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● 06.24.14

● Links 24/6/2014: KDE Plasma Media Center 1.3, Linux Mint 17 KDE

Posted in News Roundup at 10:13 am by Dr. Roy SchestowitzContentsGNU/LinuxGNU/Linux

=> ↺ Russia to replace US-made processors with own ARM variant

=> ↺ Russia Government Chooses GNU/Linux with Chips

• Russia’s government has been flirting with the idea of switching to open source for some time, but often that’s been just another example of waving the threat around to encourage Microsoft to offer more favourable licensing terms for using its software, as has happened frequently in the UK. However, a new move by the Russian authorities might finally see them making the switch:

• Russia’s Industry and Trade Ministry plans to replace US microchips Intel and AMD, used in government’s computers, with domestically-produced micro processor Baikal in a project worth dozens of millions of dollars, business daily Kommersant reported Thursday.

=> ↺ Russia to ditch Intel, AMD in favor of homegrown ‘Baikal’ chips; will use GNU/Linux

=> ↺ Russian Government Shunning AMD And Intel For Homegrown Chips [Report]

Desktop

=> ↺ One Improvement the Linux Desktop Needs

• Despite all the improvements we have made over the years, Linux is still too hard. We need more users, more designers, and more UX experts looking at and using Linux desktops every day to isolate and eliminate these pain points. The way we gain more users is concentrate on the user experience during every step of development. The more people we have extolling the virtues of the Linux desktop, the more people it will attract to the platform. Eventually, developers will follow the people, but we’ve got to provide a solid foundation first.

Server

=> ↺ Top500 supercomputer race hits a slow patch

• On the Top500 list of the fastest supercomputers, which a group of researchers update twice each year to coincide with supercomputing conferences, the combined performance of all the machines increased from 250 petaflops in November 2013 to 274 petaflops in June 2014.

=> ↺ China’s Tianhe-2 tops supercomputer chart again

=> ↺ Top500 Supercomputer Remains Stuck at 33.86 Petaflops/s

• While there are competing vendors, chip architectures, core counts and networking fabrics at play in the list of the worlds top 500 supercomputers, when it comes to the operating system of choice, there is no debate. Linux dominates the list with a 97 percent share, being installed on 485 systems on the top 500 list.

=> ↺ IBM Tightens Collaboration with Docker Open Source Cloud Community

• IBM is accelerating the adoption of open technologies for cloud computing, with the goal of assisting enterprises in integrating existing infrastructures into the cloud space. To this end, IBM said it is working on an open integration model with Docker, an open source platform for developers and systems administrators to build, ship, and run distributed applications, and the open source Docker project community.

=> ↺ Jim Zemlin to Wall Street: Why open source will lead the way

• At the invitation only Linux Enterprise End-User Summit held at the Convene Center Financial District, Jim Zemlin, the Linux Foundation’s executive director, told an audience of several hundred Wall Street executives and top Linux developers what he sees as the future of technology.

Kernel Space

=> ↺ Second Version Of SUSE’s kGraft Patches Published

• SUSE developers continue to pursue mainlining their kGraft approach that’s an alternative to the existing Kslice option or Red Hat’s Kpatch mechanism for live kernel patching. To date there’s been no concerted effort to try to merge these kGraft and Kpatch solutions. Today’s revision to kGraft addresses developer comments during the first round of upstream kernel developer review.

Applications

=> ↺ Open Source Multimedia Converter Curlew 0.1.22.3 Is Out

=> ↺ Samba 4.1.9 Has Been Released With Two Important Security Fixes

=> ↺ Samba Browser for KDE Smb4K 1.1.5 Gets Lots of Fixes

=> ↺ Samba 4.1.9 Released with Fixes for Two Exploits

=> ↺ phpMyAdmin 4.2.4 Arrives with More Fixes

=> ↺ LFTP 4.5.2 File Transfer Software Improves Torrent-Related Features

• LFTP 4.5.2, a sophisticated file transfer program with a command-line interface that supports FTP, HTTP, FISH, SFTP, HTTPS, and FTPS protocols, is now available for download.

• Every operation made with LFTP is reliable, which means that, if any non-fatal error occurs, the operation is retried automatically.

• This latest version of LFTP is not a big update, but the developers have made a few interesting changes and improvements.

=> ↺ FFmpeg 2.2.4 Officially Released

• FFmpeg 2.2.4 is the latest major release and this current build is just a maintenance version, with a few updates and minor changes.

• “It is the latest stable FFmpeg release from the 2.2 release branch, which was cut from master on 2014-03-01. Amongst lots of other changes, it includes all changes from ffmpeg-mt, libav master of 2014-03-01, libav 10.1 as of 2014-06-23,” reads the official announcement.

=> ↺ watchfile.sh: Perhaps the best thus far

=> ↺ wanderlust: emacs plus e-mail equals … emailcs?

Proprietary

=> ↺ Opera Developer version arrives on Linux

=> ↺ Opera targets Linux developers

=> ↺ Opera 24 finally lands on Linux

=> ↺ How To Install Opera 24 On 64 Bit Ubuntu 14.04, Using Either Unity Or Gnome Shell

=> ↺ Opera 24 On Chromium Now Available For Linux

=> ↺ Opera Software releases first Linux build of new Opera

Instructionals/Technical

=> ↺ Make a server at home on a Beaglebone Black and Fedora

=> ↺ How To Install Springseed 2.0 On Ubuntu 14.04, Ubuntu 13.10 And Their Derivative Systems

=> ↺ How To Install Warsow 1.51 On Ubuntu 14.04, Linux Mint 17, LXLE 14.04, Pinguy OS 14.04 And Other Ubuntu 14.04 Derivatives

=> ↺ QuickTip: How To Enable SSH On Fedora 21, Fedora 20 And Fedora 19

=> ↺ How to disable Ipv6 on Ubuntu, Linux Mint, Debian

=> ↺ Kali Linux remote SSH – How to configure openSSH server

=> ↺ RDO Setup Two Real Node (Controller+Compute) IceHouse Neutron ML2&OVS&VLAN Cluster on Fedora 20

=> ↺ How To Install MKVToolNix 7.0 On Ubuntu, Linux Mint, Pinguy OS, Elementary OS, LXLE, Debian, Fedora, CentOS And OpenSUSE Systems

=> ↺ How to enable spell-checking in different languages in Pidgin in Linux

=> ↺ How to configure a Tomcat cluster on Ubuntu

=> ↺ Virtualbox Guest additions installation on Fedora Linux

=> ↺ Using pass to Manage Your Passwords on Fedora

Games

=> ↺ Linux gaming

• Back in 2006, when I was contemplating a move from Windows to Linux, I knew I would have to give up computer games. This wasn’t because there were no games written for Linux, it’s just that they weren’t very good. Most of the best commercial games were (and still are) written for Windows, but that’s been changing dramatically over the last year, thanks to Steam, the Internet-based software distribution platform from Valve Corp.

• The move to support Linux came fairly late but is drawing impetus from the top.

• In July 2012, Valve managing director Gabe Newell had complained that Windows 8 was “a catastrophe for everyone in the PC space.”

• Observing that many people still stayed away from Linux because of a lack of games, he said Valve was working to bring Steam titles to Linux as a hedging strategy.

=> ↺ AAA Gaming Heats Up On Linux With The Releases Of XCOM: Enemy Unknown And Civilization V

=> ↺ Trolling Delays Linux Release Of The Stanley Parable

• However, following a string of harassment from Linux users in the Steam forums (and perhaps more worryingly, in private emails), the developer has stated that he is now only working on the port in a much more limited way and has abandoned working on it in his spare time since the abuse has taken away any enjoyment he got from it. As a result, the port will take far longer than anticipated. At the same time, I fear that any ‘backlash’ of abusive comments could lead to all work being abandoned…

Desktop Environments/WMs

=> ↺ EDE 2.1 released

K Desktop Environment/KDE SC/Qt

=> ↺ People of KDE is back

• As Michael Bohlender (known to some e.g. for his GSoC project about Kmail Active last year) needed to do some interviews for his anthropology course at the university he decided to reactive the People behind KDE series or, as they are now named, the People of KDE series.

