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01.13.15

Links 13/1/2015: Galaxy A7, Linux Mint 17.1 Reviews

Posted in News Roundup at 6:06 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

GNOME bluefish

Contents

GNU/Linux

Free Software/Open Source

  • Open source software platform released by Lockheed Martin

    Lockheed Martin software engineers have created a platform for easing big data analysis for developers and non-developers and are open sourcing the project on GitHub, a well-known web-based hosting service.

  • 6 excellent open source network monitoring tools

    There are tools that notify users when problems occur as well as when problems have been solved. And others are very good at spotting just about anything out of the ordinary or providing analysis of trends.

  • Three Pillars Of Open Source Governance

    Open source software has morphed from its underground DIY roots to become a common tool that runs essential parts of many businesses. In turn, commercial companies have sprung up around open source projects. These companies make money offering updates, support, and services.

    The intersection of open source and commercial interests raises questions about authority, authenticity, and culture.

    Is the project driven by the commercial sponsor or outside contributors? Will commercial interests trump the wishes of the community? How and where do you draw lines between a commercial entity and the open source community?

  • Top 5 open source project management tools in 2015

    Last year, I covered five of the best open source project management tools, like ProjectLibre and OpenProject. The article struck a chord with readers and continues to prove valuable. So, this year I revisited the tools mentioned in last year’s article, taking into account comments and suggestions from readers, and provided an update on where they are today. Next, I share five new open source project management tools for 2015. All in all, this article will give you a good look at 11 of the top open source project management tools out there.

  • Events

    • Free embedded computing conference posts agenda

      “Tomorrow’s Internet of Things will be built as an orchestration of hardware and software platforms, many of which will be built on Linux,” states the RTC Group in its RTECC event announcement. Attendees will have the opportunity to grab a copy of the most recent free RTC Magazine, featuring a cover that asks: “Linux: Can it run everywhere?”

    • Consumer Electronics Show 2015: Open source highlights

      The 48th annual Consumer Electronics Show (CES) has come and gone, bringing with it some exciting new open source platforms and products. While it’s difficult to capture every open source announcement and unveiling that happened last week, let’s take a look at a few of the highlights:

    • Linux.Conf.Au 2015 Kicks Off In Auckland

      This year’s LCA 2015 keynotes include Linus Torvalds, Bob Young, and Eben Moglen. For those not down under attending the conference, at least there’s usually top-notch videos of the keynotes and various sessions that are available in the weeks ahead. I’ll also be monitoring for the slides and other presentation assets to analyze and share on Phoronix.

  • Web Browsers

    • Mozilla

      • Announcing the Mozilla Science Lab Fellowship Program

        With generous support from the Leona M. and Harry B. Helmsley Charitable Trust, we are excited to announce the Mozilla Science Lab’s first Open Science fellowship program. The grant is one of the first investments by the Trust’s new funding program dedicated to collaboration, reproducibility, and infrastructure in biomedical sciences.

      • Firefox 35 Is Ready For Release, Available For Download Now

        In usual Mozilla fashion, Firefox 35.0 is scheduled to be released tomorrow but if you’re so tempted to upgrade to the latest release of this open-source web-browser you can do so tonight.

  • Oracle/Java/LibreOffice

  • Project Releases

    • rfoaas 0.1.1

      A brand new and shiny version of rfoaas is now on CRAN. The rfoaas package provides an interface for R to the most excellent FOAAS service–which provides a modern, scalable and RESTful web service for the frequent need to tell someone to f$#@ off.

    • Early Preview Release Of Git 2.3

      Beyond announcing Git v2.2.2 on Monday with various bug-fixes, Junio Hamano announced the release of Git 2.3.0-rc0 as a preview release towards Git 2.3.

  • Openness/Sharing

    • Open Access/Content

      • Meet the open access dinosaurs of the year

        As we enter 2015, it’s a good time to reflect on the state of paleontology and the state of open access. Because I’m a dinosaur paleontologist (my apologies to the other 99% of life that ever lived), this post will of course address that clade in particular!

        Thirty-eight new genera or species of dinosaur were announced in 2014 (according to my count based on a list at Wikipedia and the dinosaur genera list), spanning everything from sauropods to tyrannosaurs to horned dinosaurs. Seventeen of these were published in open access or free-to-read journals. This works out to around 45%.

    • Open Hardware

      • Open Source Hardware Advances Science,Technology

        On June 12, 2014 Elon Musk caused a stir by announcing Tesla’s decision to open its patents. To many, Tesla’s bold move signaled the beginning of an era and an open call for open source.

Leftovers

  • Hardware

    • making it work

      Linus recently noted that many-core (1000+ core) computing will never happen because software doesn’t work with it. Fortunately for us, Linus is a man of limited vision and is wrong about the inevitability of that outcome because he makes a flawed assumption: we will continue writing software the way we currently do. He is right that if we keep writing software the way we do, many-core will not happen. Even multi-system will run into limits, particularly on the client side. However, we don’t need to keep writing software the way we do.

  • Health/Nutrition

    • Fall in life expectancy raises alarm amid fears that cuts and pressure on NHS may be to blame for earlier deaths

      Health officials are investigating a “statistically significant, sustained” decline in life expectancy among elderly people in some parts of England, amid warnings that cuts to social care and pressures on the NHS may be contributing to earlier deaths.

    • EU lawmakers pass controversial GMO food law

      EU lawmakers on Tuesday approved controversial legislation to allow EU member states to decide for themselves whether to allow cultivation of Genetically Modified foods after years of bitter dispute.

      “This agreement will ensure more flexibility for member states who wish to restrict the cultivation of the GMOs in their territory,” said Liberal Democrat MEP Frederique Ries who steered the legislation through the assembly.

      For some of the 28 European Union nations such as France, GMO foods are a potential threat to public health and the reputation and integrity of its famed agricultural produce.

  • Security

  • Defence/Police/Secrecy/Aggression

    • The Centcom ‘hack’ that wasn’t

      Hackers claiming links to the Islamic State have hijacked several social media accounts belonging to U.S. military’s Central Command. The hacking group, which calls itself “CyberCaliphate,” is tweeting out what the group claims are U.S. military PowerPoints and data on retired Army personnel — seemingly sensitive files that have no business being publicly aired. The images are meant to show that the hackers have penetrated the Pentagon’s network. But the chances of this actually having happened appear rather slim. Here’s why.

    • Manipulation of Terror

      Nationalists are spreading hate, fanatics are attacking Muslims, governments are capitalizing on this tragedy.

  • Transparency Reporting

    • WikiLeaks: not perfect, but more important than ever for free speech

      The secret CIA files appeared just before Christmas. One detailed how CIA operatives could maintain cover, using fake IDs, when travelling through foreign airports. Israel’s Ben Gurion airport was said to be one of the hardest to trick.

      The other document, from 2009, was an assessment of the CIA’s assassination program. It raised doubts about the effectiveness of the program in reducing terrorism. Likewise with Israel’s killing of Palestinians.

      In Afghanistan, the CIA discovered that murdering Taliban leaders could radicalise the militants, allowing even more extreme actors to enter the battlefield. The Obama administration ignored this advice and unleashed “targeted killings” in the country. Unsurprisingly, the insurgency is thriving.

  • Privacy

    • David Cameron’s internet surveillance plans rival Syria, Russia and Iran

      What David Cameron thinks he’s saying is: “We will command all the software creators we can reach to introduce back doors into their tools for us.” There are enormous problems with this: there’s no back door that only lets good guys go through it. If your WhatsApp or Google Hangouts has a deliberately introduced flaw in it, then foreign spies, criminals, crooked police (such as those who fed sensitive information to the tabloids who were implicated in the phone-hacking scandal – and like the high-level police who secretly worked for organised crime for years) and criminals will eventually discover this vulnerability. They – and not just the security services – will be able to use it to intercept all of our communications, from the pictures of your kids in your bath you send to your parents to the trade secrets you send to co-workers.

    • WhatsApp and iMessage could be banned under new surveillance plans

      David Cameron could block WhatsApp and Snapchat if he wins the next election, as part of his plans for new surveillance powers announced in the wake of the shootings in Paris.

    • UK government could ban encrypted communications with new surveillance powers

      Britain’s Prime Minister, David Cameron, is calling for new surveillance powers in the wake of the recent shootings in Paris. Speaking at a public event in the UK this morning, Cameron outlined the government’s stance on secure communications that can’t be read by police or government agencies. “In our country, do we want to allow a means of communication between people which […] we cannot read?” he asked, comparing letters and phone conversations to encrypted communications used online, adding that “we must not” allow a means of communication where individuals can communicate in secret over the internet.

    • David Cameron Should Worry You

      It should have come as a surprise to nobody that leaders around the world are jumping on the Charlie Hedbo attacks in Paris as a means to justify increased warrantless surveillance.

      What you should take away from his statement is that he’s willing to encroach on the civil liberties of millions of British people in a misguided attempt to increase national security. We know from leaked NSA slides (see left) that this has always been the desire of the surveillance arms of the UK and US governments. Now, they’re using the fear that Paris generated to pass legislation.

    • Max Hastings embraces ‘der Deutsche Blick’

      It is concerning that, in the midst of citing the “coherent doctrine[s]” of Nazism and the Eastern Bloc, Hastings advocates their “everything about everyone” methods of domestic surveillance. The NSA’s term is “collect it all”. Apparently, Hastings is blind to the danger of history repeating, a history that includes MI5 finding itself with “very little to do” by the early 1970s, and turning (in the 1980s) on the people it was supposed to protect (see: DS19, and F branch) – surveilling for the first time with data banks and networks. By the 1990s, whistleblowers were reporting that Hastings’ “few mavericks, [...] who abuse such power” were a majority within positions of power, and broadly ignoring the Act of Parliament (1989) meant to curtail the agency’s excesses. Without oversight, institutions are as likely to devolve as reform, and Hastings’ outdated deference creates the space for further abuses.

    • U.K. Prime Minister David Cameron Proposes Banning End-to-End Encryption
    • What David Cameron just proposed would endanger every Briton and destroy the IT industry

      What David Cameron thinks he’s saying is, “We will command all the software creators we can reach to introduce back-doors into their tools for us.” There are enormous problems with this: there’s no back door that only lets good guys go through it. If your Whatsapp or Google Hangouts has a deliberately introduced flaw in it, then foreign spies, criminals, crooked police (like those who fed sensitive information to the tabloids who were implicated in the hacking scandal — and like the high-level police who secretly worked for organised crime for years), and criminals will eventually discover this vulnerability. They — and not just the security services — will be able to use it to intercept all of our communications. That includes things like the pictures of your kids in your bath that you send to your parents to the trade secrets you send to your co-workers.

      [...]

      Cameron is not alone here. The regime he proposes is already in place in countries like Syria, Russia, and Iran (for the record, none of these countries have had much luck with it). There are two means by which authoritarian governments have attempted to restrict the use of secure technology: by network filtering and by technology mandates.

    • Why MI5 does not need more surveillance powers after the Paris attacks

      Soon after the attacks in Paris last week, the director general of MI5, Andrew Parker, said of the jihadi threat: “Whenever we lose visibility of what they are saying to each other, so our ability to understand and mitigate the threat they pose is reduced.”

      Few would disagree with this sentiment, or in any way underestimate the enormous responsibility counter-terrorist agencies face after the killings, but the coded suggestion that MI5 needs further sweeping surveillance powers to track down terrorists is more controversial, because it doesn’t take into account the facts.

    • George Brandis still struggling with metadata

      While it is perhaps unsurprising, the Attorney-General’s latest attempt to use the Sydney siege and recent events in France as justifications for the government’s mandatory data retention laws is as distasteful as it is misleading.

    • What new snooping powers do PM and MI5 want – and what are the concerns?
    • In wake of Paris attacks, French surveillance gets a closer look

      French President Francois Hollande chaired an emergency meeting Monday morning with key cabinet ministers and heads of police and security services to discuss how persons known to the country’s intelligence community were still able to coordinate violent raids in Paris. But just days before the attacks on the offices of satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo left 12 dead and wounded another 11, a controversial new law, broadly expanding the French government’s surveillance powers, went into effect.

    • MI6 forced to show how it may snoop on privileged lawyer-client exchanges

      MI6 has been forced to reveal documents detailing how it may access legally privileged communications between solicitors and their clients, even if the lawyers are suing the government.

      Policy guidance handed over to the civil liberties organisation Reprieve shows how the Secret Intelligence Service (SIS) is attempting to regulate its mass surveillance practices and demonstrate compliance with the law.

      The revelations have emerged from a case brought by lawyers for two Libyans, Abdel-Hakim Belhaj and Sami al-Saadi, who, along with their families, were abducted in a joint MI6-CIA operation and sent back to Tripoli to be tortured by Colonel Muammar Gaddafi’s regime in 2004.

      Their complaint about illegal monitoring is being heard before the investigatory powers tribunal and a full trial of the issues is expected this spring.

      Exchanges between lawyers and their clients enjoy a special protected status under UK law. Following exposure of widespread monitoring by the US whistleblower Edward Snowden in 2013, Belhaj’s lawyers feared that their exchanges with their clients could have been compromised by GCHQ’s interception of phone conversations and emails.

    • After Paris: More Intelligence, not More Surveillance

      This is the extraordinary thing about mass surveillance. Every time it fails, its supporters use it as evidence that we must have more (even though blanket surveillance is no longer possible in the EU.) If something doesn’t work, you shouldn’t do more of it, but something different and more effective. One of the striking things to emerge from the report on intelligence matters relating to the murder of Fusilier Lee Rigby, which I wrote about back in November, was that the UK intelligence services simply didn’t have enough people to follow up all the leads they had. So the idea that we need *more* surveillance data, more false positives, more leads to follow up, is clearly folly.

    • What you ‘like’ on Facebook gives away your personality

      Be careful what you “like” on Facebook. You’re opening a small window on your soul.

      A machine-learning algorithm can now predict human personality types using nothing but what people like on the Facebook social media site. A team at Stanford University in California and the University of Cambridge used data from a questionnaire filled out by 86,000 people that identified their “big five” personality traits. The results were correlated with their Facebook activity.

      On the basis of between 100 and 150 Facebook likes, the team’s algorithm could determine someone’s personality more accurately than could their friends and family, and nearly as well as their spouse.

    • Ever liked a film on Facebook? You’ve given the security services a key to your soul

      Why on earth does David Cameron feel the need to call for new digital powers for the security services when they are only beginning to use the ones they already have? Suppose you wanted personality profiles of a quarter of the population of England? Turns out you can mine them from Facebook with publicly published algorithms. About half the adult population of England uses Facebook at least once a month. About a quarter of us have “liked” more than 250 things there. So it’s really disconcerting to discover that completely banal acts on Facebook can add up to a quite detailed psychological profile.

  • Civil Rights

    • Risen finally off hook in leak trial

      New York Times reporter James Risen won’t be called to the witness stand at a leak trial for one of his alleged sources, but jurors may hear some of the words he uttered at a pre-trial hearing last week, according to lawyers and the judge overseeing the case.

    • Feds want Risen out of leak trial

      Federal prosecutors who have decided after a seven-year legal battle not to call New York Times reporter James Risen in the leak trial of one of his alleged sources are now intent on making sure the defense in the case can’t call Risen either—or even talk about the government’s decision not to call him.

    • Psychologists provided legal cover for US torture programs in exchange for status and power, book shows

      James Risen’s new book “Pay Any Price: Greed, Power and Endless War” spells out how the American Psychological Association and the US security apparatus worked together, towards mutually beneficial aims, to cloak the government’s torture programs in a mask of legality. Essentially, the APA gave the military what it wanted—claims that the torture programs were medically sound—in exchange for power and prestige.

      The story is simultaneously pathetic and horrifying.

      Risen describes how in 2002, the APA changed its ethical guidelines to allow members to do things that violate the APA code of ethics, as long as the psychologists were following the law or what they called “governing legal authority.” As long as the US government said it was ok, the APA’s members could engage in torture—its own ethics rules be damned. As Risen observes, the “change introduced the Nuremberg defense into American psychology—following lawful orders was an acceptable reason to violate professional ethics.” Always a bad sign when one begins to take legal cues from Nazis.

    • “Insider Threat” Program Lags Behind Schedule

      Currently, the anticipated achievement of an Initial Operating Capability for insider threat detection by January 2017 is “at risk,” according to a new quarterly progress report. Meanwhile, the date for achieving a Full Operating Capability cannot even be projected. See “Insider Threat and Security Clearance Reform, FY2014, Quarter 4.”

    • The Corrupt Philanderer Who Built the CIA’s Black Sites

      Democratic deliberation rests on the premise that ideas, once exposed to the public—unfolded, challenged, tested, and disputed—will stand or fall on their own merit. The bureaucratic drive for secrecy rests, in many cases, on a need to keep information out of the hands of individuals who could use it to harm the bureaucracy. The bureaucrat will invariably say that an enemy could use the information to harm the country, but more often than not the real concern originates with the bureaucrat personally or the office where he or she works.

    • America’s over-policing bombshell: How new data proves “stop & frisk” critics were right all along

      People are talking about the police a lot these days. The killing of unarmed residents. The killing of cops. Disputes between New York City mayor Bill de Blasio and rank-and-file officers over issues of respect. And yet, a policing issue that totally consumed and divided New York and the nation in recent years now garners little mention: the NYPD’s stop-and-frisk policy.

      One big reason, of course, is that the tactic is used much less now. But another is that, while few have announced it, the debate over the once hotly divisive practice is effectively over. As new data this week confirmed, when it comes to whether a city can reduce crime without stopping-and-frisking enormous numbers of its residents of color, one side was right and one was wrong.

    • The VICE News Interview: Joseph Hickman

      According to the US government, three detainees — all imprisoned as part of the global war on terror — hung themselves in their cells that night. But Army Staff Sergeant Joseph Hickman, who was on guard that night at Camp Delta, came to believe something very different: that the three men were murdered in a secret CIA black site at Guantanamo.

    • Hotter Than Lava

      Every day, cops toss dangerous military-style grenades during raids, with little oversight and horrifying results.

    • Politicians apply double standard in support of David Petraeus amid FBI leaks inquiry

      Though under investigation by the FBI for unauthorized disclosure of classified information related to an affair with his biographer, David Petraeus counts among his defenders a host of prominent politicians who typically denounce security leaks.

      The former US army general and CIA director has deep ties to a bipartisan host of political heavyweights, from potential Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton to former Republican presidential nominee John McCain, and a well of media support stemming from his stewardship of the 2007-08 Iraq troop surge. Many have raced to support Petraeus in the days since word emerged that the most acclaimed military officer of his generation might face felony charges.

    • Obama & Counterterror: The Ignored Record

      Torture, paradoxically, has been the area where Obama’s policy has been both the firmest and the most qualified. By all available evidence, use of the “enhanced interrogation techniques” has stopped. Obama also prohibited further use of secret detention facilities where suspects had “disappeared” in CIA custody for torture. (To be fair, Bush by the end of his presidency seemed to have ended both too.)

    • Guantanamo Bay: A ‘Battle Lab’ Where Personnel Experimented on Prisoners to Develop Torture Techniques

      On the thirteenth anniversary of the first prisoners brought to Guantanamo Bay, a report from the Seton Hall Law Center for Policy and Research examines how the United States government used the facility as a “battle laboratory.”

      Prisoners were treated like “test subjects” as personnel, including medical officers, engaged in experiments to develop new interrogation techniques. Numerous detainees were drugged upon arrival to help interrogators break them. One prisoner, Mohammed al-Qahtani, was treated like a “lab rat” and monitored closely by medical personnel to determine if his body could continue to be tortured.

    • “Circus of Hypocrisy”: Jeremy Scahill on How World Leaders at Paris March Oppose Press Freedom

      An estimated 3.7 million people rallied across France on Sunday in response to the Charlie Hebdo shootings and ensuing attacks that left 17 people dead. More than a million people marched in Paris, making it the largest demonstration in French history. More than 40 world leaders traveled to Paris to help lead the march. “What we saw on display on the one hand was very heartening, to see so many people come into the streets,” says Jeremy Scahill, co-founder of The Intercept. “But on the other hand, this is a sort of circus of hypocrisy when it comes to all of those world leaders who were marching at the front of it. Every single one of those heads of state or representatives of governments there have waged their own wars against journalists.”

    • The Intercept Found Serial’s Elusive Jay, but Can It Find a Profitable Future? [UPDATED]
    • Consent of the Governed

      Recent polling data confirms that a majority of Americans — in some cases a vast majority — have very low levels of trust in our ruling institutions. Only about a fifth of the population has a lot or great deal of trust in big business. Americans have an all-time historic low level of trust for the US Congress — a minuscule 7 percent — and distrust in the government as a whole is at an historic high: 81 percent. Though these numbers are abysmal, the troubling aspect of the reporting is that the numbers continue to trend in the wrong direction. Meaning, it will likely get worse without corrective action. This condition is more serious than some realize.

    • I Helped Create Gitmo. Now I Want It Shut Down.

      Thirteen years ago this month, I arrived in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, as the commander, Joint Task Force 160, charged with constructing and operating a detention facility to hold Taliban and al Qaeda detainees. Today the detention facility at Guantanamo is a blight on our history, and it should be closed.

    • Nigeria’s Horror in Paris’s Shadow

      Why a 10-year-old suicide bomber isn’t front-page news

  • Internet/Net Neutrality

  • Intellectual Monopolies

01.12.15

Links 12/1/2015: Linux Mint 17.1 Xfce, Linux 3.19 RC4

Posted in News Roundup at 7:19 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

GNOME bluefish

Contents

GNU/Linux

Free Software/Open Source

  • AllSeen Alliance Launches Open Source AllJoyn IoT Gateway Agent

    The AllSeen Alliance, a cross-industry collaboration created to advance the Internet of Everything (IoT) through the AllJoyn open source software project, has released the AllJoyn Gateway Agent, an extension of the AllJoyn framework that delivers remote access, device management and fine-grained security and privacy control.

  • How the rise of open source could improve software security
  • Ori: Another Open-Source Distributed File-System

    Ori is a project out of Stanford and its features include peer-to-peer support, the ability to work offline, secure data transfers over SSH, and instant access with background synchronization.

  • Open Source History, Or Why Sharing Trumps Proprietary Society

    Is history open source? Not always, it seems, as Jonathan Band recently pointed out in an essay about copyright and legal issues surrounding the reproduction of Martin Luther King, Jr.’s speeches for the film “Selma,” which parallels the key debates about open vs. closed software.

    Writing on Techdirt, Band observed that the producers of the film did not obtain the rights to King’s original Civil Rights-era speeches. Consequently, the speeches King is portrayed as giving in the movie are not those he actually delivered in the 1960s.

  • Events

    • Do You Work in the Data Center? Here Are Three Open Source Projects You Need to Know About

      For years, open source solutions have gained steam as programmers and decision makers began to see firsthand how they could benefit from the technology.

      From a coder’s point of view, open source solutions provide a foundation upon which new pieces of software can be built rather than starting from scratch. From a business manager’s perspective, open source tools will likely cost the company considerably less than proprietary solutions while at the same time providing a high level of security and functionality.

    • Boybanders ONE DIRECTION launch DoS attack on open-source bods

      One Direction has launched a denial of service attack on an open source coding conference in Cardiff, with the band maliciously pinging tens-of-thousands of its teenage fans at the city on the same day as DjangoCon 2015.

    • Lockheed Martin introduces open source software platform

      Simpler real-time analytics processing and analysis possible on web-based hosting service.

    • Announcing the Community Leadership Summit 2015!

      For those of you who are unfamiliar with the CLS, it is an entirely free event designed to bring together community leaders and managers and the projects and organizations that are interested in growing and empowering a strong community. The event provides an unconference-style schedule in which attendees can discuss, debate and explore topics. This is augmented with a range of scheduled talks, panel discussions, networking opportunities and more.

    • Drones, IoT, Containers and Cloud: CollabSummit 2015

  • Web Browsers

  • SaaS/Big Data

  • Oracle/Java/LibreOffice

    • Playing With Solaris In 2015

      This weekend when deciding what extra benchmarks to run and planning more tests for the week ahead, I decided to explore doing some fresh Oracle Solaris benchmarks since my most recent Solaris benchmarks were back in 2012. I also haven’t had much (any?) Solaris news to relay recently so wanted to see if there was anything new within the ex-Sun camp.

    • German City of Munich To Help Shape Future of LibreOffice

      Germany’s third largest city has a long history of using open-source software, much of it well documented.

      More than 16,000 PCs of public employees run the open-source “LiMux” Linux operating system, and the city makes heavy use of LibreOffice and its open file formats.

      The city will be represented on the board by Florian Haftmann, whose appointment swells the ranks to 17 members, among them Google, Intel, RedHat, and MIMO (‘Inter-Ministry Mutualisation for an Open Productivity Suite’ and made up of various French governmental departments).

    • LibreOffice 4.4 RC2 Is Now Ready for Testing

      The Document Foundation has just announced that the second Release Candidate for the new LibreOffice 4.4 branch has been made available and is now ready for testing.

  • BSD

  • FSF/FSFE/GNU/SFLC

  • Project Releases

  • Licensing

    • Top 10 FOSS legal developments of 2014

      The litigation surrounding Android continued this year, with significant developments in the patent litigation between Apple Computer, Inc. (Apple) and Samsung Electronics, Inc. (Samsung) and the copyright litigation over the Java APIs between Oracle Corporation (Oracle) and Google, Inc. (Google). Apple and Samsung have agreed to end patent disputes in nine countries, but they will continue the litigation in the US. As I stated last year, the Rockstar Consortium was a wild card in this dispute. However, the Rockstar Consortium settled its litigation with Google this year and sold off its patents, so it will no longer be a risk to the Android ecosystem.

      The copyright litigation regarding the copyrightability of the Java APIs was brought back to life by the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) decision which overturned the District Court decision. The District Court had found that Google was not liable for copyright infringement for its admitted copying of the Java APIs: the court found that the Java APIs were either not copyrightable or their use by Google was protected by various defenses to copyright. The CAFC overturned both the decision and the analysis and remanded the case to the District Court for a review of the fair use defense raised by Google. Subsequently, Google filed an appeal to the Supreme Court. The impact of a finding that Google was liable for copyright infringement in this case would have a dramatic effect on Android and, depending on the reasoning, would have a ripple effect across the interpretation of the scope of the “copyleft” terms of the GPL family of licenses which use APIs.

  • Openness/Sharing

  • Programming

    • Go 1.5 Is Still Working Towards Being Written In Go

      The plan for the upcoming release of Google’s Go 1.5 language is to have its tool-chain be written in Go. In order to bootstrap the new Go compiler tool-chain, they’ll depend on Go 1.4 to compile the new code.

Leftovers

  • Scottish storms: Power supplies still not restored to hundreds of homes

    About 600 homes are still without power after the storms which have swept Scotland, according to Scottish Hydro.

    Its power distribution division, SHEPD, said it had restored electricity to more than 120,000 customers since gale force winds hit power lines on Friday.

    Areas where power has yet to be fully restored include the Western Isles and rural areas around Dingwall and Wick.

  • Security

    • Thoughts – Not All Encryption Methods Live Up to Their Promises

      One example is the encryption featured in Skype, a program used by some 300 million users to conduct Internet video chat that is touted as secure.(3) It isn’t really. “Sustained Skype collection began in Feb 2011,” reads a National Security Agency (NSA) training document from the Edward Snowden archive.(4) Less than half a year later, in the fall, the code crackers declared their mission accomplished.(5) Since then, data from Skype has been accessible to the NSA snoops.(6) Software giant Microsoft, which acquired Skype in 2011, said in a statement: “We will not provide governments with direct or unfettered access to customer data or encryption keys.”(7) The NSA had been monitoring Skype even before that, but since February 2011 the service has been under order from the secret U.S. Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC), to not only supply information to the NSA but also to make itself accessible as a source of data for the agency.(8)

    • Security is a Concern for The Internet of Things

      The Internet of Things (IoT) was big news at the recent Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, and many of the biggest tech companies had related announcements. Apple wan’t demonstrating, but partners had the first set of devices that are HomeKit certified, which is Apple’s protocol for allowing smart home devices to work with the iOS platform. And, Google announced 15 new partners in “Work With Nest,” its developer program for adding third-party devices to Nest devices and networks.

  • Defence/Police/Secrecy/Aggression

    • Police Arrest Four People During Drone Protests at Airfield in UK

      The protesters have hung banners on the perimeter fence of the Royal Air Force in Waddington, calling to stop launch and use of drones from the air base. They have pointed out civilian casualties caused by UAVs during the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

    • Peace activists protest ‘brutal UK drone warfare’ at RAF base, 4 arrests

      Four peace activists were arrested at a Royal Air Force (RAF) base in Lincolnshire, northern England, on Monday while protesting against Britain’s use of armed drones. The site hosts the control center for UK drones abroad.

    • With Call To ‘End The Drone Wars,’ Activists Cut Their Way Into UK Air Force Base

      Four demonstrators opposed to Britain’s prolonged participation in foreign wars and use of armed drones were arrested on Monday after cutting through a fence at the Waddington Royal Air Force base near Lincolnshire, UK.

      According to the Guardian, RAF Waddington has been the growing focus of recent protests over Britain’s operation of unmanned aerial vehicles, which are controlled from the base.

      “Behind the rebranding, war is as brutal and deadly as it has always been with civilians killed, communities destroyed, and the next generation traumatized. And so we have come to RAF Waddington, the home of drone warfare here in the UK to say clearly and simply ‘End the Drone War’.”

