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● 04.13.11

● Links 13/4/2011: Linux 2.6.39 RC3, Fedora 16 is Verne

Posted in News Roundup at 2:55 am by Dr. Roy SchestowitzContentsGNU/LinuxGNU/Linux

Kernel Space

=> ↺ ITechLaw to Hold 40th Anniversary Celebration in San Francisco

• Accepting the award on Torvalds’ behalf will be conference keynote speaker Jim Zemlin, executive director of the Linux Foundation. Zemlin works with the world’s largest technology companies, including Google, Hewlett-Packard, IBM, Intel, Nokia and others, to help define the future of computing on the server, in the cloud and on a variety of new mobile computing devices. His work at the vendor-neutral Linux Foundation gives him a unique and aggregate perspective on the global technology industry.

=> ↺ Linux 2.6.39-rc3

Graphics Stack

=> ↺ Sapphire Radeon HD 5830 Extreme

• Here is our look at this new graphics card with accompanying Linux benchmarks.

Applications

=> ↺ Linphone- An Open source SIP phone for desktop & mobile

=> ↺ Seven Free Security Tools for Linux

• One of the big advantages of using Linux is that its security tends to be so much better than that of the competing alternatives. That’s due in large part to the way Linux assigns permissions, but it’s also certainly true that the open source operating system is targeted by malware writers far less frequently than Windows is, in particular, simply because it’s less widely used and so much more diverse.

• [...]

• There are, of course, countless other security tools for Linux out there, many of them excellent as well.

Proprietary

=> ↺ Make your Speed Dial look great with Opera Barracuda

• Opera 11.10 aka Barracuda has been released today. With the new, more flexible Speed Dial your favorite sites are better looking than ever. Speed Dial automatically uses website logos and lets Web developers make content tailored for speed dial. And in Opera 11.10 you can add as many sites to Speed Dial as you like.

=> ↺ Opera 11.10 Goes Gold, Now Ready for Download

• Opera Software today announced the final release of Opera 11.10, an incremental update with a barrel full of subtle changes. Perhaps the biggest one is a revamped and faster Turbo that’s up to four times as fast as before, the Norwegian browser maker claims. Part of the secret sauce in the recipe for faster Turbo is the added support for Google’s WebP image format, which provides lossy compression for photographic images.

Instructionals/Technical

=> ↺ How to install Gnome3 on ubuntu 11.04 (Natty)/Ubuntu 10.10 (Maverick)

=> ↺ A Substitute Remote Control

=> ↺ Ubuntu 11.04 ‘Natty Narwhal’ Awesome New Plymouth Theme!

=> ↺ How To Customize Unity Launcher

=> ↺ 8 Linux Commands That Will Save Your Day

Games

=> ↺ An Open-Source MMORPG Using The Unigine Engine

• Project Bossanova has high hopes to develop “the first 3D game built especially with Linux as the first priority. It will set the standard in gameplay, graphics, compatibility, community integration and more.” In addition, they plan to have the game, now announced as RunServer’s MMT, to be open-source. This is an MMOPRG game and it’s being built using the Unigine Engine.

=> ↺ Humble Frozenbyte Bundle: Don’t be left out in the cold

• For the next 14 days, you can get Wolfire Games’ freshly-released Humble Frozenbyte Bundle! Like the first two bundles, you pay what you want to download five independent, DRM-free, cross-platform computer games, and choose to divide your money between the game developers, Child’s Play, and EFF. The Frozenbyte Bundle includes Trine, Shadowgrounds Survivor, the unpublished game Splot, and gaming prototype Jackclaw, in which you get to rampage through a city, throw cars, and generally cause mayhem.

Desktop Environments

K Desktop Environment/KDE SC)

=> ↺ KDE Spain announces Akademy-es 2011

• KDE Spain is organizing Akademy-es 2011, the annual meeting of KDE users and contributors in Barcelona, Spain from May 20th through May 22nd. Akademy-es is an important event in the KDE calendar. Attendance and the technical quality of papers have increased significantly during each of the previous events.

• New this year, Akademy-es will take place in two different locations. The events of each day are designed to fit ideally with the surroundings. On Friday, Akademy-es will be held at the North Campus of the Polytechnic University of Catalunya, and weekend activities will be at The School of Sant Marc de Sarrià.