=> ↺ KDE Plasma Media Center 1.3 Supports Baloo, MPRIS Specification

=> ↺ Plasma Media Center 1.3 Is Now Out for All KDE Fans

=> ↺ Plasma Media Center 1.3 Available

• Plasma Media Center 1.2 was released as a Christmas gift. Now, we bring to you Plasma Media Center 1.3! As always, we have made sure to make it easier to enjoy your favorite videos, music and photos – both from your collection as well as online sources. A big focus has been performance improvements when showing you the media on your computer as well as general polish for the UI.

GNOME Desktop/GTK

=> ↺ Multiple monitor virtualization for Boxes is in development

• Boxes is an GNOME application in Fedora that is used to create, manage, and run virtual machines, and Google Summer of Code student Adrien Plazas is working on implementing multiple monitor support in Boxes.

=> ↺ AUDACIOUS GOING BACK TO GTK2 STARTING WITH VERSION 3.6

• In a recent forum post, John Lindgren, Audacious Manager and Developer, notes that the long-term goal is to switch to Qt however, the GTK+ interfaces need to remain stable in the meantime and “going back to GTK2 appears to be the only way to achieve this”.

=> ↺ In Road To Qt, Audacious Switches From GTK3 Back To GTK2

=> ↺ Multiple Monitor Virtualization Being Worked On For GNOME Boxes

• GNOME Boxes is still on the road of maturing into a nice open-source program for managing virtual machines and remote systems.

• GNOME Boxes is a very easy-to-use program from the GNOME Desktop that uses libvirt for managing virtual machines with the various forms of Linux virtualization or connecting to a remote system. Of course, virt-manager remains the dominant open-source Linux solution in this area, but GNOME Boxes continues to work out very nicely for strictly desktop users and other simple use-cases.

=> ↺ Demo Video: Gedit, Gnome Calculator and Simple Scan GTK+ Apps Have Received Mir Support

• A special PPA containing GTK+ applications with support for Mir has been recently created, enabling the users to test the new file manager, browser, image viewer and other apps specially developed for Mir and currently used only on Ubuntu Touch. For now, only Gedit, Gnome Calculator and Simple Scan are available for Mir, but new apps will join this list soon.

Distributions

=> ↺ A June ’14 Distro Categorization

• I thought it might help a few people (including myself!) to perform the following categorized and referenced summary of the current “families” of non-commercial Linux distros. All of these distros have brief descriptions and rankings at the DistroWatch.com listing site [1].

=> ↺ Zorin OS 9 RC Is Now the Perfect Replacement for Windows 7 and Windows XP

• There are quite a few Linux distributions that take direct aim at the Windows users, but not all of them are as appreciated as Zorin OS. The developers have managed to release a fresh take on the old desktop paradigm used by Windows. It somewhat resembles that well-known interface, but it manages to also feel new.

• This latest edition is still in the development stages and it will take a while until it is ready, but, from the looks of it, Zorin OS 9 RC is already a winner. It’s now based on Ubuntu 14.04 LTS (Trusty Tahr), which was released a couple of months ago, meaning that it will also come with extended support.

=> ↺ Clonezilla Live 2.2.3-23 Now Features Support for New Filesystems

• The Clonezilla team has just a released a new development version for this Linux distribution, but unlike the latest versions, the current build integrates a larger number of improvements, besides the regular Debian updates.

• “The underlying GNU/Linux operating system was upgraded. This release is based on the Debian Sid repository, as of June 24, 2014,” reads the official announcement.

New Releases

=> ↺ Netrunner 14 Is a Superb and Unique-Looking Linux OS

=> ↺ MakuluLinux 6.0 KDE

=> ↺ Makulu Linux 6.0 KDE: Guaranteed to make you smile

• Another Makulu Linux distribution was released today, and that’s always good news! This time it is the KDE desktop for the Makulu 6.x series. The Xfce version of this was just released a couple of weeks ago, so i don’t exptect for there to be any major surprised: I hope that means this will not be a very lengthy post.

• As usual, the release announcement gives a good overview of the what and why in this release. The most important specifics are that it is built on Linux kernel 3.14.7 and KDE SC 4.13.1. The download images are available from the Makulu Linux KDE page, it is a 32-bit (i686) build that is approximately 1.7GB in size. It is a hybrid ISO, so you can burn it to disk or dump it with dd to a USB stick, and it does not support UEFI boot.

PCLinuxOS/Mageia/Mandrake/Mandriva Family

=> ↺ Mageia 4.1 Has Been Released, Using Kernel 3.12.21

• Mageia is a fork of the good old Mandriva, uses systemd as the default init event manager and GRUB1, while all the modern systems have switched to GRUB2. As you may know, Mageia 4 has been released in February 2014.

• Recently, a point release of Mageia 4, Mageia 4.1 has been released, being powered by Kernel 3.12.21, in all the traditional flavors: KDE, GNOME, LXDE, Xfce, RazorQt, MATE, and Cinnamon.

=> ↺ Linux Top 3: Peppermint Five, Mageia 4.1 and Debian LTS

Arch Family

=> ↺ Antergos: An Easy, Quick Way To Try Out Arch Linux

• Arch Linux fans are frequently requesting more benchmarks of their preferred Linux distribution at Phoronix over claims that it’s faster than the likes of Ubuntu, more versatile, etc. Every once in a while I do deliver benchmarks of Arch but it’s not too frequent given that it’s a rolling-release distribution that’s very open to end-user tweaking and modification, thus hard to give a defined reference point for other users to compare their results against ours, as opposed to just say “download XYZ ISO, install, and then benchmark!” Thus when benchmarking a distribution like Gentoo or Arch, I prefer using one of the derivatives that at least deploys out of the box quickly, gives some sane default values to use for benchmarking, etc.

Red Hat Family

=> ↺ Red Hat Price Target Increased to $71.00 by Analysts at Credit Agricole (RHT)

=> ↺ Red Hat CEO Jim Whitehurst: No One Knows OpenStack Better Than Us

• Jim Whitehurst, CEO of Red Hat believes the wait should be over. In a phone conversation over a two-day period following Red Hat’s earnings report last week, Whitehurst assured me his company has a stacked deck in that all-important new frontier known as OpenStack. With the sort of confidence you would expect for someone of Whitehurst’s pedigree, he proclaimed “no one knows OpenStack better than us.” Investors and analysts have no reason to doubt him.

Fedora

=> ↺ The Latest Fedora Debate: DNF Can Remove Systemd, RPM

• Now that systemd is running along nicely within the Fedora camp, the latest heated topic is over DNF with it expected to replace Yum in Fedora 22.

Debian Family

Derivatives

Canonical/Ubuntu

=> ↺ Switching to Ubuntu: User Tips

• As the adoption rate of Linux on the desktop grows, so does the number of people who are considering making the switch to Ubuntu. These folks have heard all the good things, but, as per usual, not enough in the reality check department.

• This article will offer a reality check, in addition to offering some critical advice to anyone thinking of making the leap over to Linux on the desktop.

=> ↺ 25 Great Games, Ubuntu Tips, and Red Hat Downer

=> ↺ Canonical Designers Update Ubuntu Linux Website

• Ubuntu.com, the website of Canonical’s Linux-based operating system for PCs, servers, the cloud and (maybe soon) mobile devices, has received a series of subtle but significant upgrades recently, and more are on the way. Here’s a look at the latest site updates and additions for the cloud, Canonical’s partner network and more.

