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● 01.09.13

● Links 9/1/2013: Mageia Moves Ahead, Fedora 18 Beta for ARM

Posted in News Roundup at 9:10 pm by Dr. Roy SchestowitzContentsGNU/LinuxGNU/Linux

=> ↺ LEGO Goes Linux

=> ↺ LEGO MINDSTORMS EV3 Is Based on Linux, Launches in 2013

=> ↺ True or False? It’s Us or Them

Kernel Space

=> ↺ Systemd 197 becomes distribution-agnostic

Graphics Stack

=> ↺ R600 Gallium3D Now Does Buffer Copies With CP DMA

• Marek Olšák has implemented support for buffer copying using the CP DMA engine on Radeon HD 4000 “R700″ GPUs and newer.

=> ↺ [ANNOUNCE] xf86-video-modesetting 0.6.0

=> ↺ Portable OpenCL 0.7 Improves On OpenCL 1.2

• Portable OpenCL aims to be open-source, very portable, and improving performance through compiler optimizations and reducing target-dependent manual optimizations. Portable OpenCL was released in 2011 and released last August was Portable OpenCL 0.6 that began to implement the OpenCL 1.2 specification. POCL is built around the LLVM compiler infrastructure.

Applications

=> ↺ A preview of Inkscape 0.49

• The project just released a bugfix to the stable 0.48 series, and although Inkscape is decidedly a “released when ready” application, the murmuring is that Inkscape 0.49 could hit virtual shelves as soon as January 2013. In the meantime, there are fairly stable nightly builds available from the trunk for those who wish to experiment.

=> ↺ cursetheweather: Exactly that

Instructionals/Technical

=> ↺ Distributed Replicated Storage Across Four Storage Nodes With GlusterFS 3.2.x On CentOS 6.3

=> ↺ Linux mkfs, mke2fs Command Examples (Create ext2, ext3, ext4 Filesystem)

=> ↺ Kill all zombie processes of a process

=> ↺ Getting Started with Salt Stack-the Other Configuration Management System Built with Python

=> ↺ I Raised My Kids On the Command Line…and They Love It

=> ↺ Creating an Open Source Project

=> ↺ Solving the PS3′s restoring file system loop with Linux

=> ↺ Installing Adito/OpenVPN-ALS On CentOS

Games

=> ↺ Newell: Valve’s own ‘Steam Box’ will use Linux

=> ↺ Exclusive interview: Valve’s Gabe Newell on Steam Box, biometrics, and the future of gaming

=> ↺ Valve Confirms Linux Steam Box Will Be Open Platform

=> ↺ Steam based console “Piston” shown at CES

• This isn’t the rumoured Steam Box but rather a Valve sponsered development from Xi3. There has been absolutely no mention of price, features or much of anything about it so far.

=> ↺ Subvein: Mutant Factions

• Subvein: Mutant Factions is a free multiplayer action game. It has over 20 weapons, a strategic skills system, crazy vehicles and countless user-generated maps. It’s tactical, fast-paced and most importantly, fun! Download and play Subvein now – it only takes a few minutes to setup and best of all it’s 100% FREE!

=> ↺ Valve CEO Confirms Linux-Based Steambox

• Valve has partnered with others while developing the Steambox, which is interesting considering they had a design in mind. However, Newell insists collaborating between closed proprietary systems and open systems makes for a better product. Newell said, “we try to take the pieces where we’re going to add the best value and then encourage other people to do it. So it tends to mean that a lot of people get involved.”

=> ↺ Noctemis Platform Horror-Adventure On Kickstarter

=> ↺ Open Source Games and Consoles Are Rapidly Heading for Fruition

• Hardware devices running gaming platforms built on open source are headed our way. Gabe Newell, co-founder of Valve, which makes Steam for Linux and very popular game platforms and bundles for Windows and the Mac, has reportedly confirmed rumors that Valve will release its own Linux-based gaming hardware, and an early prototype was apparently displayed at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES). Meanwhile, the team behind the Android-based game console Ouya have partnered with games website Kill Screen to launch an online “game jam” for Ouya.

=> ↺ 6 Tips For Improving Game Performance with Steam on Linux

Desktop Environments/WMs

K Desktop Environment/KDE SC/Qt

=> ↺ KDE’s PackageKit-Based Apper Sees New Release

• Apper, formerly known as KPackageKit, has been updated to support the latest PackageKit advancements for Linux package management on the KDE desktop.

