This page permanently redirects to gemini://gemini.techrights.org/2015/07/13/linux-4-2-and-kodi-15-0-rc2/.

● 07.13.15

● Links 13/7/2015: Linux 4.2 and Kodi 15.0 Release Candidate 2

Posted in News Roundup at 9:17 am by Dr. Roy SchestowitzContentsGNU/LinuxGNU/Linux

Desktop

=> ↺ Two teen programmers talk about why they love Linux, love Google and don’t hate Windows 10

• But the open source operating system Linux, with its kumbaya open-source development cycle – where anyone can use it for free, make changes and submit those changes to the group to be included in the main project – has also always attracted teens.

• Business Insider recently interviewed two teens who were doing such cool work on the open source operating system that they came to the attention of the Linux Foundation, who told us about them.

Kernel Space

=> ↺ Linux Kernel 4.1 LTS Gets a Second Update with ARM, UFS, and IPv4 Improvements

• The Linux kernel 4.1.2 maintenance release has been announced by its maintainer, Greg Kroah-Hartman, a couple of days ago and brings updated drivers, security patches in various areas, as well as bug fixes and improvements.

=> ↺ Linux 4.2-rc2

• Another week, another rc. What can I say? Call me boring, but that’s how this all works.

• This is not a particularly big rc, and things have been fairly calm. We definitely did have some problems in -rc1 that bit people, but they all seemed to be pretty small, and let’s hope that -rc2 ends up having fewer annoying issues.

=> ↺ Linux Kernel 3.10.84 LTS Arrives with x86, ARM, and Networking Fixes

=> ↺ Linux Kernel 3.14.48 LTS Adds ARM, ARM64, x86, and IPv4 Optimizations

• After having announced the release of Linux kernel 4.1.2 LTS and Linux kernel 3.10.84 LTS, Greg Kroah-Hartman published details about the forty-eighth maintenance release of the Linux 3.14 kernel series.

=> ↺ Linux Kernel 4.0 to Reach End of Life Soon, Users Urged to Move to Linux Kernel 4.1

• After having announced the release of Linux kernel 4.1.2 LTS, Linux kernel 3.10.84 LTS, and Linux kernel 3.14.48 LTS, Greg Kroah-Hartman has published details about the eighth point release of the stable Linux 4.0 kernel.

=> ↺ Linus Torvalds Announces Linux Kernel 4.2 Release Candidate 2

=> ↺ Linux 4.2-rc2 Kernel Released, Just Another Update

=> ↺ OS/2 HPFS File-System Now Has TRIM Support On Linux

• The High Performance File-System (HPFS) that was originally designed for the OS/2 operating system now has SSD TRIM support for its Linux kernel support while reading/writing from these old partitions.

• While I don’t know of anyone off-hand still relying upon the OS/2 HPFS file-system support in Linux, it was updated in the post-merge-window (due to waiting on related patches, the original work was sent during the merge window but not committed) of the Linux 4.2 kernel merge window.

Graphics Stack

=> ↺ Is The Open-Source NVIDIA Driver Fast Enough For Steam Linux Gaming?

=> ↺ Intel Has A Ton Of Developers Working On Their Linux Graphics Stack

=> ↺ The Intel NUC5CPYH / Braswell Is Finally Shipping

=> ↺ Freedreno A4xx Improvements Landing In Mesa Git

=> ↺ Mesa 10.6.2 Brings Many Stable Fixes

=> ↺ Radeon & Nouveau X.Org Drivers Get Dirty (Tracking Update)

=> ↺ NVIDIA Opens Up OpenACC Toolkit, But Only For Academia

• NVIDIA is announcing today the release of a new OpenACC Toolkit for enhancing GPU computing, but sadly it’s only free in the long-run for academia developers and researchers.

=> ↺ Two More GL4 Extensions Enabled In Mesa 10.7 Git For RadeonSI

=> ↺ Marek At AMD Has Been Finishing Up EGL 1.5 Support In Mesa

• The latest patches sent out by this prolific open-source Mesa developer over the past few years add exposing sRGB visuals to the DRI Gallium3D state tracker, adding EGL_KHR_gl_colorspace support, adding support for the new features to the DRI2 render query extension, and other changes.

Benchmarks

=> ↺ NVIDIA’s 352 Linux Driver Against Linux 4.1 With Nouveau Gallium3D

• After earlier this week looking at whether the open-source NVIDIA driver is fast enough for Steam Linux gaming, here are some benchmark results that compare the performance of the latest Nouveau Gallium3D driver code against the latest NVIDIA binary Linux graphics driver.

Applications

=> ↺ RcppRedis 0.1.4

=> ↺ random 0.2.5

=> ↺ GNUtls: GnuTLS 3.4.3

=> ↺ TigerVNC 1.5 Brings IPv6 Server Support, Performance Fixes

• TigerVNC 1.5.0 brings IPv6 support for the VNC server, support for two passwords (full access or view only), syslog support in Xvnc, GnuTLS priority configuration, performance fixes, and other bug-fixes. This release is coming just a half-year after the introduction of TigerVNC 1.4.0 and its few point releases since that point.

=> ↺ Save Time and Effort with these Excellent Batch Image Processors

• Batch image processors are often underrated and don’t get the attention they deserve. But this type of software is worth getting familiar with. With batch image processing, a user can select a size or file type, and then convert all the selected images. This way, hundreds or thousands of images can be processed with just a few clicks. Unfortunately, there are not that many tools that do batch conversion really well. But these four tools save loads of time and effort.

=> ↺ Bugzilla 5.0 Released, Their Most Exciting New Version In History

• Bugzilla 5.0 was released this week as their “most exciting new version of Bugzilla in our history” and “our best release ever” after being in development for more than two years.

=> ↺ QEMU 2.4 Adding Support For TPM2, KVM System Management Mode & More

• QEMU 2.4.0-rc0 was just tagged in Git.

Instructionals/Technical

=> ↺ A Simple Bash Script for Automated Backups

=> ↺ Install Mezzanine CMS on a Debian VPS

=> ↺ How to manage Vim plugins

=> ↺ Translating Haskell to C++ metaprogramming

=> ↺ Setup Nginx Server Blocks (Virtual Hosts) On Ubuntu 15.04

=> ↺ Setup Apache Virtual Hosts On Ubuntu 15.04

=> ↺ Fedora 22 – Quick & Easy Install of Spotify

=> ↺ How To Install VirtualBox 5.0 In Ubuntu/Linux Mint Or Other Derivatives

Wine or Emulation

=> ↺ Wine Staging:Release 1.7.47

=> ↺ Wine-Staging 1.7.47 Adds Better GPU Detection, Multi-Threading VCOMP

=> ↺ Wine 1.7.47 Released with 48 Bug Fixes, Introduction of HID Support, More

Games

=> ↺ Baldur’s Gate Enhanced Edition Is Getting An Expansion

• A few days ago Beamdog announced Siege Of Dragonspear, an expansion pack for Baldur’s Gate: Enhanced Edition.

• For those not in the know: Baldur’s Gate: Enhanced Edition is a 2012 HD-update to the critically acclaimed role-playing game that was originally released in 1998. Baldur’s Gate is a top-down 2D isometric strategy-rolep-laying game wherein you control a party of one to six characters and attempt to bring peace to The Sword Coast region of Faerun. Baldur’s Gate Enhanced Edition was released for Linux.

=> ↺ Cossacks 3 RTS Has Two New Teasers, Will Be On Linux

• Cossacks 3 was quite a surprise to be announced for Linux, and new details are slowly trickling in about this strategy game. We now have two short teaser videos showing them game off.

Desktop Environments/WMs

K Desktop Environment/KDE SC/Qt

=> ↺ LaKademy 2015

• Building local FLOSS communities isn’t that easy! It requires first communicating in a very clear and sincere way our motivations, the nature of possible contributions, their global impacts, and the technical and social benefits we potentially get back. Then, we need systematic and effective means to generate culture, support newcomers, identify their strengths, and help them to overcome the many barriers they usually face. Ultimately, we must keep such a social-technical organism alive, establishing mid- and long-term goals, learning from the ups and downs, and handling the challenges of building thriving communities in places with continental dimension such as Brazil and Latin America.

=> ↺ KStars – A new look!

• With more than a month remaining, my Google Summer of Code project has almost come to an end! KStars is now able to display all 88 western constellations. I want to thank my mentor, Jasem, for helping me by making a dialog box that would display constellation images with parameters in real time. This made my job simpler by a very large margin. Instead of using mathematical equations to figure out the ‘best fit’ for an image, I have simplified the task by simply noting down the RA/DEC coordinate pairs for ‘midpoints’ of constellations from Stellarium. This helped me figure out ‘where’ to translate the image in the sky map. Then I played around with the position angle, width and height for each image so as to ‘best fit’ the constellation lines. I had to do this repetitively for 88 consecutive times, but this was still a much simpler solution. Lastly I replaced all the 88 images with transparent backgrounds, so as to avoid cutting neighbouring images by the black background which was previously present. KStars looks good now, and I feel happy seeing the results! Here’s the new look of KStars!

