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● 07.30.14

● Links 30/7/2014: Chris Beard as CEO of Mozilla

Posted in News Roundup at 10:29 am by Dr. Roy SchestowitzContentsGNU/LinuxGNU/Linux

=> ↺ From Clouds to Cars to Kitchens, Linux Making an Impact Everywhere

• There’s no operating system more ubiquitous than Linux. It’s everywhere. It’s even running in devices and computers you may not suspect—our cars, our cell phones, even our refrigerators. Linux supports businesses and organizations everywhere, and because it underpins open-source innovation, it is the platform of choice for new applications. Companies such as IBM and their work with organizations like the OpenPOWER Foundation are creating such new innovations as Big Blue’s new scale-out servers running Linux and putting them in places all around us. In fact, eWEEK recently ran a slide show depicting how prevalent the operating system is in the supercomputing space. Linux has quickly become the operating system of choice in the high performance computing (HPC) market, growing from relative obscurity 15 years ago to powering 97 percent of the fastest computers in the world. But its appeal is found in more than cost or choice. This list, compiled with assistance from IBM, provides some examples of where Linux is making an impact.

=> ↺ ARM’s first 64-bit servers: Just what can you expect to run on them?

• That’s what is being worked on by Linaro, an engineering group supported by a range of ARM-based chip designers, server OEMs and Linux operating system custodians, all of which share an interest in broadening the range of open-source software for the ARM platform.

• By the time the first 64-bit ARM-based SoCs become generally available for use in production servers later this year, Linaro is confident that certain core enterprise software packages used for serving websites, data analytics and databases will be running acceptably on the 64-bit ARM-based architecture.

• These enterprise software packages include the LAMP stack – an acronym for software widely used for websites, commonly referring to a Linux OS, Apache web server, MySQL database and PHP scripts – as well as the NoSQL database MongoDB and the distributed storage and processing framework Hadoop, together with other web-serving technologies such as memcached and HAProxy.

=> ↺ Why Use Linux for Device Drivers?

• The fun factor continues to draw developers to Linux. This open-source system continues to succeed in the market and in the hearts and minds of developers. The success of Linux is clearly a testament to its technical quality and to the numerous benefits of free software in general. But for many, the true key to its success lies in the fact that it has brought the fun back to computing.

• One of the authors of the book Linux Device Drivers is quite clear about the fun aspects of playing with Linux. In the introduction to the book, Jonathan Corbet noted that, “The true key to the Linux success lies in the fact that it has brought the fun back to computing.” Corbet insists that Linux is a system where technical excellence is king. “With Linux, anybody can get their hands into the system and play in a sandbox where contributions from any direction are welcome, but where technical excellence is valued above all else.”

=> ↺ UK Surveillance Bill: giving up privacy for security but with no guarantee of security

• By now, people are aware of at least some the spying being conducted by the NSA and the GCHQ. The two programs working together form the largest data collection project in human history.

Desktop

=> ↺ Reglue: Opening Up the World to Deserving Kids, One Linux Computer at a Time

• They say you never forget your first computer. For some of us, it was a Commodore 64 or an Apple IIe. For others, it was a Pentium 233 running Windows 95. Regardless of the hardware, the fond memories of wonder and excitement are universal. For me, I’ll never forget the night my father brought home our first computer, a Tandy 1000. Nor will I forget the curious excitement I felt toward the mysterious beige box that took up a large portion of the guest bedroom. This happened at a time when simply having a computer at home gave a school-age child an advantage. I have no doubt my experiences from that time positively influenced my path in life.

• In the decades that have passed since the beginning of the personal computer revolution, computers have gone from being a rare and expensive luxury to a mandatory educational tool. Today, a child without access to a computer (and the Internet) at home is at a disadvantage before he or she ever sets foot in a classroom. The unfortunate reality is that in an age where computer skills are no longer optional, far too many families don’t possess the resources to have a computer at home.

Server

=> ↺ CoreOS Stabilizes Cloud Container Linux Operating System

• The open-source CoreOS Linux operating system hit a major milestone on July 25, issuing its first stable release. CoreOS is an Andreessen Horowitz-backed startup that offers the promise of a highly available operating system platform that is fully integrated with the Docker container virtualization technology.

=> ↺ Linux Top 3: CoreOS Goes Stable, Oracle Clones RHEL 7 and Tails Updates

=> ↺ Cloudy CoreOS Linux distro declares itself production-ready

• The developers behind the stripped-down CoreOS Linux distribution have pushed version 367.1.0 to the Stable release channel, marking the first time the project has delivered a production-ready release.

=> ↺ Bright Computing raises $14.5M to expand services for Linux cluster management

• Bright Computing, which helps companies manage Linux clusters, has picked up $14.5 million in Series B funding.

• The funding is an indication of how much demand there is, in modern corporate computing environments, for clusters of servers that can grow to include hundreds or even thousands of nodes. That’s because of the increased popularity of Hadoop and other clustered storage technologies, which help companies store enormous quantities of often unstructured data on cheap commodity servers, rather than the more-expensive storage area networks and dedicated storage hardware that an earlier generation of data center architects preferred.

=> ↺ Radio Free HPC Looks at the Need for Better Resource Management in Linux

• In this podcast, the Radio Free HPC teams looks at Henry Newman’s recent straw proposal for better resource management for Linux in HPC.

=> ↺ Who’s using Docker?

• I’ve spent the last couple of months working an internship for The Linux Foundation, doing research on new developments and adoption trends in the open source industry. If you have spent any amount of time reading about open source over the last year, you have probably heard about Docker; a lot of people are talking about it these days and the impact it’s going to have on virtualization and DevOps.

• With new technologies like this, it can often be challenging to filter out the hype and understand the practical implications. Additionally, complex jargon often makes subjects like Linux containers confusing to the layman and limits discussion to those who are deeply knowledgeable on the subject. With this article, I will step back for a moment from the discussion of what Docker can do to focus on how it is changing the Linux landscape.

SUSE/Microsoft

=> ↺ openSUSE Rolling, New UT Video, and SteamOS Review

=> ↺ openSUSE Factory Adopts Rolling Release Model

=> ↺ OpenSUSE Factory Turns Into Rolling Release Distribution

=> ↺ Breaking: openSUSE Factory becomes independent rolling release distribution

=> ↺ Why dairy fresh openSUSE Linux is even creamier

• The openSUSE Project is taking the development version of openSUSE (known to family and friends as Factory) to distribution using the “rolling release” development model.

Kernel Space

=> ↺ The Shocking Truth About Torvalds’ Home Office

• “I am really incredibly surprised that my work space is very similar to Linus’ and also the working hours are almost identical,” said Google+ blogger Rodolfo Saenz. In Saenz’s setup, though, “the treadmill stands alone. I use it religiously every day, but I don’t like to mix work with exercise. I climb on the treadmill to clean my mind, listen to music and think about many things.”

=> ↺ Linux 3.16-rc7 released; final may be tagged next week

=> ↺ My First Unikernel

• Unikernels promise some interesting benefits. The Ubuntu 14.04 amd64-disk1.img cloud image is 243 MB unconfigured, while the unikernel ended up at just 5.2 MB (running the queue service). Ubuntu runs a large amount of C code in security-critical places, while the unikernel is almost entirely type-safe OCaml. And besides, trying new things is fun.

=> ↺ Introducing the OpenDaylight Ambassador Program

• Someone who is passionate about OpenDaylight and open SDN and recognized for their expertise and willingness to help others learn about the software. Usually hands-on practitioners. Someone who has the characteristics of being helpful, hopeful and humble. People like bloggers, influencers, evangelists who are already engaged with the project in some way. Contributing to forums, online groups, community, etc.

=> ↺ New Linux Foundation Members Leverage Global Linux Growth

• BearingPoint, Daynix, Linaro Limited and Systena Expand International Reach of Linux-Based Solutions

Graphics Stack

=> ↺ Hawaii Bug-Fixes Start Hitting Mainline RadeonSI Gallium3D

• For those excited about the recent working Radeon R9 290 “Hawaii” Gallium3D support, a number of bug-fixes were committed in recent hours to Mesa for bettering the support for those wishing to use this open-source AMD Linux driver for their ultra high-end graphics hardware.

=> ↺ Updated Source Engine Benchmarks On The Latest AMD/NVIDIA Linux Drivers

• Benchmarks of Valve’s Source Engine games (and other Steam titles for that matter) aren’t done in all Phoronix driver tests and graphics card articles for various reasons, among which is that there’s other more GPU-demanding OpenGL tests to utilize for modern hardware. However, for those curious about the performance of various AMD Radeon and NVIDIA GeForce graphics cards using the latest proprietary drivers, here’s some updated numbers.

=> ↺ NVIDIA Is Working Towards VDPAU H.265/HEVC Support

• NVIDIA is working on adding HEVC/H.265 video decoding support to VDPAU.

• NVIDIA developers are extending the “Video Decode and Presentation API for Unix” interfaces to allow the HEVC/H.265 requirements. The work aims to enable hardware-accelerated decoding of HEVC content under VDPAU and to provide a reference implementation for this video decoding. José Hiram Soltren, the developer that worked on this support, is also working on a HEVC decode patch for FFmpeg and MPlayer based upon the new API.

Applications

=> ↺ Data Crow 4.0.1 Can Help Users Organize Their Collectibles

• Data Crow 4.0.1, a media cataloger and organizer that can be used to manage all your collections in one product, has been released and is available for download.

=> ↺ column: With oddly satisfying results

=> ↺ cloc: Clock your code

=> ↺ GStreamer VA-API Plug-In Update Adds New Features

Proprietary

=> ↺ 2X Has Released RDP Client for Linux

• 2X Software, a global leader in virtual application and mobile device management solutions, today announced the release of a new version of the 2X RDP Client for Linux. This award-winning application has been downloaded more than 6 million times and holds an average 4.5 out of 5 stars rating in the major app marketplaces.

=> ↺ LinMin™ Launches Linux-Based Server Provisioning Virtual Appliance for Data Centers

• LinMin’s Virtual Appliance enables Bare Metal Auto-Provisioning of Windows Server, Linux, VMware ESXi and other Hypervisors on Servers, Blades and Virtual Machines in Fast-Growing Cloud, Hosting, Big Data, PaaS and IaaS Data Centers

Instructionals/Technical

=> ↺ Install Zentyal the Windows-compatible server

=> ↺ Add LCD Brightness Control To Manjaro XFCE Panel

=> ↺ How To Install Gbrainy 2.2.3 On Ubuntu 14.10, Ubuntu 14.04 And Derivative Systems

=> ↺ How To Install Stellarium 0.13.0 On Ubuntu 14.10, Ubuntu 14.04 And Derivative Systems

=> ↺ How To Install Ojo 0.1 (Image Viewer) On Ubuntu 14.04, Ubuntu 12.04 And Derivatives

=> ↺ How To Install Bikeshed 1.48 On Ubuntu 14.10, Ubuntu 14.04, Ubuntu 12.04 And Derivative Systems

=> ↺ Install XAMPP Stack On Ubuntu 14.04

=> ↺ How to Simplify Linux Package Installation With Yum Groups

=> ↺ Pruning Syslog entries from MongoDB

=> ↺ How to Simplify Linux Package Installation With Yum Groups

=> ↺ An introduction to systemd for CentOS 7

=> ↺ How To Install Converseen 0.8 On Ubuntu 14.10, Ubuntu 14.04 And Derivatives

=> ↺ How To Install PlayOnLinux 4.2.4 On Ubuntu 14.04, Ubuntu 12.04 And Derivative Systems

=> ↺ How to replace your operating system with Zorin OS 9

=> ↺ Logging in into Picasa 3.9 under Linux

=> ↺ Hybrid RAID 1 (Mirror) of RAM drive & SATA HDD Using LVM with LUKS [and systemd unit file] on Fedora Linux

=> ↺ RDO Setup Two Real Node (Controller+Compute) IceHouse Neutron ML2&OVS&VXLAN Cluster on CentOS 7

=> ↺ How to setup syslog-ng quickly for performance monitoring using Graphite inside Docker?