=> ↺ Marble: New Navigation FloatItem

=> ↺ Preparing Qt 5.0.1 release

Distributions

=> ↺ Mini-interview with ROSA

• Some time ago, I wrote an article “How Fresh is the Dew?” That article was about the first release of the Linux distribution named ROSA. In Russian, the word “rosa” means dew, so that was playing with words that time.

New Releases

=> ↺ OS4 OpenDesktop 13.2 Released

Screenshots

=> ↺ Mageia 3 Beta 1 Screenshots

PCLinuxOS/Mageia/Mandrake/Mandriva Family

=> ↺ Mageia Looks Back at 2012 and Ahead to 2013

• Magiea has enjoyed what some may consider phenomenal success their founding and today Trish Fraser spoke of what 2012 meant for the Mageia project. She wrote, “To all Mageia people around the world, wherever you are, we hope 2013 is a great year for you – and we plan to make it a great year for Mageia!”

Red Hat Family

=> ↺ Red Hat Partner Conference North America: 8 Trends to Watch

• At Red Hat Partner Conference North America (Jan. 14-16, San Diego), watch for CEO Jim Whitehurst and Channel Chief Roger Egan to describe how the company’s growing portfolio of software (Linux, storage, virtualization, middleware and hybrid cloud management) empowers channel partners. The big question: Are partners ready to diversify into all those new areas with Red Hat (NYSE: RHT)? Hmmm… Chatting ahead of the conference, one of our Top 100 Channel Partner Events of 2013, Egan offered key perspectives to The VAR Guy earlier today. Here are eight takeaways from the conversation.

=> ↺ Red Hat Linux: Now with Microsoft’s Hyper-V drive

• Red Hat’s Enterprise Linux 5.9 has landed with some cloudy love from Microsoft.

=> ↺ Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.9 Officially Announced

• On January 8, Red Hat, Inc., the world’s leading provider of open source solutions, proudly announced the immediate availability for the ninth update for their powerful and still supported Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 operating system.

=> ↺ Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.9 introduced

=> ↺ Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.9 Released, Marking last release of Production Phase 1

Fedora

=> ↺ Fedora 18 Beta for ARM now available!

Debian Family

=> ↺ A look at XFCE in Debian Wheezy

• The computer I’m writing this on came with Windows XP. It probably wouldn’t run Windows 7, so is it reasonable to expect it to run the latest Linux desktops? Gnome 3 and KDE may need fairly recent hardware to run (well) but there are Linux desktops designed to run on older, less powerful hardware. I’ve looked at Crunchbang before which is indeed nippy on my older laptop, ten years old this year. Today I’ve been trying out XFCE 4.8 on Debian Wheezy from a Live USB. It zips along even from the USB, so I have no doubt it would be fast if installed- just about ideal for this or any other XP era machine.

Derivatives

Canonical/Ubuntu

=> ↺ Internet Billionaire Shuttleworth To Make Ubuntu Available On Smartphones

=> ↺ Ubuntu Phone OS Hands On At CES 2013 (video)

=> ↺ Ubuntu Phone OS Image For Galaxy Nexus Arriving In February

=> ↺ Ubuntu Smartphone Aims for Success in Developing Economies

=> ↺ Ubuntu Phone OS Demo: Canonical’s Mark Shuttlesworth Shows Off The New Smartphone Interface At CES 2013 [VIDEO]

=> ↺ Hands-On: Ubuntu Phone on Galaxy Nexus [VIDEO]

=> ↺ First Look: Ubuntu Phone Operating System

=> ↺ Meet the Ubuntu phone from Canonical

=> ↺ Ubuntu Phone OS Demonstration by Mark Shuttleworth at CES 2013

=> ↺ Hands on with Ubuntu for smartphones

=> ↺ Ubuntu phone all Linux but open like Android

• There seems to be quite a bit of buzz surrounding the new Ubuntu phone, and during the CES 2013 event in Las Vegas, Canonical showcased a pre-release version of the mobile Ubuntu operating system running on an Android device, and the company is pitching a full computing ecosystem rather than revising Linux for phones.

=> ↺ Canonical Shakes Up Mobile with Ubuntu for Phones

=> ↺ Ubuntu releasing smartphone OS has better chance than other platforms

• I am not talking about ubuntu winning against android, IOS or even windows, but ubuntu as an OS has more chance of winning than projects like tizen, bada, megoo, sailfish etc.