=> ↺ Ubuntu 13.10 Saucy Salamander Reaches End Of Life On The 17th Of July. Upgrade To Ubuntu 14.04 Trusty Tahr Now!

• After it reaches EOL, Ubuntu 13.10 will be still usable, but the users will not receive any updates and security patches anymore. Also, the developers will not be able to add applications on Lauchpad, with support for Ubuntu 13.10. Along with the EOL of Ubuntu 13.10, also the derivative systems like Linux Mint 16 will die.

=> ↺ Ubuntu One Downloader App Now Available to Users Before Service Shutdown

• The Ubuntu One file service has been shut down by Canonical and the announcement was made a while back. Now, the company is also providing a very useful script for users to download their files before the service is closed for good and becomes inaccessible.

=> ↺ Mir Display Server Picks Up Some New Features

• Now that Mir 0.3 is past, Canonical developers remain hard at work on introducing new functionality to the Mir Display Server for the Ubuntu 14.10 “Utopic Unicorn” release cycle.

Flavours and Variants

=> ↺ Quick Look: Linux Mint 17 Xfce

• Linux Mint 17 Xfce includes enhancements to Update Manager, new artwork, better language settings, Xfce 4.10, long term support and much more.

=> ↺ Linux Mint 17 KDE “Qiana” Released, Here are the New Features

=> ↺ Mint 17 is the perfect place for Linux-ers to wait out Ubuntu uncertainty

• The team behind Linux Mint unveiled its latest update this week—Mint 17 using kernel 3.13.0-24, nicknamed “Qiana.” The new release indicates a major change in direction for what has quickly become one of the most popular Linux distros available today. Mint 17 is based on Ubuntu 14.04, and this decision appears to have one major driver. Consistency.

=> ↺ Linux Mint 17 “Qiana” KDE released!

• Linux Mint 17 is a long term support release which will be supported until 2019. It comes with updated software and brings refinements and many new features to make your desktop even more comfortable to use.

=> ↺ Linux Mint 17 KDE “Qiana” Officially Released, Get It While It’s Hot – Screenshot Tour

=> ↺ Mint 17 KDE

=> ↺ Linux Mint 17 KDE released!

• The Linux Mint team has announced the release of Linux Mint 17 KDE codenamed Qiana. It’s based on KDE Software Compilation 4.13.0.

• Some of the new features of LMK 17 include the ‘Update Manager’, which the team says “…shows more information, it looks better, it feels faster, and it gets less in your way. It no longer needs to reload itself in root mode when you click on it. It no longer checks for an Internet connection or waits for the network manager and it no longer locks the APT cache at session startup.”

=> ↺ Linux Mint 17 ‘Qiana’ KDE now available

=> ↺ Elementary OS 0.3 Has Changed Its Codename From Isis To Freya

• As you may know, Elementary OS is a popular Ubuntu derivative, which most likely has the most beautiful user interface amongst the Ubuntu derivatives (using Pantheon, a customized Gnome Shell version as the default DE). Due to the fact that the Elementary developers use only the LTS versions of Ubuntu as code base, Elementary OS 0.2 is based on Ubuntu 12.04 and Elementary OS 0.3 (not yet released) is based on Ubuntu 14.04.

=> ↺ Linux Deepin Brings Mac-Like Sensibility to the Linux Desktop

• When we consider the Linux desktop, most often GNOME 3, Ubuntu Unity, KDE, Cinnamon, and XFCE come to mind. Those desktops range from the old-school functional to the new-school modern. Each has its strengths and weaknesses along with a vocal following to give it a push into the eyes of the public. For the most part, we use one of those desktops with little thought to making a switch. That’s been my modus operandi for the longest time. Ubuntu Unity has been my desktop. I enjoy its combination of efficiency, powerhouse search, and modern flare.

• But then along comes Linux Deepin, a distribution from China that looks to upturn the Linux desktop with an almost Apple-like sensibility. Linux Deepin offers a keen UI design that outshines most every desktop you’ve experienced. Along with that total redesign of the UI, comes a few bonus apps that might easily steal the show from most default apps.

=> ↺ 5 things to do after installing Lubuntu 14.04

=> ↺ Peppermint Five Is a Very Light and Interesting OS Based on Ubuntu 14.04 LTS

• This latest iteration of Peppermint was released a year ago and, back then, it was using Ubuntu 13.04. The developers have moved up from that version and they are now using Ubuntu 14.04, which is the latest LTS released by Canonical.

• Future Peppermint users will benefit from this decision made by the developers because it means that the support period for the OS will most likely coincide with the one for Ubuntu, which is five years.

Devices/Embedded

=> ↺ Panasonic launches 5-inch rugged handheld tablets

• Toughpad FZ-X1 is powered by the Android 4.2.2 operating system and runs on Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 600 series 1.7GHz Quad Core processor.

=> ↺ ARM Linux thin client does Citrix, RDP, and VMWare

• Atrust unveiled a “t66″ thin client that runs Linux on a quad-core Freescale i.MX6 SoC, and supports Citrix ICA/HDX, RDP, and VMWare Horizon View protocols.

• As power consumption grows in priority, the thin client world is increasingly turning to ARM processors. Atrust Computer Corp. offers a number of ARM-based thin clients, and like its x86-based Intel Atom- and Via-based systems, they run a custom Atrust Linux OS. While the company’s previous ARM systems ran on single-core Cortex-A8-based Sitara system-on-chips from Texas Instruments, the Atrust t66 runs on a faster, quad-core, Cortex-A9-based Freescale i.MX6. No clock rate was supplied for the t66, but the i.MX6 typically runs at 1.2GHz, and offers 2D, 3D, and video coprocessors.

=> ↺ Quirky jumps into home automation with a Linux hub

• Quirky unveiled an open, Linux-based “Wink” home automation hub and mobile app that control devices available at GE, The Home Depot, and elsewhere.

• New York City based Quirky announced its new Wink subsidiary, home automation hub, and smartphone app in The New York Times, and released a brief announcement in preparation for next week’s full launch. A Quirky rep confirmed our suspicions that the Wink Hub runs embedded Linux, but offered no further hardware details.

=> ↺ Nest goes open source, your fitness band could turn on your heating when it detects you’re awake

• Nest has announced its Nest Developer Program to create a more connected home. That could mean a fully automated experience is not too far off.

=> ↺ Nest Labs buys Dropcam, gains Linux-based cams

• Nest Labs is buying Dropcam for $555 million, and will integrate Dropcam’s Linux-based surveillance cameras into its own Linux-based home automation system.

• Nest’s deal to acquire Dropcam for $555 million was revealed by Recode and confirmed in a Nest blog post by co-founder Matt Rogers. The acquisition follows Nest’s own acquisition by Google for $3.2 billion, announced back in January.

=> ↺ Nest buys Dropcam for $555 million. No, Google will not spy on you

• Dropcam is probably the most popular home monitoring start-up, and now the company is owned by Google. Dropcam was acquired recently by Nest for a cool $555 million, the same company Google acquired for $3.2 billion just four months ago.

• According to the company, it is undertaking this acquisition on its own without Google’s oversight. Furthermore, we understand that Dropcam will be folded into the Nest brand after everything is completed, and employees of the company will have to adopt the culture at Nest.

=> ↺ Extend LVM partition size when there is no free space in the Volume Group

Phones

=> ↺ Sailfish OS EA3 For The Google Nexus 4 Adds The Jolla Store

• The third “early adopter” release of Jolla’s Sailfish OS platform is now available for Google’s Nexus 4 “Mako” smart-phone.

• As actual Jolla hardware is still in short supply around the world, Jolla continues investing in their Sailfish for Android effort to port their interesting Linux-based MeeGo-derived platform to various Android devices. With today’s Sailfish OS EA3 release for the Nexus 4 there’s Jolla Store support and much more.