    • Four peace campaigners arrested at drone protest

      The group: ‘ End The Drone Wars’ were Pax Christi executive member Chris Cole, 51, from Oxford, Katharina Karcher, 30, from Coventry, Gary Eagling, 52, from Nottingham and Penny Walker, 64, from Leicester. They are currently in police custody.

    • Drone protesters arrested at RAF base in Lincolnshire

      Four people campaigning against Britain’s use of armed drones have been arrested on suspicion of aggravated trespass.

      Lincolnshire police said two men in their early 50s and two women aged 30 and 64 were detained at RAF Waddington on Monday.

    • CIA Behind France Attacks, Says Ex White House Official

      Attacks carried out by alleged Islamic gunmen in France last week that left 17 dead were the work of the CIA, “designed to shore up France’s vassal status to Washington,” a former White House official has claimed.

      Former Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Economic Policy and editor of the Wall Street Journal, Paul Craig Roberts, wrote on his blog Thursday that the atrocities were a “false flag” operation, similar to those carried out after World War II to frame communists.

      “Muslims are going to be framed for an inside job designed to pull France firmly back under Washington’s thumb,” he wrote.

      The tragedy began when two heavily armed brothers burst into the Paris office of satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo Wednesday, killing 12. The drama continued with the murder of a policewoman, and two concurrent sieges, one in a kosher supermarket.

    • Raif Badawi and Saudi Arabia’s intolerance

      One would be to create a mechanism to fully expose the situation. Some kind of international commission of inquiry, similar to the one that investigated North Korea, would be a good place to start. It could take testimony and build a record about the kingdom’s repression of dissent and the absence of rights for women. Just the discussion would signal to the Saudi leaders that, despite their storied relationship with the United States, abuses of human rights will not be forgotten, or ignored, as they have been for too long.

    • Terrorist acts not cartoons provoke Islamophobia

      In response to the appalling attack on the offices of the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo, the cry of Je suis Charlie (I am Charlie) has gone up in France, the rest of Europe and around the world.

      The idea, of course, was been to express complete solidarity, to the point of total identification, with the slain journalists and their right to publish provocative and even offensive material. However, almost immediately a dissenting voice also emerged in western discourse, condemning some of the material and refusing to identify with it.

    • Charlie Hebdo Attack Investigator Commits Suicide: Reports

      Helric Fredou, 45, suffered from depression and experienced burn out. Shortly before committing suicide, he met with the family of a victim of the Charlie Hebdo attack and killed himself preparing the report.

    • NY Times (Again) Carries Water for Government’s Post Hoc Drone Assassination Justifications

      American Anwar al-Awlaki has been dead for over four years now, but The New York Times is still giving substantial ink to the U.S. government’s self-serving meme that Awlaki was an “operational” terrorist,” even though we still don’t know whether ISIS or AQAP is responsible for the recent attack on the satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo offices in Paris.

      I called out New York Times reporter Scott Shane for carrying the government’s water by pimping the “Awlaki was operational” narrative last year. Yesterday, Shane penned another lengthy article rehashing the U.S. government’s post hoc justification for targeting and assassinating Awlaki without due process.

    • Some European Bloodbaths Are More Interesting Than Others

      On July 24, 2011, two days after Anders Breivik slaughtered 77 people, mostly teenagers, in Norway to call attention to his view that Muslim immigration was a bad thing, NBC’s Meet the Press didn’t mention the words “Breivik” or “Norway.” Nor did CBS’s Face the Nation.

  • Environment/Energy/Wildlife

    • 72 Percent of Republican Senators Are Climate Deniers

      On Thursday, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) offered a simple amendment to the controversial bill that would authorize construction of the Keystone XL oil pipeline. Sanders’ measure, which he proposed to the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, would have declared it the “sense of Congress” that climate change is real; that it is caused by humans; that it has already caused significant problems; and that the United States needs to shift its economy away from fossil fuels.

  • Finance

    • Study: Students often clueless about how much they owe

      Terrance Mitchell knows. Rebecca Williams doesn’t. Eric Simon isn’t sure, but he thinks he might.

      Mitchell, a junior at the University of Michigan, owes $13,500 in federal student loans. Williams, a sophomore at Eastern Michigan University, has no clue how much she owes. Simon, a senior at Wayne State University, thinks he owes about $20,000, but isn’t real sure.

      That range of knowledge about student loans is common, a new study has found.

      The study, conducted by the Brown Center on Education Policy at Brookings, found that about half of all students in the U.S. underestimate how much debt they have and less than a third can come within a few thousand dollars of the correct total. About a quarter overestimate their level of federal debt.

      [...]

      A little more than 14% of Michigan students who started paying off their student loans in 2011 are already in default, just three years after they left college. That’s more than 25,000 borrowers who haven’t made a payment in at least 270 days. The national default rate for the class of 2011 is 13.7%, down from 14.7% for 2010.

    • Ivy League’s meritocracy lie: How Harvard and Yale cook the books for the 1 percent

      A special lottery is to be held to select the student who will live in the only deluxe room in a dormitory. There are 100 seniors, 150 juniors, and 200 sophomores who applied. Each senior’s name is placed in the lottery 3 times; each junior’s name, 2 times; and each sophomore’s name, 1 time. What is the probability that a senior’s name will be chosen?

    • Trial resumes for Swiss ex-banker charged with giving data to Wikileaks

      A former Julius Baer banker acknowledged that he passed confidential client data to WikiLeaks but argued his actions were not illegal, as his trial resumed on charges of breaching Swiss banking secrecy law.

      The trial of Rudolf Elmer, a self-described “Gandhi of Swiss tax law”, comes as banking secrecy in Switzerland is crumbling under international pressure from countries trying to recoup lost tax revenue.

  • PR/AstroTurf/Lobbying

    • For Fox News’ Steve Emerson, Factchecking Seems to Be a No-Go Zone

      Birmingham is Britain’s second-largest city; needless to say, non-Muslims go there all the time, given that only 20 percent of the city’s residents are Muslim (Guardian, 1/12/15).

    • Fox News ‘terror expert’ says everyone in Birmingham is a Muslim

      An American “terrorism expert” on the right-wing Fox News channel has declared that Birmingham is “a totally Muslim” city “where non-Muslims just simply don’t go”.

      Steve Emerson made the claim, which may come as a surprise to the hundreds of thousands of non-Muslim residents of Britain’s second-largest city, during a television discussion about no-go zones in Europe where Muslims are apparently in complete control.

    • Fox News pundit claims that Birmingham is ‘totally Muslim’ city

      Non-Muslims do not go to the British city of Birmingham, which has become a “totally Muslim” city, it has been claimed. Speaking on US news channel Fox News, Steven Emerson – who claims to be a “terrorism expert” – also said that gangs of religious police in parts of London beat up people who are not wearing Islamic clothes.

    • Enforcing with a smile

      Enforcers of China’s one-child policy are trying a new, gentler approach

  • Censorship

    • No, Mark Zuckerberg you do not stand with Charlie Hebdo

      You started out your entire narrative by outlining a Pakistani fanatic that wanted you dead for an offensive video. However, within Pakistan alone you censored over 1,773 pieces of progressive content. During the last half of 2013 and the first half of 2014, censorship on Facebook saw a 19% hike. Why is this relevant? Because the content you’re censoring in this country comes from left-wing liberal pages targeting extremism and oppressive state policies. On the other hand, pages with actual hate speech targeting both Muslim minorities and non-Muslims continue to push out their displaceable [perhaps you meant despicable] content with complete freedom and ease.

      Pakistan desperately needs a counter narrative to tackle issues relating to extremism and terrorism. This is a country that feeds on conspiracy theories and not facts. When the murders in Paris first took place people began analyzing images to see how fake they could be, because everything is a conspiracy against religion, it causes no trouble or damage on its own. Do you see what we are living with?

    • Je Suis Facebook? Mark Zuckerberg’s Post Raises Free Speech Questions

      It also includes Jillian York, director for international freedom of expression at the Electronic Frontier Foundation.

      “When Mark Zuckerberg says that, he doesn’t mean it,” York told NBC News from Berlin. “I don’t think Facebook stands for free speech at all.”

      She pointed specifically to Pakistan.

      As a result of government requests, Facebook removed 1,773 pieces of content in Pakistan in the first half of 2014, according to the company’s most recent transparency report. That trails only India and Turkey, where 4,960 and 1,893 pieces of content were removed, respectively, in the same time period.

    • Israel to demand apology for ‘anti-Semitic’ Netanyahu cartoon

      Israel is planning to demand an apology for a controversial cartoon that appeared in the British Sunday Times, Israel’s ambassador to London said Monday, while one minister mulled steps against the paper.

    • On Charlie Hebdo: A letter to my British friends

      Of course, freedom of speech has its limits. I was astonished to read from one of you that UK, as opposed to France, had laws forbidding incitement to racial hatred. Was it Charlie’s cartoons that convinced him that France had no such laws? Be reassured: it does. Only we do not conflate religion and race. We are the country of Voltaire and Diderot: religion is fair game. Atheists can point out its ridicules, and believers have to learn to take a joke and a pun. They are welcome to drown us in return with sermons about the superficiality of our materialistic, hedonistic lifestyles. I like it that way. Of course, the day when everybody confuses “Arab” with “Muslim” and “Muslim” with “fundamentalist”, then any criticism of the latter will backfire on the former. That is why we must keep the distinctions clear.

    • Legendary Cartoonist Robert Crumb on the Massacre in Paris

      You don’t have journalists over there anymore, what they have is public relations people. That’s what they have over in America now.

    • ‘We vomit’ on Charlie’s sudden friends: staff cartoonist

      A prominent Dutch cartoonist at Charlie Hebdo heaped scorn on the French satirical weekly’s “new friends” since the massacre at its Paris offices on Wednesday.

      “We have a lot of new friends, like the pope, Queen Elizabeth and (Russian President Vladimir) Putin. It really makes me laugh,” Bernard Holtrop, whose pen name is Willem, told the Dutch centre-left daily Volkskrant in an interview published Saturday.

      France’s far-right National Front leader “Marine Le Pen is delighted when the Islamists start shooting all over the place,” said Willem, 73, a longtime Paris resident who also draws for the French leftist daily Liberation.

      He added: “We vomit on all these people who suddenly say they are our friends.”

      Commenting on the global outpouring of support for the weekly, Willem scoffed: “They’ve never seen Charlie Hebdo.”

    • Death threats follow publication of cartoon in Israeli newspaper

      In the wake of the Charlie Hebdo massacre in Paris last week Haaretz published a daring cartoon juxtaposing journalists* killed in Gaza by Israel during the brutal summer slaughter with the journalists killed at the office of the satirical magazine in Paris. This set off a chain reaction which ultimately led to calls for murdering Haaretz journalists after Ronen Shoval, founder of the neo-Zionist and proto-fascist Im Tirtzu movement, called for an investigation of the newspaper’s editors. – See more at: http://mondoweiss.net/2015/01/journalists-publication-newspaper#sthash.qjHQxhhJ.dpuf

  • Privacy

    • David Cameron says new online data laws needed

      David Cameron has promised a “comprehensive piece of legislation” to close the “safe spaces” used by suspected terrorists to communicate online with each other.

    • UK’s Cameron won’t “allow” strong encryption of communications

      The British prime minister David Cameron has suggested that if his Conservative Party wins the upcoming general election, it will not allow encrypted communications that cannot be read by the security services.

      On Sunday, Cameron told ITV News: “I think we cannot allow modern forms of communication to be exempt from the ability, in extremis, with a warrant signed by the home secretary, to be exempt from being listened to. That is my very clear view and if I am prime minister after the next election I will make sure we legislate accordingly.” He repeated the sentiment again on Monday (video embedded below.)

    • Response to renewed calls for the Snoopers Charter
    • EU’s Tusk to push for airline data sharing after attack

      European Council President Donald Tusk will press EU lawmakers next week to drop their objections to states sharing airline passenger data as part of efforts to tighten security after the attack on Paris newspaper Charlie Hebdo.

      Speaking in Latvia on Friday, the former Polish prime minister who now chairs meetings of EU leaders, said he had discussed the response to the attack with French President Francois Hollande and would put the matter on the agenda of the next scheduled summit in Brussels on Feb. 12.

    • F.B.I. Is Broadening Surveillance Role, Report Shows

      Although the government’s warrantless surveillance program is associated with the National Security Agency, the Federal Bureau of Investigation has gradually become a significant player in administering it, a newly declassified report shows.

      In 2008, according to the report, the F.B.I. assumed the power to review email accounts the N.S.A. wanted to collect through the “Prism” system, which collects emails of foreigners from providers like Yahoo and Google. The bureau’s top lawyer, Valerie E. Caproni, who is now a Federal District Court judge, developed procedures to make sure no such accounts belonged to Americans.

    • Edward Snowden’s Father Speaks

      Lon Snowden on his son, on the courage of John and Bonnie Raines, and the price activists pay for exposing national secrets.

    • Charlie Hebdo: And Out Come The Surveillance Services Demanding More Budget, Powers

      Following the terrorist attack on the Charlie Hebdo offices in Paris, everybody and their brother have come out in support of freedom of speech. The problem is, they don’t even know what it is when asked. Meanwhile, the surveillance services waste no time in trying to use the attack to claim more powers.

    • EU legal advisers cast doubt on data retention legality

      The European Parliament’s legal advisors have issued a report into the repercussions of last year’s ruling by the Court of Justice of the European Union, in which the CJEU struck down the E.U. Data Retention Directive. And the lawyers’ opinions suggest that surviving national data retention laws are on shaky ground.

    • EU response to free speech killings? More internet censorship

      In the wake of this week’s terrorist attacks in Paris, which began with the killing of 12 people at the offices of satirical publication Charlie Hebdo, the interior ministers of 12 EU countries have called for a limited increase in internet censorship.

    • Obama to Call for Laws Covering Data Hacking and Student Privacy

      President Obama on Monday called for federal legislation intended to force American companies to be more forthcoming when credit card data and other consumer information are lost in an online breach like the kind that hit Sony, Target and Home Depot last year.

    • Obama: Hackers pose a ‘direct threat’ to families

      President Obama on Monday unveiled a series of new bills designed to ratchet up cybersecurity protections in the wake of a massive data breach at Sony Pictures, warning the growing problem of online attacks “costs us billions of dollars.”

    • Why Your Websites And Email Newsletters Will Always Beat Facebook Pages

      Where should you focus your online marketing efforts during 2015? In previous year’s campaigns on Facebook, Twitter, and other social media sites would have been high up on the priority list. Thanks to new policies and a need to maximise their own revenue, everyone should be wary of handing over control of the conversations to the likes of Facebook and Twitter. This year should be the year you take back control of the conversation.

      [...]

      Imagine if the marketing budgets for the Facebook Pages had been spent on bringing the audience to a property that was under the complete control of a brand. It might seem old-fashioned in a world of social media and user-created content indexes, but if these consumers had signed up to an email newsletter a year ago, the brand would still have that direct one-to-one relationship today, there would be no reliance on a mysterious traffic algorithm showing the content, and no extra budget would have to be spent to promote the message to try to get it read.

      I personally use Facebook, but many of the posts that I make are actually mirrors of the posts I make on my personal blog. With years of links, comments, and thoughts, my personal blog belongs to me, is under my control, and I have all the data of the posts, and the readers eyeballs, for my own use.

    • Motorola Moto E modifications

      The Motorola Moto E (model: XT1021 and related devices) is an affordable modern Android cellphone. It may be purchased in cash at your local MediaMarkt for around 100 Euros. It is easy to modify for your everyday surveillance detection, counter-surveillance and anti-surveillance needs. This phone is popular as it is compatible with SnoopSnitch. Nearly full information about the chips used on the phone are available. A high resolution tear-down image of the mainboard is floating around as well.

    • Any Revolution Can Be Repurposed

      The July Revolution comprised three days of fighting in Paris, primarily on free speech grounds against state censorship. Charles X, France’s last hereditary monarch, had imposed the death penalty for blasphemy against Christianity. He also suspended the liberty of the press and dissolved the newly elected Chamber of Deputies.

      Today, the column is used as a platform for surveillance cameras. We must be on our guard against similar repurposing today.

    • BBW reaction to the JCHR report into the Counter Terrorism and Security Bill
    • JCHR Report into the Counter Terrorism and Security Bill

      The Joint Committee on Human Rights has today published a report providing legislative scrutiny of the Counter Terrorism and Security Bill. In November last year we provided a breakdown of what was going to be contained in the Bill and our initial analysis.

  • Civil Rights

    • Watch ‘The Internet’s Own Boy’ on the 2-Year Anniversary of Aaron Swartz’s Death

      January 11, 2015 marks the two-year anniversary of Aaron Swartz’s death. The Reddit co-founder took his life at age 26, at a time he was ensnared in a legal battle that could have cost him $1 million and up to 35 years in prison if convicted.

    • A Saudi Whipping

      Badawi, who is thirty, ran a Web site called Saudi Liberal Network, which dared to discuss the country’s rigid Islamic restrictions on culture. One post mocked the prohibition against observing Valentine’s Day, which, like all non-Muslim holidays, is banned in Saudi Arabia. (Even foreigners aren’t allowed to buy trees for Christmas.) Religious police, known as the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice, have reportedly patrolled flower shops and chocolate shops to warn against selling items that commemorate an infidel celebration. The Web site scoffed, “Congratulations to us for the Commission on the Promotion of Virtue for teaching us virtue and for its eagerness to insure that all members of the Saudi public are among the people of paradise.”

    • Saudi Arabia blogger flogged 50 times out of 1,000 for ‘insulting Islam’, to be continued weekly

      Saudi blogger Raif Badawi has received the first 50 lashes of public flogging out of 1,000 for “insulting Islam” via an online forum that he launched. Jailed for ten years in prison, he faces over $200,000 fine.

    • France asked Netanyahu not to attend Paris march: Report

      Hollande conveyed a message to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu over the weekend asking him not to come to Paris to take part in the march against terror on Sunday

    • One Tweet from J.K. Rowling Perfectly Shuts Down Rupert Murdoch’s Anti-Muslim Rhetoric

      While it should be blatantly obvious that the attackers’ actions in no way represent a religion of roughly 1.6 billion people, Murdoch’s 140 character analysis clearly failed to grasp even the basic idea that an entire religion cannot be blamed for these attacks.

    • Exposing the ‘Unidentified Queen of Torture’ | Interview with Ray Nowosielski
    • The rights of whistleblowers vs. the Federal Government

      When information about the danger cigarettes posed to health began to circulate, tobacco companies did everything possible to suppress the information.

    • The War On Dodd-Frank Whistleblowers — How Wall Street Gags, Intimidates And Fights The Fraud Fighters

      Fearing the power and effectiveness of the Dodd-Frank whistleblower programs, big business has stepped up offensive tactics to prevent employees from exposing misconduct to federal regulators.

    • Egyptian student gets 3 years in jail for coming out as atheist on FB

      An Egyptian court has sentenced a 21-year-old student to three years in jail for insulting Islam after police discovered he declared his atheism on Facebook. The young man had been harassed for his atheist views and had his own father testify against him.

      Karim Ashraf Mohammed Al-Banna was tried in Idku city in northern Egypt. The student was arrested last November when he came to police to file a harassment complaint. It was revealed that Al-Banna was harassed in public for announcing he was an atheist online.

    • NY Times (Again) Carries Water for Government’s Post Hoc Drone Assassination Justifications
    • Hicks officially innocent, Pentagon admits

      The government lie that claimed David Hicks committed any crime is now done and dusted, officially.

      Hicks was, and is, innocent of any crime he has been charged with.

      The lie that he was a terrorist who had committed a crime was promoted by the Howard government, notably Prime Minister John Howard and Attorney-General Philip Ruddock, and by the Pentagon and US Administration. It has been perpetuated by the Abbott government, notably by AG George Brandis. But all their claims have now been officially admitted to be false and wrong in law.

    • Paris attacks: David Cameron to discuss greater spying powers with UK security chiefs as calls to revive ‘snooper’s charter’ grow

      David Cameron is to meet with UK security chiefs on Monday to discuss whether Britain will give greater powers to its police and spies in the wake of the Paris terror attacks.

      The Prime Minister said there were “things to learn” from the wave of violence that saw 17 killed across northern France from Wednesday to Friday – and he has faced pressure to revive the so-called “snooper’s charter” that would make it easier for GCHQ to monitor online communications.

    • Far too many Western Muslims speak of freedom as a sin

      Ill with flu last week, I watched the events unfolding in Paris with dread, rage and disbelief – feelings that surge every time there is an Islamicist atrocity. To kill so many over line drawings or as an expression of religious zeal? What drives these fanatics? In normal circumstances, I would have been on TV and radio channels providing immediate responses, soundbite explanations. Bedbound, I had time to reflect more deeply on this carnage and the question of freedom: what it means, how precious it is and how fragile. That fundamental human impulse and right has now become one of the most volatile and divisive concepts in the world today.

    • Lacey photographer refuses to turn over camera, gets arrested

      A freelance journalist for a local online news site was arrested Thursday while covering a motor vehicle crash, after he refused to turn over his camera to a detective from the Ocean County Prosecutor’s Office.

      Andrew P. Flinchbaugh, 23, of Lacey, working for The Lacey Reporter, was charged with obstructing administration of law, which is a disorderly persons offense. He was taken into custody after he was repeatedly ordered by a detective to turn over the camera so whatever pictures or video Flinchbaugh had captured could be reviewed as potential evidence in the crash investigation.

    • Man arrested after refusing to give camera to police at crash scene

      “This is not a negotiation. Do I sound like I’m negotiating with you?”

      When you hear those words spoken by a police officer, their intention seems unmistakable. They mean: “Do what I tell you or I’ll arrest you.”

      This, indeed, is what happened when 23-year-old Andrew Flinchbaugh filmed the aftermath of a single-vehicle accident in Ocean County, N.J.

      Flinchbaugh, who has contributed in the past to a local news Web site, claims he was given permission to film by those first on the scene. However, one police officer seems to have taken exception to Flinchbaugh’s presence.

    • Careless Stereotyping

      So when we in the west who are not adherents to Islam speak of “Muslims”, who are we talking about? We are doing the same thing my acquaintance in the Levant did; taking countless unfamiliar people who we consider “different” and tagging them with a word that doesn’t mean much to us but does allow the application of a stereotype.

      More than that, it’s a bad stereotype. Just like calling everyone in the western world “Christian”, I have a problem with the attribution of any motive or collective responsibility to the 1.6 billion people who actually are Muslims, or of a unified strategy by the 49 countries where they are the majority, let alone to the others caught up in the stereotype’s dragnet (many of whom are in fact Christians, as well as other religions).

    • Dianne Feinstein, Strong Advocate of Leak Prosecutions, Demands Immunity For David Petraeus

      When WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange released his latest document trove—more than 250,000 secret State Department cables—he intentionally harmed the U.S. government. The release of these documents damages our national interests and puts innocent lives at risk. He should be vigorously prosecuted for espionage.

  • DRM

01.11.15

Links 11/1/2015: Forgetting Munich, Firefox KDE Wallet

Posted in News Roundup at 12:05 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

GNOME bluefish

Contents

GNU/Linux

  • ‘Linux Advocates’ Throws in the Towel

    Under Schmitz, the site was nothing if not eccentric. Although it lost its “mainstream” appeal (as much as a site focusing on FOSS can be said to be mainstream), it seemed to have gained a following of readers who appreciated Schmitz’s often confrontational style.

  • Desktop

  • Kernel Space

    • Graphics Stack

      • X.Org Is Formally Invited To Become An SPI Project

        Following last month’s failed vote due to not having a quorum, SPI on Thursday voted to officially invite the X.Org Foundation to become an SPI associated project. X.Org would live under the SPI umbrella and let the organization take care of its managerial tasks so the X.Org Foundation board and members could focus more on the actual development.

      • The GTX 970/980 Maxwell GPUs Light Up With Nouveau On Linux 3.19

        This weekend I got around to trying out the GeForce GTX 970 and GTX 980 “Maxwell” graphics cards with the Linux 3.19 kernel now that there’s initial support for these new GPUs via the open-source Nouveau DRM driver.

  • Applications

  • Desktop Environments/WMs

    • K Desktop Environment/KDE SC/Qt

      • Firefox KDE Wallet for KF5

        I have a good news for Firefox and Plasma 5 users: I ported KDE Wallet password integration extension to KDE Frameworks 5!

        It seems to me that this plugin is unmaintained because both the released version and the SVN one do not support Firefox 33 or newer. So, as first step I took Guillermo’s code and bumped the Firefox version.

      • KDE Version Of Linux Mint 17.1 Released

        In late November was when the MATE and Cinnamon editions of Linux Mint 17.1 were released while today finally marks the official availability of the KDE spin of Linux Mint 17.1 Rebecca.

      • Using Krita for ARC comics

        First off we want to thank all the work put in by developers to maintain Krita, and the community that helps to fund and push Krita. At the risk of sounding really cliché, you all help to make our dreams, and many others’dreams, come true!

      • Curses! … I mean, Cursors!

        In the upcoming release of Plasma we’ve done some work on the humble cursor; we’ve added a few missing states, and there will also be a brand new “snow” version, along with minor tweaks to the existing Breeze cursors. But me being lazy and the merge window having closed, there are a great many more cursors which haven’t made it into this release, so I’m putting them here for everyone to use and redistribute.

      • Foursquare checkins via KDE tools

        This post was inspired by another article written by Damián Nohales. During his GSoC work at the GNOME project in the previous year he integrated the Foursquare service into this environment so users can make checkins from their laptop or PC.

      • KDE Frameworks 5.1 & Plasma 2.1 – First Impressions

        Today I took the plunge into the next-generation KDE desktop, performing a dirty upgrade from Kubuntu 14.04 to 14.10 before installing the plasma-5-desktop package; and this is my first impression of KF5.x and Plasma 5. This is also a bit of a primer, because when Plasma 5.2 enters the stage I’m interested to see the comparison and do a second write-up, using my experience in both 5.1 and 4.x as points-of-reference.

    • GNOME Desktop/GTK

      • FreeBSD Finishes Switching Over To GNOME 3.x

        FreeBSD GNOME developers have had various GNOME 3.x components in the FreeBSD Ports repository for months, and with GNOME 2.x now being decommissioned by this BSD operating system, the GNOME3 X11 desktop has replaced GNOME2 on the DVD install media script.

  • Distributions

    • PCLinuxOS/Mageia/Mandriva Family

    • Arch Family

      • Manjaro Linux – Works For Me!

        Enter Manjaro Linux. This was one of the last distros I’d tried during my hopping days that I really thought had some potential. Based on Arch, which has a lot going for it to begin with, and with extremely well written and maintained documentation and helpful forums, Manjaro is an attractive option, maybe even for the Linux neophyte. I liken it to what Mint does for Ubuntu, in that it polishes things up nicely, adds some useful software out of the box, and makes the installation a breeze. Arch itself can be a scary install requiring lots of reading and step by step, piece by piece building of your system. Manjaro does most of the dirty work for you, especially if you know which desktop you want from the get-go. I knew I wanted KDE, so I grabbed that and was off to the races.

    Leftovers

    • Science

      • Hard landing scutters intended reusable rocket

        The Falcon rocket landed too heavily on the barge and broke apart, according to SpaceX founder Elon Musk, while the unmanned Dragon cargo capsule went into orbit.

        [...]

        “Rocket made it to drone spaceport ship but landed hard,” he wrote on Twitter, adding “no cigar this time,” so that the 14-story rocket could be reused unscathed for future launches.

        [...]

        NASA has generally had to rely on Russia’s Soyuz capsules to ferry astronauts to the ISS since retiring its aging shuttle fleet in 2011.

        Last month, the agency successfully tests a version of its next-generation, long-distance Orion spaceship on a short flight.

        On board ISS is a crew of three Russians, two Americans and an Italian.

      • ‘Close, But No Cigar’: SpaceX Rocket Lifts Off and Lands With a Crash

        SpaceX launched a Falcon 9 rocket that successfully put a Dragon cargo capsule in orbit on Saturday, but its unprecedented attempt to land the uncrewed rocket’s first stage at sea ended with a crash.

    • Security

    • Defence/Police/Secrecy/Aggression

      • France’s most wanted woman, Hayat Boumeddiene ‘on the run’ in Syria: Reports

        The mugshot provided by the police shows a sleepy-eyed young woman, her face and brown hair showing, whom they had questioned in 2010 about Coulibaly.

        She is suspected of being Coulibaly`s accomplice in the murder of a policewoman in southern Paris on Thursday, during a massive manhunt for two brothers who a day earlier massacred 12 people at the offices of the satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo.

        Police also suspect she might have been involved in Coulibaly`s supermarket hostage-taking, though she was not identified among the dead or wounded.

      • George Zimmerman Arrested, Allegedly Threw Wine Bottle at Girlfriend

        Florida authorities say George Zimmerman, whose acquittal of murdering an unarmed black teen sparked a national debate on race and self-defense laws, has been arrested for allegedly throwing a wine bottle at his girlfriend.

        The Seminole County Sheriff’s Office says the 31-year-old Zimmerman was arrested for aggravated assault in Lake Mary about 10 p.m. Friday and is being held at the John E. Polk Correctional Facility.

        Zimmerman was released on a $5,000 bond Saturday afternoon. At a court appearance earlier Saturday, he was ordered to avoid contact with the woman, who was not identified.

      • The Day CIA Failed to Un-beard Castro in His Own Den

        But, as art imitates life from a bygone era, the plan to kill the North Korean leader harkens back to the days in the late 1960s and 1970s when scores of attempts were made by U.S. intelligence services to kill Cuban leader Fidel Castro, including by hired Sicilian Mafia hitmen.

