This page permanently redirects to gemini://gemini.techrights.org/2010/12/10/google-chrome-notebook/.

● 12.10.10

● Links 10/12/2010: Google Chrome Notebook, Canonical Hires Kernel Developers

Posted in News Roundup at 2:32 pm by Dr. Roy SchestowitzContentsGNU/LinuxGNU/Linux

Desktop

=> ↺ Brazilian Ministry of Education Plans Mandriva Deployment

• The Brazilian government education authority is set to deploy Intel-powered classmate PCs running Mandriva.

• Mandriva is partnering with Positivo to deliver this large-scale, low-cost, open source solution for educational use in Brazil. Including hardware, operating system and other software applications, the per-student cost is estimated to be approximately US $200.

Google

=> ↺ Google previews Chrome OS: Cloud computing, but without touch

• An operating system reduced to and optimised for the web browser – that’s the idea behind Google’s Chrome OS. While, at first glance, this doesn’t promise to be of much use, Google has incorporated technologies in Chrome OS which allow users to work without an internet connection and to install certain types of apps that can be used when offline. However, Google isn’t planning to present an alternative to Android, at least for now, touch screen tablets and smartphones are not supported.

=> ↺ Google Chrome notebook unboxing photos and first impressions

• Today was Google Day in the Stokes household, as the same FedEx truck brought both a Nexus S and Google’s newly announced Cr-48 Chrome OS notebook. Below are some unboxing photos and very quick hands-on impressions of the unit.

Kernel Space

=> ↺ Kernel Log: An analysis of Linux kernel development

• With the next kernel version, Ext4 will reach new levels of performance and use a trick to increase its storage media formatting speed. Other new features include a discard function that is interesting for slow-trimming SSDs, the “Rados Block Device” for cluster devices, bug fixes and optimisations to Btrfs.

=> ↺ Hurry! Win a $50 Gift Card to Linux.com Store.

=> ↺ Self-Assessment Checklist: First Impressions After Release

• The Linux Foundation’s Open Compliance Program published its compliance self-assessment checklist on November 1 right on schedule. My blog last month, Self-Assessment Checklist: A Measuring Stick for Open Compliance Efforts | The Linux Foundation, described the organization and goals of the checklist. Over 500 company downloads at Self-Assessment Compliance Checklist | The Linux Foundation later, initial feedback has been gratifyingly positive. I’d like to share with you some observations based on comments received so far.

=> ↺ Stable kernel updates

Graphics Stack

=> ↺ Improving Video Streaming With GTK+ 3D Surfaces

• Within the open-source world, code examples and documentation can be particularly important in ensuring a lower barrier to participation. One developer, Jose Commins, has worked on creating demos, such as how to use OpenGL within GTK+. One of his projects is GtkGLApp, but now he’s working on a new one involving real-time video streaming to GTK+ 3D surfaces.

Applications

=> ↺ Happy Birthday Scribus

• It is hard to believe Scribus is almost an adolescent. Just yesterday, Scribus turned ten years old, with the first bits of code written by Franz Schmid in December 2000. A few months later, it was linked on Freshmeat and then, well… it kind of had a life of its own. I googled DTP and Linux and stumbled across the link to Franz’ home pages. Of course it would not compile… (User error on my part.)

Instructionals/Technical

=> ↺ Get TextMate Features And Styles In Gedit With GMate

=> ↺ Import Missing GPG Keys, Even Behind A Firewall (Port 11371 Closed) [Launchpad PPAs]

=> ↺ Salvation Army Statement on Toy Donation and Distribution

Games

=> ↺ Linux Game Publishing Is Back Online

• Now it’s a matter of whether they can regain customer confidence seeing as this completely brought down their Digital Rights Management platform for most of this time, among other problems and damaging reputations. I guess we will have to see what their unannounced titles end up being.

=> ↺ Another Humble Indie Bundle Is Coming

• Earlier this year there was the “Humble Indie Bundle” where anyone could purchase a set of four Indie computer games (that are Linux compatible) for any price they wanted. The games included World of Goo, Aquaria, Gish, Lugaru, and Penumbra Overture. This ended up being such a success with the game developers that they ended up open-sourcing the games after raising quite a bit of money off this bundled deal. Now it appears the developers are working on a second Humble Indie Bundle.

Distributions

=> ↺ FSFLA’s petition for Canaima GNU/Linux to be Free

• The Venezuelan Presidential Decree 3390, specifically in articles 2 and 7, explains and backs up the reasons why the Venezuelan state should develop a Free Software distribution. Canaima GNU/Linux is this distribution, so it ought to be a Free distribution, without parts that threaten its users’ freedoms.

Red Hat Family

=> ↺ Red Hat mulls offers to relocate corporate HQ

• Red Hat has offers on the table from multiple cities and developers, including some who are willing to build a new office tower for the Raleigh-based company if it decides to move its corporate headquarters, according to multiple sources.

• Raleigh faces keen competition for Red Hat, which sources said is looking for as much as 300,000 square feet of space. Red Hat currently occupies well under 200,000 square feet in two buildings on N.C. State’s Centennial Campus.

=> ↺ Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 Workstation review

• Verdict: Red Hat’s Enterprise Linux 6 Desktop and Workstation operating systems are a real option for enterprise deployment. We had no problems setting up the applications bundled in with version 6. The only driver/inhibitor for corporate rollout is how savvy firms’ workforces are with Linux, and the depth of Microsoft infrastructure they already have in place.