=> ↺ Marble 1.11.3 for Windows

GNOME Desktop/GTK

=> ↺ A Week With GNOME As My Linux Desktop: What They Get Right & Wrong

• Additionally, yes… This is quite possibly a flame-bait article. I hope the community is better than that, because I do want to start a discussion and give feedback to both the KDE and Gnome communities. For that reason when I point out, what I see as, a flaw I will try to be specific and direct so that any discussion can be equally specific and direct. For the record: The alternative title for this article was “Death By A Thousand Paper Cuts”.

=> ↺ Gnote 3.16.2 released

• Gnote 3.16.2 “Imitation is the sincerest form of plagarism” has been released!

Distributions

New Releases

=> ↺ Solus OS Gets Linux Kernel 4.1.2 LTS, Firefox 39, and Much More

• The development cycle for Solus OS is powering on, and its developers are still making important improvements and changes to it. They recently upgraded the Linux kernel once more, and that’s just the tip of the iceberg.

=> ↺ Point Linux 3.0 Replaces GNOME 3 Classic with Xfce, Based on Debian 8 Jessie

• Peter Ryzhenkov has had the great pleasure of announcing the release of his Point Linux 3.0 operating system, which is currently distributed in two editions, with the MATE and Xfce desktop environments.

=> ↺ Kodi 15.0 Isengard – RC 2

• Here it is, the second Release Candidate (RC) built for Kodi 15.0; freshly baked and ready to be served! Although we said that Kodi 15.0 is a “clean-up” edition, we still managed to squeeze in a couple of really nice features. So far we had around 1080 code change requests which were included since Kodi 14.2. This vast amount sums up in a pretty big list of improvements and clean-up being done by various developers for which we should show our everlasting gratitude. As such we will only highlight some of the bigger changes further on. Download link is also provided at the bottom.

=> ↺ Kodi 15.0 Release Candidate 2 “Isengard” Brings Multiple Fixes, Download Now

=> ↺ Kodi 15.0 “Isengard” RC2 Released

• The second release candidate to Kodi 15.0 “Isengard” is now available. Since Kodi 14.2 there have now been about 1,080 code changes so far towards this next major release.

=> ↺ Kodi Is Working On Chromium CEF Integration

Red Hat Family

=> ↺ Cramer Doesn’t Hate Redhat on NYSE Freeze, Loves Comcast’s Cash Flow

=> ↺ Cramer — Don’t Dump Redhat Over NYSE Glitch; Do Bet on Comcast

• Moreover, he said, he didn’t see the merit in attempting to pin the outage on Redhat (RHT – Get Report), the company that supplies most of the exchange’s software. “Redhat is really the best there is,” he said. “Everyone uses Redhat.” Whether or not someone was actually installing new Redhat software that caused the glitch, as multiple media sources were alleging Wednesday, Cramer ultimately believes that “we will end up thinking this was human error,” which is not a reason to start playing any investment in either direction.

=> ↺ Red Hat expert defines DevOps

• If you ask a dozen software developers “What is DevOps?” you’re likely to get at least a dozen different answers. In this video, Red Hat professional services manager Patricia Bogoevici shares the benefit of her experience with Agile and DevOps over the past decade. She’s seen DevOps defined in a few different ways. Depending on the organization, some DevOps definitions may hold more value than others.

=> ↺ Red Hat Revamps Cloud Certification Program

=> ↺ Red Hat Unveils Certified Cloud and Service Provider Program

=> ↺ Red Hat launches global cloud ecosystem with Certified Cloud and Service Provider program

• Red Hat have recently announced the global launch of Red Hat Certified Cloud and Service Provider. The new program has replaced Red Hat’s Certified Cloud Provider program and expands Red Hat’s cloud ecosystem to include and better support it’s users.

Debian Family

Derivatives

Canonical/Ubuntu

=> ↺ Numerous NSS Vulnerabilities Closed in All Ubuntu OSes

• Canonical has released details in a security notice about a few NSS vulnerabilities that have been identified and repaired in Ubuntu 15.04, Ubuntu 14.10, Ubuntu 14.04 LTS, and Ubuntu 12.04 LTS, operating systems.

=> ↺ Ubuntu 15.10 (Wily Werewolf) Is Moving to GCC 5

• GCC is an important component in Linux distros and upgrading it is an important step. Any major changes to GCC (GNU Compiler Collection) can bring a host of problems, so any decision in this regard will care a lot of weight.

=> ↺ Ubuntu’s Unity 8, Mir, and LXC for Xapps Received Major Improvements

• Once again, Kevin Gunn was more than proud to report on the latest work in the Unity 8 user interface, LXC for Xapps, and the next-generation Mir display server for the Ubuntu Linux and Ubuntu Touch operating systems.

Flavours and Variants

=> ↺ Zorin OS 10 Will be the Most Beautiful Release Yet, Based on Ubuntu 15.04

=> ↺ Rare breed: Linux Mint 17.2 offers desktop familiarity and responds to user wants

• Mint 17.2 is well worth the upgrade, though much of what you want from it might be easier to get by just upgrading Cinnamon or MATE on their own. The Mint Linux upgrade guide tends to emphasize the wisdom on the old saying, “if it ain’t broke…” Those are good words to live by, but that said, I had no trouble at all upgrading from Mint 17.1. All you need to do is open Update Manager and head to the Edit menu, where you should see an option to “Upgrade to Linux Mint 17.2 Rafaela.”

• Linux Mint 17.2 is an LTS release and will receive security updates until 2019. And until 2016, all Mint releases will continue to use the same base package system (Ubuntu 14.04). Maintaining desktop familiarity may never be easier.

Devices/Embedded

=> ↺ DIY Net Player

• The cherry ear net player, based on raspberry pi and HifiBerry Amp+.

Phones

Tizen

=> ↺ Top 30 Apps from the Tizen Store for first half 2015

• As we wave goodbye to the first half of 2015, we can report on the top 30 most popular apps from the Tizen Store of the first half of 2015. Much of these applications were the same as we’ve seen in May 2015 with the addition of games like Nitro Racer, Funny Face Changer, App Locker, Video Downloader and WhatsApp Status. Great progress has been made in the Tizen Store as its service coverage has recently expanded to 182 countries and the Samsung Z1 being released in India, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka, with over 1 Million handsets sold since January 2015.

Android

=> ↺ Galaxy S5 Android 5.1.1 Lollipop Update Status For US

=> ↺ Disney Launches Official Star Wars App for iOS, Android

=> ↺ Android 5.1 Lollipop update comes to Motorola, HTC, LG phones

=> ↺ How to remove virus from Android: Delete a virus from your Android phone or tablet. Plus, how to avoid Gunpoder virus and other Android malware

=> ↺ Gunpoder: A new Android malware targets users not residing in China

=> ↺ Top 6 Free iOS, Android Games Released in June 2015

=> ↺ 20 best new Android apps and games this week

=> ↺ Popular Android game stole Facebook logins

=> ↺ ‘Cowboy Adventure’ Game Infects Up To 1 Million Android Users With Malware

=> ↺ Android Lollipop 5.0 updates: Galaxy S3 and Note 4 will NOT be receiving update

=> ↺ Google Releases A Second Build Of Android M Just For Developers

=> ↺ LG G4 Android 5.1.1 Lollipop Update: What to Expect

=> ↺ Everything new in the Android M Preview 2

=> ↺ How I use Android: YouTube sensation Marques Brownlee

=> ↺ [Android M Feature Spotlight] Dev Preview 2 Launcher Changes: Landscape Mode On Phones, App Drawer No Longer Broken Up By Letters, And Fast Scrolling In Widget Picker

=> ↺ Amazon Launches AWS Device Farm, Lets Developers Test Android And Fire OS Apps On Real Devices

=> ↺ Top 10 Best Android Wear Apps and Faces Monthly – July 2015 Edition

=> ↺ Now You Can Send Directions From Desktop Google Maps To Your Android Device

=> ↺ Google releases a second version of Android M Developer Preview

=> ↺ Android gets Google Maps desktop-to-mobile destination info, too

=> ↺ Google Maps Can Now Send Directions From Your Desktop to Android

=> ↺ Android M Developer Preview 2 Fixes Clock App Bug That Caused The ‘Snooze’ Button To Default To 24 Hours

=> ↺ Google’s Next Android Feature Could Give it a Big Advantage Over Apple’s iPhone

=> ↺ [Android M Feature Spotlight] Dev Preview 2 Removes The Dark System Theme, Possibly Because It Wasn’t Ready Yet

=> ↺ Samsung Galaxy Note 4 Android 5.1.1 Lollipop Update Now Rolling Out: Will 5.0 Problems Be Fixed?

