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● 05.14.14

● Links 14/5/2014: More NSA Leaks, GCHQ Sued

Posted in News Roundup at 6:38 am by Dr. Roy SchestowitzContentsGNU/LinuxGNU/Linux

=> ↺ Report: China Wants A Dominant Computer OS

• Windows, Android, Mavericks, iOS, these are just some of the world’s most popular operating systems, and they all have at least one thing in common: They’re all not made in China. Tired of using foreign created software to power their computers, China is looking to promote their own domestically created desktop operating system.

=> ↺ XP To GNU/Linux Migration Pushed To The Public On TV In China

• Countries that have made a move towards FLOSS and GNU/Linux are many. This is happening whether or not sycophants of M$ say GNU/Linux won’t work. This is happening because GNU/Linux works for real people doing real things. The difference is that M$ doesn’t get to bundle its OS with everything and there are alternatives to Intel. Further, the world is sick and tired of the weakness of that other OS.

Desktop

=> ↺ Surrender To Malware Or Switch To GNU/Linux

• The folks who sell security software are seeing similar results and use GNU/Linux themselves and may even be giving up on defending that other OS against malware. Instead they may supply tools for rapid detection and response.

=> ↺ Is Desktop Linux Secure?

• Considering that security suites aren’t commonly used with Linux on the desktop, this is a legitimate question and worthy of being answered in depth. In this article, I’ll look at how malware affects the Linux community, what vulnerabilities often get ignored and what you should do about it.

Server

=> ↺ Rackspace Grows Revenue as Cloud Pricing Races to Bottom

• There is money to be made in the cloud, even in an era where the Amazon and Google are in a race to the bottom for pricing. That’s the message coming from Rackspace’s management during the company’s first quarter 2014 earnings call.

=> ↺ Africa: IBM Launches the First Mainframe Linux and Cloud Innovation Center in Africa

• IBM has opened its mainframe Linux and Cloud Innovation Center in Nairobi that will seek to provide the government, private sector institutions and universities with extended big data, analytics and cloud computing through the IBM zEnterprise.

Kernel Space

=> ↺ Squashfs tools 4.3 released

=> ↺ SquashFS Tools 4.3 Brings An LZ4 Compressor, Big Changes

Graphics Stack

=> ↺ More X.Org Security Vulnerabilities Published, Date Back To X11R5

=> ↺ Newer AMD Radeon GPUs Have Had A Tough Time With Linux 3.15

• Besides AMD’s R9 290 “Hawaii” open-source support being broken and still not working right even after the hardware has been available to consumers for a half-year, with the Linux 3.15 kernel there’s also problems right now for those with newer AMD Radeon GPUs.

• In particular, AMD Radeon GPU hangs have been quite common on the release candidates thus far of Linux 3.15. For the past few weeks I have been running into hangs when running demanding OpenGL processes on a system with various Radeon HD 7000 / Rx 200 series graphics cards. Fortunately, a few days ago there’s been some upstream notice and work around the issue.

=> ↺ Freedreno turns gl 2.0 today!

• I’ve just pushed to upstream mesa support for occlusion query, which means that freedreno now advertises OpenGL 2.0…

=> ↺ Freedreno Gallium3D Now Supports OpenGL 2.0

Benchmarks

=> ↺ NVIDIA Continues Beating Other Vendors On OpenGL Support

• Along a similar theme to Rich Geldreich’s recent post on A Game Developer’s Perspective On Linux Driver Quality, here are some OpenGL sample tests of OpenGL 3.2 through OpenGL 4.4 with many different graphics drivers.

• Christophe Riccio has carried out some tests of OpenGL samples at all levels using the NVIDIA 337.61 Beta, AMD Catalyst 14.4 Release Candidate, Intel 10.18.10.3574, Mesa 10.1.1 with Intel hardware, and Mac OS X 10.9.2 with its OpenGL stack. These tests aren’t Linux-specific but in the case of the Intel tests and also the NVIDIA driver support being about the same between Windows and Linux, the results are rather interesting.

Applications

=> ↺ POPCORN TIME 0.3 RELEASED WITH TV SERIES SUPPORT, NEW USER INTERFACE, OTHER MAJOR NEW FEATURES

• Popcorn Time, an open source Netflix-style torrent streaming application for Linux, Windows and Mac which is quite popular these days, was updated to version 0.3 beta recently, bringing some major improvements such as TV series support, new user interface, user settings, bookmarks and more.

=> ↺ Syncthing is an open source Bittorrent Sync alternative

• If you use more than one computer, be it multiple desktop PCs, mobile devices, laptops, or remote servers, you are probably using some form of synchronization to transfer data between devices.

=> ↺ Is Writer the Internet Typewriter?

=> ↺ surfraw: Yeah, brilliant

=> ↺ surl: No, not “surly.” Just surl

Instructionals/Technical

=> ↺ Install Numix Icon and Theme In Manjaro Linux

=> ↺ How to customize Gnome Shell

=> ↺ How to Provision AWS EC2 Instances with Salt Cloud

=> ↺ How to Restrict a Login Shell Using Linux Namespaces

=> ↺ How to secure Tomcat

=> ↺ How To : Secure Shell (SSH) Password-less Login using SSH-Keygen

=> ↺ How To Install GNOME 3.12 In Ubuntu GNOME 14.04 (Trusty Tahr)

=> ↺ Howto enroll and use a Yubikey with privacyIDEA

=> ↺ How to verify DDOS attack with netstat command on Linux Terminal

=> ↺ VBoxHeadless – Running Virtual Machines With VirtualBox 4.3 On A Headless Ubuntu 14.04 LTS Server

Games

=> ↺ Desktop Dungeons Roguelike Puzzle to Arrive on Linux Soon

=> ↺ Tesseract Is Looking Okay For A Small, Open-Source Game

• Yesterday marked the first release of Tesseract, the open-source game forked from the Cube 2: Sauerbraten code-base two years ago and since then has just been worked on by a handful of open-source developers. After trying out this inaugural Tesseract version, it’s quite a nice small game with decent OpenGL visual capabilities and okay textures with its in-game assets being comparable roughly to Xonotic or Unvanquished.