Debian Family

Canonical/Ubuntu

=> ↺ Canonical Hiring More Kernel Developers

• According to a recent email exchange departing COO Matt Assay stated that Canonical has 400 employees right now. In addition to this there are about 50 open positions on Ubuntu Jobs.

=> ↺ Orta Theme Gets An Ubuntu PPA (And A New Version)!

• Orta theme finally got a PPA so it’s now easily to install and update.

• Before adding the PPA, make sure you have removed any previous instance of the theme!

=> ↺ Ubuntu Certified Hardware

• Canonical maintains a list of hardware that is certified for Ubuntu. Victor Palau, Platform Services Manager at Canonical wrote a blog post about Ubuntu certification which caused me to wonder if my Dell, XPS M1330 laptop, running Ubuntu 10.10 was Ubuntu certified. Below are the screenshots and steps I took to find the answer that question.

=> ↺ Ubuntu to Drop GDM for LightDM

• Currently in the Natty Blueprints there is a blueprint to drop GDM (Gnome Display Manager) for LightDM a new multi-platform Display Manager.

=> ↺ Launchpad Finally Gets PPA Usage Stats; Might Also Get A PPA “Heat” Metric

• The Launchpad API was updated yesterday, finally bringing PPA statistics. For now, the stats can only be accessed by using a Python script, but they will probably be implemented on the actual website soon, especially since Mark Shuttleworth is also interested in these stats.

Devices/Embedded

Phones

Android

=> ↺ Andy Rubin: over 300,000 Android phones activated daily

• Cast your mind back to the ancient time that was this August and you’ll recall Eric Schmidt telling you, with no lack of pride, that 200,000 Android phones were being sold each and every day. Skip past Steve Jobs’ snide remarks about what’s included in that tally, and fast-forward to today, where Andy Rubin is blowing minds with the latest, very nicely rounded, total: 300,000 daily activations.

=> ↺ Google Instant now available in 40 new countries

• Last month’s beta launch of Google’s new “Instant” mobile search tool was a sadly US-only affair. But that’s been rectified today, with Google putting its predictive system onto smartphones in another 40 countries and 28 languages. You need Android 2.2 to make it work, though.

=> ↺ Android: 300,000 Activations a Day

• That’s right folks, Andy Rubin has tweeted his second tweet. Our “Early Adopter Platform” has been growing like gangbusters. We all knew that Android was growing but this is pretty phenomenal growth. I’ve been trying to wrap my brain around the numbers. That means that there are 2.1 million activations a week. That’s amazing. As you can see below, over the course of the last 8 quarters Android has shipped a disproportionately large number of units compared to our unfriendly fruit competition.

Tablets

=> ↺ Motorola Tab Running Android 3.0 Honeycomb Makes A Buzz

• With Christmas almost here, manufacturers and developers are doing their best to keep the public interested in their work, even if they’re not announcing products that are going to come out this year. This is why Android Chief Andy Rubin teased fans with a Motorola Android 3.0 (Honeycomb) tablet set for a release date sometime in 2011. Although exact release dates haven’t been announced yet, some technical specs have been made public and if they are going to be implemented as presented, the tab seems to be out of a new and better generation.

Free Software/Open Source

=> ↺ ’10 CG Shorts You Must See’

• 3D World Magazine features ’10 CG Shorts You Must See’. Big Buck Bunny is on it!

=> ↺ California’s safety codes are now open source!

Events

=> ↺ GPG Keysigning at FOSS.in 2010

• I will be attending the FOSS.in event from December 15-17 in Bangalore, India. As part of the Fedora participation at the FOSS.in, I will be running a GPG keysigning party.

Web Browsers

Mozilla

=> ↺ Thunderbird 3.1.7 and 3.0.11 Updates Are Here

• Thunderbird 3.1.7 and Thunderbird 3.0.11 updates are now available for Windows, Mac, and Linux for free download from www.GetThunderbird.com. These releases fix several problems with large email folders stored on the user’s computer as well as several fixes to improve performance, stability and security.

Oracle

=> ↺ The ASF Resigns From the JCP Executive Committee

• The Apache Software Foundation has resigned its seat on the Java SE/EE Executive Committee. Apache has served on the EC for the past 10 years, winning the JCP “Member of the Year” award 4 times, and recently was ratified for another term with support from 95% of the voting community. Further, the project communities of the ASF, home to Apache Tomcat, Ant, Xerces, Geronimo, Velocity and nearly a 100 mainstay java components have implemented countless JSRs and serve on and contribute to many of the JCPs technical expert groups.

=> ↺ Apache resigns from Java community

• Protesting what it perceives as Oracle’s undue control of Java, the Apache Software Foundation has resigned its seat from the Java SE/EE Executive Committee, the organization announced Wednesday.

• “The commercial concerns of a single entity, Oracle, will continue to seriously interfere with and bias the transparent governance of the ecosystem,” an unsigned blog entry from the foundation states.

=> ↺ Apache quits Java governance group in protest of Oracle abuses

• The Apache Software Foundation (ASF) announced today that it is resigning from the executive committee of the Java Community Process (JCP), the governance body responsible for managing standards related to the Java programming language. The move is a response to Oracle’s ongoing failure to comply with the intellectual property policies established by the JCP.