=> ↺ Testing Plasma Active

• The default desktop opens with a shaded cover that is actually a desktop lock. You can drag that away to unlock and reveal these “plasma strips” that are for KDE widgets. One is an RSS feeds list and another is a weather widget. Clicking on a feed title opens the article or post in Firefox – one might expect Konqueror. You can drag the strips with your mouse cursor as a whole to reveal any additional strips that didn’t fit on the display. You can add more widget strips by clicking the “plus sign” at the end of widget strips. On each strip is a configuration icon that can be clicked on to reveal another configuration icon and a quit icons. If you drag the original configuration icon to the newly spawned configuration icon that opens the configuration dialog for that particular widget. Using the handle at the bottom of the screen will drag the whole strip containment out of sight to reveal an almost normal appearing desktop.

GNOME Desktop

=> ↺ Ubuntu Unity vs. GNOME 3: Which is Better?

• GNOME 3 and Ubuntu’s soon-to-be released Unity are the first GNOME desktops designed from the start with usability principles in mind. Not that releases in the GNOME 2 series ignored usability, but in GNOME 2, usability was an addition to the desktop, comparable to adding the foundation after the house was built.

• Whether you use GNOME 3 or Unity will probably depend on your distribution’s choice. But assuming you have a choice, which should you use? Suggesting an answer is hard, because in many ways the two are distinctly similar in design, with the differences largely in the details.

=> ↺ GNOME3 on Ubuntu Natty: the first impressions

=> ↺ Gnome3 from a XFCE user’s perspective.

Distributions

Red Hat Family

=> ↺ NYSE and Deutsche Borse merger chiefs size up single Red Hat Linux trading platform

• The New York Stock Exchange and Deutsche Borse are planning a move to a single cash equities trading platform, understood to be based on Red Hat Linux, in a crucial step towards saving €79 million (£64 million) in annual IT costs and delivering robust, fast messaging.

• If the merger goes ahead, the exchanges will also integrate “complementary” derivatives businesses, and combine their US options platforms. The savings represent 26 percent of the €300 million total planned cost cuts, which also include more efficient clearing and market operations.

Fedora

=> ↺ Results of Fedora 16 Release Name Voting

• Votes :: Name ——————————- 2204 :: Verne 1662 :: Beefy Miracle 1522 :: Omoto 1241 :: Nepia 1207 :: Bonnet 1157 :: Barona 908 :: Llullaillaco 845 :: Legation 607 :: Mt. Orne

=> ↺ Fedora 16 will not be a Beefy Miracle

• The Fedora community has voted on the name for the next major release of this Linux distribution.

• There were some 2,204 votes cast for the winner…

• Verne

• Yes, Verne.

Debian Family

=> ↺ Knoppix 2011 6.4 Review

• Generally because Knoppix is meant to be used as a live CD too much customization will not always be necessary.

Canonical/Ubuntu

=> ↺ Goodbye Ubuntu 8.04 LTS

=> ↺ So long 8.04 Hardy Heron – You have a special place in my computing history.

=> ↺ Ubuntu 11.04 ‘Natty Narwhal’ Awesome New Plymouth Theme!

=> ↺ Ubuntu Becomes First OS To Get Automatic Epson Printer Drivers

=> ↺ Canonical To Drop Support For Ubuntu 9.10

• With an announcement on the security mailing list, Canonical has confirmed that support for Ubuntu 9.10 will cease on April 29 2011. This came as no surprise as it adheres to the expected support cycle of a .10 Ubuntu release, and 9.10 is now 18 months old.

• The recommended upgrade path from 9.10 is to Ubuntu 10.4. 10.04 is a long term support (LTS) release, and support will end on April 2013. Note that, according to official Ubuntu documentation, it’s not possible to skip a release version when upgrading. So, it’s not possible to go straight from 9.10 to 10.10. It is possible to upgrade from 9.10 to 10.04 and then to 10.10. That’s quite a lot to go through, and personally, I’d be tempted to make a fresh install and migrate the user data.

=> ↺ Look what we built together, a retrospective on Unity bitesize bugs.