=> ↺ Android M release date: latest news and rumours

=> ↺ Twitch on Android can stream ‘Hearthstone’ while you play

=> ↺ Multitask With Twitch’s Pop-Out Video Feature on Android

=> ↺ Verizon LG G3 Receives Software Update. Nope, Sorry, It’s Not Android 5.1.1 Lollipop

=> ↺ USA Network’s New Show ‘Mr. Robot’ Shows Accurate Android Hacking, Including SuperSU And Flexispy

=> ↺ You can now send Google Maps directions to your Android from a PC

=> ↺ Google Nexus 2015 Release Date Update: Android M Preview 2 Reveals Key Next Nexus Features

=> ↺ Team Win Recovery Project Now Available For The Original ADT-1 Android TV Box

=> ↺ Android Authority this week – July 12, 2015

=> ↺ Android 5.1.1 And 5.1 Lollipop Release News for Samsung Galaxy Note 4, S5, S6, HTC One M7, M8 And M9

=> ↺ Sony Xperia Z1, Z2, Z3 to run Android v5.1 Lollipop OS this August; Update to addess memory leak issue, apps crashes and Okay Google glitch

=> ↺ The Original Android Software Team Joined Google Ten Years Ago Today

=> ↺ Android has come a long way since Google bought it 10 years ago today

• Believe it or not, it’s been 10 years since Google bought Android Inc., a startup that was quietly building software for cell phones. Rich Miner, a cofounder of Android Inc. and now a general partner at Google Ventures, tweeted early this morning that today is the 10-year anniversary of the deal.

=> ↺ Android Wear to soon support interactive watch faces

• As a platform, Android is quite flexible and part of that characteristic trickles down to Android Wear. The smartwatch-oriented OS has a few hidden quirks that developers are able to take advantage of to provide functionality otherwise unavailable officially. Sadly, that can sometimes lead to unpredictable behavior, sometimes even broken functionality. Good thing, then, that Google has chosen to officially adopt one such “hack”. According to insider sources, an upcoming major Android Wear update will finally bring official support to interactive watches faces. Plus, it could also introduce Android Wear to Android Wear communication.

=> ↺ Blackberry’s new domain names fuel Android OS speculation

=> ↺ Google and BlackBerry Team on Android for the Enterprise

=> ↺ Blackberry Android buzz grows after company buys two new domain names

=> ↺ BlackBerry-Android Phone Rumors Resurface Amidst Biz Deal

=> ↺ BlackBerry snags two new domain names as Android chatter heats up

=> ↺ Amidst Android Phone Rumours, BlackBerry Buys Related Domains

=> ↺ Google and BlackBerry team up for a secure enterprise Android

• BlackBerry and Google are having a total peanut butter and chocolate moment here. The two companies have just announced that they’re teaming up to create a more enterprise-ready version of the Android OS. The deal will see the heightened security features of BES12, BlackBerry’s enterprise device deployment service, integrated into Android’s 5.0 Lolipop build and Google Play for Work.

=> ↺ Genymobile Grabs $7.7 Million To Become The Red Hat Of Android

• Genymobile started in France with an ambitious mission — becoming the unifying Android platform for the enterprise. The company just raised $7.7 million (€7 million) from Alven Capital, with Bpifrance also participating. It is currently working on three different products that makes using Android much easier when you are an Android developer, an IT manager or even an OEM. Genymobile works across all Android devices and makes Android’s well-known fragmentation issue a thing of the past.

=> ↺ Sony’s Android-powered Smart TV range lands in Australia

• First shown off at CES back in January, Sony’s 2015 TV line up is now available in Australia, with a heavy focus on 4K and the Android TV operating system.

• Out of the 18 new TV models that Sony will sell in Australia, 14 will run on Android TV, while half will offer the 4K Ultra HD picture resolution of 3,840 x 2,160.

=> ↺ Galaxy S6 user switches to the iPhone 6, runs back to Android after two weeks

• As we’ve seen countless times in the past, neither iOS nor Android is objectively “better” than the other — both platforms have pluses and minuses and there are legitimate reasons for people to choose either one. Business Insider‘s Antonio Villas-Boas had been a Galaxy S6 owner for a while who was curious enough to give the iPhone 6 a shot. However, he’s gone back to Android after just two weeks with Apple’s smartphone for three key reasons.

Free Software/Open Source

=> ↺ How to say ‘No’ to your boss (like a boss)

• At OSCON 2013, Deb Nicholson, Community Outreach Director of Open Invention Network, gave a talk on how to delegate, like a boss. She’s returning to OSCON 2015 with a follow up talk on how to say no, like a boss. We caught up with Deb to get a preview of her upcoming talk, and we asked for a few tips on how to politely reject offers for additional work. If you have a chance to see her at OSCON, don’t miss it—her talks are always a nice mix of entertaining, with a heavy dose of practical advice.

Web Browsers

Mozilla

=> ↺ Download Mozilla Thunderbird 38.1 for Linux, Mac OS X, and Windows

• One month after having announced the release of Thunderbird 38.0.1, last week Mozilla provided us with a new maintenance release of one of the best open-source and cross-platform email clients for GNU/Linux, Mac OS X, and Microsoft Windows operating systems.

=> ↺ Pocket: the feature nobody wanted

• I’ve sat out of the discussion on Mozilla-Governance that has been ongoing over users disappointment with Pocket. I have seen other Mozillians dive in and defend the feature but I do not think this is helping at all. I read this post “Firefox, you’re supposed to be in my pocket, not the other way around” today and felt like it had many truths in it. I really do not know the rationale for adding Pocket as a default to Firefox but I assume there was some financial benefit for Mozilla involved.

=> ↺ Firefox 39 Out With Patches for Four Critical Vulnerabilities

• Mozilla has rolled out a new version of its Firefox browser, an update that includes patches for four critical security vulnerabilities and several less-severe bugs.

=> ↺ Off-Main-Thread Compositing Is Coming With Firefox 40 For Linux

=> ↺ Mozilla Planning Invasive Changes To The Fundamentals Of Firefox

• Firefox developers are revisiting at how they build their web browser and how they can better utilize modern web technologies and in the process move away from XUL/XBL within their Gecko Engine.

SaaS/Big Data

=> ↺ Using Open Source to Reinvent the Data Warehouse

• For that reason there’s been a rising amount of interest in set of complementary open source technologies that promise to enable the development of data warehouse applications that are capable of processing massive amounts of big data in real time. While most of that data is stored in Hadoop, the three core open source technologies that will enable these applications are Storm, a real-time processing engine; Spark, a framework for building clusters; and Kafka, a distributed messaging system.

Oracle/Java/LibreOffice

=> ↺ Godfather Ellison’s Protection Racket

• In its headline, Business Insider says Oracle is using an “ugly ‘nuclear option.’” Fortune’s headline is a bit more understated: “Oracle reportedly wields audits, license disputes to push cloud agenda.” However genteel fortune’s headline, writer Barb Darrow cuts quickly to the chase: “Anyone who has ever met an Oracle sales person knows from a high-pressure sale.”

• The story actually broke about a month ago, when Forbes asked: “Is Oracle Using Legal Pressure To Increase Cloud Sales?”

=> ↺ Audit, Bargain, Close

• If you use Oracle’s database, try Postgresql.

=> ↺ VirtualBox 5 comes with encryptions of virtual machines

• In preparation for Windows 10, Oracle have released a major new version of VirtualBox. The 5.0 release supports Windows 10, OS X Yosemite and a bunch of other Linux Operating Systems. All platforms have easy to install packages included EXEs, DMGs, DEBs and RPMs.

CMS

=> ↺ A developer replete with Drupal vim and vigor

• Web architect Cleaver Barnes makes websites do interesting and useful things, which is to say he focuses on the code more than the visuals. His first major use of open source was Linux in the mid-’90s. It allowed him to do things that weren’t possible in Windows at the time. Since then he has worked building web apps with Java J2EE and other technologies.

BSD

=> ↺ FreeBSD 10.2 Beta 1 Released

• The first beta of the upcoming FreeBSD 10.2 release is now available. Besides the generic FreeBSD 10.2-BETA1 spins for x86, x86_64, IA64, PowerPC, PowerPC 64-bit, and SPARC 64-bit, there are also ARMv6 spins for the Beaglebone, CuBox-Hummingboard, RaspberryPi B, and Wandboard.

=> ↺ The Start Of WebAssembly Support Lands In LLVM

Public Services/Government

=> ↺ “We can create alternatives to Google with free software”

• Gaël Musquet co-founded in France the community OpenStreetMap (OSM) of which he was the first president. This project participatory, real geographical map Wikipedia launched in 2004 by Briton Steve Coast, has set a goal to create a digital map from voluntary contributions of thousands of Internet users.

=> ↺ NSA uses open source software to exploit the masses

• Greenwald continues on “It uses the Apache web server and stores collected data in MySQL databases. File systems in a cluster are handled by the NFS distributed file system and the autofs service, and scheduled tasks are handled by the cron scheduling service.”

Openness/Sharing

Open Access/Content

=> ↺ Hyatt to Partner with Khan Academy to Bring Open-Source Global Learning to Colleagues and Communities

=> ↺ Hyatt offers open source online Higher Ed courses

• Hyatt Hotels Corporation and Hyatt Hotels Foundation have partnered with Khan Academy to provide free access to quality online education to Hyatt’s employees, their families and communities.

=> ↺ Hyatt Enlists Disruptor Sal Khan To Revolutionize Hospitality Industry Training, Plug ‘Skills Gap’

=> ↺ New Boycott In Support Of Open Access: Third Time Lucky?