=> ↺ OTP authentication in FreeIPA

• As of release 4.0.0, FreeIPA supports OTP authentication. HOTP and TOTP tokens are supported natively, and there is also support for proxying requests to a separately administered RADIUS server.

Games

=> ↺ 5 Upcoming Linux Games You Should Be Excited About

• Steam’s release followed by the announcement of Steam OS was an unexpected boon for the slow growth of gaming on Linux. Both the developments were major milestones when it comes to Linux’s recognition as a commercially viable gaming platform. Be it Left 4 Dead or Portal, Linux is no longer the operating system for nerds. It has truly gone mainstream.

=> ↺ Grand Theft Auto Running On Direct3D Natively On Linux Shows Gallium3D Potential

=> ↺ Darkwood Survival Game Gets a Linux Version

• Darkwood, a top-down survival game developed and published by the Acid Wizard Studio, has arrived on Steam for Linux.

=> ↺ Pulstar Twin-Stick Shooter Arrives on Steam for Linux

• Pulstar, a fast and fun twin-stick shooter game developed by Concave Studio, Colorful Media, and Emagica, has arrived on the Linux platform.

=> ↺ Steam OS review – from a Linux user’s point of view

• Steam OS images were made available for free download yesterday. I grabbed the images, created an ISO and booted a high-end system on it (it was a working Windows 8 desktop). Instead of automated install, I chose advanced install so I could see what was going on. It was a pure Debian installer experience.

=> ↺ How to Play Hearthstone on Linux, Updated Tutorial

Desktop Environments/WMs

=> ↺ An unusual comparison of Desktop Environments

• I created and published a series of videos few months ago, that show how to set up multiple keyboard layouts in different Desktop Environments.

K Desktop Environment/KDE SC/Qt

=> ↺ Qt 5.4 Going Into Feature Freeze Next Week With Exciting Changes

• The Qt 5.4 feature freeze is set to go into effect on 8 August with already there being a large number of changes for this next major Qt5 tool-kit release.

• Heikkinen Jani of Digia sent out a reminder this morning that the 5.4 feature freeze is effective beginning 8 August. The Qt 5.4 code will be branched from Qt’s “dev” branch on 11 August.

=> ↺ Tor Bounty, Plasma 5 ISOs, and Best Desktops

• Today in Linux news, the Kubuntu team have released ISOs with the Plasma 5 desktop for all to test. Russia has offered 3.9m roubles to anyone who can crack the Tor network. And Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols has a round-up of the best in Linux desktops.

=> ↺ KDE Applications and Platform 4.14 Beta 3 Is Out, Final Version Just a Month Away

=> ↺ KDE Software Compilation 4.13.3 available in the stable repositories

=> ↺ KDE releases ice-cream coloured Plasma 5 just in time for summer

=> ↺ meta-kf5 usable

• Finally I’ve had the time to work over the final issues in meta-kf5. Right now, I build most tier 1 and tier 2 components. I’ve packaged most functional modules and integration modules from these tiers.

=> ↺ Layout Guidelines: A quick example

• The guidelines suggest layout patterns for simple, complex and very complex command structures. So where does our calendar app fit? Well, I wasn’t quite sure either. And that’s ok! Some things are tough to know until you start delving into the design work. The guidelines suggest starting with a pattern for a simple command structure when you’re not sure. So that’s what I did. As I started putting together a design and thinking about how Sue would use it for the purposes described, it became clear that not only were there several other desirable functions (like switching calendars, setting up calendar accounts, setting calendar colors, and more) but there are also certain commands Sue might use quite often (like switching between a day, week and month view of her schedule, adding an event and quickly getting back to today after browsing forward or back in time). So I settled on the suggested Toolbar + Menu Button command pattern for a complex command structure.

GNOME Desktop/GTK

=> ↺ A talk in 9 images

• My talk at GUADEC this year was about GTK+ dialogs. The first half of the talk consisted of a comparison of dialogs in GTK+ 2, in GTK+ 3 under gnome-shell and in GTK+ 3 under xfwm4 (as an example of an environment that does not favor client-side decorations).

=> ↺ Eye of GNOME 3.13.3 Features Improved GUI Test Handling

• According to the changelog, the deprecated GtkMisc and GtkAlignment usage has been dropped, the GUI test handling has been improved, the dialogs made with Glade have been converted to GResource and widget templates, disabling the dark theme plugin no longer disables the dark theme, and the plugin manager is now resizing in the preferences window.

=> ↺ GUADEC 2014, Day Three: GTK+ and Wayland

• The third day of GUADEC was mostly devoted to lower level parts of the GNOME stack. There were talks on GTK+, CSS, Wayland, and WebKitGTK+, but also an annual general meeting of the GNOME Foundation.

=> ↺ GUADEC 2014 Core Days Finish

• They say you never forget your first computer. For some of us, it was a Commodore 64 or an Apple IIe. For others, it was a Pentium 233 running Windows 95. Regardless of the hardware, the fond memories of wonder and excitement are universal. For me, I’ll never forget the night my father brought home our first computer, a Tandy 1000. Nor will I forget the curious excitement I felt toward the mysterious beige box that took up a large portion of the guest bedroom. This happened at a time when simply having a computer at home gave a school-age child an advantage. I have no doubt my experiences from that time positively influenced my path in life.

=> ↺ GNOME Stakeholders Take Issue With Groupon Over their Gnome

• Earlier this year the Groupon discount web-site introduced Gnome, a tablet software solution for helping business owners run their business. This software is completely unrelated to the open-source GNOME desktop environment on Linux systems. The Groupon Gnome announcement reads, “Today we announced Gnome, a new tablet-based platform that will provide sophisticated tools to local merchants to run their businesses more effectively and understand their customers better. The tablet will let merchants instantly recognize their Groupon customers as they enter their business, seamlessly redeem Groupons and save time and money with a simple point of-sale system and credit card payment processing service. Gnome will soon integrate with popular accounting software programs such as QuickBooks and Xero and offer a suite of customer relationship management tools, including the ability to customize marketing campaigns based on purchase history, share customer feedback via social media and respond to customer inquiries or comments.”

=> ↺ GNOME/GTK On Wayland Gains Focus At GUADEC

• GTK+ and GNOME Wayland support were frequent focal discussion points at this year’s GUADEC — GNOME’s annual conference — for getting rid of X11.

Distributions

=> ↺ Minimal Linux Live

• Minimal Linux Live is a set of Linux shell scripts which automatically build minimal Live Linux OS based on Linux kernel and BusyBox. All necessary source codes are automatically downloaded and all build operations are fully encapsulated in the scripts.

=> ↺ Minimal Linux Live

=> ↺ Adventures in live booting Linux distributions

• Building highly customized live images isn’t easy and running them in production makes it more challenging. Once the upstream kernel has a stable, solid, stackable filesystem, it should be much easier to operate a live environment for extended periods. There has been a parade of stackable filesystems over the years (remember funion-fs?) but I’ve been told that overlayfs seems to be a solid contender. I’ll keep an eye out for those kernel patches to land upstream but I’m not going to hold my breath quite yet.

=> ↺ 10 reasons to try Zorin OS 9, the Linux OS that looks like Windows

• Zorin OS is an Ubuntu-based Linux distribution designed especially for newcomers to Linux. With a Windows-like interface and many programs similar to those found in Microsoft’s proprietary OS, it aims to make it easy for Windows users to get the most out of Linux.

New Releases

=> ↺ Black Lab Linux 6.0 Preview Features GNOME 3 and It’s Based on Ubuntu 14.04 LTS – Gallery

• Black Lab Linux 6.0 Preview, a distribution based on Ubuntu 14.04 LTS, has been released and is now ready for testing.

Screenshots

=> ↺ Peach OSI 14.04

Arch Family

=> ↺ Manjaro 0.8.10 Gets Its Fourth Update Pack, Drops Linux Kernel 3.4.x

• Manjaro 0.8.10, a Linux distribution based on well-tested snapshots of the Arch Linux repositories and 100% compatible with Arch, has received a new update pack, the fourth one so far.

=> ↺ Manjaro Openbox 0.8.11 Preview Is Now Ready for Testing

• A preview version of Manjaro Openbox 0.8.11, a Linux distribution based on well-tested snapshots of the Arch Linux repositories that are completely compatible with Arch, is now available for download and testing.

=> ↺ Manjaro KDE 0.8.11 Preview 1 Is a Beautiful and Unique KDE Experience – Gallery

• A preview version of Manjaro KDE 0.8.11, a Linux distribution based on well-tested snapshots of the Arch Linux repositories and 100% compatible with Arch, is now available for download and testing.

Red Hat Family

=> ↺ Leaders are catalysts for shared purpose and results

• On every floor at Red Hat Tower in downtown Raleigh, you’ll find a brand message sign that describes Red Hat’s values and culture. On my floor, where I am an intern at Red Hat, the brand message is “Leaders are catalysts, turning shared purpose into shared results.” I see this sign multiple times everday. Coming into work. Going to meetings. Grabbing a coffee. It’s always there.

=> ↺ When Metrics Go Wrong

• In one open source project (on which I was a release manager), the main metric I cared about was the bugs open against a milestone. As time went on, and the number was not going down fast enough, we regularly would bump bugs to the next milestone, not because they were not important issues, but because we knew that they would not be fixed by the date we had set ourselves. Having participated in a number of projects, I have a pretty good idea that this is a universal tendency as release approaches.

Fedora

=> ↺ Fedora 21 will feature “solarized” color schemes in both the Terminal and Gedit

• Recently, I have been using what will become Fedora 21 as my day-to-day machine, (side note: I have found it to be pretty stable for pre-release software). One really nice improvement that i am enjoying on Fedora 21 is the addition of the solarized color scheme in both the default terminal (gnome-terminal), and the default graphical text editior (gedit). Solarized comes in both light and dark variants, and really makes these applications look fantastic and works really well on a wide range of displays and screen brightness levels. From the solarized website:

Debian Family

=> ↺ The FFmpeg vs. Libav War Continues In Debian Land

• Long story short, due to security concerns, package incompatibility issues, and being too short of time before the Debian 8.0 Jessie release, and there’s some measurable resistance to adding FFmpeg back to the repository. However, others are after FFmpeg in Debian for features it has over Libav with regard to some codecs and other abilities, some programs not compiling against Libav, and other differences between it and the forked Libav project. Time will tell if/when FFmpeg will be allowed back in Debian and whether it will happen in time for the 8.0 Jessie releae.

=> ↺ Debian Squeeze Reaches Version 6.0.10

• This is the tenth major update and unfortunately the last one in the life of this branch of the Debian distribution. According to the official changelog this update corrects alot of security problems due to the old stable release and contains a few fixes for serious problems. It is very important to mention the fact that this major update of the Debian 6.x included all the security updates that have never been part of a point release.