=> ↺ Desktop Dungeons, A Quick-play Roguelike Puzzle Game Released For Linux

=> ↺ The Last Door: Collectors Edition Coming May 20th to PC, Mac, Linux

• Phoenix Online Publishing is terrified but darkly compelled to announce that The Last Door: Collector’s Edition will be coming to Steam, GOG, and other major online retailers for PC, Mac and Linux on May 20th, 2014, as well as the Phoenix Online Store. A multiple Best Games of the Year award-winner, this low-res, high-suspense point-and-click adventure, hailed as “a love letter to H.P. Lovecraft,” will feature all-new puzzles, scenes, and stories, as well as enhanced graphics and remastered sound.

=> ↺ Community beats Epic at porting the Linux tools of the Unreal Engine

Desktop Environments/WMs

K Desktop Environment/KDE SC/Qt

=> ↺ Plasma Next Is Preparing to Replace KDE, First Beta Now Available for Download

• Plasma Next has been built to eventually replace the current KDE Applications and Platform, which seems to have run its course. The project is still being maintained and new versions will still be released, but the new Plasma project is the future.

• To make things more manageable for the developers, the project has been separated in a few smaller ones that in the end will come together in a single, bigger product. This is not only a change of name, but a true evolution of KDE.

=> ↺ KDE packagers: give some love to Cantor

• I have some posts to write about Cantor but first I would like to request a help to KDE packagers of several Linux distros around the world.

=> ↺ Code completion in Cantor script editor

• The Kate guys released a new feature in KDE 4.13 release: an improved code completion for all languages supported by KTextEditor. It use the same XML file to syntax highlighting from each language to provide this new code completion.

=> ↺ KDE 4.13.1 Brings 50+ Bug-Fixes

=> ↺ KDE Ships May Updates to Applications and Platform

• Today KDE released updates for its Applications and Development Platform, the first in a series of monthly stabilization updates to the 4.13 series. This release contains only bugfixes and translation updates, providing a safe and pleasant update for everyone.

GNOME Desktop/GTK

=> ↺ GNOME MUSIC 3.12.2

• Style fixes to Music 3.13.1 in Add to Playlists dialog were added to Music 3.12.2 to be consistent with other apps using list boxes. The bug for the notifications not showing up if media art is not found was also fixed.

Distributions

=> ↺ AV Linux review: A distro packed with audio and visual applications

• These days it seems like there’s a Linux distro for every kind of user, including those who need robust audio and visual applications. Linux Insider looks at AV Linux and finds that it’s a great tool for content creation. AV Linux comes bundled with a huge selection of audio and visual software.

=> ↺ Pinguy OS 14.04 Released, See What`s New

• After releasing the Mini ISO about 2 weeks ago, +Antoni has released PinguyOS 14.04 (full) recently, an Ubuntu (14.04) remaster that ships with many popular applications and tweaks.

=> ↺ Joli OS is being discontinued

• Joli OS is being discontinued.That the latest news about Joli OS, a desktop distribution that has since been replaced with a browser-based platform called Jolicloud. Both Joli OS and Jolicloud are published by a French company that goes by the name Jolicloud.

=> ↺ Clonezilla Live 2.2.3-9 Linux Distro for Backup and Recovery Now Ready for Testing

• The Clonezilla developers released a new development version for their Linux distro, but this a very small update and it was only released for the same of a single package, drbl, which has been updated to version 2.8.24-drbl1

Screenshots

=> ↺ 4MLinux 8.1

Red Hat Family

=> ↺ Red Hat sees big potential in Indonesia

• US-based software company Red Hat Inc. will open an office in Jakarta as the open-source software provider sees a big market potential for its products.

• Damien Wong, a senior director with Red Hat who is responsible for the Southeast Asian market, said that Red Hat was confident in setting up its business in Indonesia because the company saw huge opportunities for business development.

=> ↺ Red Hat Advances Efforts to Manage All Clouds

• Red Hat announces an OpenStack partnership with NetApp as well as a community initiative centered around its ManageIQ cloud management technology.

=> ↺ Red Hat Has Open Sourced ManageIQ Cloud Orchestration Platform

• This week’s OpenStack Summit conference is proving to be a showcase for many announcements of tools that can enhance and extend cloud computing deployments. Mirantis has delivered an online database and aggregation site for vendors and applications in the OpenStack ecosystem.

=> ↺ Mirantis Launches Vendor Database for OpenStack Cloud Computing

=> ↺ A new Red Hat Linux branch pops up in a demo

=> ↺ Oracle Announces OpenStack Support for Oracle Linux and Oracle VM

=> ↺ Oracle’s Support of OpenStack on Both Linux and Solaris Is Smart Move

=> ↺ Video: FISL 2014 – Growing CentOS as a Platform

=> ↺ Red Hat Plays Hardball on OpenStack Software

Debian Family

Derivatives

Canonical/Ubuntu

=> ↺ Tech Pioneer Shuttleworth Demos OpenStack on Linux

=> ↺ Meet errors.ubuntu.com, a Poweful Bug Tracker from Canonical

• Canonical has a number of interesting services running and most of them are known to users, but others don’t usually pop up in conversations. This is just the case with errors.ubuntu.com, a tracker that shows what the most common errors found in Ubuntu systems are

=> ↺ Ubuntu Orange Box Custom Micro Cluster Chassis

=> ↺ Canonical offers “Chuck Norris Grade” OpenStack private cloud service

• Canonical is now offering what Shuttleworth called “Chuck Norrris Grade” private clouds. This means that Canonical will offer fully managed, OpenStack private clouds with carrier service service level agreements (SLA)s.

• Canonical is adding private cloud hosting to its business model because as Chris Kenyon, Canonical’s SVP of Worldwide Sales & Business Development, explained, smaller companies have a great deal of trouble holding on to OpenStack architectures. “It’s not uncommon for a company to go through three architects in six months because the demand is so high for OpenStack experts. So to help our customers get up to speed on OpenStack, we decided to offer hosted private cloud services.”

=> ↺ Ubuntu Orange Box Mobilizes OpenStack Clouds [VIDEO]

• In another demo, Canonical demonstrates the world’s first 64-bit ARM server running OpenStack.