• Over three years ago, we wrote about a fast-growing boycott of the academic publisher Elsevier, organised in protest at that company’s high prices, its “bundling” of journals into larger collections, and its support for SOPA. Even though over 15,000 people eventually pledged not to work with Elsevier, the company is still going strong, making huge profits from the work of academics, and putting paywalls between the public and knowledge. Perhaps we should have guessed it would end like that. As we noted then, this was not the first or biggest boycott in the history of open access.

Open Hardware

=> ↺ MyMiniFactory Launches MP5 File Format Project — Holistic Open Source Approach to 3D Printing

• Apparently London-based MyMiniFactory, a 3D printing model repository and so much more, agrees with the larger corporations which make up the new consortium in that current file formats just are not suited for the future of the industry. Where they may disagree however, is just how the new format should be set up.

Leftovers

=> ↺ The SNP’s New MPs

• Cadwalladr’s worry that the MPs will become seduced by Westminster has worried me too.

Science

=> ↺ A solar system with 5 suns discovered

• A rare star system containing five stars, known as a quintuplet, has been discovered. This quintuplet system is 250 light-year away in the constellation Ursa Major (looks like a saucepan). The system is composed of two binary stars (two stars that orbit each other) and a lone companion.

Health/Nutrition

=> ↺ US Lost in Afghanistan, But Did Manage to Make Afghanistan the World’s Top Heroin Exporter

• Afghan Brigadier General Abdul Sama was accused recently of smuggling over 40 pounds of heroin.

• It should come as no surprise that an Afghan general was caught smuggling heroin, the surprise is that any high official in that country should be charged with a crime for profiting from the trade in illegal drugs while under the watchful eye of American forces.

=> ↺ America’s Afghan war shambles laid bare

• After all, US officials picked him to be Afghanistan’s first post-Taliban president, armed and financed him to launch an uprising after 9/11, helicoptered him away from imminent capture after one clumsy foray inside Afghanistan in mid-October, reinserted him a few weeks later to march on Kandahar successfully, and finally foisted him on the rest of the Afghan political class at the United Nations-sponsored conference in Bonn in December 2001 as the leader they could not afford to reject.

Security

=> ↺ Friday’s security updates

=> ↺ Security advisories for Thursday

=> ↺ Encryption with backdoors is worse than useless — it’s dangerous

• Last week FBI Director James Comey testified before a Senate Judiciary Committee about the use of encryption among terrorist groups. For anyone who understands the critical role that encryption plays in the Internet and our private data networks, many of the exchanges between Comey and the senators on the panel were not only revealing, but rather disturbing.

=> ↺ Hacking Team orchestrated brazen BGP hack to hijack IPs it didn’t own

• Spyware service provider Hacking Team orchestrated the hijacking of IP addresses it didn’t own to help Italian police regain control over several computers that were being monitored in an investigation, e-sent among company employees showed.

=> ↺ Hacking Team email leaks show they were thinking about helping India hack RIM servers

• Try to cast your mind back to 2010/2011, BlackBerry maker, RIM, and India were at loggerheads after the state in India wanted access to RIM’s servers. India managed to get RIM to allow access to consumer messaging services but they wouldn’t give them access to the BlackBerry Enterprise Server. Documents from the Hacker Team leak now show that Hacking Team were considering a proposal to the Indian government to better intercept data sent through RIM’s servers.

=> ↺ UA Cyber security expert and former longtime CIA officer breaks down big goverment data breach affecting millions

=> ↺ Feds: Hack affected 21.5 million people

=> ↺ Hacks of OPM databases compromised 22.1 million people, federal authorities say

• Two major breaches last year of U.S. government databases holding personnel records and security-clearance files exposed sensitive information about at least 22.1 million people, including not only federal employees and contractors but their families and friends, U.S. officials said Thursday.

=> ↺ Espionage Lessons from the OPM Hack

• It has almost been a month since the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) infiltration was made public and shockwaves of the hack reverberates in Washington, D.C. and beyond. In response, officials have shut down the E-QIP background investigation system. Security and privacy professionals seem united in their demands that OPM director Katherine Archuleta be held accountable for the security lapses in the organization. Commenter after commenter diagnoses the problems in our systems, institutions, and infrastructure, demanding accountability and change. While we continue to extract negatives from the story of the OPM hack, three lessons emerge that might give us hope for a secure future.

Torture/Secrecy/Aggression

=> ↺ The U.S. Still Tortures with Impunity

• The second—and more horrifying—thing we learned in June was that the CIA crafted its own internal regulations that permitted the agency’s director to override all international law in its torture practices, and to go the furthest ends of sadism: experimentation on human beings. Again ignored by the U.S. media, it took the Guardian from London to publish the document “AR 2-2, Law and Policy Governing the Conduct of Intelligence Activities.”

=> ↺ Operation Ajax: The story of the CIA coup that remade the Middle East

• On a trip to Iran in 1977 a bazaar vendor told Stephen Kinzer: “we used to have a democracy here but then you came and took it away from us.” As an American, Kinzer explains, a democracy in Iran did not fit with his preconceived ideas about the country so he set about investigating the vendor’s comments. He found that very little had been written on the subject of its downfall in 1953.

• A new graphic novel Operation Ajax, to which he has contributed the foreword, helps to fill this information gap. In a series of comic strips author Mark Seve and illustrator Daniel Burwen reconstruct events that led up to the CIA’s first successful regime-change operation – removing Iran’s democratically elected Prime Minister and reinstating power to the authoritarian Shah, Mohammed Reza Pahlavi.

• It’s 1951 and an ocean of oil is sitting under Iran. Britain may have controlled Iranian oil exports for years but now Mohammed Mossadegh is Prime Minister, the Ayatollah is his ally, and they both agree that Iran should be for Iranians. Nationalist sentiment prevails and Mossadegh nationalises Iran’s oil but not without bringing about the wrath of the UK who are on the brink of invasion to get back their share.

=> ↺ ​On Flags, Fireworks, Hot Dogs, and Torture

• At America’s behest, some have been held and tortured at proxy sites run by foreign governments, and they have been incarcerated at US military prisons such as Bagram, Kandahar, and Guantánamo.

=> ↺ John Kiriakou, CIA Officer Turned Whistleblower, Shares His Story

• From a window in his rental home in Arlington, John Kiriakou can glimpse his old life: the peaked roof of the dream house he and his wife, Heather, built a decade ago in happier times. Not that Kiriakou shows signs of unhappiness now. His toddler son leads me past a wall hung with welcome home signs to another window overlooking a tree-lined back yard where Kiriakou has spent hours recently watching his kids play on a trampoline.

• What the decorated CIA officer turned convicted felon doesn’t add is that for months his yard was as far he could go without permission from the Federal Bureau of Prisons.

=> ↺ OP ED: Botched, Bewildering, Descent into Guantanamo Torture

• Step one in the unhealthy pursuit of power is the dehumanization of “the enemy.” The consequences of what we do after that will always haunt us.

=> ↺ US refuses to give Scots cops CIA torture report

• US authorities have still not agreed to hand over an uncensored report into CIA torture to help the police investigation into the use of Scottish airports for extraordinary rendition.

• Lord Advocate Frank Mulholland, Scotland’s top prosecutor, has confirmed he is “still awaiting the outcome” of a request for an un-redacted copy of the US Senate study.

• SNP MSP Kevin Stewart said last night it was “vital” that the secret document was sent to Scottish officers.

• The police launched an inquiry in 2013 after the Press and Journal revealed new evidence that CIA planes had used Inverness, Aberdeen and Wick airports during a period when terror suspects were being illegally detained, transferred and tortured at various locations around the world.

=> ↺ US psychologists linked to CIA torture

=> ↺ Psychologists ‘protected CIA torture programme’

• Professional body admits it may have contributed to violations of human rights after scathing internal report into post 9/11 collusion with Pentagon

=> ↺ US torture doctors could face charges after report alleges post-9/11 ‘collusion’

• The largest association of psychologists in the United States is on the brink of a crisis, the Guardian has learned, after an independent review revealed that medical professionals lied and covered up their extensive involvement in post-9/11 torture. The revelation, puncturing years of denials, has already led to at least one leadership firing and creates the potential for loss of licenses and even prosecutions.

=> ↺ Psychologists Colluded With CIA, Pentagon To Shield Bush-Era Torture Program: Report

• Senior members of the leading professional association for U.S. psychologists collaborated with the CIA and the Pentagon to bolster the credibility of harsh interrogation techniques used against terrorist suspects in the aftermath of the September 11 attacks, according to a report released Friday.

=> ↺ Psychologists’ collusion with US torture limited our ability to decry it anywhere

• The report documenting the role of the American Psychological Association (APA) as an embedded accomplice to torture during the War on Terror is important for its detail, but not for its novelty. The essence of this story has been known for eight years despite APA denials, euphemisms, double-talk and whitewashing; the report simply underscores the truth of what many of us have been saying all along.

=> ↺ Law Firm Report Backs Allegation That American Psychological Association Was Complicit in Torture

• Earlier this year, a report put together by a human rights investigator and several prominent psychologists documented evidence that leaders of the American Psychological Association, contrary to the organization’s claims, had collaborated with CIA to help bolster the legality of the “enhanced interrogation” post-9/11 torture program.