• Read more

Derivatives

Canonical/Ubuntu

=> ↺ New Ubuntu Touch Releases Blocked by Bugs

• Ubuntu for phones is going through a rough week and no new images have been promoted, mostly because of a few nasty bugs that prevented the release of a new stable version. The developers are working to fix the problem, but it might take a while until Ubuntu Touch users get their updates.

=> ↺ Canonical Closes Multiple Oxide Vulnerabilities in Ubuntu 14.04 LTS

=> ↺ Canonical Closes Jinja2 Exploit in Ubuntu 12.04 LTS

• A Jinja2 exploit has been identified and repaired in the Ubuntu 12.04 LTS (Precise Pangolin) operating system by Canonical developers.

=> ↺ Ubuntu for Phones to Integrate Nokia HERE Maps

• Canonical has announced that Ubuntu mobile devices will use Nokia HERE maps by default, making this the start of a very interesting partnership.

Flavours and Variants

=> ↺ Meet Peach OSI 14.04, a New Linux Distro Based on Xubuntu 14.04 LTS – Screenshots

• Peach OSI, a new Linux distribution based on Xubuntu that aims to be friendly towards new users and to provide all the software that regular users need, has been released.

Devices/Embedded

=> ↺ Tiny Linux SBC web-enables DIY IoT modules

• LittleBits launched a tiny $59 ARM9-based “CloudBit” SBC that adds Internet access to the company’s collection of 60+ electronics modules for DIY projects.

=> ↺ Tiny Raspberry Pi-compatible SBC targets wearables

• Hardkernel launched a $30, 60 x 36mm Raspberry-Pi compatible “Odroid-W” wearables oriented SBC, adding eMMC, ADC, RTC, a fuel gauge, and step converters.

• Hardkernel’s Odroid project developed the Odroid-W (Odroid-Wearable) for a partner’s Internet of Things prototyping platform, after first considering and dismissing its quad-core Odroid-U3 single board computer. The Odroid-U3, which was rated as the third most popular Linux hacker SBC in our recent survey, used too much power for use as an IoT and wearables platform. The Raspberry Pi was more power efficient, but too large. No doubt, RPi compatibility also had its attractions, as the project ended up building its own Raspberry Pi pseudo-clone implemented on a COM (computer-on-module) style form factor.

Phones

=> ↺ Seems Like My Work Is Done: As We Shift From ‘Hunters’ in Mobile Industry to ‘Farmers’ – Most of the cool stuff is done and dusted

• Today my thoughts in a longer blog about how I am seeing the mobile industry now in 2014. We are now shifting from the era of the ‘Hunters’ to the era of the ‘Farmers’. The unknown big wins and prizes (and perils) have mostly been discovered and most of the big players in the industry are shifting to tried-and-true parts that work, abandoning those that don’t. From hunters to farmers.

Ballnux

=> ↺ Samsung Postpones Launch of Tizen Phone

=> ↺ The Tizen smartphone flopped — and open source is to blame

=> ↺ Samsung’s Tizen smartphone OS: Dead or alive?

• Does Tizen have a future, or is it going to be another unlaunched Linux-based mobile operating system?

=> ↺ Android 4.4.3/4.4.4 Kitkat update for Samsung Galaxy devices still held back

• Although it has been almost a year since Google announced the Android 4.4 Kitkat OS, Samsung is still having difficulty in rolling out the latest version of the operating system.

Android

=> ↺ CM11S (OnePlus One) port available for the Nexus 5

• Most Android users are by now well aware of Cyanogen and their custom operating system CyanogenMod (CM). Earlier this month CM11 M8 was finally released which brought CM users up to Android 4.4.4. However if you own a Nexus 5 you can now install CM11S.

=> ↺ Search the Pirate Bay on your Android device with the PirateApp

=> ↺ What is Android Wear? Release date, smartwatches & features

• Everything there is to know about Android Wear smartwatches including LG G Watch, Motorola Moto 360, Samsung Gear Live, HTC One Wear and Google Gem.

=> ↺ The great Ars experiment—free and open source software on a smartphone?!

• Android is a Google product—it’s designed and built from the ground up to integrate with Google services and be a cloud-powered OS. A lot of Android is open source, though, and there’s nothing that says you have to use it the way that Google would prefer. With some work, it’s possible to turn a modern Android smartphone into a Google-less, completely open device—so we wanted to try just that. After dusting off the Nexus 4 and grabbing a copy of the open source parts of Android, we jumped off the grid and dumped all the proprietary Google and cloud-based services you’d normally use on Android. Instead, this experiment runs entirely on open source alternatives. FOSS or bust!

=> ↺ Can Android be made truly free and open source?

• Android has taken the world by storm, but many open source advocates view Google’s mobile operating system with a dubious eye. Can Android ever be made to be a truly free and open source operating system? Or is too tied to Google’s products and services? Ars Technica took a stab at creating a FOSS version of Android.

=> ↺ OpenMW is an open source port of The Elder Scrolls 3: Morrowind that’s heading to Android

Free Software/Open Source

=> ↺ World’s most dependable OS goes open source

=> ↺ “The World’s Most Highly-Assured OS” Kernel Open-Sourced

• The seL4 kernel that’s an advanced, security-enhanced version of the L4 micro-kernel has been open-sourced by General Dynamics C4 Systems and NICTA.

=> ↺ NICTA pushes seL4 microkernel beyond drones

• Open sourcing the operating system will allow for further development in medical devices and industrial automation

• [...]

• seL4 is a joint project between NICTA and General Dynamics C4 Systems, a US aerospace and defence company. It is released under the GNU General Public License, version 2 and includes all of the kernel’s source code, the mathematical proofs, as well as other code and proofs for building highly secure systems.

=> ↺ Out in the Open: Sandstorm Makes It Easy to Control Your Apps in the Cloud

• Web apps are convenient, but you don’t have any control over them. You never know if your favorite tool will evaporate when the company goes out of business or, as was the case of Google Reader, simply discontinued.

• Of course you can try running your own server loaded up with open source applications, but that’s still a real pain for most non-geeks.

• Former Google engineer Kenton Varda and neuroscientist Jade Wang think they’ve come up with way to fix both of these problems. It’s called Sandstorm: an open source project that gives you just as much control over cloud apps as you get on your very own servers, but without the hassles.

=> ↺ Bugcrowd Launches Open-source Disclosure Framework

• The move is meant to encourage responsible vulnerability disclosure practices.

=> ↺ Open Source Replacements for Popular Small Business Software

• For small and medium-sized businesses looking to save money, open source applications offer an easy way to reduce expenses related to software licensing and subscriptions. In addition, many open source applications offer additional features or better usability when compared with their closed source counterparts.

• This month, we’ve updated our list of open source software that are good options for SMBs. Many businesses have their first open source experience when they deploy a Linux-based server, and our list includes a wide variety of server software, such as operating systems, accounting, ERP and mail and groupware solutions.

=> ↺ Hack-Proof Drones? This Could Make It Happen

• Drones are an integral part of modern warfare, which is just one of many reasons why it would be unusually bad if malefactors were able to hack them. (See the recently finished season of 24.) seL4, an ironclad drone programming protocol, is about to go open-source, allowing both governments and enthusiasts to keep their autonomous flying machines secure.

• seL4 is an operating system kernel that acts as a go-between for hardware and software in an electronic device. It was developed by the National Information and Communications Technology Australia (NICTA) and the American defense company General Dynamics C4 Systems. Up until now, the program has only been available to governments and defense companies.

=> ↺ Women interns rocking open source at Xen Project

• With mid-term evaluations just around the corner for many technology-focused summer internship programs, here’s a closer look at how the Google Summer of Code (GSoC) and Outreach Program for Women (OPW) are helping mentors as well as interns.

=> ↺ Five must-know open source SDN controllers

• Open source SDN controllers enable the testing of applications and the promotion of network virtualization and NFV. Check out five open source SDN controllers to know about.

=> ↺ Open Source Vs. Open Enough

• There’s a big drive in networking towards open source with OpenDaylight and other initiatives. But enterprises aiming for open networking must make a decision: Either settle for “open enough” options from vendors that may not be truly open source but offer the interoperability and support they need, or commit to the ideals and development of true open source technology.

=> ↺ Cloudwatt deploys open source SDN controller

• French cloud service provider Cloudwatt announced that it has deployed open source SDN controller OpenContrail in its OpenStack-based datacentre in a bid to improve network operations and deployment speeds.

=> ↺ Cromosys now offers Mobile Website Development integrated with Open Source Technologies

=> ↺ Bugcrowd’s Independent Security Research Community Reaches 10,000 Participants

Events

=> ↺ PREVIEW: LinuxCon and CloudOpen Will Include Linux Quiz Show, Comic Book Hero Costume Contest and 5K Fun Run

=> ↺ Linux Foundation Announces LinuxCon, CloudOpen Chicago

Web Browsers

Chrome

=> ↺ Google Chrome 38 Dev Features Better Font Rendering

• The Development branch of Google Chrome, a browser built on the Blink layout engine that aims to be minimalistic and versatile at the same time, has been updated to version 38.0.2107.2 for all the supported platforms.

Mozilla

=> ↺ Chris Beard Named CEO of Mozilla

=> ↺ Chris Beard Named CEO of Mozilla

=> ↺ Chris Beard Named CEO of Mozilla

• I am pleased to announce that Chris Beard has been appointed CEO of Mozilla Corp. The Mozilla board has reviewed many internal and external candidates – and no one we met was a better fit.

=> ↺ Mozilla Firefox 31 Arrives With A Search Bar On New Tabs

=> ↺ Mozilla picks Chris Beard as new CEO, can he steer the company towards self-sustenance?

• Mozilla has finally filled the gap by appointing Chris Beard as the CEO of the Mozilla Corporation. Mozilla as an organization is lead by Mozilla Foundation, a non-profit (not charity) organization which created Mozilla Corp as a fully owned subsidiary back in 2005.

=> ↺ Chris Beard Confirmed As Mozilla’s CEO

=> ↺ Mozilla Firefox 32 Beta 1 Is Out, Lets Users See Login Metadata in Password Manager

• Mozilla has announced that Firefox 32 Beta 1 has been released, marking the start of another branch for the famous Internet browser.

=> ↺ Another day, another Firefox: Version 31 is upon us ALREADY

• The idea of a new version of Firefox will sound like a bad joke to some. To others, it’s a yawn – Firefox comes at the blistering pace of one new version every six weeks.

SaaS/Big Data

=> ↺ Pivotal and Hortonworks collaborate on Ambari for enterprise Hadoop

• Pivotal and Hortonworks announced plans to work together to boost enterprise-grade offerings on Apache Ambari, Hortonworks’ framework for provisioning, managing and monitoring Apache Hadoop clusters. Pivotal said it will dedicate engineers to contribute installation, configuration and management capabilities to Ambari.

=> ↺ ownCloud 7 Release Party August 8, Berlin

Databases

=> ↺ Rackspace Adds Support for MariaDB, Percona Open Source Databases

• In a move that will please devotees of open source cloud storage, hosting giant Rackspace (RAX) has announced it will officially support two additional types of open source MySQL databases, from MariaDB and Percona.

Oracle/Java/LibreOffice

=> ↺ Open Source Storage Adds Former Oracle Managers to Executive Team

Education

=> ↺ EdX CEO Anant Agarwal: Open Source is the Future of Education

• Starting this Friday, Aug. 1, the more than 300,000 students who registered for the Linux Foundation’s free Introduction to Linux course on edX will be able to log in and start learning Linux. It is the first Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) on Linux, opening training access to anyone around the world with an Internet connection. It’s also part of a larger revolution in education being led by edX, the online learning platform founded by Harvard and MIT.