=> ↺ Announcing Ubuntu Pioneer

• Ubuntu has always been about breaking new ground. We broke the ground with the desktop back in 2004, we have broken the ground with cloud orchestration across multiple clouds and providers, and we are building a powerful, innovative mobile and desktop platform that is breaking ground with convergence.

=> ↺ Ubuntu Touch Emulator Officially Released

• An Ubuntu Touch emulator is one of the few things that Canonical was missing, and now, with the help of Ubuntu developer Ricardo Salveti de Araujo, users are able to test the latest images released by the team before deciding whether to install the operating system on the phone itself.

=> ↺ Canonical teams up with Tranquil PC to deliver Ubuntu cluster-in-a-box

• Canonical is getting into the hardware business – albeit in a very limited way – to help customers who aren’t ready to build out their own clusters start experimenting with private clouds based on Ubuntu and OpenStack.

Devices/Embedded

=> ↺ Olimex dives into Linux/Android modules

• Olimex has entered the computer-on-module market with three Linux- and Android-ready COMs, based on Allwinner’s A13 and A20 SoCs, and on TI’s AM3352.

• In addition to selling oLinuXino branded open source single board computers based on Allwinner SoCs, such as the Allwinner A20-based A20-OLinuXino-Micro SBC, Bulgaria-based Olimex is now getting into computer-on-modules. Its first three COMs include.

=> ↺ SODIMM-style COM runs Linux on Snapdragon S4 Pro

• As usual with CompuLab, much of this I/O is customizable in terms of the numbers of interfaces provided. For example, the COM provides one or two MIPI-CSI camera ports. The CM-QS600 is supported with documentation and ready-to-run software packages for both Linux and Android, says CompuLab.

Phones

Ballnux

=> ↺ Yet another leaked picture of the LG G3 shows all three color versions

• Following a flurry of leaks last week, the G3 is once again in the spotlight. This time we’re looking at a spy shot showing the back of the black and white versions, and what appears to be the top of the golden version.

=> ↺ LG releases G Watch promo video, promises to define the smartwatch

• Ahead of the expected summertime release of LG’s new G Watch, their Android Wear-powered smartwatch, LG is building some hype by giving us a little glamour video of the watch.

Android

=> ↺ The Moto E is shockingly cheap and surprisingly good

• The Moto E isn’t the sort of phone you dream about or sketch concepts of in your spare time. It’s made simply and of simple materials; it’s neither extremely thin nor especially light. It’s just a regular smartphone. What’s different about the E, however, is its price: $129 without a contract. Nobody’s going to fantasize about this phone because almost everyone who wants one should be able to afford it.

=> ↺ Linux group builds 64-bit Android KitKat for ARM developers

• Google is being tight-lipped about when the 64-bit version of Android will be released, but Linux development group Linaro has built a version of the open-source operating system so mobile applications can be written and tested by manufacturers and developers rushing to catch up with Apple.

Free Software/Open Source

=> ↺ Panasonic Debuts Next-Generation SIP Phones for Hosted and Open Source Systems

• Panasonic, a leading provider of business telephone systems1, announced today the KX-UTG200B and KX-UTG300B (Session Initiated Protocol) SIP phones, the latest additions to its lineup of advanced UT Series SIP-based telephones. Designed to enhance communications and lower operating expenses, the new SIP endpoints provide businesses an affordable and user-friendly SIP telephony solution with plug and play simplicity and flexible configuration options.

=> ↺ Thecus Launches Open Source File Sharing Platform

Web Browsers

Chrome

=> ↺ Google Chrome 36 Dev Adds Extra Step for Profile Deletion

• Google developers have released a new build of their Chrome browser, 36.0.1976.2, and this is quite a hefty update, full of various changes and improvements. Even so, it’s not recommended that you switch to the new version, if you already are running on of the two other branches, Stable or Beta.

• Developers usually make the big changes in the Development branch and most of those modifications trickle down into the Beta, and then finally into the Stable. It may take a while for all the features to be implemented for the majority of users, but this is the safest way to do it.

SaaS/Big Data

=> ↺ Splice Machine Relational Database for Hadoop Big Data Hits Beta

• Splice Machine’s transactional SQL database for Hadoop has now become available as a public beta. Splice Machine offers its own database which is relational, but which is tailored to take advantage of the scalability of Hadoop.

=> ↺ Soundbytes Continue from OpenStack Summit

=> ↺ PostGres-XL released to tackle big data analytics and more

• Sometimes it’s best to go with what you know. For countless developers, database managers, analysts, and others who need to store data in a traditional relational database system, PostGreSQL is that system. But as the demands on databases grow, so too must the software which underlie them.

=> ↺ DataStax and Databricks Partner on Open Source Big Data

Databases

=> ↺ Database vendor open sources Postgres-XL for scale-out workloads

CMS

=> ↺ Australian Government Plans To Save With Open Source Drupal

• The Australian government is looking to build a unified content management system (CMS) based on the open source Drupal software to power the 1,200 websites used across the government, according to the Australian Department of Finance.

=> ↺ ShrinkTheWeb Delivers Its Website Screenshots to Drupal Users

Business

=> ↺ Working with Open Source Software at Schuberg Philis

• At the DevOps Summit in Amsterdam Harm Boertien presented how OSS can help to embed a DevOps culture. He explained how Schuberg Philis shares software/cookbooks inside and outside of the company and showed how this is beneficial for them and brings benefits to the industry as a whole.

Funding

=> ↺ Novena Open Source Laptop Makes Jump To Production After Success Crowd Funding Campaign (video)

• If you fancy owning and building your very own open source laptop you will be pleased to know that the crowd funding campaign for the Novena open source laptop has been successful in raising over $300,000.

BSD

=> ↺ Apple Implements LLVM JIT Back-End For WebKit JavaScript

FSF/FSFE/GNU/SFLC

=> ↺ GCC 4.9 Will Soon Be The Default In Debian, Ubuntu

• GCC 4.9, which was officially released in late April, brings many improvements to the de facto standard Linux compiler stack. Debian and Ubuntu developers are now working on landing this annually-updated compiler stack for their Linux distributions.

• The defaults are already pointing to the GCC 4.9 components for GDC, GCC Go, GCC Java, and Gnat (Aada) front-ends on all architectures while the GCC 4.9 default for C, C++, Objective-C, and Objective-C++ front-end handling is a few weeks out. The Fortran support is also in the process of moving to GCC 4.9. When these changes land within the Debian archive, they’ll be picked up within Ubuntu Linux, well in time for Ubuntu 14.10.