=> ↺ Ubuntu 13.04 Will Enable Wayland Support In GTK+

• While Canonical developers previously said they “won’t fix” GTK+ support for Wayland in Ubuntu, the matter has now changed. It looks like Ubuntu 13.04 will be able to handle GTK+ applications on Wayland.

• An open bug concerning enabling the Wayland back-end for GNOME’s GTK+ tool-kit was previously marked as “won’t fix” by Iain Lane, a Canonical employee. He says they didn’t want libgtk=3.0 having a Wayland dependency and on libxkbcommon. He suggested that Wayland fans simply use a Wayland-supported GTK+ PPA package archive.

Flavours and Variants

=> ↺ Linux Mint 14 Is a Breath of Fresh Air

• Linux Mint 14 contains some well-needed facelifts. For example, the Mint Display Manager used for the login screen is refreshingly improved. MDM now supports legacy GDM 2 themes with some 30 installed by default and about 2,000 more available for download. Even better, the format is so easy to apply for making themes that you can quickly add your own personalization to make your login screen look your way.

Devices/Embedded

=> ↺ Mentor expands its embedded Linux development support for Freescale QorIQ chips

Phones

Android

=> ↺ All Things Appy: Top 5 Android Communication Apps

• Where would we be without Facebook as we forge into 2013? If Skype is the grande dame of app-based telephony, Facebook is the head honcho of social networking. Facebook Messenger lets you social network fast with its app-based interface. It’s proprietary, which we don’t love, and it has a few kinks — but they’re likely to be ironed out in due course.

Sub-notebooks/Tablets

=> ↺ Hands-on with the 7-inch XO Tablet, OLPC’s first consumer device (video)

• It appears the XO Touch (aka 4.0) wasn’t the only new device OLPC brought to CES 2013. Interestingly, the company is moving into the consumer market this year, and it’s releasing a 7-inch slate (1,024 x 600 resolution) in the US called, funnily enough, the “XO Tablet.” So let’s run through the specs. It’s got a 1.6 GHz dual-core processor, 1 GB of RAM, 8 gigs of flash storage (expandable by microSD), WiFi, HDMI-out, a 3,800 mAh battery, and 2- and 1.3-megapixel shooters at the back and front, respectively. While the tablet runs stock Android 4.2 Jelly Bean, it boots into a heavily skinned, child-friendly UI with the choice of three profiles. After selecting the profile, the home screen shows the child various “dreams,” which are based on professions like mathematician, astronaut, artist, chef, etc. Under these different categories, there are educational apps related to the theme of the currently selected dream. As well as what’s on that main home screen, there’s a stack of pre-loaded books, a curated app store and loads more to be found within the menus.

=> ↺ OLPC XO-4 to sell starting at $206, production commencing March

=> ↺ OLPC announces XO Tablet coming to select Walmart stores later in 2013

Free Software/Open Source

=> ↺ Want to understand open source? Live with its developers

• Let’s say you want to understand what makes free and open source software (FOSS) so vital today—and what makes those who write it so committed to their difficult work. How would you do this? You might crack a few books on the cultural history of coding, like Levy’s Hackers or Markoff’s What the Dormouse Said, both pivotal explorations of the values that seem to guide open source programming (what we might call “the hacker ethic”). You might pore over the seminal tracts that give voice to these values—Raymond’s The Cathedral and the Bazaar or Stallman’s GNU Manifesto, perhaps. You might even peruse key documents from the projects themselves—maybe the Debian Social Contract or the Fedora Licensing Guidelines.

Web Browsers

Mozilla

=> ↺ Firefox OS finds a new way to app

=> ↺ Find out what’s new in Firefox 18

• Mozilla is currently in the process of releasing new versions of the Firefox web browser. Stable channel users will be moved from Firefox 17.0.1 to Firefox 18 via automatic updated if the browser has not not been configured otherwise. The new release is already on Mozilla’s ftp server but not on the main site which means that there is still a slim chance that it will be replaced by another version. Most of the time though that is not happening and if you are experiencing issues with Firefox 17.0.1 you may want to upgrade right away. Download portals such as Softpedia already list the new version for download on their sites.