Funding

=> ↺ Bright Computing Draws $14.5 Million to Expand Focus on Linux Clusters

BSD

=> ↺ bsdtalk243 – mandoc with Ingo Schwarze

• Interview about mandoc with Ingo Schwarze. The project webpage describes mandoc as “a suite of tools compiling mdoc, the roff macro language of choice for BSD manual pages, and man, the predominant historical language for UNIX manuals.”

=> ↺ FSF congratulates UK Government on choosing Open Document Format

• If you live in the UK, you’ll soon be able to fill out government paperwork with your freedoms intact. The British government announced last week that Open Document Format (ODF), HTML, and PDF will be the official file formats used by all government agencies.

FSF/FSFE/GNU/SFLC

=> ↺ A Public Key Infrastructure for Social Movements in the Age of Universal Surveillance

=> ↺ FreeIPMI 1.4.5 Released

=> ↺ GNU Parted – News: Parted 3.2 released

=> ↺ GNU ease.js 0.2.3 released [stable]

• This is the fourth release of the 0.2 series as part of the GNU project; it is primarily a maintenance release, but does introduce a significant (preview and undocumented) feature—parameterized traits. A generic super method has also been added to satisfy more sophisticated subtyping that __super alone cannot handle.

=> ↺ Coreboot Sandy/Ivy Bridge Gains Native RAM Initialization

• The latest addition to Coreboot is native RAM initialization support for Intel’s Sandy Bridge and Ivy Bridge families.

=> ↺ Welcome Jessica Tallon, MediaGoblin’s second full time hire

• I’m excited to announce that MediaGoblin has hired its second full-time programmer: Jessica Tallon! Those of you who follow MediaGoblin closely may recognize that name: Jessica joined us as part of our Outreach Program for Women participation last year (she wrote about her experiences with the program on this blog). Jessica has been working on federation support in the project.

=> ↺ GCC wins lifetime achievement award – and also takes heat from Linus Torvalds

Licensing

=> ↺ Interview with Tox.im

• This is the latest installment of our Licensing and Compliance Lab’s series on free software developers who choose GNU licenses for their works.

=> ↺ Lawsuit threatens to break new ground on the GPL and software licensing issues

• GPLv2 is one of the most widely used FOSS licenses, if not the most. It is the license for some of the most important and commercially valuable FOSS projects, including the Linux kernel, whose contributors include such uncomfortable bedfellows as Oracle and Google, Intel and AMD, and Cisco and Huawei. If XimpleWare is right, and a license under GPLv2 offers no protection from the licensor’s patents, Linux would be a landmine for these companies, and really for any company with fewer patents than IBM.

Openness/Sharing

Open Data

=> ↺ 6 open source tools for data journalism

• Much of the data that journalists find on the web they can download as a spreadsheet or as CSV or PDF files. But there’s a lot of information that’s embedded in web pages. Instead of manually copying and pasting that information, a trick just about every data journalist uses is scraping. Scraping is the act of using an automated tool to grab information embedded in a web page, often in the form of an HTML table.

Open Hardware

=> ↺ Indian Inventor Makes A Decidedly Unsexy (But Cool) Open Source Glass Clone

• Now don’t laugh. I see what you’re about to say: this project looks like a mess. But trust me when I tell you this thing could be slapped to your face sooner than later, provided you prefer not to trust Google with your location, photo, and activity data and provided you’re a lover of open source hardware.

Programming

=> ↺ Cloud 9 IDE 3.0 Now Runs in Ubuntu Containers via Docker

• Cloud 9 has recently launched a new version of their online IDE. Usually, online developer tools are simpler than their native counterparts, some even refusing to call them IDEs. But Cloud 9 does not want to be just a rich editor, incorporating more and more features of a traditional integrated development environment.

=> ↺ Perl as a career option

=> ↺ Free Toolsuite Brings Ada To ARM

• AdaCore has released a freely downloadable version of its GNAT GPL Ada cross-development environment for Bare Board ARM Cortex processors.

• GNAT GPL for Bare Board ARM Cortex processors provides an Ada 2012 development environment, including a tool-chain and GPS, AdaCore’s flagship Integrated Development Environment (IDE).

Leftovers

Health/Nutrition

=> ↺ Taliban In Pakistan Derail World Polio Eradication

• The polio problem in Pakistan right now is a result of the CIA’s actions in the country, says Mufti Muneeb Ur Rehman, a prominent and moderate cleric in Pakistan. He personally accepts the polio vaccine. He encourages people at his mosque to get their kids vaccinated.

=> ↺ Credible drive, govt will needed to fight polio

• He pointed out that proper awareness and mass education campaigns regarding polio were required to make polio drops generic with other childhood vaccine preventable diseases to help shed away misconceptions surrounding polio vaccine and its association with CIA due to the suspicious role of Dr Shakeel Afridi.

=> ↺ CIA and Pakistani Taliban undo global Polio eradication

Security

=> ↺ Tuesday’s security updates

=> ↺ Internet of things big security worry, says HP

Defence/Police/Secrecy/Aggression

=> ↺ Anger follows Facebook’s secret study to manipulate emotions

• As Johnson wrote on Twitter, “Could the CIA incite revolution in Sudan by pressuring Facebook to promote discontent? Should that be legal? Could Mark Zuckerberg swing an election by promoting Upworthy [a website aggregating viral content] posts two weeks beforehand? Should that be legal?”

=> ↺ FBI Chief Investigator Dismisses CIA Officer’s Claims Over 1988 Plane Bombing Intel

• An agent with the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) who led the US probe into the bombing of Pan Am flight 103 over the Scottish town of Lockerbie in 1988 has denied claims made by a Central Intelligence Agency (CIA)’s former officer who told RIA Novosti that FBI investigators did not read vital US intelligence material related to the attack.

=> ↺ The New York Times’s Dangerous Lies About Ukraine and Russia

=> ↺ Obama Announces New Sanctions On Russia, Says ‘This Is Not A New Cold War’

• President Obama announced new sanctions on Russia Tuesday, telling reporters “this is not a new Cold War.” The announcement by the US president came the same day that the European Union also approved broader sanctions against Russia.

=> ↺ The Cold War Never Ended

• What better proof of that phenomenon than the continuation of the Cold War embargo against Cuba, the island nation 90 miles away from American shores that the Pentagon and the CIA have always been convinced is a beachhead in the worldwide communist conspiracy to conquer the United States and subject the American people to communist rule?

=> ↺ No Prospects of Russia-US ‘Second Reset’ in View – Russian Diplomat

• A new “reset” in relations between Russia and the United States is unlikely as bilateral cooperation has been practically frozen and Washington has gone ‘rather far’ in anti-Russian rhetoric and sanctions, Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said Monday.

=> ↺ Admitted Liar Claims Russia Is Shooting Artillery Into Ukraine

=> ↺ Airlines want guidance on conflict airspace

• Global airlines will push to get “neutral information” on whether to use or avoid airspace over conflict zones at Tuesday’s meeting of the UN aviation agency and other airline bodies, a European-based airline industry source said.

=> ↺ Winning a Lose/Lose War

• Hamas is deserving of sympathy while al-Qaeda mostly is not, largely because of the feeling that the former cannot do much to Americans, and the latter might do a lot. Westerners, particularly Europeans, sympathize with the underdog in the Middle East as a sort of self-flagellation, a catharsis to deal with their own empty privilege. Postmodern Westerners are guilty about their affluence and leisure, but not to the point of surrendering them. They square the circle of criticizing what they are by projecting their self-animus onto Israel, a small, successful Western outpost surrounded by the less successful Other.

=> ↺ Emerson to Kerry-Obama: It’s Terrorism, Stupid

• In other words, Obama demanded that Israel institute an immediate unilateral ceasefire even while Hamas continues its terrorist operations against Israel. True to form, Hamas escalated its attacks on Monday.

=> ↺ CBS Host: Palestinians Force Israel to Kill Kids

=> ↺ Media Hype and Gaza’s ‘Terror’ Tunnels

• If outlets like CNN and the Times are going to give so much attention to these Hamas-built tunnels, shouldn’t they add this context to their reporting? Or is the “propaganda push” just more effective when these inconvenient facts aren’t mentioned?

=> ↺ What Do Gazans Endure? A Palestinian Student Who Lost 2 Brothers, 4 Cousins Tells His Story

• Five years ago Palestinian student Amer Shurrab lost his two brothers in Israel’s Operation Cast Lead. Last week, Shurrab learned four of his cousins in Gaza had been killed in Israel’s latest offensive. In January 2009, Amer’s father and brothers were fleeing their village when the vehicle they were driving in came under Israeli fire. Twenty-eight-year-old Kassab died in a hail of bullets trying to flee the vehicle. Amer’s other brother, 18-year-old Ibrahim, survived the initial attack, but Israeli troops refused to allow an ambulance to reach him until 20 hours later. By then, it was too late. Ibrahim had bled to death in front of his father. A graduate student at Monterey Institute of International Studies in California, Amer Shurrab has been recounting the story of his brothers and other Palestinians at college campuses and community gatherings across the United States. “Israel is deliberately targeting civilians from the day one of this attack,” he says. “They have been bombing houses, wiping entire families to try to scare people into submission.”

=> ↺ Australia Provides $5 Million Humanitarian Aid to Gaza

• The Australian Government provides humanitarian aid to Gaza amounting to $5 million to be delivered through the governments accredited partners in Gaza: the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), World Vision and APHEDA.

=> ↺ Why Is Israel Attacking Gaza?

• The conventional answer tells us that the June abduction and murders of three Israeli teenagers is the answer. This crime was carried out by Hamas, Israeli officials claim, and it led to a brutal crackdown on Hamas officials in the West Bank. Hundreds were detained, and several Palestinians died in clashes with Israeli security forces. Rocket fire from Gaza then intensified, forcing the Israelis to launch the current military assault.

=> ↺ We are Israeli reservists. We refuse to serve.

• To us, the current military operation and the way militarization affects Israeli society are inseparable. In Israel, war is not merely politics by other means — it replaces politics. Israel is no longer able to think about a solution to a political conflict except in terms of physical might; no wonder it is prone to never-ending cycles of mortal violence. And when the cannons fire, no criticism may be heard.

=> ↺ Duma mulls new bill to define and punish ‘aggressor nations’

• Ruling party lawmakers propose altering Russian legislation to allow for automatic sanctions against foreign countries that the government includes on a special list of ‘aggressor nations’.

=> ↺ Sony Working On Al Qaeda Thriller ‘Agent Storm’

• Sony Pictures has acquired the film rights to the book “Agent Storm: Life Inside Al Qaeda” by Morten Storm, Deadline reported.

=> ↺ Paul Greengrass And Scott Rudin Introduce Agent Storm

=> ↺ Time to evict Tony Blair from the Middle East – and the world stage as a whole

• It came just hours after he resigned as Prime Minister. While it has no salary it pays him huge dividends in the form of political access and the appearance of still having some clout.

• His office – funded at around £2million a year by the EU, UN, US and Russia – is tasked with promoting the economic development of Palestine.

=> ↺ World events don’t need US’ blessing

• America must come to grips with an uncomfortable reality: Our world influence is beginning to wane. The two main crises that have dominated the airwaves for the past few weeks, the Malaysian Airline downed by Russian-backed Ukrainian separatist forces and the latest chapter in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, have made this development perfectly clear. We have overstretched, overreached and overplayed our influence for too long.

