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● 01.26.15

● Links 26/1/2015: Debian 8.0 “Jessie” RC1, Linux Kernel 3.19 RC6

Posted in News Roundup at 4:54 pm by Dr. Roy SchestowitzContentsGNU/LinuxGNU/Linux

Desktop

=> ↺ OEMs Adapt To The Decline In The Market For PCs

• ACER, for instance, is even diversifying ChromeBooks, cranking out small, medium and large sizes.

• Meanwhile, Qualcomm is rumoured to be shipping a 14nm, 8-cored, LPDDR4 RAMed monster “for mobiles”, and other processors with clocks in the 2-2.5gHz range, in late 2015. If you don’t think desktops/notebooks/tablets/smartphones will all shine with such power, you are living in a deep hole. OEMs will find a way to integrate ARM into every aspect of IT. We are no longer living in a time when */Linux or ARM were just “barely good enough”. They are perfect for many purposes. Consumers want them. OEMs will supply them. Shipped by the millions, these new solutions will cost much less than Wintel’s monopolistic prices.

=> ↺ Intel’s Education Content Access Point for Schools Runs Ubuntu

• It’s been a long time since Canonical’s Ubuntu Linux has made big headlines in the education market. Thanks to Intel (INTC), however, the open source operating system may soon have a new presence in classrooms as part of the Intel Education Content Access Point.

=> ↺ Intel readying first NUC mini-desktop PC with Core i7 Broadwell processor

Server

=> ↺ CERN and NI Collaborate to Define the Future of LabVIEW Support for Linux 64-Bit

• NI (Nasdaq: NATI), the provider of solutions that enable engineers and scientists to solve the world’s greatest engineering challenges, announced a collaboration with CERN, an intergovernmental research organization building the world’s largest and most advanced scientific instruments. The objective is to push the standardization of all CERN control systems to Linux 64-bit OSs, with goals to boost system performance, design cost-effective distributed control systems and enlarge opportunities for small and medium enterprises with expertise in NI and open-source technologies.

Kernel Space

=> ↺ Linux Kernel 3.19-rc6 Released

• One more rc released today shortening time period for the final release. Each release sees a new changes and fixes and this one is slightly smaller but as always better.

=> ↺ Linux 3.19-rc6 Kernel Released: LInux 3.19 Final In Two Weeks

=> ↺ Linux 3.19-rc6

• The shortlog gives kind of a detailed summary for people who want to get a flavor of what was going on. Nothing really particularly stands out.

=> ↺ Linux Kernel 3.19 RC6 Is Out, Still No Word on Linux Kernel 4.0

• A new Release Candidate for Linux kernel 3.19 has been released by Linus Torvalds and the branch moves a little bit toward stable version. It’s still a few weeks off, but everything should go according to plan.

=> ↺ Linux kernels for a macbook pro retina

• The latest 3.18-trunk kernel fixes essentially all the above problems, which is just great.

Graphics Stack

=> ↺ 2015 X.Org Elections Get Underway For Board Members, SPI Merger

• The election process is beginning for selecting new X.Org Foundation board members and for allowing X.Org members to vote on whether they would like to proceed with joining SPI to become a sub-project of that organization so that they’ll take care of the business and administrative tasks.

=> ↺ Nouveau In Linux 3.20 Will Have A Lot Of Code Cleaning

• While the Nouveau pull request has yet to be issued for the DRM-Next merge window that will ultimately target the Linux 3.20 kernel, a look at the changes so far appear to mostly indicate this open-source NVIDIA driver is just going through a period of code cleaning and reorganization.

Benchmarks

=> ↺ AMD FX-8320E Performance On Linux

• Back in September AMD announced new FX CPUs that included the FX-8370, FX-8370E, and FX-8320E. Back then we reviewed the FX-8370/FX-8370E CPUs under Linux but at the time didn’t have our hands on the more affordable FX-8320E processor. In December AMD sent over the FX-8320E and so for the past few weeks I’ve been happily using this new Vishera CPU.