=> ↺ Mozilla Firefox 18 Boosts Performance with IonMonkey

• Mozilla is out with its first Firefox release of 2013 today, accelerating the open source web browser with a new engine.

• Firefox 18 includes the IonMonkey JavaScript engine that Mozilla first started testing in September of 2012. IonMonkey can improve performance by as much as 25 percent for JavaScript heavy pages, by introducing an extra layer of JavaScript optimization known as intermediate representation (IR).

=> ↺ Firefox 18 Launches With Faster IonMonkey-Enabled JavaScript, Built-In PDF Viewer

=> ↺ Firefox 18 Features Major Update to JavaScript Engine: Ion Monkey

• On Tuesday, Mozilla pushed out version 18 of the Firefox browser. Unlike your average browser update, this one includes an overhauled JavaScript engine, Ion Monkey, which you can find complete details on here. Ion Monkey speeds up JavaScript tasks by translating them to intermediate representations, optimizing them, and then translating them to machine code. It should have a big impact on web apps, and also on games.

=> ↺ Mozilla Firefox 18 Boosts Performance with IonMonkey

Public Services/Government

=> ↺ Greek government asked to adapt enquiry form to accommodate open source

• Eel/lak, a Greek open source advocacy group wants the Greek administration to change one its enquiry forms, to accommodate users of free and open source software solutions. The form is used by the Greek government’s Financial and Economic Crime Unit when requesting companies and organisations to provide an inventory of their software licences along with the corresponding invoices.

=> ↺ Study Finds Free Trade With China Lowered American Manufacturing By 29.6 Percent

• Around 2001, the raw number of manufacturing jobs in the United States plummeted from just over 17 million to just over 14 million. After leveling off for a few years, it collapsed to around 11.5 million due to the Great Recession. It’s since seen a small rebound under President Obama’s tenure, but the continuing depression has put the long-term fate of manufacturing back on the national radar.

Openness/Sharing

Open Access/Content

=> ↺ Chegg Partners with OpenStax College and 20 Million Minds to Provide Open Source eTextbooks

• Chegg named preferred provider of open source textbook initiative through its eTextbook Reader

Programming

=> ↺ LLVM Developers Ponder Using C++11 Features

• While C++11 is an ISO standard and the Clang C/C++ compiler front-end to LLVM has been supporting C++11, developers behind the LLVM compiler infrastructure are still deciding whether to allow C++11 language features within their code-base.

=> ↺ The Rise and Fall of Languages in 2012

Leftovers

=> ↺ Full Show: Ending the Silence on Climate Change

=> ↺ 1998’s most intriguing OS, 15 years later: Hands-on with Haiku alpha 4

Security

=> ↺ NSA ‘PerfectCitizen’ Program Prompts Privacy Fears

=> ↺ NSA’s ‘Perfect Citizen’ power grid security plan far from perfect

• The National Security Agency (NSA) calls its semi-secret technology to protect the nation’s power grid “Perfect Citizen.” But it’s far from perfect in the eyes of privacy advocates, who find it somewhat odd and amusing, but mostly disturbing.

=> ↺ Judge Napolitano on Obama’s Extension of Warrantless Wiretapping: ‘The Law is Absolutely Unconstitutional’

=> ↺ Two new (one “critical”) Ruby on Rails vulnerabilities

=> ↺ Microsoft and Adobe close almost 40 holes

=> ↺ Critical vulnerability in Ruby on Rails parameter parsing

Defence/Police/Secrecy/Aggression

=> ↺ Does It Matter if John Brennan Was Complicit in Illegal Torture?

• In nominating John Brennan to head the CIA, President Obama has made it more urgent that the report be declassified. It is one of several sources that could help us to answer an important question: Are the American people being asked to entrust our clandestine spy agency and its killing and interrogation apparatuses to a man who was complicit in illegal torture?

=> ↺ New CIA boss plans to retire in Ireland once his term ends

• The new head of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) hopes to retire to Ireland when his term is completed, his family have revealed.

• John Brennan, whose family come from Co Roscommon, was this week nominated by US President Barack Obama to lead the CIA. The former counter-terrorism adviser paid an unplanned visit to these shores last November when he visited his Irish relations.

=> ↺ ‘CIA turns into military force, targets countries it’s not at war with’

=> ↺ Was a Reporter’s Role in a Government Prosecution a Reason to Recuse Him?