Ballnux

=> ↺ Samsung to unveil its Android Wear Smart watch at Google I/O next week

Android

=> ↺ Google Glasses go on sale in the UK for £1000

• Two years after the initial launch in the US, Google’s now infamous Glasses are finally available to buy in the UK. However they are not going cheap retailing in the UK for a neat £1000 (roughly $1650). Furthermore Google have restricted the sale of Glass to only individuals over the age of 18 and who have a credit card. This is probably due to the technology still being in a ‘beta’ stage and Google not wanting to expose minors to the technology which was of yet is undecided as to its health and eye complications.

=> ↺ Android Candy: I’m Sorry 2048 Times

=> ↺ Best Android Apps For Managing Your Taxes

• It’s the end of a fiscal year and the beginning of a lot of headaches. It’s as if every part of your body screams “pay your taxes!” But hey, who has the time to sit down and crunch all those numbers? It gets even more difficult to manage them if you are always on the move.

• If you find yourself in a similar situation, don’t worry. We have a list of Android apps you can use to help you manage your taxes no matter where you go.

Free Software/Open Source

=> ↺ To Get Developer Adoption Today You Have To Build a Community

• Michael Williams, BIRT Product Evangelist & Forums Manager at Actuate, outlines some key points to keep in mind for building your own open source community.

=> ↺ Cisco developing open-source block ciphers

• Cisco says it is experimenting with ciphers it claims can better protect traffic privacy in cloud systems and result in bandwidth and storage savings.

=> ↺ Cisco Releases Open Source FNR Cipher

• Cisco has released a new open-source block cipher called FNR that is designed for encrypting small chunks of data, such as MAC addresses or IP addresses. The cipher is still in the experimental stage, but Cisco has released the source code and a demo application.

=> ↺ 12 challenges for open source projects

• Open source is the combined contributions of millions of independent volunteers. This single concept brings with it a few inherent realities. In this article let’s look at a few potentially concerning points about the nature of open source contributions.

• One of the major, oft-touted benefits of open source software is the diverse, large, and ever ready army of developers contributing to the project. This can be an incredibly powerful argument when demonstrating the value of open source to a corporation. However, the larger the community and the bigger the pool of contributors the more opportunity there exists for problems or potential security risks.

Events

=> ↺ Where’s the money in open source?’ – limited places for exclusive event

• Open source is a growing and arguably successful strategy for making our corner of the world a better place. While altruism motivates many individuals and some companies to make things open source, others are in it for the money. On the other hand, many companies use or are forced to use open source for its perceived cost-saving value, often disregarding its risks. So what’s the business case for open source?

Web Browsers

Mozilla

=> ↺ Is Mozilla Behind a New Chromecast Competitor?

=> ↺ Knight Foundation Grants $3.89M to Build Open Source Platform for Engaging with Readers

• Yesterday, the Knight-Mozilla Open News initiative announced that it will lead a collaboration among Mozilla, the New York Times, and the Washington Post to create a new platform. With $3.89 million in funding, they’ll work together on a platform that will allow readers and users to upload pictures, videos, and other media for news outlets to use. From the release:

SaaS/Big Data

=> ↺ ownCloud Conf coming… And REWE offers a cheap way to get there!

• ownCloud is organizing an ownCloud conference/hackathon at the Technische Universität Berlin this August. And as Steffen Lindner shared on twitter, the German REWE supermarket is offering cheap tickets to go to Berlin from all over Germany during the event!

=> ↺ OpenStack speaking opportunities, design guide book sprint, and more

=> ↺ Cloud trends point to PaaS, open source as the future

• As the cloud market matures, customer behavior is changing and questions remain about where the true value of the technology will lie in the future.

• A group of industry professionals tackled a variety of topics as part of a panel discussion on the future of the cloud last week at a Cloud Standards Customer Council symposium. They discussed the impact of savvy customers and looked ahead at trends around burgeoning cloud services, vendor lock-in issues and the role of open source.

=> ↺ Debate: How Many Open Source Platforms Are Enough?

• “When it gets there, we will support the OpenStack API,” Mikos relented.

• Dholakia noted that CloudStack, like Eucalyptus and OpenStack, has long maintained a “compatibility layer for the Amazon API precisely because, as business folk, we follow the dollars.”

=> ↺ GoGrid CEO John Keagy Building Coalition For Open Source Cloud Orchestration Engine

• Over the last several months, GoGrid CEO John Keagy has been quietly holding meetings with partners and rivals alike to share an ambitious plan.

• His brainchild has the potential to shake up the entire cloud services industry by uniting some of its largest players around an open source project: a universal cloud orchestration engine called OpenOrchestration.org.

Databases

=> ↺ SlamData Releases Open Source Analytics for MongoDB

CMS

=> ↺ 5 Factors to Help You Choose an Open-Source CMS

• Being able to present that content effectively depends on having the right foundation for your site, and that means choosing a content management system (CMS) that will best match up with your site’s intended purpose.

Healthcare

=> ↺ What’s behind the success of free and open source healthcare?

• I ask more questions in this survey of free and open source healthcare developers for my thesis project: “The state of open source electronic medical records: An anthropology study.” My goal is to better understand the characteristics, motivations, and knowledge background of healthcare developers in order to determine what is behind the success of free/open source software in healthcare.

BSD

=> ↺ Clang Is Already Working On “Highly Experimental” C++1z Support

• With LLVM developers already having lots of C++1y / C++14 support implemented, they have begun working on “highly experimental” support for C++1z — the next major revision to the C++ programming language anticipated for release in 2017.

• C++14/C++1y should be officially released this year as a small update over C++11, for which LLVM/Clang (and GCC) already have decent support. In fact, with the current Clang 3.4 stable release all of the key C++11 functionality should be in place.

Public Services/Government

=> ↺ Swiss to study economic potential of open source

• The Swiss government is to survey the economic potential of public administrations’ use of open source software, and the federal government is to review its 2005 strategy on this type of software solutions, following questions by two members of the Swiss Parliamentarian Group on Digital Sustainability.

=> ↺ Swiss Government Prodded To Consider Using More FLOSS

Licensing

=> ↺ Red Hat, Joyent, and others break down licensing barriers

• Open source is an environment where no permission is required to use the source code; the flexibility to do as you wish is already provided. The open source license creates this permissionless environment, and developers are able to gather around a source code commons to meet their individual needs without having to seek approval from anywhere. Requiring a CLA to contribute immediately obstructs this goal.

Openness/Sharing

=> ↺ Open Sourced Software Differentiates Vaadin from closed source dinosaurs

• Open source software has been brought to wider public attention by brands like Linux and Firefox, both of which who have thrived to gigantic proportions due to their open nature. The concept of open source is quite simple and Wikipedia essentializes it quite well:

Open Hardware

=> ↺ ARM and Sensor Platforms Deliver an Open Source Framework for Sensor Devices

• Open Sensor Platform accelerates sensor device software development for ARM-based mobile computers, wearables and IoT devices.

Programming

=> ↺ Should Everyone Learn to Code?

• “I do think that everybody should learn to code, at least on a basic level,” said Linux Rants blogger Mike Stone. “It would teach them to break down a problem into small, manageable portions and solve each of those parts logically.” It’s actually “less about the code itself than solving a problem logically,” he said. “That’s a skill that I think everybody should have.”

Leftovers

Hardware

=> ↺ Intel Expresses Interest In AMD’s Mantle API

• Intel has asked AMD about access to their Mantle technology for experimenting with this graphics API alternative to Direct3D and OpenGL.

• Intel and AMD confirmed to PCWorld that the two companies were communicating about Mantle cooperation but “[Intel] remains committed to what it calls open standards like Microsoft’s DirectX API.”

