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● 02.01.15

● Links 1/2/2015: Devil-Linux 1.6.8, SymphonyOS 15.0

Posted in News Roundup at 8:16 pm by Dr. Roy SchestowitzContentsGNU/LinuxGNU/Linux

=> ↺ The Navy’s Newest Linux-Powered Command Center Is Right Out Of Star Trek

• The DDG-1000 Zumwalt Class Destroyer could very well revolutionize the way the Navy does its surface warfare business. One of its biggest innovations is ditching the cramped, darkly lit Combat Information Center (CIC), a fixture for many decades on past USN combat ships, and replacing it with the state-of-the-art, spacious, Star Trek bridge-like Ship’s Mission Center.

Desktop

=> ↺ GOL Survey Results: January

• Thanks to GOL reader Fedso, we now have month-by-month comparisons for the survey as well as an automated program which takes the raw survey data and makes graphs. This is pretty exciting stuff since now one of the main goals of the survey project has been achieved and we can observe trends over time.

Server

=> ↺ Report: Docker Not Yet Widely Used in the Cloud

• Canonical, the lead commercial sponsor behind the open-source Ubuntu Linux operation system, has published its latest Ubuntu Server and Cloud Survey, showing the emerging trends in server and cloud deployments.

=> ↺ CoreOS ‘Rockets’ Ahead With Docker Alternative

• Linux operating system distribution vendor CoreOs aims to expand its own vision for container-based virtualization. CoreOS is moving forward on its plans to displace the Docker application virtualization technology and expand its own vision for container-based virtualization. CoreOS got its start in 2013 as a clustered operating system project focused on the optimized delivery of Docker containers but has found fault in the Docker model that it aims to correct with its own Rocket approach.

=> ↺ CoreOS Linux: it’s how Google, Facebook & Twitter run at scale

Kernel Space

=> ↺ Witcher 2 Bug Prompts Linux Creator To Recommend Devs Play Steam Games

• It’s common for NVIDIA and AMD to tweak their drivers to optimise specific titles, but patches to operating systems just for games? Usually developers work around platform quirks, but that’s not good enough for Linus Torvalds, the man behind Linux. When crashes in The Witcher 2 were caused by Linux’s core software, Torvalds not only requested the bug be fixed, but that Steam games should be used in the future as “good tests of odd behaviour”.

Applications

=> ↺ nget: Sometimes a hammer is just a hammer

Proprietary

=> ↺ Google Drive for Linux leaked in screenshots

• Those are the opening lines from Samuel Becket’s work – ‘Waiting for Godot’, but a Linux user, still waiting for Google Drive client, can relate to the situation of the two characters of this drama.

Instructionals/Technical

=> ↺ How to Install the Latest LibreOffice 4.4 in Ubuntu

• LibreOffice 4.4 is the latest iteration of the famous office suite developed by The Document Foundation and released just a few days ago. This is a short tutorial that helps Ubuntu users install the latest version.

=> ↺ How to unlock your Chromebook using an Android device

=> ↺ How To Install Kodi 14.1 On Ubuntu 14.10, Ubuntu 14.04, Ubuntu 12.04 And Derivative Systems

=> ↺ How To Install Inkscape 0.91 On Ubuntu 15.04, Ubuntu 14.10, Ubuntu 14.04, Ubuntu 12.04 And Derivative Systems

=> ↺ Upgrading Lenovo ThinkPad BIOS under Linux

=> ↺ How To Install MiniTube 2.3.1 On Ubuntu, Debian And Derivative Systems

=> ↺ How To Install Minitube 2.3.1 On OpenSUSE 13.2, OpenSUSE 13.1, Arch Linux, Manjaro And Derivative Systems

Games

=> ↺ Raven’s Cry Released On Linux, Still A Bit Buggy

• The game features some impressive AAA quality graphics and it’s an encouraging sign to see these kinds of games released on Linux at the same time as Windows now and also a couple of months before console releases.