=> ↺ A new report suggests the American Psychological Association helped enable CIA torture

=> ↺ Report: Retired OHSU psychologist worked with CIA on enhanced interrogation

=> ↺ US professional body for psychologists took part in and covered up CIA torture, report claims

=> ↺ Watch RAF Reaper Drone Obliterate ISIS Armored Vehicle With Hellfire Missiles

=> ↺ Report on torture finds psychologists colluded with CIA

=> ↺ Report: Top psychologists bolstered CIA, Pentagon torture

=> ↺ Leading Psychologists Secretly Aided U.S. Torture Program

=> ↺ Report: Top psychologists worked with CIA, Pentagon on torture at Guantanamo

=> ↺ Report: CIA used outside psychologists to support interrogation program

=> ↺ US torture report: psychologists should no longer aid military, group says

=> ↺ Outside Psychologists Shielded U.S. Torture Program, Report Finds

=> ↺ US psychology group colluded with govt ‘torture’ program: report

=> ↺ US psychology group colluded with CIA ‘torture’ program

=> ↺ Psychologists helped Bush White House with interrogation after 9/11, investigation finds

=> ↺ US’s top psychology association colluded with Pentagon, CIA in ‘torture’ programme

=> ↺ Leading U.S. Psychologists Secretly Aided CIA Torture Program

=> ↺ Psychology association colluded with CIA over torture, report says

=> ↺ US psychology group colluded with govt ‘torture’ program: report

=> ↺ CIA used outside psychologists to support interrogation program

=> ↺ Psychologists reportedly collaborated with officials on abusive interrogations

=> ↺ Report: US Psychologists Colluded With Torture Program

=> ↺ Leading U.S. Psychologists Secretly Aided CIA Torture Program

=> ↺ Report: Group let psychologists join CIA grillings

=> ↺ Psychologists are shaking hands with officials, abusive interrogations go on

=> ↺ Inquiry: Psychologists group colluded with Pentagon, CIA on interrogations

=> ↺ Secret Document Shows CIA Reaction to Finding No WMD in Iraq

• The National Security Archive has posted several newly available documents Monday, one of them an account by Charles Duelfer of the search he led in Iraq for weapons of mass destruction, with a staff of 1,700 and the resources of the U.S. military. Duelfer was appointed by CIA Director George Tenet to lead a massive search after an earlier massive search led by David Kay had determined that there were no WMD stockpiles in Iraq. Duelfer went to work in January 2004, to find nothing for a second time, on behalf of people who had launched a war knowing full well that their own statements about WMDs were not true.

=> ↺ Revealed: the role of the west in the runup to Srebrenica’s fall

• The fall of Srebrenica in Bosnia 20 years ago, prompting the worst massacre in Europe since the Third Reich, was a key element of the strategy pursued by the three key western powers –Britain, the US and France – and was not a shocking and unheralded event, as has long been maintained.

=> ↺ How To Not Know about the CIA’s Targeted Killing Program

• The CIA operates armed drones to engage in targeted killing operations in Pakistan, Yemen, and Somalia. That is known. But, to borrow from former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld’s iconic statement, is it a “known known” or a “known unknown”? Known knowns are things we know we know, whereas known unknowns are things we know we do not know. The third ingredient of Rumsfeld’s rhetorical mélange is the “unknown unknowns”—things we do not know we do not know. The CIA wishes its drone program was an unknown unknown. It strived for years to keep this public secret protected by offering “neither confirm nor deny” responses to journalists’ queries.

=> ↺ Incredible footage shows ISIS cowards running for cover after trying to hide armoured vehicle under palm tree before it is destroyed by RAF drone’s Hellfire missile

=> ↺ British SAS given free rein in the fight against Isis in Syria

• Units of British SAS troopers are in Syria, backing up forces in the region targetting Islamic State (Isis).

=> ↺ UK minister: Illogical to attack IS in Iraq but not Syria

=> ↺ A scenario for Syria

• ISIL, by its actions, is still trying to pull Western powers into Syria and, in the meantime, it continues to kill as many Syrians as it can. There are a number of groups affiliated with ISIL who kill people in Yemen and Nigeria as well. Recently, ISIL launched another series of attacks and killed scores of people on the same day in France, Tunisia, Kuwait and Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula. So everyone knows that ISIL is no longer just a Syrian affair and the entire Mediterranean basin is under attack. In order to understand the objectives of ISIL, one thus has to look into the balances of the east Mediterranean.

=> ↺ Confirmed: Secret U.S. Bases in Somalia, U.S. Boots on the Ground

• The United States has a reported military presence in at least 150 countries. Indeed, it could be said that the sun never sets on the American empire.

• Some outposts of that empire are supposed to be kept secret, however, as they are operating in countries placed off limits by treaty or by U.S. law. Somalia is such a place, but that hasn’t stopped the U.S. Defense Department from setting up bases and deploying troops in that country.

=> ↺ USA turns Somalia again into Somalistan

=> ↺ Somalia: Rights Group Slams Illegal US Drone Attacks in Somalia

• A US non-governmental organization – US Global Drones Watch – says Washington must refrain from staging a unilateral drone campaign in Somalia.

• Medea Benjamin, founder of Global Drones Watch, said on Friday drone attacks in Somalia and the Middle East should be conducted through the United Nations and the African Union.

• “While they may be attacking people who deserve to be attacked, I’m not saying that I like Al-Shabab, but I think it should be done through the UN and the African Union, not unilaterally by the United States,” Benjamin told Sputnik News.

=> ↺ US Drone Strike Kills Ten in South Yemen

• By and large, the victims of US drone strikes are unnamed, though one AQAP leader was reported killed last week, which appears to have further emboldened the drone program to continue despite the lack of US spotters on the ground to tell what they’re shooting at.

=> ↺ US Drone Strikes Kill 49 in Eastern Afghanistan

• Government spokesmen insisted everyone claimed was a militant.

=> ↺ Dubious Kill Lists Started Long Before Drones and Included States

• There was no end to the White House’s and Contra’s kill list. In fact, 60,000 Nicaraguans were killed. A sovereign state, Nicaragua, was murdered, too, as the U.S. spent millions of dollars in engineering elections, threatening the nation with preemptive wars, and by finally militarily occupying the nation with terrorists. Exhausted, Nicaraguans eventually voted for the U.S.-backed centre-right National Opposition Union. They had had enough. Physically and psychologically terrorized, they wanted the White House’s kill list to end.

=> ↺ Lebanon: Israeli drone crashes in port of Tripoli

• An unmanned Israeli reconnaissance drone crashed in the waters near northern Lebanon’s port of Tripoli Saturday, the Lebanese army and a security official said.

• In a statement, the army said the drone crashed at 8.30 a.m. local time (0530 GMT) Saturday. It gave no other details but published photos that showed the aircraft largely intact in the waters and then on land after it was taken out.

• It had a Jewish Star of David and Hebrew writing on it.

=> ↺ Watch: Lebanese military claims Israeli drone crashes near port of Tripoli

=> ↺ Israeli drone crashes in Lebanon for second time in three weeks

=> ↺ Lebanese army says Israeli drone crashes into sea off Tripoli

=> ↺ Lebanon: Israeli drone crashes in port of Tripoli

=> ↺ Gaza one year on: The two sisters caught in the crossfire of Israel’s war with Hamas

• The Palestinian Bedouin women were walking away from their ramshackle farm along a lonely dirt track beside an orchard in broad daylight when their bucolic surroundings were transformed into a killing zone during last summer’s Gaza conflict.

=> ↺ One Year After Gaza Massacre, UN Exposes Likely War Crimes

• One year ago, on July 7, 2014, Israel launched “Operation Protective Edge,” a massive assault on the Gaza Strip. For 51 days, Israel bombarded Gaza with more than 6,000 airstrikes. Many of them hit residential buildings. Tawfik Abu Jama, a father of eight, told UN investigators, “I was sitting with my family at the table ready to break the fast. Suddenly we were sucked into the ground. Later that evening, I woke up in the hospital and was told my wife and children had died.”

=> ↺ Block the Factory protestors ‘lock down’ drone factory in Broadstairs in protest at UK government arms trade

• Protestors in Broadstairs have swarmed a drone factory, taking to the roof, with one campaigner locking himself to the gate.

• One of the protestors, from a group called Block the Factory Kent, said: “We are at Instro Precision Ltd on the Pysons Road industrial estate. The company is a manufacturer of lethal unmanned drones. Today is the one year anniversary of an assault on Gaza by the Israeli air force , which killed over 2,200 Palestinians.”

=> ↺ Activists shut down Israeli arms company

=> ↺ Broadstairs factory targeted by anti-arms protesters

• They say they have targeted Instro Precision Ltd on the Pysons Road industrial estate because the company is a manufacturer of lethal unmanned drones that were used by Israel to kill Gazans this time last year.

=> ↺ Activists Call for End to UK Complicity in Israeli War Crimes

=> ↺ The 51-Day Genocide

• Max Blumenthal’s latest book, The 51 Day War: Ruin and Resistance in Gaza, tells a powerful story powerfully well. I can think of a few other terms that accurately characterize the 2014 Israeli assault on Gaza in addition to “war,” among them: occupation, murder-spree, and genocide. Each serves a different valuable purpose. Each is correct.