Security

=> ↺ 3 UX Mistakes That Make Sites More Hackable

• Do you know that the URL bar in your browser is a potential security hole? I didn’t either. I barely look at the thing unless I’m punching in a search term. But according to Drew Davidson, vice president of design at ÄKTA, that thin strip of UI chrome is a little keyhole that a hacker can use to infiltrate a company’s website.

=> ↺ Canonical Closes a Few PHP Vulnerabilities in Ubuntu 14.04 LTS

=> ↺ Google’s BoringSSL Aspires to Be the Hassle-Free Version of OpenSSL

=> ↺ Google Forks Open Source OpenSSL Web Security Code

• In the wake of Heartbleed, there may soon be as many variants of the open source OpenSSL software for encrypting Web traffic as there are Pokemon characters—or something like that. A few days ago, Google (GOOG) became the latest organization to announce its own OpenSSL spin, which it’s calling BoringSSL.

=> ↺ High Risk Security Hole Discovered In Qualcomm’s GPU Driver

• Rob Clark, the developer employed by Red Hat who has near single-handedly been developing Freedreno as a reverse-engineered, open-source GPU driver for Qualcomm’s Adreno graphics hardware, made a big discovery. Rob was playing around with the Amazon Fire TV that boasts a Qualcomm SoC and runs on the Qualcomm proprietary graphics driver when discovering a “high risk” security issue.

=> ↺ Google’s Nest thermostat hacked with Linux — backdoor enabled on device

• Sometimes it feels like the whole world went and got crazy. It’s true, with every passing day, all types of newfangled gadgets, doodads and wild ideas are released. Google is at the forefront, with Google Glass, self-driving cars and Nest internet-connected thermostats. Truth be told, I’m hardly a Luddite, but I am wary of having a computer and camera strapped to my head or having my home connected to the internet.

=> ↺ Study: 7 in 10 concerned about security of Internet-of-Things

• The Internet-of-Things is a thing. If you haven’t heard about it yet, get ready because we’re in the early stages of an explosion of technology that will connect, monitor, and in some cases share almost every aspect of our lives. Fortinet conducted a survey of consumers to find out what people think about the security and privacy concerns of the Internet-of-Things.

=> ↺ The creed behind Cisco’s IoT evangelism

Defence/Police/Secrecy/Aggression

=> ↺ Polish FM’s Anti-US Outburst Reflects Shrinking American Clout

=> ↺ Opinion: The Worthless US? – by Gwynne Dyer

• “The Polish-American alliance is worthless, even harmful, as it gives Poland a false sense of security. It’s bullshit.” – Polish Foreign Minister Radoslav Sikorski, secretly taped in early 2014. Discuss. Use only one side of the paper.

• The publication of Radoslav Sikorski’s comments in the Polish weekly magazine Wprost will not help his bid to become the European Union’s foreign policy chief, but there are senior foreign policy officials elsewhere who might be tempted to make similar remarks (though perhaps not in alcohol-fuelled conversations in well-known restaurants where they might be overheard). And there are those in Washington who are saying the same thing.

• [...]

• Despite the general US obsession with the “terrorist threat”, Obama may actually realise how little the outcome of the current turmoil in Iraq really matters to American security, and Iraq’s oil, post-fracking, is not even a consideration any more. No core American national interests here. So the US cavalry will not be riding over the hill to the rescue.

=> ↺ Justice Department Releases Memo That Uses 9/11 Law to Justify U.S. Drone Killings

• A secret government memo was released Monday that reveals that the Obama administration used the war against al-Qaida to justify the use of drones to kill Americans suspected of terrorism overseas.

=> ↺ Five Takeaways from the Newly Released Drone Memo

• This morning, a federal appeals court released a government memorandum, dated July 16, 2010, authorizing both the Department of Defense and the Central Intelligence Agency to kill Anwar al-Aulaqi, a U.S. citizen, in Yemen.

• The publication of the Office of Legal Counsel memo comes, as the court noted, after a lengthy delay. The ACLU (along with the New York Times) has been fighting for this memo since we first asked for it in a Freedom of Information Act request submitted in October 2011.

• Today’s release by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit is an important victory for transparency. But while the memo advances the public record in significant ways, it still does not answer many key questions about the government’s claimed authority to kill U.S. citizens outside of active battlefields. Here are several important takeaways from today’s release.

=> ↺ U.S. memo justifying drone killings is released

• The 41-page memo — whose contents had previously been summarized and released piecemeal — was heavily redacted for national security reasons, with several entire pages and other passages whited out.

=> ↺ US justified drone killings by citing al-Qaida law

• The Obama administration justified using drones to kill Americans suspected of terrorism overseas by citing the war against al-Qaida and by saying a surprise attack against an American in a foreign land would not violate the laws of war, according to a previously secret government memorandum.

=> ↺ Memo outlines justification for drone strikes on citizens

=> ↺ Long-sought secret US memo on lethal drone strike released

=> ↺ Memo details U.S. justifications for drone killings

=> ↺ US cited controversial law in decision to kill American citizen by drone

=> ↺ So that’s why they kept the drone kill memo secret

• Alternatively, Barron suggests, a government gets to use force if doing so is part of a war. This, of course, ignores the UN Charter and the Kellogg Briand Pact and the illegality of wars, as well as the novelty of claiming that a war exists everywhere on earth forever and ever. (None of Barron’s arguments justifies governmental murder on US soil any less than off US soil.)

• In essence, Barron seems to argue, the people who wrote the laws were thinking about private citizens and terrorists, not the government (which, somehow, cannot be a terrorist), and therefore it’s OK for the government to violate the laws.

• Then there’s the problem of Congressional authorization of war, or lack thereof, which Barron gets around by pretending that the Authorization for the Use of Military Force was as broad as the White House pretends rather than worded to allow targeting only those responsible for the 9/11 attacks.

=> ↺ Senators Seek More Information About Targeted Killings With Drones

• “I believe every American has the right to know when their government believes it is allowed to kill them, and the public release of this memo is a positive step toward reducing the secrecy that surrounds this question,” Sen. Ron Wyden said in a statement. “However, there are many important questions that this memo does not address.”

=> ↺ Release of Legal Memo Justifying Anwar Al-Awlaki’s Killing Paves Way for Disclosure of More Records

=> ↺ The Release of Obama’s Drone Memo Doesn’t Change the Complex History of U.S. Drone Policy

• In May of 2013, Attorney General Eric Holder published a letter in response to requests from Senator Patrick Leahey for more information on the justification of targeted killings, as it applies to American Citizens. Holder wrote that Americans could be targeted “in a foreign country against a U.S. citizen who is a senior operational leader of al Qa’ida or its associated forces, and who is actively engaged in planning to kill Americans, in the following circumstances: (1) the U.S. government has determined, after a thorough and careful review, that the individual poses an imminent threat of violent attack against the United States; (2) capture is not feasible; and (3) the operation would be conducted in a manner consistent with applicable law of war principles.”

=> ↺ Obama cites Israeli Supreme Court to justify killing Americans without trial

• Below that, the memo cites Public Committee Against Torture in Israel (PCATI) v. Government of Israel, a 2006 Israeli Supreme Court decision that ruled that the targeted assassinations of hundreds of Palestinians since the start of the second intifada were legal and did not violate international law.

=> ↺ Minneapolis lawyers helped expose drone killing memo

=> ↺ There is more to the Iraq crisis than meets the eye

• According to many strategic experts and journalists like Seymour Hersh, the ISIS, led by Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi (who was released from a US captivity in 2007 or 2009 is a CIA asset), are basically covert operations of US-Saudi intelligence agencies. If true, once again we see the evidence of CIA-Mossad creating terror organisations to achieve their strategic objectives, which would prove that the US and its allies deploy terror to attain their strategic objectives.