=> ↺ GOL Cast: Avoiding Zombies, Bugs And DMCA Claims In Dying Light

• So… Dying Light. A triple A day one Linux port. Now that would sound awesome but sadly releasing games in a horrible state is trendy and Techland seems to have wanted a piece of that cake. Let’s list the problems, shall we?

Desktop Environments/WMs

=> ↺ Flattr Is the Icon Pack with the Flattest Icons for Linux Systems – Gallery

• Users who like flat icons might want to give Flattr a try. It’s probably the flattest theme that you can find on the Linux platform and it’s been recently updated.

=> ↺ Elementary Extensions for Python-EFL

• For those who are unaware the Enlightenment Foundation Libraries and Elementary are the tools that power the Enlightenment desktop and a growing number of other applications. To learn more about getting started with Elementary and python you should check out the full API reference here, the examples on git, or stop by #e.py on Freenode.

• I have been working on a number of small applications using Elementary. While building these applications I found myself reusing a few of the same gadgets in different places, so I had the idea others might find some of them useful as well.

K Desktop Environment/KDE SC/Qt

=> ↺ Children’s book with Krita

• Today we’ve got a guest article by John Gholson. John is an artist who is currently working on a big project — an illustrated children’s book. As far as we know, it’s the first time an artist is using krita to illustate a whole children’s book project. So, over to John!

Distributions

=> ↺ If You Like the Terminal, You Will Love the Terminal-Only Alpine Linux OS

• Security-oriented, lightweight Linux distribution Alpine Linux is based on based on musl libc and Busybox, which make up the terminal, has been upgraded once more and is now available for download.

New Releases

=> ↺ BackBox Linux 4.1 Is a Powerful Penetration Testing Distro Based on Ubuntu 14.04.1

• BackBox Linux is a distribution based on Ubuntu 14.04.1 LTS, that is built to perform penetration tests and security assessments. A new version has been released and is now available for upgrade and testing.

=> ↺ Devil-Linux 1.6.8 released

• Devil-Linux 1.6.8 has been released! This release brings lots of software updates and resolves the GHOST glibc vulnerability (CVE-2015-0235). Please see the change log for details.

=> ↺ Black Lab Professional Desktop 6.0 SR3 released

• Today we are pleased to announce the release of Black Lab Professional Desktop 6.0 Service Release 3 or SR3. Black Lab Pro Desktop 6.0 SR3 is a major upgrade to our pro desktop line of distributions. With this release we worked on a few issues with memory consumption, security and speed. With the Black Lab Pro Desktop we deliver it in two different desktops, KDE and GNOME Shell . While these are commercial releases we do offer a cut down version of it available for download from our website. While we do not release for download all of the features of the retail release it is far from being crippled. The KDE release boots only consuming 480 mb of RAM and the GNOME Shell release boots using only 545 mb of RAM

=> ↺ Release: SymphonyOS 15.0

• I am pleased to announce the release of SymphonyOS 15.0. This release continues improvements to the Mezzo 4 desktop bringing it to a much more stable state.

Red Hat Family

=> ↺ ‘Enterprise customers are now more willing to implement open source’

• Jim Whitehurst expects India to play a larger role in NYSE-listed Red Hat’s global strategy, thanks to the rapid pace of infrastructure creation.

• “When a new system’s put into place, it’s increasingly likely that it may be built on open source. We like places where there is a lot of infrastructure going in,” Whitehurst, President and Chief Executive Officer, Red Hat, said. Red Hat is the world’s largest commercial distributor of the open source-based Linux operating system. Open source denotes software for which the original source code is made freely available and may be redistributed and modified. In an interaction with BusinessLine, Whitehurst throws light on the opportunities in the Indian marketplace for open source. He also explains why the company is keen to increasingly move more support functions to India.

Fedora

=> ↺ I Switched (Back) Over To Fedora As My Main OS & It’s Going Great!