=> ↺ TRANSCRIPT: An Interview with Max Blumenthal on the One Year Anniversary of Israel’s Attack on Gaza

• I think Operation Cast Lead in 2008-2009 promoted a real shift in opinion within the political left in the U.S. But during that war, we saw the Israeli government, the government press office which hands out credentials to journalists, bar all journalists from entering the Gaza Strip. And so journalists weren’t able, except for the Palestinian journalists who were living in the Gaza Strip, to actually witness the violence up close. And this is disproportionate violence targeting civilians in a way we had never seen before in the Gaza Strip.

=> ↺ Gaza Strip: Blitzed, caged and broken, Palestinians’ nightmarish existence has no end

• The 2014 Israel-Gaza conflict began on 8 July. By the time the bombardment ceased 50 days later, around 2,200 Palestinians had been killed, the majority of them civilians, including an estimated 500 children. On the Israeli side, 66 soldiers and six civilians lost their lives in Hamas attacks.

=> ↺ Death from Above, Remotely Controlled: Obama’s Drone Wars

• …drone warfare as the Obama administration’s signature approach to military engagement.

=> ↺ America’s Endless Air Wars

• Like his predecessors, President Obama is relying heavily on aerial bombardment to wage war…

=> ↺ Killing civilians to vanquish Isis will only make besieged people hate us

• Advocates for even more war in the Middle East apparently have a new strategy for defeating Isis: allow the US military to kill more civilians. If you think I’m exaggerating, just read their deranged and pathological arguments for yourself.

• It began in late May when the New York Times reported that both Iraqi and American officials started complaining the US was too worried about killing civilians, suggesting that the Obama administration shouldn’t be worried that indiscriminately killing innocent people might turn the Iraqi population even more against the US than it already is. (Nevermind that it could be considered a war crime.) As the Times’s Eric Schmitt wrote: “many Iraqi commanders and some American officers say that exercising such prudence with airstrikes is a major reason the Islamic State, also known as Isis or Daesh, has been able to seize vast territory in recent months in Iraq and Syria.”

=> ↺ Germany’s Highest-Ranking Prosecutor on the Legality of Drone Strikes – and Much More

=> ↺ US Drones Strike al-Qaeda-Held Yemen Army Base, Killing Four

=> ↺ Airstrikes pierce new Yemen truce following ground fighting

• A new truce in Yemen was pierced within an hour as Saudi-led airstrikes hit targets in the capital Sanaa and the southwestern city of Taiz following reports of ground movement and fighting, security officials said.

=> ↺ A Mounting Humanitarian Catastrophe in Yemen: War Death Toll Tops 3,000, Fear of Famine Grows

• Aid groups are warning Yemen is on the brink of famine as the Saudi-led attack intensifies. More than 3,000 people, including 1,500 civilians, have died in Yemen since the U.S.-backed Saudi offensive against the Houthi rebel group began on March 26. According to the United Nations, 80 percent of Yemen’s 25 million people are now in need of some form of humanitarian aid, and more than one million Yemenis have fled their homes, as a Saudi naval blockade has cut off food and fuel supply lines for much of the country. Monday was reportedly the deadliest day since the fighting began, with over 176 people killed, including 30 people at a market in the northern province of Amran and 60 people at a livestock market in the southern town of al-Foyoush. To talk more about Yemen, we are joined by two guests. Farea Al-Muslimi is a co-founder of the Sana’a Center for Strategic Studies in Yemen. He is currently a visiting scholar at the Carnegie Middle East Center in Beirut. And here in New York is Matthieu Aikins, award-winning foreign correspondent. He’s a fellow at The Nation Institute. He was in Yemen last month reporting for Rolling Stone magazine.

=> ↺ America’s new F-35 stealth fighter is dead meat in an air battle

• A test pilot has some very, very bad news about the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter. The pricey new stealth jet can’t turn or climb fast enough to hit an enemy plane during a dogfight or to dodge the enemy’s own gunfire, the pilot reported following a day of mock air battles back in January.

=> ↺ Drones Memorial Quilts on display at Asheville Area Arts Council, July 13-25

• An exhibition of four quilts, part of the U.S. Drones Quilt Project in memory of civilians killed in drone attacks, will be on display at the Asheville Area Arts Council in the Grove Arcade. The exhibit runs Monday, July 13-Saturday, July 25.

=> ↺ Former CIA leader: Heightened security “the new normal”

=> ↺ In Syria: $36 million to train 60 opposition fighters?

• A little more than a year ago, President Obama asked Congress for $500 million to train and equip some 15,000 opposition fighters in Syria, arguing that the best way to defeat Islamic State terrorists was to arm local forces.

• The war against Islamic State “will not involve American combat troops fighting on foreign soil,” Obama promised. “Instead, we must strengthen the opposition as the best counterweight to extremists.”

=> ↺ The Pentagon Wants To Train 15,000 Syrian Fighters. So Far It’s Got 60.

• The U.S. has begun training only 60 fighters to take on the Islamic State in Syria, Defense Secretary Ash Carter acknowledged in a heated hearing of the Senate Armed Services Committee Tuesday morning. And not only is the number “much smaller than we hoped for at this point” — three months into the program — but the U.S. has not yet determined what it will do when those fighters are attacked by the forces of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, Carter said.

=> ↺ Washington Post runs article from Syrian Islamist group

• US label “moderate” is an important designation in Syria because it makes a group eligible for training and support…

=> ↺ Plame launches social media campaign promoting Iran nuke deal, nonproliferation

• As negotiators from Iran and six major powers struggle to ink a nuclear deal this week, covert CIA agent-turned-novelist Valerie Plame Wilson is taking to social media from her Santa Fe home to promote an agreement as an alternative to armed conflict.

• “Holding my breath for a deal,” Plame Wilson tweeted to her 16,800 Twitter followers on Monday, before negotiators announced they were close but needed more time. She added a link in the tweet to a New York Times article about new high-tech tools that would help inspectors charged with monitoring Iran’s nuclear program if a deal is struck.

=> ↺ Foreign Policy Diary ‘Instability Zone Caucasus’

• ISIS has been raising presence in the Caucasus. On June 23, 2015 ISIS announced the creation of a new governorate, called Wilayat Qawqaz in the Russias North Caucasus, after several senior militants in the area pledged allegiance to ISIS. ISIS has been setting conditions to establish this governorate in support of its regional expansion campaign since at least January 2015. Declaration of Wilayat Qawqaz followed the circulation of a Russian-language audio statement on Twitter on June 21, in which supporters of ISIS in the regions of Dagestan, Chechnya, Ingushetia, and Kabarda, Balkaria and Karachay pledged allegiance to ISISs leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. These areas represent four of the six subdivisions that constitute the al-Qaeda-affiliated Islamic Emirate of the Caucasus terrorist network. Militants in these four most frequently conducted domestic attacks in support of the IECs stated goals of establishing a Caucasus emirate under sharia law and waging global jihad. The two IEC subdivisions where supporters have not formally pledged to ISIS are Cherkessia and Nogay steppe.

=> ↺ Fallout from Reagan’s Afghan War

• In the 1980s, President Reagan funded and armed Islamic fundamentalists to defeat a Soviet-backed secular regime in Afghanistan. Now, one of those ex-U.S. clients is throwing his support behind the brutal Islamic State, a lesson about geopolitical expediency, writes ex-CIA analyst Paul R. Pillar.

=> ↺ Petraeus: Obama playing ‘roulette’ in Afghanistan

• David Petraeus, former CIA director and retired Army general, urged President Obama in an op-ed Wednesday to reconsider his plan to withdraw most U.S. troops from Afghanistan by the end of next year.

=> ↺ USA Celebrates Profitable Genocide Enslaving Africans To Destroying 6 Muslim Nations!

• Before and after July 4, 2015, genocide for profit (In speculative investment driven Western Colonialism never was a different reason for it) is taking place thanks to participating and cooperating Americans in uniform and CIA in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Libya, Somalia and Yemen, and surely further lives are being planned to be taken in the Ukraine and Venezuela and elsewhere as profits therefrom appear sure.

=> ↺ How Hollywood helped sanitise the ‘war on terror’

• This film is what helped ferment a Pentagon perception of the entertainment industry as useful for this sort of promotion of core values – and so perhaps we can expect more of the same, but with a necessary, modern warfare drone factor for the sequel.

=> ↺ Mixed Feelings About The Business Of Mining — And Manipulating — Emotion

• In the charming new animated movie, “Inside Out,” we are taken inside the head of Riley, an 11-year-old girl, to meet characters representing five of the six emotions that psychologists have characterized as universal: happiness, sadness, fear, anger and disgust. (The sixth emotion, surprise, was omitted, perhaps because movie producers, like most business people, hate surprises.) Without revealing any spoilers, suffice it to say that in Riley, as in the heads of most real girls her age, Joy cedes some mindshare to Sadness, Anger, Fear and the other, less cute members of the emotional coterie.