• The heart of the issue is that Apache can’t certify that its open source Java implementation—called Harmony—conforms with the Java language standards because Oracle refuses to supply the necessary test suites under a suitably open license. Oracle’s position on the issue falls afoul of JCP policies, which stipulate that standards and other relevant materials must be freely redistributable and made available under terms that are conducive to enabling third-party open source implementations.

CMS

=> ↺ Diaspora in Pictures: A Candid Walkthrough in Alpha

=> ↺ What’s next for Drupal.org

• With the Drupal.org redesign launched, I’ve heard many ask, “what’s next?” We always do regular, incremental improvements through the infrastructure and webmasters projects. This will continue, with the new design as a foundation and deployment workflow improved by the redesign project.

=> ↺ WordPress 3.0.3 Released

Project Releases

=> ↺ Announcement: VirtualBox 4.0 Beta 2 released

• for the extended announcement and for a complete list of all changes since VirtualBox 4.0 Beta 1.

Government

=> ↺ Whatever Happened to the EU Interoperability Policy?

• As readers of this blog will know, interoperability is a key issue in Europe at the moment. We are still waiting for the imminent version 2 of the European Interoperability Framework, where we will find out whether true restriction-free open standards will be recommended, on deeply-flawed ones based on FRAND licensing that for practical purposes exclude many free software projects.

• [...]

• Aside from the fact that open source doesn’t seem to have been given a fair chance in this procurement process, there is also the matter of transparency. As far as I can tell, there are precious few details available about what exactly is in this 189 million Euro mega-contract. At a time when governments across the world are rightly beginning to open up all stages of procurement for public scrutiny, the EU’s old-fashioned “trust us, you little people don’t need to know the details” attitude is not just outdated and misguided, but positively insulting. After all, we are not only paying for all this proprietary software, but also footing the bill for the not inconsiderable salaries enjoyed by members of the European Commission.

Openness/Sharing

=> ↺ CERN Library releases its book catalog into the public domain via CC0, and other bibliographic data news

• CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research that is home to the Large Hadron Collider and birthplace of the web, has released its book catalog into the public domain using the CC0 public domain dedication. This is not the first time that CERN has used CC tools to open its resources; earlier this year, CERN released the first results of the Large Hadron Collider experiments under CC licenses. In addition, CERN is a strong supporter of CC, having given corporate support at the “creator” level, and is currently featured as a CC Superhero in the campaign, where you can join them in the fight for openness and innovation!

=> ↺ Promote Free Culture

Open Data

=> ↺ Open Data and Public Sector Debt

• The volume of public domestic debt issued in developing countries has grown substantially in recent years, but consistent data on the domestic debt of developing countries have not been generally available until now. As part of the Open Data Initiative, the World Bank is launching an online, quarterly, Public Sector Debt database developed in partnership with the IMF, which will allow researchers and policymakers to explore questions about debt management in a comprehensive manner. The database promotes consistency and comparability across countries by standardizing the treatment of public sector debt, valuation methods, and debt instruments, and by identifying, where possible, the debt of central, state, and local governments as well as extra-budgetary agencies and funds.

Leftovers

=> ↺ Seemona Sumasar spent months behind bars after ex orchestrated elaborate frame-up to silence her

• A Queens businesswoman has been to hell and back and it all started when she accused a former boyfriend of rape and, prosecutors say, he framed her for armed robbery.

• Seemona Sumasar, 35, spent nearly seven months in jail for a crime she never committed, the Nassau County district attorney now admits.

=> ↺ Inside Saudi Arabia’s party scene

• As a general rule, I will click on any WikiLeaks cable titled “Underground Party Scene in Jeddah.” And this account of a Halloween party at a prince’s residence in the coastal Saudi city does not disappoint.

=> ↺ WikiLeaks cables: Saudi princes throw parties boasting drink, drugs and sex

=> ↺ De Trop! French Is The Official Language For 2012 Olympics

• Stone the crows! Or, rather, sacre bleu: the Telegraph has obtained a copy of the Olympic “technical manuals”, the IOC’s guidelines for hosting the Games, which reveal, amongst other stringent requirements, that the main language for 2012 will be the sexy tongue spoken by our Gallic neighbours, with English finishing in second place.

=> ↺ Scratch the Salvation Army off your charity lists, everyone

• I used to always give my spare change to the Salvation Army at this time of year — there they were, ringing their bell outside the grocery store, so sure, I’d give a little. That changed when I learned about their anti-gay policies, though…and now there’s another reason to spurn the Salvation Army.

=> ↺ Salvation Army Statement on Toy Donation and Distribution

=> ↺ OAP poisoned police with sandwiches

• Food safety officials said 70-year-old Muriel Morris received a four-month jail term, suspended for a year, and was ordered to pay £16,482.70p in costs.

• Birmingham City Council, which prosecuted Morris for four breaches of food hygiene law, launched an investigation into the poisoning outbreak after nine officers were taken to hospital during an English Defence League demonstration near New Street station in July 2009.

=> ↺ AMD, Intel, PC builders plan to drop VGA by 2015

• AMD, Dell, Intel, Lenovo, Samsung and LG on Wednesday said they plan on focusing on putting digital DisplayPort and HDMI connections into their computer products. They hope to drop analog VGA and LVDS connections in AMD- and Intel-based products by 2015, the chipmakers said. VGA technology is over 20 years old, uses up more power, and supports lower resolutions and less colors than the digital alternatives.