        The hilarious plots included an attempt to smuggle poisoned cigars into Castro’s household and also plant soluble thallium sulphate inside Castro’s shoes so that his beard will fall off and make him “the laughing stock of the socialist world.”

      • President Obama’s New Policy on Cuba Could Be a Good Start

        In 1992 Miami Herald commentator Andrés Oppenheimer won a Pulitzer Prize for his book Castro’s Final Hour, thus giving “new meaning to the words final and hour,” as the late filmmaker and writer Saul Landau would wryly remark many years later. Fidel Castro would survive 11 U.S. presidents, at least eight [PDF] CIA plots to assassinate him, and a few premature obituaries, and live to see world’s most powerful country finally give in and recognize — in principle, at least — Cuba’s right to national self-determination.

      • When the United States Government Broke Relations with Cuba

        From December 1959, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) worked on numerous projects to assassinate Fidel Castro, even before Eisenhower approved a military invasion. By early February 1960, the United States government had given the CIA the green light to organize an invasion force to be trained in Guatemala and Nicaragua, then ruled by two brutal right-wing dictatorships. Meanwhile, counterrevolutionaries inside the island received training and resources such as incendiary bombs from the CIA to stage terrorist attacks in Havana and other urban areas while fast boats and airplanes engaged in constant sabotage of economic and coastal facilities from bases in south Florida. The Cuban authorities continuously denounced the incursions, the plots and the policy of violence and harassment.

      • Conservative Hypocrisy on the Cuban Embargo

        We are witnessing classic conservative hypocrisy with their predictable opposition to the lifting of the 54-year-old U.S. embargo against Cuba. That includes many Latin American conservatives who have come to view the U.S. government as their “papasito” and who are now lamenting that the U.S. government might no longer be intervening on their behalf in Cuba.

      • Former Commander of Army Special Operations Moves to CIA

        A former commander of Army Special Operations and the officer who led the first Green Berets on the ground in Afghanistan has joined the CIA.

        Lt. Gen. John F. Mulholland Jr. is the new associate director for military affairs at the nation’s top intelligence agency, the CIA announced in a statement from Director John Brennan.

      • America needs to blow up its entire intelligence infrastructure and rebuild from scratch

        We have the Windows 95 of intelligence. We need Linux.

      • US Drones, Pakistani Warplanes Kill Dozens in Tribal Areas

        The ones killed in the US strike were reportedly ethnic Uzbeks, while the ones killed in the Pakistani campaign were apparently local tribesmen. As usual, no names were provided for the slain.

        This is standard operating procedure for both Pakistan and the US in strikes in the area, as they offer little more than a vague assurance of suspicion in their killings, and never follow through except on the rare occasions when they managed to kill someone they’ve heard of.

      • The Year in Drones

        In October, the US celebrated (if that is the word) its 400th drone strike on Pakistan.

      • Drone Rules in Afghanistan Go Unchanged, And Other Reasons the War Isn’t Really Over

        Though many Americans may not have realized it, December 28th marked what the U.S. government called the official end of the war in Afghanistan. That war has been the longest in U.S. history – but despite the new announcement that the formal conflict is over, America’s war there is far from finished. In fact, the Obama administration still considers the Afghan theater an area of active hostilities, according to an email from a senior administration official – and therefore exempts it from the stricter drone and targeted killing guidelines the president announced at a major speech at the National Defense University in 2013.

      • ‘Good Kill’ Trailer: Ethan Hawke Controls Drones In New War Drama [WATCH]
      • Ethan Hawke Pilots Drones in Andrew Niccol’s First ‘Good Kill’ Trailer

        Early this year, the time travel thriller Predestination with Ethan Hawke hits theaters, but it looks like we might get a double dose of the Boyhood star because the drone pilot drama Good Kill just released an international trailer. Hit or miss sci-fi director Andrew Niccol (Gattaca, In Time) is at the helm of this film that follows Hawke as a fighter pilot who has adapted with technology and become a drone pilot. However, the task of piloting a drone for 12 hours a day and carrying out targeted kills from thousands of miles away just doesn’t feel right for the Air Force veteran. It looks like we might get some provocative political commentary on drones, not unlike what Niccol delivered with Lord of War before.

      • Pentagon Doesn’t Know How Many People It’s Killed in the ISIS War

        The American military may have launched hundreds of airstrikes on Iraq and Syria. But it’s not so sure who was on the receiving end of those bombs.

      • U.S. drone strikes continue in several countries in 2014

        The Bureau of Investigative Journalism claims that 2,379 people were killed by the strikes. The Bureau also says that only 12 percent of the victims actually identified have been linked to any militant organizations. The victims are routinely described as suspected militants.

        In October of last year Rafiq ur Rehman, a school teacher and his two young children testified before the US Congress about the death of his 67 year old mother as she gathered okra in her garden a year earlier when she was killed by a drone strike. Only five members of Congress bothered to show up.

      • Wrapping the world in war

        President Obama promised to end our ‘forever war,’ but he could leave office having wrapped the entire world in war.

        The Obama administration has adopted the view that the United States should use deadly force against its enemies wherever they are. That’s the terrifying and all-encompassing characteristic of America’s war. If enemies of the United States go to Pakistan, or Morocco, or the Philippines, the war can follow them.

      • US drone war: 2014 in numbers

        While there have been more strikes in the past six years, the casualty rate has been lower under Obama than under his predecessor. The CIA killed eight people, on average, per strike during the Bush years. Under Obama, it is less than six. The civilian casualty rate is lower too – more than three civilians were reported killed per strike during the past presidency. Under Obama, less than one.

      • Shrinking targets: Drone hits declined by 32%, says report

        The number of drone strikes carried out in Pakistan by the United States dropped by more than 32 per cent in 2014 as compared with the previous year, according to the Pakistan Institute of Peace Studies’ (PIPS) Pakistan Security Report 2014. A total of 21 strikes were reported last year, killing an estimated 144 and wounding 29 over a period of six months.

      • New book eyes drone impact

        Cohn said many people don’t realize that attacks authorized by President Obama have “killed more people with drones than died on 9/11,” and that only “a tiny percentage” were al-Qaeda or Taliban leaders.

      • Opinion: Shine a light on U.S. policy of drone warfare

        An estimated 3,500 people – hundreds of them children – have been killed by drones. While some of those killed were undoubtedly violent terrorists, fewer than 50 (2 percent) were confirmed to be high-level targets, according to a study undertaken by Stanford Law School and New York School of Law. There are numerous allegations, some confirmed by reliable news sources, of entire wedding parties and extended families killed by U.S. drones.

        Also troubling is the blowback these strikes create. They may in fact produce more terrorists, more angry young people who see their families and their countries torn apart by U.S. violence. We can’t help but wonder if U.S. policy may contribute to destabilization and recruitment of terrorists.

      • Will the US Drone War End?

        With the formal conclusion of US-led hostilities in Afghanistan, new attention has been focused on the role the US will play as trainers and advisers to the Afghan National Security Forces. Specifically, what the US counterterror (CT) mission against terrorist organizations such as al-Qaeda and the Taliban will look like. President Obama has already increased the residual force for 2015 adding 1,000 extra troops to the previously stated 9,800. Interestingly, commentators have been examining how the US will continue its CT campaign, which relies heavily on controversial drone strikes against known terrorist actors and their positions.

      • Drone Guidelines to Protect Civilians Do Not Apply to Afghanistan: White House Official

        Despite the December 28th “official” end of the U.S.-led war in Afghanistan, a new Rolling Stone article provides more proof that armed combat is nowhere near over: the Obama administration still considers the country to be an “area of active hostilities” and therefore does not impose more stringent standards aimed at limiting civilian deaths in drone strikes.

        At issue are the Presidential Policy Guidelines (pdf), passed in May 2013 in response to widespread concerns about the killing and wounding of non-combatants by U.S. drone strikes. The new guidelines impose the requirement that “before lethal action may be taken,” U.S. forces are required to attain “near certainty that non-combatants will not be injured or killed.” It is impossible to verify the impact of this reform on civilian deaths and injuries, because U.S. drone attacks are shrouded in near total secrecy.

    • Finance

    • Privacy

    • Civil Rights

    • Intellectual Monopolies

      • Copyrights

        • Chilling Effects DMCA Archive Censors Itself

          The much-praised Chilling Effects DMCA archive has taken an unprecedented step by censoring its own website. Facing criticism from copyright holders, the organization decided to wipe its presence from all popular search engines. A telling example of how pressure from rightsholders causes a chilling effect on free speech.

01.10.15

Links 10/1/2015: Mirantis OpenStack 6.0, Linux Mint 17.1 KDE, Linux Leap Second

Posted in News Roundup at 11:19 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

GNOME bluefish

Contents

GNU/Linux

Free Software/Open Source

Leftovers

  • Science

  • Security

  • Defence/Police/Secrecy/Aggression

  • Censorship

    • In Solidarity With a Free Press: Some More Blasphemous Cartoons

      Defending free speech and free press rights, which typically means defending the right to disseminate the very ideas society finds most repellent, has been one of my principal passions for the last 20 years: previously as a lawyer and now as a journalist. So I consider it positive when large numbers of people loudly invoke this principle, as has been happening over the last 48 hours in response to the horrific attack on Charlie Hebdo in Paris.

    • Who’s Afraid of Wikileaks? Missed Opportunities in Political Science Research

      Leaked information, such as WikiLeaks’ Cablegate, constitutes a unique and valuable data source for researchers interested in a wide variety of policy-oriented topics. Yet political scientists have avoided using leaked information in their research. This article argues that we can and should use leaked information as a data source in scholarly research. First, I consider the methodological, ethical, and legal challenges related to the use of leaked information in research, concluding that none of these present serious obstacles. Second, I show how political scientists can use leaked information to generate novel and unique insights about political phenomena using a variety of quantitative and qualitative methods. Specifically, I demonstrate how leaked documents reveal important details about the Trans-Pacific Partnership negotiations, and how leaked diplomatic cables highlight a significant disparity between the U.S. government’s public attitude towards traditional knowledge and its private behavior.

    • Unmournable Bodies

      Rather than posit that the Paris attacks are the moment of crisis in free speech—as so many commentators have done—it is necessary to understand that free speech and other expressions of liberté are already in crisis in Western societies; the crisis was not precipitated by three deranged gunmen. The U.S., for example, has consolidated its traditional monopoly on extreme violence, and, in the era of big data, has also hoarded information about its deployment of that violence. There are harsh consequences for those who interrogate this monopoly. The only person in prison for the C.I.A.’s abominable torture regime is John Kiriakou, the whistle-blower. Edward Snowden is a hunted man for divulging information about mass surveillance. Chelsea Manning is serving a thirty-five-year sentence for her role in WikiLeaks. They, too, are blasphemers, but they have not been universally valorized, as have the cartoonists of Charlie Hebdo.

    • Another Day, Another Bogus Set Of DMCA Takedowns Based Solely On Keywords (This Time Hiding Legit GitHub Projects)

      For many years we’ve seen DMCA takedowns that were clearly based on little more than quick keyword searches. There are so many of these cases that it’s difficult to keep track of them, but a few examples: Fox demanded a takedown of an article on the SF Chronicle’s website… because Fox owns the rights to the movie Chronicle. Some companies, like LeakID seemed to specialize in sketchy takedowns based on just keywords and not actually looking at the content. A story getting attention on Headline News (with followup from TorrentFreak) details just the latest example.

    • We Are Not All Charlie

      The police are evacuating the Gare du Nord station in Paris as my train from Brussels arrives; a suspicious package, I learned later. The rain is coming down quite hard. I resist the urge to interview my taxi driver about the current mood.

      [...]

      I wish President Obama had not said this, for a number of reasons, not the least of which is that the Holocaust is an historical fact, and church desecrations are physical crimes against property; neither vandalism nor the denial of historical reality compare to the mocking of unprovable religious beliefs. (And yes, I find attacks on the principles of my faith painful, but I would defend the right of people to make such attacks; I’m opposed, for instance, to the criminalization of Holocaust denial.)

      Mainly, Obama’s statement is troubling because it should be the role of the president of the United States, who swears an oath to defend the Constitution, to explain to the world the principle that free speech is sacred—painful, sometimes, but sacred. If the future does not belong to those who slander the prophet of Islam—in other words, to people who speak freely and offensively—then it belongs to those who would suppress by force any criticism of religion. This is not an American idea, and it certainly isn’t Charlie.

    • Every geek is Charlie

      Terrorism isn’t just performing a terrifying act. It’s provoking society’s immune system into attacking itself, making its defense systems attack the values and people they are supposed to be defending. Terrorism is like an autoimmune disorder of democracy. When we focus on the violence instead of the subtlety of the infection, it is easy to succumb as it seeks to provoke us into destroying ourselves.

    • Danish mosque doubles down on Isis support

      In a newly-aired documentary, leaders of the Grimhøj Mosque said that they want to see Isis win, that a Danish suicide bomber is a hero and that they do not believe in democracy.

    • Saudi Arabia: Free Speech Doesn’t Apply Here

      Just two days after issuing a condemnation of the terror attack on the Charlie Hebdo office in Paris, the government of Saudi Arabia began carrying out a public flogging against blogger Raif Badawi, who in May was sentenced to ten years in prison and 1,000 lashes for insulting Islam.

    • Charlie Hebdo – Defending Freedom of Speech

      The horrifying murders of cartoonists at the Charlie Hebdo offices in Paris have been a grim start to the new year. In our connected world we hear of atrocities all the time. But the thought that people are willing to deliberately target freedom of speech has been particularly chilling. This is at the heart of our society – the freedom to debate, criticise, laugh, disagree, be angry, fall out and make up again.

      [...]

      To me if the attack was about destroying freedom of speech our response has to be really acting to protect it. Stop default web blocking. Encourage democratic debate. Question regimes that oppose freedom even if they happen to be allies like Saudi Arabia. Stop casual police monitoring of social media. Resist knee jerk reactions to tabloid fear headlines.

  • Privacy

    • Spanish Judge Says Use Of ‘Extreme Security Measures’ For Email Is Evidence Of Terrorism

      After a series of moves that include introducing copyright laws that threaten the digital commons and open access, as well as criminalizing online calls for street demonstrations, Spain is fast emerging as a serious rival to Russia when it comes to grinding down the digital world. Unfortunately, it seems that lack of understanding extends to the judiciary too, as shown by recent events reported by Rise Up, an “autonomous body based in Seattle”, which aims to provide secure and private email accounts for “people and groups working on liberatory social change”.

    • UK Intelligence Boss: We Had All This Info And Totally Failed To Prevent Charlie Hebdo Attack… So Give Us More Info

      What’s especially sickening about this is that this argument “works” for surveillance state opportunists whether they succeed or fail. If they actually do stop terrorist threats (and in the same speech Parker claims they have stopped a few planned attacks in “recent months” but fails to provide any details), they use that to claim that the surveillance works and they need to do more. Yet when they fail to stop an attack — as in the Charlie Hebdo case — they don’t say it’s because the surveillance failed, instead, it’s because they didn’t have enough data or enough powers to collect more data. In other words, succeed or fail, the argument is always the same: give us more access to more private data.

    • PEN America: “The Harm Caused by Surveillance…is Unmistakable”

      PEN America published a report this week summarizing the findings from a recent survey of 772 writers around the world on questions of surveillance and self-censorship. The report, entitled “Global Chilling: The Impact of Mass Surveillance on International Writers,” builds upon a late 2013 survey of more than 500 US-based writers conducted by the organization.

    • Media Matters staff: Fox Guest Suggests A “Muhammad Law,” Similar To Megan’s Law, To Monitor Muslims Who Support Sharia
    • Cloud App Policy Violations Are a Growing Concern

      The January 2015 Netskope Cloud Report shows an increasing use of cloud applications by enterprises.

      The race to the cloud is continuing to accelerate, with more cloud apps than ever now being used by enterprises, according to the January 2015 Netskope Cloud Report.

    • A sober Snowden deems life in Russia ‘great’

      “They talk about Russia like it’s the worst place on earth. Russia’s great,” the former NSA contractor told journalist James Bamford during an interview in Moscow for the PBS program “NOVA,” which released a transcript of the conversation Thursday.

    • At CES, privacy is a growing business

      Whenever I say the word “privacy” to many of the presenters at International CES, there’s a little sigh before they answer. The thing to get excited about at this year’s show, after all, is the connection of everything to the internet, so you can track how much energy your lightbulbs use or how you hold your toothbrush.

  • Civil Rights

    • How Did TV News Talk About Torture in Coverage of the Torture Report?

      Indeed, as the study explains, “Representatives of human rights groups and experts on international law were notable for their absence.” Out of the 104 guests surveyed in the study, only two lawyers who represented torture victims–Joseph Margulies (12/9/14) and Meg Satterthwaite (12/14/14)–appeared as part of the torture discussion. This was perhaps the closest the media got to emphasizing human rights.

    • Responding to terrorism

      This was without doubt intended as an act of terrorism. But I refuse to be terrorised and decline the opportunity to hate. What does that mean practically? Terrorism is like a pernicious auto-immune disease to which it is easy to succumb. It seeks to provoke us into destroying ourselves.

    • White House Responds To Petition About Aaron Swartz By Saying Absolutely Nothing

      Soon after the unfortunate suicide of Aaron Swartz, a lot of anger was directed at Carmen Ortiz, the US Attorney who was the key figure behind the ridiculous prosecution of Swartz for daring to download too many documents (that he had legal access to, as did anyone connecting to MIT’s network). Ortiz showed no concern at all that either she or her office had done anything improper in threatening Swartz with over 30 years in jail for downloading (legally) some academic papers. As a result some people set up one of those “We the People” White House petitions, asking the Obama administration to remove Ortiz from her job.

    • Non-lethal force is still abuse: Police officers tackle, cuff Tamir Rice’s sister in her moment of grief

      Cleveland city officials have released a video showing police officers tackling the 14-year-old sister of Tamir Rice in the moments after officer Timothy Loehmann fatally shot her 12-year-old brother. In the footage, Rice’s sister can be seen running to the scene. As she approaches, an officer forcefully brings her to the ground. Another officer approaches and continues to hold her down. She’s handcuffed and put into the back seat of the patrol car. Loehmann, meanwhile, stands idly nearby Rice’s bleeding, dying body.

    • No to Securitarian Instrumentalisation

      Without even waiting for the end of investigations on the despicable attack against Charlie Hebdo on January 7th, the government is set on increasing counter-terrorist arsenal, first by notifying Brussels the decree implementing “terrorists” or child pornography websites blockade but also by announcing new counter-terrorism measures. La Quadrature du Net calls on citizens to reject this absurd escalation and show determination in defending the freedom of expression and information.

    • Obama & Counterterror: The Ignored Record

      As he has in matters of environmental protection, immigration reform, and normalization of diplomatic relations with Cuba, Obama can take significant steps under his executive authority, without the need for legislation. These would include allowing criminal investigation of the officials who authorized the CIA’s torture, shutting Guantánamo, ending the military commissions, announcing clear rules for drone use, and embracing effective limits on intrusions into privacy by electronic surveillance. With his legacy at stake, it is still not too late for Obama to demonstrate that our security indeed does not depend on abandoning our rights.

    • Government wants to know potential Sterling jurors’ opinions about whistleblowers

      “Do you have any positive or negative beliefs or opinions regarding the term ‘whistleblower’ or individuals who act in the role of a ‘whistleblower’?” the government wants to have Judge Leonie Brinkema ask potential jurors in CIA whistleblower Jeffrey Sterling’s trial next week. “Do you have any opinion, favorable or unfavorable, about organizations or individuals who release to the public government documents and information without authorization, including the news media, government employees, or private persons?” the government offered as another proposed question for jurors.

      Sterling, meanwhile, is more interested in what potential jurors think of Condoleezza Rice. As National Security Adviser, she convinced the New York Times not to publish James Risen’s story on Operation Merlin, the dubious plot to deal Iran flawed nuclear blueprints. Prosecutors had wanted to submit the talking points she used to do so, without calling her to testify, but Judge Brinkema ruled that Rice would have to take the stand to enter those talking points. The government objects to questions specifically directed to opinions about Rice, finding it “inflammatory.”

    • Markings of a Citizen

      I saw the gravity of the whole situation. The huge amount of trust that Edward had to make towards Glenn Greenwald and Laura to be able to get the information out in a right way by adhering to the CHARACTERS that Mr. Greenwald and Ms. Poitras have consistently portrayed with immense integrity. More so the fact that Glenn and Laura had no idea who Mr. Snowden was or if he was even telling the truth. In typical spy-novel fashion, Ed could have been the bait to trap some journalists being thorns in somebody’s side.

    • James Clapper’s Dystopian Novel about North Korea’s Hack

      I noted the other day how centrally James Clapper foregrounded his recent trip to North Korea in his discussion of the alleged North Korean hack of Sony. Now that the transcript is up, I see the trip was even more central in his discussion than reports had indicated. After noting that Jim Comey (whom he called “the senior expert on the investigative side of cybersecurity”) and Admiral Mike Rogers (whom he called “the senior expert on how cybersecurity ops actually happen”) would say more in following speeches, Clapper launched into a description of his trip, as if it were central to the discussion of the hack.

    • Australian special forces work with Iraqi security group accused of killing prisoners, torture

      Australian Special Forces in Iraq are working with an elite Iraqi security force accused of killing prisoners and other human rights violations.

      Prime Minister Tony Abbott has confirmed that the 200-strong Australian Special Operations Task Group in Iraq has begun providing “training and assistance” for the Iraqi Counter-Terrorism Service (CTS) in its battle against Islamic State.

      Military experts regard the service as the most capable and resilient element of the Iraqi security forces. However, former Australian defence intelligence officers say the service has “unquestionably been responsible for major war crimes and unnecessary civilian casualties”.

    • China uses long-range intimidation of U.S. reporter to suppress Xinjiang coverage

      The Chinese government has imprisoned the three brothers of a Washington-based reporter for Radio Free Asia, apparently intensifying its suppression of free speech and coverage of the troubled province of Xinjiang.

      Ethnic Uighur journalist Shohret Hoshur left China in 1994, after he ran into trouble with the authorities for his reporting. He has since become a U.S. citizen and a mainstay of Radio Free Asia’s coverage of Xinjiang, offering one of the only independent sources of information about events in the province.

    • Feds won’t call Risen at leak trial

      Federal prosecutors won’t call New York Times reporter James Risen as a witness at a leak trial set to get underway next week for one of his alleged confidential sources, several people close to the situation said.

      The decision appears to bring to an end a six-year battle to get him to provide testimony against former CIA officer Jeffrey Sterling, who is facing ten felony charges in connection with alleged disclosures to Risen about an operation aimed at undermining Iran’s nuclear program.

    • Mexican Students Didn’t Just ‘Disappear’

      The forced disappearance of 43 students from a rural teachers college in Mexico has catapulted the security crisis that the US’s southern neighbors are living into northern headlines. However, the majority of English-language news accounts have failed to provide a deeper context concerning the failed war on drugs and the use of forced disappearances as a repressive state tactic, and employ language that often criminalizes the disappeared students.

  • Internet/Net Neutrality

    • New year brings new hope for Net neutrality supporters

      FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler reverses course, makes a strong statement in support of Title II regulation and against fast lanes

    • Only 25Mbps and up will qualify as broadband under new FCC definition

      FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler today is proposing to raise the definition of broadband from 4Mbps downstream and 1Mbps upstream to 25Mbps down and 3Mbps up.

      As part of the Annual Broadband Progress Report mandated by Congress, the Federal Communications Commission has to determine whether broadband “is being deployed to all Americans in a reasonable and timely fashion.” The FCC’s latest report, circulated by Wheeler in draft form to fellow commissioners, “finds that broadband is not being deployed to all Americans in a reasonable and timely fashion, especially in rural areas, on Tribal lands, and in US Territories,” according to a fact sheet the FCC provided to Ars.

    • Hey Everyone, CISPA Is Back… Because Of The Sony Hack, Which It Wouldn’t Have Prevented

      This isn’t a huge surprise, but Rep. Dutch Ruppersberger, the NSA’s personal Rep in Congress (NSA HQ is in his district), has announced that he’s bringing back CISPA, the cybersecurity bill designed to make it easier for the NSA to access data from tech companies (that’s not how the bill’s supporters frame it, but that’s the core issue in the bill). In the past, Ruppersberger had a teammate in this effort, Rep. Mike Rogers, but Rogers has moved onto his new career as a radio and TV pundit (CNN just proudly announced hiring him), so Ruppersberger is going it alone this time around.

    • The Switchboard: A controversial cybersecurity bill, CISPA, is back

      House Dem revives major cyber bill. The Hill reports: “The measure — known as the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA) — has been a top legislative priority for industry groups and intelligence officials, who argue the country cannot properly defend critical infrastructure without it.”

  • Intellectual Monopolies

    • TTIP Update XLVII

      As long-suffering readers of this column will have noticed, the dominant theme of the discussions around TTIP so far has been the investor-state dispute settlement provisions (ISDS). We are still waiting for the European Commission’s analysis of the massive response to its consultation on the subject – it will be fascinating to see how it tries to put a positive spin on the overwhelming public refusal of ISDS in TTIP.

      The issue that crops up most often after ISDS is probably transparency – or rather the almost complete lack of it. Yes, it’s true that there have been some token releases of documents: initial position papers in 2013, and some more in 2014; but these don’t really tell us much that we didn’t already know, or could guess. The main obstacle to greater openness was Karel De Gucht, the European Commissioner for Trade when TTIP was launched. As he showed time and again during the ACTA fiasco, he had little but contempt for the European public and its unconscionable desire to know what the politicians whose salaries it pays are up to in Brussels. That made his retirement at the end of last year an important opportunity to bring more openness to trade negotiations.

    • Copyrights

      • Authors Guild Gives Up Trying To Sue Libraries For Digitally Scanning Book Collection

        Back in June we wrote about how the Second Circuit appeals court totally demolished the Authors Guild’s arguments against a bunch of university libraries for scanning their book collections digitally, in order to enable better searching of the contents. The lawsuit was against Hathitrust, an organization set up to manage the book scanning program for a group of university libraries. In 2012, a district court said that what the libraries/Hathitrust were doing was obviously fair use and the appeals court re-enforced that strongly. The Authors Guild is basically giving up in this case, saying that should the libraries change their practices, it may want to revisit the issue. But for now, it’s giving up the case while “reserving” its position.

01.09.15

Links 9/1/2015: Firefox OS in TVs, Manjaro Linux 0.8.11

Posted in News Roundup at 11:51 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

GNOME bluefish

Contents

GNU/Linux

  • Linuxy Hopes and Dreams for an Inferno-Free 2015

    In 2015, “I predict that an avalanche of governments using FLOSS and GNU/Linux will take place in Europe,” said blogger Robert Pogson. “FLOSS is widely accepted there, and with adoption of ODF becoming widespread, FLOSS and GNU/Linux are poised for a breakthrough.” China, India and Russia, meanwhile, will “make major moves to adopt GNU/Linux for general governmental purposes including education.”

  • Server

    • Inside HP’s NFV Strategy [VIDEO]

      HP is active in many areas where NFV will fit, including the OpenStack cloud and the Linux Foundation’s OPNFV effort. In a video interview with Enterprise Networking Planet, Gillai explains how the various pieces of HP’s NFV strategy fit together.

    • The power of Docker and open source ecosystems

      Reading through the latest list of top 10 open source projects on Opensource.com has been a reminder of what a great year 2014 has been for open source. Established projects like OpenStack and Mongo have continued to break new records in adoption and usage. We’ve seen incredible momentum from newer projects like Apache Mesos, Kubernetes, and Deis. And we’ve also seen that open source companies like Cloudera, Hortonworks, and Ceph can reach meaningful business milestones while remaining true to their open source roots. Virtually everywhere you look in the IT stack—from storage to networking, compute, mobile, and virtualization—the most exciting innovations are being led by open source.

    • Is Rocket Strictly a Competitor to Docker?

      Container technology was major news last year, and if you bring up the container arena to most people, Docker is what they think of. OStatic has highlighted some of Docker’s instabilities, though, and, as noted in this post, significant competition is coming in Docker’s direction.

  • Kernel Space

    • Microchip Backs AGL’s Connected Car Plan with Linux Driver
    • Linux Foundation Adds SDN, Storage and Managed Hosting Members

      The Linux Foundation’s membership continues to expand. This week, three new companies joined the open source consortium, bringing strengths in software-defined networking, storage and managed hosting to the organization.

    • diff -u: What’s New in Kernel Development

      Given the ongoing controversy within the Capsicum developer community and the corresponding lack of specification of key features, and given the existence of capabilities that already perform a similar function in the kernel and the invasiveness of Capsicum patches, Eric was opposed to David implementing Capsicum in Linux.

    • The Companies That Support Linux: IIX Inc.

      2015 will be the year that software-defined networking goes mainstream, according to Network World. And new Linux Foundation corporate member IIX is helping data centers, Internet service providers and telecommunications companies through that transition with its Linux-based software-defined interconnection (SDI) platform.

  • Applications

  • Desktop Environments/WMs

    • K Desktop Environment/KDE SC/Qt

      • Locking the screen before system suspends

        Our Plasma workspace has offered the feature to lock the screen when resuming from suspend for a long time. Ideally the screen gets locked right before the system goes to suspend to ensure that the screen is properly locked when the system wakes up.