=> ↺ Ahmed Chalabi Pushed For The US Invasion Of Iraq. Will He Be The Country’s Next PM?

• Ahmed Chalabi rolled into a displaced persons camp in northern Iraq on Saturday with his entourage, and held an impromptu press conference that looked very much like a campaign stop.

=> ↺ ‘It fell on deaf ears’: CIA and MI6 knew about ISIS assault in advance, failed to react

=> ↺ ISIS in Iraq stinks of CIA/NATO ‘dirty war’ op

• The very details of the ISIS military success in the key Iraqi oil center, Mosul, are suspect. According to well-informed Iraqi journalists, ISIS overran the strategic Mosul region, site of some of the world’s most prolific oilfields, with barely a shot fired in resistance. According to one report, residents of Tikrit reported remarkable displays of “soldiers handing over their weapons and uniforms peacefully to militants who ordinarily would have been expected to kill government soldiers on the spot.”

=> ↺ US moral atrocities in Syria: sending children die for free education promise

• Syrian rebel groups are recruiting 15-year-old children to battle against the government forces after promising them a free education, says the Human Rights Watch report, released on June, 23. Worse still, those groups are strongly backed by the US and Israel, US political commentator told Radio VR.

=> ↺ Obama’s ‘drone memo’ is finally public. Now show us the library of secret law

• To this administration, transparency comes in the form of deleted pages. But too much of America’s legal excuse for killing an American citizen remains classified

=> ↺ “Civilian casualties” authorized under secret US drone-strike memo

• US justifies killings as acts of war despite civilian deaths, global precedent.

=> ↺ The DOJ memo confirms that the government’s drone killing program is built on gross distortions of law.

• The DOJ memo confirms that the government’s drone killing program is built on gross distortions of law.

=> ↺ The Obama drone memo is a brazen executive power grab

=> ↺ A Thin Rationale for Drone Killings

• Instead, the memo turns out to be a slapdash pastiche of legal theories — some based on obscure interpretations of British and Israeli law — that was clearly tailored to the desired result. Perhaps the administration held out so long to avoid exposing the thin foundation on which it based such a momentous decision.

=> ↺ Progressives jab Obama for drone memo redactions

• The first 11 pages of the 41-page document were redacted. The Justice Department’s justification for a CIA strike of al-Awlaki was also heavily redacted.

=> ↺ Ethical aspect of drone strikes

• Sitting in front of screens pressing kill buttons drone pilots often don’t have enough knowledge about what is going on in the area they target and what they are doing to the people in that zone. This removes an important moral barrier making killing as easy as in a computer game. As technology rapidly develops, new drones are getting better surveillance cameras and operators have opportunity to watch their targets better. This restores the crucial moral constraint to a certain extent. At the same time technology development is fraught with another danger which is higher automation of many killer robots including UAVs, says Mark Coeckelbergh, a professor of philosophy at the University of Twente, the Netherlands.

=> ↺ Drones: targeted killing tantamount to assassination

=> ↺ Pakistan military air strikes kill hundreds, including civilians, over past six months

• A wave of air strikes by the Pakistani military in the country’s tribal northwest has killed at least 291 people, including a minimum 16 civilians, over the past six months, a Bureau investigation has found.

=> ↺ South African mining firm is the first to purchase riot control drone

• The first purchase orders have been made for the Skunk Riot Control Copter, a terrifying unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) equipped with paintballs, pepper spray and blinding flashlights.

=> ↺ Investigation Reveals Crashing Drones

=> ↺ Israeli UAV crashes onto roof of private home in Hebron

=> ↺ Anti-drone Tech Firm Receives Death Threats, Confrontational Emails

• Ciesielka said, “We expect the capability of this drone detection system to evolve over time, like any technology. We at DDC need testers to provide valid feedback. All technology has to start somewhere.

=> ↺ ‘Peace President’ Obama paradoxically made the world more dangerous

=> ↺ Tony Blair, Hillary Rodham Clinton among those scheduled to speak at Aspen Ideas Festival

• Blair and Clinton are both set to speak at the festival on Monday, along with former CIA Director David Petraeus.

=> ↺ North Korea Takes Aim at Assassination Flick

• Franco and Rogen play “celebrity journalists” who land an interview with Kim, which prompts the CIA to recruit them in an assassination plot.

=> ↺ Kim Jung Un: Film about my assassination is desperate

=> ↺ Death of the Masked Men

• It is unseemly that the quiet passing of John Hadden – an American who tried to avert Israel’s 1967 attack on Egypt, and then keep it from escalating – is so utterly overshadowed by laudatory obituaries for the Israeli he exposed looting weapons-grade nuclear material from Pennsylvania.

=> ↺ This Is One of the Craziest Fox News Rants Ever, and It’s Not Hannity or O’Reilly

=> ↺ When Fox becomes Conspiracy Theory Central

• It’s embarrassing to admit when obvious click-bait headlines work like a charm, but when BuzzFeed ran the headline, “Is This The Craziest Rant A Fox News Host Has Ever Done?” it proved hard to resist. After all, we’ve seen some pretty crazy rants over the years.

=> ↺ A hack returns: Ed Klein’s new Benghazi bombshell is garbage

• There’s a certain rhythm to politics, an element of predictability that is as reliable as the tides, or a finely made Swiss timepiece. Among these imperturbable political rhythms is the hackery of Ed Klein: Whenever Hillary Clinton is in the news, it’s guaranteed that Klein will pop up with a salacious and poorly sourced book attacking the former first lady, and that it will get a lot of attention from conservatives who should know better than to trust Klein but don’t actually care.

=> ↺ Trouble in the two-party system

• That’s in contrast to the relatively stable competition of the last 20 years, when Democrats have won four of six presidential elections and Republicans won House majorities in eight of 10 congressional contests, always by less than landslide margins. The parties’ stands on issues have remained familiar from one cycle to the next.

=> ↺ Rand Paul vs. Dick Cheney

• Advocates of a noninterventionist foreign policy and the restoration of civil liberties in America haven’t had a reason to be optimistic in the past decade or so – but that is rapidly changing.

=> ↺ Netanyahu Can Disinform on Iran Just as Well as Iraq

• The problem might be how “well-briefed” David Gregory is. Iran does not have a nuclear weapons program; there are some allegations that the country may have done some research that was geared towards eventual weapons development, but those allegations remain just that–allegations.

=> ↺ Greta Van Susteren And Bret Baier Defend “Softball” Hillary Clinton Interview

• A few days ago, Hillary Clinton was interviewed on Fox News by Greta Van Susteren and Bret Baier. Many viewers were expecting a half hour of painful questions and accusations. After all, Van Susteren is the Fox News host who slammed comedian Jon Stewart, grilled congressional candidate Mike Dickinson, and came head to head with fellow Fox News anchor Erick Erickson.

=> ↺ Glenn Greenwald: People Say Fox News’ Obama Criticism Puts Soldiers ‘in Danger’

• During an interview this afternoon on the NSA revelations leaked by Edward Snowden last year, Shepard Smith and Glenn Greenwald got into a tense exchange over how Fox News’ coverage of President Obama impacts U.S. soldiers.

• “Do you spend any time worrying that people might have died in this?” Smith asked Greenwald.

=> ↺ Glenn Greenwald on Uprising

• Investigative journalist Glenn Greenwald tells the story of whistleblower Edward Snowden in a new book called No Place to Hide: Edward Snowden, the NSA and the US Surveillance State. Greenwald is also the author of How Would a Patriot Act? and With Liberty and Justice for Some. He is a former constitutional law and civil rights litigator. And, since he began breaking the stories of the NSA’s mass surveillance he has taken on a new role as a founding editor of the new media outlet, The Intercept.