=> ↺ The Empire Economy Does Not Serve The Economy Or People

• World history is filled with empires, e.g. the Roman and Byzantine empires, the European colonial empires, various ancient Iranian empires, the Arab Caliphate and Ottoman Empire, the Soviet Union to name a few. These historic empires have one thing in common: they no longer exist. As the lifecycle of empire wanes, rather than being a benefit to the home country, sustaining empire becomes more expensive than it is worth.

=> ↺ Historical Tradition of American Empire War and Genocidal Crimes Against Humanity

=> ↺ How morally clean are UK, US politicians demanding investigation into Sri Lanka’s rightful war against terrorism ?

=> ↺ Erdogan’s odious anti-Semitic slander

• The loss of civilian life is awful, but it is no Holocaust. It is, though, an opportunity for anti-Semites, latent or otherwise, to express their bigotry. Their implied statement is that the Jews had it coming — see how they act now! Their bigotry overpowers their logic and they deliriously lose all sense of proportion — 6 million versus 1,000 or so in Gaza — and they conflate the killer with the killed. It is repugnant.

• For Erdogan, the handier and closer to home reference would have been what the Turks did to the Armenians. This genocide — the very word was coined by Raphael Lemkin to encompass what happened to 1.5 million Armenians during and after World War I — has been roundly denied by the Turkish government. In a dizzying feat of irrationality, the head of that government brushes past the crimes of his own nation to point an accusatory finger at the victims of another nation.

=> ↺ Hundreds of Thousands of Guns Go Missing

=> ↺ Peace activists says drone protests at Hancock Air Base will continue

• Seven protesters from places like Maryland, Vermont and New York City, were arrested for blocking the entrance to the base. Syracuse drone resister Ed Kinane, who was part of a group supporting the protest, says Hancock has become a prime target for more and more anti-drone activists.

=> ↺ Drones are not the answer

• These are the peace activists I met during their 165-mile walk from Chicago to Battle Creek, Michigan. They were protesting the plan to make the Michigan Air National Guard base in Battle Creek the latest U.S. command center to operate the MQ9 Predator drones that strike targets in Pakistan, Afghanistan, Yemen, and other places where terrorists roam. Their walk across the Chicago lakeshore and the country roads of Indiana and southwestern Michigan was a tool to communicate the message that drone warfare is a bad idea. Drones kills innocents. Drones give their pilots post-traumatic stress disorder. Drones endanger Americans at home, as these weapons will eventually be used by our enemies on us.

=> ↺ Hamas Shows Off Downed Drone

=> ↺ How Robot Dogs Are Changing the Face of Warfare

• They are the future of war and no army is complete without them. Now Israel has become the latest country to deploy unmanned ground vehicles. Loyal Partner is an UGV operated by soldiers at a remote location a ground drone, in layman speak, which already has many sister machines.

• Defence giant Oshkosh has developed self-driving technology that allows military vehicles to see better than humans in murky combat conditions. They?re now being tested by the United States Marine Corps.

=> ↺ Gaza: ’100 Palestinians Killed In One Day’

• Israel has stepped up its military campaign in Gaza, where more than 100 Palestinians have been killed today alone and power supplies have been crippled by the destruction of the territory’s only power plant.

Environment/Energy/Wildlife

=> ↺ Leaked World Bank lending policies ‘environmentally disastrous’

• New ‘light touch’ rules on bank’s $50bn annual lending have been gutted to remove protections, watchdogs claim

Finance

=> ↺ 1 in 3 U.S. adults have ‘debt in collections’

• An estimated 1 in 3 adults with a credit history — or 77 million people — are so far behind on some of their debt payments that their account has been put “in collections.”

=> ↺ Study: 35% of Americans Facing Debt Collectors

• The delinquent debt is overwhelmingly concentrated in Southern and western states

=> ↺ China’s minimum wage rising as rich-poor gap widens

• In China, a parade of local governments are rushing to raise the minimum wage, with the moves coming amid a recent widening of the already-large gap between rich and poor.

=> ↺ It’s Not Denny Chin’s Fault He Ruled On A Fake Motion Filed By ‘Bernie Madoff’

• The federal judge didn’t notice that the request to dismiss the charges against the guy he sentenced to 150 years in prison was filed by one “Frederick Banks, the Litigator Legal Asst.” FYI: Frederick Banks is a federal prisoner in Ohio whose hobby is filing frivolous lawsuits and accusing the government of employing its arsenal of “voice to skull” mind-control weaponry on him. In this particular case, Banks was posing as Ponzi Master extraordinaire Bernie Madoff.

=> ↺ Pentagon security clearance holders owe $730 million in back taxes

• About 83,000 Defense Department employees and contractors with security clearances to protect the nation’s secrets have delinquent federal tax debts totaling $730 million, according to an internal government audit.

=> ↺ Report: DOD workers with access to secrets owe $730M in taxes

PR/AstroTurf/Lobbying

=> ↺ Verizon stock owned by FISA judges, a company complicit in NSA spying scandal

• The media outlet VICE have reported that they have obtained disclosures showing that numerous Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISA) judges own or have owned stock in Verizon in the last 12 months and at least one of them has signed off on National Security Agency (NSA) orders for bulk metadata collection.

=> ↺ FISA court judges buying Verizon stock as they approve NSA surveillance

=> ↺ Three Judges that Approve NSA Surveillance has Stock in Verizon

=> ↺ FISA Court Judges Signing Off On NSA Surveillance Programs Invest In Verizon Stock

=> ↺ Don’t believe anything you read at Natural News

• Last week, Mike Adams, who calls himself the Health Ranger and runs the site Natural News, posted a truly insane article which seems to advocate violence against scientists and journalists who support genetic engineering.

Censorship

=> ↺ Google Protects Chilling Effects From Takedown Notices

• Chilling Effects is the largest public repository of DMCA notices on the planet, providing a unique insight into the Internet’s copyright battles. However, each month people try to de-index pages of the site but Google has Chilling Effects’ back and routinely rejects copyright claims.

=> ↺ Pakistani mob burns homes of minority Muslims, kills 3 after allegations of blasphemous photo

• A Pakistani mob burned down several homes belonging to the minority Ahmadi sect in the country’s east, killing a woman and her two granddaughters in riots following rumors about blasphemous postings on Facebook, police said Monday.

• The rioting in the city of Gujranwala erupted late Sunday after claims that an Ahmadi had posted a blasphemous photo of the Kaaba — the cube-shaped structure in the Grand Mosque in Mecca, Saudi Arabia, which observant Muslims around the world face in prayer five times a day, police official Zeeshan Siddiqi said. He said the photo allegedly contained nudity.

=> ↺ Pakistan’s complicated media freedom threats

• In March, Pakistani columnist Raza Rumi was injured in a gun attack that killed his driver. Weeks later, Hamid Mir, star journalist of Geo TV, Pakistan’s biggest TV station, was shot six times. Luckily, both survived, and managed to avoid becoming part of a bleak statistic: Since 1992, 30 journalists have been murdered in Pakistan; 28 with impunity.

=> ↺ Arrests, censorship and propaganda mark expanding government control of information

• Dong Rubin, a blogger in the southern Chinese province of Yunan who has written critically of local officials’ actions, has been sentenced to six and a half years in prison as a wave of arrests of journalists and bloggers signal tightening of government control of the internet.

=> ↺ Censorship leads to oppression

Privacy

=> ↺ The Snowden Effect: This Is Still Not America

=> ↺ Peak Drive Aims To Be As Usable As Dropbox, As Secure As SpiderOak

• A new German cloud storage startup is preparing to launch a service it bills as more secure than Dropbox, thanks to offering client-side encryption (which Dropbox does not). So far so SpiderOak et al.

=> ↺ Government Spy Agencies Have Too Much Latitude

• How much does it concern you that your emails, texts, social media, and phone calls might be monitored?

=> ↺ National Whistleblower Appreciation Day

=> ↺ Why Anonymous Messaging Services Are Full of Bitching and Flirting

• The latest tool for people desperate to share their views without sharing that they’ve shared them, Leak is a site that lets you send anonymous emails to anyone, signed only “a friend,” “a colleague,” or just “someone.”

=> ↺ U.S. tech companies reel as NSA spying mars image for customers

=> ↺ NSA’s Actions Threaten U.S. Economy and Internet Security, New Report Suggests

=> ↺ Privacy group outlines cost of surveillance

=> ↺ The U.S. Economy Is A Casualty Of NSA Surveillance Programs

• Ever since Edward Snowden revealed the true extent of the National Security Agency’s surveillance methods, the public debate has focused mostly on issues of privacy and national security. But new evidence shows that the fallout from the NSA backlash is wider than we thought, and could cost U.S. companies billions.

=> ↺ NAF report quantifies cost of NSA snooping

• In the year since Edward Snowden began disclosing the scope of National Security Agency’s programs to use cell phone networks, the Internet and various commercial websites to spy on both American citizens and foreign nationals, there has been considerable speculation about the cost of these programs to the U.S. information technology industry in terms of money and trust.

=> ↺ U.S. tech business losses foreseen if NSA spying isn’t curbed

• U.S. technology companies are in danger of losing more business to foreign competitors if the National Security Agency’s power to spy on customers isn’t curbed, researchers with the New America Foundation said in a report Tuesday.

• The report, by the foundation’s Open Technology Institute, called for prohibiting the NSA from collecting data in bulk, while letting companies report more details about what information they give the government. Senate legislation introduced Tuesday would fulfill some recommendations by the institute, a Washington-based advocacy group that has been critical of NSA programs.

=> ↺ MICROSOFT: The Government Has A Sneaky Way Of Forcing Tech Companies To Turn Over Your Emails

• Microsoft’s general counsel Brad Smith announced in a Wall Street Journal op-ed Tuesday night that the company will fight a tactic used by the U.S. government to force tech companies to turn over customers’ emails stored on remote servers.

=> ↺ American Tech Companies Losing Foreign Business

• Since last year, many tech companies have lost millions in foreign revenue after a former NSA contractor, Edward Snowden leaked information shedding light on the NSA and that it had been spying on people all over the world without them even knowing it. This has caused many companies that would use American tech companies for clouding services to end their contracts due to the fear of them being spied on.

=> ↺ 1984 and our modern surveillance society

• Mass surveillance is now a part of our social, economic and political lives—governments and companies snoop on us like never before. But are we really heading toward an Orwellian future?

=> ↺ Schools Have Become Data Vacuums

• The biggest proponents of Big Data in education believe collecting the most intimate details about your child and family will help them engineer society, Jane Robbins says in this interview with the Daily Caller’s Ginni Thomas.

=> ↺ Intelligence Gathering, Subjects and Citizens

• Drake did come across as gloomy, and he has every reason to. He was hounded, threatened and faced the prospect of having the key thrown away for decades for mishandling documents under the Espionage Act. In June 2011, the 10 original charges filed against him were dropped, leaving the way for a plea for misusing a computer. He now works in an Apple store in Maryland, having had his security access revoked, and the circle of friends within the intelligence community withdrawn. Mixing with Drake is dangerous business if you want to get far on the retirement plan and keep sighing at the picket fence. This is the “radioactive” dilemma – one which the hardened whistleblower faces. Expose, and the world withdraws.

=> ↺ Was fleeing the country Snowden’s best option?

• MARK COLVIN: While Julian Assange himself is still stuck in a room in Ecuador’s embassy in London, the NSA (National Security Agency) whistleblower Edward Snowden is in Moscow, where he got stuck on his way from Hong Kong more than a year ago.