=> ↺ Coreboot Now Supports The Lenovo Thinkpad T520

• There’s been a lot of new hardware to become supported by Coreboot lately while the newest addition is the handling of the Lenovo Thinkpad T520.

• The Sandy Bridge T520 is now supported by Coreboot after last month there was T530 Coreboot support. The T520 is now supported with Intel Sandy Bridge CPUs and Intel BD82X6X Southbridge.

Public Services/Government

=> ↺ A civic-social platform for a new kind of citizen duty

Openness/Sharing

=> ↺ Hero of open web calls techies to action

• Lawrence Lessig will recieve a Lifetime Achievement Webby Award for co-founding Creative Commons and “standing up for collaboration.” This year also marks the 25th anniversary of the Web, making the timing of an award for a man thought of by many as “a true hero of the open, collaborative Web” more than fitting.

=> ↺ What collaboration tools do you favor?

Leftovers

=> ↺ Amazon bans seller after threatening to sue customer for negative review

• Happened to me more than once. In my attempt to treat myself with something nice from Amazon, I occasionally end up with the wrong product. Something that’s not exactly what I had in mind when hitting the “add to basket” button. Something that didn’t match my expectations or simply of inferior quality by my standards. It’s times like these I find myself contemplating whether I should leave a negative review or simply not bother. I usually go for the latter one. But had I known what an impact that decision can have, I might have gone the opposite way.

=> ↺ Watch a Congressman Pick His Ear and Eat It Live on CSPAN

• Here’s a great way to start your Tuesday: During a House Judiciary Committee meeting last week, Rep. Joe Garcia (D-FL) picked his ear, looked at the wax on his finger, and then ate it.

=> ↺ P&G Detergent Pulled in Germany Over Neo-Nazi Code Found On Packages

Science

=> ↺ The Science of Your Racist Brain

• When the audio of Los Angeles Clippers owner Donald Sterling telling a female friend not to “bring black people” to his team’s games hit the internet, the condemnations were immediate. It was clear to all that Sterling was a racist, and the punishment was swift: The NBA banned him for life. It was, you might say, a pretty straightforward case.

Health/Nutrition

=> ↺ Did the CIA’s Fake Polio Vaccination Program in Pakistan Help Fuel a Global Health Emergency?

• The World Health Organization has designated the spread of polio in Asia, Africa and the Middle East a global public health emergency requiring a coordinated “international response.” Three countries pose the greatest risk of further spreading the paralyzing virus: Pakistan, Cameroon and Syria. In an unusual step, the WHO recommended all residents of those countries, of all ages, to be vaccinated before traveling abroad. The organization also said another seven countries – Afghanistan, Equatorial Guinea, Ethiopia, Iraq, Israel, Nigeria and Somalia – should “encourage” all their would-be travelers to get vaccinated. Until recently, polio had been nearly eradicated thanks to a 25-year campaign that vaccinated billions of children. In Pakistan, the increase in polio is being linked to a secret CIA ploy used in the hunt for Osama bin Laden. With the help of a Pakistani doctor, the CIA set up a fake vaccination campaign in the city of Abbottabad in an effort to get DNA from the bin Laden family. The Taliban subsequently announced a ban on immunization efforts and launched a string of deadly attacks on medical workers. We are joined by two guests: Rafia Zakaria, a columnist for Dawn, Pakistan’s largest English newspaper, who has been covering the rise of polio in Pakistan since the bin Laden raid; and one of Pakistan’s leading polio experts, Dr. Zulfiqar Bhutta.

=> ↺ Food Defenders Protest Corporate Takeover of ‘Organic’ Standards

• Champions of organic food brought the National Organic Standards Board (NOSB) meeting to a halt on Tuesday as they raised their voices against what they see as the takeover of the organic standards by the corporate food industry.

=> ↺ Chernobyl: Capping a Catastrophe

• Against the decaying skyline here, a one-of-a-kind engineering project is rising near the remains of the world’s worst civilian nuclear disaster.

=> ↺ WHO Issues New Report on Antibiotic Resistance

• The World Health Organization (WHO) has issued a new report on antibiotic resistance (ABR). It details resistance to antibacterial drugs in different parts of the world, along with resistance data on specific pathogens such as the resistance of E. coli bacteria to third-generation cephalosporins and fluoroquinolones. The report outlines the health and economic burden due to antibiotic resistance and looks specifically at antibiotic resistance in food-producing animals and the food chain.

Security

=> ↺ Please Stop Calling Everything A ‘Hack’

=> link-shortening service Bitly announced late last week that it’s ramping up its development of two-factor authentication following a compromise that leaked user information on Thursday. ↺ Bitly Developing Two Factor Authentication Following Compromise

• The link-shortening service Bitly announced late last week that it’s ramping up its development of two-factor authentication following a compromise that leaked user information on Thursday.

=> ↺ Reported NSA Backdoors Might Open Up Networks to More Threats

• Allegations that the NSA installed surveillance tools in U.S.-made network equipment, if true, could mean enterprises have more to worry about than just government spying.

Defence/Police/Secrecy/Aggression

=> ↺ Globalization, Self Determination and the End of State Sovereignty

• There is a plausible argument that can be made that, by the West working internationally to actively dismantle current states that do not work in the interest of the U.S., and with the domestic collapse of democratic principles and practices within the government in the U.S. (e.g. NSA spying on U.S. citizens and on England, Germany, and France; the recent Supreme Court rulings removing as many bars as they can to the power of money in the electoral process, such as in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission [2010] and also McCutcheon v. Federal Election Commission [2014]), with various peoples’ response to the nation-state breakdown in Africa, the Mideast, and Europe, from Libya to Egypt to Ukraine, combined with the fact of globalization (resulting in economic interdependency of states), there are indications that all of these U.S. intrusions into other nation-states are bringing in their wake the reduction of the primacy of the nation-state, if not its collapse altogether.