    • GNOME Desktop/GTK

      • Streams API in WebKit at the Web Engines Hackfest

        First of course I would like to thank Igalia for allowing me to use the company time to attend the hackfest and meeting such a group of amazing programmers! It was quite intense and I tried to give my best though for different reasons (coordination, personal and so on) I missed some session.

  • Distributions

    • Test Your Linux Savvy

      Our top story on this bit of a slow new day is the closing of one of our Linux blogs. In other news Phoronix.com has noted the latest Fedora changes and Jon Gold has posted a name-the-distro quiz. And finally today, Intel showed off a new computer-on-a-stick at CES that comes in a Linux version.

    • New Releases

    • PCLinuxOS/Mageia/Mandriva Family

      • ROSA Desktop Fresh R5 KDE Offers a Different and Cool KDE Experience

        The ROSA OS doesn’t have too many releases in a year, but this is the second major version in the space of just a few months. The developers have been making a lot of changes and improvements to it, and they’ve done a number of refinements to the KDE desktop that really sets it apart from everything else.

    • Arch Family

      • Hands-on with Manjaro Linux 0.8.11

        I have heard a lot of good things about Manjaro Linux, most importantly that it is one of the easiest Arch Linux derivatives to install, so I decided to give that a try.

        If you are not familiar with Manjaro Linux (or Arch Linux), there are a couple of things you need to understand before we go on. Arch Linux is well known in the Linux community, with a reputation of being compact, fast, flexible, and very well maintained and supported by a dedicated community.

      • Manjaro GNOME Community Edition Arrives with GNOME 3.14 Vanilla Desktop – Gallery

        Manjaro GNOME Community Edition, a Linux distribution based on Arch Linux and fully compatible with the Arch repositories, has reached version 0.8.11 and is now ready for download.

    • Ballnux/SUSE

      • SUSECon 14 report

        It’s been a big year for SUSE. Last year at SUSECon 13 the team announced new development versions of SUSE Cloud and a service pack for SUSE Linux Enterprise 11. Since then they’ve turned SUSE Cloud into a real product and SLE 12 has finally been released. New technology and new products were the items SUSE went into the convention with, leading with a theme of ‘Always Open’ to remind everyone that even though SUSE are developing new tech, it’s always open source.

    • Red Hat Family

      • Red Hat Certification Caps Big SDN Year for Big Switch Networks

        Big Switch Networks Inc. capped off a big year in the software-defined networking (SDN) industry by announcing its flagship networking fabric was awarded certification for Red Hat Enterprise Linux OpenStack Platform 5, laying the groundwork for OpenStack cloud computing implementations.

        Big Switch is a leader in the “bare-metal” SDN arena, targeting its Big Cloud Fabric for building out new datacenter pods with low-cost networking devices controlled by open source software in a disaggregated approach that moves network “intelligence” from expensive, proprietary equipment to the software management layer.

      • The role of Linux in data centre modernisation

      • Fedora

        • Speech compressor and limiter for your headset in Fedora

          Last couple of months I’ve been using Google Hangouts and Bluejeans conferencing technologies more than my VoIP phone. I got used to crisp and clear voice from my Polycom and Platronics headset so I had a question.

        • continuity of various projects

          The biggest change of all.

          I’m just not going to have to maintain packages, read mail etc for Fedora, so those all got orphaned yesterday.

          Josh & Justin pretty much handled all of the Fedora kernel work for the last year or so, so me walking away is not going to make a huge difference there.

          I might still occasionally take a peek at Fedora bugzilla to see if there’s anything similar to a particular bug, but don’t expect to be doing triage work.

          I’ll still keep a Fedora box or two at home for a while, but work-wise, I’m expecting a lot more Debian in my life. It’s been over a decade since I last used it seriously. That should prove to be fun.

        • rpm packages of vmod-ipcast

    • Debian Family

      • Marvell donation accelerates Debian ARM package builds

        Starting in April, several Debian ARM port builder machines have been upgraded to substantially faster Marvell Armada XP based servers. Marvell has donated eight Marvell MV78460 SoC development boards using Marvell Armada 370/XP CPUs running at 1.6GHz.

        “Debian’s distributed build cluster requires high performance and high reliability from the machines used.” Explains Riku Voipio, Debian ARM port maintainer “We are confident the new machines will serve us as well as the previous Marvell Discovery Innovation-based builders which have been operating 24/7 since 2009″.

      • Derivatives

        • Is SteamOS Ready for the Possible Steam Machines Launch in March?

          Valve has been working on its Steam Machines console for more than a year, but things have been very silent in the past few months. Rumors are now saying that in fact the Steam Machines will launch in 2015, but is SteamOS ready?

        • Canonical/Ubuntu

          • Ubuntu to add multi-touch to Linux touchscreen laptops and desktops

            Imagine multi-touch on touchscreen laptops and even desktop PCs. True multi-touch is coming to Linux devices in Ubuntu 10.10 (code name Maverick Meerkat), according to Mark Shuttleworth, founder of Canonical. But what about Linux on tablets?

          • Unity 8 And Mir Have Received Interesting Updates

            In the last month, Canonical has updated both Unity 8 and Mir a lot, the final scope being to achieve a full mobile-desktop convergence (to make an unique system for both the computers and mobile devices, with an intelligent “responsive” interface).

  • Devices/Embedded

    • Good news, Some Samsung 2014 TVs to be upgradeable to Tizen

      Samsung’s new 2015 lineup of TVs will run Tizen and the company does not have any plans to make any Google Android TVs, which is great news for the OS and its ecosystem as its far better to focus all your resources in one direction, and Tizen is a good direction for that. Tizen TV brings some great features to users including the ability to watch live TV on their mobile devices whilst connected to their home network, even if the TV if OFF.

    • Wearing LG’s webOS smartwatch made me happy

      I don’t know what to say. What I just experienced was inexplicable. After Android Central revealed the news that Audi’s car-unlocking smartwatch (built by LG) runs webOS, I made an immediate dash to the nearby stand of TTs and asked the friendly German demo dude if I could borrow his watch for a moment. More surprising than his consent was the actual software running on this watch: it’s webOS with a level of maturity and polish that betrays the fact LG has been working on the UI for quite a while. The animations are smooth and fast, and the look is tailored to fit a round watch face.

    • 3D printer dev kit runs Linux on new Marvell ARMv7 SoC

      Marvell announced the first Linux-based hardware/software development kit for 3D printers, built around a new, 533MHz “88PA6120″ ARMv7 SoC.

      Marvell’s 3D Printer SoC Solution, also known as the Marvell 88PA6120 3D Printer Development Kit, provides a complete reference kit for turnkey development of 3D printers, says Marvell. The hardware platform is built around a new Marvell 88PA6120 SoC clocked to 533MHz. The company did not offer processor details, but said it is an ARMv7 compatible processor.

    • Intel’s HDMI Compute Stick slaps Windows or Linux on your TV
    • CES 2015: Intel announces $149 Compute Stick which runs Windows and Linux
    • Intel Compute Stick will run Linux
    • Intel’s “Compute Stick” is a full Windows or Linux PC in an HDMI dongle
    • Intel HDMI stick runs Linux or Windows on quad-core Bay Trail
    • CES: Smart TVs on Linux; SCALE prep underway

      First things first: Thanks to Christine Hall for standing in for me last Friday for the weekly wrap-up. As some of you know, I was pretty much in the dark for the first five days of the year after a fire in my building (nowhere near me) early on New Year’s Day morning caused the power to be shut down.

      As we start 2015, with the Consumer Electronic Show in full swing in Lost Wages (more on this in a bit), let’s take a look at some of the happenings in the FOSS realm.

    • Harman brings Linux based IVI to entry-level cars

      Harman’s Linux-based IVI system for entry-level cars integrates Aha Analytics, and supports Android Auto, Apple CarPlay, and MirrorLink connectivity.

    • LG May Be Dropping Google’s Android For Its Next Generation Of Smartwatches

      The Wall Street Journal is reporting that LG is planning on dropping Android Wear–Google’s operating system for smartwatches–in favor of WebOS, its own operating systems found in its smart TVs. According to an anonymous source speaking to the Journal, WebOS will be used in a new line of LG smartwatches released sometime in early 2016. LG already has two smartwatches operating on Android Wear: G Watch and G Watch R.

    • Linux Shines at CES with Smart TVs and Home Automation Gizmos

      Each year, as I search through CES product launches to see which run Linux, I get the feeling I’m looking at an iceberg. There are probably a lot more tuxified devices out there than I’ll ever have time to track down. At this year’s Internet of Things-laden show, the list of potentially Linux based gizmos has grown even larger.

      Certainly, there are plenty of vendors that openly proclaim their products’ Linux roots (see farther below), but more often vendors keep mum, implying they created the secret sauce all by themselves. Even when you ask, they often don’t tell. It’s easier to identify technology using the Linux-based Android, but now that Android’s cool factor has waned due to its overwhelming success, some vendors even obscure their Android foundations.

    • Phones

      • Android

        • The powerful Saygus V2 supports up to 256GB of external storage

          You may not be familiar with the company behind the V2 phone, and that is no surprise as Saygus is hardly a household brand. However, their new multimedia phone may just put them on your radar, with up to 320GB of internal storage and all the right specs to make a splash in the market.

          Saygus is showing off their V2 Android powered smartphone at CES 2015, and we are on site to check it out. Stay tuned for a full video rundown to see how we feel about this 5-inch device.

        • Razer Cortex Lets You Stream PC Games to any Android Microconsole

          Plus, those without an Android device can pick up the new $99 quad-core Razer Forge TV microconsole.

        • How to get married with Android Auto

          It’s been a year since the launch of the Open Automotive Alliance, which happened here in Las Vegas at CES 2014. Now, 12 months later, Android Auto is real. It’s not out, exactly — you can’t buy any cars or head units that have it installed quite yet — but it’s coming in a matter of weeks, and that means that Google partners are out in force showing Android Auto devices you’ll be able to own in 2015.

        • Volunteers add mobile to Norway’s FixMyStreet

          Norway’s Unix User Group (NUUG) has updated FiksGataMi, a localised version of the FixMyStreet website. The new site is tailored for mobile computing devices, and there also is a custom app for Android devices.

        • ​Android Lollipop is out, but almost no one is using it

          Android 5.0 Lollipop has had its troubles. First, it stumbled out of the gate. It was briefly available over-the-air (OTA) for Nexus 4, Nexus 5, Nexus 7 (both first and second generation), and Nexus 10 in early November, but then Google pulled the upgrade for two weeks. Today, almost two months after the re-release on Google Nexus 5, 10, and Nexus 7 Wi-Fi devices, as well as Moto X and G phones, Lollipop still has only a handful of users, never mind a mass audience.

        • Sony’s $1200 Walkman ZX2 runs Android 4.2 Jelly Bean

          Remember Sony’s Walkman from back in the 80s? Sony never stopped making them but they were eclipsed in later years first by iPods then by mobile phones. Now it looks like the Walkman is about to be reborn in a big and rather expensive way. Sony showed off its new Walkman ZX2 at CES 2015, and it’s going to cost $1200.

        • HTC One M8 Android 5.0 Update Release Rumored

          In November following the global release date of Android 5.0 Lollipop by Google, HTC and many manufacturers promised quick Android 5.0 Lollipop update for many key smartphones. Among those promises was the HTC One M8 Android 5.0 update within 90 days of November 3rd.

        • HTC One M8 owners get ready – Android 5.0 will arrive in next two weeks
        • Nexus 9 ssh on the go

          The Nexus 9 is an odd, compromised tablet, and way too expensive, but combined with the folio keyboard & pocketwifi it makes a nice ssh terminal for use on the road.

          Various ssh apps like ConnectBot have terrible external keyboard support. So I compiled a static dropbear binary and static busybox, and I’m using those with Android Terminal Emulator.

        • CyanogenMod Adds Official Support For Android One, Nexus 6, International LG G3 (D855)

          Just a day after pushing Lollipop nightlies to over 30 devices for the first time, CyanogenMod has now added more devices to the fray: the gambit of Android One phones, the LG G3 D855 (international), and the Nexus 6. Android One devices, owing to the control over software and hardware that Google has in that program, share a single ROM under codename “sprout.”

        • CES 2015: BlackBerry announces BBM for Android Wear

          BlackBerry continues to try to get non-BlackBerry users hooked on BBM. Today they announced that BBM for Android Wear is coming soon.

        • CES 2015: An Android smartphone with 320GB storage

          At the ongoing Consumer Electronics Show (CES) 2015 tech expo, little-known brand Saygus announced a smartphone that will blow the competition out of the water.

        • This Microsoft Surface lookalike runs a productive version of Android instead

          At first glance on the CES show floor, the Remix Ultra-Tablet seems like a cheap Surface knock-off. It has a two-stage kickstand similar to that of the Surface Pro 2—albeit one that feels flimsier than Microsoft’s model—and a magnetic keyboard cover with traveling keys and a felt material over the trackpad.

        • Galaxy S5 Android 5.0 Lollipop Update: 10 Things We Expect

          With a Samsung Galaxy S5 Android 5.0 Lollipop release ongoing and new details swirling, we’ve been taking a look at Samsung’s first Lollipop update. Yesterday, we broke down what we currently know and today, we want to take look at what we expect as Samsung moves forward with its Galaxy S5 Android 5.0 Lollipop release in the United States and elsewhere.

Free Software/Open Source

  • Pono Is Here, High Def Open Source Codec (Sort of) & All

    Neil Young’s long promised high def music device, Pono, is out and I am jammed. Not that I’m ever going to be able to buy one, mind you. But if I were entrenched middle class, the type of person who can shell out 500 bucks for a new Coach purse, I’d have one of these babies in a Texas heartbeat, which should be quicker than a regular heartbeat given the Lone Star State’s rate of high blook pressure and all. The latest news is that they’ll be available in your not-so-friendly neighborhood electronics store on Monday for $399. The Pono Music Store already went online a few days back.

  • Open Source Is Data Science’s Missing Ingredient
  • Cheap cloud + open source = a great time for startups

    While the rest of the world binges on IoT goodies from CES 2015, we thought we’d focus on (what else?) enterprise-grade infrastructure. This week’s guest, Steve Herrod was formerly CTO of VMware, and so knows a little something, something about that topic. Now he’s managing director of General Catalyst where he’s looking for the next VMwares of the world.

  • OSSmosis at Infosys

    I had to end my involvement in a hurry after that since I had to return to the airport in time for my return flight. As it turned out, Spicejet decided it was in no hurry and delayed by flight by over an hour; I guess I am lucky that it did not get cancelled. However, despite that, it felt worthwhile to attend the event and see a serious effort by one of the major driving forces in IT in India to encourage adoption of Open Source technologies and more importantly to encourage contribution to Open Source within its organization.

  • How to explain open source to the in-laws

    No, I said, though some community people can and will do that. My job is to make it easier for people to use the software (how to read the book best) and write the software (by helping with getting procedures and tools together to write books more efficiently). Because there needs to be some sort of organization about the creation of the software. So, I get people with an interest in building the software well together with people who have an interest in running the software. And, because there is commercial interest in the software, someone pays me to do this.

  • Web Browsers

    • Mozilla

      • Firefox OS to fuel Panasonic TVs, Chromecast-like devices

        Panasonic will embed Firefox OS in its 2015 smart TVs, and Matchstick announced a Chromecast-like Firefox OS platform, to be used by Philips/AOC and TCL.

      • A Device Blind Users Will Love

        In Firefox OS we have a suite of core apps called Gaia that is the foundation for Firefox OS’s user interface. It is really one giant web app, perhaps one of the biggest out there. Since our mission dictates that we make our products accessible, we have embarked on that journey, we created a screen reader for Firefox OS, and we got to work in making Gaia screen-reader friendly. It has been a long and sisyphean process, where we would arrive at one module in gaia, learn the code, fix some issues, and move on to the next module. It feels something like this:

      • Scale13x and Mozilla

  • SaaS/Big Data

  • Databases

    • Metanautix Promises Data-Agnostic SQL Queries with Quest

      Making SQL, NoSQL, Hadoop and other big data frameworks play nicely with one another is a major challenge that vendors are only now beginning to overcome. But a startup named Metanautix is taking data-agnosticism even further through a new platform that can turn any kind of data—even images—into SQL tables.

  • Business

    • Semi-Open Source

      • Community-developed Open Source solutions in a corporate environment

        To deliver a value, every infrastructure needs applications. If you review the Open Source business solutions market, community-developed Open Source solutions are often among the very best solutions. Examples are Redmine (project and process management), WordPress (publishing and blogging), DokuWiki (wiki), Subversion & Git (version control), Discourse (forum) and many more. Also, some renown companies like SugarCRM, NetSuite, and Suse have grown out of community-developed Open Source projects.

  • BSD

  • FSF/FSFE/GNU/SFLC

    • FreeIPMI 1.4.8 Released
    • PRICE 1.3.0

      This version improve Mac support quite a bit, Apple made several changes since 10.6 which caused malfunctions and weird symptoms (and which fix occasional stuff on 10.4 too). Both PowerPC and x86 work fine!

    • GNU Guix ported to ARM and other niceties of the new year

      A new port of GNU Guix to ARM using the “hard float” ABI has just landed, thanks to the hard work of Mark H Weaver and John Darrington. This makes it the fourth supported architecture after x86_64, i686, and mips64el. We are looking for ARM hardware donations that would allow us to add this architecture to our continuous integration build farm; your help is welcome!

  • Public Services/Government

    • France’s environmental agency deployed Pydio to increase collaboration

      France’s Environment and Energy Management ADEME (Agence de l’Environnement et de la maîtrise de l’énergie), has deployed the open source file sharing solution Pydio (Put Your Data in Orbit ) for its one thousand employees. Implemented in March 2013, the solution now serves as a basis of the Partage ADEME Portal. The agency is also contributing to the project some of the specific developments that were made for integrating Pydio to the existing agency’s system.

Leftovers

  • Health/Nutrition

  • Security

    • FBI Director Comey’s Single Point Of Failure on Sony

      However the easiest way to compromise a node on North Korea’s Internet is to go through its ISP – Star Joint Venture. Star JV is a joint venture between North Korea Post and Telecommunications Corporation and another joint venture – Loxley Pacific (Loxpac). Loxpac is a joint venture with Charring Thai Wire Beta, Loxley, Teltech (Finland), and Jarungthai (Taiwan).

      I explored the Loxley connection as soon as this story broke, knowing that the FBI and the NSA was most likely relying on the myth of a “closed” North Korean Internet to base their attribution findings upon. Loxley is owned by one of Thailand’s most well-connected families and just 4 kilometers away is the five star St. Regis hotel where one of the hackers first dumped Sony’s files over the hotel’s WiFi. It would be a simple matter to gain access to Loxley’s or Loxpac’s network via an insider or through a spear phishing attack and then browse through NK’s intranet with trusted Loxpac credentials.

      Once there, how hard would it be to compromise a server? According to HP’s North Korea Security Briefing (August 2014) it would be like stealing candy from a baby. HP scanned the IP blocks involved in the Dark Seoul attacks (175.45.178.xx and 175.45.179.xx) and detected “dated technology that is potentially susceptible to multiple vulnerabilities and consistently showed the same open ports and active devices on scanned hosts.” Apparently the North Korean government worries more about controlling Internet access among its population then it does about hardening its Internet-facing systems. Did the FBI’s Red Team rule that out? Did they even consider it?

    • North Korea and Sony: James Clapper Describes His Trip

      I’m still not convinced that North Korea did the hack. But if they did, then there’s more of a backstory, precisely where Clapper is pointing to it: in his trip to North Korea just weeks before the hack.

      Alternately, Clapper’s fixation on his trip may suggest his meeting with Kin Youn(g) Chol has influenced analysis of the hack, leading Clapper’s subordinates to ascribe more importance to heated meetings while their boss was in North Korea than they logically should.

      Either way, Clapper’s giving a very partial description of that trip. But now that he has returned to doing so, it ought to be a much more significant focus for reporting on the alleged North Korea hack.

    • Thursday’s security updates
    • Security advisories for Wednesday
    • Stealthy ‘XOR.DDoS’ trojan infects Linux systems, installs rootkit

      The new threat, XOR.DDoS, alters its installation depending on the victim’s Linux environment and then later runs a rootkit to avoid detection. Although a similar trojan has been spotted in Windows systems, Peter Kálnai, malware analyst at Avast, said in a Wednesday interview with SCMagazine.com that this trojan ventures into relatively untapped territory by targeting Linux systems.

    • World’s first (known) bootkit for OS X can permanently backdoor Macs

      Securing Macs against stealthy malware infections could get more complicated thanks to a new proof-of-concept exploit that allows attackers with brief physical access to covertly replace the firmware of most machines built since 2011.

    • Religion is a “medieval form of unreason”: Salman Rushdie responds to Paris attacks

      In the statement, published on the website for English PEN, an organization that promotes freedom of speech, Rushdie not only condemns the shooting, but religion as a whole.

      “Religion, a mediaeval form of unreason, when combined with modern weaponry becomes a real threat to our freedoms,” he wrote. “This religious totalitarianism has caused a deadly mutation in the heart of Islam and we see the tragic consequences in Paris today.”

      Rushdie expresses his support for the publication and calls for the defense of satire, “which has always been a force for liberty and against tyranny, dishonesty and stupidity.”

    • Helpful, low-FUD information security sites, mailing lists, and blogs

      Keeping current with the latest trends and technologies in the realm of information security is critical and there are many options to choose from. However, as with any content on the internet, it takes some effort to find sites with a good signal-to-noise ratio. Information security is a heavily FUD-laden industry and I’ve taken some time to compile a list of helpful sites.

  • Defence/Police/Secrecy/Aggression

    • Terrorism and Nuance

      In fact the only terrorist in the last year convicted in the UK, who possessed an actual bomb – a very viable explosive device indeed, was not charged with terrorism. He was a fascist named Ryan McGee who had a swastika on his wall and hated Muslims. Hundreds of Muslims with no weapons are locked up for terrorism. A fanatical anti-Muslim with a bomb is by definition not a terrorist.

    • Shooters in Paris terror attack still free as ties to Syria fighting probed

      Europe has been on high alert as anti-terror experts voiced alarm at the thousands of Europeans who’ve gone to Syria and Iraq to fight on behalf of the Islamic State and other terror organizations, and who security experts warned would return to their home countries trained and radicalized.

    • Remembering Victims of Terror–and Forgetting Some Others

      So apparently Morell doesn’t remember the bloodbath in Norway in July 2011, when Anders Breivik killed eight people by bombing government buildings in Oslo and then murdered 59 others, mostly teenagers, at a youth camp associated with the Labour Party. This was actually a deadlier attack then the London bombings, which killed 56.

    • Fox Host Brian Kilmeade On Xenophobic Element To Anti-Islamic Movement In Germany: “So What?”
    • Fox Host: How Do We Spot ‘Bad Guys’ If We Don’t Know ‘Tone Of Their Skin’?
    • After Paris Attack, Fox Anchor Suggests Skin Color Can Help Identify “Typical Bad Guys”

      Fox News anchor and Supreme Court correspondent Shannon Bream reacted to a Paris terror attack by suggesting certain skin tones are more typical of “bad guys” than others.

    • Police officer killed as France hunts Charlie Hebdo killers

      A woman police officer was killed and a street cleaner wounded on the edge of Paris this morning in an attack by a man who was reported to have fired an assault rifle of the kind used in yesterday’s murder of 12 people at Charlie Hebdo magazine.

    • Grenades Thrown at Mosque in France, Day After Charlie Hebdo Attack: Officials

      A day after deadly attack at a French satirical magazine in Paris, a mosque was attacked in Le Mans, west of the French capital.

      Three blank grenades were thrown at the mosque shortly after midnight in the city of Le Mans, west of Paris; shots were also fired in the direction of a Muslim prayer hall shortly after evening prayers in the Port-la-Nouvelle district near Narbonne in southern France.

    • Charlie Hebdo: Google France Displays Black Ribbon On Home Page As Country Mourns 12 Killed

      Google France has marked its home page with a small black ribbon as a tribute to the 12 people killed in the brutal shooting attack on the Paris offices of Charlie Hebdo magazine.

    • Dispatches: An Overshadowed Atrocity

      In the capital of Yemen, Sanaa, at least 37 people were killed and 66 others injured by a bomb blast outside a police academy that was clearly targeting prospective cadets who had lined up in readiness to enroll. As yet, no one has claimed responsibility for the Sanaa attack but it bears the hallmarks of many others that Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) has carried out in Yemen in recent years.

    • Pentagon Misfires in Stealth Jet Scandal

      The Pentagon and the world’s biggest arms-dealer are hitting back at criticisms of their $400 billion stealth jet, the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter.

      On Tuesday, Lockheed Martin, and the military’s F-35 Joint Program Office (JPO) condemned two Daily Beast reports highlighting issues with the jet’s currently inoperable 25mm cannon and sensor package—while confirming many of those stories’ central assertions.

    • US to close major airbase in Britain – Pentagon

      The Pentagon has decided to end operations at an airbase in Britain and 14 other sites in Europe in a bid to save $500 million annually due to tight budgets and a shrinking military.

      The US said on Thursday that it would end operations at RAF Mildenhall, located northeast of London. The base is home to tanker, reconnaissance, and special operations aircraft.

      RAF Mildenhall was used as a transport hub for US troops. The US will withdraw 3,200 military personnel and their families over the next few years. The net loss of US troops in Britain will be around 2,000, the Pentagon said.

      Its 352nd special operations group will reportedly move to Germany, while RC-135 reconnaissance planes will stay in the UK.

    • Paris Attack Suspects Said to Take Hostage; 2nd Hostage-Taking Also Reported

      Hundreds of French security forces have converged on an industrial park in a town northeast of Paris where two suspects in Wednesday’s terrorist attack in central Paris appear to be barricaded with at least one hostage at a printing business, the authorities said. A police official said the suspects told negotiators they intended to “die as martyrs.”

      As that drama was playing out about 30 miles northeast of Paris, the police responded in force to reports of a shooting and possible hostage-taking at a kosher supermarket near the Porte de Vincennes, on the eastern edge of Paris.

    • Charlie Hebdo attack: shooting at Paris kosher grocery

      A SECOND shootout is happening at a kosher grocery in eastern Paris with reports suggesting that a gunman has as many as five hostages.

      The gunman is reportedly the same man who shot and killed police officer Clarissa Jean-Philippe, 27, who was killed when she was on patrol in the suburb of Montrouge following the Charlie Hebdo attack.

    • Charlie Hebdo manhunt: LIVE REPORT

      Police have released photos of a man and a woman wanted in connection with the fatal shooting Thursday at Montrouge.

    • Police surround kosher Paris supermarket

      Police in France have surrounded a kosher supermarket in south-east Paris amid reports of a shooting.

      A gunman, believed to be the killer of a policewoman in the capital on Thursday, has taken a hostage at the store, a source told France’s AFP news agency.

    • BREAKING NEWS: Third shooting in Paris as two dead & ‘at least five people’ taken hostage

      An armed gunman is with the hostages in the Jewish grocery store in Vincennes in the east of Paris and there are unconfirmed reports that two people have died.

      He has been named as Amedy Coulibaly, 32, the man who shot and killed cop Clarissa Jean-Philippe, 27, yesterday, just one day after the Charlie Hebdo massacre.

    • French Police Are Dealing With Two Linked Hostage Situations

      Authorities in northern France are closing in on two brothers who allegedly carried out an attack against a satirical magazine in Paris on Wednesday.

      Simultaneously, a man thought to be connected to the suspects has taken hostages in eastern Paris.

      In eastern Paris, there has been a shootout at a kosher supermarket involving a man suspected of killing a policewoman on Thursday.

    • This Facebook Page Appears To Belong To One Of The Charlie Hebdo Suspects

      BuzzFeed News has found a Facebook page that appears to have belonged to the elder Kouachi brother. BuzzFeed could not independently verify that the page did belong to the same Said Kouachi, the individual wanted in the Charlie Hebdo attacks.

    • Gunman threatens to kill hostages at Paris market if suspects in Charlie Hebdo shooting are attacked

      A gunman holding at least five hostages in a Paris kosher market has threatened to kill them if French authorities launch an assault on two cornered al-Qaida-linked brothers suspected in a newspaper massacre, a police official said Friday.

      Terrorists linked to each other seized hostages at two locations around Paris on Friday, facing off against thousands of French security forces as the city shut down a famed Jewish neighborhood and scrambled to protect residents and tourists from further attacks.

  • Transparency Reporting

    • Guarding Assange has cost British taxpayers almost £10mn

      British taxpayers have spent almost £10 million safeguarding WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange because Swedish officials refuse to interview him on UK soil.

      The besieged Ecuadorian embassy, where Assange currently resides, has been surrounded by police 24/7 for over two years.

  • Finance

    • Saxby Chambliss Transforms From Senator To Lobbyist In Less Than A Week

      It’s good to know that Saxby won’t have to worry about trying to survive on that six-figure Senate pension.

    • Obama to propose free community college

      President Obama will unveil a new proposal to make the first two years of community college free for students during an event Friday in Tennessee previewing his State of the Union address.

      But White House officials aren’t saying how much the program — which one aide described as “significant” in scope — will cost. Nor has the administration shared details of the initiative with lawmakers on Capitol Hill, who would be necessary to approve the estimated billions of dollars necessary to provide free tuition.

  • PR/AstroTurf/Lobbying

    • How Clint Eastwood Ignores History in ‘American Sniper’

      They should know better. In 2012, “Zero Dark Thirty,” about the hunt for Osama bin Laden, was lavishly praised by most reviewers, and it wasn’t until criticism emerged from political reporters like Jane Mayer and others (I wrote about it too) that the tide turned against the pro-torture fantasy at its core. The backlash, coming after the film made “best of the year” lists, was probably responsible for it (fortunately) being all but shut out of the Academy Awards. Hopefully the praise-and-reconsider scenario will recur with “American Sniper.”