=> ↺ Compare Your Linux System To The i7-5600U Broadwell X1 Carbon ThinkPad

• The third-generation Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon continues running well under Linux with its new Intel Core i7 5600U “Broadwell” processor sporting HD Graphics 5500. I’m enjoying this new ultrabook a lot and have been pushing it very hard for days with various Linux benchmarks.

=> ↺ LinSSID – A Graphical Wi-Fi Scanner for Linux

Applications

=> ↺ gimp-paint-studio addon soon on Gnome Software Center

• Image speaks itself. gimp-paint-studio package just got an metainfo needed for Gnome Software Center as add-on for Gimp based on related Richard Hughes’ blog. The updated package will be shortly available in Rawhide and also in Fedora 21 updates-testing repository. It will not be included for Fedora 20 due to the preview release of Gnome Software lacking addons support. Next step will be contacting upstream adding that metainfo. Hopefully other add-ons maintainers for applications such as Inkscape and Blender will do the same to bring a richful experiences to users.

=> ↺ CD Audio Grabbers – Graphical Based

• CD audio grabbers are designed to extract (“rip”) the raw digital audio (in a format commonly called CDDA) from a compact disc to a file or other output. This type of software enables a user to encode the digital audio into a variety of formats, and download and upload disc info from freedb, an internet compact disc database.

=> ↺ tinyfugue: Rime of the ancient adventurer

Instructionals/Technical

=> ↺ How to install Android apps on a BlackBerry phone

=> ↺ How to limit network bandwidth on Linux

=> ↺ How to install Django on Ubuntu 14.04

=> ↺ 11 Linux Terminal Commands That Will Rock Your World

=> ↺ Install Jetty Web Server On CentOS 7

=> ↺ Fixing unperceived errors in my X Windows configuration

Desktop Environments/WMs

K Desktop Environment/KDE SC/Qt

=> ↺ KDE battery monitor

• In loosely related news, this old status is still valid. UMTS is stable-ish now but even though I saved the SIM’s PIN, KDE always displays a “SIM PIN unlock request” prompt after booting or hibernating. Once I enter that PIN, systemd tells me that a system policy prevents the change and wants my user password. If anyone knows how to get rid of that, I would also appreciate any pointers.

=> ↺ KDE Frameworks 5 based apps available in copr

• I have built RPM packages of some KDE applications frameworks branch, such as Konsole, Dolphin which are available in my copr. It is based on the Plasma-5.2 beta copr from Dan Vratil, you’d need to enable it first to pull dependencies. Packages are available for Fedora 20 and 21, i686 and x86_64 architectures.

Distributions

=> ↺ Evolve OS Is a Superb New OS Built from Scratch, First Beta Is Out – Gallery

• Evolve OS, a new Linux distribution built from scratch that’s using a fresh desktop environment called Budgie, has been upgraded to version Beta 1 and is now ready for testing.

New Releases

=> ↺ MakuluLinux Xfce 7.1 Released.

• MakuluLinux Xfce 7.1 has been released, please click here to read the updated release notes and download links, or head to the Xfce section in menu above.

=> ↺ IPFire Is a Powerful Firewall Distro and It Was Just Updated

• IPFire 2.15 Core 86, a new version of the popular Linux-based firewall distribution, has been announced by Michael Tremer and users have been advised to upgrade their systems as soon as possible.

Arch Family

=> ↺ Manjaro Xfce 0.8.12 RC1 Is a Surpring Release That Further Improves the Xfce Experience

• Manjaro Xfce, a Linux distribution based on well-tested snapshots of the Arch Linux repositories and 100% compatible with Arch, has been upgraded 0.8.12 RC1 and is now ready for testing and download.