=> ↺ The purest form of democracy in action is not good enough for the Western establishment

=> ↺ In Ukraine, the US is dragging us towards war with Russia

• Washington’s role in Ukraine, and its backing for the regime’s neo-Nazis, has huge implications for the rest of the world

=> ↺ Blackwater mercenaries direct Kiev regime’s crackdown in Ukraine

=> ↺ Amid Eastern Ukraine Vote, Soldiers Open Fire on Crowd

• Local leader in Donetsk says that if vote for independence wins, all Ukraine soldiers in region will be considered “illegal occupiers”

=> ↺ The Strange Logic of the US, EU: East Ukraine’s Referendums Aren’t Democratic But the Coup-Imposed Kiev Regime Is?

• The incompetent US Department of State spokeswoman Jennifer Psaki, who was hired because of her history as a Democratic Party campaigner and not because of any understanding of international relations or foreign affairs, described the referenda in the easternmost oblasts of Donetsk and Luhansk (Lugansk) as a replay of Russia’s “Crimea playbook.” She was using the same talking points as her boss, US Secretary of State John Kerry.

=> ↺ Who really wants to roll back the state? Not the right

• While this government props up big business and delves into our private lives, there is a tradition of individualism on the left waiting to be reclaimed

=> ↺ Who really wants to roll back the state? Not the right

• …this government props up big business and delves into our private lives, there is a tradition of individualism on the left waiting to be reclaimed

=> ↺ The Farce Is Complete: Joe Biden’s Son Joins Board Of Largest Ukraine Gas Producer

=> ↺ Son of U.S. Vice President Biden Joins Ukraine Gas Company

• The youngest son of U.S. Vice President Joe Biden, Hunter Biden, has been appointed head of legal affairs at Ukraine’s largest private gas producer — a move he said would benefit Ukrainians and the country’s economy.

• In a statement published Monday on its website, Burisma Holdings announced Hunter Biden would join its board of directors and head the company’s legal unit.

=> ↺ Netizens to Michelle Obama: #BringBackYourDrones

=> ↺ How Colonialism Benefits from Boko Haram’s Mass Kidnapping of Girls

• Kidnapping of girls and trafficking of girls to Syria has also been reported from Mali, invaded by France and NATO members in 2013 as well as from Egypt and Libya invaded by NATO and NATO-led Al-Qaeda “rebels” in 2011. Since 2014 the kidnapping of girls has begun spreading into Europe, with the “disappearance” of two Austrian – Bosnian girls being the best known incident.

=> ↺ Nine facts about armed drones

• Israel is the world’s largest exporter of drones and drone technology.

=> ↺ Drone strikes in Pak-Afghan border area kill 2 suspected militants

• The strikes, which occurred early morning, reportedly killed at least two suspected militants.

=> ↺ Releasing Drone Program Memos Is Fundamental to Government Transparency

• On May 13, the Center for Effective Government joined other open government organizations in urging Attorney General Eric Holder not to appeal the decision of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in New York Times Co. v. Department of Justice. In April, the Second Circuit ruled that the government must disclose the legal analysis justifying the government’s drone-based targeted killing program, in response to a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request by the Times.

=> ↺ Robots licensed to kill? U.N. summit worried

• “If we don’t inject a moral and ethical discussion into this, we won’t control warfare,” said Jody Williams, who won the 1997 Nobel Peace Prize for her campaign for a land mine ban treaty.

=> ↺ President Obama Receives “Ambassador for Humanity” Award (Not Satire)

• It is impossible not to gain the impression that the criteria for being awarded prestigious honors for services to “peace”, “humanity” or “distinguished public service” is a candidate who is duplicitous, vicious, stone hearted and above all prepared to kill, plan killings or rejoice in killing on an industrial scale as brutally as can be devised.

=> ↺ Drones will fill the sky

• Consider that just in the past few days, a Federal Aviation Administration official revealed that in March a US Airways passenger jet nearly collided with a small-unmanned aircraft that looked similar to an F-4 Phantom jet and was flying above 2,000 feet over Florida. These details and the fact that the drone was described as “camouflaged” suggest that it was not a civilian drone.

=> ↺ UN Considers Whether to Ban Killer Robots

=> ↺ CHAPMAN: The drone war’s secrets and lies

=> ↺ Barron Confirmation Remains Uncertain

• The Senate confirmation process of Harvard Law School professor David J. Barron ’89 continues to provoke controversy as a vocal group of senators from both the left and right call for the public release of memos, which Barron allegedly wrote during his time as a lawyer for the Justice Department. Those memos established the legal justification for the Obama administration’s controversial drone policy.

=> ↺ “We Kill People Based on Metadata,” Admits Former CIA/NSA Boss

• Essentially confessing to mass murder and multiple other crimes, retired Gen. Michael Hayden, the former boss of both the NSA and the CIA, admitted that the Obama administration has been murdering people around the world based solely on the so-called metadata collected by U.S. intelligence agencies. The controversial insider’s remarks confirmed growing fears and warnings by critics of the out-of-control federal government that, despite efforts to downplay its unconstitutional spying and assassination programs, Americans have much to be concerned about.

=> ↺ DesJarlias: Committee will look at CIA presence in Libya during Benghazi attack

• “We had the last consulate to have a flag. There was an assassination attempt against the British Ambassador, and our facility had been attacked in a couple of lesser fashions,” DesJarlais said. “Why was our ambassador there meeting with the Turkish ambassador? The rumor was the guns were going though Benghazi, through Turkey into Syria. That is the missing big piece to this puzzle. Why was there no military help?”

=> ↺ Iran 1953: The Strange Odyssey of Kermit Roosevelt’s Countercoup

Environment/Energy/Wildlife

=> ↺ Landmark Report Warns Time Is Running Out To Save U.S. From Climate Catastrophe

• The National Climate Assessment is the definitive statement of current and future impacts of carbon pollution on the United States. And the picture it paints is stark: Inaction will devastate much of the arable land of the nation’s breadbasket — and ruin a livable climate for most Americans.

=> ↺ Australia: Budget to cut youth off welfare

• In a little-publicised speech last Saturday, Social Services Minister Kevin Andrews confirmed that tonight’s federal budget will include draconian attacks on young people, especially those who are unemployed or disabled. Andrews announced that the Liberal-National government will enforce a system of “Earn or Learn”—extending measures that were introduced by the previous Labor government.