• This cycle we started off determined to make it easy for anyone who wanted to contribute to Ubuntu Unity to have no roadblocks in their way. We concentrated on making our work processes as smooth and easy as possible. We had Q+A sessions in IRC, Ask Me Anythings on Reddit, and regular status reports so that anyone who wanted to dive in this cycle could grab Unity and fix a bug.

Flavours and Variants

=> ↺ Moonstruck with… MoonOS

• Should Linux users try Moon? Since it is more of a creative spin-off of Ubuntu, and not a completely self-made distro, it really is more a matter of taste, computing style, and personal preference than functionality or utility. Former and current Mac users looking for an easy to use, friendly distro with a familiar interface can find refuge in MoonOS to ease any transition pains they might experience in swapping to Linux. Of course, like Ubuntu, MoonOS is an excellent beginner’s distro, and it will provide most of the tools a former Windows user may be looking for in Linux. Even those who are tired with Ubuntu and wish to try a different approach will discover Moon to be just as easy as – if not easier than – Ubuntu with its Docky alternative. MoonOS’ default theme is arguably more attractive, although whether Moon’s green is more likable than Ubuntu’s brown is a purely subjective matter. Also, all Ubuntu users have to do is change their default appearance, and the argument ceases to exist. Finally, more experienced users could decide that Moon does not meet their advanced needs, and Ubuntu fans and Linux veterans may be annoyed by Docky and unimpressed with the original artwork. Nevertheless, with its alternative take on Ubuntu and its colorful, customizable Docky, MoonOS remains easy enough for anyone to use and interesting enough for even a dedicated Linux user to try.

Devices/Embedded

=> ↺ Renesas Electronics Joins Linux Foundation

• The Linux Foundation, the nonprofit organization dedicated to accelerating the growth of Linux, today announced that Renesas Electronics Corporation is its newest member.

• Renesas is a premier supplier of advanced semiconductor solutions, including microcontrollers (MCUs), systems-on-chip (SoC) solutions and a broad range of analog and power devices. The Japan-based company is aggressively investing in the areas of next-generation automotives, mobile phones, set-top boxes and other increasingly sophisticated electronics that are running Linux. For example, Renesas recently announced new SoCs for next-generation mobile phones and for dashboard-mounted car navigation systems, respectively, that support advanced human machine interfaces (HMI).

Phones

Android

=> ↺ Zomg! HTC Bigger Than Nokia and RIM By Market Cap Thanks to Android

• According to All Things Digital, HTC is currently bigger than Nokia in terms of market caps by about $1.04 billion and RIM by $5 billion. This according to Robert Chen is due to “a very unique business model and ecosystem strategy.”

Free Software/Open Source

Events

=> ↺ LinuxFest Northwest Schedule Finalized

• LinuxFest Northwest, held in Bellingham, Washington April 30- May 1, 2011, announces finalized schedule of events.

Web Browsers

=> ↺ Flock browser fails to fly at Zynga

• I’ve never been a fan of Flock, the ‘social’ web browser. Personally, I’ve long argued that Flock is little more than an overlay.

• At first Flock was an overlay of social add-ons to Firefox, then it moved to Chrome.

Mozilla

=> ↺ Even As Firefox 4 Performance Problems Loom, Firefox 5 is Coming

• Mozilla is doing an admirable job of helping users get the most out of Firefox 4, including posting lists of add-ons that can lead to performance problems. But its rapid release cycle is new, and it remains to be seen–especially since previous Firefox development proceeded much more slowly–if Mozilla is ready to follow the cycle that it has announced.

Oracle/Java/LibreOffice

=> ↺ Desktop Publishing Software With OpenOffice

• Recently I was asked by a family member to set them up with a copy of Publisher. Apparently, they weren’t aware of the cost involved in purchasing this software, so I suggested we look into some free alternatives that might better meet their needs. After some thought, I remembered that Microsoft Publisher is just Word with a few additional bells and whistles at the user’s disposal. And remembering that most desktop publishing software is a bit overwhelming for most folks, I instead chose to make due with OpenOffice Writer. Why not simply choose Serif PagePlus Starter Edition? Honestly, as great as the software is, there is just too much going on. At this point, I might as well have suggested Scribus. No, keeping things limited to drawing tables and inserting images was where it’s at. But this leaves us with the need to get some decent clip art inserted into Writer so that it’s ready to go.