=> ↺ The Best, Most Disgruntled Ink Cartridge Description You’ll Ever Read

• I don’t know the name of the man responsible for the product description of Remanufactured HP 300 – (CC640EE) Black, but I do know that he’s an anonymous hero. Just a sample from the above:

• And so on.

=> ↺ Czechs Blasted for Asylum “Arousal” Test

• The European Union’s human rights agency has criticized the Czech government for using a “sexual arousal” test to determine whether applicants who seek asylum on the basis of sexual orientation are genuinely gay.

• According to the BBC, the Fundamental Rights Agency said the Czech Republic was the only E.U. country that continues to use the test, which could violate the European Convention on Human Rights.

=> ↺ A New Nursing Home Population: The Young

=> ↺ I’m Having Unexplained Coordination Issues

• Those who speak to me on Identi.ca and IRC may have noticed more typos than usual from me in the last day or so; this is why. Please take this into account. When I write static pieces like blog posts I always check and fix my typos, “live” chats such as IRC and Identi.ca don’t get the same retouching. It’s taken quite a while to type this post.

=> ↺ Core expands into network vulnerability testing

• With the latest release of its flagship Core Impact Pro, Core Security Technologies has expanded its application penetration testing software to scan and test network devices as well.

• Core Impact Pro version 11, released this week, also includes improved tools for scanning Web applications as well.

Science

=> ↺ Google Maps App For Android To Offer 3D Texturing, Offline Support [Google Maps Android App Being Retooled To Work & Look Better]

Security

=> ↺ Wikileaks DDoS tool downloads grow rapidly

=> ↺ Security updates for Mozilla projects

Defence/Police/Aggression

=> ↺ Walmart Partners with DHS on “If You See Something, Say Something” Campaign

• Janet Napolitano, secretary of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has announced that retailing giant Walmart has joined the agency’s “If You See Something, Say Something” campaign.

=> ↺ Flower arranger forced to resign after refusing criminal record check

• Annabel Hayter, the 64 year old chairwoman of Gloucester Cathedral’s Flower Guild, has been forced to resign from her post as a result of her refusal to submit to a criminal record check. As a result of her stance, five other elderly flower arrangers have also resigned in protest.

=> ↺ TSA subjects India’s US ambassador to public grope because of her sari

• The TSA is refusing to apologize to India’s ambassador to the USA, who was flagged for an extended public grope because she was wearing a sari.

=> ↺ Exposed: TSA’s X-rated scanner fraud

• Physicists who led the development of today’s most sophisticated medical imaging technology believe the federal government’s X-rated airport x-ray scanners are useless. Leon Kaufman and Joseph W. Carlson, both former professors of physics at the University of California-San Francisco have been described as the “scientific genius” behind the magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) machines used in hospitals. The pair turned their considerable experience to investigate what the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) is using to virtually undress millions of American travelers.

=> ↺ Security Theatre

=> ↺ Thousands Of Students Gather In London

• Thousands of students have gathered ahead of a march on Parliament as MPs prepare to vote on trebling university tuition fees.

=> ↺ Cleared, the father accused of leading Ryanair jet revolt

• Unable to get water for his two children and frustrated at the lack of information from staff, Mr Wilkie tried to disembark, followed by 30 fellow passengers.

• After being persuaded to stay, however, the rebels were stunned when police arrived and arrested their ‘ringleader’ for causing a security alert on a flight.

• In court, Mr Wilkie, 36, admitted the charge. But a Scottish sheriff refused to punish him after receiving dozens of letters from passengers supporting him. Instead, the sheriff called on Ryanair to apologise for its ‘ridiculous’ behaviour.

=> ↺ Chinese hackers ‘slurped 50 MB of US gov email’

• The Chinese government may have used its access to Microsoft source code to develop attacks that exploited weaknesses in the Windows operating system, according to a US diplomatic memo recently published by Wikileaks.

Cablegate

=> ↺ DNS Provider Mistakenly Caught in WikiLeaks Saga Now Supports the Group

• A DNS provider that suffered backlash last week after it was wrongly identified as supplying and then dropping DNS service to WikiLeaks has decided to support the secret-spilling site, offering DNS service to two domains distributing WikiLeaks content.

• EasyDNS, a Canadian firm, was attacked last Friday after media outlets mistakenly reported it had terminated its service for WikiLeaks. The company sent an e-mail to customers Thursday morning letting them know that it had begun providing DNS service for WikiLeaks.ch and WikiLeaks.nl, two of the primary domain names WikiLeaks relocated to after WikiLeaks.org stopped resolving.

• “We’ve already done the time, we might as well do the crime,” Mark Jeftovic, president and CEO of EasyDNS, told Threat Level about his decision.

• DNS service providers translate human-friendly domain names to IP addresses, so when someone types www.Amazon.com into their browser, for example, they’re properly connected to 72.21.211.176, the address of the host.

=> ↺ The crux of the WikiLeaks debate

• WNYC’s Brian Lehrer has spent the last week hosting one WikiLeaks critic after the next on his program, and it seems rather clear that he, too, is a fairly emphatic critic of the group and its founder, Julian Assange.

=> ↺ Why Wikileaks Will Never Be Closed Or Blocked

• Last weekend, rather than read stories about the US diplomatic cables that Wikileaks has released, I decided to read them directly myself. In doing so, I better understood why no one — certainly not the US State Department — is going to shove those cables back into the darkness.