• Some readers found fault with Mr. Shane’s writing of the story, given his involvement. One was James Savage, a former longtime investigations editor with The Miami Herald.

• [...]

• I’ve been writing recently about the debate over reportorial impartiality and its role in the truth-telling that makes journalism worthwhile. One crucial element when impartiality comes into question is transparency.

=> ↺ U.S. Spy Law Authorizes Mass Surveillance of European Citizens: Report

• Europeans, take note: The U.S. government has granted itself authority to secretly snoop on you.

• That’s according to a new report produced for the European Parliament, which has warned that a U.S. spy law renewed late last year authorizes “purely political surveillance on foreigners’ data” if it is stored using U.S. cloud services like those provided by Google, Microsoft and Facebook.

=> ↺ Excusing Torture, Again

• The neocon Washington Post let ex-CIA official Jose Rodriguez, who oversaw waterboarding and other torture and then destroyed the videotaped evidence, make his case that there was no torture, just effective interrogation that helped get Osama bin Laden. But ex-CIA analyst Ray McGovern disagrees.

• [...]

• Ray McGovern works with Tell the Word, a publishing arm of the ecumenical Church of the Saviour in inner-city Washington. He was an Army Infantry/Intelligence officer in the early 60s and then served in CIA’s analysis division for 27 years.

=> ↺ Two Former US Officials Criticize Obama’s Counter-Productive Drone War

• The study concludes that the Obama administration has been “successful in spinning the number of civilian casualties” downward by counting all military-age males they kill as combatants. Civilian casualties are likely to be far higher than so far acknowledged, Boyle said, and government claims to the contrary are ”based on a highly selective and partial reading of the evidence.”

=> ↺ NSA Whistleblower Compares Case to CIA Officer Convicted of First Classified Leak

• On Sunday, New York Times journalist Scott Shane published a feature story on the Justice Department’s prosecution of John Kiriakou, a former CIA officer convicted of violating the Intelligence Identities Protection Act (IIPA) by revealing the name of an undercover officer. It was the first successful conviction of someone for a disclosure since President Barack Obama was elected president.

• Thomas Drake, a National Security Agency (NSA) whistleblower who the Obama administration tried to prosecute for a “leak” until the case collapsed, joined me for a conversation about the parallels between his prosecution and Kiriakou’s prosecution.

=> ↺ Terror Tuesday: Impunity surges in New Year

=> ↺ The FBI’s Manufactured War on Terrorism

• Under J. Edgar Hoover, the FBI became a self-perpetuating myth-making machine carved out of Hoover’s battle against communism, organized crime, and his war on civil rights and anti-war activists (Cointelpro). Now, in the post-Hoover, post-9/11 period, the war on terrorism allows the myth making to continue.

=> ↺ War Profiteers Still Finishing First

• So who’s the fool? The outfit that turned its business of peddling useless propaganda to U.S. occupied countries onto America itself – by smearing journalists that dared criticize it – or the government that hired them for hundreds of millions in the first place?

=> ↺ Obama Administration Interrogating Terror Suspects Locked Up Abroad (Again)

• Remember rendition? Many people believe the practice of having terrorism suspects interrogated overseas was supposed to end when George W. Bush left office. But President Barack Obama said he’d end torture, not renditions—and last week, the Washington Post reported that they’re still happening. That’s true in some sense, but as Mother Jones and others have reported, the Obama administration’s use of foreign regimes to detain and interrogate terrorism suspects has avoided Bush-style renditions in favor of a different practice known as proxy detention.

=> ↺ Former Guantanamo Prosecutor to Speak about Torture and Intelligence

• Colonel Morris Davis, anti-torture and humanitarian law advocate, will speak about “Confronting Torture: How it Makes America Less Safe” on Thursday, Jan. 31, at 12 p.m. in Rm. 5042 at the UNC School of Law. The lecture — free and open to the public — is sponsored by The Immigration & Human Rights Policy Clinic at UNC School of Law.

=> ↺ 5 terrifying facts about John Brennan

=> ↺ The CIA’s Hypocrisy on Secrets

• On Thursday, ex-CIA deputy director Jose Rodriguez publicly protested that agents had only used water bottles when waterboarding detainees, not the buckets shown in Zero Dark Thirty. Disclosures like that must chafe John Kiriakou, the ex-agent facing 30 months in prison for passing info to a reporter. “The contrast points to the real threat to secrecy,” namely, the agency itself, author Ted Gup writes in the New York Times. “The CIA invokes secrecy to serve its interests, but abandons it to burnish its image and discredit critics.”