• Before this long stint with Ubuntu on my main system, I was using Fedora (Core) and before that was openSUSE, Mandrake, and others. I stopped using Fedora (Core) due to some of the releases being less reliable than others with at the time less of a focus on shipping quality releases and at times just feeling like a dirty testing ground for RHEL. With being very pleased with Fedora 20 and Fedora 21 on the many test systems around the office, I decided to give Fedora another go on my main system. I’ve also been very interested in Fedora.Next and how Fedora 22 is shaping up. Fedora these days seems to be back on a solid footing for end-users with a bright future ahead; Fedora 22 might even ship on time for a change while not sacrificing quality! Fedora 21 brings back a lot of good memories for me of the early Fedora days.

Debian Family

Derivatives

Canonical/Ubuntu

=> ↺ Ubuntu 14.10 and Ubuntu 14.04 LTS Get Fixes for Oxide Vulnerabilities

• Ubuntu 14.10 and Ubuntu 14.04 LTS operating systems have been updated in order to correct a few Oxide vulnerabilities that have been identified.

=> ↺ Ubuntu 14.04, Highly Recommended by the Engineers of Dell

• Barton George, Dell’s Director of Developer Programs has stated in a blog post that the necessities of programmers have ground and they wanted to have a bigger and better version of a laptop that runs Ubuntu Linux and that’s how they thought about the Precision M3800. Not much they, but him, Jared Diminguez, a Dell software engineer that has gathered all data and combined it with his grand passion, in order to make big efforts seem as easy as batting one’s eyelashes.

=> ↺ Dell to offer Ubuntu Linux for XPS 13 and Precision M3800 laptops

=> ↺ Bill Gates shows poor kids taking online classes using Ubuntu

• I really don’t know if Bill Gates, the created of Windows empire, manages his Facebook page or if it’s been updated by some PR folk.

Devices/Embedded

=> ↺ Raspberry Pi robot and hobby kit robot guide part 1

• The rise of our robot overlords is well underway – give it another five years and we’ll all be watched over by Pi-powered machines of loving grace. In the meantime, though, we’ve rounded up the very best DIY robotics kits available to buy right now that are designed to work with your Raspberry Pi, so you can get a head start on the inevitable revolution. Whether they’re Arduino or Raspberry Pi-based, we’re getting all of our robots to listen to our master Pi controller and showing you how to do the same with your kit. We’ll also be scoring these robotics kits to identify their strengths and weaknesses in terms of their build quality, functionality out of the box, the construction process and of course their programmability, to help show you which kit is right for you and where you can get hold of your own.

Phones

Android

=> ↺ 2014 was a record-breaking year for Android smartphones

• Apple may be selling more iPhones than ever before, but 2014 was a record-breaking year for Android too: New analyst figures show that one billion smartphones running Google’s mobile OS were shipped over the 12 month period. That’s a rise of 30 percent over the previous year and means that 81 percent of the mobile phones shifted in 2014 were running Android.

=> ↺ Android Wear just got very, very smart

• Google’s Android Wear software just got smart – very smart – simply because it integrates Google Now top to bottom. With an update to Google Now comes an update to Android Wear, and what we’re seeing today is an explosive update that’ll make the suggestions for directions and sports scores you’ve been getting so far seem like drops in a barrel of friendly, and I daresay helpful, updates from apps of all kinds. Everything from eBay auction updates to the ability to “Download Venice” – all on your wrist, very soon.

=> ↺ Some HTC One versions will get Android 5.0 later than expected

• Some carrier versions of HTC One (M8) and One (M7) will get updated to Android 5.0 Lollipop a bit later than expected. HTC initially promised to update all versions of its 2013 and 2014 flagship smartphone within 90 days of receiving the Android 5.0 code.

=> ↺ New Nexus 7 Android 5.0.2 Lollipop Updates Imminent

• After nearly three months of silence, Google’s finally spoken. The missing Nexus 7 Android 5.0 Lollipop updates for the cellular versions of the Nexus 7 2012 and Nexus 7 2013 will start rolling out soon and the two models will be getting bumped from Android 4.4 KitKat to Android 5.0.2 Lollipop, Google’s newest update.