=> ↺ Save Julian Assange: Don’t outlaw WikiLeaks!

=> ↺ Assange’s Poison Pill

• I am in the process of downloading a file that contains all the unedited cables that Wikileaks has obtained. You can do the same by downloading this link using a program like Vuze. This is a 1.4GB file so it may take a while. As far as I know it is not illegal to download it as it is not copyright material. In any case it is probably not illegal because you cannot read whatever it is that you are downloaded as it is encrypted. What this file is is a Poison Pill. Assange goes, this file is open for humanity to see.

• I am downloading this file for two reasons. One is because I believe that if it was so easy for Wikileaks to obtain this information whoever our enemies are probably have it as well. Secondly because while I had mixed feelings on what Julian Assange was doing, I am so disgusted about how Western democracies are reacting towards a person who has not been formally accused of any crime that I think it’s time to stand by Wikileaks to defend freedom of the press.

=> ↺ Julian Assange cast as common enemy as US left and right unite

• The outcry against Julian Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks, is intensifying in the US, drawing a rare degree of consensus from politicians and pundits who have collectively cast him in the role of a common enemy.

• In the past few days the calls for action against Assange have grown steadily louder and more shrill, with leading Republicans labelling him a terrorist, and top liberal Democratic politicians, albeit in more moderate language, also calling for his prosecution.

=> ↺ Why Julian Assange Is 2010 Person Of The Year

• He said he wouldn’t mind prison. Julian Assange sort of looked forward to it, even. He’d read a nice, long book in peace. And he’d get to sleep in the same bed for the first time in years.

• Assange got his wish when he surrendered to British authorities Tuesday. He is charged with allegedly sexually assaulting two women during a lecture stop in Stockholm this August. The first court appearance was predictably messy. He refused to be photographed, finger-printed, or DNA swabbed. And that was before the judge asked Assange for his current address. He gave some post office at first. Then some place in Australia he hadn’t visited in four years.

• To be fair, you can’t really ask Julian Assange where he lives. He moved 34 times by the age of 14. A quarter century later, he is even more nomadic. The most connected man in the world lives a rootless existence. He says he resides in airports and has virtually no material possessions, save for his Australian passport and a laptop.

=> ↺ Assange Lawyers Prepare for U.S. Spying Indictment

• Wikileaks founder Julian Assange, the man behind the publication of more than a 250,000 classified U.S. diplomatic cables, could soon be facing spying charges in the U.S. related to the Espionage Act, Assange’s lawyer said today.

=> ↺ England: Reliability And Longevity Of UK-US Relationship Confirmed

=> ↺ Pro-Wikileaks hacker group’s DDoS tool downloads top 40,000

• Imperva, the web security specialist, has reported that the tool released by the Anonymous Hacker Group for would-be Wikileaks protesters has been downloaded over 40,000 times, with the majority of downloads occurring in the US.

• [...]

• Amichai Schulman, chief technology officer at Imperva, said, “The tool was originally developed as an open-source network stress-testing tool. It was recently tweaked to include a central command-and-control module.

=> ↺ wikileaks samba

=> ↺ Wikileaks donations going well despite Visa, Mastercard shutdown

• After both Visa and Mastercard stopped allowing donations to the whistle-blowing website, DataCell started helping people to donate directly by bank transfer. “The credit card companies are just not a part of the transactions. There are just as many donations as before, if not more, but they are just transferred direct,” Sigurvinsson told DV. “We have assisted some 2,000 people with that just today.”

• [...]

• DataCell has indicated that it intends to start legal proceedings against both Mastercard and Visa in Europe and Sigurvinsson says the company has received a lot of offers from lawyers wanting to take the case on for free. He said that the company’s own lawyers have written formal letters to the credit card giants and that other volunteer lawyers will arrive today to discuss strategy.

=> ↺ Assange supporters rally in Brisbane

• About 100 protesters have rallied in Brisbane in support of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange.

• Assange remains in custody in the United Kingdom, facing extradition to Sweden for alleged sexual assault.

• Rally organiser Jessica Payne says the Federal Government is trying to stifle the democratic right to freedom of information.

=> ↺ Pro-WikiLeaks protest rally draws 1200 supporters in Sydney

• HUNDREDS of people have taken to Australia’s city streets to pledge their support for detained WikiLeaks co-founder Julian Assange.

=> ↺ WikiLeaks cables: Shell, Operation Payback and Assange for the Nobel prize – as it happened

• 7.52am: MasterCard, Visa, the Swedish prosecution authority, Joe Lieberman, Sarah Palin, PayPal, Twitter, PostFinance, Amazon and EveryDNS.net. It is an very eclectic mix, but their websites are all under attack, or threat of attack, by supporters of WikiLeaks.

=> ↺ Bye bye PayPal

• Paypal has been reported closing Wikileaks’ account through which it obtained donations. This is unacceptable and arbitrary. This is derogatory towards the associations and the thousands of common people who cared enough of their Freedom of Speech to spend money on this. This is why I have decided that if they don’t want Wikileaks’ money, they do not want mine either, and I have closed my account with them.

• [...]

• Meanwhile, as also Visa and Mastercard have been reported fiddling with Wikileaks’ account without having received any court order compelling them to do so — and this is tantamount to stealing other people’s money if they have blocked incoming payments — I have decided that in protest they will not have the chunk of my not irrelevant Chrsitmas shopping, as I will only use other payments means. If they don’t listent to people’s voice, they will listen the language of money.