=> ↺ As Brennan Tapped for CIA, Case of Somali Detainees Highlights Obama’s Embrace of Secret Renditions

=> ↺ Obama names head of drone assassination program to lead CIA

=> ↺ Republican senator threatens to block Obama’s CIA nominee

=> ↺ Senator threatens to block CIA nominee

=> ↺ John Brennan Wrong for CIA, CODEPINK Says

• Once CODEPINK heard about the coming nomination, we decided to protest in front of the white house. Within just a couple of hours banners were made, the press was called, and other CODEPINKers were alerted.

=> ↺ Secret Double Standard

• The contrast points to the real threat to secrecy, which comes not from the likes of Mr. Kiriakou but from the agency itself. The C.I.A. invokes secrecy to serve its interests but abandons it to burnish its image and discredit critics.

• Over the years, I have interviewed many active and retired C.I.A. personnel who were not authorized to speak with me; they included heads of the agency’s clandestine service, analysts and well over 100 case officers, including station chiefs. Five former directors of central intelligence have spoken to me, mostly “on background.” Not one of these interviewees, to my knowledge, was taken to the woodshed, though our discussions invariably touched on classified territory.

=> ↺ Kuwaiti police tear-gas opposition protesters

• Kuwaiti riot police on Sunday fired tear gas and stun grenades at hundreds of opposition protesters who demanded that the new parliament be dissolved and controversial electoral legislation be scrapped.

• Police arrested several protesters including Osama al-Shaheen, a member of the previous opposition-dominated parliament, as they chased demonstrators through a residential area south of the capital, Kuwait City.

=> ↺ US drones killed 25 in a single day

• As usual, all of the casualties were claimed to be militants. But a recent study by one of President Obama’s former counter-terrorism advisors concludes the administration has been “successful in spinning the number of civilian casualties” downward by counting all military-age males they kill as combatants.

=> ↺ DRONES DRAW MORE CONTROVERSY AS BERKELEY TRIES TO KEEP THEM OUT OF THEIR SKIES

=> ↺ Why You Won’t Hear About Drones at John Brennan’s Confirmation Hearing

• Alas, don’t hold your breath. The hearings will be run by Senator Dianne Feinstein, who is slated to remain chair of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. Despite leaking information regarding covert drone strikes in Pakistan, the senator strongly endorses targeted killings — and, more generally, executive branch secrecy– and will assuredly place strict limits on the discussion of drones in open session. Although drones and targeted killings were never raised in the confirmation hearings for previous CIA directors Michael Hayden or Leon Panetta, they were during successor David Petraeus’ testimony in June 2011. See below for the brief exchange between Senator Roy Blunt and Petraeus (where you read “(CROSSTALK)” that is Feinstein trying to interrupt the discussion.) Do not expect much more from John Brennan’s confirmation hearing.

=> ↺ nnan Needs to Correct the Record on Dro

=> ↺ Czar of the Drones

• …both boys were instantly vaporized—only a few chunks of flesh remained.

Cablegate

=> ↺ A Misguided Ruling in the WikiLeaks Case: Twenty-Three Hours a Day Alone in a Cell is Always Solitary Confinement

=> ↺ Does Aiding WikiLeaks Equal Aiding Al Qaeda?

=> ↺ Judge awards Bradley Manning 112 days off prison sentence

=> ↺ Even a military judge recognizes what many progressives denied: Bradley Manning was mistreated

=> ↺ Government Moves to Prevent Bradley Manning’s Defense from Discussing Over-Classification

• He also faces the charge of “wrongfully and wantonly” causing to be “published on the internet intelligence belonging to the United States government” and “having knowledge that intelligence published on the internet” would be “accessible to the enemy.” The “enemy” as the government has defined in court is al Qaeda.

• I’ll focus on the over-classification motion and address the motive motion in a future post.

=> ↺ Julian Assange to address Oxford Union

• The WikiLeaks founder will make an appearance at the Sam Adams awards ceremony on Wednesday 23rd January. Assange won the award for “integrity in intelligence” in 2010.