=> ↺ Nexus 7 2012 Android 5.0.2 Update Review

• The Nexus 7 2012 Android 5.0.2 update is one that many users could not wait to install, but after a week of using the latest version of Android Lollipop on the oldest Nexus 7 tablet we came away less than impressed. It’s not out of the ordinary for old devices to run new software at a slower pace, but the Nexus 7 2012 exhibits annoying lag while using common functions like switching apps and opening apps for the first time since a restart.

=> ↺ Samsung Galaxy Note 3: Android 5.0 Lollipop update rolls out in Russia

• Samsung Galaxy Note 3 in Russia finally received the latest Android 5.0 Lollipop OS update, according to reports. XDA developers reminded Russian users to constantly check the notifications panel as the much awaited major Android update is now rolling out.

=> ↺ You can print 3D objects from Android App

• Makerbot has some of the most popular 3D printers which are powered by Linux. The company is now offering an app for Android devices which allows users to control your 3D printer right from your palm.

=> ↺ Android apps 2014 – A year in review

• 2014 was an exciting year. We saw the release of Lollipop and with it, a whole new design standard we now call Material Design. It saw the release of Android Wear and the second themer revolution with the Android Wear watch faces. Games are slowly becoming higher quality with better graphics, controls, and premises than any prior year. It was the most successful year in Android apps and games of all time. Let’s take a look at just how it good it was on paper.

Free Software/Open Source

Web Browsers

Mozilla

=> ↺ Fixing a broken Firefox after version 35

• So as of the last batch of updates I applied to my laptop (running Fedora 21), Firefox started acting really weirdly.

Oracle/Java/LibreOffice

=> ↺ LibreOffice 4.4 starts showing design make-over

• The Document Foundation today released version 4.4 of LibreOffice which gives us a glimpse of a ‘modern’ LibreOffice.

• One of the reasons LibreOffice teams were not focusing much on the design overhaul was the code that they inherited from OpenOffice.

• A majority of the team’s resources were going in cleaning up the code and improving compatibility with Microsoft Office.

=> ↺ How To Install LibreOffice 4.4 On Ubuntu 15.04, Ubuntu 14.10, Ubuntu 14.04, Ubuntu 12.04 And Derivative Systems, Via PPA

=> ↺ How To Install LibreOffice 4.4 On Ubuntu, Debian And Derivative Systems

=> ↺ How To Install LibreOffice 4.4 On Fedora, CentOS, OpenSUSE, Mageia, OpenMandriva And Derivative Systems

FSF/FSFE/GNU/SFLC

=> ↺ GNU i18n for high priority projects list

• A “positive” item is one which makes people want to embrace GNU/Linux and free software in order to user it: «I want to use Octave because it’s more efficient». A “negative” item is an obstacle to free software adoption, which we want removed: «I can’t use GNU/Linux because I need AutoCAD for work».

=> ↺ FSF certify Libreboot X200 laptop

• The Free Software Foundation (FSF) has certified another laptop by the UK based supplier The Gnulug. This is the second laptop by the company to get FSF certification. The laptop is a modified version of ThinkPad X200, renamed to the Libreboot X200. The laptop is the successor of their Libreboot X60 which which will stop selling. X200 will be sold twice the price of X60.

Project Releases

=> ↺ FileZilla 3.10.1 Released with bug fixes and some minor changes Install in ubuntu/Linux Mint

Public Services/Government

=> ↺ The Army Just Open-Sourced Its Security Software

• The U.S. Army is open-sourcing a code it uses to analyze cyberattacks. For the past five years, whenever a Department of Defense network has been compromised, the Army has used the Dshell framework to do forensic analysis on the attacks.

=> ↺ US Army open sources security code to fight cyber attacks

Programming

=> ↺ Three Laws for successful “Google Summer of Code”-like projects

• It’s a very busy time for me, I’m in thesis crunch mode and applying for jobs at the same time. This is why this year I have decided to step down from my role as organizer of internship programs at ownCloud.