=> ↺ EasyDNS to host Wikileaks

• At my company, we use EasyDNS to do our external DNS hosting (building a real, high availability DNS server infrastructure is outside of the scope of our financial resources, so we have them do it for us), and I’ve always been very happy with their service.

=> ↺ Check Out The Greatest Hits Of Operation Payback, The Hackers That Took Down Mastercard

=> ↺ Editorial – Statement on DDOS attacks

• Wikileaks is aware that several government agencies and corporations, including the Swedish prosecutor, Mastercard, PayPal and State.gov have come under cyber-attack in recent days, and have often been driven offline as a result.

• The attacks are of a similar nature to those received – and endured – by the Wikileaks website over the past week, since the publication of the first of 250,000 US Embassy Cables.

• These denial of service attacks are believed to have originated from an internet gathering known as Anonymous. This group is not affiliated with Wikileaks. There has been no contact between any Wikileaks staffer and anyone at Anonymous. Wikileaks has not received any prior notice of any of Anonymous’ actions.

• Wikileaks spokesman Kristinn Hrafnsson said: “We neither condemn nor applaud these attacks. We believe they are a reflection of public opinion on the actions of the targets.”

=> ↺ U.N. rights chief slams China, defends Assange

• Navi Pillay, the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, pressed China to release this year’s Nobel Peace Prize winner Liu Xiaobo, expressing hope that China will “come to recognize” the positive contribution the pro-democracy activist can make on Chinese society.

• In a rare, wide-ranging press conference in Geneva, Pillay presented the U.N.’s strongest public criticism of China’s imprisonment of Liu, who is serving an 11-year jail sentence for drafting the pro-democracy Charter 08 manifesto. Pillay also scolded China for placing Liu’s wife, Liu Xia, under house arrest “that in my view is in contravention of Chinese national law.”

=> ↺ China cracks down on activists ahead of Liu Xiaobo Nobel prize ceremony

• China today launched its most prolonged and severe crackdown on activists and dissidents in recent years ahead of tomorrow’s Nobel peace prize ceremony honouring the jailed writer Liu Xiaobo.

=> ↺ What If There Were An Application For Dot Wikileaks?

• What would happen if the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), the domain name system oversight body, received an application for a .wikileaks top level domain name (TLD) next year, under its new system of opening up the internet for domains? It could make an interesting example of how well the complex system to apply for new TLDs works and how much political intervention is possible in the system. At the 39th ICANN meeting in Cartagena, Colombia this week, the self-regulatory body is trying to finalise issues in the published Final Applicant Guidebook – and it is governments and trademark owners that are calling for more time and more procedures.

• The hot issue discussed by the worldwide internet community, the witch-hunt against Wikileaks by commercial service providers in the US and various countries, is no topic for the private DNS self-governance body, according to ICANN CEO Rod Beckstrom. “We have not been approached by governments on this,” Beckstrom said in answer to questions from Intellectual Property Watch at an ICANN press conference.

=> ↺ Radio Berkman 171: Wikileaks and the Information Wars

• So today we pull together some of the brightest minds at the Berkman Center to talk about Wikileaks, with Jonathan Zittrain and Lawrence Lessig moderating.

=> ↺ WikiLeaks, Free Speech and National Security

• EFF Senior Staff Attorney Kevin Bankston joins Declan McCullagh, chief political correspondent for CNET, Niles Gardiner, director of the Margaret Thatcher Center for Freedom at The Heritage Foundation, and and Victor Davis Hanson, senior fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University and author of “The Father of Us All: War and History, Ancient and Modern” in a discussion on “Wikileaks, Free Speech and National Security.”

=> ↺ UN rights boss concerned at targeting of WikiLeaks

• U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay voiced concern on Thursday at reports of pressure being exerted on private companies to halt financial or Internet services for WikiLeaks.

=> ↺ “Anonymous” Posts Video Describing “Operation Payback” In Defense Of WikiLeaks

• For those unfamiliar with the depths of Internet sub-culture, “Anonymous” is a hard concept to understand. Simply put they are an anonymous crowdsourced set of vigilantes responsible for puling off some of the most newsworthy stunts in Internet history. But past projects like punking Scientology of flooding YouTube with porn fail in comparison to their recent attempts to disrupt the established entities who they deem to have alligned with the wrong side of justice over the WikiLeaks story. Now, in eerie and awesome fashion, a new video has been posted that describes their agenda in the most historic terms.

=> ↺ WikiLeaks cables: Oil giants squeeze Chávez as Venezuela struggles

• Venezuela’s tottering economy is forcing Hugo Chávez to make deals with foreign corporations to save his socialist revolution from going broke.

• The Venezuelan president has courted European, American and Asian companies in behind-the-scenes negotiations that highlight a severe financial crunch in his government.

• Venezuela’s state-owned oil company, PDVSA, is the engine of the economy but buckled when given an ultimatum by its Italian counterpart and has scrambled to attract foreign partners, according to confidential US embassy cables released by WikiLeaks.

=> ↺ MultiBox.be mirrors WikiLeaks

• Freedom of speech isn’t a privilege, I posted a little while back.

• It’s a right, I said, and that includes having free access to everything which involves us, concerns us and affects us.