Red Hat Family

=> ↺ Investors Book Profit on the Price Strength of Red Hat Inc

• Red Hat Inc (NYSE:RHT) traded on a positive note gaining 0.14 points or 0.21% to be valued at $66.06 per share. Intraday, the counter aggregated $13.56 million in upticks but saw an exodus of $21.56 million in downticks. The net money flow was calculated to be $(-7.99) million with the final up/down ratio coming in at 0.63. The share price has seen a change of 1.33% in value during the week. Short-term market participants should take the above data into consideration before taking a call in the counter.Block trade of up/down ratio of 0 was also registered with $0 million in upticks and $6.85 million in downticks. The net money flow for the block exchange was disappointing at $(-6.85) Million.

Debian Family

=> ↺ Debian 7.8 “Wheezy” Live CD Now Available for Download

• The Debian 7.8 “Wheezy” Live CD has been released by the developers and it arrives just a couple of weeks after the installable version was made available.

=> ↺ Debian 8.0 “Jessie” Installer RC1 Released

• The first release candidate for the Debian Jessie Installer in leading up to the Debian 8.0 “Jessie” release.

• While some Debian developers were hoping to release Debian 8.0 before February, it doesn’t look like that will pan out given that the first release candidate of the installer surfaced today.

=> ↺ Debian 8.0 “Jessie” RC1 Is Here, Test Away

Derivatives

Canonical/Ubuntu

=> ↺ Ubuntu’s Mir Gains Server-Side Platform Probing

• The latest big feature landing in Ubuntu’s Mir display server by Canonical is server-side platform probing support, which landed just before the weekend.

=> ↺ Compiz Support Being Tested for Ubuntu MATE 14.04 LTS and Ubuntu 14.10, Install Now

• Compiz was implemented by default in Ubuntu MATE 15.04 Alpha 2 and the developers have decided to put in some extra effort and make it available for Ubuntu MATE 14.10 and Ubuntu MATE 14.04 LTS, albeit it’s still under testing.

Devices/Embedded

=> ↺ MatchStick Hands-On: A Cheap Open Source Chromecast? Yes Please.

• Chromecast has largely caught on as a way to easily use services like Netflix on your computer. MatchStick is an open source HDMI stick for everyone who wants to use there TV for more than just watching movies.

Phones

Tizen

=> ↺ Why I prefer Samsung Gear’s Tizen to Android Wear

• A few months ago our US Senior Editor Andrew Grush offered his praise of the Moto 360, having spent a month with it. Despite the quality of the writing itself, I took issue with the core of the content: that Android Wear is a suitable platform for wearables. I have to disagree, at least as things now stand. Android Wear seems fundamentally broken due to its being chained to Google Now and a smartphone, something not so true of Samsung’s Gear products, which run on Tizen.

Android

=> ↺ Google Project Ara Modules Will Be Compatible with BLOCKS Modular Smartwatch

• A while ago we talked about the BLOCKS modular smartwatch platform, which is built according to rules similar to Google’s Project Ara, an initiative that aims to build a smartphone made out of swappable modules.

=> ↺ Microsoft, Adobe beat open source developers to Android

=> ↺ Cyanogen CEO says he wants to ‘take Android away from Google’

• Cyanogen is one of the most popular open source Android variants, running on the OnePlus One and and available for all to tinker with on their own phone.

• But CEO Kirt McMaster has bigger plans. He hopes to build it into a full-fledged Android rival with its own app store and a more “open” structure that recalls the early days of Android.

=> ↺ Sony SmartWatch 3 Review: Android Wear’s First Generation Champion

• Sony is both early to the smartwatch game, and late at the same time. The SmartWatch 3 puts aside some of the lessons of Sony’s previous wearables, but manages to learn some valuable lessons from the competition.

=> ↺ Conjuring Android’s best features

• GOOGLE’S LATEST ANDROID mobile operating system is incredibly powerful. Many of us don’t come close to touching its potential capabilities.

=> ↺ Google Updates Its Android Compatibility Definition Document For Lollipop

• Google’s compatibility definition document (CDD) is meant to provide guidelines, requirements, and recommendations to Android device manufacturers who want their devices to be “compatible” with the latest release of Android, allowing them to pass Google’s Compatibility Test Suite.