=> ↺ New Zealand refuses climate change refugees – mass action is now needed

• New Zealand’s court of appeal has refused refugee status to a family from Kiribati, a Pacific island which is quickly sinking beneath the sea

Finance

=> ↺ Private Prisons Eat Our Humanity

• Somebody figured out, once again, how to build a machine that can quantify the life of an African-American man and make money off him. They figured out how to use the value of his body to fuel their machine. They learned how to drive its engine, and how to turn a profit. They call it prison privatization. I call it mining black gold, and I have watched black gold be mined from the streets of my community every day.

• I make my home in Tennessee — and for too long, so has the Corrections Corporation of America. To a company like CCA, our country’s oldest and biggest for-profit prison corporation, each young black man that goes into the prison machine represents more than $20,000 a year. To CCA, a company that profits off of human bodies, mass incarceration equals mass profits. While their profits soar, we suffer.

=> ↺ It Could Cost Indiana $125 Million To Avoid The Common Core

• Indiana’s Legislative Services Agency released its report on the expected costs of implementing the state’s alternative to the Common Core and found they could be as high as $125 million.

• The reason for the high cost begins with the initial switch and development of the new standards, costing $26 million. This comes after the state already spent $6 million to adhere to the Common Core before Governor Mike Pence (R) signed the legislation rejecting the federal standards in March.

• The rest of the costs come from retraining programs for the state’s teachers, which could be as high as $2,000 a teacher. However, if adequate online resource are secured, as Fordham Institute notes, the costs could fall to $500 a teacher. This means the final price tag could range from $32.5 million to $125 million.

=> ↺ Labour reveals tax data showing UK economic growth ‘only helps top 1%’

• Party cites HMRC figures showing bottom 90% of taxpayers share less post-tax income but top 300,000 have more

=> ↺ Asian logging companies ‘use British islands for tax dodging’

• Calls for crackdown as investigation finds huge Indonesian corporations evading tax through network of secret shell companies in British Virgin Islands and other tax havens

=> ↺ After the crash, we need a revolution in the way we teach economics

• Students who claim that economics courses fail to explain the 2008 crash are gaining support from British business. Here, two Cambridge academics agree it’s time for a change

=> ↺ The Death of American Universities

• As universities move towards a corporate business model, precarity is being imposed by force.

=> ↺ No-boss Britain: entrepreneurs or out of options?

• Britain’s self-employed army can no longer be ignored. For the first time in the country’s modern history, a significant proportion of the labour market (one in seven) has no boss. According to official figures, the number of registered self-employed workers has risen by more than 600,000 since 2010 – an unprecedented increase of around 15 per cent that shows few signs of subsiding.

PR/AstroTurf/Lobbying

=> ↺ Top Six Facts in the Walker Dark Money Criminal Probe

• In the wake of a federal court’s recent ruling halting a state criminal investigation into spending during the 2011 and 2012 recall elections for Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker and other candidates, misinformation about the investigation and court rulings has run rampant.

Censorship

=> ↺ Censorship is no way to counter religious extremism online

=> ↺ ECJ Google Spain ruling raises concerns for online free speech

• Open Rights Group believes that today’s ruling by the European Court of Justice could pose a threat to free speech online. The Court ruled that an internet search provider ‘is responsible for the processing that it carries out of personal data which appear on web pages published by third parties’.

=> ↺ Hong Kong publisher Yao Wentian jailed for 10 years

• The Committee to Protect Journalists condemns the 10-year jail sentence given on Wednesday to a Hong Kong publisher preparing to release a book critical of Chinese President Xi Jinping.

=> ↺ EU ‘right to be forgotten’ ruling paves way for censorship

=> ↺ Google EU data case raises censorship fears

Privacy

=> ↺ Glenn Greenwald to recount NSA story in new PBS Frontline film – live chat

=> ↺ The United States of Secrets

• Michael Kirk: There was an agency in the United States of America that had spied on and got its fingers slapped for doing it in the 1970s. The great bright white line at the agency, which was unbelievably powerful in its ability to surviel, eavesdrop, and wiretap, was never turn those eyes and ears towards Americans. And the people who worked there believed it. And then, this thing called 9/11 happened and (…) faster than you could imagine, the rules were changed. The lines were blurred, and the government, the National Security Agency, turned all of that power on the American people, and the people who did the turning, the scientists (…) witnessed it and many many of them worried about it, and talked to us.

=> ↺ NSA routinely tapped in-flight Internet, intercepted exported routers

=> ↺ NSA reform: lawmakers aim to bar agency from weakening encryption

• Concerned about weaknesses in USA Freedom Act, Zoe Lofgren and colleagues pushing to prevent NSA from weakening online encryption with new amendment

=> ↺ NSA Bill on Fast Track; Lofgren Preps Security Provision

=> ↺ IETF plans to NSA-proof all future internet protocols

• The IETF has taken the next small step down the long, long road of protecting user traffic from spooks, snoops and attackers, setting down the basic architectural principle that new protocols should resist monitoring.

=> ↺ NSA Reportedly Adds Backdoors To US-Made Routers

=> ↺ NY Times, Justice Dept. under fire for concealing info on NSA snooping

• The New York Times and the Justice Department are under fire for bowing to the National Security Agency and either hiding (the Times) or misinforming (DOJ) the public about crucial pieces of the NSA’s secret spying programs.

=> ↺ At US gov request, NYT’s Bill Keller spiked NSA spying story in 2004

• Part of that story is highlighted on PRI’s ‘The World’ radio show today. After 9/11, the National Security Agency wanted new ways to spy on electronic interactions in the US. “The Program, as it was called, spied on telephones, Internet connections, metadata from emails and almost every form of electronic communication.”

=> ↺ Open source tool encrypts Facebook chats

• Facebook’s messaging application doesn’t support encryption, but an open-source chat program, Cryptocat, has made it possible to chat with friends there over an encrypted connection.

=> ↺ The Move Toward Computing That Reads Your Mind

• Like many people in this modern world, I struggle with the tension between the conveniences offered by the latest technology and the loss of privacy that comes with them.

• Nowhere is this devil’s bargain more evident than in the blossoming field of so-called contextual computing.

• When I picked up my phone earlier this week, it told me — without a single tap on my part — that my estimated commute time was 51 minutes and that I had a lunch scheduled with a friend. The friend’s Facebook photo showed up next to the appointment.