• His visa runs out tomorrow, though Russia is expected to renew it.

• Yesterday the German justice minister suggested Snowden was too young to spend his life being hunted. He advised him to return to the United States and face the charges against him.

• Thomas Drake is a former senior executive of the US National Security Agency who was prosecuted as a whistleblower on multiple felony charges but eventually walked free on a misdemeanour.

• Jesselyn Radack is his lawyer and a member of Edward Snowden’s legal team.

• They are in the country as guests of the Wheeler Centre and they joined me from our Melbourne studio.

• I started by asking what would have happened if, instead of fleeing, Edward Snowden had given a press conference in Washington.

=> ↺ NSA Concerns Give Chinese Server Maker a Boost

=> ↺ Reporters Without Borders Condemns German Justice Minister’s Call for Snowden to Surrender

=> ↺ German Justice Minister Maas suggests Snowden surrender to the US

• Former CIA employee Edward Snowden has been living in Russia for nearly one year. German justice minister Heiko Maas has suggested he go back to the USA.

=> ↺ German Minister Thinks Snowden Should Give Up Being ‘Hunted’

=> ↺ German justice minister: best solution for NSA leaker Edward Snowden would be to return to US

=> ↺ Minister: Snowden should cut deal

=> ↺ Edward Snowden should cut deal and go home to US, German minister says

=> ↺ Opposition slams minister’s Snowden comments

• NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden has been living in Russia for nearly one year. Now German Justice Minister Heiko Maas has suggested he go back to the US, sparking outrage among left-wing politicians.

=> ↺ German minister’s ‘give up’ advice to Snowden stirs opposition ire

• Instead of being hunted and changing countries all his life, Edward Snowden should return to the US and face charges, shared the German Justice Minister, arousing waves of indignant comments from political opponents and human rights activists worldwide.

=> ↺ Govt staff should be banned from using iPhones

• Apple has finally acknowledged that its staff can extract personal data including text messages, contact lists and photos from iPhones through previously unpublicized techniques. This ongoing and fermenting incident poses a severe security challenge.

=> ↺ Edward Snowden’s lawyer blasts Australian law that would jail journalists reporting on spy leaks

• Shadow attorney-general Mark Dreyfus said if criminalising journalism was the effect of the new legislation, “the government will need to make changes to remove that consequence”.

=> ↺ Russian Lawyer Says Snowden’s Security ‘Still Issue’

• US authorities have rejected claims that Snowden is a whistleblower, insisting that he committed crimes and should stand trial at home. The US charged Snowden with espionage and revoked his passport.

=> ↺ Federal drone surveillance of US citizens becomes a reality

• The cutting-edge technology used in drones provides our military with an unrivaled perspective from above, allowing them to identify and engage targets from miles away, but now that the same technology is being used on American soil, many are starting to feel a little uneasy about the idea of an elusive, video-equipped robot watching their every move.

=> ↺ Senate USA FREEDOM Act Gets Good Reviews

• The Senate’s new version of the USA Freedom Act of 2014 was getting a round of applause from stakeholders Tuesday following its introduction.

=> ↺ The Switchboard: Why a former NSA director thinks he is worth $1 million a month

=> ↺ Feds doled out millions towards Tor online anonymity tools

=> ↺ Tor network received over $1.8m from U.S. govt. in 2013: report

=> ↺ The NSA’s Patents, in One Searchable Database

=> ↺ At a million a month, Keith Alexander’s post-NSA career looks promising

=> ↺ America’s former spy chief is getting filthy rich “consulting” on cybersecurity

• Gen. Keith Alexander stepped down from the NSA in March, now he’s raking in the dough as a “cyberconsultant”

=> ↺ Former NSA chief to profit from patented hacker detection tech, charging clients $1M a month

• Keith Alexander, the former director of the National Security Administration, is filing for tech security patents related to his work running the NSA.

=> ↺ Reputation of Cloud Industry in the Gutter Post-NSA, Report Claims

• The U.S. government must clean up the act of its National Security Agency (NSA) if trust in cloud providers is to be restored, according to a think tank.

• In its Surveillance Costs: The NSA’s Impact on the Economy, Internet Freedom and Cybersecurity report, the New America Foundation (NAF) claims U.S. cloud firms have borne the brunt of the NSA scandal.

=> ↺ Data retention scheme would lead to surveillance tax on consumers, say telcos

=> ↺ Facebook has only “pivoted” on one kind of privacy — in other ways, it’s becoming more dangerous

• I must give credit where it is due: As Slate’s Will Oremus wrote in a piece called “Facebook’s Privacy Pivot” a few days ago, the social network has greatly improved its handling of user privacy in recent months. In a sense.

• Once a company that seemed to delight in undermining its users’ choice of privacy settings, these days the social network promotes “friends” rather than “public” as its default post setting, it has an “anonymous” version of its site login tool that limits what personal information logged-into services can see, and it’s just generally less… shifty. Hooray for that.

=> ↺ Germany Not to Risk Relationship with US Over NSA Spying

• Over the weekend, German writer and cultural critic Thorsten Pattberg told RIA Novosti that despite Germany’s seemingly harsh retribution over NSA spying and public concern of the future of the transatlantic relationship, Germany ultimately will not risk alienation from the United States.

=> ↺ Data Security Viewed With New Perspective Due To The “Snowden Effect”

=> ↺ NSA whistleblower requests one-year asylum extension

• Edward Snowden’s asylum in Russia is set to expire on July 31. He has requested an extension for another year and is awaiting approval from Moscow. He was stranded for weeks at the airport in Moscow in June 2013 after the U.S. voided his passport.

=> ↺ Professors Are Worried an FAA Drone Ban Will Kill University Programs Nationwide

• A Federal Aviation Administration ban on commercial drones would kill dozens of drone programs at universities across the country, a group of professors told the agency late last week.

=> ↺ Mass Surveillance Is Corroding American Democracy, Human Rights Report Concludes

=> ↺ Surveillance Programs Hinder Journalists, Lawyers, Report Says

=> ↺ Mass U.S. Surveillance Targeting Journalists and Lawyers Seen as Threat to American Democracy

=> ↺ Surveillance Programs Hinder Journalists, Lawyers, Report Finds–Update

=> ↺ Journalists and Attorneys Are Increasingly Adopting Spycraft

• The US Government’s mass surveillance programs are chilling the rights of journalists and lawyers, and weakening democratic institutions in the process, according to a new report authored by Human Rights Watch and the ACLU. The report found that journalists’ sources are either drying up or talking less, and attorneys are increasingly concerned about their ability to keep privileged client-information private.

=> ↺ Looking For A New Job? Earn $175K As NSA Spokesman; Position Requires ‘Crisis Management’ Experience

• The U.S. National Security Agency is hoping that a new spokesman will be able to help clean up the public relations mess created by years of widespread, indiscriminate surveillance on prominent members of the international community and American citizens alike in the name of national security. The job features a nice salary and room for growth although morale has been so low at the agency since the Edward Snowden leak, President Obama himself was asked to stop by the headquarters at Fort Meade, Maryland, to give a pep talk.

=> ↺ NSA seeks strategic comms leader

=> ↺ Snowden-stung NSA seeking PR guru

=> ↺ Hiring: A New NSA PR Spokesperson, So If Your Job Wasn’t Stressful Enough…

=> ↺ NSA Seeks PR Chief

=> ↺ Before there was Snowden

• Let’s introduce Bill Binney, who used to work at the NSA for nearly 30 years as one of its leading crypto-mathematicians. Following that, he became one of its leading whistleblowers.

=> ↺ Digital-age detective work can’t crack Brooklyn Bridge caper

• Cops hit social media, cell towers, surveillance cams, and license plate readers.

=> ↺ Tor security advisory: “relay early” traffic confirmation attack

• On July 4 2014 we found a group of relays that we assume were trying to deanonymize users. They appear to have been targeting people who operate or access Tor hidden services. The attack involved modifying Tor protocol headers to do traffic confirmation attacks.

=> ↺ Tor Project received $1.8m from US Govt. in 2013

• Tor, the software that allows you to view the Internet anonymously, received more than $1.8 million in funding from the US government during 2013.

• [...]

• Interestingly enough, one of the lead developers of Tor, Jacob Appelbaum is residing in Germany as he deems it unsafe for himself to live in the USA, claiming that his laptops have been tampered with at an airport as he was attempting to re-enter the country (four minutes into the linked video) and also claims that his premises in the US was subjected to a Black bag operation at 48:30.

=> ↺ US government increases funding for Tor, giving $1.8m in 2013

=> ↺ Do You Search Online Differently Since Snowden?

• In the year-plus since Edward Snowden lifted the veil on just how closely the US government (and others) tracks our online lives, a few things have changed. Tech companies are encrypting more; foreign governments are trusting less; and, according to a new study, we’re all searching quite a bit more cautiously.

=> ↺ Dutch Court Says its Spy Agencies Can Use Data Collected by NSA, Despite Violating Local Laws

• According to a Netherlands court ruling, Dutch intelligence agencies can continue using bulk data collected by foreign intelligence agencies (such as the US National Security Agency), even though this type of data collection is illegal for Dutch services.

=> ↺ US government called out for restrictive NSA surveillance by rights groups

=> ↺ Virtru launches killer NSA-grade encryption for enterprise

• In order to do so, the Washington, DC-based startup, co-founded by former National Security Agency data transfer architect Will Ackerly and his brother John, has launched its enterprise crypto-based email service for Android users. The new service is built directly into your Google Apps Gmail interface.

=> ↺ Congressman Grayson Requests Answers from Clapper on NSA’s Weakening of Encryption Standards

• Democratic congressman Alan Grayson, who serves on the Science, Space, and Technology Committee in the US House of Representatives, has written a letter to Director of National Intelligence James Clapper. It requests answers related to how the NSA has weakened encryption standards.

• As ProPublica and The New York Times reported in September 2013, documents from NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden showed the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), the US’s “encryption standards body,” had adopted a standard in 2006 that contained a “fatal weakness,” which the NSA had developed. The standard was then aggressively pushed so the International Organization for Standardization, which has 163 countries as its members, would adopt the intentionally flawed standard.

=> ↺ Four Senators Team Up on Anti-NSA Letter to Clapper

• If you were putting it all on the line in Vegas, 4-431 probably aren’t the odds you’d be looking for to double your money, but right now it’s the only play we’ve got.

=> ↺ The NSA, Snowden, And Citizen Cryptology

=> ↺ Government Spying Hurts Journalists and Lawyers, Report Says

=> ↺ NSA spying: Bill to reform spying; effect on journalism and law

=> ↺ Report: U.S. Lawyers Fear NSA Spying

=> ↺ Corporate Firms Not So Spooked by NSA Snoops

=> ↺ Large-Scale US Surveillance Does Produce Abuses – Author of HRW- ACLU Report

• The mere collection of large amounts of personal data by the US wiretapping agency in the environment where whistleblowers are becoming increasingly criminalized has already created significant harm, an American activist told RIA Novosti Monday, commenting on remarks by US national security officials that there have been no tangible abuses.

=> ↺ Survey: Journalists, lawyers change habits to avoid NSA snooping

• Spying programs, such as those at the National Security Agency, are making journalists and lawyers change the way they do business, according to a new report from critics of the snooping.