=> ↺ Android Lollipop UK release date, new features and upgrades: When will my phone get Android Lollipop?

• When will your phone get Android Lollipop? The final version of Android 5.0 Lollipop was unveiled only in October, yet Android 5.1 Lollipop is rumoured to be on its way. Here’s what you need to know about Android Lollipop’s release date, design and new features – plus when your phone will get the upgrade. Also see: When will my phone get Android Lollipop?

=> ↺ Galaxy S5 Android Lollipop update coming to the U.S. as early as next week

• Proud (or otherwise) owners of the Samsung Galaxy S5 are lucky enough to be among the first ones with Samsung phones to get Android 5.0 Lollipop on a carrier device. The update has started rolling out about a week ago, and people all over the world, except in America, are reporting that the OTA is hitting their phones. Good for you! It seems that only European and some Asian countries are getting the Galaxy S5 Android Lollipop update as of yet, but that means that the U.S. should follow soon.

=> ↺ This man wants to be Google’s new worst nightmare

• Android is the most popular operating system in the world, but can it be freed from Google’s clutches? Android Authority reports that Cyanogen CEO Kirt McMaster last week spoke at a special event dedicated to the “Next Phase of Android” and he revealed that his company has a plan to decouple Android from Google and make it the truly open-source mobile platform the world has been waiting for.

Free Software/Open Source

=> ↺ Open source software for quantum information

• NIST is a world leader in quantum information research, harnessing the strange properties of quantum mechanics (nature’s instruction book for atoms, photons, and other microscopic systems) to vastly improve computational power, make secure communications systems, and affect many other applications. Quantum information products are already coming to market, with much greater impacts expected in the future.

=> ↺ What leadership and community look like at Opensource.com

• Our team celebrated during an afternoon last week that focused on the growth our readership has seen since 2010, but most importantly, an afternoon that recognized the tremendous work of the publication’s Project Lead and Community Manager, Jason Hibbets.

=> ↺ 30 community managers in open source to follow on Twitter

• Here, I’ve compiled a list of 30 community managers in open source you should follow on Twitter. All of them have tremendous experience. And there’s a good chance, if you’re going to this year’s Community Leadership Summit, you’ll get to meet many of them in person.

=> ↺ How open source can be a gateway to your next job

• By my observation, the demand for people in open source is at an all-time high. Open source technologies such as programming languages, libraries, and tools are now mainstream. Participating in an open source community can help you learn those tools, and when you go on job interviews you can not only discuss your shiny new degree, but you can point to things you’ve actually done that made a difference.

Events

=> ↺ Chromebook “Rush” With 64-bit Tegra SoC Support Lands In Coreboot

• Coreboot now has support for the “Tegra132″ 64-bit Denver NVIDIA Tegra SoC as well as a new Google Chromebook that’s codenamed “Rush” and using this NVIDIA ARMv8 platform.

Web Browsers

Mozilla

=> ↺ Firefox 35.0.1 Now Out – My God, It’s Full of Fixes

• Two weeks after the release of Firefox 35, the Mozilla devs have pushed the first update out the door and they have fixed a number of important crashes and various other problems.

SaaS/Big Data

=> ↺ Why Security May Be the Key Issue in the OpenStack Race

• Still. the competition going on between the remaining players is fierce, and it is becoming increasingly clear that security may be a giant differentiator in the OpenStack race. In fact, Red Hat’s Vice President of Customer Engagement and Experience, Marco Bill-Peter, recently made that issue plain in a blog post.

Public Services/Government

=> ↺ Portugal engineering lab: facts favour open source

• Open source should win. This type of software is more reliable, more stable and provides more flexibility than proprietary software, says João Marcelino, an engineer working for Laboratório Nacional de Engenharia Civil (National Laboratory for Civil Engineering, LNEC), a state-owned research and development institution. On top of that, the software lets organisations inspect and audit the code without restriction.