=> ↺ Season of KDE – January

• I am happy to say that I successfully completed making the StarHopper UI for KStars. In my previous blog post, I have given an overview of the feature and documented on its usage. My latest commit ensured that when the StarHopper algorithm returned an empty list, the UI would check for it and then display an error message.

Leftovers

Health/Nutrition

=> ↺ U.S. Obesity Rate Inches Up to 27.7% in 2014

=> ↺ Is Indiana’s vaccination rate high enough to keep out measles?

• Fifteen years ago, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention declared measles eliminated from the United States. That proclamation turns out to have been more than a bit optimistic.

Security

=> ↺ A new kind of DDoS threat: The “Nonsense Name” attack

• There’s a new species of Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack targeting name servers, which could be called the “nonsense name” attack. It can wreak havoc on recursive and authoritative name servers alike, and some of our customers at Infoblox have fallen victim to it—but it’s not always clear whether they were actually the targets.

=> ↺ Key rotation in OpenSSH 6.8+

• Something that’s bugged me about the SSH protocol is its lack of key continuity – key algorithm changes and key rotations are basically unsupported, as there is no in-protocol way for a client to learn updated host keys for hosts that the user already trusts. About the best one can do is cat /etc/ssh/*.pub once logged in to manually learn the host’s other keys, but this only works if you have shell access and is a kludge anyway…

Defence/Police/Secrecy/Aggression

=> ↺ Retroactively Authorizing War

• They went largely unnoticed, four words President Obama ad-libbed during the State of the Union address last month as he asked lawmakers to provide legal cover for America’s military intervention in Iraq and Syria.

• “We need that authority,” the president said, adding a line to the prepared remarks on his teleprompter that seemed to acknowledge a reality about which his administration has been inexcusably dishonest.

• As the new Congress gets settled in, the debate over the scope and legal authority of Washington’s new war in the Middle East has resurfaced amid strikingly disparate views. The White House is consulting with lawmakers from both parties on the parameters that would retroactively establish ground rules for the bombing campaign against Islamic State militants in Iraq and Syria that began in September.

=> ↺ Drones Are Now Appearing on Afghan Rugs

• When it comes to what to depict on rugs, Afghan weavers traditionally turn to what’s most familiar. So in the 1980s, when the Mujahedeen were fighting back the Soviet occupation, some local weavers abandoned flowers and water jugs to illustrate what their days consisted of back then: war.

=> ↺ Kadyrov Says CIA is Recruiting Russians for Islamic State

• Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov has accused the CIA and other Western intelligence agencies of using fake social media accounts to draw young Russian men into the Islamic State and other terrorist networks.

=> ↺ Drone strikes kill at least ‘45 militants’ in Somalia

• At least 45 suspected al-Shabaab militants have been killed in drone strikes in Southern Somalia on Saturday, a government official said.

=> ↺ Book review: A Theory of the Drone – the morality of killing by remote control

• In May 2009, a former adviser to General David Petraeus named David Kilcullen wrote an op-ed in The New York Times calling for a moratorium on drone strikes carried out by the US against al-Qaeda and its associates in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Somalia and Yemen. The military advantages of using drones (the US Army defines a drone as a “land, sea or air vehicle that is remotely or automatically controlled”) are outweighed, Kilcullen argued, by their costs.

=> ↺ Conor Friedersdorf: Research on killer drones could backfire on Americans

• Americans would react no differently to a commencement of drone attacks on our soil.

=> ↺ Droning the truth

• For Pakistan, drone attacks have become something like the forbidden fruit. These attacks, which have suddenly increased since December 16, 2014, are decidedly illegal, immoral and they undermine the country’s sovereignty. A United Nations (UN) resolution urges member states “to ensure that any measures taken or means employed to counterterrorism, including the use of remotely piloted aircraft, comply with their obligation under international law, including the Charter of the UN human rights law and international humanitarian law, in particular the principles of distinction and proportionality.”