=> ↺ US Congress Should Sponsor Snowden’s Return – Former Whistleblower

Transparency Reporting

=> ↺ Thanks to WikiLeaks, public can debate alarming new trade deal

• WikiLeaks last week again pierced the veil of official secrecy that surrounds global trade negotiations. The peek it gave us should alarm everyone.

=> ↺ The government is making deals behind our backs

=> ↺ Assange lawyers file Swedish court appeal to end arrest warrant

• Julian Assange’s Swedish lawyers on Tuesday filed a court petition to withdraw an arrest warrant for the WikiLeaks founder who has spent two years at Ecuador’s London embassy to avoid extradition to Sweden.

=> ↺ Julian Assange received award of Union of Journalists of Kazakhstan

=> ↺ Kazakh Journalists’ Union Honors WikiLeaks Founder

• The Union of Journalists in Kazakhstan (KZO) has awarded a top prize to Julian Assange, the founder of the controversial whistle-blowing website WikiLeaks, for his oustanding efforts in investigative journalism.

PR/AstroTurf/Lobbying

=> ↺ Journalism Without Information

• I thought of that when I saw the new issue of Time magazine (6/30/14), which featured a short item on Kevin McCarthy, the new majority leader in Congress. As such, he is someone who certainly will be wielding enormous political power.

=> ↺ Scott Walker Says the Dark Money Probe Is ‘Over,’ but He’s Wrong

• The federal judge who halted the state investigation, Rudolph Randa, wrote an opinion so detached from First Amendment precedent, Wisconsin law, and the facts of the case that many legal experts believe that it will be reversed by the Seventh Circuit appellate court reviewing it. (Plus, Randa’s May 6 ruling was a preliminary ruling, not a final decision.) Other legal experts think Randa should not even be involved in the case, given that he is a regular attendee at “judicial junkets” funded by the Bradley and Koch foundations, which are closely tied to Walker and the group that filed the federal lawsuit, Wisconsin Club for Growth.

=> ↺ This Is the New Stat Facebook Should Be Worrying About

• “A solid majority of American adults say that social media have no influence at all on their purchasing decisions — suggesting that the advertising may be reaching smaller segments of the market, or that the influence on consumers is indirect or goes unnoticed,” Gallup concluded. The company said people are more likely to consult in-store displays, television commercials, mail catalogs and magazines than a brand’s Facebook or Twitter account when making a purchasing decision.

Censorship

=> ↺ Russia asks Twitter to block a dozen accounts

• Russia has asked Twitter to block access to a dozen accounts it deems “extremist”, the head of the country’s telecoms watchdog said, as Moscow seeks greater control over internet sites based beyond its borders.

Privacy

=> ↺ FOIA Request On Effectiveness Of License Plate Readers Greeted With A Blank Stare By Virginia Police Department

• Law enforcement agencies are generally pretty happy with their automatic license plate readers. It allows them to harvest millions of plate/location records without having to exit their vehicles, much less slow them down. It also allows them to spring from their cruisers with guns out and force non-car thieves into submissive positions while they perform the sort of due diligence that should have been completed long before the cops/guns exited their respective holders.

=> ↺ why i pay for email services

=> ↺ Customers demand action from ISPs over data retention

• As a result of an Open Rights Group campaign, over 1300 customers have written to their internet service providers (ISPs) to ask why they are still retaining their web, email, SMS and phone data.

=> ↺ Keynote at international whistleblower conference, Amsterdam

=> ↺ Bringing back my data

• On the contrary, GMail is a bit easier because I already use my aliases everywhere so I just need to open a Kolab account and update my forwarding rules. However we’re all Gmail users now.

=> ↺ Former NSA officer placed on leave over racy photo posted online

• Professor and critic of Edward Snowden on leave after ‘sexting’ conversation with woman anonymously posted on the internet

=> ↺ NSA Spook-Turned-Twitter-Pundit Goes Dark After Dick Pic Surfaces

• John Schindler—a former NSA counterintelligence officer and “secrecy expert” who made a name for himself in Conservative circles by trashing Edward Snowden, Chelsea Manning and Glenn Greenwald—has deleted his Twitter and has been put on leave from his teaching post at Naval War College after a rather indecent communique went public on Twitter this weekend, reports Adam Weinstein at Gawker.

=> ↺ Former NSA spy deletes Twitter after his dick pics go public (NSFW)

=> ↺ NSA Defender Under Investigation For Alleged X-Rated Pictures

=> ↺ Massie’s amendment gains bipartisan support

• The support of both Democrats and Republicans to an amendment that blocks warrantless searches of email and phone calls bodes well that Congress will rein in government spying on citizens, U.S. Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., told The Enquirer on Monday.

=> ↺ Journalist Glenn Greenwald speaks in California

=> ↺ Greenwald: New NSA disclosure ‘imminent’

• Glenn Greenwald is set to disclose new documents revealing which kinds of citizens are targeted by National Security Agency surveillance, he said Monday.

=> ↺ Polish government seeks to limit leaks scandal fallout

• Poland’s beleaguered government is scrambling to limit fallout from a high-profile eavesdropping scandal after its foreign minister was allegedly caught on tape slamming Warsaw’s alliance with the United States as “worthless”.

• Prime Minister Donald Tusk struck a defiant note after reports of the secret recording.

• “The Polish government will not be dictated to by people who illegally planted these bugs… whether by ill-will, naivety, greed or to serve political interests,” he told journalists on Monday.

=> ↺ International treaties provide loopholes for NSA to spy on Europeans

=> ↺ State Measure Takes Aim at Cooperation with NSA

• There would be no welcome mat in California for the National Security Agency under a measure now making its way through the state Legislature.

=> ↺ This new email-tracking feature gives salespeople NSA-like powers

• Cirrus Insight, an app for integrating Salesforce with Gmail and Google Apps, announced today the launch of email tracking for Gmail.

• Cirrus Insight email tracking allows users to receive real-time notifications when someone opens an email; view the time/date, location, and device on which email opens occurred; and log email tracking-information to the activity history in Salesforce.

=> ↺ Anti-Snooping Devices: Weapons to preserve your online privacy

• Your online identity and activity is vulnerable to prying eyes and while these anti-snooping devices attempt to protect you, your actions and choices will finally determine the level of your online privacy

=> ↺ How The House Leadership Tried To Misrepresent Amendment That Defunded NSA Backdoor Searches

• We already wrote about how Reps. Goodlatte and Ruppersberger misrepresented the milestone amendment put forth by Reps. Massie, Lofgren and Sensenbrenner to defund the NSA’s backdoor searches and mandates to put (different kinds of) backdoors in technology. However, we’d heard that the House leadership was so desperate to block the amendment that they put a totally misleading description on it — and it’s true…

=> ↺ FISA Court Grants Government Extension For Bulk Phone Record Collection

=> ↺ ProtonMail Is A Swiss Secure Mail Provider That Won’t Give You Up To The NSA

=> ↺ ProtonMail crowdfunds $200K (and counting) to stop NSA snooping

=> ↺ Weak legal protections for US whistleblowers persists – HRW lawyer

• The United States still lacks adequate legal protection for such whistleblowers as Edward Snowden, one year after he sought asylum in Russia, a lawyer for the pressure group Human Rights Watch said.

• “It is particularly ironic that of all the issues raised by the Snowden revelations, the one that gets the least attention and effort seems to be protection of national security and intelligence sector whistleblowers like Mr Snowden himself,” Dinah PoKempner told RIA Novosti.

=> ↺ Poll: TechWeek Readers Rate Switzerland And Germany For Privacy

• Germany and Switzerland impress our readers with their privacy laws – but a lot of people vote for “other”

=> ↺ Work to rein in NSA mischief

• There are times, albeit rare, when a gridlocked U.S. House of Representatives does something meaningful. On Thursday, the House passed an amendment to the Defense Appropriations bill that zeroes out funding for (some) National Security Agency mischief.