=> ↺ NSA Surveillance Chilling Effects: HRW and ACLU Gather More Evidence

• Human Rights Watch and the ACLU today published a terrific report documenting the chilling effect on journalists and lawyers from the NSA’s surveillance programs entitled: “With Liberty to Monitor All: How Large-Scale US Surveillance is Harming Journalism, Law and American Democracy.” The report, which is chock full of evidence about the very real harms caused by the NSA’s surveillance programs, is the result of interviews of 92 lawyers and journalists, plus several senior government officials.

=> ↺ What data retention is, and why it’s bad

• With the Australian government “actively considering” data retention, and Australian Security Intelligence Organisation chief David Irvine telling a Senate committee that it is crucial to intelligence-gathering and that Australians have nothing to fear from it, it’s time for a clarifier on exactly what data retention is and the concerns it raises.

=> ↺ The whistleblowers who may have inspired Edward Snowden, and a star of stage and screen

=> ↺ Tech Companies Reel as NSA’s Spying Tarnishes Reputations

• U.S. technology companies are in danger of losing more business to foreign competitors if the National Security Agency’s power to spy on customers isn’t curbed, the New America Foundation said in a report today.

• The foundation called for prohibiting the NSA from collecting data in bulk, while letting companies report more details about what information they provide the government. Legislation scheduled to be introduced today in the Senate would fulfill some recommendations by the foundation, a Washington-based advocacy group that has been critical of NSA programs.

=> ↺ NSA, retail breaches influenced corporate security strategies the most, study finds

• Sixty eight percent of businesses stated that the NSA breach by Edward Snowden and the number of retail/point of sale (PoS) system breaches in the past year were the most impactful in terms of changing security strategies to protect against the latest threats. The findings are part of CyberArk’s 8th Annual Global Advanced Threat Landscape survey — developed through interviews with 373 C-level and IT security executives across North America, Europe and the Asia-Pacific.

=> ↺ NSA surveillance harmful to press freedom: ‘People are increasingly scared to talk about anything’

• A report released Monday by Human Rights Watch and the American Civil Liberties Union found that mass surveillance by the NSA and other spying agencies is seriously undermining press freedom and citizens’ ability to hold the U.S. government accountable.

=> ↺ NSA mass spying undermines journalists and attorneys’ ability to work

• Dozens of journalists and attorneys surveyed by the American Civil Liberties Union and Human Rights Watch for a new report say that the United States government’s surveillance operations are eroding their ability to work.

=> ↺ Report: NSA surveillance is harming freedom of press

=> ↺ Large-scale US surveillance hampers US-based journalists work

=> ↺ US cyber-snooping government harms press freedom, democracy: study

=> ↺ US surveillance threatens press freedom, rights groups say

=> ↺ U.S. surveillance programs threaten freedom of press

=> ↺ Mass Surveillance, Leak Investigations & the Chilling Effect Against Journalism

• A number of American journalists, who work for small and large media organizations, contend that the spike in leak investigations is tied to government mass surveillance. They report experiences with sources, who are no longer willing to speak to them. They have found it increasingly difficult to build new relationships with sources. A chilling effect has made it exceptionally difficult to determine what to do to maintain confidentiality, according to a report by Human Rights Watch (HRW) and the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU).

=> ↺ U.S Human Right Groups Warn About Threats to Freedom of the Press

=> ↺ NSA surveillance, government secrecy undercut press freedoms, report says

=> ↺ NSA Surveillance Causes Journalists to Have to Act Like Drug Dealers to Protect Sources

• Fake information trails and burner phones. If you’re wondering how journalists who cover sensitive federal government issues have adapted to the discovery that there’s even more snooping going on than all but the most paranoid of them thought, it’s a complicated mess. Human Rights Watch and the American Civil Liberties Union interviewed nearly four dozen journalists about how their jobs have changed in the wake of both Edward Snowden’s leaks and the propensity for President Barack Obama’s administration to prosecute leakers (or those who leak things the government doesn’t want leaked, anyway).

=> ↺ Thanks to Spying, No One Talks to Reporters Anymore

=> ↺ ‘US Surveillance Programs Threaten Freedom of Press’

• U.S. surveillance programs are making it more difficult for government officials to speak to the press anonymously, two rights groups said on Monday.

=> ↺ Senator Tester Addresses NSA Issues

• This morning in Washington, Senator Jon Tester is demanding answers when it comes to data collecting by the government and reported spying by the NSA using the government surveillance law.

=> ↺ Safe Harbor under increased scrutiny

• To help bridge the substantial differences in how user privacy is protected on the two sides of the Atlantic, the Safe Harbor was established to enable U.S. companies to lawfully transfer data without running afoul of EU data protection law. To make use of the Safe Harbor, companies voluntarily adhere to a set of principles, with oversight from the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), though to date enforcement of corporate policies and practices has been limited.

=> ↺ U.S. senator to propose strong curbs on NSA spying

• A new Senate proposal to curb the government’s bulk collection of Americans’ telephone records and increase transparency about the program has White House backing and may get more traction with critics who have dismissed other bills as too weak.

=> ↺ Limiting surveillance

=> ↺ New York Times editorial: Pass stronger bill to limit NSA surveillance

=> ↺ NYT cheers ‘breakthrough’ NSA reform bill

=> ↺ [Los Angeles Times] Your privacy at stake

• Of all of Edward Snowden’s revelations about electronic surveillance by the National Security Agency, the most unsettling was that the government was accumulating vast numbers of records about the telephone calls of American citizens. In May, the House approved a bill that would end the bulk collection of so-called telephone metadata, but time is running out for the Senate to approve a similar – and, we hope stronger – version of the legislation.

=> ↺ Senate Expected To Unveil Broad NSA Reform Bill Tomorrow

=> ↺ Senator Leahy prepares bill to tackle NSA snooping

=> ↺ Why Privacy Advocates Aren’t Celebrating The Senate’s Groundbreaking NSA Surveillance Bill Just Yet

• The U.S. Senate is expected to make huge strides Tuesday by introducing a new bill that could curtail the National Security Agency’s (NSA’s) ability to collect mass amounts of data. But while the new bill was reached in compromise and promises significant changes in favor of individual privacy, advocates worry it could be stripped down as previous bills were.

=> ↺ Edward Snowden May Have Finally Beaten the NSA

• For more than a year, Congress has been searching for a way to rein in the National Security Agency after Edward Snowden revealed a surveillance state larger than many imagined. Now, lawmakers might have finally accomplished their goal.

=> ↺ Senators Say NSA Bill Falls Short on ‘Reform’

• Sen. Patrick Leahy’s (D – VT) long-awaited USA Freedom Act 2014 was introduced today, and would halt all bulk data collection under Section 215 of the Patriot Act, an effort to tame the soaring power of the NSA to surveil ordinary Americans.

=> ↺ Senate Introduces Its Version Of USA Freedom Act; Greatly Improved, But Could Still Be Better

=> ↺ The New Senate USA FREEDOM Act: A First Step Towards Reforming Mass Surveillance

=> ↺ Leahy touts phone legislation, bill to limit NSA

=> ↺ NSA reform bill unveiled in the Senate

=> ↺ U.S. Senate bill curbs NSA surveillance

• Sen. Patrick Leahy introduced legislation on Tuesday to ban the U.S. government’s bulk collection of Americans’ telephone records and Internet data and narrow how much information it can seek in any particular search.

=> ↺ Senate Thinks It May Have the NSA Reform Bill Everyone Can Agree On

=> ↺ Leahy unveils ‘historic’ NSA reform bill

• Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) will introduce legislation on Tuesday to put sweeping new limits on U.S. surveillance and peel back the curtain on controversial spying programs.

• The aggressive bill seeks to address concerns that tech companies and civil liberties proponents had about the House’s attempt to rein in National Security Agency (NSA) by restricting agents to narrow, targeted searches of records about people’s phone calls as well as making the spying regime more transparent.

• For civil libertarians, it is the best hope for reining in the spy agency this year, though defenders of the spy agency in Congress are likely to push back.

• “If enacted, this bill would represent the most significant reform of government surveillance authorities since Congress passed the USA Patriot Act 13 years ago,” Leahy, who chairs the Senate Judiciary Committee, said in a statement.

=> ↺ Personal Privacy Is Only One of the Costs of NSA Surveillance

• There is no doubt the integrity of our communications and the privacy of our online activities have been the biggest casualty of the NSA’s unfettered surveillance of our digital lives. But the ongoing revelations of government eavesdropping has had a profound impact on the economy, the security of the internet and the credibility of the U.S. government’s leadership when it comes to online governance.

=> ↺ EFF asks judge to rule NSA spying on Internet backbone undermines 4th Amendment

• On Sunday, the Electronic Frontier Foundation announced: “Yesterday we filed a motion for partial summary judgment in our long running Jewel v. NSA case, focusing on the government’s admitted seizure and search of communications from the Internet backbone, also called “upstream.” We’ve asked the judge to rule that there are two ways in which this is unconstitutional under the Fourth Amendment.”

=> ↺ EFF Files Motion Asking Judge to Rule NSA Data Collection Unconstitutional

=> ↺ Partial revival of the Fourth Amendment is a hopeful sign

=> ↺ Judge Called on to Rule NSA Internet Backbone Spying Techniques Unconstitutional

=> ↺ EFF asks court to find NSA internet spying a violation of Fourth Amendment

=> ↺ EFF claims NSA ‘digital dragnet’ unconstitutional

=> ↺ Judge Asked to Declare NSA Mass Surveillance Illegal

=> ↺ TECH BYTES: Restoring our lost liberty on the internet

• That legislation is the 1986 Electronic Communications Privacy Act (ECPA), which predates the World Wide Web and the proliferation of cell phones. But it’s the recent outrageous violations of our privacy by the NSA that have thrown the need to update ECPA into sharp relief.

=> ↺ The NSA’s Cyber-King Goes Corporate

=> ↺ Crypto-phones for Merkel and Co.

• The German government wants to increase its anti-spying protection. 3,000 crypto-phones have been distributed to the administration so far. The Chancellery and the White House are negotiating “principles among friends.”

=> ↺ US Says Now Less Interested in Deal with Snowden – Reports

=> ↺ NSA Losing Interest in Return of Edward Snowden

=> ↺ Human Rights Watch hits out at continuing UK and US mass surveillance

• International campaign group Human Rights Watch has hit out at continuing UK and US mass surveillance revealed by ex-CIA contractor Edward Snowden. It says lawyers and journalists are adopting special measures to keep electronic communications secure from unprecedented government prying.

=> ↺ A Conversation Between Snowden & Ellsberg: Daily Whistleblower News

=> ↺ Ex-NSA Chief Hayden Finally Admits Snowden Is a Whistleblower

• Michael Hayden, former Director of both the CIA and the National Security Agency (NSA), has said a lot of things about Edward Snowden. He’s called the former government contractor a “defector,” a “traitor,” and a “morally arrogant, troubled young man.” He’s also joked about getting the “evil” Snowden killed. So it comes as a bit of a surprise to hear Hayden finally on pace with the majority of Americans by finally referring to Snowden as a whistle-blower.

=> ↺ Why Intelligence Whistleblowers Can’t Use Internal Channels

• Even the director of national intelligence admits there aren’t adequate safeguards for officials who see wrongdoing.

=> ↺ Obama’s Crackdown On Leakers Damages Constitutional Protections, Activists Say

Civil Rights

=> ↺ Obama says a country without rule of law ‘will not succeed’ — but he’s willing to override Congress

• As civil libertarians have readily pointed out, Obama’s comments are incongruous with his willingness to defend the NSA’s unconstitutional activities, to ignore laws which contradict his campaign promises, and to govern by “pen and phone” if Congress does not pass his preferred legislation.

