Police/Aggression

    • Drone activist makes rounds before prison

      An Iowa farmer headed to federal prison at the end of the month after protesting at a Missouri Air Force base warned William Woods University students yesterday that the military’s use of predator drones will bring combat into the United States.

    • TSA Vendor Denies Faking Test of Body-Imaging Software

      OSI Systems Inc. (OSIS)’s Rapiscan unit, one of two suppliers of body-scanning machines in U.S. airports, may have falsified tests of software intended to stop the machines from recording graphic images of travelers, a U.S. lawmaker said.

      The company “may have attempted to defraud the government by knowingly manipulating an operational test,” Representative Mike Rogers, chairman of the House Transportation Security Subcommittee, said in a letter to Transportation Security Administration chief John Pistole Nov. 13. Rogers said his committee received a tip about the faked tests.

    • Naked Scanner Maker Accused Of Manipulating Tests To Make Scans Look Less Invasive
    • Doug Stanhope on Alcohol, Politics and Killing Comedy Bootleggers’ Families

      Stanhope’s coarse, unapologetic and shockingly candid brand of comedy has won him rabid fans, as well as a few foes. Ricky Gervais said Stanhope “might be the most important standup working today.” Jón Gnarr, the comedian-mayor of Reykjavik, recently welcomed Stanhope to Iceland so he could perform in the country’s only maximum-security prison. (For this, Stanhope invented the “Stanhope Defense,” the legal argument that you committed a crime just to see the show.)

      At the same time, Stanhope’s cracks about the attractiveness of Irish women and the redundancy of the royal family have incensed an impressively large fraction of the British Isles.

      Whether you love or hate him, there’s more to Stanhope than just his drunken, in-your-face comedy routines. That’s clear from his critically lauded portrayal of a suicidal comic in the hit show Louie, not to mention his media-savvy web ventures, including Doug Stanhope’s Celebrity Death Pool. In the lead-up to Tuesday’s release of his new live CD/DVD, Before Turning the Gun on Himself, Wired caught up with Stanhope and tried to temper his raging comedy fury with cold, hard science. The results were far less messy than expected.

    • A drone policy in reverse

      Should Mexico have the ability to send drones over U.S. soil to follow the gunrunners and kill them?

    • Oliver Stone on the Untold US History From the Atomic Age to Vietnam to Obama’s Drone Wars
    • Death from above

      Britain announced a doubling of its drone fleet in Afghanistan while France said it is sending drones to Mali.

    • NICTA to help protect the US’ drone fleet

      Other members of the consortium include the Boeing Company, Galois and the University of Minnesota.

  • Finance

    • Plan

      The rot comes from predators posing as conservatives and mouthing the rhetoric of “free markets.” They are not actually interested in free markets. Their goal is to use the government to build monopolies, to control resources, to block regulation, to crush unions, to divert as much as possible from taxpayers into private pockets. They have a reckless attitude toward war-making and they put the financial system in peril by failing to enforce standards of ethics and transparency. As a result, they imperil the country’s credit in the world. True conservatives recognize this, which is why they defected from Bush and McCain long ago.

  • Censorship

    • Right to remain silent in school?

      Principals in Kentucky may soon have to worry about reading students their rights in addition to ensuring that the students know how to read and write.

    • Social Media, Internet Shutdowns are the Latest Weapons in the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict

      This exchange prompted Brian Fung at The Atlantic to wonder if the war of words between Israel and Hamas violated Twitter’s of terms of service, which prohibits “direct, specific threats of violence against others.” Fung eventually concluded that the exchange did not constitute a violation of Twitter’s TOS, but Matthew Ingram took the opportunity to point out the extraordinary amount of power social media companies have in scenarios such as this one. YouTube has refused to take down the assassination video, even though it appears to violate the site’s community guidelines, which state “if your video shows someone being physically hurt, attacked, or humiliated, don’t post it.” Wired goes on to quote an anonymous YouTube employee saying that the guidelines are just that—guidelines, and not hard-and-fast rules. YouTube’s decision to leave the assassination video up comes just weeks after the company decided to break from its long-standing policies and take down an anti-Muslim video “The Innocence of Muslims” in Egypt and Libya, even though they explicitly admitted that the video did not violate any aspect of their terms of service and they had not received a court order requiring them to do so.