=> ↺ Julian Assange Set to Address Oxford Union

=> ↺ Julian Assange To Speak At Oxford University Student Union Prompts Student Protest Plans

=> ↺ Julian Assange & Sam Adams Awards

• Annie Machon, a former MI5 agent, was forced to go into exile and hiding in Europe for many years after blowing the whistle on criminal activities in the organisation

=> ↺ Military Illegally Punished Manning–a Pyrrhic Victory Against Torture

• Manning will receive nearly 4 months of credit against any eventual prison sentence, but this is a Pyrrhic victory compared to the torture he endured–9 months of solitary confinement/isolation, humiliation techniques, sleep deprivation, sensory deprivation and stress positions, which I detail here.

Environment/Energy/Wildlife

=> ↺ Rupert Murdoch still stupid about climate, now thinks pollution is good for trees

Finance

=> ↺ The $1 Trillion Platinum Coin Is Horrible, Lawless Policy

• This whole thing is not just a ridiculous idea, it’s a bad idea too. Republicans seem willing to set the country on fire to please their increasingly fever-swampish base, and eventually they’ll pay a price for that at the polls. Sooner than that, they’ll pay a price with the business community. This is a problem that we should work out via politics and public opinion, not by pretending the law allows the president to do anything he wants.

=> ↺ US banks agree $18.5bn settlements in effort to clean up mortgage crisis

PR/AstroTurf/Lobbying

=> ↺ What Will Scott Walker Lift from the ALEC Agenda in 2013?

• Wisconsin’s 2011-2012 legislative session saw the introduction of 32 bills or budget provisions reflecting American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) model legislation — including Governor Scott Walker’s contentious attack on public sector collective bargaining, voter ID legislation, and bills that make it harder for Americans to hold corporations accountable when their products injure or kill — and 19 of those proposals became law.

Censorship

=> ↺ Charles Carreon: Internet is so mean I can’t “keep my cool” in court

• After tangling with The Oatmeal, a lawyer complains about Internet pile-ons.

• [...]

• The insults—some of which Carreon posted to one of his websites—caused Carreon to flip his lid and sue Matt Inman, creator of The Oatmeal, for some violation of “professional fundraising” rules. Carreon then tried to drag everyone from the American Cancer Society to Indiegogo to the National Wildlife Federation to 100 unnamed “Does” into the case. Carreon separately threatened an anonymous critic known as Satirical Charles, warning that “I have the known capacity to litigate for years” and saying that a lawsuit might seek “the maximum cybersquatting penalty of $100,000.

=> ↺ ECtHR: Blocking Google Sites In Turkey Breaches Human Rights

=> ↺ Kuwaiti court jails man for insulting emir on Twitter

Privacy

=> ↺ EU Data Protection and Open Standards

• On the European side, there is a greater focus on protecting the public’s data from misuse; on the US side, the main concern is that US technology companies won’t be inconvenienced when it comes to providing their services in Europe

=> ↺ DHS Gets to Spy on Everyone

• This Wall Street Journal investigative piece is a month old, but well worth reading.

=> ↺ Library of Congress digs in to full archive of 170 billion tweets

=> ↺ Why Facebook Data Tends to Condemn You in Court

• U.S. courts have a structural bias against “guilty” verdicts, but when it comes to Facebook data the situation is reversed: Social media activity is more readily used to convict you in a court of law than to defend you.

=> ↺ China: Renewed Restrictions Send Online Chill

• The Chinese government’s further tightening of internet controls and mandating real name registration threaten security and privacy of internet users.

=> ↺ The Magician’s Con: Renewing FISA and the NDAA Under Cover of the Fiscal Cliff Debates

Civil Rights

=> ↺ Secrecy and National Security Whistleblowing

• In the “national security” area of the government–the White House, the departments of state and defense, the armed services and the “intelligence community,” along with their contractors–there is less whistleblowing than in other departments of the executive branch or in private corporations. This despite the frequency of misguided practices and policies within these particular agencies that are both more well-concealed and more catastrophic than elsewhere, and thus even more needful of unauthorized exposure.

• The mystique of secrecy in the universe of national security, even beyond the formal apparatus of classification and clearances, is a compelling deterrent to whistleblowing and thus to effective resistance to gravely wrongful or dangerous policies. In this realm, telling secrets appears unpatriotic, even traitorous. That reflects the general presumption–even though it is very commonly false–that the secrecy is aimed not at domestic, bureaucratic or political rivals or the American public but at foreign, powerful enemies, and that breaching it exposes the country, its people and its troops to danger.