Business

Semi-Open Source

=> ↺ The H Half Hour: Talend, Open Core and Community

• Ross Turk is the new director of community at Talend , a company that’s not afraid to say they use an open core model. In this H Half Hour, The H asks Turk about how the open core model works at Talend and how the company is building a community around its data transformation and management tools.

Funding

=> ↺ VC funding for OSS-related vendors in Q1

• Venture capital funding for open source software-related vendors declined 14% in the first quarter. According to our preliminary figures, OSS-related vendors raised $79.8m in Q1, compared to $92.5m a year ago.

FSF/FSFE/GNU/SFLC

=> ↺ Stallman weighs pros and cons of digital inclusion

• Richard Stallman, founder of the free software movement and the GNU Project, spoke Monday on the benefits and threats of digital inclusion in society.

• Stallman defines digital inclusion as the creation of an inclusive information society in which all people have access to information and communication technology.

Openness/Sharing

=> ↺ Sage Bionetworks is the Latest Open Biotechnology Effort

• Slowly but surely, biology and biotechnology efforts that follow open source principles are improving, and as they mature, they could have a profound effect on healthcare, longevity, disease control, and much more. Biotechnology reporter Luke Zimmerman’s latest dispatch on the work of Sage Bionetworks founder Stephen Friend offers a case in point. With gene sequencing efforts going on all around the world–but mostly going on in silos, where information is not shared in optimal ways–Friend is convinced that shared data could bring on huge advances in biotechnology. His is only one of several promising efforts in this area.

Open Data

=> ↺ Got Data?

• What platform versions are being downloaded? What geographies is your service popular in? Which APIs are being consumed? What progamming languages are most popular? From web analytics of your documentation to user activation data, you can answer these questions. But this isn’t happening at present.

Programming

=> ↺ Python Tutorial – Dictionaries, Hovercraft, Eels

=> ↺ Adobe Extends Flash Builder for Mobile and PHP

Standards/Consortia

=> ↺ Press Releases: Open Standards law approved in Portugal

• The Portuguese Parliament approved on the 6th of April 2011 a Law for the adoption of Open Standards on public IT systems. This law represents the consensus reached by the represented parties following two proposals submitted by PCP and BE, that were discussed and merged on the Working Group that produced the final text.

=> ↺ Standardization Roadmap for Electric Drive Vehicles Called for at ANSI Workshop

• Nearly 120 stakeholders and another 34 webinar attendees gathered for the April 5-6 ANSI Workshop: Standards and Codes for Electric Drive Vehicles in Bethesda, MD, to examine the standards and conformance activities needed to drive the safe, effective, and large-scale deployment of electric drive vehicles (EDV).

=> ↺ Europarl in Strassbourg pushes for interoperability

• Here I extracted a few quotes from the European Parliament resolution of 6 April 2011 on a Single Market for Enterprises and Growth which show its special emphasis on improving interoperability conditions for the single market. Strassbourg sents a clear message.

=> ↺ Has the Battle for the Digital Car Been Won?

• This week a new consortium was launched that may signal who will finally own the last great, unclaimed consumer computing platform – the automobile. The new organization is the Car Connectivity Consortium, and the winner is . . . well, we’ll come back to that a little later. Suffice it to say for now that the fifteen year battle to control the digital future of the automobile could be at an end, and that its resolution may tell us something about the future of the digital desktop as well.

Leftovers

=> ↺ Dumbest Lawsuit Ever? HuffPo Sued By Bloggers Who Agreed To Work For Free… But Now Claim They Were Slaves

• We may have set a new low for idiotic lawsuits. Jonathan Tasini, a freelance reporter who was famously involved in a lawsuit with the NY Times, concerning copyrights on a database of freelancer articles, is now suing the Huffington Post for not paying him while he wrote for it by choice. The basis of the lawsuit is the already discussed fact that a bunch of folks who blogged for the Huffington Post are stupidly upset that Arianna Huffington sold her site to AOL for $315 million, and that they didn’t get any of the money. Of course, they didn’t invest their money in the site. They held no equity and, most importantly, they wrote for the site for free by choice. If they didn’t like the “deal”, they shouldn’t have done it.