    • Fox News Gives Paris Massacre the Benghazi Treatment

      On Wednesday afternoon, Fox News’s Gretchen Carlson focused on portraying the Obama administration as weak-kneed and out of touch in its response to the massacre in Paris. After interviewing pundit Ari Fleischer, who served as a principal spokesman for President George W. Bush’s global war on terror, Carlson went with a familiar script:

      “It is what it is. It, meaning terrorism. Terrorism is what it is,” Carlson said. “So why does the administration continue to have such a problem telling the American people and the rest of the world just that? Is that a disservice to all of us? In some way giving us a false sense of security? That since our own leaders don’t see any of these attacks as terrorism right away, neither should we?”

    • Charlie Hebdo hunt: Police storm siege north of Paris

      Gunshots and explosions have been heard at the site where suspects of the Charlie Hebdo shootings are holding a hostage north of Paris.

  • Censorship

    • Mumbai Police blocks over 650 social media posts featuring Charlie Hebdo cartoons

      Mumbai Police has blocked over 650 posts and pages “on a popular social networking site” for allegedly uploading the controversial cartoons featured in the French magazine Charlie Hebdo, reports The Hindustan Times. Mumbai police spokesperson Dhananjay Kulkarni told the publication that they are blocking every controversial post that “they come across”.

    • ‘Hacktivist’ group Anonymous says it will avenge Charlie Hebdo attacks by shutting down jihadist websites

      Hacker group Anonymous have released a video and a statement via Twitter condemning the attacks on Charlie Hebdo, in which 12 people, including eight journalists, were murdered.

      The video description says that it is “a message for al-Qaeda, the Islamic State and other terrorists”, and was uploaded to the group’s Belgian account.

    • Saudi Arabia: online activist to be flogged in a public square tomorrow

      Badawi was sentenced to ten years in prison, 1,000 lashes and a fine of one million Saudi Arabian riyals (approximately £175,000) last year for creating an online forum for public debate as well as accusations that he insulted Islam. According to information obtained by Amnesty, Badawi will receive up to 50 lashes tomorrow, while the rest of the 1,000 lashes will be carried out over a period of 20 weeks.

    • Monitoring and Criminalizing Online Speech and Social Media
    • Charlie Hebdo survivors defiant in the face of terror

      In the aftermath of the fatal terrorist attack on the Paris offices of satirical newspaper ‘Charlie Hebdo’, Hélène Hofman spoke to former employee Caroline Fourest. The award-winning French journalist remained defiant, and promised that the next issue of ‘Charlie Hebdo’ will still be published next week, writes Alex McClintock.

    • Stephen Fry: We have to make a stand over Charlie Hebdo

      Stephen Fry has told ITV News why he thinks it’s important for the media and individuals to publish cartoons by Charlie Hebdo, explaining that he holds freedom of expression “sacred”.

    • Swede calls for more controversial cartoons

      Despite Wednesday’s deadly attack on a Paris magazine that published controversial pictures of the prophet Mohammed, Swedish cartoonist Lars Vilks argues that European media should not censor satirical pictures in the future.

    • “Ur head will be cut”: The story of the porn star who is getting death threats for performing in hijab

      After only a couple of months in the adult industry, 21-year-old Lebanese-American Mia Khalifa took the crown for most-searched-for star on PornHub from the legendary Lisa Ann of “Nailin’ Paylin” fame. It was a surprise win for the newcomer, who took to Instagram to humbly celebrate with a blushing emoji and caption reading, “nothing but respect for the almighty queen, though!”

    • A Close Call on Publication of Charlie Hebdo Cartoons

      Was The Times cowardly and lacking in journalistic solidarity when it decided not to publish the images from the French satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo that precipitated the execution of French journalists?

      Some readers I’ve heard from certainly think so. Evan Levine of New York City wrote: “I just wanted to register my extreme disappointment at what can only be described as a dereliction of leadership and responsibility by the New York Times in deciding not to publish the Charlie Hebdo cartoons after today’s massacre.”

    • The Saudi Role in Sept. 11 and the Hidden 9/11 Report Pages

      Since the early days after the Sept. 11 attacks, when news emerged that most of the airline hijackers came from Saudi Arabia, dark allegations have lingered about official Saudi ties to the terrorists. Fueling the suspicions: 28 still-classified pages in a congressional inquiry on 9/11 that raise questions about Saudi financial support to the hijackers in the United States prior to the attacks.

      Both the administrations of George W. Bush and Barack Obama have refused to declassify the pages on grounds of national security. But critics, including members of Congress who have read the pages in the tightly guarded, underground room in the Capitol where they are held, say national security has nothing to do with it. U.S. officials, they charge, are trying to hide the double game that Saudi Arabia has long played with Washington, as both a close ally and petri dish for the world’s most toxic brand of Islamic extremism.

    • US gag order on EU police agency stirs controversy

      The European Commission on Thursday (8 January) defended a US gag order imposed on the EU’s police agency Europol.

      It means EU lawmakers and most officials are not allowed to scrutinise a document – on implementation of the EU-US Terrorist Finance Tracking Program (TFTP) – written by Europol’s own internal data protection committee, the joint-supervisory body (JSB).

  • Privacy

    • Browsing in privacy mode? Super Cookies can track you anyway

      For years, Chrome, Firefox, and virtually all other browsers have offered a setting that doesn’t save or refer to website cookies, browsing history, or temporary files. Privacy-conscious people rely on it to help cloak their identities and prevent websites from tracking their previous steps. Now, a software consultant has devised a simple way websites can in many cases bypass these privacy modes unless users take special care.

      Ironically, the chink that allows websites to uniquely track people’s incognito browsing is a much-needed and relatively new security mechanism known as HTTP Strict Transport Security. Websites use it to ensure that an end user interacts with their servers only when using secure HTTPS connections. By appending a flag to the header a browser receives when making a request to a server, HSTS ensures that all later connections to a website are encrypted using one of the widely used HTTPS protocols. By requiring all subsequent connections to be encrypted, HSTS protects users against downgrade attacks, in which hackers convert an encrypted connection back into plain-text HTTP.

    • FBI says it can use fake phone masts to listen in on phone calls without warrant

      The US Federal Bureau of Investigation has argued that it should be able to listen in on phone calls using technology that tricks phones into thinking they’re connecting to normal masts. The tools, called “Stingrays”, allow users to intercepts calls and texts.

    • China police reportedly buy virus to monitor phones

      A screenshot purportedly showing that Chinese police were purchasing viruses for the iPhone and Android in order to monitor calls is stirring controversy in China.

      The image in question was from the official site of the government of Wenzhou, an eastern city, and is dated Dec. 15. It contained a notice saying the local police department had spent around 150,000 yuan ($24,000) on mobile-phone viruses and a device to insert the malware into phones, “specifically against jailbroken iPhones and Android phones for real-time monitoring of calls, text messages and photos.”

    • Privacy is not terrorism

      On Tuesday 16th December, a large police operation took place in the Spanish State. Fourteen houses and social centres were raided in Barcelona, Sabadell, Manresa and Madrid; books, leaflets and IT material were seized; and eleven people were arrested and sent to the Audiència Nacional, a special court handling issues of “national interest”, in Madrid. They are accused of incorporation, promotion, management and membership of a terrorist organisation. However, lawyers for the defence denounce a lack of transparency, saying that their clients have had to make statements without knowing what they are accused of [2]. “[They] speak of terrorism without specifying concrete criminal acts, or concrete individualised facts attributed to each of them.” [1] When challenged on this, Judge Bermúdez responded: “I am not investigating specific acts, I am investigating the organization, and the threat they might pose in the future” [1]; making this yet another case of apparently preventative arrests. Four of the detainees have been released, but the remaining seven have been jailed pending trial. The reasons given by the judge for their continued detention include the posession of certain books, “the production of publications and forms of communication”, and the fact that the defendants “used emails with extreme security measures, such as the server RISE UP.”[2]

    • EU Legal Study: All EU Data Retention Laws May be Dodgy

      DRIPA likely to be struck down

    • Lies and revelations: Why mass surveillance is not about catching the “bad guys”

      In response to the Snowden revelations, many governments have argued that we need surveillance to safeguard national security – and this is not a new rhetoric. Ever since 9/11, governments across the globe which have, directly or indirectly, aligned with U.S foreign policy have argued that there is a trade-off between civil liberties and security. This implies that it is acceptable for intelligence agencies to spy on our communications so that they can detect criminals and terrorists – otherwise known as the “bad guys”.

      However, if we look a bit closer at the classified documents leaked by Snowden, it is evident that targeted surveillance is largely used to enhance the political and economic advantage of those in power, while mass surveillance is directed at spying on almost everyone – regardless of whether they have engaged in criminal activity or not.

    • European Parliament Study Likely To Boost Legal Challenges To Blanket Data Retention In Europe

      Back in April last year, we wrote about a surprising and hugely important ruling by Europe’s top court that the framework for data retention in Europe — the Data Retention Directive — was “invalid”. That was largely because it allowed data retention on a scale that was disproportionate. But an interesting question that arises from that decision is: if the Directive itself is invalid, where does that leave all the EU agreements and laws that require data to be retained? What exactly is their legal status now that the Directive has been struck down? Are they invalid too?

    • Finland gets tough on privacy, with new law to give Apple, Facebook messages total security

      On 1 January, the ‘Information Society Code’ passed into law. The Code is a major new umbrella act revising the country’s electronic communications legislation, which has four main goals: simplifying existing rules; improving consumer protection; boosting information security; and creating more equal telecoms markets.

    • The response to the Charlie Hebdo murders is not more untargeted surveillance

      We know that the Hebdo offices were already a target, having been firebombed in 2011, over the publication of a caricature of the prophet Mohammed. We know that the suspects Cherif and Said Kouachi were already known to the security services. We know that France, like the UK has powers to surveill its citizens and, unlike the UK, also has ID cards and an armed police force. But none of this prevented the murder of those 12 people. Despite this, the Head of MI5, Andrew Parker, has indicated that our security services need more powers to prevent similar attacks occuring in the UK.

  • Civil Rights

    • After a long delay, Obama declines to fire U.S. attorneys over Aaron Swartz’s suicide

      The White House is declining to fire two Justice Department officials over their handling of a controversial court case involving Aaron Swartz, an Internet activist who committed suicide in 2013 after being accused of hacking into a university network.

    • MI5 chief seeks new powers after Paris magazine attack

      The head of MI5, Andrew Parker, has called for new powers to help fight Islamist extremism, warning of a dangerous imbalance between increasing numbers of terrorist plots against the UK and a drop in the capabilities of intelligence services to snoop on communications.

    • Britain warned about ‘grave and relentless’ terror threat as French manhunt goes on

      Last night anti-terrorism police and a paramilitary special ops unit were scouring the 50 square miles of woodland near Abbaye de Longpont, Aisne, for Said Kouachi, 34, and his brother Cherif 33.

    • Risen Deflects Queries in Leak-Case Testimony

      After years of pressuring New York Times national security correspondent James Risen to testify in the leak – or “Espionage Act” – case against ex-CIA official Jeffrey Sterling, the prosecutors never directly asked Risen to name Sterling as his source, as Sam Husseini describes.

    • CIA’s Hidden Hand in ‘Democracy’ Groups

      The importance of the CIA and White House secretly arranging private funds was that these supposedly independent voices would then reinforce and validate the administration’s foreign policy arguments with a public that would assume the endorsements were based on the merits of the White House positions, not influenced by money changing hands.

    • NYT Still Pretends No Coup in Ukraine

      The New York Times keeps insisting that last year’s Ukrainian coup wasn’t a coup and anyone who thinks so lives inside “the Russian propaganda bubble.” But a slanted Times “investigation” shows that the newspaper remains lost inside the U.S. government’s “propaganda bubble,” writes Robert Parry.

    • If America wants to make sure it never tortures again, it must choose law over secrecy

      In theory, Obama’s December 2009 executive order on national security classification should prevent the CIA from using secrecy to place itself beyond the rule of law, since the order specifically forbids classifying information to “conceal violations of law”. In practice, though, the prohibition is virtually never enforced. The Obama administration – like the Bush administration before it – takes the position that the CIA’s criminal actions can be legitimately classified if they are “intelligence sources and methods”. And neither Congress, nor the president, nor the courts have imposed any legal limit on what counts as an intelligence source or method. In practice, the phrase has come to mean “anything the intelligence community doesn’t want you to know.” Congress needs to write a legal definition of “intelligence sources and methods” that imposes real limits, and makes clear that it excludes torture and other crimes.

    • It’s Critics of ‘Selma’ Who Are Distorting Civil Rights History

      Johnson is the character most clearly intended for white audience members to identify with; no doubt like many of them, he starts out admiring King but not really understanding him, and over the course of the film he comes to realize on an emotional level why King says he cannot wait for political justice. In other words, he’s a white man who has something to learn from a black man. Fifty years after the events portrayed in Selma, that’s still evidently something some people don’t want to see.

    • Tell the DOJ Whistleblowing Is a Public Service, Not a Crime

      Former CIA officer Jeffrey Sterling is set to go on trial soon for allegedly giving classified information to New York Times reporter James Risen — about a CIA operation that provided flawed nuclear weapon blueprints to Iran in 2000. Along with CMD, the Nation, the Progressive and Roots Action, you took action in support of Risen, now is the time to come to the aid of whistleblower Sterling.

    • Looking Away From Police Killings

      USA Today (11/24/14) reported on the fatal shooting of a 12-year-old boy on a Cleveland playground. Tamir Rice, holding a BB gun, was shot twice in the chest by a rookie cop. Police came to the playground in response to a 911 call in which a man said he was reporting someone, “probably a juvenile,” with a gun that was “probably a fake.”

    • Hate Crime Experts Skeptical of Call for Cops to be Covered by Federal Law

      The largest police union is urging Congress to expand hate crime protections to include law enforcement.

    • The War on Drugs Is Burning Out

      The conservative wave of 2014 featured an unlikely, progressive undercurrent: In two states, plus the nation’s capital, Americans voted convincingly to pull the plug on marijuana prohibition. Even more striking were the results in California, where voters overwhelmingly passed one of the broadest sentencing reforms in the nation, de-felonizing possession of hard drugs. One week later, New York Mayor Bill de Blasio and the NYPD announced an end to arrests for marijuana possession. It’s all part of the most significant story in American drug policy since the passage of the 21st Amendment legalized alcohol in 1933: The people of this country are leading a dramatic de-escalation in the War on Drugs.

    • Michel Houellebecq stops promotion of new novel after Charlie Hebdo attack

      The French novelist Michel Houellebecq, whose latest book featured on the cover of the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo on the day of the massacre at its offices, has stopped its promotion as the victims were being mourned.

    • Norway’s Christians didn’t have to apologise for Anders Breivik, and it’s the same for Muslims now

      When Newcastle gunman Raoul Moat went crazy, I’m sure I remember interviewers, callers on phone-in shows and website forums insisting it was up to so-called moderate Geordies to denounce these atrocities, and X Factor started that week with Louis Walsh saying he wouldn’t take part unless Cheryl Cole condemned this “foul evil act of pure foul evil, carried out by her own people”.

  • Internet/Net Neutrality

    • FCC Chairman Moves Toward Real Net Neutrality Protections
    • FCC Chairman Hints at Utility-Style Rules for Internet

      FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler appears poised to propose new rules that would classify Internet service providers as public utilities in a move designed to ensure everyone has the same access to free content online.

      Wheeler strongly indicated Wednesday that he favors the shift to tougher regulations, describing it as “just and reasonable” during an appearance in Las Vegas at the International CES, a technology industry gadget show.

    • Net neutrality vote of 26 February could see Class II after all

      THE US Federal Communications Commission (FCC) will vote on net neutrality legislation at its next meeting on 26 February, it has emerged.

      [...]

      Meanwhile, just in case Wheeler speak with forked tongue, Democrat senator Al Franken has reintroduced a bill before the Senate which would force the FCC to ban paid-for priority on the internet, regardless of its status.

    • Net Neutrality Might Be a Step Closer to Reality

      The best solution to the problem of net neutrality would be the introduction of genuine competition among ISPs. Your local cable company might still want to discriminate against rivals in the video business—or maybe team up with one of them and degrade the others—but they’d have a hard time doing that if Google was providing great quality for every video service and customers could easily switch if they got tired of poor Netflix streaming. More generally, competition would put a ceiling on all sorts of bad behavior. If your prices are high, or your service is poor, or you have a habit of playing favorites with certain sites, then you’re going to lose customers unless you get your act together. True competition would make heavy regulation of broadband mostly unnecessary.

  • DRM

    • GOG To Remove Archive Protection From Their Windows Installers

      After hearing plenty of heated feedback, GOG.com has now backtracked from their use of encrypted RAR files in their Windows installers, something which has raised concerns about the potential for encroaching DRM on their service as well as causing technical problems for some Linux users.

  • Intellectual Monopolies

    • Copyrights

      • Canadian Piracy Notices: From Benign to Ridiculous

        Canada’s new piracy warning notice scheme is young but already controversial. With one relatively small ISP sending more than 3,000 notices every day, copyright trolls have quickly jumped on the bandwagon with their own brand of crazy. Other notices are much more benign – and users know it.

      • How Copyright Forced A Filmmaker To Rewrite Martin Luther King’s Historic Words

        Among the most powerful moments of Selma, the new film about the march Martin Luther King, Jr. led in 1965 in support of voting rights for African Americans, are the speeches, sermons, and eulogies King delivered during that tumultuous period. However, the speeches performed by actor David Oyelowo in the film do not contain the actual words spoken by King. This is because the King estate would not license the copyright in the speeches to filmmaker Ava DuVernay. Thus, the King estate’s aggressive stance on copyright has literally forced the re-writing of history.

01.07.15

Links 7/1/2015: Unity 8 and Mir, Sony’s LinuxWalkman

Posted in News Roundup at 9:19 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

GNOME bluefish

Contents

GNU/Linux

  • Intel Compute Stick runs Windows and Linux, fits in your pocket

    A few months back, I got a breathless email from an Intel PR rep due to some confusion over a little Chinese-made HDMI PC. Now we know why: Intel was stealthily getting ready to launch one of their own.

    This tiny black stick emblazoned with the “Intel inside” logo is Intel’s Compute Stick. This device isn’t like the Dell Cloud Connect dongle that they took to CES last year, nor is it a copy of Microsoft’s Wireless Display Adapter. It’s a full PC, capable of running both Linux and Windows, and it’s set to go on sale in the very near future.

  • Server

    • 3 Ways Enterprise IT Will Change in 2015

      Much the way the end of a year invites reflection upon what changed over the preceding 12 months, there’s nothing like the start of a new one for looking ahead and predicting what’s to come. So it is in enterprise IT, where market researchers have been busy studying their proverbial crystal balls for that very purpose.

      Late last month, for instance, IDC released not just one but three new prediction-filled reports focusing on three key areas of enterprise technology. Bottom line? Things will look pretty different a year or two from now.

  • Kernel Space

    • The Linux Foundation Extends the AllSeen Alliance, Sets Summit Speaker Agenda

      The Linux Foundation is out with a slew of announcements this week to kick off 2015. The AllSeen Alliance, which operates as a Linux Foundation Collaboration project, has announced a number of new initiatives. Most notably, it is expanding its platform framework with an AllJoyn Gateway Agent that extends the Internet of Things footprint beyond any user’s local environment, over to the cloud.

    • ​CES 2015: AllSeen Alliance to bring order to the Internet of Things

      Lost among the 4K TVs, 3D printers, and smart baby-bottles at CES, the AllSeen Alliance, a cross-industry group advancing the Internet of Everything (IoT) via the AllJoyn open-source software project, announced the first release of the AllJoyn Gateway Agent. That’s a pity, because this announcement may be the most important one of the show.

    • Linux Foundation Adds SDN, Storage and Managed Hosting Members

      The Linux Foundation’s membership continues to expand. This week, three new companies joined the open source consortium, bringing strengths in software-defined networking, storage and managed hosting to the organization.

  • Applications

  • Desktop Environments/WMs

    • K Desktop Environment/KDE SC/Qt

      • Part Two Of KDAB’s Qt3D 2.0 Overview
      • Overview of Qt3D 2.0 – Part 2

        In the previous article we learned about the requirements and high-level architecture of Qt3D 2.0. In order to put some of this into context and to give you a concrete example of how it looks to draw something in Qt3D using the QML API, we will now briefly show the important parts of one of the simple examples that will ship with Qt3D. We will start off simple and just draw a single entity (a trefoil knot) but to make it slightly more interesting we will use a custom set of shaders to implement a single-pass wireframe rendering method. This is what we will draw:

      • GCompris is now released on Android

        One year ago I took the hard decision to fully rewrite GCompris in Qt Quick in order to address tablet users while keeping PC compatibility. As you imagine it’s a daunting task and something for sure I could not do alone. Thanks to the help of the many contributors who joined the project we have been able to port 86 activities of the 140 of the legacy version in a year. You can look at this page to see the status of the port. We can hope to complete the port in one more year. The new version is far from perfect and we continue to polish it everyday but we already provide a better user experience than the legacy version.

      • Thinking about working on KDE 5 again (frameworks, plasma, applications)

        In my “preview” of KDE 5, I was able to offer the KDE 5 packages as co-installable to KDE 4 because it was not yet more than Frameworks and Plasma packages – it needed the presence of KDE 4.x in order to provide a meaningfull Plasma 5 workspace. That meant, you could install KDE 5, play around with it for a bit, and then un-install the packages if you had seen enough, without this process touching or destroying the configuration of your KDE 4 environment. That was a good thing, because Plasma 5 was quite unstable at that time, and the whole exercise was not meant to probide an actual day-to-day work environment.

    • GNOME Desktop/GTK

  • Distributions

  • Devices/Embedded

    • D-Link floats a raft of Linux-based home automation gizmos

      D-Link expanded its home automation line with a wireless hub, water leak sensor, siren, security cameras, and 802.11ac routers, all running embedded Linux.

    • Raspberry Pi B+ gets its Grove on

      Raspberry Pi’s are great little Linux devices but they have plenty of limitations when it comes to comes to wiring up to the analog world or just behaving like a micro-controller. There’s been various attempts to weld Pi and Arduino together (I have some) like the Dexter Industries’ BrickPi that plugs you into the Lego bricosystem or their Arduberry which brings Arduino shield connectors out the top of the board.

    • Phones

      • Android

        • Take two ‘medtech’ apps & call me in the morning

          We want medtech on open platforms of course — and so now we have the free Medelinked app available for Android smartphones and tablets in the Android Market on Google Play.

        • Sony’s $1200 Walkman ZX2 runs Android 4.2 Jelly Bean

          Remember Sony’s Walkman from back in the 80s? Sony never stopped making them but they were eclipsed in later years first by iPods then by mobile phones. Now it looks like the Walkman is about to be reborn in a big and rather expensive way. Sony showed off its new Walkman ZX2 at CES 2015, and it’s going to cost $1200.

        • Fuhu’s behemoth Android tablet has a 65-inch, 4K display

          In its suite here, Fuhu mounted the display on the wall, like a television, but also embedded it inside a wooden table, as well as a poker table. Fuhu senior vice-president Lisa Lee said the company plans to sell furniture designed around the larger tablets, so they can serve as electronic play spaces.

        • ​Samsung releases mid-range Galaxy E5 and E7 with Android KitKat

          Samsung has released two new mid-tier members of the Galaxy family, the Galaxy E5 and Galaxy E7. The duo will make their debut in India alongside the full-metal-bodied Galaxy A3 and Galaxy A5.

Free Software/Open Source

  • Events

  • Web Browsers

    • Mozilla

      • Panasonic’s smart TVs go open-source with Firefox OS

        One of the buzzier and least-understood technology announcements made at the 2015 Consumer Electronics Show deals with smart televisions. A smart television is a good-old-fashioned television set that comes with a built-in Wi-Fi connection and an operating system that allows the consumer to not only view over-the-air, cable, and satellite programming, but also connect to the Internet to increase their programming options.

  • SaaS/Big Data

    • 12 highlights from the OpenStack roadmap

      OpenStack, due to its sheer size and complexity, can be difficult to keep track of. Each constituent part is managed and developed separately, and sometimes there’s just too much going on to be up on everything. Combine the distributed nature of the project with a fast release cycle and even seasoned cloud operators can have trouble keeping up with features and components as they move through the development process.

    • Enterprises, and the Market, Love Big Data for 2015

      As we’ve been reporting, several barometers, including a new KPGM study on cloud computing trends at enterprises shows that executives are very focused on extracting business metrics from their cloud computing and data analytics platforms. These baromters suggest that we’re going to continue to see the cloud and the Big Data trend evolve together this year. In fact, Big Data is now a big market force.

  • Oracle/Java/LibreOffice

    • Open Source Databases Keep Chipping Away at Oracle’s Empire

      The three fastest growing databases of 2014 were all open source, according to a new report from DB-Engines, a site that tracks popularity in the rapidly changing database marketplace.

      The ever popular new-age database MongoDB topped the list again this year, with Redis, a tool for managing data, and ElasticSearch, which provides the foundations for building your own search engine, as runners up.

  • Healthcare

    • NHS refused to pull ‘unfit for purpose’ Care.data leaflet

      The mishandling of the controversial Care.data scheme – intended to extract data from GP records and effectively share it with world+dog – was in part due to the refusal of NHS England to recall an ill-informed public leaflet from the printers, an independent oversight body has revealed.

  • Licensing

  • Openness/Sharing

    • Crowdsourcing a new edition of a Bach masterpiece

      New works of art usually enter the public domain through a process involving death and patience. It is a rarer occasion that living people set about to make a resource public domain, and even rarer so when that effort involves thousands of people collaborating and pooling their time, energy, and money. That’s what’s happening on MuseScore.com with the first public review of the Open Well-Tempered Clavier score, a new edition of J.S. Bach’s musical masterpiece (BWV 846-869).

  • Programming

    • How GitHub uses GitHub to document GitHub

      Providing well-written documentation helps people understand, make use of, and contribute back to your project, but it’s only half of the documentation equation. The underlying system used to serve documentation can make life easier for the people writing it—whether that’s just you or the team you work with.

Leftovers

  • Haiku OS Mail Support Significantly Reworked

    For fans of the Haiku operating system inspired by BeOS, its mail service has been reworked.

  • Security

    • Attributing the Sony Attack

      No one has admitted taking down North Korea’s Internet. It could have been an act of retaliation by the US government, but it could just as well have been an ordinary DDoS attack. The follow-on attack against Sony PlayStation definitely seems to be the work of hackers unaffiliated with a government.

    • Jon Stewart Mocks The US Response To North Korea After ‘The Interview’ Fiasco

      “But I guess our anger is no surprise, these hackers violated our privacy. They read our emails, what kind of a country does that?” Stewart said sarcastically before showing news clips about Edward Snowden’s revelation that the NSA can read emails, chats and personal conversations.

    • Jon Stewart mocks Sony hack: NSA doesn’t leak ‘mean sh*t’ about Angelina Jolie
    • US Social Surveillance Abuse Puts Civil Liberties in Jeopardy

      The NSA’s secret project codenamed Boundless Informant seeks to establish control over “information space.” According to The Guardian it has been able to collect the data on 97 billion phone calls worldwide since March 2013.

    • The Government Must Show Us the Evidence That North Korea Attacked Sony

      American history is littered with examples of classified information pointing us towards aggression against other countries—think WMDs—only to later learn that the evidence was wrong

    • FBI Director: Sony’s ‘Sloppy’ North Korean Hackers Revealed Their IP Addresses

      The Obama administration has been tightlipped about its controversial naming of the North Korean government as the definitive source of the hack that eviscerated Sony Pictures Entertainment late last year. But FBI director James Comey is standing by the bureau’s conclusion, and has offered up a few tiny breadcrumbs of the evidence that led to it. Those crumbs include the claim that Sony hackers sometimes failed to use the proxy servers that masked the origin of their attack, revealing IP addresses that the FBI says were used exclusively by North Korea.

      [...]

      Comey’s brief and cryptic remarks—with no opportunity for followup questions from reporters—respond to skepticism and calls for more evidence from cybersecurity experts unsatisfied with the FBI’s vague statements tying the hack to North Korean government. In a previous public announcement the FBI had said only that it found “similarities in specific lines of code, encryption algorithms, data deletion methods, and compromised networks,” as well as IP addresses that matched prior attacks it knows to have originated in North Korea. At that time, the FBI also said it had further evidence matching the tools used in the attack to a North Korean hacking attack that hit South Korean banks and media outlets.

  • Defence/Police/Secrecy/Aggression

    • In shift, U.S. military says it is investigating credible civilian casualty reports in Iraq and Syria

      The U.S. military is investigating credible reports of civilian casualties in its campaign against Islamic State militants, the Pentagon press secretary said Tuesday, a shift after months in which defense officials said they were aware of none.

    • The real American Sniper was a hate-filled killer. Why are simplistic patriots treating him as a hero?

      I have to confess: I was suckered by the trailer for American Sniper. It’s a masterpiece of short-form tension – a confluence of sound and image so viscerally evocative it feels almost domineering. You cannot resist. You will be stressed out. You will feel. Or, as I believe I put it in a blog about the trailer, “Clint Eastwood’s American Sniper trailer will ruin your pants.”