=> ↺ CIA tested 25 bombs before helping Mossad kill top Hezbollah figure – report

• The US helped Mossad assassinate a top Hezbollah figure in Syria in 2008 by lending bomb expertise and surveillance on the ground, Washington Post reported. The joint operation marked CIA’s post-9/11 drift toward modern-day drone killings.

=> ↺ Focus on Research: Drone strikes: Legal weapon against terror or violation of the right to life?

Environment/Energy/Wildlife

=> ↺ CIA Reveals How Chinese Pandas Were Denied Entry Into U.S. In 50s

• Pandas may be gentle giants in the natural world, but in the tense geo-political world of the Cold War, they were seen as potent propaganda tools for the Communist Chinese.

Finance

=> ↺ 100,000 flock to Madrid for Podemos rally against austerity

• Four years ago, Madrid’s central Puerta del Sol square belonged to los indignados – an impromptu revolt of thousands, camping out for weeks and rallying against a political establishment felt to be out of sync with the people.

• On Saturday, up to 100,000 people again filled the square, determined to show the world that 2015 would be the year that the change demanded by the indignados would come about.

=> ↺ Thousands Attend Spain’s Left-Wing Podemos Anti-Austerity March

• Spain’s new party believes that politicians should “serve the people, not private interests,” and has gained huge support.

PR/AstroTurf/Lobbying

=> ↺ British Army unveils ‘Twitter troops’ for social media fight

• The British Army is to create a new unit for psychological and social media warfare to help Britain “fight in the information age” and control the “narrative” of warfare.

Censorship

=> ↺ Facebook censors images of Muhammad

• Only two weeks after Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg released a strongly worded “Je suis Charlie” statement on the importance of free speech, Facebook has agreed to censor images of Prophet Muhammad in Turkey – including the very type of image that precipitated the Charlie Hebdo attack.

=> ↺ How Mark Zuckerberg Should Have Responded to Turkey’s Censorship Order

• On Monday, Reuters reported that a Turkish court ordered Facebook to remove pages the government deemed insulting to the Prophet Mohammed. They even threatened to block Turkish access to Facebook entirely if it did not comply. As a result, Facebook has prohibited access to at least one page already.

• There was an alternative to compliance: Facebook could have refused to honor Turkey’s court order. And Mark Zuckerberg could have delivered the message himself. After all, who better to stand up for freedom of expression than the head of the world’s biggest social network?

=> ↺ Does Censorship Make Us Safer?

• Democratic societies are always exploring the proper relationship between security and liberty. We should not lose sight of the fact that our right to view websites such as North Korea’s, or to look at dirty pictures, however tawdry they might be, constitute important liberties that should not be surrendered without constituting a clear and present danger.

=> ↺ Thailand junta squelches forum on media censorship

• Thailand’s junta has effectively forced a German foundation to cancel a forum discussing new restrictions on the media, scheduled to be held Friday in Bangkok, raising concerns among journalists and right advocates about the junta’s efforts to curtail press freedom and political dissent in what has long been a relatively open society in the region.

=> ↺ Thailand Internet Censorship: Junta Defends Cybersecurity Laws, Orders Press Freedom Briefing Canceled

• Thai Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha is pushing for the country’s business and government sectors to be better integrated with the Internet, but he has brushed aside criticism that his junta government’s recent attempts to introduce cybersecurity laws infringe on freedom of expression and the press. At the same time, the junta has also ordered a German rights group to cancel a press freedom briefing scheduled to be held in a Bangkok hotel Friday.

=> ↺ Opinion: Bill to ban a word is just censorship

• But the willingness to violate the First Amendment and censor politically incorrect speech is not confined to academe. And proof of that is found in Assembly Bill 30, which would bar California high schools from using “Redskins” as sports team names.

=> ↺ The state of online censorship around the world

• In the UK, policies that restrict the flow of information across the Internet are generally met with outcry and consternation for contradicting our fundamental right of free speech, but for many individuals widespread Internet censorship is the norm.

• However, online censorship is much more pervasive than one might initially think, with Ethiopia, Russia and even the UK currently listed as Enemies of the Internet by the French non-governmental group Reporters without Borders (RWB).