=> ↺ AOL, Arianna Huffington Hit with Class Action Suit

• Huffington Post bloggers who think they ought to get paid for their volunteer writing have been litigating their case in the court of public opinion. Now they’re taking it to a real one.

• Today, a group of bloggers led by union organizer and journalist Jonathan Tasini filed a class-action suit against the Huffington Post, founder Arianna Huffington, and AOL, which acquired the news-and-blogs site in February.

Health/Nutrition

=> ↺ The Debate Over Privatizing Medicare: Can Anyone Say $20.5 Trillion?

• The NYT has a front page story on the debate over Representative Ryan’s plan to privatize Medicare. The article is an entirely in the form of he said/she said, providing readers with absolutely no information that would allow them to assess the arguments over the plan. This is especially important since the article reports that changes like those in the Ryan plan are necessary to control costs.

=> ↺ Pay Attention to the Insurers Behind Paul Ryan’s Curtain

• Democrats who think Paul Ryan and his Republican colleagues have foolishly wrapped their arms around the third rail of American politics by proposing to hand the Medicare program to private insurers will themselves look foolish if they take for granted that the public will always be on their side.

=> ↺ “Revere America”: Another Conduit for a Super-Wealthy Family to Influence Elections

• Miles C. CollierOn March 23, 2011 a group called Revere America issued a dire-sounding PRNewswire press release titled, “Americans Fear Loss of Freedom on Anniversary of Health Care Reform Law.” It warned that “a majority” of Americans view health care reform as “a threat to their freedom” and cited a poll by Bill McInturff of Public Opinion Strategies to prove it. The release came well after Revere America had spent $2.5 million on attack ads in the 2010 mid-term elections to defeat Democratic candidates in two states — New York and New Hampshire — who had voted in favor of health care reform. Just prior to the mid-term elections, in the autumn of 2010, Revere America ran a a slew of false and misleading attack ads against the health care reform bill that erroneously called health reform “government-run healthcare” (a Republican and insurance industry buzz-phrase). The ads said that the new law will result in higher costs and longer waits in doctors’ offices. In another false claim aimed at inducing fear, the ads told viewers that “your right to keep your own doctor may be taken away.”

=> ↺ The Front Group Hall of Shame Gets a New Inductee

• Today will go down in the public relations history books as the day health insurers and their allies began a coordinated campaign to ensure that the health care reform law is implemented in ways that will benefit them way more than the rest of us. Today is the day they plan to launch their brand new front group — drum roll, please — the Choice and Competition Coalition (CCC). But first, a bit of context.

Cablegate

=> ↺ WikiLeaks is the method we use towards our goal of a more just society: Assange

• In India, after the initial stunned reaction, the tone of the official response to our publication of the India Cables was set by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh questioning or disputing in Parliament the authenticity of the cables and what the U.S. Embassy and consulates were reporting back to the State Department. Here’s what he actually said in the Lok Sabha, our House of Commons, on March 18. He said the government “cannot confirm the veracity, contents or even the existence of such communication.” This seems to have set the Indian government apart from the rest of the governments, the rest of the world, at the receiving end, doesn’t it?

• Yes, it does.

• Have you come across this reaction anywhere else?

• We have not come across this reaction and that reaction disturbed me. Because Hillary Clinton had been involved in informing the Indian government, in December [2010], as well as many other governments, that this was coming. There has been no question as to the credibility of any document we have ever published in the last four years, let alone the [U.S. Embassy] cables — which have been authenticated by the very aggressive action of the State Department towards us and by hundreds of journalists from the most reputable institutions across the world.

Environment/Energy/Wildlife

=> ↺ Calif. sets nation’s highest renewable power goals

• Gov. Jerry Brown on Tuesday signed legislation requiring California utilities to get one-third of their power from renewable sources, giving the state the most aggressive alternative energy mandate in the U.S.

=> ↺ Studies Say Natural Gas Has Its Own Environmental Problems

• Natural gas, with its reputation as a linchpin in the effort to wean the nation off dirtier fossil fuels and reduce global warming, may not be as clean over all as its proponents say.