• The phone also showed my other appointments that day and a customized feed of news and weather, and it gave me the flight status of an approaching trip.

• Sadly, it did not bring me coffee.

• My phone is trying to anticipate my needs based on what it knows about me — the context of my life. And what it knows seems like almost everything.

=> ↺ Silent Circle relocates to Switzerland

=> ↺ Tory ‘push’ to give MI5 more powers to spy on internet

• Conservative ministers are pushing for the security services to be given new powers to spy on people’s internet use amid claims they might have saved Drummer Lee Rigby

=> ↺ Privacy group takes aim at UK surveillance practices

• Privacy International files legal complaint that accuses GCHQ of installing malware on millions of devices without their owners’ permission.

=> ↺ Snooping tools GCHQ could use to hack your phone’s microphone, camera and keypad: Nosey Smurf, Gumfish and Foggybottom

• The civil rights group Privacy International has today launched the groundbreaking legal challenge at the Investigatory Powers Tribunal in London, claiming that GCHQ’s alleged use of such spying techniques is “incompatible with democratic principles and human rights standards”.

=> ↺ UK: GCHQ sued over ‘unlawful hacking’

=> ↺ Privacy International sues British spooks

=> ↺ GCHQ litigated over ‘unlawful hacking’

• UK Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) has been sued by Rights group Privacy International on Tuesday, demanding an end to surveillance programs deemed to be “incompatible with democratic principles and human rights standards.”

=> ↺ Blink bought out by Yahoo

• The makers of a mobile phone app that allows users to chat to each other and then destroy the messages have confirmed the sale of the business to Yahoo.

=> ↺ Making your email impossible to intercept will also make it useless

• Say you wanted to send an email more secure than any message that had ever been transmitted in human history, a message with absolutely no chance of being intercepted. How would you do it? +

=> ↺ OPINION: US Use of Metadata for Targeted Killings Shocking Even for Intel Operatives

• The recent revelation by former NSA and CIA head Michael Hayden that metadata is used for targeting killings shocked many including fellow US intelligence operatives, Melvin Goodman, a former CIA analyst and fellow at the Washington-based Center for International Policy, told RIA Novosti Tuesday.

• “It was shocking to hear that confirmed at such a high level,” Goodman said, adding that Hayden’s smug manner had made the comments even worse.

=> ↺ New Spying Claims: Australian Spy Agency Sought Help of U.S. for More Surveillance on Australians

• Documents from a U.S. agency had revealed that Australia has sought the help of the Americans to increase surveillance on suspected terrorists. According to The Guardian, Australia’s intelligence agency needed the help of the U.S. spy agency to monitor Australians suspected of having ties with extremists.

=> ↺ Snowden docs: GCSB links to US spying programmes

• New documents released by whistleblower Edward Snowden show New Zealand’s GCSB closely enmeshed with some of the most controversial parts of the United States’ spying apparatus.

• The documents were released with journalist Glenn Greenwald’s new book No Place To Hide, which tells the story of Snowden’s National Security Agency disclosures and what they mean.

=> ↺ The CIA is Stalking Me…Online

• The NSA is the powerhouse agency for code breaking, and while such activities are beyond my capacity, others quickly figured out the simple letter substitution code. It reads, “Want to know what it takes to work at NSA? Check back each month to explore careers essential to protect in [SIC] your nation.” I’ll forgive them the failed grammar at the end given that they did have to code the whole thing.

• It’s both a sign of how hard agencies are working to try to land talent, a broader issue in general for the government and government contractors especially in the face of the bad publicity surrounding the Edward Snowden disclosures, and the evolving landscape of modern intelligence work. It used to be that a well-placed professor would recommend you to a recruiter, and a guy dressed like Dick Tracy would show up to take your temperature.

• I’m flattered, CIA, that you are interested. Really, it’s nice to be wanted. But admittedly I’m a bit squeamish. I prefer to work in a dying profession (journalism) as opposed to one which involves people dying.

=> ↺ NSA Gave Canada Money For Surveillance Program

• The National Security Agency paid Canada to help develop its surveillance capabilities, according to documents published by Glenn Greenwald in a new book.

=> ↺ Canadian spies receive U.S. money for research and surveillance, book says

=> ↺ Canada actively spies for NSA, Glenn Greenwald claims in new book

=> ↺ Glenn Greenwald says NSA bugs tech hardware en route to global customers

• American journalist Glenn Greenwald is accusing the U.S. National Security Agency of breaking into tech hardware to install surveillance bugs before the products are shipped to unsuspecting global customers, in a new book about the NSA’s mass surveillance practices.

=> ↺ The American Republic Is Dead

=> ↺ Glenn Greenwald wants to keep the leaks flowing

• GQ has a lengthy interview this week with the journalist who helped engineer Edward Snowden’s NSA leaks in advance of his book No Place to Hide. In true Greenwald fashion, he doesn’t hold back: he rips the The New York Times for acting like the government is on its editorial board, trashes Hillary Clinton as “banal, corrupted, drained of vibrancy and passion” and blasts Tim Russert, the late dean of Sunday political talks shows.

Civil Rights

=> ↺ Video: War On Terror Led To Worldwide Increase Of Torture

=> ↺ Rand Paul, save us from the criminal CIA

• Future American historians will marvel at how long the CIA engaged in such utter unconstitutional lawlessness as the torture of its captives and drone-plane executions of alleged terrorists – including U.S. citizens – without trials, using “kill lists” provided by President Barack Obama (“Obama’s kill list – All males near drone strike sites are terrorists,” rt.com, May 30, 2012).

=> ↺ Violence in Britain: how the war on terror criminalises ordinary people

• It is now accepted that the war on terror has generated an extensive repertoire of its very own terror. Drone strikes resulting in extrajudicial killings, rendition and torture – zones of exception like Guantanamo Bay come to mind, as does Britain’s complicity in extraordinary rendition and torture.

• Then there are the normalised, everyday forms of terror operational in Britain that rarely register as state-sanctioned violence because they are understood to keep us safe. This includes MI5 and police raids without charge, compulsory schedule 7 detention and questioning and stop and search of communities made suspect.