=> ↺ Your comments: ‘You kill someone, we kill you right back’

=> ↺ NYPD Officer Apparently Stomps On Head Of Handcuffed Suspect Jahmiel Cuffee In Arrest Video

• Officials say NYPD Officer Joel Edouard has been placed on modified assignment on Friday after cell phone video was released showing him apparently stomping on a suspect’s head. The video surfaced just days after Eric Garner died while being arrested by New York City police in Brooklyn.

=> ↺ U.S. Senate CIA ‘torture’ report summary to be declassified in a few days: officials

• The White House in the next few days is expected to declassify the long-awaited summary of a U.S. Senate committee study of a CIA program that used “enhanced interrogations” and secret prisons to extract information from captured militants, several officials familiar with the matter said.

=> ↺ Former CIA Boss George Tenet Leading Plans To Attack Upcoming Senate Report On CIA’s Torture Program

• As we continue to wait for the White House to finally release the heavily redacted version of the executive summary of the Senate Intelligence Committee’s CIA torture report (the full report is over 6,300 pages and cost $40 million to produce), it appears that those who are likely to take the blame are already preparing their response. As has already leaked out over the past few months, the report will show how the program went further than people expected, that it basically uncovered no terrorist plots and that the CIA regularly lied to Congress about the nature of the program and its impact.

=> ↺ Some in ‘Torture’ Report Denied Chance to Read It

• About a dozen former CIA officials named in a classified Senate report on decade-old agency interrogation practices were notified in recent days that they would be able to review parts of the document in a secure room in suburban Washington after signing a secrecy agreement.

=> ↺ Ex-CIA officials named in US torture report won’t get to read it

=> ↺ Fury, Outrage as Some in US Senate’s ‘Torture’ Report Denied Chance for its Review

=> ↺ Russia urges EU to investigate secret CIA prisons in Europe

• Similar cases have been lodged with the Strasbourg court against Romania and Lithuania.

=> ↺ EU Must Investigate CIA European Prisons Case – Russian Diplomat

• Poland is one of a number of European countries accused of hosting secret CIA prisons. Meanwhile, Romania, Bulgaria, and Lithuania also have had allegations made against them for being part of the CIA black site network.

=> ↺ European Union Court Slams Poland for Helping U.S. Torture Program

=> ↺ ‘Black sites’ conspiracy became a black hole

• “On the general issue of so-called black sites, we have not and will not confirm any purported locations. The overriding point, however, is that this program no longer exists.”

• That was the White House reaction, as it brushed aside questions about a landmark ruling by the European Court of Human Rights, one of the world’s preeminent human rights tribunals. The decision came last week in a case my colleagues and I brought against Poland, where our client, Abu Zubaydah, had been imprisoned and tortured from December 2002 to September 2003. Though the U.S. no longer believes he was even a member of al-Qaida, let alone a trusted associate of Osama bin Laden (as it once claimed), Zubaydah has been held without charges at the U.S. prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, since 2006.

=> ↺ Senators consider obscure rule in CIA torture report declassification debate

• Mark Udall said procedure could be invoked to compel Obama administration to release more of landmark Senate report

=> ↺ Unaccompanied Minors? Blame a Century of U.S. Central American Foreign Policy

• Speaking to an overflow crowd in Washington, DC last Thursday morning, the three foreign ministers — Honduras’s Mireya Agüero (pictured above, right), Guatemala’s Fernando Carrera (pictured above, left) and El Salvador’s Hugo Martínez – shared a half-dozen or more credible reasons for the recent phenomenon, which has resulted in a wave of 57,000 minors from the three arriving in the United States since the beginning of the year.

=> ↺ This Is What Tech’s Ugly Gender Problem Really Looks Like

=> ↺ WSJ Attacks Efforts To Fix Conservative Case Law That Allows Discrimination Against Pregnant Women

• The Wall Street Journal took a stand against fair treatment for pregnant workers, complaining that the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission’s (EEOC) new guidelines designed to fight pregnancy discrimination despite conservative Supreme Court opinions holding discrimination against pregnant women is not sex discrimination was a “radical” reading of federal law.

=> ↺ No, ISIS Isn’t Ordering Female Genital Mutilation In Iraq

• The story began on Thursday when the U.N.’s second senior most official, Jacqueline Badcock, told reporters of a new religious edict issued in ISIS’ name. The edict — or fatwa — ordered all girls and women in the city of Mosul between the ages of 11 and 46 to undergo female genital mutilation, Badcock told reporters in a teleconference from Iraq. “This is something very new for Iraq, particularly in this area, and is of grave concern and does need to be addressed,” Badcock, who serves as the U.N. humanitarian aid coordinator in Iraq, said.

=> ↺ King: Is US a failed state in decline?

• The criteria for a failed state are pretty specific: Loss of authority over the use of force, loss of the authority to make collective decisions, inability to provide public services, and the inability to interact with the international community.

=> ↺ John Dean Speaks About Watergate Tell-All Book At Greenwich Library

=> ↺ The News & Observer (Raleigh, N.C.) Rob Christensen column

• Forty years after the resignation of President Richard Nixon, John Dean thinks there is still a lot left to be said about the Watergate scandal.

• Dean was Nixon’s young White House counsel, who later became the key witness against the president before the Watergate committee, as one of the biggest scandals in American politics unfolded.

• But even though Dean saw the tragedy unravel from the inside, he was always puzzled by what drove Nixon and his White House to commit the crimes that would result not only in Nixon’s resignation but in the conviction of 48 of the president’s men. Dean served four months for a felony offense for his role in the cover-up.

=> ↺ The Untapped Secrets of the Nixon Tapes

• Richard Nixon taped roughly 3,700 hours of his conversations as president. About 3,000 hours of those tapes have been released, while the rest remain closed to protect family privacy or national security. The public has a general impression of what’s on the Nixon White House tapes—the expletives deleted, the so-called “smoking gun” when Nixon appeared to try to use the CIA to derail the FBI investigation of Watergate, the slurs against blacks and Jews.

=> ↺ Harold Shaw Named SAC of Intelligence in FBI’s New York Office

• Since April 2013, he has served as a section chief and deputy director for law enforcement at the CIA’s Counterterrorism Center (CTC) as a liaison between the FBI and the CIA, the FBI said in a press release.

=> ↺ Cole: Advice the CIA desperately needs right now

• The CIA is on a “charm offensive.” In June, it opened a Twitter account.

=> ↺ CIA Snags Confidential Whistleblower Communications Sent To Congress

• The government seems unable (and unwilling) to differentiate between whistleblowers and “insider threats.” “Dissatisfaction with US policies” would seem to be a trait inherent to whistleblowers, but that’s right up there at the top of the list of warning signs for insider threats. The FBI claimed it had this whistleblower/threat problem sorted out, abelit in the worst way possible: requiring whistleblowers to “register” in order to avoid being caught in the “insider threat” dragnet. But no one can get any details out of the agency as to how “registering” whistleblowers encourages whistleblowing, much less how the FBI handles these registered whistleblowers. When asked, agency officials simply walked away from the conversation.

=> ↺ Ron Paul: End the CIA!

• Former congressman Ron Paul advocates for abolishing the United States Central Intelligence Agency in a new op-ed where he condemns the CIA and its controversial enhanced interrogation practices.

=> ↺ Qatar World Cup: migrants wait a year to be paid for building offices

• Migrant workers who built luxury offices used by Qatar’s 2022 football World Cup organisers have told the Guardian they have not been paid for more than a year and are now working illegally from cockroach-infested lodgings.

=> ↺ Pregnant woman apparently put in chokehold by NYPD cop during dispute over illegal grilling

• Photos released Monday by an East New York advocacy group show Rosan Miller, 27, struggling with a cop who appears to have his arm around her neck in a move prohibited by the police department.

=> ↺ Skinny-dipping pair threatened with criminal record and being added to the sex offenders’ register by angry police

• Two men who stripped off to take a dip in the sea in Northern Ireland were threatened with a criminal record and warned that they might be added to the sex offenders’ register.

Internet/Net Neutrality

=> ↺ Net neutrality is dead – welcome to the age of digital discrimination

• Want to know if someone is internet-savvy? Just ask them why anyone should care about net neutrality. If they understand the technology, stand by for a lecture on why it is vital that all data on the network should be treated equally by ISPs, and why it is essential that those who provide the pipes connecting us to the network should have no influence on the content that flows through those pipes.

• On the other hand, if the person knows no more about the net than the average LOLcat enthusiast, you will be greeted by a blank stare: “Net what?”

• If, dear reader, you fall into neither category but would like to know more, two options are available: a visit to the excellent Wikipedia entry on the subject or comedian John Oliver’s devastatingly sharp explication of net neutrality on YouTube.

=> ↺ Verizon will throttle heaviest LTE data users starting in October

• If you have an unlimited data plan with Verizon and use it heavily, here’s some bad news: Verizon says it will begin throttling the “top 5 percent” of LTE data users in certain situations starting in October.

Intellectual Monopolies

=> ↺ The European Commission’s Great TTIP Betrayal

• When the European Commission was laying the foundations for the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership – TTIP, also known as TAFTA by analogy with NAFTA – it was doubtless hoping that the public would ignore it, just as it had ignored countless other boring trade agreements. But of course TTIP is not principally a trade agreement: it aims to go far beyond “merely” liberalising trade by attacking “behind the border” barriers.

=> ↺ GIs becoming growing cheese trade barrier

• The U.S. dairy industry told the Senate Finance Committee’s trade subcommittee the 2010 U.S.-Korea Free Trade Agreement has further strengthened U.S. dairy exports to the Korean market, even though it is not yet fully implemented.

=> ↺ Did you take action on ISDS? EU Trade Commissioner says you didn’t.

Copyrights

=> ↺ “Six Strikes” Anti-Piracy Scheme Costs 3 Million Per Year

• New tax records reveal that the Center for Copyright Information, the outfit overseeing the “six strikes” copyright alert system in the US, cost $3 million last year. This figure is quite substantial as it translates to roughly $2 per individual piracy warning.

=> ↺ Victory: format shifting and parody clear last hurdle

• After nine years of campaigning, we have finally done it. The House of Lords yesterday cleared the last hurdle for parody and private copies to be legal under copyright law in the UK. Several new limitations to update copyright were agreed in June, but private copying, often called format shifting, and parody were held back, creating fears that they might be dropped.

=> ↺ If You Want To Know How Supporting Techdirt Can Help Shift The Debate In Washington DC, Read This

=> ↺ Block The Pirate Bay Within 3 Days, Austrian ISPs Told

• Austrian ISPs have been told they have just days to block not only The Pirate Bay but also Movie4K, one of the world’s most famous streaming sites. The blockades, which were demanded by Hollywood-backed anti-piracy outfit VAP, are supported by recent decisions from both the Supreme Court in Austria and the European Court of Justice.

=> ↺ Police to replace ads with warnings on piracy sites

• The Police Intellectual Property Crime Unit (PIPCU) has started to replace advertising on copyright infringing websites with official warnings telling the user that the site is under criminal investigation.

=> ↺ Ford and General Motors Sued Over ‘CD Ripping Cars’

• The Alliance of Artists and Recording Companies has launched a class action lawsuit against Ford and General Motors over the CD-ripping capability of their cars. The music industry group claims that the car companies violate federal law and demand millions of dollars in damages.

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