=> ↺ Gas Prices Rise, and Economists Seek Tipping Point

• Gas prices are approaching record highs, but so far most Americans do not appear to be drastically cutting back their driving or even their spending as they did in 2008.

=> ↺ Fracking Insiders Score Big in New Gas Bill, But Americans Not Told the True Costs of Massive Drilling Plan

• Corporate insiders peddling the claim that drilling for methane gas will solve America’s energy needs just scored big in Washington — and for these insiders fracking for gas is very lucrative business. House Resolution 1380, given the feel-good moniker of the “New Alternative Transportation to Give Americans Solutions Act ” or “NAT GAS Act,” was announced on Wednesday, April 6, in the U. S. House of Representatives. The bill is 24-pages long and rewards the fracking industry with tax credits and products to help “drive” consumption. The bigger the vehicle, the more tax credits given.

Finance

=> ↺ Soros Says Moral Hazard Looms; Volcker Says Banks Can Fail

• Moral hazard in the financial system “looms larger than ever before,” even after the Dodd- Frank law gave U.S. federal agencies tools to regulate institutions that may be deemed too big to fail, said billionaire investor George Soros.

• “The evidence is overwhelming that the first priority of the authorities is to prevent a market collapse, and everything else has to take second place,” Soros, chairman of Soros Fund Management LLC, said yesterday at a conference in Bretton Woods, New Hampshire.

=> ↺ David Harvey’s Crisis of Capitalism, Animated

=> ↺ Who Wants a Voucher?

• In yesterday’s post, I compared two ways of solving the long-term Medicare deficit: (a) increasing payroll taxes and keeping Medicare’s current structure or (b) keeping payroll taxes where they are and converting Medicare into a voucher program. As a person who will need health insurance in retirement, I prefer (a), but others could differ.

=> ↺ Oil price tumbles on supplies and Goldman pullback

• Oil dropped to the lowest level this month on Tuesday as energy experts said the world will remain flush with surplus oil this year despite the loss of Libya’s exports and increased demand from Japan.

• Oil was also pushed down after Goldman Sachs warned investors that the price had already topped its second-quarter forecast and is due for a “substantial pullback” in the near term. Traders took special notice of Goldman’s warning because the investment bank is considered a big player in oil markets, and it’s known for bullish price forecasts.

=> ↺ Paul Ryan’s slasher novel

• The fiscal savior of this country will be the person who persuades us to bite the bullet: Accept some pain now to remain prosperous later. That person will not be Rep. Paul Ryan.

• The reviewers agree: The Path to Prosperity, aka the Republican budget proposal for 2012 that was released a week ago by the House Budget Committee — which Ryan chairs — is one helluva read. To liberals, it’s the nightmare of a madman with an ax chasing you down a long hallway. To conservatives, it’s a sweet dream of wonderland, where angels dine on Heritage Foundation press releases. Right or wrong, it is said, Ryan has at last set the stage for an honest debate about government spending and the federal deficit.

=> ↺ Obama first to put tax increases on budget table

• Higher taxes have been missing from the fierce budget battle that nearly shut down the federal government. But President Barack Obama is about to put them on the table – at least a modest version that he had pushed before and then rested on the shelf.

=> ↺ Wonkbook: Obama to back Simpson-Bowles

• It’s been a little unclear what, exactly, President Obama could say on Wednesday that would count as a new plan for long-term deficit reduction. His pledge to avoid raising taxes on people making less than $250,000 means most taxes are off the table. The Affordable Care Act means most of his health-care reform ideas have already passed into law. The five-year non-security discretionary spending freeze got announced in his 2012 budget proposal, and though you could imagine defense cuts entering the picture, the White House hasn’t seemed eager to go down that road. That leaves tax reform and Social Security, neither of which the administration would be interested in attempting alone.

=> ↺ California Dings MERS

• California bankruptcy court Denies US Bank as trustee relief from stay; Court says recording is required BEFORE foreclosure, not after.