=> ↺ China doubles down on counterproductive censorship

• China operates the world’s largest and most sophisticated Internet censorship infrastructure. Colloquially called the “Great Firewall,” this infrastructure blocks a huge amount of content deemed contrary to China’s interests as a nation. However, as with any such censorship infrastructure, people will try to access content despite the restrictions–creating a game of cat and mouse between censors, citizens, and online service providers.

Privacy

=> ↺ What Uber Still Won’t Say About Your Data

• Uber has since refocused its attention on riders’ privacy, rewording its data policy and hiring an outside attorney to conduct an investigation.

=> ↺ Shameless: rogue Lords sneak Snooper’s Charter back in AGAIN

• Last Friday, four rogue Lords copy/pasted the repeatedly defeated “Snooper’s Charter” spying bill into a pending bill as an amendment, only to withdraw it on Monday after the Lords were bombarded by an aghast public — and now, incredibly, these Lords have reintroduced the same language as a new amendment.

=> ↺ The Intercept’s Invitation to Criminality—and to Intelligence Agencies

• But let’s say I were with some other intelligence agency, either one allied with our forces or one hostile to it. I might noticed that The Intercept is trafficking in really neato stolen goods. They’re soliciting more. And what’s more, they’re advertising what could be a really great, so to speak, phishing hole—that is, a mechanism to send them files and maybe get them onto their computers. If I were a foreign intelligence agency, I’d be looking at this as a great way to send enticing-looking documents, maybe even real ones, that contain some nifty bits of executable code that offered visibility for me onto the activities of people with access to the Snowden materials, people who are talking to and recruiting other leakers. Or maybe I’d be drop some honey-pot files, some files that beacon their location. Or maybe I’d just use the opportunity to drop disinformation on journalists who have shown they will believe just about anything if it’s disparaging of U.S. intelligence.

=> ↺ iPhones Can Rat You Out To NSA, Snowden Claims

• iPhones have been getting a lot of heat from privacy advocates for years. It’s likely that privacy concerns will continue to be a public relations nightmare for Apple iPhones despite company efforts to include encryption features in its mobile operating system iOS8. Recent comments from Edward Snowden’s lawyer reveal that the NSA whistleblower doesn’t use iPhones due to professional concerns over security.

=> ↺ 45 Percent Of British Consumers Think Online Privacy Is More Important Than National Security

=> ↺ Mississippi Action Alert: Help Stop NSA Spying, Support SB2753

• Mississippi SB2753 would deny much-needed material support and resources to the NSA and all federal illegal spying operations. The bill must pass through the Senate Judiciary, Division A Committee before it can receive a vote in the Senate.

Civil Rights

=> ↺ Prosecutors used the same legal strategy against Barrett Brown as they did me. Are you next?

• When it happened to me, I dismissed it as an anomaly. The government – while trying to access the private emails of my company’s 410,000 users – made material misrepresentations to the courts in a coordinated campaign to portray me as obstinate and uncooperative. Their intent? To manipulate a judge into accepting an unconstitutional legal theory. It cost me my business.

=> ↺ Ladar Levison Weighs in on Barrett Brown Case

• Okay, Ladar has a piece in the Guardian today that you should read. As of 9:49 a.m. Central Standard, the piece appears to link to the same cache of hacked Stratfor information that Barrett got busted for linking to. (!) But that’s not really the most interesting part of Ladar’s story. Ladar reveals that the FBI agents that forced him to shut down his business (the email service that Edward Snowden used) were the same agents that busted Barrett.

=> ↺ My Post Cyberpunk Indentured Servitude

• Not long ago I was a mild-mannered freelance journalist, activist, and satirist, contributing to outlets like the Guardian and Vanity Fair. But last Thursday I was sentenced to 63 months in federal prison in a case that Reporters Without Borders cited as a key factor in its reduction of America’s press freedom rankings from 33 to 46. As inconvenient as this is for me, the upside is that for the first time in the two and a half years since I was arrested, I am at last able to speak freely about what has been happening to me and why—and what it means for the press and the republic as a whole.