Openness/Sharing

=> ↺ Tales from the trenches, looking ahead to OpenStack Kilo, and more

Open Hardware

=> ↺ Learn Arduino: The world’s greatest open-source electronics platform

• Learn basic principles in electronics design with the Arduino Beginner Course. Dubbed as the world’s greatest open-source electronics platform, Arduinos are microcontrollers that make the creation of interactive electronic devices accessible to everyone. This course is so easy to understand, you don’t even need to have any prior experience with electronic design or building to excel at it.

Leftovers

=> ↺ Time for IT jobs to be set aside for women

• With women accounting for only a fraction of people studying computer science, there have been calls for gender-related quotas for IT roles.

=> ↺ IT Jobs More Lucrative, but Wage Satisfaction Dips

• U.S. technology professionals earned an average salary of $89,450 last year, up two percent from 2013, according to IT jobs portal Dice’s annual salary survey.

Security

=> ↺ David Cameron says hoax call did not breach security

• David Cameron has said a hoax call he received from someone claiming to be taking part in a high level conference call, did not “breach security”.

=> ↺ Security advisories for Monday

=> ↺ Digital Democracy? – Yes, Please; but Not Online Voting

• It is a sign of the times that the Speaker of the House of Commons – not the first person that comes to mind as being part of the digital age – has established a Digital Democracy Commission to look into ways to re-imagine democracy for the connected world. With one important exception – that concerning online voting – its recommendations are sensible and to be welcomed. What follows is a selection of some of the more relevant areas for the world of openness.

• [...]

• For what it is worth, this is my view too, and I regard it as deeply regrettable that an otherwise welcome report should choose to ignore such a clear and strongly-worded warning to avoid online voting completely until its many problems are sorted out. In particularly, setting a specific and imminent date for its introduction is premature and extremely foolish. I hope others join me in urging the authorities to ignore this particular recommendation, while accepting the others.

Transparency Reporting

=> ↺ Google hands data to US Government in WikiLeaks espionage case

• The alleged offences are:

• Espionage: 18 U.S.C. § 793(d) – imprisonment up to 10 years Conspiracy to commit espionage: 18 U.S.C. § 793(g) – imprisonment up to 10 years The theft or conversion of property belonging to the United States government: 18 U.S.C. § 641 – imprisonment up to 10 years Violation of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act: 18 U.S.C. § 1030 – imprisonment up to 10 years (general) Conspiracy: 18 U.S.C. § 371 – imprisonment up to 5 years

=> ↺ The war on leaks has gone way too far when journalists’ emails are under surveillance

• The outrageous legal attack on WikiLeaks and its staffers, who are exercising their First Amendment rights to publish classified information in the public interest—just like virtually every other major news organization in this country—is an attack on freedom of the press itself, and it’s shocking that more people aren’t raising their voices (and pens, and keyboards) in protest.

=> ↺ Search Warrants Against WikiLeaks Staff: Justice Department, Google & US Media Silence Threaten Press Freedom

• The United States government served search warrants on Google in March 2012 and demanded that the company hand over data from WikiLeaks staff members for the purpose of an investigation into violations of the Espionage Act, Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA), a larceny statute and a “conspiracy to commit offense or to defraud the United States” statute.

• Sarah Harrison, investigations editor, Kristin Hrafnsson, spokesperson and Joseph Farrell, section editor, each had their accounts targeted.

• The warrants required the disclosure of: all contents of emails associated, “including stored or preserved copies of emails sent to and from the account, draft emails and deleted emails; all records or other information related to the identity of the account (associated phone numbers, IP addresses, types of services utilized, account status, log files, any credit or bank account numbers associated); all records or other information “stored at any time by an individual using the account; any communications the person had with Google.

=> ↺ [A bit older] Barrett Brown statement: ‘This is not the rule of law, it is the rule of law enforcement’

=> ↺ Where Are Silicon Valley’s Surveillance Whistleblowers?