PR/AstroTurf/Lobbying

=> ↺ Fake “Handwriting” Boosts Junk Mail Open Rate

• Fool junk mail recipients once, and then Fake penkeep fooling them over and over again. That’s the hope of a Virginia-based direct mail marketing company that has developed a specialized machine that makes junk mail envelopes look like they have been hand-written.

=> ↺ FOX “News” Bids Glenn Beck Adieu

• On April 6, 2011, FOX News announced it would help Beck “transition” into other ventures, which include for-air projects and FOX News’ websites. What the press release did not mention was the successful campaign against Beck initiated by Color of Change, an organization rooted in equal political access for people of color.

=> ↺ Railroad CEO Charged With Giving $50,000 in Illegal Contributions to Scott Walker

• The Wisconsin state elections board and Milwaukee County District Attorney’s office have revealed a money laundering scheme involving illegal contributions to Scott Walker’s campaign committee by the head of Wisconsin & Southern Railroad Company.

• The months-long investigation found that William Gardner, the CEO and president of Wisconsin & Southern Railroad (WSOR), instructed employees to make political campaign contributions for the 2010 elections and then reimbursed those donations from WSOR’s corporate account. Through this money-laundering scheme WSOR spent a total of $53,800 on political contributions in the 2010 election cycle, vastly exceeding the $10,000 per person (or per corporation) limit required by Wisconsin law; Gardner used corporate funds to reimburse 11 contributions from himself, his girlfriend, his daughter, and several employees. The majority of that spending, nearly $50,000, went towards the Friends of Scott Walker campaign committee.

Censorship

=> ↺ Silence from the website blocking Working Group

• Yesterday Ed Vaizey’s website blocking ‘Working Group’ met to discuss a plans for a voluntary scheme to block access to websites accused of infringing copyright. It’s an idea that has caused quite a stir; 2,000 people have so far written to their MPs and the terms ‘The Great Firewall of Britain’ and ‘Hadrian’s Firewall’ were coined on Twitter

=> ↺ Nominet talks about domain suspensions

• Nominet’s discussions about domain suspensions started yesterday. Over 3,000 sites have so far been ‘suspended’ at the request of the Police. This has been taking place without any formal procedure, although an appeals mechanism has handled 12 complaints, of which 9 were upheld.

=> ↺ On Google and censorship

• Hugo Roy asked my thoughts about the recent case of Google’s employees being convicted in Italy for a video that has been online a few months on Google Video (now YouTube).

• I have already said so by and large, microblogged extensively on that. My opinion is that the decision is a shame for my Country.

• [...]

• Google, as soon as it was informed of the problem, took the content down and possibly thought it was over.

• Not quite, as the Prosecutor in Milan, where Google is based in Italy and where the content was allegedly put online, decided to indict four Google executives. Recently the Court of Milan decided that the executives have violated Italian Data Protection Law and convicted them.

• This is what I have learned from public sources, I hope I have not reported them inaccurately. I have no direct knowledge of the facts.

• [...]

• Filtering == censorship

• It is impossible to put enough people in line to watch, inspect, report of each and any video that is uploaded. Too much information is put online per second, period.

• So the solution for the Prosecutor seems to be “you are doing this in China, you can do this here”. What Google is doing there is censorship. So we want censorship here too.

Privacy

=> ↺ Why internet privacy matters

• Over the last couple of days, I’ve blogged a bit about the proposed legislation that came to be known as Bill C-52 in the last session of Parliament. (See: Canadian police state legislation needs closer examination, and Conservative majority would pass lawful access within 100 days. Also check out Michael Geist’s excellent post: The Conservatives Commitment to Internet Surveillance.) Bill C-52 fell off the order paper when the 40th Parliament was dissolved for the current election, but I think it really needs to be extensively discussed in the current election. (I should note that this is not necessarily a partisan issue, since it was originally proposed by the Liberals many elections ago.)

=> ↺ Is Facebook More Dangerous Than Microsoft Windows?

• The company which has Microsoft, the creator of the world most insecure software products, as a partial owner [Microsoft has $250 million invested in Facebook and holds stakes in the company] can’t stay safer. Facebook, the social brokering site, continues to put users data and critical information at risk.

• The company which harvested Gmail users data but refused to give them access to their own Facebook data to sync it with their Google account continues to put that sensitive data at risk.