=> ↺ Student Loses Lawsuit Challenging Texas School’s RFID Tracking Program

• A Texas public school district’s controversial pilot program to keep track of its students on campus with Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) chips has survived a legal challenge in federal court. On Tuesday, U.S. District Judge Orlando Garcia dismissed a request for a preliminary injunction from Andrea Hernandez, a sophomore at John Jay High School in San Antonio who refused to wear the school’s ID cards on religious grounds.

=> ↺ Student Suspended for Refusing to Wear RFID Tracker Loses Lawsuit

=> ↺ As Criminal Laws Proliferate, More Are Ensnared

• Eddie Leroy Anderson of Craigmont, Idaho, is a retired logger, a former science teacher and now a federal criminal thanks to his arrowhead-collecting hobby.

=> ↺ Minn. driver’s license data snoopers are difficult to track

• Driver’s license info is readily accessible, but finding out who’s checking it out is not easy. Hennepin County Sheriff Rich Stanek challenges state to justify its secrecy.

=> ↺ John Brennan pick revives leaks dispute

=> ↺ On Civil Liberties, John Brennan Is No Worse Than Barack Obama

• Four years ago, White House counterterrorism adviser John Brennan withdrew his name from consideration to run the Central Intelligence Agency. On Monday, President Barack Obama announced Brennan was his pick for the job, following the resignation of David Petraeus over an extramarital affair.

=> ↺ War Powers Reversal

• Perhaps the greatest irony of the Obama Presidency is how much it has vindicated the antiterror strategy of its predecessor. The latest example is President Obama’s vexed statement in signing the National Defense Authorization Act of 2013.

=> ↺ China: Fully Abolish Re-Education Through Labor

• The Chinese government’s announcement today that it will sometime this year “stop using” the notorious Re-Education Through Labor (RTL) system is a rare positive response to the system’s growing unpopularity, Human Rights Watch said today. While suspending use of RTL would be an important step, the government should aspire to fully abolish the RTL system.

=> ↺ Paying a high price for cheap fashion

• Young women are mistreated in some Indian textile factories in the Tamil Nadu state. German companies are among those who work with factories in that region. But there is no obligation to disclose the commodity chain.

Internet/Net Neutrality

=> ↺ Response to Nominet direct.uk consultation

• Our response offers general comments on the proposals set out in the consultation document, rather than addressing the consultation questions specifically.

• We understand the interest in improving security online, and the consequent benefits for the confidence people have in online encounters.

• However, we do not believe that the proposed solution fits the problem. It is unclear that a .uk domain is the answer to the problems identified in the consultation document. We believe there are better ways to address a need to improve security and consequently help boost the confidence people have in online transactions.

Intellectual Monopolies

Trademarks

=> ↺ The Google Shortcut to Trademark Law

• The strength of a trademark — the extent to which consumers view the mark as identifying a particular source — is difficult to evaluate in practice. Assessments of “inherent distinctiveness” are highly subjective, survey evidence is expensive and unreliable, and other “commercial strength” factors such as advertising spending are poor proxies for consumer perceptions. Courts often fall back on heuristics and intuition rather than precise logical analysis.

Copyrights

=> ↺ RapidShare: Traffic and Piracy Dipped After New Business Model Kicked In

• Under continued pressure to take additional anti-piracy measures, file-hosting site RapidShare introduced a new business strategy last year. The model restricted the ability of all users to engage in third party public distribution, the most popular way of sharing copyrighted material. As a result the company experienced a significant drop in traffic and, according to a spokesman, a significant drop in copyright infringement too.

=> ↺ The Problem of “International Orphan Works” (Guest Blog Post)

• The U.S. Copyright Office recently extended the deadline by which the public may submit comments on issues related to orphan works until February 4, 2013. The Office is gathering suggestions for shaping future U.S. legislation and taking other actions to address the issues of works whose copyright has not expired, yet the owner of the copyright cannot be identified or located. However, legislating on orphan works at the national level cannot solve an important problem: the problem of establishing the status of an orphan work internationally. The solution to this problem is crucially important for anyone hoping to use orphan works on the internet – particularly entities that are among the most active lobbyists for orphan works legislation.

=> ↺ Anti-Piracy Company Seeks Patent On Automated Copyright Trolling

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