      But however effective it is as a piece of cinema, even a cursory look into the film’s backstory – and particularly the public reaction to its release – raises disturbing questions about which stories we choose to codify into truth, and whose, and why, and the messy social costs of transmogrifying real life into entertainment.

    • NSA agent: Israel attacked USS Liberty to hide the truth from Washington

      However, according to a former signals intelligence analyst of the US National Security Agency (NSA), the Israeli combined air and sea attack on the USS Liberty, which took place on 8 June 1967, was a premeditated act carried out because the Israelis “didn’t want the US to know what they were up to in the Sinai before they invaded Egypt”.

    • Abolishing Nuclear Weapons – Useful and Not-So-Useful First Steps

      Also in December, the Marshall Islands, subjected to 67 nuclear tests by the United States in the 1940s and 1950s, put forward written arguments in the World Court, taking the eight declared nuclear weapon states – and Israel – to task. The Pacific state (with a population of less than 70,000) wants the World Court to order the nuclear weapon state signatories to the 1968 Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty to live up to their promise in the NPT to end the arms race ‘at an early date’ and to negotiate a treaty on ‘complete disarmament’.

      In December, India marked two major developments in its ground-based nuclear weapons capability, with the first successful test of the 2,500-mile-range Agni-IV, the first Indian ballistic missile able to deliver nuclear warheads deep inside China; and testing of the delivery platform for the Agni-V, with its range of up to 3,400 miles, bringing the whole of China within range. (In 2016, as well as deploying the Agni-V, India plans to bring its first nuclear missile-carrying submarines into service, completing its nuclear air-land-sea ‘triad’.)

      As is well-known, India has fought several wars with its neighbours (Pakistan and China) since its birth as an independent nation in 1947, and war with Pakistan remains an ever-present threat.

    • Obama Has Killed More People with Drones than Died On 9/11
    • Somali Militants Execute Alleged U.S. Intelligence Agency Spy

      Somalia Islamist militant group al-Shabaab said a man accused of working with the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency to kill a senior rebel commander for a $1 million reward was one of four people it executed for spying.

    • JFK Nephew Claims CIA Worked to Prevent Normalization with Cuba

      Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the nephew of the late U.S. President John F. Kennedy, claims that the CIA actively worked to obstruct President Kennedy’s effort to reconcile relations with Cuba, saying the countries would have eventually reconciled if not for the 1963 assassination of the former president.

    • It’s time for full disclosure of CIA records on JFK’s assassination

      It is ironic that two events coincide at this time, with the opening of diplomatic relations with Cuba by President Barack Obama and the U.S. Senate debating the need for increased oversight of the CIA given its out-of-control torture of individuals at Guantanamo.

    • Why Jeffrey Sterling Deserves Support as a CIA Whistleblower
    • In Defense of a CIA Whistleblower

      The mainstream U.S. news media sometimes rallies to the defense of a reporter who is pressured to reveal a source but not so much for the brave whistleblower who is the target of government retaliation. Such is the case for ex-CIA officer Jeffrey Sterling, writes Norman Solomon.

    • CIA Whistleblower Faces Decades in Prison for Exposing Botched CIA Plan

      Norman Solomon, co-founder of RootsAction.org, says Jeffrey Sterling and other whistleblowers have leaked classified information against the interests of the ruling elite, but in the interest of democracy

    • NYT reporter refuses to reveal sources on failed CIA effort against Ira

      James Risen refuses to answer prosecutor’s questions in case against former CIA agent, charged with leaking information about CIA operation against Iran’s nuclear program.

    • Burr: No intention to rewrite CIA torture report

      Republican U.S. Sen. Richard Burr, the incoming chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said Tuesday that he won’t try to rewrite the report issued last month cataloging brutal interrogation tactics used by the CIA operatives on suspected terrorists although he strongly disputes portions of the report.

    • Bolivian President Alleges CIA Interference

      President Evo Morales suspects the U.S. is working to sow disunity within his political party.

    • Idea of CIA ‘secret’ war illogical

      If we have already had a “secret” war and the Register’s headline writers know about it, it isn’t a secret anymore.

      If it is still secret, then no one knows about it, so we cannot have a “next.”

      If the Register’s headline writers believe that the CIA can declare war against some hapless nation all by itself, I submit that the headline writers have watched too many “Get Smart” TV sitcoms to have come to that conclusion.

      I don’t think the CIA operates this way.

    • Obama 2015 Pakistan drone strikes

      The events detailed here occurred in 2015. These have been reported by US or Pakistani government, military and intelligence officials, and by credible media, academic and other sources, including on occasion Bureau researchers. Below is a summary of CIA drone strikes and casualty estimates for 2015. Please note that our data changes according to our current understanding of particular strikes. Below represents our present best estimate.

    • North Korean defector kills four people after crossing into China

      Beijing has lodged a formal diplomatic complaint with Pyongyang after a fleeing North Korean soldier killed four people when he crossed the border into China.

    • After “Charlie Hebdo” Attack in Paris, Senators Rush to Undermine Defense Reforms

      American lawmakers took to Twitter on Wednesday morning to express sympathy with the victims of the grisly attack on a satirical Parisian publication. But some rushed to use the “Charlie Hebdo” tragedy to criticize efforts to reform draconian national security policies. .

      “Our thoughts and prayers are with the victims, the families, and the French people in the wake of this horrendous attack,” said Sen. Lindsay Graham (R-S.C.) in the first of a series of tweets on the issue. “Here at home, we must use this horrific attack as an opportunity to reevaluate our own national security posture,” he pivoted.

      Graham eventually took aim at efforts to reform the National Security Agency.

  • Environment/Energy/Wildlife

    • Republicans to Push Keystone XL Pipeline as New Congress Convenes

      The new U.S. Congress convenes today with Republicans in control of both houses for the first time in eight years. Republicans now have 246 seats in the House, their largest majority in nearly 70 years. The new Congress is also more diverse than ever before, with a record 104 women, including Utah Representative-elect Mia Love, the first black Republican woman in Congress. Women still make up only 20 percent of lawmakers, while people of color make up only about 18 percent. At the top of the Republican agenda is a push to approve the Keystone XL oil pipeline, with lawmakers in both houses expected to file measures in favor of the project today.

    • Chicago Tribune Lets CEO Push Business Interests Without Disclosure

      The Chicago Tribune published an op-ed by the CEO of Caterpillar, a manufacturer of large construction equipment, which advocated for the construction of the Keystone XL pipeline but failed to disclose Caterpillar’s significant financial stake in the pipeline’s construction.

  • Finance

    • New GOP Congress Fires Shot At Social Security On Day One

      With a little-noticed proposal, Republicans took aim at Social Security on the very first day of the 114th Congress.

      The incoming GOP majority approved late Tuesday a new rule that experts say could provoke an unprecedented crisis that conservatives could use as leverage in upcoming debates over entitlement reform.

    • How The Media Is Carrying Water For GOP’s “Jobs” Agenda

      Media outlets have uncritically promoted House Speaker John Boehner’s latest attempt to frame the Republican Congress’ harmful agenda as a set of “jobs bills.” But the Republican plan offers negligible hiring incentives, will cost over a million workers their health care coverage, and will increase the budget deficit by billions.

    • CIA financial threat adviser: US facing a 25-year ‘Great Depression’

      The Apocalypse-like scenario painted by “Currency Wars” best-selling author James Rickards about the US facing the prospect of a 25-year Great Depression is certainly depressing for many people. According to Rickards, who calls himself an “economic historian” and is a financial threat adviser to the CIA and the Pentagon, America’s “dangerous level of debt” and the Federal Reserve’s reckless printing of trillions of dollars should serve as bright red signals that a major financial crash is coming.

      Known as an investment banker and hedge fund manager who reportedly helped uncover terrorist insider trading after the 9/11 tragedy, Rickards says a key signal is the way the Fed has reportedly been changing Misery Index calculations to hide the true state of the US economy. The Misery Index is an economic indicator wherein figures are arrived at by adding the true unemployment rate with the true inflation rate.

    • The Growth Projections for the Trans-Atlantic Trade and Investment Pact Are a Joke

      Bob Kuttner has a column in the Huffington Post warning of the dangers of the Trans-Atlantic Trade and Investment Pact (TTIP). Kuttner correctly points out that the deal is not really about reducing trade barriers, which are already minimal, but rather about locking in place a business-friendly structure of regulation (wrongly described as “deregulation”).

    • Cutting Subsidies and Closing Loopholes in the U.S. Department of the Interior’s Coal Program

      In 2002, the Powder River Basin, or PRB, in Wyoming and Montana surged past the Appalachian coalfields that stretch from Pennsylvania to Tennessee to become the nation’s largest coal-producing region. Today, the PRB occupies a 40 percent share of the U.S. coal market. Although market forces, mechanization, and technological changes help explain some of the coal industry’s decision to shift more production from privately owned lands in the East to federal lands in the American West, the U.S. Department of the Interior’s, or DOI’s, coal policies have played an equally important—though largely unnoticed—role in this transition.

  • PR/AstroTurf/Lobbying

    • Hollywood’s idealized view of CIA officers is no substitute for reality

      Among the many compelling aspects of “Zero Dark Thirty,” the 2013 film about the capture of Osama bin Laden, was the notion (much touted by the film’s creators) that its characters were based on real people. This included the heroine, a brilliant and tenacious red-haired CIA analyst named Maya, played by Jessica Chastain.

    • Former U.S. Rep. Mike Rogers joins CNN as National Security Commentator

      Former U.S. Representative Mike Rogers (R-MI) joins CNN as a national security commentator offering expert analysis on a wide range of political, counterterrorism, and national security topics. Rogers was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 2000 and served seven terms representing Michigan’s 8th District. During his last two terms in office he was Chairman of the House Select Committee on Intelligence. Rogers’ career began with service as a commissioned officer in the U.S. Army; later he was a Special Agent with the FBI. In addition to his new role at CNN, Rogers is also a host of the daily Westwood One radio talk segments, Something to Think About with Mike Rogers.

  • Censorship

    • AP pulls ‘Piss Christ’ after Paris attack

      The Associated Press has removed an image of Andres Serrano’s 1987 photograph “Piss Christ” from its image library following Wednesday’s attack against the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo.

      “It’s been our policy for years that we refrain from moving deliberately provocative images. It is fair to say we have revised and reviewed our policies since 1989,” AP spokesperson Erin Madigan told POLITICO, referring to the year the AP first posted the photograph.

    • Terrorists Can’t Kill Charlie Hebdo’s Ideas
    • News Outlets Are Censoring Images of Cartoons That May Have Incited Charlie Hebdo Attack

      The French magazine Charlie Hebdo was attacked this morning by gunmen, possibly al-Qaida members, who were apparently upset by its history of printing cartoons mocking radical Islam. While much of the response to the attack has celebrated the notion of freedom of speech and freedom of the press, some news outlets have chosen to self-censor images of controversial Charlie Hebdo cartoons.

    • Terror does not kill freedom

      The terrorist has already lost if you stand up for your freedom and for the truth.

    • Some Outlets Are Censoring Charlie Hebdo’s Satirical Cartoons After Attack

      News organizations around the world are facing a dilemma about how to portray cartoons of Muhammad by the satirical French newspaper Charlie Hebdo after a deadly attack on its offices Wednesday — and some are choosing to respond by censoring or cropping out photos of the cartoons themselves.

    • Charlie Hebdo: The media doesn’t have to publish their most controversial cartoons to show its support

      Today’s terrorist atrocity in Paris was, at its most basic level, an attack on innocent men and women designed to cause widespread panic and fear. Yet it appears also to have been motivated by a desire to defy Europe’s entrenched media freedoms and to denounce, in the most bloody way, one of the central tenets of western liberalism – the right to offend.

    • 15 powerful responses from cartoonists to the Charlie Hebdo attack

      POLITICAL CARTOONISTS around the world are tweeting powerful cartoons in response to today’s massacre at French satire magazine Charlie Hebdo, in which 12 people were killed.

      Three masked gunmen entered the offices of the publication in Paris this morning – two police officers and ten staff were killed, including three of the magazine’s cartoonists and its editor, Stephane Charbonnier (known as ‘Charb’).

    • Freedom of expression? It’s a thing of the past: Editorial

      Writers the world over are working with the government these days – with the government looking over their shoulders, that is.

      In the contemporary surveillance state, you don’t need to be particularly paranoid to fear that you are being watched. In the contemporary surveillance state, the line between paranoia and reality isn’t always so bold.

    • CIA restores Dokdo in its map of Korea
    • CIA torn between allies Japan and South Korea

      The U.S.’s Central Intelligence Agency has found itself caught up in a row between allies South Korea and Japan over a small group of rocky islands, local media reported Monday.

      South Korea’s foreign ministry is attempting to get the CIA to amend entries in its World Factbook that refer to the islands, known as the Dokdo islands by Koreans and as the Takeshima isles in Japan, national news agency Yonhap said.

    • CIA World Factbook leaves Dokdo Island off Korean version of map

      Speaking of the territorial tensions the CIA World Factbook isn’t helping matters.

    • Seoul seeking to rectify CIA factbook’s deletion of Dokdo

      South Korea said Monday it is making efforts to lead the United States to restore its reference to Seoul’s easternmost islets of Dokdo as the Liancourt Rocks in the World Factbook published by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).

    • Reference to Dokdo restored in CIA World Factbook map

      The United States restored a neutral name for South Korea’s easternmost islets of Dokdo in the CIA’s World Factbook map on Monday, a day after removing its usual reference to the islets in its latest edition.

  • Privacy

    • Spies do ‘happy dance’ after encryption cracked

      When you’re happy and you know it (and you really want to show it) what do you do if you’re a spy at the United States National Security Agency successfully cracking encryption? You draw a stick figure doing a happy dance.

    • NSA efforts to crack VPN encryption are not the end of the world

      Companies such as Google, Microsoft, Yahoo and Facebook also view encryption and VPNs as a way to protect customers, and have worked to encrypt data passing through their systems since the PRISM scandal broke.

      However, Benjamin Ali, a dark web specialist at security firm Centient, noted that the Der Spiegel report does not spell disaster for digital privacy as many newer encryption technologies are not listed as vulnerable.

      “From the report it would appear that not all VPNs are vulnerable to this attack, which seems to apply to PPTP/IPsec and not OpenVPN,” he told V3.

      “OpenVPN uses AES encryption standard which, according to this article, has not been broken. However, as this report is from a while back, this might not be the case now.”

    • Tutanota releases iOS encrypted email app after notifying NSA

      The German encrypted email service Tutanota has released its iOS app, weeks after its Android app came out. The delay in the release of the iOS app was apparently due to the need for those publishing open-source apps of this kind to first notify the NSA and the U.S. Commerce Department of their existence — it seems Apple is more strict about making sure this measure has been taken.

    • Obstacles Loom for States’ Proposed “Fourth Amendment Protection” Laws

      Legislators in several states have proposed bills over the past year intended to hamper the NSA’s efforts to collect signals intelligence. In Utah, the site of a large NSA data center, a proposed bill would prevent the state, its cities, and its agencies from providing “material support or assistance in any form to any federal data collection and surveillance agency.” The bill is plainly targeted at crippling the data center, which currently relies on a contract with a nearby city for its water supply. The bill would allow the continued performance of the ongoing contract, for which the city borrowed substantial funds, but would prohibit the renewal of the contract or any new contracts with the NSA data center. Furthermore, the bill also imposes a penalty on private corporations that provide support to surveillance agencies by precluding such corporations from subsequently contracting with the state or its agencies.

    • Utah governor won’t support proposal that would cut off the NSA’s water supply

      Utah Gov. Gary Herbert (R) signaled his opposition to a proposed bill that would cut off water to the NSA’s facility south of Salt Lake City.

    • Utah Gov. Opposes Cutting Off Water Supply to NSA Facility

      Utah Gov. Gary Herbert told reporters on Tuesday that while he recognizes the “frustration” some have with the activities of the National Security Agency (NSA), he is not likely to support a measure to cut off the water supply to an NSA facility in the state.

    • Zoho email difficult to crack for National Security Agency

      City-based Zoho Corp’s email and chat services are one of the handful of services, which the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) has found it difficult to crack under its mass surveillance programme.

      According to a report by German newsmagazine Der Spiegel, NSA has classified the encryption and security-breaking problems it encountered on a scale of 1 to 5, from ‘trivial’ to ‘catastrophic.’ Facebook chat, for example, was considered ‘trivial.’ The report was based on the documents obtained from former NSA contractor and whistleblower Edward Snowden.

    • Abolish the Intelligence-Industrial Complex

      The Central Intelligence Agency and the National Security Agency should be abolished. The two spy agencies cause more problems than they solve and have become menaces to our open society. The CIA was created in 1947 at the dawn of the Cold War with the Soviet Union, and the NSA was born in 1952 to consolidate code-breaking and electronic communications spying capabilities. Today, thanks to the revelations of whistleblower Edward Snowden, we now know that the “black budget” requests from America’s 16 different intelligence agencies amounted to $52.6 billion in 2013. Of that sum, the CIA sought $14.7 billion and the NSA wanted $10.5 billion. Total intelligence spending since the 9/11 terror attacks amounts to more than $500 billion.

    • Australian writers increasingly concerned about mass government surveillance

      Novelists, editors, poets and journalists are becoming increasingly concerned about mass surveillance and its impact on freedom of expression in countries like Australia, the United States and Britain, a new survey has found.

      It shows levels of concern among writers about official surveillance are nearly as high in democratic countries as they are in non-democratic countries that have long legacies of state surveillance.

      The human rights organisation PEN International asked more than 770 writers, from 50 countries, about the ways in which government surveillance was influencing their thinking, research and writing.

      The survey ran between August 28 and October 15 last year and followed a similar survey of US writers in 2013.

    • Government Out of Control
    • Slideware is not a good place to start asessing an intelligence program says OMG Cyber! author Thomas Rid

      In conversation with Vulture South, Rid said one reason hype takes over is that journalists are prone to ignoring the complex context in which each document leaked by Snowden exists.

    • Going down the wrong road

      International whistleblower Edward Snowden could have been talking about T&T last week when he warned an Internet conference in Vancouver that “absolutely more revelations are to come. Some of the most important reporting to be done is yet to come”.
      Speaking from his hideout in Russia Snowden urged the world’s “adversarial press to continue to challenge their governments to ignite debates,” but without putting national security at risk.

    • China police inadvertently admit to buying malware to spy on citizens

      Don’t click on links sent by strangers, the police in one Chinese district warned last year, because malware known as Trojan horses use all sort of tricks to burrow into people’s phones and computers.

      “Curiosity hurts,” the Public Security Bureau in the city of Wenzhou in southeastern China posted on its social media account.

      Yet a few months after posting that warning, a lower level police department in Wenzhou was left red-faced when it emerged that officers had spent 149,000 yuan ($24,000) buying a device and software designed to plant Trojans into phones to monitor its own citizens.

    • Developers Say Privacy Network Tor Was Not Compromised During Silk Road Takedown

      In response to these sorts of concerns, which were quite prevalent in 2014, Jacob Appelbaum and Roger Dingledine from the Tor Project decided to dispel some myths at their recent State of the Onion talk at this year’s Chaos Communication Congress, an annual four-day conference “on technology, society and utopia,” sponsored by the association claiming to be Europe’s largest community of hackers, the Chaos Computer Club.

    • Proposed Prince William data center prompts protest letter to Jeff Bezos

      It is widely assumed by residents and elected officials, however, that the user is Amazon.com, which has been quickly expanding its Amazon Web Services cloud computing business in the area in recent years, including a contract with the CIA. One possible hint: This online job posting.

    • The Surveillance State has arrived

      British philosopher Jeremy Bentham’s Panopticon placed inmates under surveillance during every moment of time.

      President Obama’s National Security Agency (NSA) is the digital equivalent of the Panopticon but spies on the entire U.S. population.

      The surveillance state in America is a fact. It is no longer a suspicion.

  • Civil Rights

    • David Miranda and the Human-Rights Black Hole

      But one thing Miranda is not is a terrorist. The 29-year-old has never been accused of being a terrorist. He has never been observed associating with terrorists or traveling in terrorist circles. Yet on August 18, 2013, Miranda was detained under Schedule 7 of the United Kingdom’s Terrorism Act 2000, at London Heathrow Airport, and questioned by British authorities for nearly nine hours—the legal limit. Just like a terrorist.

    • If 2014 was a sad year for liberty in Australia, 2015 will be no better

      The Abbott government struggled to gain passage of anything worthwhile in its first full year. Most of its economic reforms were stymied, with higher education the most notable failure. It’s fair to say the deficit problem is still far from resolved.

    • Feinstein presents anti-torture agenda despite GOP opposition

      President Obama has already strictly prohibited torture, but he’s otherwise reluctant to look back at his predecessor’s misdeeds. The Obama White House is satisfied that the United States is now following a just, responsible course, and there’s no need to put the country through prosecutions of officials from the Bush/Cheney administration.

    • Outing Torture Queen Bikowsky

      It’s not easy to be exposed as a war criminal.

    • CIA inspector general David Buckley’s exit ‘unrelated to politics’
    • After Hacking Controversy, CIA Watchdog Resigns

      The CIA’s inspector general will resign this month but U.S. officials said Monday his departure is not related to his finding last year that the spy agency hacked into computers used by Senate aides.

      The agency’s internal watchdog, David Buckley, will be stepping down on January 31, and his move “has been in the works for months,” CIA spokesman Christopher White told Agence France Presse.

    • CIA Watchdog: I Quit

      CIA Inspector General David Buckley will resign at the end of January, the CIA announced Monday. Buckley served as the internal watchdog for the intelligence agency for more than four years, investigating disputes between Congress and the CIA. During his tenure, he oversaw the battle over the agency’s unwillingness to hand over documents on torture and interrogation practices to Congress. The CIA said in a statement that Buckley is leaving to “pursue an opportunity in the private sector.” Neither congressional nor CIA officials say his resignation was politically related, but civil-liberties advocates were irked by his exit. Buckley “raised some serious concerns about the conduct of the CIA in trying to thwart the Senate Intelligence Committee,” said Danielle Brian, executive director of the Project on Government Oversight. “The lack of repercussions is very troubling and his departure so soon afterward is troublesome.”

    • CIA Inspector General David Buckley to Resign

      Buckley has served as the intelligence agency’s internal watchdog for more than four years

    • CIA General Inspector Resigns Under Intriguing Conditions

      The 31 st of January is the last day at the CIA for general inspector David Buckley, who investigated a disagreement between the CIA and the Congress regarding the handling of the records of the agency’s interrogation and detention procedures. Officials from CIA have mentioned that his departure has nothing to do with politics or any of the cases he investigated.

    • CIA Watchdog to Step Down

      The CIA announced this morning that its top watchdog is stepping down at the end of the month.

      The agency’s Inspector General, David Buckley, will leave to “pursue an opportunity in the private sector,” a CIA spokesman said in a statement.

    • Stalled Probe Into CIA Prisons in Lithuania Needs US Info to Progress

      Investigation into the secret CIA prisons in Lithuania will not make any progress, until the United States provides Lithuania with information, according to Lithuanian President Dalia Grybauskaite.

    • Will The Release Of C.I.A. Torture Photos Actually Threaten National Security?

      It’s been nearly a month since a Senate report revealed the gruesome torture techniques used by C.I.A. operatives following the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, and the controversy surrounding whether or not to publish more information continues to stir debate.

      In 2004, the ACLU sued the U.S. government for the release of more than 2,000 photos from Abu Ghraib after some of the disturbing photos were leaked that year. According to Mother Jones, a federal judge forced the Obama administration to release the photos or provide detailed information explaining how the release of each picture could threaten national security. The government chose the second option, and now, a hearing has been set for Jan. 20.

    • British and Dutch researchers develop new form of lie-detector test

      But the invention could soon be defunct. Researchers in Britain and the Netherlands have made a breakthrough, developing a method with a success rate in tests of over 70% that could be in use in police stations around the world within a decade. Rather than relying on facial tics, talking too much or waving of arms – all seen as tell-tale signs of lying – the new method involves monitoring full-body motions to provide an indicator of signs of guilty feelings.

    • Torture Advocates Outnumbered Critics 2-to-1

      A new FAIR study finds that torture defenders outnumbered critics of torture by nearly 2 to 1 in TV news coverage of the Senate Intelligence Committee report released on December 9.

      FAIR surveyed the guests of nine news programs for the week of December 7 to December 14, when discussion of the torture report’s findings was most prominent. The programs included the Sunday talk shows (NBC’s Meet the Press, CBS’s Face the Nation, ABC’s This Week, Fox News Sunday and CNN’s State of the Union) along with four weekday news shows (MSNBC’s Hardball, Fox’s Special Report, the first hour of CNN’s Situation Room and the PBS NewsHour).

      Of the 104 guests discussing the topic on these shows, 53 expressed a discernible opinion either for or against the use of torture. Thirty-five of those who took a position, or 66 percent, were supportive of torture. This included a few individuals who claimed to be against “torture,” but defended interrogation methods such as waterboarding and other “enhanced interrogation techniques” that are recognized as torture under US and international law.

    • Fox News Exploits Tragedy In France To Attack NYC Mayor De Blasio

      Fox’s National Security Expert Blames Attack In Part On France’s “Really Strict Gun Control Policy”

Links 7/1/2015: Android Dominant in CES, OSVR in the Press

Posted in News Roundup at 12:23 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

GNOME bluefish

Contents

GNU/Linux

  • Desktop

    • ​CES 2015: Dell refreshes high-end XPS business laptop line

      If you’re a serious road warrior, and not a Chromebook Pixel fan like I am, you have two real choices: the Lenovo ThinkPad line and the Dell XPS line. Now, Dell has two new SPX versions and they’re looking sweet.

    • Michal Papis, Open Source Developer

      Michal has a very tweaked KDE setup. He discusses his use of Alt+Tab to switch between applications, rather than using virtual desktops, and I’m very glad he does. I too use Alt+Tab compulsively. I’ve experimented with virtual desktops, but Alt+Tab always does the job for me. I’ve always felt guilty that I didn’t do more with virtual desktops but Michal has given me the courage to officially give up on them. And for that, I’ll forever be grateful.

    • North Korea’s Red Star Linux OS: Made in Apple’s Image?

      Most of the recent headlines involving North Korea and computers have centered on whether the former was behind attacks against Sony. Here’s another fact about technology in North Korea that has been subject to less attention: The country has its own, home-grown Linux distribution, called Red Star OS, which happens to look a lot like Apple’s OS X.

  • Kernel Space

    • Linux Foundation AllSeen Alliance Expands Internet of Things Efforts

      The AllSeen Alliance today announced new initiatives and momentum in its bid to help advance standards for the emerging landscape that is the Internet of Things (IoT).

      The AllSeen Alliance is a multi-stakeholder effort that is operated as a Linux Foundation Collaboration project. The Linux Foundation first announced the AllSeen Alliance effort in December 2013, with the AllJoyn code contribution from Qualcomm serving as the basis. AllJoyn is a framework for enabling secure and seamless connectivity, as well as access, for IoT devices.

      Now the AllSeen Alliance is expanding the framework with the AllJoyn Gateway Agent that expands the footprint of IoT features beyond a user’s local environment, all the way out to the cloud.

    • A Look Inside A Live Linux Kernel

      As web designer, student and open source advocate Shaun Gillies points out, successful industry leaders or project managers in the open source community “frequently employ” peer review techniques as a criteria for quality control in their development cycle.

    • Linux Kernel 3.19 RC3 Is Small and Uneventful and Linus Is Happy About That

      The third RC for the Linux Kernel 3.19 branch has been announced by Linus Torvalds and it’s now available for download and testing. The development cycle continues without interruption and everything is on track.

    • Graphics Stack

      • X.Org Server 1.17 Should Ship Soon, X.Org Server 1.18 Likely To Be A Quicker Cycle

        Keith Packard of Intel has provided a status update concerning the soon-to-be-out X.Org Server 1.17 and its successor, X.Org Server 1.18.

        Continuing to serve as the de facto xserver release manager, Keith Packard wrote on Sunday that he feels the release of 1.17 is “quite close” but is just waiting to make sure everyone is happy with it before the code ships. For months the 1.17 release has planned to ship around the new year.

      • The Intel Haswell OpenGL Performance Boosting Patch Is Published

        Back in November I wrote about a Major Performance Breakthrough Discovered For Intel’s Mesa Driver due to testing done by LunarG and uncovered with the help of Intel. That performance-boosting patch has been queued up for drm-intel-next thus meaning it will be present with the next major kernel cycle — the Linux 3.20 kernel.

    • Benchmarks

      • Test Driving The New Intel Haswell Linux Performance Patch

        For this quick on-the-spot comparison I ran some benchmarks of Linux 3.19-rc3 compared to the drm-intel nightly kernel state that is Linux 3.19 plus the Intel DRM kernel driver work under development that will ultimately be merged for Linux 3.20. This latest drm-intel code contains the anticipated Haswell specific performance patch.

  • Applications

  • Desktop Environments/WMs

    • Fluxbox 1.3.6 Released After Two-Year Wait

      After nearly two years since the previous release, the Fluxbox team has released Fluxbox 1.3.6 (codenamed “It’s about time”) to start off the new year.

      For new Linux users, Fluxbox is a long-standing X window manager derived from Blackbox. Fluxbox is lightweight and very fast yet offers a lot of functionality.

    • GNOME Desktop/GTK

      • GNOME 3.16 To Have Foursquare Integration, Check-In On GNOME Maps

        Thanks to Damián Nohales’ work last summer on Foursquare support in GNOME via Google Summer of Code 2014, GNOME 3.16 has basic support for this location sharing service now focused on local search.