• Last week, following the terrorist attacks in Paris, British Prime Minister David Cameron said—surprise!—that his government needed more power to monitor online communications. He went so far as to imply that encryption itself was a problem, and later said that American tech firms “have a social responsibility to fight the battle against terrorism.”

• There was an immediate backlash from tech commentators, who pointed out that Cameron’s “snoopers’ charter” makes little sense in light of recent high-profile data breaches. But the tech industry itself was noticeably quiet. Silicon Valley appears to be at a kind of crossroads: will it continue to be a silent (and occasionally paid-up) partner in government dragnet surveillance? Or will some of the people helping to facilitate this surveillance finally speak up?

Environment/Energy/Wildlife

=> ↺ George Osborne urges ministers to fast-track fracking measures in leaked letter

• George Osborne has requested that ministers make dozens of interventions to fast-track fracking as a “personal priority”, including the delivery of numerous “asks” from shale gas company Cuadrilla.

Finance

=> ↺ China’s 2015 GDP growth forecast at 6.8 pct: UBS

• China’s 2015 GDP growth forecast has been maintained at 6.8 percent, as further policy support and export recovery is expected to help bolster the sluggish economy, said UBS on Monday.

=> ↺ Greece, London, Scotland and Europe

• The citizens of the United Kingdom gave 45,000 pounds each, every man woman and child of them, direct to the bankers in bailouts. We will be paying off that money in taxes – with vast sums in interest to the same bankers, from whom we borrowed virtual money they did not have, to give to them as real money – for generations to come. Quantitive easing gives yet more money to the bankers, cash in place of risky bonds they wish to dump.

PR/AstroTurf/Lobbying

=> ↺ Saudi Dictator’s Death Shows NYT as Pawn of Power

• As Murtaza Hussain of The Intercept (1/23/15) observed, in addition to fomenting religious extremism and sectarianism, King Abdullah participated in various US crimes throughout the Middle East and encouraged the United States to commit more. George W. Bush’s war of aggression against Iraq relied upon secret, extensive Saudi military assistance (AP, 4/24/04). And a classified cable from the US embassy in Riyadh (Wikileaks, 4/20/08) noted “the king’s frequent exhortations to the US to attack Iran.”

Censorship

=> ↺ Internet filters block websites of sex abuse charities

• The adult content filters being rolled out by some internet providers under a scheme championed by David Cameron are blocking the websites of businesses and charities and are a “distraction” for parents seeking to protect children from online pornography, claim campaigners.

• TalkTalk announced this weekend that it would follow Sky and become the second of the UK’s four major internet providers to roll out automatic filters for all its customers unless they specifically ask for them to be turned off. It plans to begin applying the blocks to all users’ accounts next month.

Privacy

=> ↺ UK Legislators Hoping To Rush Through New ‘Snooper’s Charter’ In The Wake Of The Charlie Hebdo Attacks

• The UK legislators, law enforcement agencies and intelligence services looking to expand the government’s surveillance programs got a big boost from the attack on Charlie Hebdo. This violent attempt to place extremist religious ideology ahead of free speech was twisted by many into justification for expanded government powers. Prime Minister David Cameron even went so far as to suggest that no citizen’s communications should be beyond the government’s reach.

=> ↺ New Measures Against Terrorism: No Doublespeaking On Liberties!

• After the attacks of 7 and 9 January, French Prime Minister Valls announced this morning a series of measures to “fight against terrorism”. Given this long speech evoking increased information retention and surveillance, La Quadrature du Net recalls that many recent announcements prepare a further decline of civil liberties on the Internet, and calls for greater political and citizen alertness on the measures to be implemented.

=> ↺ ‘A very real violation of privacy,’ WikiLeaks editor says of Google email release

• WikiLeaks has accused Internet giant Google of handing over emails of the whistleblowing website’s senior staff to the US authorities – and keeping the release silent. DW talked to one of those staff about the release.

=> ↺ Chaos Computer Club contradicts EU, demands full encryption

• The leading German computer club has rejected EU anti-terror plans to tap online chatter, instead calling for all online communication to be encrypted. Politicians, meanwhile, are seeking ways to read encoded messages.