=> ↺ Russian Premier Putin Criticizes U.S. Over WikiLeaks Arrest

• Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin criticized the U.S. over the arrest of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange.

=> ↺ Dutch cops arrest Operation Payback suspect

=> ↺ Holder Says U.S. Probes WikiLeaks-Related Web Attacks

• The U.S. Justice Department is examining cyber attacks that have been blamed on WikiLeaks supporters, Attorney General Eric Holder said.

• “We are aware of the incidents,” Holder said at a news conference in Washington today. “We are looking into them.”

• Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, speaking at the news conference with Holder, said the U.S. is coordinating with the “private sector” on cyber issues. Separately, a Department of Homeland Security official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the agency is working with companies to limit damages from the attacks.

=> ↺ DDoS: How to take down WikiLeaks, MasterCard or any other Web site

• I can’t tell you who’s attacked first WikiLeaks and more recently MasterCard, PayPal, and Visa with Distributed Denial of service (DDoS) assaults , but I can tell you it wasn’t hard. It wasn’t even, as such things go, that bad. Just ask Google if you want to know what a real DDoS attack is like.

=> ↺ Is Twitter Playing Whack-a-Mole With Pro-Wikileaks Hacktivist Accounts?

• Distributed denial of service attacks, of the kind pro-Wikileaks hacktivists have been aiming at PayPal, Visa, and MasterCard, are not particularly complex to pull off.

=> ↺ “Some Questions To Consider” Ron Paul Defends WikiLeaks “Killing The Messenger For Bad News”

Environment/Energy/Wildlife

=> ↺ Brazilian farmers are unlikely climate heroes

• Here is the good news from Cancún. Brazil, so often demonised for its destruction of the Amazon rainforest, is turning over a new leaf. In the past year it has transformed a sketchy promise made in Copenhagen to cut emissions to 36 to 39 per cent below business-as-usual by 2020 into a detailed science-based plan. And much of the work will be done by the industry most responsible for trashing the Amazon – cattle ranching and commercial agriculture.

• World-wide, agriculture is directly responsible for roughly 15 per cent of greenhouse gas emissions – a figure that does not include emissions from the deforestation is causes. Yet the climate talks in Cancún, Mexico, have so far failed to address this industry’s contribution to global warming. Against all odds, Brazil is now bidding to go from the bad boy of forestry and agriculture to their poster child.

=> ↺ Blue whale’s gigantic mouthful measured

• A blue whale’s mouth cavity is so vast and stretchy that it can engulf a volume of water equivalent to its own body mass, say scientists.

• The whales – the largest animals on the planet – filter the krill they eat from these huge watery mouthfuls.

PR/AstroTurf/Lobbying

=> ↺ Ex-ministers face Commons ban in lobbying row

• Three former Labour ministers face being barred from Parliament after being rebuked for breaching lobbying rules.

• The Standards and Privileges Committee ordered ex-defence secretary Geoff Hoon to apologise and said his Commons pass should be suspended for five years.

Censorship/Privacy/Civil Rights

=> ↺ The FBI Arbitrarily Covers Up Evidence of Misconduct: Is This the Transparency Obama Promised?

• EFF recently received documents in response to one of our Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests that demonstrate a disturbing trend: the FBI’s arbitrary application of FOIA exemptions to hide, or in some instances, reveal, its unlawful activities.

=> ↺ Nobel peace prize placed on empty chair in honour of Liu Xiaobo

• The 2010 Nobel peace prize was today placed on an empty chair in Oslo’s city hall in a symbolic act to mark its award to Liu Xiaobo, the Chinese writer and pro-democracy activist who is serving a jail sentence in his home country.

• In the centrepiece of a simple, moving ceremony watched by an audience of 1,000 people, among them Norway’s king and queen and a clutch of fellow Chinese dissidents, the chairman of the Nobel committee, Thorbjoern Jagland, placed the citation and medal on a simple, blue upholstered seat on a small row of chairs to the right of the hall’s stage.

=> ↺ Cecilia Malmström Member of the European Commission responsible for Home Affairs Taking on the Data Retention Directive European Commission conference in Brussels Brussels, 3 December 2010

=> ↺ YouTube raises the upload length for some users; now exceeds 15 minutes

• First, it was 10 minutes. Then, back in July, it went to 15. Now, according to the YouTube Blog, the site will be selecting some users to have that 15 minute limit raised even higher.

=> ↺ 2010: E-Book Buyer’s Guide to E-Book Privacy

• With the 2010 holidays upon us, it’s time to update EFF’s E-Book Buyer’s Guide to E-Book Privacy, which summarizes and comments on the privacy-related policies of several e-readers.

=> ↺ Gov’t crackdown spurs initiatives to route around DNS

• Over the Thanksgiving holiday weekend, US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), the principal investigative arm of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), led an alphabet soup of government agencies in seizing the domain names of 82 Web sites (PDF) that ICE said were “engaged in the illegal sale and distribution of counterfeit goods and copyrighted works” (See: Operation In Our Sites v. 2.0). The seizures were accomplished by getting the VeriSign registry, owner of the .com and .net top-level domains, to change the authoritative domain-name servers for the seized domains to servers controlled by DHS.