=> ↺ The Bin Laden grand finale myth falls apart

• Hersh’s account has been rejected by some on the grounds that he relies on unverifiable anonymous sources. This investigation conducts a systematic review of open sources and key journalistic reports relevant to the events leading up to the bin Laden raid.

• While much corroboration for Hersh’s reporting is uncovered, elements of his account and the Official History contradict a wider context of critical revelations disclosed by many other pioneering journalists. When that context is taken into account, a far more disturbing picture emerges.

=> ↺ How Terror Warnings Help ISIS

• “These warnings are an attempt by the government to show it is monitoring trends and believe that by issuing a warning they hope to either have people help deter possible attacks through vigilance or perhaps deter terrorists for carrying out a plot because of the increased attention,” Patrick Skinner, Director of Special Projects at The Soufan Group, wrote to ThinkProgress by email. “The warning might be raised after several plots have secretly been disrupted simply out of an abundance of caution or to see the reaction of groups under monitoring.”

• Since 9/11, the FBI and DHS have released a number of terror warnings that never materialized into attacks. Experts worry that such warnings risk inspiring a culture of fear among Americans.

• “Terrorist groups, and none more so than ISIS, feed on publicity and fear,” said Skinner. “Supporters are more motivated and energized when societies are seen reacting to the perceived menace of the group. Fund raising, recruitment, and overall energy all increase when a society in effect trembles before terrorism. Generic terror warnings are free advertisement for these groups.”

=> ↺ Bergen: The sky didn’t fall after July Fourth

• The warnings reflected a general consensus among counterterrorism officials that this Fourth of July was among the most dangerous periods we have seen since 9/11.

=> ↺ Who Killed U.N. Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjold?

• Across the Mediterranean Sea, American NSA agents stationed in Europe intercept a congratulatory radio transmission. “The Americans just shot down a UN plane,” an accented voice says.

• The next morning, civilians approach the wreck—some say they see a fuselage riddled with artillery and a man struggling for life. An investigator observing the bodies notes bullet wounds. The plane’s lone survivor stays alive just long enough to describe a series of explosions before the craft went down.

=> ↺ Still Waiting for USS Liberty’s Truth

• During the Six-Day War in 1967, Israeli warplanes and warships tried to sink the USS Liberty, killing 34 of the spy ship’s crew. Afterwards, U.S. and Israeli officials excused the attack as an unfortunate mistake and covered up evidence of willful murder, as ex-CIA analyst Ray McGovern explains.

• Israel’s chokehold over U.S. politics and politicians has been so powerful for so many decades that this obvious reality is routinely denied, a collective gagging of the truth that is itself a measure of how strong the Israeli grip is.

=> ↺ The Stacks: A DEA Agent at War with the War on Drugs

• For most of the ’80s Michael Levine was a high-voltage player in America’s drug wars, until he became convinced that the government’s efforts were misguided and useless.

=> ↺ Poison dart-firing umbrella, tear-gas pen among items showcased in Spy! Exhibit at Rivercenter Mall

• Guests will get a chance to see how secrecy and subterfuge were used by the KGB, Stasi and CIA, with about 250 objects and artifacts related to spy gear and documents, according to a news release.

=> ↺ Editorial: Restoring U.S.-Cuba diplomatic ties long overdue

=> ↺ With respect to Cuba: Is Obama Guileful, Duped or a Dim Bulb?

• While this controversial hype on establishing a new era in U.S.-Cuba relations sounds promising, there is much history and a factual basis to believe that the players in this agreement may have easily duped each other and created a false sense of security by quite possibly ignoring the intelligence and true motives of a knee-jerk and intentionally weak quid pro quo agreement.

=> ↺ Iraqi fighter jet accidentally drops bomb over Baghdad, killing 12

• An Iraqi fighter jet accidentally dropped a bomb over a Baghdad neighbourhood on Monday, killing at least 12 people on the ground, Iraqi officials said.

=> ↺ Drones will tear us apart: Pakistani pop’s war fixation

• A lover’s eyes compared to a drone strike, a smile to a suicide bomb and lips to fire.

• The violence of Pakistan’s bloody insurgency has been injected into catchy pop lyrics after more than a decade of war against Islamists opposed to all forms of song and dance.

=> ↺ Book Talk: High-Tech Assassins

• I show how in actual operational conditions, drones do not see very well; I show that “high value targeting,” i.e. assassination, which is their principal lethal function, is entirely counterproductive, making our enemies stronger; I show how drones, with their ability to send video of a distant battlefield to a president’s desk, give our leaders a dangerous illusion of knowledge and control; I show how much of all this is a racket to line the pockets of contractors.

=> ↺ 7/7 seemed to herald a new era of terror on UK soil – one that did not materialise

• A decade later, many Britons have indeed died at the hands of terrorists overseas, from the two aid workers beheaded by Islamic State in 2014 to the 30 who were killed in the Tunisian beach massacre. But on the home front, there is one remarkable statistic that stands out: just one fatality at the hands of Islamic terrorists in the UK since 7/7.

• That death was British soldier Lee Rigby, hacked with a cleaver as he returned to barracks in Woolwich, south-east London.

=> ↺ Why you really shouldn’t worry about terrorism

• It’s not terrorism that should keep you awake at night, it’s the way our governments respond to the terrorist threat, says Alex Proud

=> ↺ Three men arrested for trespassing at Shoalwater Bay today

• Greg Rolles, who holds a Master’s degree in International Relations said “for first time in Australia, unmanned aerial systems (drones) responsible for 1000s of civilian deaths will be used in the war ‘games’. There are serious unanswered questions about this technology”

• “The ADF has refused to say whether these unmanned aircraft, each capable of carrying a 250kg payload, will be armed as they fly over Rockhampton and the surrounding region.”

• “I am also walking because 200 years ago, Shoalwater Bay belonged to the Indigenous Peoples of the area. It’s one of Australia’s first war sites, with European settlers attempting to kill off or remove the Darumbal People. I will pilgrimage into Shoalwater Bay to remember those First Peoples who lost their lives and culture on this land,” said Greg.

Transparency Reporting

=> ↺ Julian Assange: ‘It’s Quite Funny Having Been Called a Mossad Agent, a CIA Agent and a Cat Torturer’

• SY: In your conversation with John Pilger, you summarized the philosophy behind WikiLeaks as thus, “The goal is justice, the method is transparency.”

• As far as I understand, WikiLeaks’ philosophy is that spreading knowledge can provoke change. Knowledge will lead to organized political action by the public, and such actions will ultimately achieve justice. But there hasn’t really been a strong organized action as a result of information made available through WikiLeaks. Has the public reaction been a let down in some way?

• JA: Let’s say the goal is justice, and through a long study of history of how justice is achieved and how justice is repressed, we know that knowledge is often the key ingredient. Or to put it in another way, the elimination of ignorance is often the key ingredient in the liberation of individuals, and in preventing people and organizations from doing dumb things as well. Sometimes people make mistakes and are ignorant of the damage they are doing.

• You are lucky if once every two or three years you can get the population together en masse to demand something … very lucky. Society is complex, and there are many things going on. So it will never be the case that society as a whole can address the frequent injustices that happen everyday. Additionally, it is only when the mass comes together, that the masses have any power. The masses are powerless by definition.

• We have always operated on the basis of playing various interests off one another, in terms of when our material is revealed. You can have political parties that are rivals, and factions within a political party that are rivals, and rivalries between states and intelligence agencies — that are affected by this kind of information. These kinds of rivalries can be used in important ways.

=> ↺ Thank You for Supporting My Husband, Jeffrey Sterling, Who is Now in Prison

• First, I want to express my deep appreciation to you for signing the petition that urged the government to drop charges against my husband, Jeffrey.

• “As a whistleblower, former CIA officer Jeffrey Sterling went through channels to inform staffers of the Senate Intelligence Committee about the ill-conceived and dangerous CIA action known as Operation Merlin,” the petition said.

• Unfortunately, the government went ahead with its prosecution. After a trial with huge flaws (see background links below), the jury convicted Jeffrey. Last month, he began serving a three-and-a-half year prison sentence.

=> ↺ Whistleblower Protections

• Cohosts Mickey Huff and Peter Phillips discuss the Importance of Whistleblowing and Whistleblower Protection.

=> ↺ New Massive Leak on TTIP Documents

• Do note that at the bottom of that page, you can click on ‘English’ to post a request for the document in English—javascript is required and I failed to note any significant difference.

=> ↺ How The FBI’s Dysfunctional Search Systems Keep Information Out Of FOIA Requesters’ Hands

• Thanks to yet another FOIA lawsuit, more evidence is being produced that suggests certain federal agencies employ labyrinthine systems that seem deliberately designed to keep requesters as far away as possible from responsive documents.

Environment/Energy/Wildlife

=> ↺ Study: Risk of shark attacks way down despite recent frenzy

• A conflicting report from USA Today, citing data from the International Shark Attack File at the Florida Museum of Natural History, says that the 23 attacks recorded thus far in 2015 is slightly ahead of pace for the average 30 to 40 annual attacks in the United States.

=> ↺ Tony Abbott has escalated his war on wind power

• Tony Abbott has been warned he is putting international investment at risk after ordering the $10 billion Clean Energy Finance Corporation not to finance new wind power projects.

• Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/tony-abbott-has-escalated-his-war-on-wind-power-20150711-gia3xi.html#ixzz3fh3sx9pS

=> ↺ The Superplant That May Finally Topple the Rubber Monopoly

• Eric Mathur is sitting in the backseat of an SUV, rolling south through the Arizona desert. Tall, dark, and bald, he’s dressed for a day under the sun. His linen shirt is open at the top, revealing a thick gold chain around his neck. A cream-colored Panama hat rests on his knee.

Finance

=> ↺ Gordon Robinson: Jamaica swallows a horse

• Why punish Jamaican taxpayers for governments’ abuse of usurped, unchecked, anti-democratic powers?

PR/AstroTurf/Lobbying

=> ↺ Kissing the Asses Good-bye

• “But there’s Bernie!” my liberal friends are frantically screaming. “He’s a socialist. He loves the little people. He’ll save us from the jaws of the republican machine. You’ve gotta register to vote and work for Bernie.” But I can think of at least three good reasons not to embrace the donkey in order to subdue the elephant. 1. Bernie can’t win. Hillary is the chosen one. 2. Bernie is a card-carrying member of the military-industrial establishment who votes for so-called defense bills at every opportunity. 3. If hell froze over and Bernie happened to win, and Bernie happened to be way better than he appears, and was indeed the potential savior of the USA…well, see the scenario concerning spilled brains on the leather seat of an SUV in paragraph one above. And that ain’t gonna happen because…altogether now: He has owners.

Censorship

=> ↺ CloudFlare Forced to Censor Anti-Censorship Site

• A few weeks ago the RIAA obtained a preliminary injunction requiring Cloudflare to terminate services to all domains that use “Grooveshark” in their name. As a result, the popular CDN service was forced to disconnect “groovesharkcensorship.cf,” a site specifically set up to protest overbroad censorship. However, the trouble wasn’t all for nothing.

=> ↺ Russia’s head of censorship ***** after being censored on ********

• An aide to Vladimir Putin has told Russians to leave Facebook after the head of the country’s telecommunications regulator was censored by the social network. As the Moscow Times reports, Maxim Ksensov was given a 24-hour time out after posting an ethnic slur for Ukranians on his personal page. The paper believes that the word has now been blacklisted by the service and will be instantly deleted if it’s found. In response, Putin aide Igor Shchegolev has instructed locals to abandon Facebook in favor of Vkontakte, its homegrown alternative.

=> ↺ ‘Right to be forgotten’ — Europe’s censorship overreach

• Too often of late I’m reminded of George Orwell’s novel “1984.” Inside the Ministry of Truth, Winston Smith works each day erasing history. Smith’s job is to carefully delete people and events from newspaper articles that are not to Big Brother’s liking.

• The state-sponsored censorship Orwell imagined more than half a century ago did not disappear with the Berlin Wall. It happens today on a larger scale than ever in China, Russia, Iran and other countries where government-sponsored “trolls” scrub the Internet of inconvenient events, such as the Tiananmen Square Massacre and popular protests in Hong Kong, Moscow and Tehran.

=> ↺ Legalizing the Great Firewall: China’s New Cyber Security Law Would Codify Censorship, Shutdowns

• Many Internet users around the world are aware of the censorship regime of the Chinese government — this is not a well-kept secret. Yet Chinese government officials have denied on many occasions the government’s role in filtering and blocking content from overseas web platforms such as Twitter and Facebook. Among the other things, this means that there is actually no channel by which citizens or businesses can challenge government censorship online. One can pursue legal action against Internet service providers, as in the court case against China Unicom for its service failure to access Google’s online platform, but not against the government itself.

=> ↺ No hugging, kissing in local TV dramas and films

• The Film Censorship Board (LPF) recently issued new guidelines, stating that all local production houses had to censor any lewd or extreme content in their shows.

• It is learnt that the fresh guidelines were made after members of the public complained to the LPF about a scene involving a married couple in an ongoing local Malay drama series.

=> ↺ Malaysian censorship board lays down stricter guidelines for local productions

• Reportedly, complaints were lodged by the public to the LPF about a local Malay drama that depicted a married couple in a bedroom scene, according to The Rakyat Post. The complaints caused by said drama, “Maid”, prompted the LPF to introduce the new guidelines.

=> ↺ ‘Don’t worry it’s HIS nipple’: Women fight against female censorship on social media by covering their breasts with pictures of male nipples in banned topless photos

=> ↺ Women Take On Body Censorship With Help From Male Nipples And Photoshop

• Male nipples are having a moment, and it’s surprisingly all in the name of freeing the female body from censorship.

• Last June, artist Micol Hebron posted an image of a male nipple on Facebook and suggested that women replace their nipples with the template to make them acceptable for social media.

=> ↺ Richard Jordan: Censorship by media spells a dark week for the arts

• The headline related to the controversial 10-second scene included in the Royal Opera House’s new four-hour production of Rossini’s Guillaume Tell in which a young girl is gang raped by army officers. Met with angry boos by its opening night audience, it was enough for the Evening Standard to give it front page coverage.

• It’s often said that controversy sells tickets, but this is a dangerously misrepresented expression. More often than not, the controversy isn’t to do with the plot (as it is in Guillaume Tell) but stems from some social faux pas. In 1980, The Romans in Britain became a cause celebre in part because of its depiction of homosexual rape, but more because of its subsequent legal battle with Mary Whitehouse.

=> ↺ Hungary: Government cracks down on freedom of information

• The Hungarian parliament has voted yes to plans to allow the government and other public authorities to charge a fee for the “human labour costs” of freedom of information (FOI) requests this week, as well as granting sweeping new powers to withhold information. It just needs the signature of President Janos Ader before it becomes law.

=> ↺ Intimidated ABC embraces self-censorship

• When the highest government official asks the public broadcaster whose side it is on, it inevitably makes me think of the Philippine media under Ferdinand Marcos (pictured), when the only side to be on is his. Broadcasters as well as the press came to anticipate direct interventions from Malacañang Palace; eventually, none had to be made.

• [...]

• If the ABC leant any way at all, it probably leans right. An empirical study of partisanship in Australian media outlets shows that over the period 1999-2007, ABC TV News had a statistically significant slant toward the Coalition. John Howard was the Prime Minister during that period, suggesting that maybe the issue isn’t ABC bias but dismal government performance. During the tumultuous Rudd-Gillard years, Labor members were known to routinely complain that the ABC was giving the Opposition a free pass.

• In other words, it is not the weaknesses of the ABC that have been illuminated by the careless remark of a dubious character on its panel show. In their reaction to the incident, members of the federal government have shown theirs.

Privacy

=> ↺ New Reporting: US Spied on German Media

• Spiegel reported Friday that it had filed a legal complaint with its federal prosecutor’s office over the suspected surveillance.

=> ↺ US intelligence blunders continue on, and on

• Just a year ago, Washington was revealed as trying surreptitiously to gather information via surveillance of German government leaders. Additionally, the CIA endeavored in a particularly clumsy manner to recruit a German government career official.

=> ↺ The Pentagon’s Spies

• Newly Available Documents Trace Evolution of Spy Units through Obama Administration

=> ↺ Stories in the Sky: Technology and Privacy in Journalism

=> ↺ Woman, 30, changes name to log in to Facebook

• A woman has told how she has been forced to change her name by deed poll to match her “ridiculous” Facebook pseudonym after being locked out of her account.

Civil Rights

=> ↺ After the Fourth: Some Reflections on the State of the USA

• Yet some US policies and practices continue to violate the traditional norms of justice, law and democracy that Americans applauded in July 4th speeches.

=> ↺ Neighbors Call Police on Man Photographing Wife in own Yard

• A California man was investigated by police last week after taking photographs of his wife in their front yard.

=> ↺ The millionaire who rescues migrants at sea

• In late June 2013, Christopher Catrambone, a garrulous 31-year-old American entrepreneur who had spent almost a decade travelling the world to build a multimillion-dollar company, decided to take a break. Tangiers Group, which Catrambone runs with his Italian wife Regina, provides insurance in conflict zones – to US military subcontractors, NGO workers, journalists and missionaries, among others. The business, rooted in such war-wrecked countries as Iraq and Afghanistan, was flourishing. But that summer, Catrambone decided, the company could take care of itself for three weeks.

Intellectual Monopolies

Copyrights

=> ↺ Dancing Babies, The DMCA, Fair Use And Whether Companies Should Pay For Bogus Takedowns

• Earlier this week the Ninth Circuit heard oral arguments in the appeal of Lenz v. Universal. This was the case where Stephanie Lenz sued Universal because Universal had sent YouTube a takedown notice demanding it delete the home movie she had posted of her toddler dancing, simply because music by Prince was audible in the background. It’s a case whose resolution has been pending since 2007, despite the fact that it involves the interpretation of a fundamental part of the DMCA’s operation.

Share in other sites/networks: These icons link to social bookmarking sites where readers can share and discover new web pages. Permalink  Send this to a friend

=> Techrights

➮ Sharing is caring. Content is available under CC-BY-SA.