=> ↺ Counter-terrorism is supposed to let us live without fear. Instead, it’s creating more of it

• People think that catching terrorists is just a matter of finding them – but, just as often, terrorists are created by the people doing the chase.

• While making our film (T)ERROR, which tracks a single counter-terrorism sting operation over seven months, we realized that most people have serious misconceptions about FBI counter-terrorism efforts. They assume that informants infiltrate terrorist networks and then provide the FBI with information about those networks in order to stop terrorist plots from being carried out. That’s not true in the vast majority of domestic terrorism cases.

=> ↺ Tell Britain’s Lords: Don’t Let the Snooper’s Charter Sneak Past You!

• Their eighteen pages of amendments to the Counter-Terrorism and Security Bill would grant the UK government sweeping new powers to compel telecommunications companies to harvest and store data collected on their users, and for police and intelligence companies to obtain and analyze that data without warrants or effective oversight.

• The Lords’ proposals were introduced at short notice, without the usual explanatory notes that would let other peers decide for themselves whether they are appropriate. Britain’s House of Lords are expected to consider the new amendments on Monday, leaving them only this weekend to find out just how bad these amendments are.

Civil Rights

=> ↺ Top Tory Leon Brittan ‘photographed entering underage sex den during police investigation’

• Leon Brittan was photographed entering an underage sex den during a police investigation, it has been claimed.

• The Tory Lord, who died on Wednesday, is said to have been snapped by officers on a 1986 surveillance operation focusing on rent boy orgies run in North London buildings.

=> ↺ Rupert Murdoch and the police treat journalists like terrorists

• Murdoch’s great fear was that the hacking scandal would lead to a corporate prosecution of News International. As the journalists who hacked the phone of Milly Dowler and made Sienna Miller’s life a misery worked for News International, and as the executives of News International justified their princely incomes by saying that they were responsible for the organisation, a corporate prosecution was indeed essential. It would show that the Crown Prosecution Service wanted to punish the powerful, not just the hired help.

• At the trial of six Sun journalists, which ended last week with the jury acquitting two and failing to reach a verdict on the other four, defence lawyers quoted Gerson Zweifach, News Corp’s general counsel. He feared a corporate prosecution of News International in the UK would destroy its American interests. (The US authorities are a little more willing to punish wrongdoing than the indolent Brits.) He had emergency talks with the Met in 2012. According to Scotland Yard, he told the police: “The downstream effects of a prosecution would be apocalyptic. The US authorities’ reaction would put the whole business at risk.” If you can get past his atrocious jargon – why can’t the managers of communications business communicate? – you will hear the panic in his voice.

• He need not have worried. Murdoch cut a deal to save his wizened hide. The police had no more right to go into his offices on a fishing expedition than they have to come into your home. They would have needed a reasonable suspicion and a search warrant. Murdoch spared them the inconvenience. The team behind his clean-up campaign went through company records and threw out journalists and journalist sources to keep the cops happy.

=> ↺ Gaza in Arizona: How Israeli High-Tech Firms Will Up-Armor the US-Mexican Border

• It was October 2012. Roei Elkabetz, a brigadier general for the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), was explaining his country’s border policing strategies. In his PowerPoint presentation, a photo of the enclosure wall that isolates the Gaza Strip from Israel clicked onscreen. “We have learned lots from Gaza,” he told the audience. “It’s a great laboratory.”

=> ↺ Jewish outrage as ship named after SS war criminal arrives in Europe

• Leaders of Jewish communities and Holocaust memorial groups in Britain and the Netherlands have reacted with rage and despair at the arrival in Rotterdam of the world’s biggest ship, the Pieter Schelte, named after a Dutch officer in the Waffen-SS.

• The vice-president of the Board of Deputies of British Jews, Jonathan Arkush, said: “Naming such a ship after an SS officer who was convicted of war crimes is an insult to the millions who suffered and died at the hands of the Nazis. We urge the ship’s owners to reconsider and rename the ship after someone more appropriate.”