Civil Rights

=> ↺ China accuses US of human rights double standards

• Beijing has a doctrine of non-interference in other countries’ internal affairs, but the State Council Information Office releases an annual report on the US human rights record as a riposte to Washington’s criticisms. The document says it underlines the hypocrisy of the US and “its malicious design to pursue hegemony under the pretext of human rights”.

• Last week the secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, criticised China’s “worsening” record – citing the detention of artist Ai Weiwei and others – as she released the annual state department survey of the human rights situation around the world. An introduction to the Chinese document, by the state news agency Xinhua, said the report was “full of distortions” and the US “turned a blind eye to its own terrible human rights situation”.

Internet/Net Neutrality/UBB

=> ↺ Voting For a Free and Open Wireless Internet

• Next Tuesday, April 12th, the EU Parliament Committee on Industry, Research and Energy (ITRE) will hold a major vote for the future of wireless communications in the European Union. By amending the radio spectrum policy programme proposed by the European Commission, Members of the Parliament have an opportunity to boost wireless Internet access. By encouraging shared and unlicensed uses of the spectrum, they can create the next generation of WiFi networks that will improve access to the Internet in urban as well as rural communities, and launch the next wave of innovation in mobile communications. But the risk is for Europe to give in to media or telecoms corporations who would like to control the airwaves – a public resource. La Quadrature calls on EU citizens and NGOs to step into this important debate on the future of our communications system, which forms the structure of our democratic societies.

=> ↺ Voting For a Free and Open Wireless Internet

• The Industry Committee of the European Parliament has adopted amendments to the EU Spectrum Policy Programme allowing for a free use of airwaves for citizens, which will lead to the development of the next generations of free wireless Internet communications (“next generation WiFi”). This vote is encouraging and must be confirmed in plenary, despite the pressure that broadcasters and telecoms industries will inevitably put on the European Parliament to keep airwaves under control.

Intellectual Monopolies

Copyrights

=> ↺ A Challenge To Chris Castle – Chris – Who Do You Really Serve?

• Chris Castle is a Lawyer who specializes in the Music Industry. Of the many lawyers who weigh in on copyright issues, Chris is the one I have the most respect for. Chris admits up front that he has a strong economic interest in the issue, unlike Barry Sookman, James Gannon, or Richard Owens, who pretend that they do all of their writing out of the goodness of their hearts.

=> ↺ A Comment Addressed to Chris Castle

• Chris Castle is a Music Industry Lawyer. I classify Chris as an honest lawyer, he has his opinions, and he’s quite willing to admit that his opinions are biased by his employment.

=> ↺ iPod Tax Fight Conceals Another Consumer Copyright Fee Hike

• The Conservatives have launched another campaign over the iPod Tax today complete with website, video and Twitter account. I posted a lengthy account of the claims last December (short version – the Liberals on record now as opposing, the earlier record is open to debate), but the issue keeps returning. Given the attention to the issue, it is worth noting that Bill C-32, the Conservatives own copyright bill, would likely have led to a doubling of the fees that Canadians pay on blank CDs. Alternatively, it would have led to a dramatic reduction in revenues for Canadian artists. The reason stems from the government’s commitment to ratify the World Intellectual Property Organization’s Internet treaties and the legal requirements found in those treaties.

=> ↺ European Copyright Law: Collusion for the Control of the Net

• In the coming days, a college meeting of the European Commissioners will take place to decide the future of European copyright policy. This revision takes place in conditions that raise severe concerns from a democratic perspective and put fundamental rights at risk, especially when it comes to the Internet.

=> ↺ Colorado Judge Is Seething At Righthaven—And He’s Handling All Their Cases

• Controversial copyright-enforcement company Righthaven was already catching a lot of flak for its lawsuit against Brian Hill. Denver alt-weekly Westword was eagerly reporting that its biggest competitor, The Denver Post, was trying to make extra cash off its photos and articles—by working with Righthaven to sue a 20-year-old, chronically ill, mildly autistic hobby blogger. Now Righthaven has dropped that case. But the same Colorado judge who showed little patience for Righthaven’s tactics in the Hill case is overseeing dozens of other Righthaven cases.

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