      • SQLite, VACUUM, and auto_vacuum

        The week before Christmas I hunkered down and took on a nagging issue in Geary I’m almost embarrassed to discuss. The long and short of it is, prior to this commit, Geary never deleted emails from its internal SQLite database, even if they were deleted on the server. It was a classic problem of garbage collection and reference counting. (If you’re interested in the problem and why Geary didn’t simply delete an email when it was not visible in a mail folder, the original ticket is a good place to start.)

      • GNOME MultiWriter and Large Hubs

        Today I released the first version of GNOME MultiWriter, and built it for Rawhide and F21. It’s good enough for a first release, although there are still a few things left to do. The most important now is probably the self-profiling mode so that we know the best number of parallel threads to use for the read and the write. I want this to Just Work without any user interaction, but I’ll have to wait for my shipment of USB drives to arrive before I can add that functionality.

      • GNOME MultiWriter Is an Awesome New App That Writes ISO Files to Multiple Devices

        The GNOME stack is getting all kind of interesting apps and now a new one is in the making, called the GNOME MultiWriter. This app is capable of writing an ISO to multiple devices at once and it’s doing it with a simple and clear interface.

  • Distributions

    • New Releases

      • Alpine Linux 3.1.1 released

        The Alpine Linux project is pleased to announce the immediate availability of version 3.1.1 of its Alpine Linux operating system.

        This is a bugfix release of the v3.1 musl based branch. This release is based on the 3.14.27 kernel which has some critical security fixes.

    • Screenshots

    • PCLinuxOS/Mageia/Mandriva Family

      • “That Other OS”

        PCLinuxOS even does a minimal installation more or less the way I like with most software installation after the first boot but they are not going the way I intend to move sooner rather than later, to ARM. I guess Debian has spoiled me for any other distro. It’s just hard to beat someone with that kind of depth and experience.

    • Arch Family

    • Red Hat Family

      • Red Hat Foresees Sprawling Cloud, Container Specs in 2015

        Meanwhile, as OpenStack and Linux container technologies begin to “collide” in 2015, greater consolidation in areas like workload orchestration (Heat, Kubernetes, Mesos and Yarn) is expected to accelerate. Mark Coggin, Red Hat’s senior director for platform product marketing, said containerization of OpenStack services would help address “the installation complexities of OpenStack, and also facilitate the building of more complex solutions like high availability and fail-over, workload clustering and load balancing, high performance storage infrastructure and application autoscaling.”

      • Ceph for Cinder in TripleO

        A wrap up on the status of TripleO’s Cinder HA spec. First, a link to the cinder-ha blueprint, where you can find even more links, to the actual spec (under review) and the code changes (again, still under review). Intent of the blueprint is for the TripleO deployments to keep Cinder volumes available and Cinder operational in case of failures of any node.

      • Time has come to support some important projects!

        If you read this blog entry it is very likely that you are a direct beneficiary of open source and free software. Like myself you probably have been able to get hold of, use and tinker with software that in the old world of closed source dominance would all together have cost you maybe ten thousand dollars or more. So with the spirit of the Yuletide season fresh in mind it is time to open your wallet and support some important open source fundraising campaigns.

      • Fedora

        • Fedora 19 “Schrödinger’s Cat” Reaches EOL and Is Now Definitely Dead

          Fedora 19 “Schrödinger’s Cat” was initially released back in July 2013 and it was alive for a year and a half. Now, the distribution has reached end of file and it’s no longer supported by its developers.

        • Fedora 19 End of Life
        • Fedora 19 Reaches End Of Life State

          If you’re still running Fedora 19 for some reason, you better think about upgrading to Fedora 20/21 as F19 has now reached its end of life.

        • NetworkManager 1.0 released!

          A decade ago seems like a long time in open source. In those days, networking was not easy to configure in Linux systems like Fedora. Networking stacks didn’t play well with each other, and some used frequently today didn’t even exist then. Configuring a laptop for good mobility across networks was difficult, or sometimes impossible.

    • Debian Family

      • Bootstrapping arm64 in Debian

        arm64 is officially a release architecture for Jessie, aka Debian version 8. That’s taken a lot of manual porting and development effort over the last couple of years, and it’s also taken a lot of CPU time – there are ~21,000 source packages in Debian Jessie! As is often the case for a brand new architecture like arm64 (or AArch64, to use ARM’s own terminology), hardware can be really difficult to get hold of. In time this will cease to be an issue as hardware becomes more commoditised, but in Debian we really struggled to get hold of equipment for a very long time during the early part of the port.

      • 64-bit ARM Support Is Moving Along In Debian

        With the upcoming release of Debian 8.0 “Jessie”, AArch64/ARM64 will become an official release architecture.

      • Kodi from Debian

        As of today Kodi from Debian uses the FFmpeg packages instead of the Libav ones which have been used by XBMC from Debian. The reason for the switch was upstream’s decision of dropping the Libav compatibility code and FFmpeg becoming available again packaged in Debian (thanks to Andreas Cadhalpun). It is worth noting that while upstream Kodi 14.0 downloads and builds FFmpeg 2.4.4 by default, Debian ships FFmpeg 2.5.1 already and FFmpeg under Kodi will be updated independently from Kodi thanks to the packaging mechanism.

      • Use Module::Build::Tiny as Debian policy compliant

      • Derivatives

        • Canonical/Ubuntu

          • Ubuntu Make Adds Google Go Support, Game Category

            Ubuntu Make, formerly known as the Ubuntu Developer Tools Center, is up to version 0.4 and it adds Go language support.

            Ubuntu Make is one of the newer Ubuntu Linux projects for making it easier for developers to quickly and easily setup development environments on the popular distribution. Ubuntu Make 0.4 was released today and it introduces Google Go support along with bringing a new game category. Ubuntu developers can run umake go to deploy the latest version of Google golang along with setting up the proper build environment.

          • Builder Update

            I’ve been really busy during the start of the Builder fundraising campaign trying to round up funds. We still have some larger donations planned that I hope to see land in the not to distant future. We are one week of four complete and have raised nearly 60% of the requested funds!

            This means that I haven’t got to write as much code the last week as I would have liked, but our contributors have picked up the slack.

            For a New Years gift, I put together some tools for those of you that work with HTML. The auto indentation engine now supports HTML, so you wont need to fuss about with alignments anymore. Just hit enter after your opening element and you’ll be properly indented. I also added the basis for what will be the HTML autocompletion engine. It’s not very complete yet, but if someone wants to own it, I’d be happy to hand it off. Longer term, I’d prefer to see it work of the document’s DTD.

  • Devices/Embedded

    • WeMo can now light your smart home from the inside and out

      Following Sunday’s expansion of the WeMo ecosystem with a bevy of sensors, Belkin’s home automation brand is today announcing an expanded lineup of smart lighting devices from Osram Sylvania and TCP (Technical Consumer Products).

    • All of Samsung’s 2015 Smart TVs will be powered by Tizen

      Samsung’s new SUHD TVs announced at CES today will be powered by it’s new Tizen OS.

    • [Developer] Samsung Tizen TV SDK 1.2

      With the launch of the Samsung Tizen TV, we also see the release of the updated Samsung Tizen TV SDK 1.2. This SDK has the tools you need to start developing applications for the Tizen TV Platform. The tools include an Integrated Development Environment (IDE) for HTML5, JavaScript, CSS code editing, a light-weight TV Simulator for testing webapps, and a TV Emulator. You also get templates for TV applications

    • Linux Representing at CES

      Linux at CES tops our news coverage for today. In other news OpenSource.com says installing Linux from Scratch can help users learn “the building blocks” of Linux and Softpedia.com says users “are going crazy” for circle icons. Elsewhere Jack Germain spoke to The Document Foundation and Open Source Business Alliance about reaching the goal of universal open document standards.

    • CES 2015: Microchip Technology shows off 30 demos

      Microchip Technology Inc. of Chandler announced Tuesday at CES 2015 that it has joined the Linux Foundation and Automotive Grade Linux to develop software for the connected car.

    • [Video] Samsung Gear S Apps

      This is an Interesting little 1 minute video that I found on the web. It takes you through the advantages of having a Tizen based Samsung Gear S or leaving your Smartphone at home. You have fitness capabilities as well as an App store that you can download applications that are suitable to you and your lifestyle.

    • Tizen TV is Launched with Samsung SUHD Models JS8500, JS9000 and JS9500

      It is with a huge smile that I say Samsung launched their SUHD Lineup of Tizen TVs at the packed Samsung Press Conference at CES 2015. The TVs hold the promise of a superior picture which has 64 times more color expression and will be 2.5 times brighter than conventional TVs. The TV will be running the Tizen OS, which will be optimised for the TV User Interface (UI) making it more responsive compared to previous UIs.

    • CES 2015: Linksys WRT1200AC Router Is a Beast with 512 MB and Official OpenWRT Support

      Linksys has just announced its new WRT1200AC 2×2 Dual Band Wireless AC Router at CES 2015. It might sound like just another router, but this is interesting because it also comes with OpenWrt support by default.

    • Phones

Free Software/Open Source

Leftovers

  • Apple Slapped With Another Lawsuit

  • Security

  • Defence/Police/Secrecy/Aggression

    • The greatest trick Obama ever pulled was convincing the world America isn’t still at war

      The holiday headlines blared without a hint of distrust: “End of War” and “Mission Ends” and “U.S. formally ends the war in Afghanistan”, as the US government and Nato celebrated the alleged end of the longest war in American history. Great news! Except, that is, when you read past the first paragraph: “the fighting is as intense as it has ever been since the U.S.-led invasion in 2001,” according to the Wall Street Journal. And about 10,000 troops will remain there for the foreseeable future (more than we had a year after the Afghan war started). Oh, and they’ll continue to engage in combat regularly. But other than that, yeah, the war is definitely over.

    • Open source intelligence (OSINT) iBrabo tracks Syrian tweet location of ISIS suspect

      Reports in the Independent newspaper and elsewhere suggest that the open source intelligence research group iBrabo has helped with information capture technology in the quest to pin down a suspected ISIS militant.

      A New Zealand born individual, Mark John Taylor (who uses the names Mohammad Daniel or Abu Abdul Rahman) is said to have now suspended his Twitter account after inadvertently tweeting his location while in Syria.

    • 12 Dead in Attack on Paris Newspaper; France Goes on Alert

      Masked gunmen shouting “Allahu akbar!” stormed the Paris offices of a satirical newspaper Wednesday, killing 12 people before escaping. It was France’s deadliest terror attack in at least two decades.

      French President Francois Hollande called the attack on the Charlie Hebdo weekly, which has frequently drawn condemnation from Muslims, “a terrorist attack without a doubt” and said several other attacks have been thwarted in France “in recent weeks.”

    • France says ready to strike Libya militants

      France said Monday its troops south of Libya are ready to strike extremists crossing the border, but the speaker of Libya’s internationally recognized parliament rejected any Western military intervention in his country.

      French President Francois Hollande urged the United Nations to take action to stem growing violence in the North African country and the transit of arms from Libya to militant groups around the Sahel region.

  • Environment/Energy/Wildlife

    • Fracking in Ohio confirmed as cause of rare earthquake strong enough to be felt

      A new study links the March 2014 earthquakes in Poland Township, Ohio, to hydraulic fracturing that activated a previously unknown fault. The induced seismic sequence included a rare felt earthquake of magnitude 3.0, according to new research.

    • As Oil Drops Below $50, Can There Be Too Much of a Good Thing?

      Cheaper oil is still creating more winners than losers. Far more people live in oil-importing countries than live in oil-exporting countries. The U.S., for one, remains a net importer. The well-publicized travails of U.S. shale oil producers are small compared with the gains by American consumers and businesses that are paying less for gasoline, diesel, jet fuel, petrochemicals, and the like. With fuel prices down, people are driving more miles and buying more cars and trucks.

  • Finance

    • USA Today Makes Sure Rich Don’t Get Blamed for Middle-Class Stagnation

      The “Nation’s Newspaper” boasts that most of its “editorials are coupled with an opposing view–a unique USA Today feature.” So you’re getting both sides, is the implication–when in fact what you’re more likely to get is perception management, as the Gannett-owned paper makes clear which opinions are to be taking seriously and which are beyond the pale.

      [...]

      That’s a good point, as far as it goes. Where doesn’t it go? For one thing, it doesn’t point out that this is not a problem that started in 1999, but at least 25 years earlier: US median household income has grown only 7 percent since 1973, even as per capita GDP has roughly doubled.

      And where has all that income gone? That phrase “for the non-wealthy” conceals it: While most people have seen little or no income growth over the past four decades, the rich have enjoyed a long-term boom. The top 1 percent of households, for example, have seen their real after-tax income rise by 200 percent since 1979.

    • The Coming War on Pensions

      On the Senate’s last day in session in December, it approved the government’s $1.1 trillion budget for coming fiscal year.

      Few people realize how radical the new U.S. budget law was. Budget laws are supposed to decide simply what to fund and what to cut. A budget is not supposed to make new law, or to rewrite the law. But that is what happened, and it was radical.

      Wall Street’s representatives in Congress – the Democratic leadership as well as Republicans – took the opportunity to create an artificial crisis. The press called this “holding the government hostage.” The House – backed by the Senate – said that it would shut the government down at some future date if two basic laws were not changed.

    • Nobel Laureate Stiglitz Blocked From SEC Panel After Faulting High-Speed Traders

      Joseph Stiglitz, the Nobel laureate economist who called for a tax on high-frequency trading, has been blocked from a government panel that will advise regulators on issues facing U.S. equity markets, according to people familiar with the matter.

      Stiglitz’s rejection shows the partisan infighting that has bogged down Securities and Exchange Commission Chair Mary Jo White’s plan to set up a panel of experts to advise the agency on topics ranging from rapid-fire stock trading to dark pools.

    • Inequality and the American Child

      Children, it has long been recognized, are a special group. They do not choose their parents, let alone the broader conditions into which they are born. They do not have the same abilities as adults to protect or care for themselves. That is why the League of Nations approved the Geneva Declaration on the Rights of the Child in 1924, and why the international community adopted the Convention on the Rights of the Child in 1989.

    • Authoritarianism, Class Warfare and the Advance of Neoliberal Austerity Policies

      Right-wing calls for austerity suggest more than a market-driven desire to punish the poor, working class and middle class by distributing wealth upwards to the 1%. They also point to a politics of disposability in which the social provisions, public spheres and institutions that nourish democratic values and social relations are being dismantled, including public and higher education. Neoliberal austerity policies embody an ideology that produces both zones of abandonment and forms of social and civil death while also infusing society with a culture of increasing hardship. It also makes clear that the weapons of class warfare do not reside only in oppressive modes of state terrorism such as the militarization of the police, but also in policies that inflict misery, immiseration and suffering on the vast majority of the population.

  • PR/AstroTurf/Lobbying

    • Inside Putin’s Information War

      There were more than 20 of us sitting around the long conference table: tanned broadcasters in white silk shirts, politics professors with sweaty beards and heavy breath, ad execs in trainers—and me. There were no women. Everyone was smoking. There was so much smoke it made my skin itch.

    • O’Reilly Hosts Former KKK Leader David Duke To Defend GOP Rep. For Speaking To White Supremacist Group

      Bill O’Reilly interviewed former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke about GOP Rep. Steve Scalise’s address to a white supremacist group in a segment Duke turned into a bizarre defense of his reputation.

      Scalise, who has a leadership position in the GOP as the House Majority Whip, has apologized for speaking to a white supremacist conference in 2002. Conservative media are divided on whether Scalise is a victim of the media, or made a mistake serious enough for him to resign his leadership post.

    • Web Journalist Who Broke Scalise Scandal: “I Knew It Was A Bombshell”

      “It was reassuring to me that this story became national and became international. It just demonstrates that America has very little patience for any politician that would associate with white nationalists and would speak in front of their conference,” he said. “What I was really blown away by was the respect the mainstream media afforded me … I thought that was really, for me as an independent journalist, it was really reassuring.”

  • Censorship

    • With Power of Social Media Growing, Police Now Monitoring and Criminalizing Online Speech

      The following day, Ahmed was arrested and “charged with a racially aggravated public order offense.” The police spokesman explained that “he didn’t make his point very well and that is why he has landed himself in bother.” The state proceeded to prosecute him, and in October of that year, he was convicted “of sending a grossly offensive communication,” fined and sentenced to 240 hours of community service.

    • Writers in “free” countries are chilled by government surveillance, study finds

      So says PEN America, which today released the results of a survey conducted in the fall of 2014, asking writers worldwide how their freedom of expression has been impacted by NSA surveillance. Perhaps most significantly, the survey results show that writers in countries designated “free” by the organization Freedom House are at least as worried—and in some cases, more worried—about government surveillance than writers in “non-free” countries. 75% of respondents from “free” countries told PEN they were “very” or “somewhat” concerned about government surveillance.

    • Writers Say They Feel Censored by Surveillance

      A survey of writers around the world by the PEN American Center has found that a significant majority said they were deeply concerned with government surveillance, with many reporting that they have avoided, or have considered avoiding, controversial topics in their work or in personal communications as a result.

    • Intel closes its Russian developer forums to escape Kremlin censorship

      Intel, the latest American tech firm to fall into the Kremlin’s crosshairs, closed the site and redirected users to its sites hosted outside of Russia, along with third-party forums hosting Intel discussions. The news follows a December decision by the Russian government to block GitHub after developers posted politicized code on the site.

  • Privacy

    • Let’s Encrypt (the Entire Web): 2014 in Review

      Last month we were very pleased to announce our work with Mozilla, the University of Michigan, Cisco, Akamai and IdentTust on Let’s Encrypt, a totally free and automated certificate authority that will be launching in summer 2015. In order to let mainstream browsers seamlessly connect securely to your web site, you need a digital certificate. Next year, we’ll provide you with that certificate at no charge, and, if you choose, our software will install it on your server in less than a minute. We’ve been pursuing the ideas that turned into Let’s Encrypt for three years, so it was a great pleasure to be able to share what we’ve been working on with the world.

    • The NSA’s Funny Numbers, Again

      While it appears NSA managed to give IOB (completely redacted) numbers for the files involved, it appears PCLOB never got a clear count of how many were involved. It’s not clear that NSA ever admitted this data may have gotten mixed in with Stellar Wind data. No one seems to care that this was a double violation, because techs are supposed to destroy data when they’re done with it.

      Though, if you ask me, you should wait to figure out why so many records were lying around a tech server before you destroy them all. But I’m kind of touchy that way.

      One thing I realize is consistent between the internal audit and the IOB report. The NSA, probably the owner of the most powerful computing power in the world, consistently uses the term “glitch” to describe software that doesn’t do what it is designed to to keep people out of data they’re not supposed to have access to.

    • The Government Spent a Lot of Time in Court Defending NSA Spying Last Year: 2014 in Review

      EFF continued litigation in our mass spying cases Jewel v. NSA for several spying methods and First Unitarian Church of Los Angeles v. NSA for the mass telephone records collection. We also joined the legal team in Smith v. Obama when the case went to the Ninth Circuit on appeal, and joined Klayman v. Obama and ACLU v. Clapper as amici. Finally, we sued the Department of Justice for failing to respond to multiple Freedom of Information Act requests.

    • Protesters: The FBI is probably spying on your phone, and no, they didn’t get a warrant for that

      The FBI assures lawmakers that they obtain warrants to use controversial cell-site simulators, otherwise known as stingrays—except when they don’t, which is pretty much always, according to information obtained by Senators Leahy and Grassley.

    • Months later, key details about StingRay non-disclosures yet to be disclosed

      It’s been months since we learned of the seemingly compulsory non-disclosure agreement that the FBI hands police eager to use cell phone tracking equipment. But we still know precious little about which departments nationwide aren’t allowed to tell us what about their StingRays.

    • Writers in ‘Free’ Countries Now Share Surveillance Concerns With ‘Not-Free’ Brethren

      Writers living in liberal democracies are now nearly as worried about the government watching them as their colleagues in countries that have long histories of internal spying, according to an international survey conducted by PEN, a literary and human rights organization.

      Brave writers have historically stood up to even the gravest threats from authoritarian regimes. Conversely, there have always been some who willingly censor themselves.

    • FBI says search warrants not needed to use “stingrays” in public places

      The Federal Bureau of Investigation is taking the position that court warrants are not required when deploying cell-site simulators in public places. Nicknamed “stingrays,” the devices are decoy cell towers that capture locations and identities of mobile phone users and can intercept calls and texts.

      The FBI made its position known during private briefings with staff members of Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) and Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa). In response, the two lawmakers wrote Attorney General Eric Holder and Homeland Security chief Jeh Johnson, maintaining they were “concerned about whether the FBI and other law enforcement agencies have adequately considered the privacy interests” of Americans.

    • How Britain Exported Next-Generation Surveillance

      IT WAS A COOL, QUIET MONDAY EVENING in northeast England when the computer first told them about Peter Chapman. The clock read a little after five, and two officers from Cleveland police were cruising in their patrol car. A screen lit up next to them: the on-board computer was flashing an alert from the local police network. The message told them the target was a blue Ford Mondeo and gave them its registration number.

      It was only a few minutes before they came across the car and pulled it over with a sounding of their siren. Inside was Chapman, a 33-year-old convict wanted for questioning in connection with a string of offences, including arson and theft. The officers verified his identity and took him to a station just a few miles away.

      At 5:07 p.m. on October 26, 2009, just 20 minutes before he was arrested, Chapman had driven past an Automatic Number Plate Recognition (ANPR) camera stationed next to the road. As his car passed, the camera recorded its registration number, together with the time and location, and sent the information to Cleveland Police’s internal computer network, where it was checked against a hotlist downloaded from Britain’s central police database.

    • Total online privacy

      Protect your privacy and your personal information from advertisers, doxxers and anyone you may feel threatened by

    • Privacy Not Included

      So, to help you navigate your way round this privacy jungle, we have created a simple 10 step guide to the little things you can do to help you stay safe and private. After all there’s no need to spoil a beautiful tech friendship before it’s even begun.

    • New Threat to Openness in the EU: Trade Secrets Directive

      Putting all that together, and it’s hard not to see these moves as part of a concerted, global action to make the protection of trade secrets much stronger, and to create new “rights” for companies, which can be used against openness in all its forms. That’s worrying, and swims against the prevailing historical current for more, not less, openness. We must resist it wherever it appears, lest it starts to roll back some of the hard-won gains of recent years – not just for areas like open data and open science, but even for open source itself.

    • Global Moves To Give Corporations Yet More Legal Weapons By Strengthening Laws Protecting Trade Secrets

      Techdirt often discusses the problems with intellectual monopolies such as copyrights, patents and trademarks. These grant powers to exclude others from using something — creative works, inventions, words and phrases. Increasingly, they create dense thickets of obligatory permissions that make it hard or even impossible for others to build on pre-existing work. That may serve the purposes of the monopolist, but is frequently to the detriment of society. Despite the fact that the enforcement options available to holders of such intellectual monopolies have been repeatedly and disproportionately strengthened in recent years, it seems that too much is never enough: there is now a move to boost another kind of monopoly right, that of trade secrets.

    • EFF: Law enforcement ‘desperately’ trying to hide use of surveillance cell towers

      Law enforcement organizations around the country are desperate to keep the public unaware of the use of Stringrays, a surveillance technology that secretly monitors cell phones, even as courts and lawmakers are starting to fight back.

      That’s the conclusion of the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), which tallied up a year’s worth of public records requests by American media organizations, as well as court and legislative actions, related to the government’s use of the technology, also known as IMSI catchers.

    • Of Course 23andMe’s Plan Has Been to Sell Your Genetic Data All Along

      Today, 23andMe announced what Forbes reports is only the first of ten deals with big biotech companies: Genentech will pay up to $60 million for access to 23andMe’s data to study Parkinson’s. You think 23andMe was about selling fun DNA spit tests for $99 a pop? Nope, it’s been about selling your data all along.

      Since 23andMe started in 2006, it’s convinced 800,000 customers to hand over their DNA, one vial of spit at a time. Personal DNA reports are the consumer-facing side of the business, and that’s the one we’re most familiar with. It all seems friendly and fun with a candy-colored logo and quirky reports that include the genetic variant for asparagus pee.

    • Court Asked Why There’s No Expectation Of Privacy In Cell Location Data, But An Expectation Of Privacy In The Cellphone Itself

      The government continues to argue that the Third Party Doctrine trumps the Fourth Amendment. Almost any “business record” created intentionally or inadvertently can be had by the government without a warrant. Even if the citizen in question has no ability to control what’s collected by third parties (without forgoing the service entirely) or is completely unaware that it’s happening, the government claims records of this type have no expectation of privacy.

  • Civil Rights

    • White Man Publishes Book! USA Today Mistakes This for News

      A collection of short stories published by entertainment lawyer Kevin Morris makes the front page of USA Today’s Money section (1/4/15). Why? The startling thing about the book, according to USA Today media writer Michael Wolff, is that it deals with “one of the least-popular media subjects, middle-aged white men.”

      Yes, “White Men Have Stories to Tell, Too,” as the headline of Wolff’s column declares.

      You might think that if you wrote about media for a living, you would notice that publishers mostly publish, and newspapers mostly review, books written by white men.

    • Senator Dianne Feinstein Proposes Legislation to Make Torture Extra Illegal

      There are already laws on the books in the US that prohibit the use of torture. But after the Senate Intelligence Committee released a summary last month of its 6,700-page torture report that revealed the CIA subjected some detainees it captured after 9/11 to “rectal rehydration” and “ice water baths,” the outgoing Democratic chairwoman of the committee said she will introduce legislation and call for a series of executive actions to ensure the US government never does it again.

    • Feinstein, after release of CIA report, urges measures to ban ‘abusive’ interrogations

      The top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee said she will seek to make “abusive” interrogation measures illegal and ban the CIA from holding prisoners under a series of measures shaped by the findings of a report released last month on the agency’s treatment of detainees after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

    • The Path to Closing Guantánamo

      The reasons for closing Guantánamo are more compelling than ever. As a high-ranking security official from one of our staunchest allies on counterterrorism (not from Europe) once told me, “The greatest single action the United States can take to fight terrorism is to close Guantánamo.” I have seen firsthand the way in which Guantánamo frays and damages vitally important security relationships with countries around the world. The eye-popping cost — around $3 million per detainee last year, compared with roughly $75,000 at a “supermax” prison in the United States — drains vital resources.

    • Let’s All Do Something Useful Today: Write to Manning and Kiriakou

      Prison sucks. Being in prison because you blew the whistle on our government sucks harder. Getting a letter makes it suck less.

      So if you want to do something good today, write a short letter to one of these guys. It need not be anything more than good wishes, or just introducing yourself as a supporter (if you can’t say anything nice, go post your bile somewhere else).

    • From Drone Strikes to Black Sites, How U.S. Foreign Policy Runs Under a Cloak of Secrecy

      At least nine Pakistanis were killed Sunday in a U.S. drone strike in North Waziristan, the first reported drone strike of 2015. News accounts of the strike are based on unnamed Pakistani government and security officials. The Obama administration has said nothing so far. For years, the United States did not even publicly acknowledge the existence of the drone strikes. The drone program is just one example of the national security state’s reliance on secret operations. The recent Senate Intelligence Committee report revealed another example: the shadowy network of overseas CIA black sites where the United States held and tortured prisoners. The report also noted the CIA shrouded itself in a cloak of secrecy keeping policymakers largely in the dark about the brutality of its detainee interrogations. The agency reportedly deceived the White House, the National Security Council, the Justice Department and Congress about the efficacy of its controversial interrogation techniques. We are joined by a guest who has closely followed the debate over national security and secrecy: Scott Horton, a human rights attorney and contributing editor at Harper’s Magazine, whose new book is “Lords of Secrecy: The National Security Elite and America’s Stealth Foreign Policy.”

    • In Defense of a CIA Whistleblower

      The trial of former CIA officer Jeffrey Sterling, set to begin in mid-January, is shaping up as a major battle in the U.S. government’s siege against whistleblowing. With its use of the Espionage Act to intimidate and prosecute people for leaks in “national security” realms, the Obama administration is determined to keep hiding important facts that the public has a vital right to know.

      After fleeting coverage of Sterling’s indictment four years ago, news media have done little to illuminate his case – while occasionally reporting on the refusal of New York Times reporter James Risen to testify about whether Sterling was a source for his 2006 book State of War.

    • NYT Reporter Questioned at Hearing in CIA Leak Case

      It is not entirely clear how Risen’s stance affects the government’s case. The government possesses email and phone records that show extensive contact between Sterling and Risen. U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema has previously suggested the government could rely on those records to establish what it needs without compelling Risen’s testimony.

    • Times Reporter Says He Won’t Testify as CIA Leak Trial Looms

      According to government lawyers, Holder authorized prosecutors to seek Risen’s testimony on three topics: that he has an unbreakable confidentiality agreement with his source for the ninth chapter of his book, that he wrote the chapter and two newspaper articles based on information from the source and that he previously had a non-confidential reporter-source relationship with Sterling.

    • Defiant on Witness Stand, Times Reporter Says Little

      After losing a seven-year legal battle, James Risen, a reporter for The New York Times, reluctantly took the witness stand in federal court here on Monday, but refused to answer any questions that could help the Justice Department identify his confidential sources.

      Mr. Risen said he would not say anything to help prosecutors bolster their case against Jeffrey A. Sterling, a former C.I.A. officer who is set to go on trial soon on charges of providing classified information to Mr. Risen for his 2006 book, “State of War.”

      [...]