    • Verizon called hypocritical for equating net neutrality to censorship

      Back in July, we covered Verizon’s argument that network neutrality regulations violated the firm’s First Amendment rights. In Verizon’s view, slowing or blocking packets on a broadband network is little different from a newspaper editor choosing which articles to publish, and should enjoy the same constitutional protection.

  • Privacy

    • What the Petraeus scandal says about digital spying and your e-mail

      E-mail — even anonymous e-mail — is not as secure as you think: E-mails don’t just carry a subject line and whatever you type into them. These digital missives also tote along with them packets of information called “metadata” or “headers,” which may contain information about where the message was sent from. That can help investigators corroborate who sent an e-mail, even if it comes from an anonymous account.

  • Civil Rights

    • Polish and German police against antifascists

      That day, German Nazis wanted to organize demonstration against Polish immigrants. The counter demonstration is supported both by workers, leftists and religious groups. Even the mayor of the town gave “support” to the demonstration. But the true about this “support” is a bit different.
      Near the German-Polish border there was an organized group which was going to join. Posters were put in the streets of the town of Kostrzyn. People also could join contacting the group via internet.

    • Ikea ‘deeply regrets’ use of forced labour

  • Internet/Net Neutrality

    • Bad Reasoning: We Don’t Need More High Speed Internet Because People Don’t Use Fast Internet Now

      There’s been a lot of discussion lately about how far the US has fallen behind other countries when it comes to high speed broadband. And many are taking it for granted that high speed broadband is important to economic growth and viability. Yet Tim Worstall, over at Forbes, argues that “High Speed Broadband Doesn’t Matter A Darn” because a UK study showed that people don’t use super high speeds. He quotes a report (pdf) from Booz & Co.

    • Domain Shakedown: Companies Warned About The Dangers Of Unprotected .SX

      Ever since ICANN announced plans to allow tons of new top level domains to enter the market, many have recognized that this was nothing more than a money grab — as companies would feel compelled to buy up “their” names to keep them out of the hands of others. What’s amazing is that TLD operators are barely even hiding this in their marketing material. Lauren Weinstein recently received a “pitch” from the operators of the new .sx domain. .sx isn’t one of the new “generic” TLDs from ICANN, but rather is a newish TLD from Sint Maarten (an “autonomous country” from within the Netherlands) similar to various other “new” TLDs built off of lucky country codes (such as .tv, .ly and .co). However, the marketing message for .sx is really quite incredible. Basically, they’re saying .sx is quite similar to “sex” and, gee, you wouldn’t want your brand associated with sex, would you?

    • Google, Dish Held Talks to Launch Wireless Service
    • Show your support for European fast broadband!

      You’re probably aware of our targets on broadband. To get every European with basic broadband coverage by 2013; and, by 2020, fast coverage (30 Megabits+) for all, with 50% of households having subscriptions at 100 Megabits or more. Those targets are central to Europe’s digital agenda – and essential to ensuring new products and services can come online.

    • History of the Internet in Canada

      When discussing the history of the internet in Canada we must first look at the pre-internet era: A confusing time with many emerging technologies and incompatible network protocols.

      In the early 1980s we had BBSes or Bulletin Board Services where individuals could run BBS software such as C-net, Opus and PCBoard (or even their own custom software) on a home computer. The computers were connected via modems using regular telephone lines, and users could log in one at a time. Some of the bigger BBSes could handle more than one user at a time but were generally a paid service, not free like most of the hobbyist services.

  • Intellectual Monopolies

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