=> ↺ Even terrorism should not justify denying people citizenship

• Should your government be able to take away your citizenship? In the United Kingdom, the government has had the legal authority to revoke naturalized Britons’ citizenship since 1918. But, until the terrorist bombings on the London transport system in 2005, this power was rarely exercised. Since then, the government has revoked the citizenship of 42 people, including 20 cases in 2013. British Home Secretary Theresa May has said that citizenship is “a privilege, not a right.”Most of the 42 held dual nationality. Mohamed Sakr, however, did not. His parents came to the United Kingdom from Egypt, but he was not an Egyptian citizen. Therefore, by stripping him of citizenship, the British government made him stateless.

=> ↺ 2013 Stop and Frisk Numbers Underscore Need to Begin Reforms

=> ↺ 23 Cops Shoot Unarmed Car Occupants, And Each Other, 377 Times (VIDEO)

=> ↺ Calls to class far-right Jewish settlers as terrorists after Israeli soldiers attacked

• Senior ministers Tzipi Livni and Yitzhak Aharonovitch condemn ‘price-tag’ attacks as author Amos Oz calls militants neo-Nazis

=> ↺ The Declaration of Independence—Except for ‘Indian Savages’

• The most sacred document wherein the U.S. celebrates its Fourth of July holiday, the Declaration of Independence, is known for having some of the most revolutionary words in history in regards to the equality of men who at the time had been forever accustomed to having caste-like systems whether it be Empires, noblemen and serfs, or a monarchy rule the American colonialists lived under.

=> ↺ Exclusive: Found after 500 years, the wreck of Christopher Columbus’s flagship the Santa Maria

• Shipwreck found off coast of Haiti thought to be one of the most significant underwater discoveries in history

=> ↺ Noam Chomsky and the Public Intellectual in Turbulent Times

• Noam Chomsky is a world renowned academic best known not only for his pioneering work in linguistics but also for his ongoing work as a public intellectual in which he has addressed a number of important social issues that include and often connect oppressive foreign and domestic policies – a fact well illustrated in his numerous path breaking books.(1) In fact, Chomsky’s oeuvre includes too many exceptionally important books to single out any one of them from his extraordinary and voluminous archive of work. Moreover, as political interventions, his many books often reflect both a decisive contribution and an engagement with a number of issues that have and continue to dominate a series of specific historical moments over the course of 50 years. His political interventions have been historically specific while continually building on the power relations he has engaged critically. For instance, his initial ideas about the responsibility of intellectuals cannot be separated from his early criticisms of the Vietnam War and the complicity of intellectuals in brokering and legitimating that horrendous act of military intervention.(2) Hence, it becomes difficult to compare his 1988 book, Manufacturing Consent, coauthored with Edward S. Herman, with his 2002 bestseller, 9/11. Yet, what all of these texts share is a luminous theoretical, political, and forensic analysis of the functioning of the current global power structure, new and old modes of oppressive authority, and the ways in which neoliberal economic and social policies have produced more savage forms of global domination and corporate sovereignty.

=> ↺ Global crisis on torture exposed by new worldwide campaign

• “Governments around the world are two-faced on torture – prohibiting it in law, but facilitating it in practice” said Salil Shetty, Amnesty International’s Secretary General, as he launched Stop Torture, Amnesty International’s latest global campaign to combat widespread torture and other ill-treatment in the modern world.

=> ↺ Guest blog: Estonia and the risks of internet voting

• Two reasons: Firstly Estonia is regularly held up as a model of e-government and e-voting that many countries, including the UK, wish to emulate. Secondly, after years of e-voting being off the UK agenda (thanks in part to ORG’s previous work in this area), the chair of the Electoral Commission recently put the idea of e-voting for British elections back in play.

=> ↺ Harvard’s Kennedy School Adds Privilege-Checking to New-Student Orientation

=> ↺ Florida Couple Fined, Threatened with Jail for Feeding Homeless

Internet/Net Neutrality

=> ↺ Canada Won’t Escape the FCC’s Gutting of Net Neutrality

• Yesterday, sources told the New York Times that the FCC wants to allow internet service providers to jack rates for higher speed delivery of certain content like online video, which will likely create a tiered system: those who can pay to deliver their content in the fast lane, and those who can’t. In an email, Canadian digital policy expert Professor Michael Geist didn’t mince words: “If the reports are true—the FCC is [vaguely] denying it tonight—it guts net neutrality in the United States.”

• [...]

• As Geist explained to me, there isn’t “a practical difference between deliberately slowing some traffic and deliberately speeding up other traffic.” To him, the end result is unavoidable: “A two-tier Internet based on payments from content owners that can afford it. That strikes at the heart of net neutrality.”

Intellectual Monopolies

Copyrights

=> ↺ US Expelled Saudi Students For Using Pirate Software, Official Says

• The head of copyright issues in the Saudi Arabian Ministry of Culture and Information says that U.S. authorities expelled 34 Saudi students from the United States after they were found using pirated software. Forty other citizens were denied entry into the U.S. on the same grounds, the source claims.

=> ↺ Hadopi Recommends Super Injunctions to Keep Pirate Content Down

• Today, French anti-piracy agency HADOPI handed the government a long-awaited report on the development of “operational tools” for dealing with online piracy. Several key areas are outlined, including the creation of a new type of takedown notice designed not only to take content offline, but keep it offline for up to six months.

=> ↺ Commander Hadfield’s Amazing Cover Of David Bowie’s Space Oddity Disappears Today, Thanks To Copyright

• A year ago, we wrote a whole post looking at the copyright questions raised by Canadian astronaut, Commander Chris Hadfield, doing a cover version of David Bowie’s “Space Oddity,” along with an astounding music video in space, as he prepared to return to earth. Hadfield, for months, had been a great ambassador for the space program, using a variety of social media to communicate with folks back on the planet about what his day was like. The “Space Oddity” video just cemented his place as a key figure helping to generate interest in the space program through regular public communications with everyone in a very accessible way.

=> ↺ “U.S. Prisons Play Pirated Movies to Inmates”

• The former operator of USAWarez.com and USATorrents.com, who has served more than two years in prison for copyright infringement, has outed several prisons for showing pirated movies to their inmates. One of the prisons mentioned says that the matter is still under investigation.

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