• Esther Voet, director of the Centre for Information and Documentation on Israel (Cidi), based in The Hague, said that the timing of the ship’s arrival, shortly before Jews were targeted and killed in Paris and the 70th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, was “a coincidence, I’m sure, but a sign of the times. We lost our battle to have the ship’s name changed, and we are left eating dust.”

=> ↺ American student arrested for Arabic flash cards in airport after TSA freaked out settles lawsuit

• “Five years ago, the Philadelphia police thought that carrying Arabic-language flashcards was enough to warrant the arrest of an innocent traveler,” writes that traveler, Nick George.

• With help from the American Civil Liberties Union, he reached a settlement today in a lawsuit brought against the Philadelphia police department. America is safe once again for people who like to study foreign languages and read books on foreign policy in airports.

=> ↺ The No-Go Zone Myth Comes To America

• The rhetoric around the debunked right wing media meme about the existence of “no-go zones” throughout France, the United Kingdom, and the rest of Europe, ratcheted up last week. Driven by politics, viewers, listeners, and page views, even the multiple mea culpas from Fox News just last weekend haven’t stopped the myth.

• By the conservative telling, in these supposed “Muslim only” enclaves the population has “take[n] over parts of the country, entire portions, towns,” (allegedly more than 700 in France alone!), and outside police are forbidden as extremism and Sharia Law flourish. And now, they present an active threat to the United States and our American values.

=> ↺ Protectors or Offenders?

• Jerry Maynard is reported to have been assaulted by a responding officer after calling paramedics. Maynard had called the paramedics after experiencing some chest pains while consuming liquor. The responding paramedics checked him over and determined that he was fine, so they left. A short time later the chest pains returned to Maynard causing him to call for a second dispatch of paramedics. This time, two county sheriffs accompanied the ambulance. The two deputies proceeded to yell at Maynard telling him that if he called again, they were going to kill him. One of the deputies then is seen by a neighbor’s surveillance camera shoving Maynard onto to the ground. The officer was put on administrative leave while the incident was investigated, but there has been no comment on whether actions or reprimands will be taken against him.

=> ↺ Sexual Abuse of Children by Ministers and Youth Pastors

• A pastor named Albert Young, who had been a minister for nine years in Philadelphia, was accused of fondling his 15-year-old, mentally challenged niece, all during his time in his office while running the ministry. This reverend who is a wolf clothed in a sheep disguise at Total Deliverance Ministries, was charged with using his leadership as the pastor of the church to be able to sexually abuse his niece. Allegedly, Young was placed into custody a week prior after being accused of enticing this young girl into his lap while in his office. On that night, once the girl was on top of him, young touched her, putting his hands inside the girl’s pants, kissing her neck, and fondling her buttocks as well as pressing his genitals against her and guiding her hands to his penis. As officials reported, the minor did report him and even stated to the police that he threatened her and ordered her to keep silent. Young eventually was arrested on the following Thursday afternoon, and was charged with unlawful sexual contact with a minor, corruption of minors, and indecent assault of a child. Yet he was released on $50,000 bail on Friday and his next court issue was on November nineteenth.

=> ↺ Open source empowers city archive Hospitalet

• Open source has modernised the archive of the Catalan city of Hospitalet de Llobregat (Spain). The software helps manage the administrative records, but also allows easy access to historical records. This facilitates research and education, and enables public information dissemination. For its historical records, the Hospitalet city archive implements ICA-Atom, a web-based and open source archive solution.

Intellectual Monopolies

Copyrights

=> ↺ Copyright Reform: The European Parliament Must Follow the Reda Report!

• Yesterday, MEP Julia Reda presented in the Committee on Legal Affairs (JURI) of the European Parliament a report on the harmonization of copyright in Europe. She tables modest but welcome proposals for a reform of copyright, several of which have been supported by La Quadrature du Net.

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