• [...]

• Only two members of Washington’s Congressional delegation, Reps. Doc Hastings and Dave Reichert, voted no. Rep. Suzan DelBene, an amendment co-sponsor, wrote in a tweet, “Good news in the fight to rein in the #NSA. Last night the House passed a measure to cut funding for NSA ‘backdoors.’”

=> ↺ Ex-NSA Chief Pitches Banks Costly Advice on Cyber-Attacks

=> ↺ Former NSA Director Charging $1 Million A Month To Reveal US Intelligence Methods

=> ↺ Keith Alexander Steps Through the Revolving Door: Daily Whistleblower News

=> ↺ Code/red: Keith Alexander’s New Plan — Back Doors in Dumb Banker Wallets

• Up to $1 million, monthly. That’s the consulting fee former National Security Agency chief Keith Alexander charges banks interested in his advice on cyber security. A small price to pay for the expertise of a guy who has arguably done more than anyone to undermine cyber security in the United States. Said Alexander, who retired from the NSA back in March amid fallout over the agency’s controversial surveillance practices, “It would be devastating if one of our major banks was hit, because they’re so interconnected.”

=> ↺ Privacy Files: “It’s Getting Worse”

• Three Senators suggest President Obama could end the phone and internet dragnet today. Update: Time to cash in for General Keith “Haystack” Alexander, chief Panopticon ideologue. Recently he pitched his wares to the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association. His asking price for advice is $600,000 a month (down from a million). No doubt he regrets the problems he’s caused for U.S. tech firms, but on a personal level, the future could not be brighter.

=> ↺ Former NSA chief pitched his services for $1M a month

=> ↺ Reining in the NSA

• A measure adopted by the House to bar the National Security Agency from meddling with encryption standards was inserted into a defense appropriations bill and approved on a voice vote.

=> ↺ NSA Critics Gain Momentum

=> ↺ Poorly anonymized logs reveal NYC cab drivers’ detailed whereabouts

• In the latest gaffe to demonstrate the privacy perils of anonymized data, New York City officials have inadvertently revealed the detailed comings and goings of individual taxi drivers over more than 173 million trips.

Rights

=> ↺ Lord Byron, Terrorist

• The dreadful violence and destruction the West has inflicted and promoted in recent years in its efforts to gain control of the mineral resources of the Middle East continues to play out. Those who see communities with which they identify abroad engaged in military conflict will always produce a small number of people going to join the fight. This is in no sense unusual, and in no sense a threat to ordinary citizens in the UK. The link to terrorism here is entirely a fiction. The unfortunate thing is that the mainstream media allows no outlet for people to mock its false assertions and point out its sinister agenda.

=> ↺ CIA Whistleblower John Kiriakou Advocates for Prison Sentencing Reform in New ‘Letter from Loretto’

• Reflecting on mass incarceration in the United States, which he has experienced firsthand during his time in prison at the Federal Correctional Institution of Loretto, Pennsylvania, CIA whistleblower John Kiriakou advocates for prison sentencing reform in his latest letter from jail.

• Firedoglake has been publishing “Letters from Loretto” by Kiriakou, who was the first member of the CIA to publicly acknowledge that torture was official US policy under the George W. Bush administration. He was convicted in October 2012 after he pled guilty to violating the Intelligence Identities Protection Act (IIPA) when he confirmed the name of an officer involved in the CIA’s Rendition, Detention and Interrogation (RDI) program to a reporter. He was sentenced in January 2013, and reported to prison on February 28, 2013.

=> ↺ Back to Black: Interrogation Sites on the High Seas

=> ↺ Senate’s CIA Torture Report Awaiting Final White House Approval

• The release of a long-delayed, $40 million Senate Intelligence Committee report on the CIA’s “rendition, detention and interrogation” program during the George W. Bush administration is pending final approval from the Obama White House, Politico reported.

=> ↺ CIA report now on to White House

• The Obama administration is inching toward declassification of the Senate’s report on the CIA’s controversial interrogation techniques.

• The Central Intelligence Agency has finished redacting sensitive information from a 500-page summary of the 6,800-page report that the Senate Intelligence Committee voted to make public in April, Senate Intelligence Chairwoman Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) said in an interview Monday night.

=> ↺ The growing Police State in America

=> ↺ Police violence and law enforcement militarization in the greater borderlands

• Slightly more than three months after the police shooting of homeless camper James Boyd catapulted Albuquerque into the international spotlight, activists returned to the streets to advance their movement against police brutality.

• On a blistering Summer Solstice Day, whose blazing mid-day sky was oddly crested by a half-moon, more than 200 people marched up Central Avenue near the University of New Mexico chanting “Justice Now” and “They say justified, we say homicide!”

=> ↺ Opinion: It’s Time for Civilian Oversight of OPD

• Based on the most recent report issued by federal monitor Robert Warshaw, the Oakland Police Department will most likely require months of additional monitoring by the court — after eleven years of failure to comply with the Negotiated Settlement Agreement (NSA). No other city in the United States has required this length of time to bring its police department into compliance with a federal consent decree.

=> ↺ BRUCE: America’s expanding police state

• We all know about the scope of National Security Agency (NSA) spying. It’s fair to say at this point in our lives that the notion of privacy is all but dead and gone. However, it didn’t start there. In her book, Mrs. Chumley takes us on a ride through history, reminding us of the original intentions of the Founding Fathers versus the assault on the original design by “21st century realities.”

=> ↺ For The Last Time, Freedom Isn’t Free

=> ↺ 2014 Pioneer Award Nominations Are Now Open

• Nominations are now open for EFF’s 23rd Annual Pioneer Awards, to be presented this fall in San Francisco. EFF established the Pioneer Awards in 1992 to recognize leaders on the electronic frontier who are extending freedom and innovation in the realm of information technology. Nominations are open until midnight on Wednesday, July 2. Nominate the next Pioneer Award winner today!

Internet/Net Neutrality

=> ↺ New Open Source Firmware Encourages Wi-Fi Sharing

• The “Open Wireless Movement” was devised years ago by the EFF, Free Press, Mozilla and others to advocate for the sharing of broadband via publicly-accessible Wi-Fi hotspots. At the upcoming Hackers on Planet Earth conference, the group says they’re going to unveil new “Open Wireless Router” firmware that simplifies the process of safely and securely offering free Wi-Fi without hindering your own network.

=> ↺ What Everyone Gets Wrong in the Debate Over Net Neutrality

• The only trouble is that, here in the year 2014, complaints about a fast-lane don’t make much sense. Today, privileged companies—including Google, Facebook, and Netflix—already benefit from what are essentially internet fast lanes, and this has been the case for years. Such web giants—and others—now have direct connections to big ISPs like Comcast and Verizon, and they run dedicated computer servers deep inside these ISPs. In technical lingo, these are known as “peering connections” and “content delivery servers,” and they’re a vital part of the way the internet works.

Intellectual Monopolies

=> ↺ TTIP Update XXX

• As well as all the varied developments I discussed in the previous TTIP update, plenty has been happening recently in the hotly-contested area of investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS). The United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) has published another of its informative reviews of developments in the ISDS field [.pdf]. This edition is particularly welcome since it focuses on the interaction between the EU and US.

Copyrights

=> ↺ UK ISPs Quietly Block More Torrent Site Proxies

• Several UK Internet providers have quietly added a list of new domains to their secretive anti-piracy blocklists. TorrentFreak was able to confirm that several popular torrent site proxies were added over the past weekend. However, the blocked domains have been quickly replaced by new ones, continuing the cat-and-mouse game that never seems to end.

=> ↺ The rules for using images from the internet

• Think it’s fine use downloaded images in your own website, poster or publication? You could be breaking copyright law… We show you how to use images legally and find free images that are available for commercial use.

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