=> ↺ The government loves the policy ‘technology for me but not for thee’

• Three seemingly unrelated events explain a lot about the federal government’s complicated and hypocritical reaction to the proliferation of drones and other technology – technology they love to use to track millions of citizens but to which they don’t want citizens to have access.

=> ↺ At retreat, Dem staffers escort reporters to restroom

• Reporters covering the House Democrats’ retreat in Philadelphia this week are having a much different experience than when they’re on their home turf on Capitol Hill.

• Reporters are being escorted to and from the restroom and lobby and are being barred from entering the hotel outside of scheduled events, even if they’ve been invited by a member of Congress.

• During Vice President Joe Biden’s remarks at the retreat Friday, reporters were required to have a staff member, usually a junior member of the press team, escort them when going to the bathroom or to the lobby. The filing center for reporters was at a separate hotel from where the retreat was taking place, so access was limited to members of Congress specifically made available to the press.

=> ↺ What it’s like to come home to America if your name is “Ahmed”

• Ahmed Shihab-Eldin is a respected journalist who holds US citizenship. Every time he returns to his home in New York, he is detained for many hours by the DHS, subjected to humiliating questioning and detention without evidence or charge, because he fits a “profile” that seems to consist entirely of “brown dude with Arabic name who visits the middle east.” He recently returned from the World Economic Forum in Davos and found himself detained for hours, despite having been assured that his name had been removed from the DHS’s watch-list.

=> ↺ CIA did use United Kingdom territory for secret terror interrogations, says top US official

• Terror suspects held by the CIA were interrogated on the British‑owned island of Diego Garcia despite the repeated denials of London and Washington that any such incidents took place, a senior American official said today.

=> ↺ Cameron hints at new independent inquiry into Britain’s role in CIA torture

• David Cameron has raised the prospect that Britain’s alleged role in torture could be the subject of a second investigation by an independent inquiry.

• The move, which would be applauded by human rights groups, could see the intelligence and security services forced to give evidence before a judge, which may present an unwelcome distraction for MI5 and MI6 as they seek to combat the growing threat from radical Islamist groups.

=> ↺ Westminster child abuse scandal: KGB and CIA kept secret dossiers on Britain’s VIP paedophiles

• Russian and US spies compiled their own secret dossiers on paedophile MPs and other VIP abusers , it has been claimed.

• Police are investigating missing files put together by UK campaigners which allege a powerful network at the heart of Westminister in the 1970s and 80s.

• The Sunday People can reveal that agents from the Russian KGB and the American CIA were also said to have compiled their own intelligence in search of “dirt” on key individuals at the height of the Cold War.

=> ↺ Killing Hope: US Military and CIA Interventions since World War II, Updated Edition, by William Blum

=> ↺ Feinstein and CIA step up war over spying on Senate

• Sen. Dianne Feinstein intensified her long-running battle with the CIA on Tuesday, accusing the agency of trying to whitewash its spying on Senate computers when the California Democrat was leading an investigation into the government’s use of torture.

=> ↺ Tony Abbott dismisses social media as ‘electronic graffiti’, again

• The Prime Minister has dismissed as “electronic graffiti” a medium that his own government and corporate Australia spend millions of dollars a year monitoring and engaging in.

=> ↺ Australian Prime Minister: Social Media Is Like Electronic Graffiti

• That acceleration, and the loss of control it implies, probably goes a long way to explaining the fear and loathing that many leading politicians display towards digital technologies — and not just in Australia.

Intellectual Monopolies

Copyrights

=> ↺ The NFL wants you to think these things are illegal

• The Super Bowl is the NFL’s flagship event each year, and the league has invested a lot in the event’s branding and broadcasting. In light of that investment, it’s understandable that the NFL would be protective of its trademarks and copyrights surrounding it. But that protectiveness has led to the NFL, and other businesses around it, perpetuating a number of myths about what you can and can’t do with the Super Bowl—including the words “Super Bowl.”

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