      Judge Brinkema did not indicate how she would respond to such a request, and she said little during Mr. Risen’s testimony. She stepped in, however, when Mr. Risen posed questions of Mr. MacMahon and later Mr. Trump.

      “It doesn’t work that way,” Judge Brinkema said. “You can’t ask him questions. That’s the reporter in you.”

      Mr. Sterling’s trial is scheduled to begin next Monday. Prosecutors gave no indication in court whether, in light of Mr. Risen’s testimony Monday, they planned to call him as a witness.

    • NYT’s James Risen pushes back in hearing on leaks

      The Obama administration’s plan to defuse a First Amendment showdown with a New York Times reporter over his confidential sources was nearly derailed at a court hearing Monday when the journalist rebuffed a series of questions concerning his reporting.

      But he eventually agreed to answer some of the queries, allowing the at-times tense session to get back on track and avoiding for now a major confrontation over press freedom.

    • During Pretrial Hearing, Journalist James Risen Refuses to Help US Government with Leak Case

      New York Times journalist James Risen testified in a federal courtroom in Alexandria, Virginia, during a pretrial hearing in a leak case against former CIA officer Jeffrey Sterling. The hearing was held so US District Court Judge Leonie Brinkema could determine what questions Risen would have to answer at trial as a subpoenaed witness.

      The former CIA officer is alleged to have given information to Risen on a classified program that the government claims was “intended to impede Iran’s efforts to acquire or develop nuclear weapons,” which Risen later published in his book, State of War. He is charged with committing ten felonies, seven of which fall under the Espionage Act. A trial is currently scheduled to begin in the middle of this month.

    • Risen Testifies at Sterling Pre-Trial Hearing

      James Risen sat alone in the far corner of the expansive hallway outside the courtroom. It was a fitting beginning for a day in which he seemed alone, even apart from his lawyers.

      [...]

      However, Risen had made clear before — and repeated today — that he would not reveal who his confidential source or sources were, and in the end no one actually asked that question.

    • Special Prostitution Courts and the Myth of ‘Rescuing’ Sex Workers

      Police took special advantage of sex workers with addiction issues. “If you’re one of those girls who’s begging, crying, and doesn’t want to go to jail,” Love told me, some officers will offer freedom in exchange for sex. But it’s always, said Love, “a deal with the Devil.” Afterward, cops will keep shaking you down—for information, easy arrests, or more sex.

      What would otherwise be called rape at gunpoint is, because the victims are sex workers, given the euphemism “sexual favors.”

    • Antonin Scalia: Torture’s Not Torture Unless He Says It Is

      Perhaps, as Justice Scalia told a Swiss university audience earlier this month, it is indeed “very facile” for Americans to declare that “torture is terrible.” The justice posited to his listeners a classic ticking-time-bomb scenario—this one involving “a person that you know for sure knows the location of a nuclear bomb that has been planted in Los Angeles and will kill millions of people”—and asked, “You think it’s clear that you cannot use extreme measures to get that information out of that person?” Now, I didn’t see that episode of 24, but I have read my Bill of Rights, and I’m far more inclined to align myself here with James Madison than with Jack Bauer—or with Antonin Scalia.

    • Exclusive: CIA says its inspector general is resigning at end of month

      The agency said in a statement that Buckley, who has served as the agency’s internal watchdog for more than four years, was leaving the agency to “pursue an opportunity in the private sector.”

    • No Impunity for Torturers [Updated]

      In a post called “The Torture Report is Only the First Step,” Harold Koh observed on Friday that the Senate Intelligence Committee’s account of the CIA’s interrogation and detention program should be “more than enough to reopen investigations at the Justice Department to see whether prosecutions are warranted.” Ken Roth, who leads Human Rights Watch, made the same point in a piece published by the Washington Post over the weekend.

    • Shifting Politics on the Death Penalty

      In January 1992, Bill Clinton, then the governor of Arkansas, left the presidential campaign trail to fly home for the execution of a man named Ricky Ray Rector. Mr. Clinton’s decision not to grant clemency to Mr. Rector, who had been sentenced to death for killing a police officer, was widely seen as an attempt to fend off the familiar charge that Democrats were soft on crime.

      On Dec. 31, Gov. Martin O’Malley of Maryland, whose name has been mentioned among potential 2016 Democratic presidential candidates, commuted the sentences of the last four inmates on the state’s death row.

      Maryland abolished the death penalty in 2013, but only for new sentences. In resentencing the condemned men to life without parole, Mr. O’Malley said that leaving their death sentences in place would “not serve the public good of the people of Maryland — present or future.”

    • Has the US Constitution Been Lost to Military Rule?

      Furthermore, according to Delahunty and Yoo, terrorists operate within the continental United States and “conceal themselves within the domestic society and economy,” which makes it difficult to identify them. By this logic, everyone is now “suspect.” Furthermore, they wrote, 9/11 created a situation “in which the battlefield has occurred, and may occur, at dispersed locations and intervals within the American homeland itself. As a result, efforts to fight terrorism may require not only the usual wartime regulations of domestic affairs, but also military actions that have normally occurred abroad.”

    • It’s time to abolish the CIA

      The CIA should be abolished.

      After a trial run of 67 years, the agency has proven a sorcerer’s apprentice. The director and his subordinates have became insufferably arrogant Platonic Guardians hiding behind secrecy in the belief that the rest of us are too stupid or naive to judge what risks to accept to preserve liberty and the rule of law. The CIA has made Americans less safe.

      Its incorrigible anti-democratic ethos was epitomized by legendary chief of counterintelligence James J. Angleton. He voiced contempt for the Church Committee’s investigation of chronic agency abuses, i.e., the “Family Jewels.” As reported in The New York Times, Angleton likened the CIA to a medieval city occupied by an invading army, i.e., the Congress of the United States. To the same effect, Director William J. Casey told Church Committee investigator Loch K. Johnson that the congressional role was to “stay the [expletive] out of my business.”

    • BAE Releases Social Media, Open Source Analysis Tool to Stop Data Leaks
    • Unarmed Montana Man Told to Raise Hands Before Officer Fired

      An unarmed man killed by a Montana police officer during a traffic stop was told repeatedly to raise his hands before the officer shot him three times, according to video footage shown Tuesday during an inquest into the shooting.

    • Let’s abolish West Point: Military academies serve no one, squander millions of tax dollars

      Many pundits have suggested that the Republicans’ midterm gains were fueled by discontent not merely with the president or with the (improving) state of the economy, but with government in general and the need to fund its programs with taxes. Indeed, the Republican Party of recent decades, inspired by Ronald Reagan’s exhortation to “starve the [government] beast,” has been anti-tax and anti-government. Government programs, as many of their thinkers note, primarily exist to perpetuate their own existence. At the very least, they have to justify that existence.

  • DRM

    • Kindle sales have ‘disappeared’, says UK’s largest book retailer

      Waterstones has admitted that sales of Amazon’s Kindle e-book reader had “disappeared” after seeing higher demand for physical books.

      The UK’s largest book retailing chain, which teamed up with Amazon in 2012 to sell the Kindle in its stores, saw sales of physical books rise 5pc in December, at the expense of the popular e-reader.

      Kindle sales had “disappeared to all intents and purposes”, Waterstones said.

  • Intellectual Monopolies

    • Cornish pasty ‘threatened by EU-US trade deal’

      German agriculture minister warns that laws protecting regional foods – such as Germany’s Black Forest Ham – may be at risk under a transatlantic trade agreement

    • Copyrights

      • Arrr: The only Pirate in European Parliament to weigh in on copyright

        As speculation and arguments mount over proposed EU copyright legislation, the Pirate Party MEP will publish her report on the matter on 19 January.

        Julia Reda, currently the only Pirate in the European Parliament, has been made “rapporteur” on the implementation of the previous directive on the so-called 2001 Infosoc Directive.

        Collecting societies, publishers and artists have likened this to putting the wolf in charge of the sheep. If we accept the analogy, it’s probably a lot like asking the wolf’s opinion on how the shepherd has been doing and then taking that into account when telling the shepherd what to do next.

      • Pirate Party: ‘We are literally rewriting EU copyright law’

        Pirate Party MEP Julia Reda is leading the revision of the EU’s Copyright Directive — a significant milestone for the self-described internet-freedom movement.

      • All Of These Works Should Be In The Public Domain, But Aren’t

        Every year for the past few years, the good folks at Duke’s Center for the Study of the Public Domain have put up a list of works that should have gone into the public domain on January 1st had Congress not massively expanded the law. Each year, it’s a depressing look at what works should be in the public domain. As a reminder, when these works were created, the creators knew the terms under which they were created and knew that they would have gone into the public domain by now — and they found that to be more than enough incentive to create those works. Given that, it makes absolutely no sense that these works are not in the public domain. The latest list has many, many examples of classic works that should be in the public domain.

01.06.15

Links 6/1/2015: Linux 3.19 RC3, Plasma 5.2 Beta Imminent

Posted in News Roundup at 6:43 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

GNOME bluefish

Contents

GNU/Linux

  • Linux Users Are Going Crazy About Circle Icons, Might Become a Regular Thing

    Linux systems are evolving all the time and the users are always looking for ways to enhance their experience. Right now, the trend indicates that more and more desktops are being adorned with circle icons.

  • Developer Issues Bogus Takedowns Against Cup Of Linux YouTube Channel In Retaliation For Being Banned For Abusive Behavior

    The backstory: the Cup of Linux YouTube channel handles all things Linux, including coverage of distributions and how-to guides for new users. One Linux developer, Antoni Norman, is the main force behind the Pinguy OS Linux/Ubuntu hybrid. Over the years, he’s been a valuable contributor to the Linux community, including the one centered around Cup of Linux. Also, over the years, Shawn Patrick Ryan (“Spatry”) has covered Pinguy OS releases in a number of YouTube videos. So far, so good.

  • Desktop

    • Idea – A Novice Approach To Linux On The Laptop

      So if you have a slow XP computer. You can turn off the internet to Windows for safety and run your attachable Linux device on your laptop.

      Here you have a safe way to upgrade your laptop system and an easy way to run Linux on your laptop. Just attach a USB stick.

  • Kernel Space

  • Applications

  • Desktop Environments/WMs

    • K Desktop Environment/KDE SC/Qt

      • KDE Plasma 5.2 Beta Is Being Tagged This Week

        The beta for the upcoming Plasma 5.2 desktop shell is being tagged on Thursday.

        Plasma 5.2 Beta is being tagged on Thursday so this is the last chance for merging any features or artwork ahead of this quarterly update to Plasma 5. As long as the tagging is done on Thursday, KDE Plasma 5.2 Beta (v5.195) should be officially released on 13 January. The plan is to then tag the official 5.2.0 release on 22 January and to officially release Plasma 5.2 on 27 January, per the Plasma 5 schedule.

      • A Guide for Krita Users

        One of our long-standing contributors, Timothée Giet, is working on some new training material as part of his work teaching Krita at Activ Design!

      • Plasma 5.2 Beta Coming

        The Plamsa 5.2 beta will be tagged on Thursday this week. If you have any pending features or changes that are going to affect artwork or strings that should be in the release please make sure they get merged ASAP.

      • [Krita] Cumulative Undo/Redo :More than one stroke at a time

        The last feature I did for Krita was to implement a Cumulative Undo/Redo feature. Since its been almost 3 months since my last contribution to Krita — I thought this was the one of the very first things I had to do from a rather clogged pipeline.

      • [Krita] Project Activity in Bug Reports

        Sven Langkamp recently mentiond that Krita had crept up to second place in the list of projects with most new bugs opened in bugzilla in a year. So I decided play around a litte, while Krita is building.

        Bugzilla has a nice little report that can show the top X projects with open bugs for certain periods. Krita never is in the default top 20, because other KDE projects always have more open bugs. But let’s take the top 100 of KDE projects with open bugs sort the data a bit and then make top 10 lists from the other columns.

    • GNOvktop/GTK

      • Linus Torvalds Says GNOME Terminal on Fedora 21 Is Using “Emo” Mode

        Linus Torvalds is not one to shy away from saying what he thinks and he apparently doesn’t have a too good opinion on what the terminal app looks like by default in the latest Fedora 21.

      • GNOME gets Foursquare integration

        If you were reading my GSoC 2014 reports, you surely remember that I was working on integrating GNOME Maps with social networks, so you can share the place you are in Facebook and Foursquare (and Twitter if you enable an option in Maps!). This surely is not going to be an everyday feature, but I learned a lot during its development (and during the whole GSoC).

  • Distributions

    • ZevenOS 6.0 “Goodbye Edition” Is the Last One for a Long Time

      ZevenOS, a Linux operating system with software optimized for slower computers and with elements of BeOS based on Xubuntu, has just reached version 6.0.

    • Hel-lo Makulu and Goodbye Zeven

      Today in Linux news, ZevenOS has decided to rest on Ubuntu’s laurels. Jamie Watson says Makulu 7 Xfce is the most beautiful distro he’s ever seen and Dedoimedo says Elementary 0.3 is “purrty.” The Korora project released version 21 Beta and Derrik Diener highlights the top five Arch derivatives. And finally today, we have a year-end Linux recap and another Linus quote is ruffling feathers.

    • Linux in 2015: Distros on Tap

      2014 was a unique year for Linux in that Red Hat, SUSE and Ubuntu all had Enterprise (or Long Term Support/LTS releases as Ubuntu refers to them) releases. There will be no major enterprise Linux platform milestones in 2015, but there will be plenty of updates for enterprise and community Linux.

    • Big Year for Enterprise Linux Distros Includes Major Updates

      Particularly strong for enterprise Linux, 2014 offered a rare confluence of release timing calendars. The three major enterprise Linux vendors delivered milestone updates in 2014. On April 17, Ubuntu 14.04, code-named Trusty Tahr, was released as a long-term support (LTS) version of Ubuntu. (Ubuntu issues new LTS releases every two years; each LTS has up to five years of support.) Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 (RHEL) came out June 10, marking the first major RHEL update for Red Hat since 2010. Red Hat supports its enterprise releases for 10 years. On Oct. 27, SUSE Linux Enterprise 12 was released, marking the first major update to SUSE’s flagship enterprise Linux platform since 2009. Big enterprise Linux releases were not the only updates during the year, Red Hat’s Fedora community Linux distribution delivered Fedora 21 Dec. 9, providing server-, cloud- and workstation-focused editions. Ubuntu 14.10, code-named the Utopic Unicorn, which debuted Oct. 23, provides new big data capabilities. Also out in 2014, Tails (The Amnesic Incognito Live System) 1.0 Linux distribution provides a new privacy-focused OS choice. In this slide show, eWEEK looks back at key Linux events of 2014.

    • The building blocks of a distribution with Linux from Scratch

      There is a very, very large number of Linux distributions. Each distribution is built using the same basic building blocks but the end results are always different. The choices made by the distribution developers turn the building blocks into finished structures designed to meet a variety of needs—desktop, server, or some other specialized usage.

    • NixOS and Stateless Deployment

      If I had my way, I would never deploy or administer a linux server that isn’t running NixOS.

      I’m not exactly a prolific sysadmin – in my time, I’ve set up and administered servers numbering in the low tens. And yet every single time, it’s awful.

    • Reviews

      • elementary OS 0.3 Freya beta review

        This happens to be one of them distros what mystifies me, good and bad. On one hand, it seems to be very popular, if you look at the Distrowatch rank listing, or consult my best distro of the year vote readers’ choice section, where a rather handsome portion of the audience chose elementary as their favorite spin. It’s only officially at version 0.2, the last stable release was unleashed unto the nerdy crowds some 16 months back, and the latest beta is still only at version 0.3, and taking its time.

        Neither the first nor the second dot oh something release managed to impress me. The desktop environment was pretty and cool, but the overall composition was quite buggy. And this brings me to the other hand of the argument. I kind of want to review it again, despite all of the above. Testing 0.3 Freya, beta. Here we go.

    • New Releases

    • Screenshots

    • PCLinuxOS/Mageia/Mandriva Family

      • PCLinuxOS 2014.12 MATE screenshot tour

        PCLinuxOS 2014.12 has been released, so it’s time for another screenshot tour. I toyed with the idea of doing a full review on Desktop Linux Reviews, but the next release of PCLinuxOS should have some major changes so I’m holding off until that is available to review. In the meantime, you can get a good look at PCLinuxOS 2014.12 MATE in the screenshots below.

    • Arch Family

      • Manjaro 0.8.11 Gets Its Fourth Update Pack and All the Latest Kernels

        Manjaro 0.8.11 was made available only a month ago and its makers have already released four upgrade packs. Even if this seems like they have a lot to fix, that’s not actually true. In fact, these packs bring some important upgrades for a number of important components, like the Linux kernel for example.

      • Top 5 Arch Linux Derivatives

        Arch Linux is very unique. Unlike most Linux distributions, it does not have an official live disc. When you boot it up, you’ll be greeted with a terminal. For some people this is fine. In fact, they prefer it. Arch gives you the freedom to sit down and make a Linux install yourself, one that you’ve made with your own two hands. It’s a good time, and that’s great, if you like that sort of thing.

    • Red Hat Family

      • Red Hat’s OpenStack Tech Leadership Discusses Cloud Direction

        Red Hat has multiple products within its Infrastructure division, including the CloudForms management solution and the OpenShift Platform-as-a-Service product. McLoughlin noted that OpenStack is a key part of a broader portfolio but still stands on its own as well.

        “You can build a cloud with the individual projects, but if you build a cloud with the entire portfolio, you get a whole lot more value out of it,” McLoughlin said.

        In terms of the continued development and expansion of OpenStack services, there are a number of new capabilities that are underway, including the Manila shared filed system service. Work is also ongoing for the Zaqar messaging service.

    • Debian Family

      • Derivatives

        • Canonical/Ubuntu

          • Google Cloud offers streamlined Ubuntu for Docker use
          • Ubuntu Touch Is 2014′s Most Important Linux Distro

            2014 has been a very interesting year with a ton of major releases, but one in particular really stands out, Ubuntu Touch. It’s not yet available in stores and it’s not “really” ready, but it’s the one that registered the most progress.

          • NVIDIA CEO Using Ubuntu for Presentations at CES 2015 – Video

            The CES 2015 conference is in full swing and most of the bigger companies have already made their announcements, including NVIDIA. Some of their presentations have been done using an Ubuntu system, as you can see in the video below.

          • Ubuntu Make 0.4 Released With Go Support, New Game Category

            Ubuntu Make, formerly known as Ubuntu Developer Tools Center, has been updated to version 0.4, bringing Go support as well as a new game category.

            For those not familiar with Ubuntu Make, this is a command line tool created by Canonical, which allows developers to install various development tools / IDEs. Initially, the tool targeted Android developers, making it easy to install Android Studio in Ubuntu. Later, Ubuntu Make also got support for Pycharm, Eclipse and intellij IDEA.

          • Flavours and Variants

            • Pearl Linux 1.5 Is a Pear OS Clone and Now It Has a 64-bit Version

              Pearl Linux was released a couple of months ago as a natural successor of the much more famous Pear OS, which disappeared mysteriously. Now, the 64-bit edition has been released as well.

            • elementary OS 0.3 Freya beta review

              This happens to be one of them distros what mystifies me, good and bad. On one hand, it seems to be very popular, if you look at the Distrowatch rank listing, or consult my best distro of the year vote readers’ choice section, where a rather handsome portion of the audience chose elementary as their favorite spin. It’s only officially at version 0.2, the last stable release was unleashed unto the nerdy crowds some 16 months back, and the latest beta is still only at version 0.3, and taking its time.

              Neither the first nor the second dot oh something release managed to impress me. The desktop environment was pretty and cool, but the overall composition was quite buggy. And this brings me to the other hand of the argument. I kind of want to review it again, despite all of the above. Testing 0.3 Freya, beta. Here we go.

  • Devices/Embedded

Free Software/Open Source

  • A World of Possibilities for Open Source

    Ten years ago we started with the (immodest?) goal of bringing open source to enterprise software. Today, there are even greater opportunities for open source — not just in software, but as a fundamental force for positive change in the world.

  • Unlock the code, release the future

    Open Source is a key framework to enable the prolonged development and delivery of ARTIST tools to help companies transition to modern platforms, like the cloud. We support businesses on this journey from the start, in assessment and reducing risk, to implementation and reducing cost. ARTIST tools are developed following open standards and in many cases reusing existing open source components. Therefore, all project results are delivered under an open source license, with the exception of a few consultancy tools whose source code is not provided, but which are nonetheless free to use. Links to the source code, licensing information, supporting documentation and demonstration videos are included for each entry.

  • Web Browsers

    • Chrome

      • Why Google Chrome Switched To The Clang Compiler On Linux

        The two main reasons for switching over to Clang as the default Linux compiler for Chrome came down to many Chromium developers already were using Clang on Linux and they wanted to use modern C++ features in Chromium. Google found it easier on Linux systems to switch to Clang for tapping newer C++ features rather than upgrading GCC on their systems from GCC 4.6 to GCC 4.8~4.9.

    • Mozilla

  • SaaS/Big Data

    • Citrix, Apache and Others Still Committed to CloudStack

      In case you were wondering about recent reports of the demise of CloudStack, the folks at Citrix are remaining adamant that the cloud computing platform is healthy and in use at lots of notable organizations. In fact, at the recent CloudStack Collaboration Conference in Budapest, Autodesk, China Telecom, Dell, Walt Disney, and Huawei were all reported among active users of the platform.

  • Databases

  • Funding

    • Blue Box Gets $4 Million in Private Cloud Funding, Mystery Investor

      Blue Box, which offers private cloud services based on OpenStack to big companies including Viacom has just announced a new round of $4 million in funding on top of the $10 million the company raised late last year. And, as Silicon Angle notes, some of the funding comes from an unnamed telco: “The latest $4 million leg saw an unnamed US telco come aboard as the second strategic investor in the startup, triggering speculation about which carrier would throw its weight behind an OpenStack hosting provider.”

    • Mystery telco leads $14M round for OpenStack hosting provider Blue Box

      Private cloud hosting provider Blue Box Inc. has completed its second financing round three months after securing the first infusion to bump its net funding past the $33 million mark. The latest $4 million leg saw an unnamed US telco come aboard as the second strategic investor in the startup, triggering speculation about which carrier would throw its weight behind an OpenStack hosting provider.

  • FSF/FSFE/GNU/SFLC

  • Public Services/Government

    • Quebec government writes 3 open source licences

      The government of the Canadian province of Quebec is finalising three open source licences to make it easier for provincial public administrations to share software solutions. The licences should be available in the coming weeks.

  • Licensing

    • An open source mantra: Avoid “no derivatives”

      Bill Fitzgerald runs FunnyMonkey to help educators and students improve accessibility to educational materials. He is an educator, open source developer, and entrepreneur, and I was able to speak with him recently about his work and why it matters. And most importantly, how open source methodology makes all the difference.

      Bill grew up in Connecticut and attended Boston College where he completed undergraduate studies before enrolling at the University of San Francisco where he earned a masters degree in writing. He then taught English and history at public and private schools. And he’s been both a school administrator and a technology director. What you can tell from talking to Bill is that he loves education.

  • Openness/Sharing

  • Standards/Consortia

    • C++ Filesystem Technical Specification Approved

      ISO TS 18822 is based on the Boost file-system library for offering common functions to perform on file-systems. There’s various functions relating to the reading and manipulation of paths, files, and directories.

Leftovers

  • Health/Nutrition

    • GOP Congress’ First Priority: Yanking Health Insurance From 1.5 Million Americans

      One of the first things House Republicans plan to do after Congress reconvenes Tuesday is vote on a bill that would gut Obamacare—and could deprive up to 1.5 million Americans of their employer-sponsored health insurance. After the GOP-controlled House passes the bill, the newly Republican Senate is likely to pass the measure too. What’s more, President Barack Obama may be forced to sign this legislation if it is attached to a must-pass budget bill later this year.

  • Security

  • Finance

  • Privacy

    • Facebook splashes out on voice recognition company Wit.ai

      THE SOCIAL NETWORK Facebook has invested in another company, adding a voice recognition software outfit called Wit.ai to its roster.

      No financial details have been revealed, but there is a good chunk of gushing, glowing comment from Wit.ai.

      We learn that Wit.ai does a good thing, has a number of happy users, and expects to carry on doing what it is doing even when under the wing of Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg.

    • The Tale of the Privacy Pink Panther

      Last Friday, on my way home from 31c3, a funny thing happened on my way through Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris: I was required by a security agent to not only power up, but also type in my password to unlock my laptop in order to board my flight.

      One tweet, and about 12 hours of no Wi-Fi later, I landed to find that a lot of people interested in privacy and security had questions about the details of my adventure, so here it is.

      First of all, HackerOne employees don’t ever have access to our customers’ vulnerability reports, therefore there are no exploits stored on my devices, so no customer data was at risk. For more about how we protect vulnerability data, see our own bounty and security page.

  • Civil Rights

    • How Low Income New Yorkers Are Benefiting From The NYPD’s Work Stoppage

      In response to growing tensions between the New York Police Department and the city, police unions encouraged officers last week to not make arrests “unless absolutely necessary,” resulting in a 66 percent drop from the same period last year. While the protests have drawn scrutiny for “squandering the department’s credibility” and leaving the city’s streets virtually unattended, they have also had the unintended effect of benefitting New York’s low income residents who are usually the target of the city’s tough-on-crime practices.

    • Who Should Investigate Police Abuse?

      To date, one serious proposal for reform has emerged. On December 8th, Eric Schneiderman, the Attorney General of New York, proposed that Governor Andrew Cuomo name him, Schneiderman, as an independent special prosecutor to investigate and, if appropriate, prosecute police officers in any situation where they cause the death of a civilian. As Schneiderman noted in his letter to the governor, the proposal seeks to address a real problem. When local district attorneys investigate local police officers, there is an inherent conflict of interest. In virtually all usual circumstances, police and prosecutors are partners, working together to build cases against defendants. This is especially true in a place like Staten Island, where the elected district attorney, Dan Donovan, both works closely with the police and answers to many of them as his constituents. As Schneinderman noted, on the rare occasions when prosecutors investigate the police, even when all parties act with the best of intentions, “the question is whether there is public confidence that justice has been served, especially in cases where homicide or other serious charges against the accused officer are not pursued or are dismissed prior to a jury trial.” Cases, in other words, like those of the officers who killed Brown and Garner. (Cuomo has hedged in response to Schneiderman’s idea, saying that he wants to weigh a full package of reforms.)

      [...]

      Schneiderman’s idea has considerable appeal; his judgment in the Eric Garner case would surely have had more credibility than the one rendered by Donovan. Still, special prosecutors are not necessarily good or bad. Like the locals they replace, they are only as good as the cases they bring, or refrain from bringing. That, ultimately, will rest on the good judgment of the individuals involved, and no one has yet figured out a way of putting the right person in place all the time.

    • Summing Up White Supremacist Ties as ‘Saying Nice Things About an Old Man’

      In December 1998, Lott denied any personal knowledge of the CCC, falsely claiming through a spokesperson that his links to the group amounted to a single speech made over a decade before he’d entered the Senate. In 1992, Sen. Lott praised the CCC as keynote speaker at its national convention; in 1997, he met with top CCC leaders in his Senate office; his column appeared throughout the 1990s in the group’s newsletter, which once published a cheerful photo of Lott and CCC members who were also his close relatives. Lott was also the guest of honor at a 1982 banquet hosted by a Mississippi chapter of the old white Citizens Councils (Extra!, 3-4/99).

  • Internet/Net Neutrality

    • Internet Freedom Expected to Further Decline in 2015

      According to a study from Freedom House, the decline of internet freedom kicked into high-gear in 2014 and is expected to suffer further this year because of opinions derived from 65 nations who have access to the World Wide Web.

    • Republicans will push hard to derail net neutrality in Congress

      The Federal Communications Commission is planning to vote on new network neutrality rules in February, and one of the viable options on the table is re-classifying broadband internet as a type of public utility, like telephone companies. President Obama openly supports that plan, and congressional Republicans are signaling that they will do everything in their power to thwart the FCC if it goes this route, The Wall Street Journal reports.

    • More Than the Internet: Net Neutrality Vote Will Determine Whether Americans Are Citizens First or Consumers First

      The debate on the upcoming net neutrality vote should first address the overarching issue it creates: are we, as Americans, consumers first or citizens first? What are our true values and priorities?

      The Federal Communications Commission is set to vote on rules to regulate internet traffic in February. At stake is whether the internet (or, as George W Bush called it, “the internets”) should become a multi-tiered system in which the highest payers get preferential treatment, or whether all users should be treated equally.

      Preferential treatment for the highest bidders would mean priority lanes for faster transmissions and slower lanes for others.

      Yes, we can argue about whether equal access will spur more innovation or whether preferential access for the highest bidders will deliver more and better content, and thus spark innovations of its own.

  • Intellectual Monopolies

    • A Europe Of Treaties?

      If we want a Europe where treaties like ACTA and TPP are the democratic norm, scrap the European parliament. If we want all the change that happens to be done in whatever the post-tobacco equivalent of smoke-filled rooms is, scrap the European Parliament. And, for the benefit of the raving right in the UK, if you want the UK’s primary trading market to be controlled invisibly via undocumented and unaccountable negotiations between the political lackeys of plutocrats, vote for the UK to “leave” the EU.

    • Copyrights

      • Google Asked to Remove 345 Million “Pirate” Links in 2014

        Copyright holders asked Google to remove more than 345,000,000 allegedly infringing links from its search engine in 2014. The staggering number is an increase of 75% compared to the year before. While Google has taken some steps to downrank pirate sites, the rate at which takedown notices are sent continues to rise.

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