Internet/Net Neutrality/DRM

=> ↺ The link between free WiFi and the future of roaming

• The next stage of the digital revolution is clearly the combination of mobile internet, cloud computing and billions of sensors to deliver a new generation of “smart” services. These technologies really will be a passport to a better way of living. But Europe will end up playing the second league of these markets if we don’t make good use of open platforms and standards to drive up competition. If we do embrace openness – the systematic use of generic and standardised technologies to create a level but elevated playing field to trigger cutting-edge innovation on top – I think we will be well placed to capitalise on our current leadership in mobiles, telecom, hardware and embedded software. And that means Europeans will take a bigger role in internet innovation.

=> ↺ Chairman Genachowski’s Next Net Neutrality Proposal: What to Watch For

• EFF has been monitoring the net neutrality debate with an eye to two main concerns, both stemming from our conviction that however laudable the goal of neutrality–and it is a laudable goal–the regulatory and legislative paths that get us there must not amount to a “Trojan horse” that we’ll all regret:

• First, we have a well-founded fear of an open-ended grant of authority to the FCC to regulate the Internet, and attendant worries, especially about regulations that could create barriers to entry for the next generation of garage innovators.

Intellectual Monopolies

=> ↺ “Read all about it!” Court rules web is permanent, newspapers are ephemeral

• Grisbrook had provided photographs for MGN for a number of years, without a written contract, being paid when his photographs were used. MGN archived the photographs it used; any subsequent use by MGN entitled the photographer to a further fee. It was conceded that Grisbrook licensed MGN to use his photos in this way while retaining copyright in them, though there was some dispute as to how far this licence extended. In particular, did it extend to the use of Grisbrook’s works on MGN’s websites?

Copyrights

=> ↺ Record Labels Dismiss Lawsuit Against Porn Company

• The record industry has dropped its lawsuit against a porn company accused of featuring copyrighted music in its videos. The dismissal may be the result of a confidential settlement, although neither side will comment on the case.

• RK Netmedia, which describes itself as the “World’s Best Reality Porn Website,” hires adult actors who perform sexual acts at exclusive nightclubs and parties. As the actors “perform” their lewd acts, popular recordings from artists like Justin Timberlake, Michael Jackson and Katy Perry provide the soundtrack accompaniment. Videos are allegedly named after songs, and actors are encouraged to lip-sync to the lyrics.

=> ↺ No harm, no foul? P2P user says $1.5M award should be zeroed out

• Jammie Thomas-Rasset, the first US citizen to take her file-sharing lawsuit all the way to a verdict, has been hit with three separate damage awards: $222,000, $1.92 million, and recently $1.5 million. The judge has made clear that these figures are absurd; after the second trial, he declared $54,000 the most that he could possibly allow.

=> ↺ Consumer Focus claims legally naïve are being abused in an anti-consumer copyright court system

• Consumer Focus has entered the debate on the proposed reform of the Patents County Court (PCC). The PCC, soon to be renamed the Intellectual Property County Court, handles most small and medium-sized non-criminal copyright infringement claims.

=> ↺ Irish ISP offers free music, “four strikes” to subscribers

• Here’s the good news for Ireland’s millions of music lovers. Eircom, one of the country’s biggest ISPs, has launched a new streaming music service free of any additional charges to its subscribers. Eircom’s MusicHub will offer four million music tracks to the company’s customers without any restrictions or advertising (sorry Ars readers, unless you currently reside in the Republic of Ireland, you probably won’t be able to connect to that link).

=> ↺ Copyheart: Encouraging People To Copy

• Occasional Techdirt contributor Nina Paley, who has pointed out some problems with Creative Commons in the past, is pushing an interesting solution: the Copyheart. It’s not a huge license or anything like Creative Commons, but just a basic suggestion: where you might normally put a © symbol, instead put a ♥ — and perhaps an explanation.

=> ↺ 3D, Simultaneous Release Don’t Prevent Piracy, Paramount COO Says

• He identified a four-pronged strategy of consumer awareness, fine-tuning business models, technology and legislation to fight online piracy. However, a campaign to raise consumer awareness on online piracy might take decades, which he likened to anti-smoking or drunk driving.

=> ↺ Digital Garage ♥ CC

• Digital Garage, long time friend and supporter of CC, has just donated $100,000 to our annual campaign! According to Joi Ito, Digital Garage Co-Founder and Board Member and CC CEO – “Digital Garage considers Creative Commons to be a key piece of infrastructure for our global society. As a cutting-edge business that invests in internet companies and incubators that help facilitate this global society, it’s imperative that Creative Commons remains as strong as possible.”

=> ↺ CC’s Contribution to Welfare, Field-by-Field: The Separate Contribution to Art

• Last time on the CC blog I was sharing my thoughts about the evaluation of CC’s contribution to Collaboration and Sharing. There was a part there in which I was making the point that it is an impact which is distinctly challenging for estimation. Well, my full hearted belief that that analysis is, in fact, the pinnacle of prospective hardships can explain why when I first came to engage with CC’s contribution to the field of art, I was feeling lighthearted. After all, most of the characteristics which made sharing and collaboration such a tough domain to gauge, are not properties of art. So, I can begin by reporting that it was definitely light-minded to be lighthearted; the contribution to art is a completely independent pandora’s box.

Clip of the DayVideos in The BoardCredit: TinyOgg Share in other sites/networks: These icons link to social bookmarking sites where readers can share and discover new web pages. Permalink  Send this to a friend

=> Techrights

➮ Sharing is caring. Content is available under CC-BY-SA.